Group Quests (With Bonus Pirates Note)

We've all had the bad feeling of being in a group and everyone but you has a certain quest which they are intent on finishing. And we've all had groups where people are on different stages of a quest and you end up redoing earlier stages over and over as more people join the group. With really long quests which have multiple stages it is very hard to get everyone organized.

Now, it would be easy to point to City of Heroes and say shared group quests (or missions as they may be called) are awesome. Because they are. My friend might have a mission that I don't have. But I don't need to get the mission to play it through with him or her and get credit. It makes grouping a lot easier and cuts down on the tedious process of getting the same quest on the same stage.

But, unfortunately, you can't just throw that system into EQII. Because:

* Quests in EQII involve multiple stages and you can't just let someone skip a stage.

* Sometimes part of the difficulty of a quest is getting the quest in the first place. If you just allowed players to transfer, say, "Speak Like a Dragon," to other players it wouldn't be fair.

* Getting the quest from the NPC provides lore and storyline to players.

So I don't really think this would work in EQII. I would like to see the shared quest function in the journal be a little more robust.

Yarr Note:

The eagle-eyed Aether, Community Envoy for Pirates of the Burning Sea noted the "Making me Nervous" comment in my E3 post. He dropped me a note to let me know things are "moving full speed ahead" and provided me with some E3 linkage. Normally I wouldn't care, but Aggro Forums readers will know I've been following this game for quite some time and am trying to get a forums group to play it when it comes out. So, in the interest of fairness, here are some links:

Video on Alla
IGN
Ten Ton Hammer
Coldfront
Darniaq

I'll even add one of my own: MMORPG.COM.

I've long been a fan of the Aubrey-Maturin series of books by Patrick O'Brian and the exciting tales of naval combat therein. And while I realize the setting is not the same, it's probably the closest I'm ever going to get in an MMO. I may provide a run-down of the game when the release date is announced and I'll be sure to give a review when I play it.