Shattered Kingdoms

Let's do some basic math.

3 * 10 = 30.

Now let's look at your post and discover why you're wrong.

Quests don't really help with leveling. Unless there were suddenly ten times as many quests and they gave out more experience than they do currently. I've done nothing but answer every request for more quests and found in my time that leveling is irritating even so.

Quests are fun, but generally not something I'm interested in when I want to get to a useful level. I don't really like accomplishing quests. As a player, I'd rather get the leveling out of the way so I can RP and not die every time I go somewhere. I guess I don't see quests really accomplishing what you're imagining them accomplishing. Unless there were many more quests, they were much easier to find, and gave out a great deal more experience.

Two key points right there, D.

The simplest quest that the IMMS can add that would help a lot is

Go kill the vile x number of y creature!

Then give half (or 1/4) of the xp that you got from killing them, as the bonus for the quest.

If you had one of those quests for each status level (by giving enough xp to level), that would go a long ways to making leveling nicer.

Fifty kill type quests each with a different NPC. I could probably do that, but what's the reasoning for the quest? How does it make sense that the NPC wants you to kill such and such NPC?

I will bring up one specific thing. Take Fort Tethos. You go find the commander and ask, "Do you need any help?"

Commander, "There are too many dark elves! We need some help reducing their number. Do you have the ability to drop their number by (insert appropriate level)?"

"Yes!"

Same quest can be given to darkies on the opposite side. They can go kill elves in Fort Tethos.

Caves under Morea (get quest in Exile)

You go to Yvette, or anyone more appropriate, "Can I help you?"

Yvette, "Damn those dark priests of Dredhnar(sp). They are getting too many recruits. I need some help taking them down. Can you help me?"

"Yes!"

Yvette, "Come back and receive your reward after you slay x of them."

Teron:

(some person that would hate goblins)

"Can I help you?"

Person, "Damn those goblins, they are everywhere! I will pay you if you kill some of them. Will you help me?"

"Yes!"

Person, "Great, after you kill x of them come back for your reward."

You can do the same about hunting some of the outlaw NPCs and so forth.

I agree with Muktar. Those type of quests would help leveling quite a bit. Not only does it add some experience and perhaps coin on to the leveling grind that's already in place, but it gives the sense of accomplishment that many players enjoy while leveling in games such as WoW. It intertwines grinding and questing, making it one leveling process.

I'd even like to see the quest giver to suggest another area to go after you finish with theirs.

For the goblins example that Muktar used, upon completion the quest giver could say, "Thanks [so and so]! You know, they have similar beasts in the Outpost in Ayamao. The guard there would probably love some help thinning out the number of monsters there too!" Perhaps sextant coordinates could be given by the NPC. It would make the game much more newbie friendly.

I'm sure many players would support this idea, enough so to volunteer to help create such a system. I know I would.

More open-ended, multiaura quests need to be made as well.

Such as:

Dragon has had egg stolen by Goblin Horde. Adventurer comes across dragon, and accepts a quest to recover the egg. The first part of the "open-endedness" comes in now, where those with invis or hide/sneak can covertly infiltrate goblin HQ, whereas those with a more brutish style can wade through the appropriately leveled NPCs.

Either way, the adventurer gets to Boss NPC. If Covert Operative Adventurer gets to Boss NPC without killing any NPCs in the goblin camp, the Boss NPC responds with surprise and a grudging respect, awarding a small bit of exp which would be roughly equal to what the Brutish Killing Machine would have gained via killing all the goblins between gate and Boss NPC. Obviously, Killing Machine adventurer got their exp killing, and so only gets the grudging respect without the exp bonus.

Boss NPC then proposes to the adventurer, of whatever stripe, a reward for helping him to keep the dragon egg for whatever purposes he wanted it in the first place. This could even entail a counterquest to go slay the dragon so no more adventurers will be sent after. If Adventurer is of a more devious stripe, they can accept the counter quest. If Adventurer is of a more honorable stripe, they can denounce Boss NPC and finish the quest as originally intended.

This kind of thing makes for both an interesting fetch/slaughter quest, and also an enjoyable interaction with the SK world that provides plenty of opportunity to RP at the same time.

This is exactly the type of quest that people have been talking about.

Note that it doesn't have to be "kill 30 X's", it can also be "collect 30 Y's" that just happen to be carried by X's. That at least makes it sound a little less bloodthirsty (you might stun or steal items depending on how the quest is set up).

Related issue: stop making quest items that are size giant.