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I'm only a player, but I play a HnS MUD that has implemented questing very well, for my particular tastes.
Questing is not required, per se. You can level up by pure killing if that is your bag.
However, my wise wizards decided that to encourage questing:
1) "Avatar" status, (super-player, extra tweaks) can only be attained if a character completes a certain percentage of the available hard-coded quests. Becoming an Avatar is not 'necessary' to play the game at all... but I as a player am cooler if I am one. ;>
2) XP gain is affected by a 'Quest Bonus' system. This system is based in part on quest completion, but is also affected by the pure exploration of the character. There is something in the code that, when my char does something in a room for the first time (maybe just walks into it, maybe keys a syntax, I don't know how, I'm a player) that the Game keeps track of. These 'exploration points' are totaled, and every time i kill a mob, the amount of XP I gain from that kill is adjusted upward from the kill's base XP amount in accordance with the amount of bonus I have. (i.e. kill would normally give 100 xp to a char with no bonus at all. With a small bonus, maybe you get 105 xp. With a maximum bonus, maybe you get 125 xp. I don't actually know, my MUD doesn't show XP numbers.)
The bonus is also relative to the player character's size... it is much easier for a 50% character to be achieving the maximum possible quest bonus than it is for a 150% character to achieve a maximum bonus for its level. A small character is expected to only have entered 'so many' rooms, perhaps, 2000. A larger character is expected to have *many* more rooms under their belt in order to have a maximum bonus... say, maybe 16,000. A larger character probably has done more syntaxes, opened more locked doors, found hidden things... i suspect all these things (stuff that might give Role Playing points on other muds) affect our quest bonus.
I wish I could explain this better. I understand on a 'gut' level how it works, but have never seen the actual code. All I know is, these two things *really* encourage questing on the MUD I play. All of us players, especially the old, top end players, work to try and keep our bonus up. It encourages us to explore the MUD, rather than just sticking to the same ol' patterns and runs that we've been doing for years. It also frustrates us, because there are rooms we CAN'T FIND! AUGH! But.... we wanna. ;>
And we keep looking for them.
3) There is a finite exploration point system. There are only so many available points with which to increase your bonus. Players can check the relative percentage of points they have gained by the syntax 'done' in the quest tome room, and that command will show the relative amount of points in each domain that the character has accrued. This lets the player know... "Gee, I really need to explore Underground some more, but I'm pretty good in Callis!"
I think the main thing that makes a difference is the exploration bonus along with just questing. In a large, growing HnS mud, getting people into your cool new areas is what you want to do. It is better if the Wizards don't have to say to some player "Hey...there is a HUGE stat bonus out in that new area, why don't you go play it??"
These exploration/ quest bonuses really encourage us to explore and push ourselves. They are just another very nice goal... and nobody's forcing us. We get the mob's base XP even if we have *no* quest bonus. It is merely to our *advantage* to have the bonus. ;> You always catch more flies with honey than vinegar, the Wizzes on my MUD have dangled a lot of carrots in front of us to get us out there. These are ones that actually work.
Best of Luck with your quest implementation! Getting HnS players out of their ruts is... taxing. ;> I know, I am one, and I *love* my standard kill routine. But my wizzes even got *me* to quest... so, it CAN be done. ;>
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