TR_Mainland Quest Pack Brainstorming

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Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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At the last Discord meeting and a half, we discussed the possibility of releasing a quest expansion pack for TR, which would add more quests to TR_Mainland as well as some breadcrumbs leading from Vvardenfell or TR_Mainland to the new content in TR_Preview.

We’ll be discussing this in more detail on tis upcoming Saturday meeting, but I thought I’d open up a thread here for people to start brainstorming in.

Have at!

Ateiggaer's picture
Ateiggaer
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For which regions exactly, and what type of quests? Miscellaneous?

Cheers

Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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TR_Mainland, which includes the Telvannis District and the Sacred Lands. (I want to say the Mephalan Vales and Molagreahd also?)

Quest types: breadcrumbs from Vvardenfell into TR lands, and breadcrumbs from the above districts into some of our almost-ready regions, like around Old Ebonheart and into the other Indoril areas.

The idea of a Main Quest for TR. And if/how to tie it into the vanilla main quest.

I’m also going to play around see what else may be lacking that we could tackle. But generally, any towns or regions that feel empty.   

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I think you going rmade this lands first, lol, Like Helnim issues with Telvanni part, remade Telvanni islands (as I heared in one of the interwievs, here can be a lot awesome stuff like giant netches with huses on them and some flora and fauna overhaul like it was for Thirr Valley), I also made some posts back then about what and how change in FirewatcH city, because now it looks awesome, but really little outdated, like too quadratish wall and a lot empty parts inside. Also, about some not big akamora and necrom changes you talk too if I remember it correctly.

   But it compleatly true that this very big area has no enough quests. If you need some connection with Vvardenfell most easest way is to add characters wha actually leaves island and go to mainland, like Tashpi Ashibael if you in magic guild quests chose not to kill her, player can find her in Mainland where she gives more quests. Another variant – a lot connection and quests with Calderam magic guild, like with Emelia Duronia because in vanilla game they has no quests exept one guy in official plugin. 

About mine quest of TR I really think that best variant is extend Tribunal minequst outside the city, add quest with more investigation about who try to assassinate you, not just teleportation to the city, and you need find clockwork city by yourself, not just telepartation etc.

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Kevaar
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Right now I’d like to focus on just quests, not region revamps. Because all our interior/exterior devs will be focusing on getting the TR_Preview stuff ready to go. Revamping Telvannis is last on the list.

Hm, along the lines of extending Tribunal, going more into the role of Sotha Sil and Alandro Sul in the whole Nerevarine thing might be interesting to explore. Almalexia and Vivec are well covered in the official releases, and while I understand the thematic choice of intentionally leaving Sotha Sil in the dark because he’s the god of mystery, I think we could stand to skirt a few edges to flesh his role out a bit more.

And poor Alandro Sul got almost nothing in vanilla, despite being the reason the Ashlanders all hate the Tribunal. (I would love me some more Ashlander lore in general; I know TR has so far not been touching them which I find sad...)

For the same reasons, delving into Dagoth Ur’s motivations might also be possible.

I played through a bit of Helnim and Ildrim (Darnim) and have some ideas for random quests I may put up in the asset browser soon, but I did find the little Imperial Archaelogical Society hanging out without any quests. Might be good to do a mini quest series for them. Perhaps they stumble on the quest hook that leads into the Sotha Sil/Alandro Sul thing and sends you gallivanting all about TR? As a breadcrumb, perhaps the mages in Caldera point you to them.

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If you talk about Archeologists I find that quests on north, where they on boat close to underwater dwemer ruins, there can be much, much more quests. If remade compleatly this dungeon, here can be very big questline – full expedition. Like just destroy all dwemer robots on upper levels is just first quest. After you do this, you need find another exit to dungeon that all archeologists can go to the dungeon, and after that there can be hell lot of quests to go deeper and deeper in labyrinths of this acient city. But this is only my dreams.  :)

About revamping – I say that this is really major issue, for me as player revamping of area from Thirr Valley to Tellvani islands to do them in one quality mybe more major than even do new lands, because a lot potential players don't want play TR because even finished lands looks awesome, but unfinished, so they just wait when something will be finnaly maded. But it just my silly opinion… never mind.
Sad that my skills in CS not good to TR standarts :(

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As a player, I would be more excited for anything which brings a preview region closer to an official release. I assume you have thought about this, but why not focus on creating quests in the Thirr River Valley or Old Ebonheart?

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I agree with fufufu.
Although I understand that this “pack” would bring more interest in what’s to come, and perhaps it could be made in little time (were it simple enough), I believe the project would benefit more with the conclusion of regions such as Thirr and OE. Adding a couple quests, even if simple misc ones, would be enough to bring more people in.
Just my 0.02$.

