GameBanshee Feature: D&D Online Interview

We’ve conducted an interview with Ken Troop, Turbine’s lead designer for Dungeons & Dragons Online, to learn more about questing and character advancement in the MMORPG. An excerpt to follow:

GB: Can you give an overview of the quest system currently in place? Will quests have any random elements to them, or will each one have specific steps that must be completed?

Turbine: On the whole we’re trying to stay away from randomness, where randomness is defined as (Get the [red foozle] and give it to the [random NPC]). Yes, there could be 50 different types of [red foozle] and 50 different names for [random NPC], but does the experience feel different? Does it add any additional fun or gameplay? Recent examples have shown that it does not.

Randomness certainly has its place. But players expecting that every dungeon will always be laid out the same or have the same monsters will be surprised (sometimes fatally). We want to create randomness when it makes sense in the world, such as hard-to-navigate sewers or stumbling upon a separate challenge while doing a quest (ala D&D’s random encounters). But questing itself will be (designed) in every sense of the word.