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What Are Some of Your Favorite RPG Quests?
Ryosen asks: "The current issue of PC Gamer Magazine has a rundown on the MMORPGs due out this year. Reading over the list of hopefuls and checking out some of the websites and comments, I continually ran across complaints from players about the tedium in a lot of the quests from various games. These are typically of the non-imaginative 'take this message to that person' variety, or 'go kill 4 of these creatures' sorts. Obviously there have been some great quests and plots in games of the past and, with so many new RPGs in development, I thought this would be a great time to reminisce over some of our favorites. Who knows? Maybe some of those designers might find some inspiration for their upcoming creations."
..I loved the "Scream every time you hit a random battle" quest. I used to go back over and over just to play that!
I never get bored playing BG2.
I used to GM an Ultima Online shard. The most successful quests tended to be the ones that involved players in the storyline, bringing all of UO's lore into play and allowing them to mold the shard's future lore. These quests tend to be deeper, darker, and more dangerous than your run-of-the-mill "kill these monsters" quests. You can drag some of these storylines out over multiple quests spanning long periods of time, too.
That's if you're talking about GM-run quests. If you plan on automating your quests, you're going to be kind of doomed from the start. Anything automatic will eventually become boring to players.
Without a doubt, the best Quest I have ever played is Star Control 2. Its source code has recently been released and ported to modern platforms, too, now known as The Ur-Quan Masters.
Disclaimer: I deny all responsibility for the days/weeks of "wasted" time if you decide to download this game.
I always was partial to Curse of the Azure Bonds growing up. And Fallout, naturally.
My tastes changed later and I don't like non-multi ones anymore.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
There is one quest where you have to sell a 5 lamps to dupbears. The problem is, they speak their own special language where you just get a basic vocabulary for, and you have to chat with them for a while before you can get pitch your wares. Probably the nicest quest in the game.
In the beginning of Final Fantasy IV, a young girl named Rydia joins your party. Her job is a summoner. Due to circumstances in the plot, she is away for an extended period of time, and when she returns, she is an adult (despite the short passage of time for the rest of the party). One of the quests in the GBA version involves entrance into a dungeon of personal trials. In Rydia's case, she is transformed back into her youthful form and all her summoning spells are taken away, and she is forced to battle each one of her summons to free them from their captivity-amnesia-whatever. The moral of her trial, on whatever subtle level, regards her need to establish her independence as a person distinct from her job.
Failing that, the mechanics of the two "Gardens" (ie big round spaceships) going head to head, and you being dumped in the middle of an all out war in Final Fantasy 8, was pretty exciting. No naked goblins though.
Any mob quest from fallout 2 hits the spot.
...in Ultima I.
:(
I still remember how cool it was to go through space shooting tie fighters for gold and finding new planets.
I'm soooo old
This is the most challenging quest I ever faced !
AWx
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I loved both of the Knights of the Old Republic games. The whole game was one big quest that culminated in an epic battle. Those are the only Star Wars games that really made me feel like I was living in the Star Wars universe.
Related Note: I like the quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online a lot better than most MMORPGs. If you pay attention, some of them have some great story lines, especially the Catacombs.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
As a 4-year EQ player that was a story and quest nut, I found most of the "talk, kill, loot, give" quests to be downright boring. O_o
:)
There's one quest though that stands out. It's an epic-length quest to return a legendary dragon's spirit to rest named The Spirit of Garzicor. Even with my feverish playing (over 110hr/wk) it took me over six months to complete and required large amounts of assistance, including a raid at the end. Of course this quest at the time wasn't well charted, which made it more fun for the questing players but quite a bit more challenging.
In the end though, looking back on four years of EQ and the timesink questing process made me pretty depressed. I realized that I had sunk more of my time into EQ quests than pretty much any other hobby in my life in a mere matter of 4 years. That's part of the MMO experience though - time == reward! Quests just make that time less mundane.
There were some spectacular quests in Everquest two for the Heritage items, most of the quest was not just killing and some were even races and little clue hunts, it was really a wild ride. Oh and the little known game Horizons released two years ago or so hosted fantastic shard wide epic quests every week where the shard would have to come together to accomplish a massive task. Some involved building bridges, digging mines, defeating epic monsters and one amazing one was the casting of a spell that involved a dozen high level mages armed with 12 different wands that were quite difficult to get.
"Say you love us like i know you will and that our deaths won't be in vain or in the name of gasoline"
Arcanum is full of funny and interesting quests. Bloodlines is too. I miss Troika.
I thought the first Lands of Lore by Westwood had some great quests and adventure type puzzles.
I know the game was rushed and suched but I always enjoyed the one planet where you could participate in the civil war, causing the riots and such, I really enjoyed it. In the first KotOR I always enjoyed going through Korriban Academy. Good times.
I'm a Book
On the Bookshelf
Anyone remember the mission where Admiral Harkov sends you and your wingmen to inspect an asteroid field (which turns out to be a mine field) to get rid of you, then you had to fight your way out of it alive to report his betrayal. I still remember how angry I felt the moment in mid-flight when I realized the trap. Touches like these really forced you to take part in the storyline and personalize the conflict told in the game. Oh, and the moment of sweet revenge at the end of the campaign when Darth Vader says "Welcome Admiral Harkov, we have a matter to discuss.". That's what you get for sending me into a death trap sucker!
