What's Wrong with Questing? @ Edge Online

Former Guild Wars writer Jess Lebow, currently with Carbine Studios with Tim Cain, has addressed a GDC audience on the topic of improving quest delivery:

For the first clip, Lebow talked about the quest delivery system in Grand Theft Auto 4 and contrasted it with the traditional MMO quest delivery system of clicking on a NPC and reading a block of text. With GTA4, the cell phone used in the quest delivery system enabled the player to be anywhere and also, fit the world better. Audience members offered suggestions such as delivery owls a la Harry Potter, communicators a la Star Trek, and the Seer Stones in The Lord of the Rings Online.