Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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Narf the Mouse
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Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Narf the Mouse »

A thread on another forum spawned the following question, and a stream-of-thought answer. I've edited the answer to clarify points; hopefully this idea will be helpful. The meta-quest idea I'm reposting seems like it could slot into the existing quest system, once DU has support for quests. :)
Narf the Mouse wrote:
greenGIANT wrote:If those include features like more characterization/story driven quests as opposed to 90% of the world running on the 'who/where/what' formula, then my interest level in this just climbed. Problem is; with a world as huge as Daggerfalls, how do you even accomplish that in such a way that the player actually notices it? In other words, if you go and add a bunch of proper story-driven quests, what are the chances of the human player ever finding them?
The easiest way to start, I think, would be to add "metaquests" - quest-glue that takes appropriate random quests, and chains them together into a plot.

For example, the "random animal in a house", and a "someone's trying to kill me quest", and a "kill this enemy" quest. The random animal quest is the first murder attempt, which chains into a later protection quest involving someone at that house, which chains into $Faction or character hiring the PC for one of the Kill_Enemy quests. Probably some sort of meta-data would have to be added to quests to describe their type, so that the meta-quest can make appropriate selections.

This would probably be written as a layer above the quest system; items from this layer (or the layer itself) would identify as quests to DU. Appropriate "glue text" would have to be added, and it would not be easy, but the actual implementation seems the simplest I can think of. On the downside, it would also provide the least short-term gain. However, it could be used to build additional content, and expanded on.

Overall, Daggerfall has a faction system, although it is very bare-bones, it does influence gameplay through quests and dialogue. The faction system could be used to influence the metaquests; for example, a character in opposing factions could be given opposing quests from the same meta-quest, and have to figure out how to resolve them. With the right code hooks, meta-quests could spawn side-quests, which may be meta-quests themselves.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

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Biboran
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Biboran »

Very interesting idea. When I thought about this topic, I was thinking a little differently.
Of course if you do a little minor quests, there are few who find it. But Daggerfall has a large number of fractions that have only rndom quests. Why not make each of them more detailed lines of quests? For example the dark brotherhood. Instead, their branches in the 9000 cities, make the network of ~10 DB shelters, each with several lines of quests. On the Brotherhood player receives a tip-off in the same way as the original. Or not, maybe someone do a better way.
If you do the same for each Count, Knight Orders, Gulds etc. it made Dagerfall more and more filled

Narf the Mouse
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Narf the Mouse »

Making an individualized quest line for every faction, noble, and guild hall individual would be an incredible amount of work. I'm not going to say impossible, but I doubt you're going to find many volunteers.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

Narf the Mouse
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Narf the Mouse »

I'm curious about the lack of responses. Is the idea not good? Is it poorly explained?
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

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Biboran
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Biboran »

Now all celebrate the Christmas / New Year.
Orthodox Christmas will be on 7 January. :D

And maybe at this time no one think about quests at this stage of progect. And something like discussed in the thread of ideas.

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EpicSpellsword404
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by EpicSpellsword404 »

First of all, this forum is kind of... sleepy. Second, regular quests haven't been implemented yet. So it's kind of far away at this point.

Narf the Mouse
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by Narf the Mouse »

Alright, thanks. Just worried people thought it wasn't a good idea. :)

Anyway, I'll probably come back to this when quests are in. Unless someone comes up with what I think is a better idea or something.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

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LypyL
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Re: Metaquests - Story-based quest system idea

Post by LypyL »

Expanding on quests is a good idea in general, so I like that. But I'm personally not familiar with the details of the quest system & as was mentioned it hasn't been implemented yet.

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