Main quests, quests in general and world building

[Stalker]

As you can see from our MW experience building stuff in independant layers haven't really worked. Quests were harder to make because locations were not built specifically for those quests. They were like floating in mid air. What we need, or at least I think we need, is to tie in quests with world building. I can bet 100kg of scrap metal that Beth did like that when they were doing MW and Ob. So I think we must decided two things:
1) will we have MQ in HF province ?
2) will we actually DO MQ in HF province ?

If both answers are "yes" than I guess we MUST tie in a huge chunk of world building to MQ plot.

Comments, suggestions are welcome. Send all flames to billgates@microsoft.com

[PoHa!]

[Edit]Yes, I do believe we need a main quest, and I do believe it needs to tie in heavily in World Building. Here be my quick ideas:

I would like to propose the obvious, that Oblivion Gates have opened in HF too. Though they would obviously have to close with the completion of OB mainquest, they could just as well have political/social repercussions...

[Vholdrian]

Yeah, well a main quest is very cool, and if we can realize it, it should be made. I like PoHa's idea of the oblivion gates, but it can also be a MQ about the king of Hammerfell, or two tribes that get involved in a war and you have to help one, you can choose... there are endless options...

[Mr. Sorry of Balmora]

you almost got me Stalker i was just about to write an email when i looked at the name


the answers are
1) Yes
2) You must say yes to this one if you stated yes in question 1) or your a friggin idiot.
It's basicly the same question rewriten...
Who says yes and no to the same question?

[Lud]

I'm in favour of an MQ for Hammerfell. The Redguards are none-too-fond of the Imperials, so a faction of Redguards using the turmoil in Cyrodiil to strike a blow for independance seems likely to me. (something similar happened in Ireland during WWI)

[Mr. Sorry of Balmora]

i think most races of Tamriel would like to kick the Empire when it's down and take over(Nords) or declare independience(Morrowind)

[Colhir]

I'm all for Ludovic's idea of a tribe/faction of redguards trying to over throw the Imperials.

but

1. who would the player help, Imperial or Redguard?

2. The outcome if the Redguard were succesful would change lore quite alot.

a way round this would be to make the Redguard the "baddies" as such. they are fighting for freedom but they are doing it in a terrorist sort of way and planning to do more than just kick the Imperials out of Hammerfell.

but who says this is the main story so i'll just shut up now.

[Orix]

Oh boy, I bet Sload's going to have a field day when he finds this topic.

I'm not sure about a MQ, I mean, we could basically have 3 or so very large quests for various main guilds which would definately fill hammerfell with plenty of content.

But then again, what is the point of doing any province without some large story building up behind it? Sure, its a pretty landscape, filled with minor quests here and there, but apart from that it wont feel like much without some reason for it being there other than to look nice.

[Swiftoak]

It would be wise to put this on hold until the exp packs (if) they come out. Who knows, maybe bethesda may be working on HF and when it comes out it will be a atotal waste of work. And the time will give us a chance to learn about the new CS, so we dont come up with another OB version of our previous Map 1. But Im 100% for a MQ in HF.

[Stalker]

So do you want us to wait another few years before Beth releases expansions unti we start working on HF ?

[Orix]

I'm betting 1p that Bethesda will absolutely will not do an entire other province, especially Hammerfell. I mean, sure they have the terrain gen and whatnot, but there's no way they would be able to just churn out a whole other province with as much content/npcs as Oblivion claims to have surely?

Perhaps some small island in Topal bay or some small addition to Cyrodil slightly going into another province maybe, and thats even *if* they bother with expansions. They may just aim to make money of the mini-mods like horse armour and holidays like they have planned....

In hindsight, who knows what they'll do, could be Elsweyr or maybe even adding in crossbows, one thing is for certain though, considering the amount of work already gone into making Hammerfell, it would be a great waste of everyone's time if we turned back on it out of paranoia.

Why dont we just ask if they plan to do Hammerfell? I doubt they'll give us an answer but if they know we're doing Hammerfell there may be a slight chance they'll avoid it?

[The Old Ye Bard]

I don't think it would be such a great idea if we tie the main quest of Hammerfell into the events of Cryodil.
The main quest of hammerfell should be something more relevant to hammerfell itself like something to do with pirates or something like that.
Obviously there will have to be numerous quests to do with the daedra coming through from oblivion but it would be a bit repedative to do a second main quest about it.
also i think that the main quest of Cryodil should be done before the mainquest of hammerfell is availible because i think a daedra invasion from oblivion would cause a bit of trouble making the mainquest of hammerfell inaccessable until the problem was stopped.

