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[LDuncan]

I'm going to marry Mass Effect when I grow up.

Anyway, thanks again for all the great input. A thread about NPCs in the writing forum got me thinking--to have truly deep NPCs, they're going to have goals that don't necessarily have anything to do with the player. Perhaps that stableboy you saved from the goblins has a huge crush on some girl, and is trying to gather courage to ask her out... but really doesn't want any help from you. It's not a quest, it's just something that is going on in the life of the NPC, something you're not really going to have anything to do with. But we've been conditioned to assume that anything that an NPC is doing beyond being a signpost is somehow super important and must obviously be a quest with some sweet reward at the end. Is this just going to annoy players though? Frustrated when they spend 20 minutes exhausting all speech options with the stableboy and girl, trying to offer flowers to the boy to give to the girl to no avail?

Is there a way to give NPCs a "life," without the player becoming frustrated that they're not necessarily meant to meddle in that life, beyond putting giant exclamation points above quest givers' heads? Or is this all beyond the scope of a game and not something I should even bother looking into?

[baconman]

^ Jables's Adventure has the answer to that one. The Indie Game Legend does too, but some of the jokes are more insider-friendly.

If you can make some nifty, funny dialogue that engages the player enough to enjoy/care, and not derail their concentration on the game, then it's completely worth it. On the other hand, there's also the fun potential of "hired signposts," a job given to some NPCs because somebody keeps wrecking all the signs in the game. You can also interject how much these people love/hate their jobs, too; as a nifty jab at games that use NPCs as signposts. I'd call them "sighposts."

Another fun possibility is in a couple who travels around, much like you do, so they appear in different towns/places on different days. If you become friends with the guy, the girl acts like she hates you, and if you become friends with the girl, the guy acts all resentful and butthurt. And yeah, they bicker a bit, but they're solid where it matters. And sometimes you catch them in some predicament ...uh... situations?

[Destral]

Another fun possibility is in a couple who travels around, much like you do, so they appear in different towns/places on different days. If you become friends with the guy, the girl acts like she hates you, and if you become friends with the girl, the guy acts all resentful and butthurt. And yeah, they bicker a bit, but they're solid where it matters. And sometimes you catch them in some predicament ...uh... situations?

I believe I remember a couple like this in Super Mario RPG, and while it might not quite have Trope status in Anime, I remember a couple of anime that had a couple like this.

[Ranordine]

Multiple solutions. I cannot stress this enough. Games' greatest strength is their interactivity--if you aren't taking advantage of this, you might as well be writing a book or making a movie.

Even better: multiple solutions with multiple paths to get to each of them. Some paths and solutions should be inaccessible to characters who have made certain decisions in the past. Likewise, the path and solution the character chooses should carry consequences down the road.

[LDuncan]

Multiple solutions.

Yeah, I like that as well, and it's something I hope to be able to implement for this game. In the same vein, I'd like it if failure didn't mean a Game Over screen, but instead was just another "solution" that led to a different path. And maybe that's a way to scale difficulty as well... if you fail at a hard quest, maybe it gives you an easier quest instead. Got repelled while storming the castle? Well, an enemy soldier was captured, and he spilled the beans on a back entrance that's left unguarded. And as you said, perhaps you could have just found that entrance yourself before you stormed the castle, or talked to townspeople in the tavern, one of which who had seen someone use the secret back entrance.

[s0]

If you actually implement your quest difficulty idea, the story would have to feature a protagonist who's a complete moron and/or tons of "lucky coincidences" that border on deus ex machina to remain believeable. Failing should make quests harder in most cases, not easier IMO.

[Kegluneq]

Failing should make quests harder in most cases, not easier IMO.

The problem with that is the player can get caught in a loop, where they fail it once, and since the second time around it's harder, they just fail again and again.

[LDuncan]

the story would have to feature a protagonist who's a complete moron and/or tons of "lucky coincidences"

Well, it's not something that would be appropriate for every quest, that's for sure. Just ones where success is vital to story progression. If you think about it... what's more believable... that you fail at something 10 times, and eventually figure a way around your problem, or the traditional video game approach, where you die 10 times, are miraculously brought back to life at the point in time before your previous failures, and are given another chance? Or say, the World of Warcraft method: "Crap, I failed that quest. I'll tell the guy I quit, then ask him to give me the same quest again, and see if he doesn't notice."

I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. My idea isn't without flaws, I admit. But I can't see how the old save/reload approach is more believable than a guy who fails at something and finds a way to victory in spite of his failings. It's because of the unbelievability of "reloading" that I started playing around with the idea in the first place.

[gabison]

I think there's a very important question often overlooked:
Why should I (as player) do a quest?

1. For XP or relatively trivial loot; this is the answer most MMOs seem to give today and for this, text/plot is really not important because most people skip it entirely. If I want XP, I don't really care if it's "kill 5 rats" or "my brother is sick, he needs a cure, go kill 10 spiders". Whatever, just hand me my XP or my piece or armor which I'll throw away in 15 min when I level up. Story is just a filler, however pretentious it may be.

2. I may be really interested in the lore.
3. I may like puzzles.
4. I care for some NPC/game place/faction/etc.
5. I like challenges.

My only model for answers 2-5 is Everquest 1. Quests were not "contracts", they were entirely optional. Each and every one were done because I wanted to do them. It may be because I've found a strange skull somewhere and identifying it had a fragment of a puzzling story, or I've heard some NPCs talk while passing them and my interest was picked.

I'd say, don't force me to do your quests. What the heck of a hero am I if my own advancement is at the mercy of every lowly citizen? "Do this, do that, fetch, kill for me..." Why should I care? I think that's one of the most important points to answer first.

I don't think that NPCs asking me to quest for them is good unless every NPC is a beggar. I should be the one approaching them because somehow I want to. Make me want to quest for you, and no, I don't mean "hang a floating exclamation mark over your head".

PS. My opinions are heavily influenced by MMOs, I'm sure it shows. Haven't played many desktop RPGs lately.

[leonelc29]

1. For XP or relatively trivial loot; this is the answer most MMOs seem to give today and for this, text/plot is really not important because most people skip it entirely. If I want XP, I don't really care if it's "kill 5 rats" or "my brother is sick, he needs a cure, go kill 10 spiders". Whatever, just hand me my XP or my piece or armor which I'll throw away in 15 min when I level up. Story is just a filler, however pretentious it may be.

this will work in MMORPG, and for the player who like to level grinding, but not for player who interesting in the story or some creative approach in quest.

i stand in the second category, basically.