Quest Plan Proposal

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Yeti
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Quest Plan Proposal

Post by Yeti »

After much pondering, I've come up with a rough proposal for how we should organize and space out our quests, taking into account what I believe we can feasibly accomplish in the future. Feedback is obviously welcome.

SHotN will contain three main types of quests - Hold Quests, Faction Quests, and Miscellaneous Quests.


Hold Quests - Questlines that deal with major political stories that affect an entire Hold. These will tackle regional conflicts, such as the Horme attacks and Queen Jsashe's takeover in Whiterun, King Thain annexing Imperial fiefs in Haafingar, and the unrest in The Reach.

In general, the player unlocks these stories by completing a certain number of miscellaneous quests within each Hold. A relevant quest-giver will notice the player's growing notoriety and reach out to them for help to start the questline. This will require the player to familiarize themselves with the current events and key characters of each Hold before altering their status quo.


Faction Quests - Quests completed as a member of Skyrim's factions, which I recommend we structure like this:

Tier I Factions - Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood* - These form the foundation of Elder Scrolls faction questing and are found all across Skyrim . Their normal quests are split between Major and Minor guildhalls. Though they don't need to tell a cohesive story, they should at least do a good job of characterizing the local guild branch, its characters, and the culture of the local area.

Major Guildhalls - Generally located in large cities and staffed by high-ranking members of the guild. They each offer 5-6 quests.

Minor Guildhalls - Generally located in towns. They each offer 3-4 quests.

After completing a set number of normal quests, the player will rise to a rank high enough to trigger a province-wide questline to become the faction leader.

* The Dark Brotherhood should have far fewer meeting places than the legal guilds - probably only one base in each Hold on average. These don't need to be located in settlements. Upon stumbling upon one of hideouts, the Dark Brotherhood members will offer the player a chance to either join or die.

Tier II Factions - Medium-sized factions that are usually more narrowly defined and allow the player to roleplay who they are more so than the Tier I factions. They would include the Companions and other factions that fit Skyrim's setting. At most, I picture having five of these. Their quests would focus more on telling a specific narrative as the player rises through the ranks.

Tier III Factions - Factions that the player might complete a few quests for, but won't actually join. These include smaller local factions like the Imperial College of The Voice and the Bear Clan, along with province-wide organizations like the Imperial Cult and Imperial Legion, which we don't have the manpower or resources to create fully fleshed-out questlines for.


Miscellaneous Quests - One-off quests in towns and the wilderness. These should tell stories that explore the area and characters they feature, highlighting local cultures, politics, and landmarks. In other words, each one should meaningfully contribute to world-building.

Larger Settlements - 3-4 quests
Smaller Settlements - 2-3 quests
Wilderness - spaced out appropriately

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worsas
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Post by worsas »

These all sound like good proposals. Amount of quests and distribution sounds great and feasible.

But I can't quite agree on the part about the Dark Brotherhood. I'd rather have them as a hostile faction as in vanilla and do quests for the Legion or some other faction instead. The Dark Brotherhood seems like a faction whose stories could be told in any province.

Even the imperial guilds... yes, they are very dominant in the vanilla game, but noone says we need to put them into the foreground that much in Skyrim. I think we need to figure out where the main plots happen and put the stress accordingly.

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Sorry for my inactivity. Yeti, this plan looks really good. How many people do we have, who know how to implement quests?

I sort of agree with worsas, at least on the DB. The Imperial guilds should play a smaller role compared to vanilla, but I think they should all be joinable - the IC and perhaps the legion being the exceptions. Some guild quests should help advancing the main storyline, but most should just be individual jobs.
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Yeti
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Post by Yeti »

I'd be more than happy putting more narrative and creative effort into our other factions, and keeping the Imperial guilds in the foreground.

My reasons for making the Dark Brotherhood playable:

1. Assassin factions are popular - every main TES game since Morrowind has one.
2. The Nords likely wouldn't have a widespread native equivalent to the DB, like Morrowind did, since they'd see assassination as cowardly.
3. Assassination quests are relatively easy to implement.
4. It would be fun to come up with target lists, and use them to represent the various cutthroat political conflicts going on behind the scenes.

arrianas
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Post by arrianas »

I really think it would be a huge opportunity lost if you didn't add the Dark Brotherhood.

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

I can see your reasoning from a gameplay perspective. The Haafinheim questline is far away, but I think that would include a whole lot of espionage, assassinations and general shadowy activities - no matter what side you choose, pro-Thian or pro-Imperial/Breton.
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Yeti
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Post by Yeti »

The DB quests would likely be kept separate from the Haafinheim questline - and other Hold Quests in general, simple because it would take too much planning and complicated dialogue trees to intertwine them properly, where when would affect the other.

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