Sure it had lots of the fedex types but those were usually for the beginning game and such.
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Here are some of my favorites and guides to them that show the details involved.
The Halls of Knorr
http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/Hobbies/Quests/Knorr
Aerlinthe - one of the earlier and greatest quests in the game
http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/Hobbies/Quests/Aerli
Sword of Lost Light, the earliest big quest in the game, revised later on and expanded as well
http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/Hobbies/Quests/SOLL.
http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/Hobbies/Quests/SoLH.
There are just so many good quests in that game its a shame that many don't play it. Yeah the graphics are out of date and the developer , Turbine, allowed many people to cheat and exploit for a long time yet its a solid game. It probably could be rereleased with modern graphics and restarted from its beginning and do very well.
Complete list of quests
http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/Hobbies/Quests.htm
Maggie's site was the place for information on the game. It contains a list of all monthly story updates and the quests, items, and new characters associated with those updates.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/planescapetorment/
the whole game is unique and unlike anything else i have ever played. the "choose between 4 relies" thing gets tired after awhile, but for sheer inventiveness, 5% of this game is more creative than 5 other videogames put together
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Instance dungeons have done alot for this, but I think the idea should be expanded. Shifting objectives and otherwise changing the general plot so an instance is not the same every time would be nice.
And what ever happened to the classic 'the party has been split up' quest. Why not seperate people at the beginning in a labarynth and have them find each other?
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
Is completing all the quests in Adventure (Atari 2600) to kill the gold dragon.
That's easy: Chrono Trigger is the only quest-oriented RPG that has ever sucked more than 150 hours of my life away.
Unless, of course, you count nethack...
"Fetch a larva for the council."
It must be the best quest, since it appears in the two best RPGs ever written.
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
I have yet to see a RPG that impresses me technically, plotwise and puzzlewise as much as "Ambermoon" by Thalion for the Amiga has.
Ambermoon on the Thalion Webshrine (files for Amiga emulators on the last page of the article).
Oooh, I remember reading a "complete walkthrough" (that won an award/money prize IIRC)in one game magazine that didn't even cover half of the game.
You could easily tell because the "complete list of NPCs for your party" didn't contain two key figures and didn't mention the place where you find one of them.
And without visiting that NPC and place (as there is a - literal - key item), there is no chance to ever get to the second part of the game that mostly takes place on two other worlds instead of the (only) one you know of up until then.
It was a little like "Fellowship of the Ring" ending on the gate to the mines of Moria because nobody could open the door.
I am still somewhat amazed that nobody cared about all the dangling storylines, hints or even that there were some islands/areas on the (included) map that he didn't figure out how to reach..
Since everyone else is really ignoring the MMORPG part of the question, I'll chime in with one of my favorite table-top gaming stories: The Head of Vecna What better quest than one set up by rival players that involves deceit, trickery, backstabbing, and inter-party murder?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Though not true RPG, Anachronox was very entertaining in many respects. One of the funnier quests in the game was to obtain a helmet the guards were wearing. To make task not too easy, the helmet had to be exactly no 5.
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Oh, how about Fallout 2 with Talking Head?
This quest has a combination of interesting parts. It primarily involves returning TwoFlower's luggage to him (Discorld Mud here) and as a reward he gives you the Wyrm Sword (considered quite a good weapon at the time).
:) ).
The Klang quest is also worth the effort. Although.. you need to complete several quests just to attempt it, in an area you seriously wouldn't want to die in (and you can't use magic there either
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Originally for the Commie, but later ported to PC's. Graphics for its time were awesome (simple sprites but they were COOL sprites!) plenty of plot and plenty of games within the game. Not many were able to get past the game without the clue books, but it was possible.
.. instead of looking down on your party from above you looked at what they looked at (sort of doom style). Plenty of easter eggs too :) I think there may even be a group working on porting it to a php -> ajax clone and open sourcing it, however when I went looking for the blog that mentioned it to provide it here I couldn't find it.
Was one of the games that helped to put Electronic Arts on the map. 10 or so years later (after it wasn't sold anymore) I got nostalgic and called EA to see about ordering them , I missed playing them and low and behold they still got many requests, and had plent of not only games but clue books on hand. It developed a cult following.
I liked the view the most, I think
I enjoyed Ultima, FF and the rest, but Bards Tale was my all time favorite.
Fetch me a credenza
Deliver the I.O.U.
Seek the Ostentatious Orb
Fetch me a canoe
Deliver this dirtclod
This is a chain quest in WoW in Winterspring. It starts off normal enough, but the second or third part of it has you taking a mechanical yeti and scarying different npcs spread out around the continent. It was quite amusing, and provided quite a fresh look at the NPCs and their reactions. Everyone I've told about that quest has loved it too.
-- Dan
My favourite quest was the World of Warcraft mechanical yeti quest, you had to take a mechanical yeti to 3 different goblins and use it to scare them.
Don't get it mistaken with the two before, GOD they were awful. Apparently only ~8 in 300+ yetis had hides.
I myself defitely find the Fallout series to have some of the best questing, especially Fallout 2. What other series has a quest where you can infiltrate a mob casino, sleep with the bosses wife (or daughter) and take over the place on your way out (if you could survive) as well as the other numerous side quests and traits you could uncover. I think its best aspect was as the game went on you could see your character evolve and people reacted to your character differently to reflect that. A great series and game.
