Quests with forced/railroaded dead-ends.

Click here and disable ads!

In the original Fallout and Fallout 2, there were not a few quests that could not be solved - but that was largely because of cut content. Such as the Iguana-on-a-stick dealer who used human flesh to season his delicacy - you could not put an end to it, but you could only blackmail the dealer.

However, many quests are there which were deliberately designed to have no outcome, just for the effect of how strange it makes everything.

For example, the mysterious signal quest in KotOR 2. All that happened at the end was that you found the quest-giver dead and all the clues or trail of evidence destroyed. No further follow up - it was just meant to show how far the reach of GOTO's syndicate was.

Then the Forsworn quest in Skyrim. All that happens is that you must get arrested and fail, no matter what, and then bust out of prison. I did not know that the quest could only be solved by FAILING and going to prison. So all I could do was Fus Ro Dah the entire Markath guard from the top of the city, until their corpses lined all the gutters there. I eventually accepted arrest from the last guard living, since she had an immortality tag on her.

These quests really infuriate me, because there is no reward, there is only one way to end the quest (which is to fail at it), and because they totally go against the idea of a game being something you are supposed to win and overcome.

The most famous (or maybe infamous) is the half-ogre island quest in Arcanum. A brilliant one at that.

It's just horrible design.

Indeed.

It's just hipster talk to call such stuff brilliant or enjoyable.

There's the infamous half-ogre quest in Arcanum, which reveals a huge conspiration but then meets a sudden end, as all evidence disappears, your contacts vanish and you aren't able to do anything about it. It was apparently a homage to X-Files (unfortunately, the popularity of the series had already severely waned when the game was released).

Even if it hadn't, or if they were trying to make some clever point about the world moving on without the player-character, it's still ape-shit retarded. Whoever designed it needs to be shot. Then again the average player should be used to this see-saw quality of quest design in Arcanum.

And the markarth quest really is quite shitty. It's a shame, because there's a skeleton of something quite intriguing in Markarth's socio-political backdrop.

There's one in TW2. The poisoning of Saskia. You can found out who made the goblet, but you can't do anything about it (you can before knowing thou).

Fallout series and Arcanum pay a lot of homage to stuff that even the older people of the release year would barely remember - such as the Doctor Who Easter Egg in Fallout (this was before the new Doctor Who series).

I do not understand why everyone calls this retarded. Although I have not played the quests mentioned here so far (maybe I did, but I just do not remember those).

Just because a problem exist does mean you are supposed to find its solution : answer to everything kills imagination. I like weird stuff in my games. Unanswered questions make great stuff to think about and ponder. But it has to be done nice and greatly designed.

And how about a game that ends badly once in a while?

It resulted in a petition.

No, ending in 3 colors resulted in a petition.

Being forced to be lose against what should be defeatable enemies annoy me quite a bit, whether it's because they've got a one use super-power or are just immune to damage at that point in time for story reasons. I remember a fight in Dragon Age against a guard captain that subverted this, the fight against her was pretty damn hard as she could one shot anything not wearing heavy armour and a shield. She had nearly a dozen archers, a mage and two warriors accompanying her, but you could cheese the fight by retreating to another room and only having to deal with the melee guys which could be CCed or blocking from entering while you fought her. Anyway if you lost, which was very easy if you weren't prepared, you would be sent to prison ( :shockhorror: ) and have to escape, if this happened you'd meet her later in possibly a harder fighta.

Planescape?

I don't particularly mind this as long as its well executed. It'd be cool if a game gave the player the option to pursue an investigation of a crime(may it be a murder or conspiracy), and many of options lead to dead ends through the perpetrators covering their trail. The player can only solve the case by connecting the dots themselves and accusing people of the crime results in faction reduction/gain depending on the people involved(player can twist evidence to their own faction gain). The game should keep it relatively ambiguous as to who the true culprits are, or make it nearly impossible to truly arrest all the wrongdoers due to their political affiliations. Its turns an otherwise linear sequence of events into a multitude of options for the player.

I don't see what's wrong with my argument here.

Games are about success and overcoming a challenge.

Game with no success and no overcoming a challenge means pointless waste of time.

Games themselves are a pointless waste of time. You have only one lifetime to aid your fellow man. Why don't you give water to some poor Indians instead of playing Might and Magic?

Your point is....indisputable.

Your wisdom is appreciated, Lord Quetzacoatl.

It's fine as long as the dead end is a credible one. Stuff like the Skyrim one is horrible because you're a walking god that shouldn't have to answer to some pissant city guards. If it were a daedra prince fucking you over it'd make sense.

It's also annoying when the situation is credible, but the presentation is not. Like being captured by an army even though they only engage you in combat 4 at a time. While you should lose horribly if you were actually in combat with 50-100 guys at once as could easily be the case, limits on the game engine make you surrender to a tiny squad you could easily crush. Jrpgs tend to do this really often; having the party flee from soldiers while fighting small groups that you can eradicate effortlessly with powerful magic. Especially bad when it happens after the party has demonstrated their ability to murder the shit out of 3 story tall monsters.

Mysteries in games are fine in small doses. I don't mind having something unsolved nagging at the back of my mind if I have other unsolved shit to think about too with leads to follow. It's only a problem when all you have to think about is a bunch of questions with no leads except some banal railroading to the next plot location that holds no promise of answers to anything.

I wonder if people would pay for a 'Ogre Island closure' DLC.

Oh yeah, here's another thing that sucks. Enemies whom you can defeat in actual combat, but who neutralize or halt you in a cinematic cut-scene or triggered event when their health comes close to zero. It's slightly different, but awful for the same reason, because it means there was no point to the fight other than as filler.

KotOR repeated this nonsense several times, ugh. It's been years, but I remember this part. Same for the sequel. It's also true for most of the campaigns for the Neverwinter Nights series.

Video-games, despite the name*, are not necessarily about success and overcoming a challenge. They can be, but it's not an obligation, even if the desire to win is often used to construct the experience.
In regard of the standards implied by a pure challenge oriented gaming definition, arcanum, fallout, bloodlines, planescape, etc. are all pretty terrible games.

*well, it's not even true, a lot of games are not about sucess and overcoming a challenge. ex : make-believe type of games.

No.

I actually like those kinds of quests. Show that the player isnt a godlike being and that he cant do everything (makes sense only when he isnt of course). I dont really like the world revolving around me in game.

Besides its memorable. How many completed quests can you recall from a average game?

I have nothing against the half-ogre quest in Arcanum. Mysterious adventures are :mystary:

Skyrim? KOTOR2? how about you stop play shitty games?

You couldnt even make a proper complaint?

When you're preparing your afternoon wine drink, the sudden realisation what the real conclusion of the Ogre quest in Arcanum is (i.e. the omission of the expected conclusion) may make you smile with contentment when you raise your glass, and in the end, isn't that what all cRPGs for refined gentlemen are really about?

I am just making a general complaint that is from a wide variety of games, and I just picked the examples that came to mind.

To be fair, Fallout and Fallout 2 also have dead end quests, but that's only because content was cut from these games. Such as the iguana on a stick quest.