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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 never get bored playing BG2.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Is completing all the quests in Adventure (Atari 2600) to kill the gold dragon.
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..
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.
Oh hell yeah.
Planescape is really one of the only RPGs to have actual storylines, as opposed to maps or enemy sets to navigate or eliminate.
The implicit sidequest to find the truth behind your beloved is probably the best in all of CRPGdom.
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.
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.
Getting the Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Ya, it's not technically an RPG but it's a great quest.
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.
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. :-)
Tie Fighter really did kick so much ass it's not even funny.
My personal top three are: Secret of Mana 2 (SNES) Dragon Quest III (NES, SNES, GBC) Mario & Luigi; Superstar Saga (GBA)
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.
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.
Stephan's Penultima series was a riot...a total satire on RPG... i was sold when i saw the edge of the map having lil hex grids. The humour factor nailed me for that one.
Whenever I think of NWN it's his series that comes to mind.
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."
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."
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.
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.