It's so beautiful, but sad, and it foreshadows what happens during the second half of the game. Arguably the most famous sequence in the game, in 2002 Electronic Gaming Monthly declared the opera scene one of the "20 Greatest Moments in Console Gaming."
You can't add pianos and telephones.
Indeed, though my favorite 'quest' was flying wing with vader to go save the emperor(no it doesnt make any sense). :P
I have to chime in for Dragon Quest VIII. It probably isn't the best RPG I've played - I'd say there are some parts of Final Fantasy US3 that can make my eyes water (locke's girlfriend and the phoenix)... but DQ8 is a throwback to Old school RPG's. It has excellent grapics in the "cell shaded" style, and I can not possibly say enough good about the music. The game has a good storyline, it's never taking its self too seriously, and I can't wait to see how it all ends.
~Will
sig?
While many of WoW's quests are lame and generic, I really liked the event in the Zul'Farrak instance at the temple. You're on the top of this tall incan(mayan?) temple and you rescue some people trapped in cages. They promise to reward you if you let them out, but once you do hundreds of savages fill the area below the temple and come at you relentlessly. Even with the prisoners' help, the battle goes on for something like ten minutes straight. Once you get to the bottom a pair of bosses await you and they pretty much get creamed.
But it's not over yet. If you talk to the leader of the prisoners, the arrogant SoB says he won't give you anything, and if you plead with him he attacks you! You now have to fight a warrior, healer, rogue, and mage. Pretty intense!
I'd have to say my favorite quest was in a tabletop game of Paranoia. "Deliver this note to the clone across the hall." Of course, what the briefing officer neglected to mention was the fact that they still had to go to outfitting and R&D, which were on the other side of the complex. By the time they were done and found the clone they were supposed to deliver it to, they got in a fight over who would deliver it, and not only killed him with a grenade, but blew up half to 3/4 of Alpha Complex.
And I thought I was the only one. I only got half way through NWN as it just didn't grab me like BG2 did. There wasn't anything in NWN like the moment in BG2 when you first turn into the 'Reaper' (I think it was called) and just have to get the rest of your party to leg it.
Also in proper roleplaying fashion you could be as kind or nasty as you want in the dialogue, some of the replies you could say were hilarious.
And as for my fav quest, it would have to be the 'Cult of the Eye', beholders are cool.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Hm... I think there was something similar in Tachyon: The Fringe. I only played the demo, but I vaguely remember your employers set you up, resulting in you getting banished to outer space somewhere. Betrayal is always a nice plot point, especially when it comes unexpectedly, rapidly shifting you through the phases of 'Huh, that's strange.', 'I have a bad feeling about this...' and 'Holy goddamnfuck, what complete and utter bastards!'
In a fair world, refrigerators would make electricity.
The fantasy/ steampunk RPG Arcanum has as one of its races Half-Ogres. Only males exist, and the manual even remarks on how odd it is that there's so many of them, since they're presumably the product of rape and ogres would most likely eat their young.
There's an extended, wholly optional, and even somewhat difficult to acquire quest that starts in Tarant (Arcanum's largest city, comparable to London) in which we discover why the gnomish capitalists almost all have half-ogre bodyguards, and why prostitutes keep disappearing- they're being kidnapped and taken to an island to breed with ogres until they die, so that the gnomes, who are universally terrified of a worker's uprising, might have half-ogres to defend themselves with.
It's convoluted and weird, and one of the best quests I've ever played through.
I dunno, here's a few a hardcore RPG player should recognise... ;)
;)
There's no way I can get out of this without mentioning Planescape: Torment. Sure, it had a few Fed-Ex quests, but anything involving the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts was great fun to play. It turned a simple 'Deliver item A to character B' quest into something I actually enjoyed, and still remember to this day. Dialogue and atmosphere.. now that's how to make a great game!
Arcanum... also a fantastic game. The quest that allowed you to slaughter an entire town and completely turn your back on the typical goody-goody hero found in most RPGs was highly enjoyable, and the kind of thing you don't see often enough. Also, you could kill most major NPCs then extract any information you needed from their (voice-acted!) tortured spirits through judicious use of Necromancy.
Ultima IV: the entire game's main quest was a breath of fresh air, simply because it concentrated on moral issues. Very different to the typical 'Destroy the evil dark lord' line of quests.
Okay, I wasted my life.
I made a point of quietly killing every capitalist gnome I could arrange to get alone. I guess that's not, technically, solving the problem...
My Favorite Quest was to get the Four Ingredients for an Evil Spell so that a rich frog could take over the world:
1. Four hairs from a Yeti
2. A piece of the London Fog Monster
3. Two feathers from a Vampire Duck
4. A twig from a witch's broom
Oh man! There was this one RPG (I forget which one now) where this one guy had me take a package and then - get this - deliver it to a different guy! BEST. QUEST. EVER!
All of the quests in that area are nice but the best is helping a zombie remember her name. It has multiple solutions and none of them involve killing anything just making what you think is the best choice.
Same as, what can chance the nature of a man. That one had me really thinking about what to answer. It doesn't matter of course as the game continues on the same path but I felt the 'right' response was important.
