I love the inclusion of Quests into the game. It's certainly extremely enjoyable and an interesting mechanic to make you explore the map and earn loot while also giving you more then a little bit of lore and fluff to chew on. It reminds me a lot of an old Civ/RTS game called, "The King Arthur Roleplaying Game."

Though what I'd love to see along with there being more quests in general would also to include branching quest line's that let the player choose one of several options. Some quests would be Miscellenious for most factions while others would be more tied to a specific faction.



A Miscellenious quest might be something like stumbling onto a town under attack by local wildlife and they wish for you to slay the beasts in return for a reward. Though when you follow the trail to the lair it turns out that said Wildlife is pretty sapient and willing to cut a deal with you. By this point you could make the deal with it to not kill it and in return it'll give you a fancy new sword in it's collection but probably continue to terrorize the locals.

Or you could convince it to move elsewhere Which maybe nets you some Dust and some random bits that it forgot to take with it's horde as well as open up the chance to include another quest with it.

Or you could kill it and be done with it and go back and get the reward...



A Faction Quest would be something geared specifically to a certain Faction. A Vaulter type Quest might revolve around them finding out about a Vaulter settlement still living below the surface recently coming into some trouble. Maybe there power has gone out. Possible options could be to help them evacuate netting you one new unit of Settlers. Or maybe you ignore them and let them all die, just desserts for staying behind when the rest of the Vaulters went above ground and afterwards you nick their stuff. (Though at the cost of hefty disapproval for a while.) Maybe you help them fix their generators. Taking a hit to your Industrial score for a number of turns but maybe they pay you back with Dust or military units or even artifacts they scrounged up? Finally maybe if one of your hero has the right skill a new option opens up that gives them another choice altogether. Maybe they can fix it and in return you get a tech unlock?



These sorts of quests are good not only for immersion, which is something a game like this deserves considering it's rich history and ideas.

But it also give's players a look at the lore, the state of the world and a look into each respective faction and how it works.

WireWolf wrote:
I love the inclusion of Quests into the game. It's certainly extremely enjoyable and an interesting mechanic to make you explore the map and earn loot while also giving you more then a little bit of lore and fluff to chew on. It reminds me a lot of an old Civ/RTS game called, "The King Arthur Roleplaying Game."

Though what I'd love to see along with there being more quests in general would also to include branching quest line's that let the player choose one of several options. Some quests would be Miscellenious for most factions while others would be more tied to a specific faction.



A Miscellenious quest might be something like stumbling onto a town under attack by local wildlife and they wish for you to slay the beasts in return for a reward. Though when you follow the trail to the lair it turns out that said Wildlife is pretty sapient and willing to cut a deal with you. By this point you could make the deal with it to not kill it and in return it'll give you a fancy new sword in it's collection but probably continue to terrorize the locals.

Or you could convince it to move elsewhere Which maybe nets you some Dust and some random bits that it forgot to take with it's horde as well as open up the chance to include another quest with it.

Or you could kill it and be done with it and go back and get the reward...



A Faction Quest would be something geared specifically to a certain Faction. A Vaulter type Quest might revolve around them finding out about a Vaulter settlement still living below the surface recently coming into some trouble. Maybe there power has gone out. Possible options could be to help them evacuate netting you one new unit of Settlers. Or maybe you ignore them and let them all die, just desserts for staying behind when the rest of the Vaulters went above ground and afterwards you nick their stuff. (Though at the cost of hefty disapproval for a while.) Maybe you help them fix their generators. Taking a hit to your Industrial score for a number of turns but maybe they pay you back with Dust or military units or even artifacts they scrounged up? Finally maybe if one of your hero has the right skill a new option opens up that gives them another choice altogether. Maybe they can fix it and in return you get a tech unlock?



These sorts of quests are good not only for immersion, which is something a game like this deserves considering it's rich history and ideas.

But it also give's players a look at the lore, the state of the world and a look into each respective faction and how it works.

King Arthur was a good game in this point and I really liked that typ of quest system. So +1 for this idea from me.

Teslaflux wrote:
King Arthur was a good game in this point and I really liked that typ of quest system. So +1 for this idea from me.

One reason why I was suggesting it. ^.^

I love the Faction Quest's already in the game. I Just wish there were more of them and that those that do would have rather open ended endings. As it stands the only quest in the game apparently with an actual choice in the game is supposed to be the final mission where you get the choice to flee the planet or stay and try and fix it.



