I heard once in a Ted conference that when trying to sell something, people care more for the "why" than the "what. People don't care about the what as much as they do the why.
If your intentions behind a quest is something people feel like they can relate to, they will naturally feel much more drawn to your quest. If however, you plan to do everything by the book (or simply just do it your own way) just to make that #1 quest, you will fall short on your goals. Because people don't care about how amazing you think your product is.
Air Luigi once criticized Souls of Wisdom for ironically lacking soul. It gained much popularity at the time for all the wrong reasons. It was a cryptic mess that stirred more controversy than anything. Sure, it had a lot of fans. But where is it today? It's metaphorically buried in time because it's considered one of the worst quests ever made because again, it was a rushed cryptic mess that simply had nothing to offer people. It had nothing going for it but ambitions that were too high, and the controversy it stirred. When I released that quest, my attitude also very much about the what and not the why. Nobody knew why I made the quest, they just knew that I released what I thought was at the time some big thing and it was as if I scammed the entire community. I didn't mean to do that intentionally, I did want to make a great quest, but none of the less, the community felt scammed (or trolled specifically), and I wasn't very popular because of this.
Hero of Dreams however was very "why" focused. You know why this quest was made the very first moment you pick it up, and it didn't promise the community anything it couldn't deliver. It didn't come out and say "This is what I am" because if it did, it would probably have been likely nobody would have given a damn because people often react to new things with a subtle "why should I care what you have?" that's kinda in unspoken terms. They cared more about the why Hero of Dreams was, not the what it was. It had that very soul that many quests lack. In the end, it's "what" established itself through reception and legacy.
Edited by NewJourneysFire, 28 March 2016 - 10:57 PM.