Questing kills grouping

[Snowreap]

questing doesn't inherently require that all the group members be at the same point. "hey, I heard that there's this guy in the next town who will give you 5 gold pieces if you can bring him 5 wolf pelts. I want that reward, can any of you come help me with the wolves?"

it doesn't matter if I've already done the quest or not -- if I want to help you get your 5 gold then there shouldn't be any reason I can't help you kill wolves.

the problem is that too many games are using the quest mechanic for storyline purposes where it doesn't make sense for different players who are at different points in the story to all work together.

or worse, their quests are filled with boring or otherwise unrewarding grind steps ("but before I send you after the wolves, you must first prove your might by slaying 1000 squirrels") that people won't *want* to help each other with ("I'd love to help you with the squirrels, but they drop no loot and give no xp, and since I already did that quest, there's zero reward in it for me")

-ken