(Thanks to Minttu Hynninen for giving me permission to use the image in my avatar.)

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For what it’s worth, I think fufufu and daedren are right. It’d be better to keep on moving with completing new regions.

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Kevaar
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I’ve been pondering over the replies and ideas, and a revamp or adding a huge amount of quests probably isn’t the best goal for this, though we’d also have to talk more during the meeting.

My proposal:
--2-4 breadcrumb quests leading specifically into the new areas, like Thirr or Old Ebonheart. Two coming down from Telvannis, two from Vvardenfell, say.
--1 mini quest series (5-ish quests) to do with the Imperial Archaelogical society. So much love was put into that building and NPCs, but I don’t think it ever had any quests added. This can also serve as a bread crumb, with Caldera Mages Guild sending the player over to help their colleagues in the I.A.S.
--1 mini quest series (3-ish quests) for the Imperial Legion in the Watch of Fire (not sure why the auto-correct keeps complaining about that town name). The Watch-of-Fire has some of the weaker writing, and a small Imperial Legion presence. It would be a good place to expand on the idea of the Legions being pulled out of the province and the chaos this may cause among the outlanders living there.
--If we go the route of having a main quest, I think this would be best fleshed out in the Sacred Lands and Necrom area, so I’d be leaving them alone this go around.
--Finally, possibly some miscellaneous quests scattered about if anyone coming to the meeting has any particularly good ideas. 

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Misc quest idea for the sacred lands:

The voice to calm me down
 

 

 

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For the imperial archaeological society, I think I have something!

Quest 1
- The society has heard of a dunmeric ancestral tomb with a hidden entrance to an underground dwemer ruin (on the mainland)
- The s. sends the player to the person who talked about that
- after talking to that person the player has to verify that the ruin is actually there and come back to the questgiver

Quest 2
- The society wants to investigate the ruin with a team of specialists
- To get the permission to do that, the society has to contact the family whose ancestors are buried in said tomb
- The player is sent to the family in order to convice them of the expedition being necessary/important
  → argument is the following: If there is a secret entrance to a dwemer ruin, why is it there? What had the dunmeric family to do with that?

Quest 3
- the player has to defeat the dwemer centurions, spheres and spiders inside the ruin and the ancestors inside the tomb to get the place safe
- ...so the expedition can go inside the ruin

Quest 4
- The expedition finds a locked door and a strange mechanism which should open it
- the player has to solve a riddle to get the mechanism to work and open the door
- inside the formerly locked room the player finds more dwemer machine warriors
- ...and ancient scriptures about a secret dwemeric method of forging metal (a suggestion)
- the dudes at the society explain that this method seemed either to be very new, shortly before the disappereance of the dwemer, or forgotten, because nobody ever found dwemeric items that were forged this way

Quest 5
- after further studying the ancient texts its clear that for that mysterious method a special forge is required, which doesnt exist in the hidden ruin the player explored
- The society has detected another ruin which maybe could have such a forge. The player is sent to that ruin
- ...and finds the forge and a few special dwemeric weapons (maybe vanilla with some special enchantment and named “special forged” ;p)

Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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Adding to this my idea for a Imperial Legion quest in Fire.

Background: Watch-of-Fire recently received orders to halve their garrison, with half of their soldiers returning home. The town is in some chaos as a result. The two officers that the player gets the following quests from should not be the main Imperial Legion quest-giver for this town, as they may disappear by the end of the questline.     

Quest 1) Someone left a guar in the courtyard. None of the Imperials know how to move it because it is a guar, an exotic animal, and doesn’t obey any of their commands. The player is asked to move it. They can go around talking to the natives to figure out that guars really like <insert herb here>, and so they can bring that herb to the guar. Upon waving it near the guar’s nose, the guar follows them. Different endings depending on where the guar is moved (outside the walls, to a local tanner’s, to the tavern/stables), but the player gets the full reward so long as the guar is out of the courtyard. (If they end up killing the guar, they get a small reward, saying now someone has to haul the stinky thing away and pitch it into the harbor/garbage pile).

Quest 2) Somehow or another, the guar ends up dead floating in the harbor. Your angry officer yells at you for not having down the job properly and tells you to go dispose of it (by finding the corpse and clicking dispose of corpse...) If the player protests saying they DID dispose of it properly, in a drill sergeant fashion the officer says he doesn’t care, just go and do the job right this time. The player can dispose the corpse and get rid of it—but they may notice floating near the body and/or tucked against an underwater rock are some bottles of skooma and packets of moonsugar. The guar apparently disgorged these upon dying. If the player takes these to the officer, the officer takes them and thanks them for doing the right thing, not offering any hints as to why the guar had been carrying this stuff. If the player takes these to someone else in town (a Khajiit or Dunmer native), they get rumors and grumbles about how the Imperial Legion hasn’t been doing their job since their garrison was reduced, and advising the player to just sell them instead of giving them to the officer because they would find it more profitable in the long run.

