I know TOR isn’t out until 2011 but I can wait, I just hope WoW doesn’t release its next expansion around then or else my attention will be torn =/

Thank you for the lengthy comment, and I’m thinking about checking out EQ2 actually. I knew about it, and the first one as well, but was always more of a Ultima Online player myself.

Frankly, all you do is go to space battle and kill stuff, then go to planet and kill stuff. There are very very few quests that do anything else.

Just to give an example of what a good quest really is…

I’m an avid EQ2 player and have been for years. Recently, they released the “introduction” quests. This has got to be some of the best series of quests I’ve seen in a game.

Now, I’ve only played the Qeynos part but I’m going to tell you what happens so you get an idea of what good “quests” or “missions” mean.

In the port area of Qeynos, you encounter one of the librarians of the palace who mentions that he’s missing an important book about the history of the Bayle family and he thinks it might have been fenced. Of course, you go to see if you can find the fence.

Speaking with her, you find out that she actually borrowed the book legitimately and forgot to return it. You take the book back to the Librarian who finds some letters mentioning that Queen Antonia Bayle is going to be attacked. He then sends you to the Captain of the Guard, Murrar Shar.

Murrar is a very old character that has been with the game since opening. So if you don’t want the secret, don’t read further.

Murrar sends you to back to the Libarian, who sends you to speak with the Queen of Kelethin and to deliver a note to her. Only the note is very insulting and she’s angry, though she mostly just tells you leave. When you return to the Librarian to tell him what happened, you find him dead behind the inn where you were talking to him, and that he’s been robbed.

You then speak with Murrar again who sends you to question the fence who he thinks is the one posing danger to the Queen. He sends some of his men along with you, only his men attack you outside the hideout and you’re forced to kill them.

One of the guards has paperwork containing orders to kill you, the fence, and the Librarian.

The fence gives you a potion to help with the Librarian’s body. Arriving back, you attempt to put the potion into his mouth, but you are then captured by some royal guards who take you for questioning. Eventually you manage to convince them that you didn’t kill the Librarian with the help of magic and the ring.

The problem is that the ring reveals the Queen is going to be attacked while hunting in Antonica.

When you arrive at her camp, all her guards are killed and she’s been captured by none other than Murrar Shar himself who has been possessed by a long dead member of the Bayle family.

You can kill him yourself, but you’ll probably get stomped if you try. If you release the Queen, she’ll defeat him easily. She gives you a title for your service to her.

You can then go speak again with the fence who tells you where to find the Qeynos Claymore. In the most unlikely and most obvious of places. The problem is… once you arrive, you find its gone. And the Queen and her advisors are having what they think is a private conversation on what exactly they should do about the disappearance of Lucan D’Lere who is the Emperor of Freeport (and the focus of the new expansion).

The Queen proposes the least likely thing imaginable… she wants to rescue him and reinstate him because he is the only one that can keep the evil side in line through fear.

And THAT, people, is how you do a damned good quest/mission.

And STO? Can’t even remotely imagine something that creative. All they tell you to do is kill stuff.

As for TOR, sadly the release date for it is set to be 2011 summer. Yes, that’s 2011, not 2010. But in some ways that’s good as well, by then I should have a better PC which will actually run it.