Thread: Quest Design
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Old 03-30-2010, 01:29 PM   #5
Estarra
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Home MUD: Lusternia
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Re: Quest Design

I agree that, where possible, you should try to tweak your story to make it as believable as possible when it comes to resetting. For example, one of my favorite quests in Lusternia is the Stewartsville Murder Mystery, which is basically a play on Clue. However, at the end of the quest, it is revealed that the murdered victim is - dum dum DUM! - not really dead but actually survived and is in hiding until the murder suspect is apprehended. Of course, it begs the question why her friends keep attempting to murder her!

On the other hand, I wouldn't forgo developing a good quest even if it doesn't make perfect sense that it keeps repeating. For example, how many quests involve killing the Big Baddie? Is everyone in the world undead so that they keep coming back? (Heh, maybe!) There is some satisfaction for killing the Goblin King or the Mad Scientist, so those are quests I'd still develop even if it doesn't make sense that it resets. Players generally will suspend their disbelief in that department.

But, again, where possible, I'll try to tweak it so when a quest recurs, its somewhat logical. Another example would be: A quest to free a village unknowingly enslaved by an evil cult recurs as the evil cult has in its possession the ability to cast a spell of amnesia which is also part of the enslavement process.

Along those lines, there's also persistent quests, or a quest where the result is permanent until players undo it. Freeing the Evil Undead Priestess unleashes a permanent plague of undead in the mountains until she is slain. Or repairing the machine that opens a rift that lets loose the monsters from another dimension is permanent until said machine is destroyed.
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