[Jacurutu]

I agree that the Hammerfell main-quest must come after the Oblivion main quest, but for different reasons. The whole of Tamriel will be in chaos as a result of the Daedric invasion of the continent. Power structures across the provinces will be shattered, and most people and organizations will be fighting more for their own survival than for political power. However, this won't be the case for everyone. One aspect of designing Hammerfell we must consider is how the various factions might use the Daedric invasion to their advantage (and vice-versa). The post-invasion landscape of Tamriel will be shaped by the allegiances/betrayals of the invasion era. This means that a lot of responsibility will fall on BoT, particularly for explaining the world of Hammerfell as we create it.

Furthermore, we must consider whether or not a sizeable Daedric force will continue to exist once the Daedra are defeated by the player. It will be a very different world and main quest if they are indeed banished with the end of the invasion and closing of the portals, or if a considerable number of the invasion's forces still remain.

---

I believe that the Daedric invasion will largely be conceived by Tamriel's population as a failure of the Empire. The disarray brought by this failure will probably be seen as a sign that a) the Empire is a weak organization from which the provinces can attain freedom and that b) the Empire cannot actually defend itself or its provinces. Therefore, the people of Hammerfell would likely be ready to fight the Empire.

First, take into account that in this line of reasoning, I am basically assuming that the Empire has lost its hold on Hammerfell -- they may hold a town or two, but their influence over the province as a whole no longer exists. That said, there are a number of questions which we will need to address. First, do the Imperials seek to regain their lost provinces, or will they instead focus on rebuilding their own homeland? Hopefully, the game will give us a sense of the answer to this question. Second, we must consider the resources at the Empire's disposal for regaining their lost territories. Certainly, their military will be largely destroyed by fighting the Daedra, thus largely weakening their ability to reconquer Tamriel. Subversion will have to play a large part of their conquest plans, should they exist.

-To Be Continued-

[Nomadic1]

Why is everyone jumping to make a MQ for HF, when we don't even know if the MQ in Oblivion affects Hammerfell in some way (lorewise) or not? It seems silly and people will be disappointed when their favourite MQ proposals won't work with lore.

Back to the topic at hand, I think a MQ will be necessary for Hammerfell. It will tie things all together, and give any downloaders a focus. Personally, I won't care much at all about the MQ though, and I doubt I would play it (I might help make it in any way possible for me though).

[Stalker]

Well I was not asking for MQ promosals yet. I was asking for general insight.

[CommonsNat]

I think it would be wise to prepare and draft a few good ideas for a main quest. Even if the new lore does shoot down a few ideas, we'll have others ready. If there is going to be one, and there better be since we're doing HF, then it should have to do at least somewhat with OB's MQ.

The MQ tieing in with world building would be good, but if we're going to, then we better start planning soon.

[Swiftoak]

So do you want us to wait another few years before Beth releases expansions unti we start working on HF ?

Few years? Dont those exps come a few months after? Like I'm just listing all the possibilites.

[Sload]

Oh boy, I bet Sload's going to have a field day when he finds this topic.

Here's Sload's field day:

I don't like having a mainquest. I think mainquests are dumb, and if we build a world with a main quest in mind and do things in that world specifically for the mainquest, we have no real option to not do the mainquest or to do a different main quest. Stalker, can you imagine doing something like removing the Bal Oyra quest on a mod-wide scale?

[Mr. Sorry of Balmora]

It would be wise to put this on hold until the exp packs (if) they come out. Who knows, maybe bethesda may be working on HF and when it comes out it will be a atotal waste of work. And the time will give us a chance to learn about the new CS, so we dont come up with another OB version of our previous Map 1. But Im 100% for a MQ in HF.

and what if their halfway throught development on "TES V: The Fourth Era" before they release an expansion for us?

[Sload]

Oh, I forgot. Building quests in a world, rather than building a world with quests in mind, is not difficult and has nothing to do with why quests failed on Morrowind. In fact, it's easier to write quests if you have something to start with. That isn't to say that altering the world slightly after its been made to make everything fit is a problem.

[CommonsNat]

I think mainquests are dumb, and if we build a world with a main quest in mind and do things in that world specifically for the mainquest, we have no real option to not do the mainquest or to do a different main quest.