Those are the best quests for me. When you can make choices that perhaps don't 'matter' but wich you feel are the ones you can live with. When you choose a response not based on loot or XP but just on roleplaying THAT is when a RPG is at its best.
Vampire Bloodlines has another quest like that. You come across an apartment of a prostitute and can read her diary where she talks off how she hates the live but has met someone nice. It also becomes clear that some vampire has infected her and her new love with a deadly disease. She is dying and you can talk to her to find out more. Depending on your race of vampire you can comfort her by pretending to be her love. It doesn't do anything. Just feels right. As the mad vampire race you even have some very poignant observations to make.
Nice. When I went to slay the vampire that infected her it wasn't for the XP.
MMORPG's rarely if ever can achieve this. How can they? It would ruin the moment of her passing away if there was a line behind you waiting to talk to her as well. The nameless zombie would be more comedy for having thousands of people tell her her name only to forget again.
A truly great RPG is about roleplaying, where you make your choices based on the character you have chosen to play. To me a that would mean that an evil character would indeed have more wealth and power but also find himself ultimately alone with noone to trust.
BUT a purely good character would be poor (not nice to accept a widows wedding ring as payment for rescueing her childeren) and ultimately just as alone as a purely good character could never tolerate say a thief in his/her party.
For me a true MMORPG would have 3 alignments. Good, evil and the most common one. Slightly evil. The alignment most of us have in real live. Make a player pay throught the nose if he wants to play a dogooder. Make evil characters outcasts from society who like real criminals have to spend much of their wealth in bribing people to be their friends.
Oh and stop it with the quest que. It ruins it when a dozen people are getting the same quest if everything in the story suggests that the quest should be unique.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Many, many moons ago, before OpenGL, Direct3D, hell, before 3D, RPG adventure games revolved around puzzles. From my earliest days using a computer, I was glued to the exploits of timeless heroes such as Roger Wilco and Guybrush Threepwood. Some of my favorite quest came from Monkey Island 2:LeChuck's Revenge. In what is now known these days as the "final boss battle", you must gather the hair (a beard torn off by an elevator), bone (broken finger), body fluid (snot), and piece of clothing (boxers obtained via atomic wedgie) from the evil ghost pirate LeChuck. Using your trusty ju-ju bag, you can then cast him back into the deepest reaches of hell. In Space Quest 4, you need money to get out of a space mall. By way of luck you manage to obtain an ATM card. The machine uses a facial scanner and discovers that you're not a blond woman... What to do? Get a job and buy a dress of course!! Kind of reminds me of my old college roommate actually... That's just a few examples of "Video Crack." I grew up with. I'm lucky my eyes stare in the same direction. However, I soon learned that my addiction to WoW destroys families and communities. But that's another story... IT Grunt
Cancer couldn't kill me... You don't stand a chance.
Getting the Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Ya, it's not technically an RPG but it's a great quest.
BG2 was unquestionably the better RPG if you just bought them and wanted to play through them. However, BG2 inspired, as the poster said, the urge to "play through it over and over again". But NWN was never meant just as a single player game, and honestly, I believe that the reason NWN's single player campaign was disappointing was just that SO many man hours were put into developing the engine and tools and assets and scripting that there wasn't enough time to create a BG2-like experience.
o dules
That said, if you were willing to look beyond the official campaign, NWN becomes more competitive. There have been a lot of fan-created, really great modules. At the top of my favorites is Adam Miller's Dreamcatcher series. Some people swear by Stefan Gagne's work (which is prolific). Almost everyone agrees that Rick Burton's Twilight/Midnight modules are fantastic. I'm really fond of the Aielund saga.
Go here: http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/TopRated.php?content=m
If you have NWN installed. And play some of the top rated modules that sound appealing. There's some great stuff, stuff that you may well enjoy a lot more than the original NWN.
Bioware, for their part, got their act together a bit for their expansion, Hordes of the Underdark. It had a much more enjoyable single player campaign. Even the developers said that by this time they'd really gotten better with their own tools, the engine was refined, and lots of important art assets (robes, for example) were in the engine.
Meanwhile, the expandability of this game may never be matched. There is literally tens if not hundreds of gigabytes worth of custom content - tilesets, weapons, icons, creature models (with animations), to say nothing of actual modules. People have hacked in ridable horses. It's amazing.
Right now you can pick up the NWN Diamond edition in stores and it comes with the original game plus both expansion packs PLUS some of Bio's "premium modules" they sell now.
Meanwhile, online, you can play with others in a way you never could play BG2. Since the game has a DM client, there are a ton of people running bona fide campaigns. Neverwinterconnections.com is a matching service to hook up people to play together. There's also a list of "persistent worlds" a mile long, some of which actual merit being played; they're like mini-MMOs (or graphical MUDs, perhaps) where 20-60 players will play all hours of the day and you can return and keep playing the same character.
One ambitious project even attempted to create a huge set of servers which connected the Forgotten Realms all togther (ALFA, although it's sad that enthusiasm and competence don't always go hand in hand, although the Roleplay level there is pretty amazing).
