In before midnight! Have a great holiday weekend!

In Anatomy of a Quest – part 1: Objectives we talked about the 3 guidelines of  a quality goal, how to set them, and also how Blizzard uses these goals to keep players playing World of Warcraft.

So now that we have the Guide Lines for Setting a Quality goal, lets get to the best part of the achievement process: The Rewards! These are your reasons for accepting the quests in the first place… because let’s face it – without some kind of reward, getting covered in boar’s blood isn’t very appealing (to me anyway).

The Need To Improve

Rewards vary from quest to quest and typically the more risk, the greater the reward, this is usually true IRL as well! Say you want to gain money IRL, the safer the investment is, the less reward gained. Sure a Certificate of Deposit is safe, but 3% interest rate hardly keeps up with inflation much less creates a profit. The quests in game that reward you with epic or legendary items tend to require more time, effort, gold and risk than a quest that rewards with uncommon items. Killing 12 boars isn’t as risky as bringing Onyxia’s head to Orgrimmar so the reward shouldn’t be as great!

The first thing I do is open my quest log, compare the quest rewards to what I have already and see if the reward is an upgrade for me. If it isn’t the chances of me doing that quest are greatly diminished. Why achieve a goal that doesn’t move me in a positive direction?

Need Motivation?

Look no further than the rewards! Compare the reward to what you currently have and if it’s significant enough you will find that motivation becomes an easier task than before. Any time you feel unmotivated to do something, ask yourself three things:

1. What is the reward I want to achieve?
2. What will I gain from achieving this?
3. How will this improve my character?

If your answers to these questions don’t compel you to action, either your goal isn’t worth doing or you are using the wrong reasons. In order for these questions to spark a burning desire to achieve there must be emotion behind your reasons, not just sound logical decisions. Once emotion enters the equation an interesting thing happens – it’s no longer working towards your goals, its achieving them!

Feeling Great

When you finally complete all the objectives in a quest, turning the quest in and receiving the rewards is… well, rewarding! Achievement breeds an incredible feeling of accomplishment, self esteem and helps to develop your power for making decision and accomplishing more! The truly amazing thing about quests IRL is that the rewards continue! Each time you work out for instance, you increase your stats, the next time you accomplish a goal you don’t lose the previous stats to get new ones, its cumulative!

What are some rewards that motivate you?

In the next of this mini-series we will cover following through with the quest!

<< Anatomy of a Quest – Part 1: Objectives

One of the few subjects in school I actually paid attention to was mythology. Most notably Greek mythology. Something about it seemed so epic. I think it was interesting studying what people of that time period were thinking about! Those gods were thought up to explain the greatest mysteries of their time. Why is there day and night? Why do the seasons change? Where do we go when we die? to name a few. Today we know most of the answers to the questions they asked and its only a matter of time before we know them all… which ultimately will lead us to more questions! But I digress. The architecture, art and culture of Greece has had an incredible impact on western civilization. Our current political system, the Olympics, and even had a massive influence modern architecture!

On June 20th, the New Acropolis Museum opened its doors to the public and houses several thousands artifacts dating from the fifth century B.C. However a number of sculptures and about half of the Parthenon Frieze are sitting in the British Museum. These pieces aren’t on loan by Greece, they were stolen by a Scottish man named Lord Elgin at the beginning of the 19th century, who later sold the pieces to the British Government. The Greek government has requested restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to its rightful owners, however the British have declined and the pieces remain in the British Museum.

A courageous woman named Marina, has made it her personal goal to see that these pieces be returned to their rightful home in Greece, where they can be placed with the rest of the collection how their creators meant it.

Please take a minute out of your day and sign her petition to the British government requesting these stolen pieces be returned to Greece and help Marina achieve her goal!