Thinking about the DA2 lp

[SCO]

I always thought that quests in most games are tremendously artificial. One of the problems is the questgiver->move->quest item->move->questgiver that is the prototype of 98% of quests.

So i was thinking of ways this could be broken up and all. Variations are: don't need to move anywhere to do the quest, don't need to get a item, don't have a quest giver but allow the player to discover the task, have more than one quest giver for the same quest, don't start with the quest giver but the item.
Now, all of these were done at one time (PS:T and fallout mostly), so i was hoping for a little bit of minimal incline when i read the lp's and found that bioware incorporated that last variation.

But of course, they cheapened it, first by overuse (to pad the hell out of the game), then by making the place to return the thing obvious with a quest log that says exactly where you should go - instead of no questlog at all, as the gods intended, handholding++.

Is there anything that Bioware can't fuck up?

 

[treave]

Is there anything that Bioware can't fuck up?

Writing: Character personality, dialogue, romance. They appear to have succeeded wonderfully judging from the massive fanbase who tout those areas as the sole, if any reason, to play a Bioware game.

Fetch quests can be interesting if, say, for instance, you have to collect ingredients for a ritual. Characters with high lore will be able to identify and locate those ingredients easily. Others may have to study and ask around. Getting the ingredients shouldn't be a matter of visiting five different locations and picking them from the ground. And of course, there should always be the possibility of giving the questgiver the wrong ingredients (you might not even know it is wrong if you have low lore and didn't bother checking the information you got), thus causing catastrophic ritual failure.

Like, say, the Drow quest in BG2.

Then again fetch quests are a staple of the fantasy genre, especially if you're roleplaying an adventurer. "I want magic cup from darkest depths of Mt. Volcano." To escape it entirely you'd have to write a setting with a PC that has an excuse not to go helping every last person in need of someone to get something from somewhere dangerous.

 

[Roguey]

Interesting thing about the way those quests are structured is how they're a borrowed idea from a canceled project:
http://pats-quinade.livejournal.com/59554.html
http://pats-quinade.livejournal.com/66554.html

That canceled project very likely being Jade Empire 2 as lead designed by a one Mike Laidlaw: http://pats-quinade.livejournal.com/24587.html

 

[Satan]

According to Konjad, this game has semi-interesting storyline, so I guess you could give it a try... but are you willing to do it?

 

[RK47]

..yeah it's interesting. I was hoping to have a direction to how my Hawke would rise to become a Champion y'know. A champion who is willing to be a little lenient in carrying out the law...and harsh on those who are deserving, but it really didn't matter at the end. I was confused. Why give choices when there really is no consequences. It's disrespectful and insulting. And that made me bitter, because it could've been better handled and most of the combat flaws would be forgiven. But this? No way in hell. Only Konjad would have enough of a heart to defend it.

 

[Stinger]

^Hasn't Gaider himself openly said that his approach with C&C is that there really isn't any actual consequence to choices but to the player at the time they're making the choice it feels 'real' and 'immediate' or some crap like that? Bioware isn't even trying to hide their fake C&C these days.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

the breadth of gameplay is not in the starting point and destination but the very distracting and magical journey that you have to take to get there

like in kotc: "find out what the shit is going on over there", and instead of just going into some shit hub place and molesting npcs until you get one who will give you answers suddenly you're in a cave killing asshole giant spiders and helping some thri-keen and then later you enter a wiped out town filled with lizardmen and a witch says ORCS DID IT and fine lets go kill orcs ah goddamn it's not just orcs

so yeah, the worst thing you can possibly do in a quest is to assign a very specific endpoint marker that your mercenary courier party just mindlessly homes in on while popping shit all the way
unless the scope of your game is limited to popping shit like diablo 2 of course then yes fine tell me about the thing that should die I hope it gives me surprises when it's trying not to die

where a quest starts isn't much of a concern really so lets not bother with that. It'll definitely be from a person or a message you saw you can make it an astral sex golem and runes of a dead race on a glowing cloud of magic and it will blow minds already congratulations on the immersion

so what distinguishes the game will be the content/hurdles that you run into while trying to finish quest and whether the reward should always come from the same person who gave said quest to you also was he lying or made to lie or misinformed about any of the shit he had you do

basically fun interactions inbetween and at the conclusion is what you want

this topic might also be well served by how examining how tasks/freelance jobs are assigned in history or how to implement an option to trigger a quest yourself like 'I will overthrow that naughty king' without having someone to wave stuff in your face and promise it'll be yours and whether that's too meta or something