After spending the past year and half in Lord of The Rings Online where the story IS the game for the most part, I became accustomed to actually reading the quest dialogue... all of it, and it was amazing. So, I figured I should do the same in Everquest thinking that I had clearly missed one of the greatest parts of playing this game for two decades because I had always just grinded mobs and rarely grabbed quests or spent the time reading the dialogue for the quests. I created a new character starting in Crescent Reach, and read every piece of quest text that any NPC said to me... and I quickly was done with that because honestly (and no offense to whomever worked on this content) it just was not interesting at all. It was basically just filler context that wasn't really worth reading. So, I gave up on reading it all pretty quickly. My question is, does any of the expansion's quest dialogues get good or is worth spending the time to actually read? Is there a particular expansion that is worth reading the NPC text? I'd hate to miss the "good stuff".
Can I turn around your question and ask you why you thought LotR quest dialog was amazing? (never played the game myself) Knowing why you liked LotR dialog would better help answer your question for EQ. There are certainly better parts (and worse) of EQ quest dialog.
For generalities, in EQ ... quest dialog is to convey information first and foremost. There is no literary work to fall back on for background. Often there is no background at all in EQ as you are encountering something new. Dialog written for information is different than for entertainment/enrichment. You can have both information and entertainment ... but that is much, much harder and longer to write. Somewhat ironic for your inquiry, the times when EQ tends to go for more entertainment in their quest dialogs are the times when players get most confused. Certain words and phrases have actually command meaning in EQ ... and when a dev uses those same words to embellish the text of a quest, players get confused. It particularly happens when they use the emote commands. Another issue for you is you are a veteran of EQ. I have had people tell me they really enjoy the EQ story that have just started. There may be some bias because of the long history you have with EQ.
In LoTRO, the quests have over arching stories that are more meaningful than just "Bob wants you to go kill some snakes and bring back their teeth." Even the small quest hubs have good stories to tell. While there are quests areas where you are one-and-done with those quest givers, many of them you see or interact with parts of their story at various times through out the game. It just feels more real than the average WoW quest hubs where you literally could never read a single piece of the quest dialogue and you haven't missed a thing because it's all throwaway quest text. I guess I don't know how to explain it properly. There's just something special about the writing in the average quests in Lotro. I've come across some side stories that were awe inspiring in Lotro. In Crescent Reach, the NPC text was boiling down to "you're annoying me.. go get this item or that". It didn't feel special in anyway to me. I felt like they literally could have replaced most of the NPC quest dialogue with one sentence like "Collect X number of Y and come back to me" because there really was not compelling story there for most of it. It was just busy work given by the NPC to get me to go grind experience.
I enjoyed turning the guy into a rabbit! Some quests have amusing stories to them and make you really want to help the NPC out, others I don't really care about. I used to read all the quest dialong until TDS, that finished me, with all the spam I just gave up.
Here is a good example of what I am talking about in Lotro. In the Angle of Mitheithel, you come across an elf that is planning to make the great journey to join his ancestors. He has a connection with the people of the Angle that he has watched over for many years, and he wants to bid them frewell. He asks you to come with him to say goodbye to his human friends before departing. https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Quest:A_Parting It's just a side story in a little corner of the region that is easily missed if you don't go everywhere and check everything, but it tells a sad story about the parting of friendships between an elf and a human family. It was an extremely touching story, and even though it doesn't amount to anything big in the overarching storyline of the game, it has always stuck with me as one of those really cool moments in the game. Even though this quest line has me doing things that are common in any MMORPG questline, the way it was presented and the way it unfolds, sets up a story arch that is well worth taking the time to read the quest dialogue.
Crescent Reach was designed as 'the starting city' well into EQ's life. The idea was to create a city to teach new players how to play EQ. One that had most of what you need to start out. So it is not representative of expansion quest lines. Expansions are usually designed around a story. Thus, many (or at least some) of the quests involve the story. Mercenary (kill) quests are often, though, just, "Snakes are bothering the people around here, go kill them". Partisan quests, however, are at least supposed to be advancing the storyline. I still remember The Darkened Sea quests where you had to hail the NPCs like seven times to get a quest, because they would say a paragraph or two of lore, then you would hail them, they would say the next paragraph or two, and you would wind up having to hail them many times before it would advance you in the quest. Players hated it. Meanwhile, I felt sorry for the dev who designed the quest because they clearly spent a lot of effort to make a story that few read. Part of the problem is that if you are with a group, you just want to get the quest, do the steps and move on. You don't want to make everyone wait while you read the lore. Unlike LOTRO, EQ is not based on a richly detailed famous series of books. When you enter LOTRO, there is an expectation for those that read and loved the books to both meet and interact with 'famous' characters and to be involved in a intricate story. EQ has lore, but most players have no idea about it.
The biggest problem with this was every group hailing at the time, so you lost your own reply, so things didn't make a lot of sense. If you had only been able to yours or your groups reply it would have made it a lot easier to follow.
Reading the quest and reading the quest givers text often helps with what you need to do for the next step. In LS when raids are given you need to read the text to find out which door you need to click to zone in.
We still have the problem today, where the devs don't have the NPCs talk to you in tells, instead if several people are talking to the NPC at once, you can't follow your conversation with them. This is a design failure on the developer's part.
What the NPC says: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. What I see: Click the [blue words].
What you actually see: Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. Soandso hails Quest_NPC: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do [wander] everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green.
I always do. It gives all the context and story to what you are doing. It makes questing through an expac far more meaningful and fun.
I haven't read quest dialogue in EQ since TDS because it's either silly, stupid, and reads at a junior high comprehension level or it's nonsensical, incoherent, and seems to ignore already established lore more often than not. I just look for the little blue links to click on and ignore everything else, so I can get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible. It could literally say "Blah, blah, blah" at this point and I would not care, as long as I can just get it over with. I have absolutely no idea what the lore in this expansion is because it's 100% irrelevant when you're just doing cookie cutter, cut & paste tasks every year.
Here is an example of the quest dialogue in CR... You continue that quest line and get... Yeah.... exciting stuff right? lol
Go read player reviews of the TDS expansion - That should be sufficient enough to determine if people actually read the quest dialogue.