So all in all, Baldur's Gate 2 for someone who just wanted to buy a game off the shelf and play it was certainly a better game, in my opinion, especially for its time. But NWN quite literallly broke new ground. For those who were willing to go out and look for fresh content and people to play with, it continued to pay dividends. NWN, if you got into it, is probably pound for pound the best value any game has ever delivered. I probably played all the way through BG2 at least a half dozen times, maybe more - there are some good addons for it, including David Gaider's hacks that make some of the "big" fights a lot more difficult, add NPCs and quests, etc. But even still, that amount of time and fun is dwarfed by the play of NWN because of the fact that I can always go grab something fresh. I think you really have to be a fan of that TYPE of game to fall in love with NWN, but if you are, I think it's unmatched on the whole.
Another vote for Planescape Torment as the all-time greatest RPG.
I mean, what better quest can there be, than a Quest to learn who you are? A chance to discover yourself and, just maybe, make amends for past sins and save your own soul and prevent the suffering of others.
Beautifully written, IMO it is the high-water mark of videogames.
P.S. For those who enjoyed PST, I highly recommend Stanislaw Lem's novel, Solaris. The central character (Kelvin) asks many of the same questions. If you've seen the Russian film version or the pathetic watered-down Hollywood adaptation but not read the novel, then you're cheating yourself. Go read the book -- it is rich, emotionally moving, haunting and you will never forget it.
Not a particular quest in Morrowind but more a genre: the ones that sent you into the Dwemer ruins. The quest objectives themselves were pretty superfluous but I loved the mystery and dank beauty of those deserted underground cities. All that steam-punk machinery sitting there with no explanation, the robotic spider guards etc. Amazingly atmospheric and it drew you into the of the world without ever providing nicely packaged answers about the Dwemer disappearance, or even shouting "Hey, guys, the Dwemer have TOTALLY DISAPPEARED!" It was just this puzzling aspect of the world that you could either safely ignore or get really intrigued by.
Aid Grimmel was probably my favorite. Had to spend AA's to unlock all your tradeskills, then get them all past 220 and complete a series of 7 quests to get this Signet of Might... a very long and involved quest but well thought out.
EQ was my baby for about 4 years as well. Till my wife got pregnant then I knew I had to give it up.
I've played and loved dozens of pc and console rpgs over the last 20 years and I'm amazed that I can't recall a single 'quest' I enjoyed. I guess I always thought of quests as a chore separating me from a better sword or more xp.
I do however have many fond memories of 'quests' from pen and paper RPGs like AD&D, or Shadowrun, or Star Wars. Actually I can't remember any that were boring!
I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way...and if I'm not...why then are pen and paper 'quests' so much more memorable than their pc counterparts? Maybe 'quests' were one of the things that never succesfully transitioned from the table top to the screen?
Beta testing auto-assault this weekend leaves me feeling the exact same way as the article describes, I'm jumping from one mission to the next without even reading what they are about =(...and I couldn't care less. It's a far cry from the glory days of pen and paper...the progenitor of all computer RPGs.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I don't know why, but one of the first things that jumps to mind is that part of Zelda64 where you have to run around the town and find the lady's lost cuccos, returning them all to the pen for a shiny glass bottle. That game had a lot of good quests like that, even IF nearly all of them involved collecting items. It makes the kleptomaniac in me happy. :-)
While playing Fable your sent out to do quest by these doors called demon doors and they were quest that were more than just go kill X or find me z, some of them made you think or do something very unusual. One required you to eat a bunch until you were fat. One quest required you to umm well get friendly with at least 10 ladies. I think that fable has had some of the best quest of any rpg so far because the quest were very funny and unique.
Tie Fighter really did kick so much ass it's not even funny.
While only an RPG in the FF meets Zelda kind of way, I thoroughly enjoyed Legend of Oasis. Unfortunately, since it was a Saturn-only title, only like 4 people have ever played it. It was a pretty good mix of puzle and battle and had a decent magic system involving having an elemental figure do your bidding kind of like a genie would. A close second would be Dragon Warrior II for the NES. What was really cool is that I got DWII and a year of GamePro magazine for $15. (In other words, I got DWII and a slew of adverts posing as reviews.)
I quite enjoyed that treadmill in single player. Once Ultima 9 was all patched up, I liked it too...
"Fetch me a ladder". Overwhelming were the Battle-Leprechaun hordes I had to fight to get that ladder.
My personal top three are: Secret of Mana 2 (SNES) Dragon Quest III (NES, SNES, GBC) Mario & Luigi; Superstar Saga (GBA)
had a quest where you had to solve a murder case by talking to different witnesses and suspect and thinking things through. I thought it was a nice way to capture the sense of Jedi as Mediators instead of just fighters, and it was pretty fun too.
Am i the only one old enough to remember and heartily recommend you
"The quest for Glory - So you want to be a hero?" ?
Also check out the other 4 too. Outstanding!
Come on, no Leisure Suit Larry? Game porn at its finest...
Tie Fighter really did kick so much ass it's not even funny.
True. The games that came after that (X-wing vs Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance) were good too, but Lucasarts hasn't done anything in that vein for a long time. I really wish they would though. It would give me an excuse to dig out my old joystick. They have roughly 20 years between the end of Episodes III and IV that they could develop.
C'mon, you go around beating sleeping orcs with a bludgeon so they work harder, not smarter. How much better than that does it get?
Though most of them are "fetch my hoe" or "deliver this note" or "kill me some rats" quests, there are some good story quest chains in World of Warcraft. I think my favorite ones are in the Plaguelands. The Redpath quest chain is really enjoyable.
