“Questing.”
While Frodo Baggins had one major quest, destroy The Ring, I’ve found myself in a cesspool of incomplete quests, filling my quest book to the brim with worldwide travels. From coast to coast, island to island and across the open seas I’ve got missions to complete with no end in sight.
It’s an addiction, a fascination, an uncontrollable urge to click any creature with an exclamation upon his head. I cannot stop taking on the responsibilities of the world all upon my lonely shoulders. Unfortunately, travel time is not free and I find myself traveling the world in search for quest “turn-ins” and random item drops from creatures small and tall.
When does it end? I turn in a quest to get another! A few quests have me traveling to far off lands where more villages scream for my help with yellow “!” above their heads. I must help a wandering soldier, a fisherman, a poor villager and the beggar; I do it all “for the horde.”
You can have something like 20 quests in your log at a time, I’ve got it full with quests from each land. Perhaps someday I’ll complete them all or throw them away to pickup others, realizing the value of each quest will decline as my character levels.
The lesson here, stay where you are until the quests in that land have all been exhausted. Ah, the trials of a wondering adventurer striving to conquer the land.
We’ve mentioned this in the past, but the tough economy gives many smaller developers great opportunities for success. While big publishers struggle to look good in the eyes of the investor, tiny developers can produce quality titles for minimal cash investment and time to market. Ten years ago, smaller developers tried to compete with the big boys making larger titles, cloning successful titles or simply asking investors to put it on the line for their game. Today, developers can create a small iphone app, a cute WiiWare title or exploit the XNA efforts of Microsoft for Xbox Live Arcade and actually have a chance.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has made some leadership changes in response to their in-ability to get things going in the sales department of the PlayStation 3. Gamer’s continue to refuse to believe the PlayStation 3 is in a bad situation by explaining how badly Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is doing in Japan and Europe compared to the Sony console. And, of course, the Wii isn’t competition to Sony.