Absolutely, you can make practically any action link into any other on a scale of probabilities. It's a rudimentary system so we can't use things like 17% vs 83%, but we can do any number of ratios against each other.
These relate to two major ideas I'm writing about, which are circular quests (enormous epic-scale quests with diversity of choice and meaningful outcomes) and perpetual quests (after achieving level 3, you'll get a letter once every 3-4 weeks asking for help with a unique quest, for the entirety of the game. Skyrim's Radiant quests, but far more interesting).
I'll summarize the "when" parts that are functional so far in DFU, the conditions for a quest action:
When you pick up a certain item,
When you talk to a certain NPC,
When the time is between X o'clock and Y o'clock,
When you've hurt a certain enemy,
When you've killed a certain enemy,
When you're level X or higher,
When you're at a certain place,
When you're carrying a certain item and talk to a certain NPC,
Or any combination of the previous conditions (for example, bring a Daedra Heart to a vampire NPC in a house between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM)
And here are the actions available right now:
Make a certain NPC accompany you.
Make a certain enemy or group of enemies appear around you, once or multiple times.
Make an accompanying NPC leave you.
Make a certain enemy appear at a certain fixed place in a building or dungeon.
Make a certain item appear at a certain fixed place in a building or dungeon.
Make a certain item appear in a certain enemy's inventory.
Make a certain NPC appear at a certain location.
Make a certain NPC at a location disappear.
Make a certain sound play once or every X minutes.
Make a yes/no prompt appear. For the yes and the no, different actions can be planned.
Make a message appear on the screen.
Make a different quest start, without ending the current quest.
Make a timer start, like quest time limits, or even for independent actions.
Make a timer stop.
Offer an item to the PC's inventory, with the inventory screen or without it.
Go ahead and mix together a few of the conditions and actions and see what you come up with. If there are any limitations on where we are now with Daggerfall, I'll say so.
One example I did a short while ago was a Fighters Guild protection job. You're asked to accompany an NPC to his house in another city. Once inside, he hears someone within, and starts panicking and disappears from you. You have between 7 and 10 in-game minutes to kill the two assassins inside the house, or they'll find your client and he'll die, making you fail the quest.
Another example is another protection job, where it's a 50% chance that someone will break into the house and you'll have to fight them off, and a 50% chance where nothing will happen. If someone does attack you'll get extra gratitude dialogue when the quest ends, but in both circumstances you'll get paid.
One that I have planned is a merchant who asks you to stand guard inside a building while his investor comes for a meeting. There's a 66% chance someone will attack, and a 33% chance that nothing will happen. This just goes to show there are varieties in probability available. Just make a ratio and I'd say that's what we can do; for example, a 5/8 chance, or a 2/7 chance, or anything else. You can have more than two outcomes on a single probability as well. For my perpetual quest system, I'm setting it up so it'll activate one of 11 quests at random for now, which I'll be increasing in the future.
Code: Select all
_countdown_ task:
pick one of _GO_
startquest PINIT2
_GO_ task:
level 3 completed
pick one of _Q1_ _Q2_ _Q3_ _Q4_ _Q5_ _Q6_ _Q7_ _Q8_ _Q9_ _Q10_ _Q11_
If this code doesn't make much sense yet, just take notice of the line that says "pick one of." From there it'll randomly choose any of the 11 quests I've set up to it. I could say "pick one of _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q2_ _Q2_ _Q3_ _Q3_ _Q4_ _Q4_ _Q5_", which would give a 4/11 chance of being quest 1, a 2/11 chance of quest 2, a 2/11 chance of quest 3, a 2/11 chance of quest 4, and a 1/11 chance of quest 5.
In other words, there's a lot we can do.