Quest Showcase

For all talk about quest development - creation, testing, and quest system.
Post Reply
User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Fighters Guild #14: "Perimeter Walk"

Image
Image

Interkarma's system makes it possible for quest events to specifically trigger when you're out in the wilderness. I tried to make something interesting out of this mechanic.

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Thieves Guild #8: "A Fool and His Gem"

Image
Image

Hahaha! The mechanic I chose to use was a complete surprise to me. Can't wait to hear the feedback on this one.

User avatar
pango
Posts: 3347
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:14 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by pango »

Thank you :)
Mastodon: @pango@fosstodon.org
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
-- Charles Goodhart

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Knightly Order #17: "Graveyard Plot"

Image
Image

This quest was similar enough to CUSTOM01 that I just altered some of the details and wrote new dialogue. That's all quest writing is sometimes, folks! :D I had to do a lot of balancing afterwards. I had planned on having all kinds of enemies show up like thieves, bards, acrobats, and barbarians, but they all shoot arrows, and it was very easy to get woken out of rest and turned into a pincushion. I had to settle for just one group in the end.

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Knightly Order #18: "A Rash of Thefts"

Image
Image

This one's a little awkward to do. Either I still don't know how to make dialogue actions work meaningfully, or they're a lot more limited than this quest needed. The solution is abrupt and comes out of nowhere, but I don't know how to do more than that. The amount of work I put into this quest makes me hold on to it in the hopes it can be improved, but I don't know how.

User avatar
Interkarma
Posts: 7236
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:51 am

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Interkarma »

If you like, I'm happy to bounce around ideas to make the dialogue actions less abrupt in this quest. I might be able to offer a workaround or propose a new action to help.

Can discuss in PM if preferred so we don't detail your showcase thread. :)

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

To be honest, what I'm planning may not even be within the bounds of the dialogue system. I'll wait for a little while both to see if I can get a clue on how to do what I'm thinking and to see if I find any alternatives in other quests. Then later I may take up your offer. Thank you :)

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Knightly Order #19: "The Champion"

Image
Image
Image

Midknightprince, this is all yours. I can't beat it. Neither can you :D

This being an artifact quest, all sense of fairness goes out the window. It will take some balancing, but I don't want to take much edge off its very imbalanced nature. After all, you could score an artifact in 30 in-game minutes; why not condense all the difficulty of an artifact quest too? :)

Also, there's an "easter egg" for those who try to hide inside the building to run time out. The daedric prince will not be happy :P

User avatar
Jay_H
Posts: 4061
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:54 am
Contact:

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Mages Guild #13: "Misguided Creature"

Image
Image

I used quest triggers like this in JHPQ001. I try not to duplicate too many quest actions, but I figured the likelihood of cross-exposure to be low. In any case, unless we just start flooding the quest files with the same actions, most people won't mind.

For me the difficulty of finding a good setting for quest storylines (which is actually the biggest bottleneck, not quest actions) is in this order:

1. Knightly Order (easiest)
2. Fighters Guild
3. Mages Guild
4. Temple
5. Thieves Guild
6. Dark Brotherhood (hardest)

I mean, for the Dark Brotherhood, what're you going to write? They're just a dark Morag Tong; they kill people. I tied in their ransom activities, but now that I've used that and assassination plots several times, what else is the Dark Brotherhood supposed to do?

User avatar
Interkarma
Posts: 7236
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:51 am

Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Interkarma »

Jay_H wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 9:46 pm I mean, for the Dark Brotherhood, what're you going to write? They're just a dark Morag Tong; they kill people. I tied in their ransom activities, but now that I've used that and assassination plots several times, what else is the Dark Brotherhood supposed to do?
I wonder if a couple of storylines around internal strife would be fun? I'll throw out a few quick hooks.

One member is secretly organising a coup against the DB leadership. Our character has the option to assist or put down the usurpers. What does this splinter faction want and are their complaints justified?

A lifetime member has found a more peaceful religion and risks exposing the local chapter. But this person is connected to one of the higher ups and they expressly forbid you to kill them. Instead, you need to find the cause of their fall into grace, and help them remember how to be a killer again.

It's hard to poison people when certain ingredients run out. One particularly rare ingredient can only be produced by a monk living in a solitary shack out in the wilderness. He's started losing his mind though and rambles more than Nulfaga these days. Turns out he's been possessed by a demon trying to reconnect to an old flame in the guild. When the player arrives, this demon possesses the player instead and starts speaking to them. What starts as a simple fetch quest ends with the player trying to re-unite a demon with their former lover, and uncovering what drove them apart in the first place. Perhaps some target escaped them in the past, and they blamed each other. The three of you can team up to remove that target once and for all, and heal old wounds along the way. With two virtual NPCs along for the ride, and them having a past relationship, there's an opportunity for snarky/witty/fond exchanges between them as the quest unfolds.

I think anything suitably dark would fit within the DB style. I imagine the guild would be filled with some interesting fictional archetypes to explore in between a light bit of assassination.

Post Reply