Do you mean the player has no real option in the game not to do the main quest? Or do you mean us making the MQ?

If the former then I have this to say: I never really felt obligated to do the MQ in TES3, in fact, I haven't ever gotten around to finishing it. If we make a MQ and an abundant amount of Miscallaneous or Faction quests, then the player can choose whatever (s)he'd want to play.

Also I don't understand your meaning here: "or to do a different main quest."

[Sload]

We means us the modding team. If the world is built with certain things for a main quest, it is an enormous hassle to do anything but make that main quest.

[CommonsNat]

I'm fairly sure the Bethesda made TES 3 and 4's game world with their MQ in mind, at least to a moderate extent. Unless the Hammerfell MQ was very epic and affected every city and town enough so that advancing in the MQ would prevent you from doing quests, meeting people, or visiting places, I don't see much of a problem.

[Orix]

One main quest would take pretty much every scripter working for on one quest line for a long time.

But what would you propose? That we have a large collection of smaller questlines for guilds? Or minor quests for many single NPCs?

Personally I like didnt start the main quest in TES3 for a long time either, must have been on my 3rd character that I truely went through it all. Yet once I'd been through it, it had truely kicked the ass of any guild I'd worked for in Morrowind, perhaps because it had been the main focus of work?

The Tribunal and Bloodmoon main quests, although so much smaller were great on their own, while they didnt outshine the Morrowind mainquest in terms of story, it seemed they were certainly more inventive with the CS. I suppose its possible we could focus on several smaller but extremely well planned (in terms of both story and creativity) main quests?

[Saibot]

I agree with sload. If we incorporate a specific main quest with the world building, and somewhere down the line decide that that's not the MQ we want to make we would have to change what weve already made to coincide with a different MQ. That sounds to me like a serious waste of time.

[CommonsNat]

That's why we should decide on a MQ before we start building. We won't be starting Hamerfell until after OB comes out(obviously), so after we play OB and gather any new lore from Hammerfell, nothing will change. General details of a a few different MQ ideas should be discussed and agreed upon, possibly two or three, though one should cut it unless the general details of the plot need to changed.

[Sload]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying Commonsnat.

If Tamriel Rebuilt decides on a main quest and builds Hammerfell with things designed for that main quest, and later decide to remove or change the main quest (as in modding it, not playing it), it will be an enormous pain in the ass.

But what would you propose? That we have a large collection of smaller questlines for guilds? Or minor quests for many single NPCs?

Making both sounds nice.

[CommonsNat]

No, I understand, but there wouldn't be any situation that would cause us to change the main quest on such a wide scale in the middle of its(and Hamerfell's) developement. I mean, what kind of situation would happen that would make us have to change it? I can't think of any, but perhaps I'm just being ignorant. What kind of situation are you talking about Sload?

[Swiftoak]

and what if their halfway throught development on "TES V: The Fourth Era" before they release an expansion for us?

You have a point. But im saying what if?

Sload, I disagree. About it being a pain in the ass to work on this, we have a significant team capable enough to tackle this, we need not worry or hassle. What puzzles me even more is why we are even debating this when OB hasn't even hit shelves yet? We got plenty time to think about it.

[CommonsNat]

Gotta start some time, don't we? We have to have at least a general plan before OB comes out, and the clock is ticking...

We have more than enough, so I'm sure all of this will be disupted and settled upon just in time for OB to come out.

[Sload]

No, I understand, but there wouldn't be any situation that would cause us to change the main quest on such a wide scale in the middle of its(and Hamerfell's) developement. I mean, what kind of situation would happen that would make us have to change it? I can't think of any, but perhaps I'm just being ignorant. What kind of situation are you talking about Sload?

Where we - or our successor after the current we is long gone - change our mind for any reason. Perhaps we'll decide a main quest is a bad idea (such revisions are not at all uncommon). Perhaps an expansion will come out that has lore making our main quest improbable. Perhaps we decide it isn't good enough. This project is evolving always.

Sload, I disagree. About it being a pain in the ass to work on this, we have a significant team capable enough to tackle this, we need not worry or hassle. What puzzles me even more is why we are even debating this when OB hasn't even hit shelves yet? We got plenty time to think about it.

Bal Oyra no longer has the big quest, and fixing that causes a lot of problems. It isn't the manpower that's the problem, it's how easy it is to mess things like that up.

