Adaptive quests for dynamic world change in MMORPGs

The dominant MMORPG quest model suffers from a significant incompatibility between dynamic world changes, stemming from player actions, and the authored narratives that guide and motivate gameplay. Both features are highly valued, and developers are trying different approaches to have them co-exist. In this work, we examine one aspect of that problem: player impact vs. competition in so-called kill quests. We introduce an incremental model of adaptive quests and a simulation system with initial results showing progress towards mitigating the incompatibility.