After the fall of Darrowshire, the Redpath family was split up. The ghost of the daughter starts the chain sending you off to located the remaining living family members. Through magic you rewrite their historic battle to allow yourself to enter into the defense of the town. The last quest involves gathering up to 39 other friends to fight along side the ghostly town defenders against the undead scourge onslaught. Really an epic conclusion to an interesting fantasy story.
This is 'What Are Some of Your Favorite RPG Quests?'
that quest is from an episode of Danger Mouse, "The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse".
By far the best quest I've found in WoW is a quest that starts by talking to an old man named Tirion living off by himself on the edge of the Eastern Plaguelands. After a few "go decimate everything in the area" quests, he decides to trust you with his story, which involves his and his son Taelan's involvement in fighting the Scourge as part of the Silver Hand (in the Warcraft 3 era). Eventually he tells you Taelan joined the Scarlet Crusade, a fanatical organization that thinks everyone who's not a part of them is allied with the Scourge. To redeem him, you retrieve some various articles from Taelan's past, then enlist some help to disguise yourself as a member of the Scarlet Crusade. When you show these to Taelan, he decides he wants to be with his father again, demolishing anyone who stands in his way. (And unlike most escort quests in the game, you don't have to do anything because he hits like a truck.) [massive spoilers] In the end, he dies, and his father arrives and pledges to reform the Order of the Silver Hand. [/massive spoilers]
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
I will never forget the Glow in Fallout. The atmosphere and music were perfect, and I loved the way in which the veil was peeled away from the game's storyline.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Heathens, nearly all of you. nethack is the granddaddy of them all.
I also loved playing Wasteland with its many endings and possibilities.
...if I wanted to read garbage like that, I'd go to \.
Best RPG ever! This wasn't your typical 'go and slay the evil sorcerer or dragon' adventure. The previous Ultima games had already done that. In Quest of the Avatar, your goal was to become the Avatar by being as virtuous as possible. The game had this 'karma' system that kept score for you. If you decided to steal from shops or people your honesty points would go down and so on.
I would play this game for hours at a time and be totally thrilled each time my character or one my party members would level up in any virtue.
Long Live Lord British!
yep, almost to smithy. Super Mario RPG for the SNES, classic.
I'd settle for a complete EPs IV through VI campaign. Imperial or Alliance--it doesn't matter. X-Wing rocked and TIE Fighter is still the bomb. What they need to do in the new game is give the player command of the capital ships.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
While not exactly a quest, Ultima Lazarus contains a great example of an event (or set of events) that both really piss you off and really draw you into the game. The provisioner in Yew tells the Avatar (i.e. the player for those of you unfamiliar with Ultima) that Lord British commisioned a Map of Britannia with the Mantras for all the shrines and the Words of Power for all the dungeons, and she wants to finish the map as a 'tribute' to his memory, so she tells the Avatar that she will pay handsomely (200 gold coins) for every Mantra you tell her. This is a very good way to earn money early in the game. From her dialogue, she seemed slightly concerned with the Opression (i.e. she said 'everything is safer, but I have the feeling that I am living with a noose around my neck), and she even warns the Avatar about the Yew Captain of the Guard. It turns, out, though, that she is an undercover spy for the Opression, and every Mantra you tell her allows the Opression to destroy one more shrine (they can be restored, though). I only learned about her deception from a post on the Lazarus forums www.u5lazarus.org and I was both angry with myself for allowing greed to overwhelm good sense, and I was amazed that the game had so utterly fooled me. Many 'spies' are rather obvious, but this one caught me completely off guard. Which reminds me, I need to finish it.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
You know, Fallout and Fallout 2? The two most *amazing* computer RPGs ever? Can I get a "holla?"
Save Sam and Max!
Simply the best quests I've ever done, the quest to unlock the Dragoon job, and later (in the 50's), the quest to get the Artifact armor for the job are some of the most touching, heart warming quests ever. They have fabulous cutscenes, and the end of the AF quests made me cry. If you want to see how to do a series of quests that involves a TON of running around, this is how it's done.
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
System Shock 2 had a fantastic overarching quest, as you spent a considerable amount of time receiving communications from a scientist named Polito, as she helped direct you in rescuing what was left of the Von Braun from the nightmarish events unfolding on board. I won't give away what happens, on the off-chance that someone here hasn't played the game, but suffice to say it was one of the best plot twists ever in a game.
Come on!
In Diablo 1, in the first level of Hell, the Warlord of Blood quest was always my favorite. The fight with the warlord wasn't especially tough, but listening to the tome that gives you the quest was great. And then the rewards were always worth quite a bit.
Ignorance is not linguistic drift.
Save the good lich from the evil princess... that always makes for a good quest.
The Breakdown In Communications quest in EQ Gates Of Discord was and remains the best quest ever.
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It is certainly the most convoluted, complicated, frustrating and nearly impossible quest ever to be introduced within a game. It consists of 14 subquests in all of the zones of an EQ expansion with complicated and difficult requirements just to even enter each zone - some zones can be entered with group work, some require extreme raiding (54 person raids). Once you get into each of these zones, you generally need to obtain multiple items and flags through excessive grouping and raiding efforts (raids needing anywhere from 18 to 54 people).