[CommonsNat]

Perhaps an expansion will come out that has lore making our main quest improbable. Perhaps we decide it isn't good enough. This project is evolving always.

An expansion or other lore update is the only feasible reason someone would scrap a main quest idea that was well-thought out and approved of during the middle of its implementation during development.

Later deciding the idea isn't good enough after we've already started building off of it is ridiculous, and is why, if we are going to have a main quest, it should be good enough so that later we won't have to scrap all of our work.

I'm going to hit the sack now, but I'll check back here tommorow.

[Nomadic1]

I'll be blunt and say I don't like the MQ that TR made for Morrowind. And I reckon I'll be right in saying now that I won't like the MQ that TR will make for Hammerfell. We should not be building any place with a large questline in mind. We had Bal Oyra to experiment with that idea, and after two years it turned out to be a total disaster. What we should do is just build the world, with a small quest or story in mind every now and then. It will turn out better and will not lead to a complete disaster.

At the end of the day, there is always tomorrow to make a MQ. We should not be rushing around trying to make one now, nor should we until we've got some of Hammerfell done acceptably.

[Theo]

We do not even know, how will the quests work in Oblivion. For what I have heard we can anticipate much more developed AI (the NPC's will act themselves) and easier way of quest creation.
On the other hand I still have fear, that the number of NPC's will be incredibly limited due to CPU requirements they will have and that the quests will not be that variable and will be more straightforward then they are in TES III.

[Lud]

Theo's right. Every single NPC in the game world has their RAI running all the time (though it gets less intensive the farther away they are) Thus, each of them will use up a chunk of RAM. This could seriously hamper TR if the game starts slowing down above a certain number of NPCs.

I have to disagree with Sload regarding the main quest. It was due to Bal Oyra's very nature (changing the architectural style of a town) that it caused big problems. Removing the framwork of a normal quest wouldn't cause such big problems.

[Orix]

We do not even know, how will the quests work in Oblivion. For what I have heard we can anticipate much more developed AI (the NPC's will act themselves) and easier way of quest creation.
On the other hand I still have fear, that the number of NPC's will be incredibly limited due to CPU requirements they will have and that the quests will not be that variable and will be more straightforward then they are in TES III.

The more developed AI seems like a large problem for the Bethesda team though, they themselves say that the AI have wreaked havoc and ruined quests. I'm betting AI will be the largest problem, not because of the RAM it requires (which shouldnt be too much if only the NPCs in close promixity are active), but because of their slightly unpredictable behaviour.

We shouldn't have to worry about breaking things via quests *as much* as Morrowind. The devs have stated on numerous occasions that its much harder to break the game by removing quests. I'm not sure why, could have something to do with the dialogue.

The quests are less variable and more straightforward? Where on earth did you get that idea from? Devs stated the quests allow for much more complex scenarios this time around, if anything we have no reason to make the quests more interesting than ever, especially with the possibilities of these programmable spell effects, the enhanced AI and additional scripting features the devs are going on about. Using the Oblivion CS, I'm betting quests could be more creative than ever before!

[Haplo]

I'm for Sload idea, generally. If we get hit with some giant meteors of inspiration and happen to have several members with a proclivity for making quests with TES:IV CS, then I say heck, why not have a MQ? But I think several rather large and interesting quests would be better than one linear quest.

[Lud]

several rather large and interesting quests would be better than one linear quest.

Of course, any major questline should be as no-linear as possible. One particularily long one would be nice, ut it shouldn't be considered to be the centre of our mod.

which shouldnt be too much if only the NPCs in close promixity are active

That's what i'm saying, all NPCs in the gameworld have their RAI running ALL of the the time.

[Orix]

But the devs have said that the further away an NPC is, ie, those not in sight, only have a very minor check on their location/activity every so often, to stop RAM becoming overloaded. Only the NPCs in the same cells as the NPC or at the very most ones in ajoinging cells will be frequently processed.

I dont really think it matters if we have double the amount of NPCs in Oblivion, it should affect the speed too much.

Of course, you're at liberty to give me these words on a silver platter if I'm wrong... but my excuse would be the devs said so .

[Macar]

RAI raises questions I hadnt even thought about. I hope it doesnt prove a hampering factor.

As for a main quest- I could take it or leave it. I just want to emphasize that it shouldn't be world altering ( ie. could end with empire overthrown, the death of a god, return of the dwemer, or the dewmer ) Shure bethesda does that, but we cant because we dont make the lore, we just follow it.