The introduction of a number of Faction specific quests helps give more character and flavor to each respective faction as well as being a useful way of transmitting the games lore to the player.

I +1 this

It could be very fitting for the Broken Lords for example.

Do you go the old way or do you drain the life of other beings?

That would be a good choice.

Doubly so when you consider the Wild Walkers who are divisive over stuff like the Sharing and leaving their forests and gods behind. Some faction specific quests could deal with that sort of stuff.

The Vaulters seem to be fighting internally about whether they should stay or leave. I remember one of the Quests mentioning rebellion and infighting after-all.



I've been tinkering around with the thought of some choices in the quests being able to unlock new items, abilities and technology while locking out others based on one's respective choices. >.>

But I have no idea how feasible something like that would be.

This sounds like a good idea. There is so much room within the setting and the story line to add some serious depth to this side of things. It might also set it apart from some of the other fantasy 4x titles if this were to be a major facet of the game instead of a simple bit of fluff.

I've got to agree whole hardheartedly to the idea of branching quest lines. They were wonderful additions to Fall from Heaven as well. One of the keys though is having enough of them that you don't see the same set every play through.



Making a bunch of them might be well suited to a community competition to boot.

Maedhros wrote:
I've got to agree whole hardheartedly to the idea of branching quest lines. They were wonderful additions to Fall from Heaven as well. One of the keys though is having enough of them that you don't see the same set every play through.



Making a bunch of them might be well suited to a community competition to boot.

That might be a little difficult. Like I said before. I'd divide the quest between two types. General quest lines.

The sort of stuff that any faction would be able to trip across over and interact with. (Besides the Necrophages....Because them helping Farmers or a Caravan or whatever is a bit hard to swallow when their response would be to eat them and the response of the people running into them would be to scream and run away.)



And then faction specific quests.

Where the quests are unique to a particular faction.



Faction specific questline's could be handled in two ways.

Either it's something that's 'Scheduled' to happen. Meaning that at some point in the game one of the faction specific quests pops up after a certain period of time or some specific trigger event to be played out. And this happens in each playthrough.



Or it's randomly generated regardless of time, trigger or anything else.

Why not just leave them as they are where general quests are spawned from exploring ruins? That gives control to the player.



General branching quests seem reasonably easy to make. An example that did it well would be an event in Endless Space where the player finds out about a mad scientist and can choose to try and take advantage or him or simply kill him for a short term happiness gain. Each time you keep the mad scientist around the risk of political fall out or him un-leashing some calamity increases.



Fall from Heaven has examples of a good way to give the general quests faction flavor. One example was an event where there was a political splinter faction. Depending on your faction you could do any number of things (~6 options if I remember) publicly debate them, if you were the vampire faction just eat them, or if you partook of the right religions just buy their compliance. Certain options in these types of quests can be tech dependent too.



One interesting way to handle branching quests might be to make one that checks back in with you for a new choice each era. An example might be where a deposit of some odd resource is found. Using it gives a good industry boost but weakens food production. If it get's used perhaps it might eventually mutate a hero, or cause an outbreak of wandering monsters. Or perhaps it could be sold for a small income boost but it will give diplomatic penalties with other factions because you're selling something poisonous.



Perhaps a merchant is found in some ruins. They can be bartered with for good gear recipes and perhaps techs or you can attack them and try to take some of their wares by force. But if you attack them you anger a trading guild who then cause your empire other problems.

I would need such a system for my faction.

WireWolf wrote:
(Besides the Necrophages....Because them helping Farmers or a Caravan or whatever is a bit hard to swallow when their response would be to eat them and the response of the people running into them would be to scream and run away.)

This is kind of a side note, but if you read the profile description for Long Fangs, it shows that even the Necrophage have some capacity for altruistic action, so them helping farmers or caravans by defending them or what not is not so far-fetched, even if very rare. I think I would enjoy playing a Necrophage story quest line that follows something like that.



I think the idea in general fits very well with the mood of the game though. In most of the quest story lines, you're casted as the leader of your respective race and the fact that you should have to make some fairly serious decisions about the direction you're going to take your people in can only add to the immersion in my opinion. As long as the quest rewards along one path are not so obviously powerful that it would mean shooting yourself in the foot not to take it, it could be a very fun mechanic.