This quest is so complicated it's difficult to pin an actual amount of time required to complete it, but I would say it would require a typical (if you can call those who complete it typical) player a year or two of *daily* grouping and raiding to complete.
If you want to read up on it, read about it here:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?que
For an alternative writeup see:
http://robbiem01.tripod.com/everquest/Breakdown.h
'Bureacracy' began with a quest to get your airline tickets for an upcoming company training trip.
Unfortunately, your mail has been misdelivered.
The initial challenge to retrieve your mail requires getting past an ultra-conservative deaf old lady and her parrot, a malicious llama, an ultra-paranoid, an anti-social philatelist, and an annoying geek. Depositing your advance took Herculean effort, and your health was measured by your (in-game) blood pressure. Listening to your voice messages almost killed you, and every time you mistyped a command your blood pressure went up. Summary and Wikipedia with spoilers
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
Oh hell yeah. At least they give you the finest ship in the fleet. Shields are for pussies!
:)
Nothing like doing a flyby on the containers while waiting for backup in a T/I. By the time you finished that mission and all it's objectives, you damn sure knew how to jink.
Without a doubt, NannyMUD had (and perhaps still has) the best quest system I've ever had the pleasure of playing. In NannyMUD you need both QP (quest points) as well as traditional EXP points in order to level-up. Once players reached a certain level, they became wizards, and were given the ability to script their own portions of the game and create their own quests to go along with their areas. A very novel thing for a MUD, especially in 1990.
The real beauty was the diversity and ingenuity of the quests. Many required no fighting, just a bit of logic and a little hunting around for what you need.
A few of my favorites:
* The walking castle is sweet. You spend long enough inside it that you could be anywhere by the time you leave...often without a clue about which direction is home!
@ASP.NET's parent-teacher meeting: "Little Johnny.NET is very bright, but he doesn't play well with others."
The quest that I immediately thought of was the "Please rescue my little Roofie" from BG. Yes, I know it isn't complex or thought provoking or anything, it's just my all time "laugh out loud" moment in an RPG. "Little Roofie" indeed...
In Fallout 2 I got a big kick out of any quest that sent me to New Reno, just so I could go annoy "Rocketman" Renesco. I never got tired of telling him all about my love life and asking him about that Elton John song...
Also, although it's not a quest, I loved the way that ALL of the conversations changed in Fallout 2 if you played a character with ultra-low intelligence.
(Oh wow, freaky. The anti-bot word by the Preview button is "tribal". Guess the server likes F2 too.)
i think of this of one of the best rpg's ever created. there wasn't much emphasis on quests as such, more like: there's that one thing you'll need to do and some of the side quests were merely obstacles in your way.
so the main quests was, to get out of the dungeon and YEAH, you've had learn those friggin dungeon map by heart, or you'd constantly go in circles. i just love all those tiny secrets. the well hidden buttons, or the illusional walls. i've never bothered to use any cheats or walkthroughs and thus, the game still holds mysteries for me today and i think i've played through it 20 times or more.
eob2 was great too (while eob3 really sucked hard) and the puzzles were harder than ever, but i think no other game had so much impact on me than eob1. i'm still playing it today from time to time.
this type of game becomes a rarity. today you've got automaps, log and questbooks. there's virtually nothing left to do any more.
There's really nothing like pen & paper RPGs (well, aside from those who go so far as to play Live Acting RPs). Some people still frown upon them, but playing D&D or whatever doesn't make you a geek.
Creating a character that mirrors my own strengths and weaknesses, morals, thoughts, etc. makes me feel like I'm not simply playing a game; it's as if I'm playing an alternate reality of myself. In the same way that Comic Book writers create their characters and write them as an extension of themselves, I act out the part of my hero/villain/whatever.
The best quests are not the ones you can repeat, but the ones that make you think how YOU would think and choose from innumerable courses of action.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
myth had a mission at the end
in the mission, a dwarf was carrying the head of the boss fallen lord, balor
(the head actually talked to you too)
you had to move the dwarf close to a deep pit and throw the head in,
but the thing is if you didnt do it correctly, soulblighter (a guy whos missing part of his face) would come in and stomp the dwarf
you had to run units in at different angles to throw soulblighter off course
My favorite quest in World of Warcraft was "Leap of Faith". Sure, it wasn't difficult, didn't take long, and didn't have a great reward, but it was probably the most unique one I encountered in the game. It was a random discovery while I was exploring a new zone, and made the exploration well worth it.
I'd call most of the game up until near the end a giant quest. I love how it just went from one thing immediately to another with little in between. It was far from doing the same things over and over again. It got me hooked and I played it obsessively for some time. I still go back to it once in a blue moon.
Sometimes I comment just to hear myself typing.
This is a problem of CRPGs and probably the reason why I don't remember anything particularly enjoyable (OK, some were funny, but that's about it). Really noteworthy "quests" were always the domain of adventure games (you know, good old Infocom and Sierra stuff etc.)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
A newer x-wing or tie fighter game would be great. I never got to play the newer(old now) games in the series. They could really shine on newer computers(or consoles if you used a pause menu for more advanced commands like energy management). Being able to fly rigth down to a planet or through the second death star would be great.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
The best quest in WOW is taming the rats in the deeprun tram! the flute is tons of fun!