Quest 3) The officer is now getting reports that the locals have been picking on Legion soldiers. He says he’s sure it’s because of the reduced garrison and that they’re trying to get rid of the Imperials, as it’s not secret Morrowind hates the Empire. To be sure you do the job right this time, he comes with you to the local tavern (same one the bullies appear at in that Fighter’s Guild quest, to keep a sense of continuity!). When you enter the tavern, he walks up to a trio of Dunmer and tells you to help back him up in showing these discontents what’s what. Several things can happen at this point—

A) This ending can come about two ways: one if the player manages to talk down the Dunmer politely, or if the Dunmer becomes upset enough to attack the officer and the officer dies. Then, the Dunmer tells you that his kind hasn’t been causing trouble; that it’s the Imperial Legion who has been responsible for the skooma addicts. This should be a non sequitor, but the Dunmer refuses to say anything more about it when he realizes you don’t know what he’s talking about. If asked about the skooma thing, the officer just says they are working on it.

B) This ending can also come about two ways: One is if the player intimidates the Dunmer, and the officer subsequently arrests the Dunmer. The other is if the Dunmer attacks and all three are killed. The officer thanks you for helping quell the uprising and gives you a reward.

Quest 4) The player now gets orders from a new higher up, and they are asked to break up a skooma smuggling ring. They go there to find some of the bandits are actually Imperial Legion soldiers. Although most of these attack the player, one at the end of the cavern forcegreets the player and begs to have his life spared. The player can either kill him or bring him back for a trial. Before entering the Imperial Legion headquarters, the arrest soldier again forcegreets the player. He thanks the player for sparing him, and tells the player that they should know the whole raid on the skooma ring was a setup. The player was proving themselves to be too troublesome and the higher ups were trying to get rid of them. He tells that the real leadership of the smuggling ring are the officers themselves, who were looking for extra ways to pad their pockets once the rest of the Legion was withdrawn and salaries were cut. He asks to be allowed to let go, and advises the player to leave the area.

Quest 5-ish) Whether the player shows up to the officer with the arrested skooma soldier in tow or allowed the arrested skooma soldier to escape or killed the skooma soldier….the officer is surprised to see them. Though they don’t say this in so many terms, they clearly expected the player to be killed. They offer the player a deal—they can keep quiet about the skooma trade and the officer will give them a cut of the proceeds (2000 gold) and give them a promotion. The player can either accept this and the quest ends, or they can report to some other officer about the corruption. If they report it to someone inside the Watch-of-Fire, they are not believed and threatened. If they report it to someone outside the Watch-of-Fire, they are given a much smaller reward (400 gold) and a promotion, and next time they return to the Watch-of-Fire, the officer has been replaced with some other NPC. The other Imperial Legion members in the Watch-of-Fire will no longer like the player as much, however, suggesting most of the fort has been in on the conspiracy...

 

Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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Ateiggaer

Misc quest idea for the sacred lands:

The voice to calm me down
 

 

 

Stick this in the asset browser for me, will ya? And be sure to choose a town!

NathanJ

For the imperial archaeological society, I think I have something!

Quest 1
- The society has heard of a dunmeric ancestral tomb with a hidden entrance to an underground dwemer ruin (on the mainland)
- The s. sends the player to the person who talked about that
- after talking to that person the player has to verify that the ruin is actually there and come back to the questgiver

Quest 2
- The society wants to investigate the ruin with a team of specialists
- To get the permission to do that, the society has to contact the family whose ancestors are buried in said tomb
- The player is sent to the family in order to convice them of the expedition being necessary/important
  → argument is the following: If there is a secret entrance to a dwemer ruin, why is it there? What had the dunmeric family to do with that?

Quest 3
- the player has to defeat the dwemer centurions, spheres and spiders inside the ruin and the ancestors inside the tomb to get the place safe
- ...so the expedition can go inside the ruin

Quest 4
- The expedition finds a locked door and a strange mechanism which should open it
- the player has to solve a riddle to get the mechanism to work and open the door
- inside the formerly locked room the player finds more dwemer machine warriors
- ...and ancient scriptures about a secret dwemeric method of forging metal (a suggestion)
- the dudes at the society explain that this method seemed either to be very new, shortly before the disappereance of the dwemer, or forgotten, because nobody ever found dwemeric items that were forged this way

Quest 5
- after further studying the ancient texts its clear that for that mysterious method a special forge is required, which doesnt exist in the hidden ruin the player explored
- The society has detected another ruin which maybe could have such a forge. The player is sent to that ruin
- ...and finds the forge and a few special dwemeric weapons (maybe vanilla with some special enchantment and named “special forged” ;p)

Seems fine as is, but do you think we could tie the personalities of the IAS into it to give the plot a little more kick? The IAS NPCs have a lot of character to them, and I think it’d be a shame to not brng this into any quests written for them. This also sounds like a pretty straight-forward dungeon crawling questline, and I think it could be improved with a few mini-plots laced into it for complexity and depth.

