Even given the limitations that Raph describes, however, I think there are more tricks like this that would help. Another, hinted at in some of the above replies, would be quest NPCs who recur constantly in the progressive life of the character. How about for every WoW character above level 20, you get an "archenemy", an NPC who appears every once in a while to try and mess with you. Rather like ambushes in COH. Or have more characters like Hesingway who pop up at three or four points in the character's questing life, and remember what's gone before. Part of the reason that the NPCs are just mechanical XP-granting machines is that you know you will NEVER see them again UNTIL you have another character that is progressing past that point.

Great idea. Or one who ganks you four or five times while you're in his zone or area. Then imagine that ten levels later, he's the boss at the end of an instance. You'd be extra motivated to kill him (at least the first time). A little bit off topic, but IMHO the real issue here is that players have no effect on their worlds. You can visit any of the shards in any of the popular MMO's and they are essentially the same, you can go talk to NPC_01 on any of them and he will ask you for the exact same 10 kills/items/etc. If you play a class on one shard your skills and abilities are exactly the same as the guy next to you playing that same class and very close to the guy on the other side playing a similar class.

Now if that NPC decided that well the 23815798289 bear hides that he had in his warehouse was enough, and decided that perhaps the dear population was now getting out of hand, or that he needed more firewood to cure the hides, or more stone to build a larger storehouse, or the local goblins took issue with his call to eradicate the bears then while it was really all similar quests, it would at least feel like a player's actions had an effect. If the footings of a new storehouse showed up, new fires with skins tanning over them were erected and goblins started to raid and destroy these new structures, the player would feel more engaged.

I think instead of asking what bosses or major characters you have emotional ties to or hate, you should ask what lesser characters create this effect. Case in point, Murocs. People get really worked up over Murlocs. People seem to love to hate them - or love to love them. Here's a fan made Murloc RPG. Personally I find them the most amusing of all the monsters in WoW and love that "mgggrrrggglle" sound. In fact all of their sounds just crack me up - even their dramatic death animation. And sometimes the emotional reaction isn't necessarily the one expected. I was playing LoTRO the other day and was being attacked by those "evil birds that aren't nice unlike eagles" (hendrevail) and it made me sad to kill them. Why? I have a pet Conure who's the greatest little "bird buddy" and every time I'd see those hendrevail flutter their wings and peep with their dying breath, it made me think of my little bird buddy.

Unique NPCs (as in only one...you kill them, they don't come back) could change this. This would probably work best as an event, but devs could throw unique NPCs in from time to time. Users would appreciate that they are a having an experience unique to themselves (or shared with a small raid group), even though most users wouldn't be able to participate. Still, it would be a easy and nice way to "spice" up the quest content. Weighted companion cube. That's how you make emotional attachments in games. Seriously though? Recurring NPCs. You guys remember Goldeneye, for N64?

That's the boss I was the most concerned with beating, because he was the first big one. Wouldn't it have been better if he dropped his hammer, said "You haven't seen the last of me", and then we had to fight him again in the depths of Shadowmoon Valley with an all new set of skills and stuff? And if he escapes at the end, it makes sense why you'd be able to fight him more than once. Shit, I like Rexxar the best of all the NPCs in WoW, cuz you had to find him for the Onyxia quest, and then he pops up again in Blade's Edge Mountains. I saw his name and his bear; I was like "OH SHIT! He made it here too, awesome!" Quest givers who are with you from the beginning of the game would be good for emotional attachment. You'd find them at your starting point, they'd give you big quests with awesome goodies, you'd escort them places, you'd kind of become friends.

It seems we are conditioned that rpg's need quests to be engaging. I would argue that they are not. Which leads us to what would engage/provide more emotional attachment to a role playing game? I would say anything that facilitates the player to "play" that role. But that's where it becomes tricky I guess. In MMO's you have griefers, thieves, politicians, etc...Good/bad is irrelevant. They are playing and engaged because they are playing the role that makes them happy. Does a Civil War re-enactor have to do fedex quests to get his uniform and rifle so he can participate in the battle? No, but if the folks running the re-enactment told the guy he had to press a lever 10,000 times to get a confederate uniform he would do it. Would anyone expect him to be emotionally involved in the reason the "management" told him how that relates to the battle? Hell no.

1) Is there anything that a boss or major NPC could do in game-fictional terms within the current conventions of most virtual worlds that might make players feel a strong emotional desire to defeat that boss? 2) Are there stock structures or types of reasonably implementable quests which might be: a) more emotionally engaging than the current range of stock quests and b) a good way to diversify the current range of stock quests?

The problem isn't in somehow making better quests given out by vending-machines shaped like people; it's in changing the underlying gameplay so that such devices either aren't necessary or at most take a back seat to more emotionally engaging interaction models. There's nothing wrong with tasks, jobs, missions, etc., but "quests" as the mainstay of gameplay become drained of significance and emotion when they become repetitive, mechanistic, dim shadows of the heroic undertakings to which they refer (Perseus being sent by Polydectes to slay the Medusa isn't quite the same as being told by a blank-faced NPC to bring back ten rat tails).

One obvious solution to this is that the quests that players undertake should be for the benefit of other players. So e.g., players of race or class X need to get from Point A to Point B, but can't because mob/obstacle C blocks the bridge in the middle and race/class X doesn't have the means to clear the mob/obstacle. So the quest of players of race/class Y is to remove the obstacle threatening race/class X. X does a similar service for Y. Z might help X and Y. The threat is real; the gratitude ought to be real. There must be an obvious reason, though, that we don't see that quest structure occur in most MMOG. To difficult to coordinate? Prone to some kind of abuse? To difficult to script?