It is virtually impossible to create RPG quests that are not Fedex, dialogue, or kill quests. That is the way the human interacts with the game: by moving objects, going through conversations, and killing things. What makes a quest interesting is the motive you have for doing these things. It is especially cool to have quests surprise you in some way, or if the outcome of the quest determines different ways in which the story will continue. In that vein, the best quests are found in story-driven games, such as Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and the top dog of them all: Planescape Torment.
Chosen, find Vic in Klamath and go recover the holy GECK. You could basically do whatever you wanted in the meantime in a large, immersive world with lots of colorful distractions. You could run through the whole game as an evil childkiller or slaver if you wanted. ;-)
Fallout was a good game in it's own right, but I found fallout II to be a larger and more interesting game overall.
As an aside, the worst quests in recent memory were impossible quests in EVE where you have to go fight someone incredibly difficult or do a courier over 25 jumps. All while trying to avoid player and NPC pirates.
Admittedly, GTA is not really an RPG, however, it still combines solid storytelling with interesting quests. The thing that GTA does better than any other questing game is the intermingling of side-quests and story quests. You never find yourself in a situation where you are constantly doing pointless collection quests, and you never get too bogged down with story-heavy low-action quests. I give GTA a lot of credit for the depth of the gameplay, when it comes to questing. I have to give BG2 a mention, of course. It was an awesome game, but I think GTA trumps it, when it comes to questing, because BG2 was soooooo story heavy. it was rather frustrating to have to figure out why Imoen is being so quiet when I'm in the middle of doing a quest.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Another vote for PS:Torment. Definitely the best CRPG ever, both overall and in terms of:
* Plot
* Interaction with NPCs
* Interaction among NPCs
* Best sidekick/party member (Mort, a lecherous floating skull who gets a *lot* of great lines.)
I also loved the part where you can play with a toy adventurer. Short, but priceless.
My runners up are Fallout 1, Balder's Gate 2, and Fallout 2.
I thought the quest to find Manrik's wife in Wow was pretty interesting. A lot of the quests involve killing X of a creature or FedExing an item, but this one involved finding an Orc's wife that was lost in the plains of the Barrens during a battle. It seemed like a pretty simple Fedex quest, until you realize that Manrik's wife is actually a corpse in a non-descript hut. You come back to Manrik and report the news and he solemnly says he understands, with no further conversation. It ends up having a lot of emotion in very little words.
(Of course, now that more 14-year olds have gotten into the game it's lost its flavor. Shouts of "Where's Mankik's wife?" echo across the Barrens every 5 minutes. When I finished the quest the first week the game was out, it was still new and fresh and held some weight).
What I think they did cool with Warcraft is make the story optional. You can play the entire game and not really care about the history of the world, or you could read the books scattered about the continents and become an expert on the history. It's optional. Same thing with the Elder Scrolls series. When you give players an option like that, the game appeals to a much broader audience.
Nethack is the best and only quest. There are no others...
I've done lots of escort quests, and they are all truly annoying. There is one which is very different. its a timed escort quest. There's a Turtle in Tanaris who wants you to help him find his wife. you have 30 min to lead him diagonally across Tanaris. Seems easy, but he moves at standard speed, so if you have speed buffs on your boots you have to be carefull not to lose him. plus, you have to try and avoid running into too many bad guys. Since I'm not a healer, I have to regen Health after most battles, so, that added time to the quest. In the end, I managed to accomplish it with about 5 min to spare, but it was a heck of alot more fun than following another dude at his pace. (especially the fscking mechanical chicken in Feralas, a pox on his non-existent soul.)
Ira
Give the character an Omnicient (in the now) TARDIS that's very precice, but very brief in what it tells them. Tell them to go back into the past to right some minor wrong that snowballs into world-changing events, like burning down a minor library or something. Then watch as they keep going back in time just far enough to cause the events they're observing.
Player1: Tardis, where is player 2 right now and what is she doing? Tardis: 3.2 kilometers, 30degrees east-north-east of our current time-position, rolling over and over and over Player1: Take me there. Tardis: When? Player1: 15 seconds Ago. Tardis appears in the middle of the road directly in front of Player2's truck... Player2: Meeeerde! (fails driving check...)
Fighting the lvl 52 Chicken in Felwood for the warlock class quest is fun! El Polo Grando must die!
[font face=terminal] The Computer thanks for you for your debriefing. Please report to the reclamation department for your introduction to the Waste Management System.[/font]
BIGstan!
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Return the DVD to the store in Evergreen.
The final battle was just awesome.
I still love the quest in Ultima IV. It was such a strange set of conditions to become an avatar which included how you reacted in battle (never start a battle, but allow non-evil creatures to retreat is showing justice & compassion).
As for Infocom games, I can think of several. THHGTTG game was evil, but good. The Spellbreaker trilogy was mind-bendingly hard but very poetic. And another good one based on the Infocom engine, but not by Infocom, was "So Far". That was a marathon of a text-adventure game!
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
My favourite is the marble quest. Encourages searching and exploring the entire MUD. I've only found 5 marbles, but I've only explored 1300 of the 113000 rooms, I think there are hundreds of marbles. It is satifying finding them as they are hidden in some strange places.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Being able to fly rigth down to a planet or through the second death star would be great.
IIRC, in X-Wing Alliance you do end up flying into the second death star. And it was great.
QG II was my favorite of the whole series!!!! You have royally made my day.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.