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On it!

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Purely theoretical unimportant suggestion: Archaeology would have the player delve deeper and deeper, referencing things they don’t quite find yet. But at the end of the day it should have some payoff.

Let’s stumble upon some records about an enemy or former confidant of Dumac Dwarf King plotting to do something in the ancient past. They vanished with the rest of the Dwemer, but whatever plot this undefined character sent in motion gets uncovered by the player and has real consequences now.

Oops Player! You’ve unleashed X. Now you’ve got to deal with it.

Brainstorming: Is it a super weapon? Is it a vault of souls?

Who else could we add to spice things up and keep it from being a generic dungeon crawl? Side character. A Dewmer spectre whom retained their intelligence? Or a Dewmer spectre whom is trapped in the moment before their death, thinking everything is hunky-dory with the state of things and only sees the player as another Dwemer for some reason.

Use some of it, use none of it. Just random thoughts that popped into my head.

Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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Dropping another note to self for an area that needs quest attention: Necrom!

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MinerMan60101
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Could have a low ranking temple member from vanilla MW want their relative’s remains to be prepared in necrom, but doesn’t have the money to get there/can’t make the journey because of their duties, so they task the player with taking the remains there (with maybe a minimum required rank)

Kevaar's picture
Kevaar
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MinerMan60101

Could have a low ranking temple member from vanilla MW want their relative’s remains to be prepared in necrom, but doesn’t have the money to get there/can’t make the journey because of their duties, so they task the player with taking the remains there (with maybe a minimum required rank)

I think we have about three quests involving carting remains around already, so I’d steer clear of this trope in favor of something else.

Perhaps there’s a way to play with the fact Nerevar’s bonewalker is in Necrom? For a player doing the main quest, I imagine being let in to see that would be trippy.

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MinerMan60101
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Maybe the temple member has a mother living in necrom, and wants the player to bring her a gift, but instead finds her murdered. The player can then figure out who did it, and can choose whether to tell the temple member and when in the quest to do so.

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Kevaar
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Hokay, and here’s my attempt for a Necrom plotline involving the Main Quest. http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/asset/foul-murder-plotline

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Iskuss1418
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You know the bonewalker builders in Necrom. Well the player could talk to one of them and find out that they are behind on an order of bonewalkers. The reason could be that a family member is sick, and the builder had to take care of them instead of working. Anyway, the guy could ask the PC to help him make a batch of bonewalkers, and the player would have to gather the right ingredients, find a suitable body,  ect. The ingredients could be bonemeal, void salts, gravedust, human flesh, ect. The body could be picked up by talking to a few people that the builder said might be willing to donate or sell a corpse to you. Maybe one option is legitimate, but the other requires the player to kill someone for the body. During the quest the player could give the sick family member a cure disease potion or cast a spell to heal them, and get paid more by the builder. 

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   If what we want is to get people to the mainland ASAP, then one needs to remember what attracts players from any level to follow a questline: suspense. Perhaps some sort of mystery would do the job, like trying to find some missing people by following a breadcrumb trail of notes all across the mainland? The important thing here is that there must be character stakes of some kind if you want the player to go at the fastest speed possible, so it is important that characters sending the player to and fro the mainland be interesting and take second top priority to good quest design.

Overall I feel the best way in general genre direction would be mystery of some kind, for nothing captivates the mind more than a good mystery.

EDIT: Idea popped in me head. If archaeological institution is a possible motif that one feels must be used, there are many excellent ways to make suspenseful quests and other stories with it that attracts players. Usually that kind of story in the safest sense would be the “ancient forgotten Old One unearthed” tale where the player is following mysterious goings on til’ it is learned, as per the usual, that an ancient eldritch being or some other harmful thing was released by archaeological progress. I would recommend using something similar to this in themes if you want to maintain the powerless feeling of players and the general theme in Morrowind of destruction and rebirth. Fair warning though, this has been done to a very good extent by both Oblivion and Skyrim, so it will feel familiar/retreaded if anyone plans do to EXACTLY this, so it may be wise to use something based on it, but distinctive enough that can escape the faults of it.

Ol’ Aze