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Odarbi

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Everything posted by Odarbi

  1. Odarbi
    Definitely. Urgency where a significantly urgent quest is due. Not overused, simply where it makes sense to have limited time. Going to investigate an old tomb? No real need to be urgent on that. Going to investigate an old tomb to find a magical item that can be used to fend off a dragon that plans to attack in a week? Yeah, consequences for failure.
  2. Odarbi
    Amusingly enough, I love timed quests when they're done right. Makes you have to play smart, which is something I want in a game. Also, if the timers are internal and not shown to the player, you won't know if you made it there on time or not. Maybe you just weren't meant to complete the quest, and the urgency was simply implied.
  3. Odarbi
    I really hated how those games had no basis of time in them. "Go save Imoen quickly? Pfft, I'll just take 4 years off and go do side quests, since the story isn't going to progress without me anyway."
  4. Odarbi
    It's a role playing game. You shouldn't be able to see the whole game in one play through anyway. Choices should matter and change the story so that subsequent play throughs reflect the inaction of the player character on certain things.
  5. Odarbi
    Which is easily solveable by not making the quest timers start counting down until the player has heard about them in some way. Maybe walking by a town crier might alert you to the situation, and start the timer. You shouldn't miss the quest because you don't know about it, but you should miss out if you know about it but don't actually do anything about it.
  6. Odarbi
    That's pretty much what we're all fighting for. We don't want "Do this in X amount of time or get game over". We just want quests, where it makes sense for there to be urgency, to actually enforce it instead of allowing you to go off the beaten path for 4 in game months and not have any downfall for it. Take too long saving the elf king's daughter? Maybe she dies, but you might end up having to track down and deal with the bandits anyway kinda deal.
  7. Odarbi
    Thanks for your eloquent argument. I fear that's the only actual "argument" people have against their inclusion. "I don't like it, so it's bad".
  8. Odarbi
    Do you do the urgent quest before the time runs out, or do you put it off and fail? That seems like a pretty clear cut choice to me.
  9. Odarbi
    Which is fine from a general stand point, but think about it from your character's point of view. They're part of that world, should they be expecting it to wait around for them? Choices are supposed to matter, and I think that the choice of inaction should be just as telling as taking an action itself. If there are Consequences to that Choice, then the choice of inaction does have enormous value in itself. Which is why I keep fighting for the addition of timed quests that don't wait for you.
  10. Odarbi
    A "Make your own game" game?
  11. Odarbi
    I definitely don't want there to be a 60 game day cap on the game either, but I'd like for quests that are implied to be urgent to actually enforce their urgency. Too often have games said something like "If you delay, it might be too late!" only for you to show up in the nick of time, regardless of how long you take to get there. I prefer the idea of "timers" for the urgency because it allows you to make the choice instead of being an arbitrary win/lose. In the case of your "Little girl needs saved right now", Having 5 minutes of game time could make for a very interesting choice right then and there. What if you have some sort of spell that allows you to make it back to the town, grab some fire resist stuff, and get back in time to save her? or Maybe you've got a druid type caster with a rainstorm spell that he can use to slow down the fire (increase the timer), or maybe even put it out entirely. That's basically all we want too. Implied urgency should not only be implied, there should be some chance of failure. In some quests, this failure could even lead into a whole new quest chain.
  12. Odarbi
    Which is fine from a general stand point, but think about it from your character's point of view. They're part of that world, should they be expecting it to wait around for them? Choices are supposed to matter, and I think that the choice of inaction should be just as telling as taking an action itself.
  13. Odarbi
    So you're perfectly fine with some sort of arbitrary limitation on what you can do within a set period, rather than being limited by time and being able to potentially complete everything if you play smart and manage your time? It should be possible to do something that gives you more "time" then. Someone mentioned a shortcut through a hideout or something. I think you could get the same outcome you want without every having to use a rigid clock timer. Completing this guys quest takes time. Walking away from the burning farm takes time. But reading through my conversation options carefully doesn't take away time. To clarify, in case people getting the wrong idea: I'm not, and I don't think anyone that wants timed quests are, talking about the concept of "I've only got 1 hour of REAL time to do this quest". I'm talking about the idea of giving people days or weeks of GAME time to do these things. Game time would pause any time it would normally pause, such as during conversations, map transitions, while the game is naturally paused, etc.
  14. Odarbi
    So you're perfectly fine with some sort of arbitrary limitation on what you can do within a set period, rather than being limited by time and being able to potentially complete everything if you play smart and manage your time?
  15. Odarbi
    You're focussed on a friggin clock, instead of the game world. Only if you're the type of player who feels the need to be able to do everything in one play through without any sort problem. Or... if you're the type of player who dislikes excessive action-based mechanics in a non action based game. And there's a long list of "problems" that "my type" gleefully welcomes in an RPG. Quests avaliable only to certain builds, is one example. Quests that require serious thinking to solve is another. Then. don't. take. a. year. off. Give the quest the immediate attention you feel it deserves. But what you're arguing here is for such quests to *require* everyone to play as you would - and for success and failure to be dependent on a timer that goes tick -tick- tick. Silly. Again, this goes counter to fundamental RPG basics. No, it doesn't go counter to fundamental RPG basics at all. The world is is supposed to be a real thing that the player exists in. Existing within a world means that things happen with or without you there to deal with them. If you wait too long to go to the mall in real life, the mall will be closed. If fire fighters wait too long to get to a fire, that house has burned down and people have probably died. There's no reason this concept shouldn't be added to a roleplaying game because you are meant to be playing a character that exists within that world. Your arguments of "I don't like quest timers" falls flat, because it's not even an argument. I gleefully accept quests that are only available to certain builds or require serious thinking too, but I've constantly been saddened by RPGs for lacking a true concept of the passage of time. PE: Can break this trend. Success would be based on the players actions, only failure and the consequences would be based on the timer which is how it should be anyway.
  16. Odarbi
    How, exactly, do they break immersion? You're focussed on a friggin clock, instead of the game world. Only if you're the type of player who feels the need to be able to do everything in one play through without any sort problem. I like to take my time and explore the game world too, but I find it breaks immersion when I can just take a year off of my supposedly important quest chain simply because "I don't feel like doing it right now". Choices are supposed to matter. You can choose to ignore the clock, you know.
  17. Odarbi
    kthnksbye? shorted form of "Kay, thanks, bye". It's generally used to invoke the idea that their statement/argument is "finished".
  18. Odarbi
    How, exactly, do they break immersion? The world not waiting 1 year for the hero to get around to it only makes sense within the scope of the world itself. "kthnksbye"
  19. Odarbi
    You're not going to be forced though. That the quest is time sensitive does not disable you from talking to that quest giver or browsing the merchant's wares. You make the decision to do so, and risk the farm burning down as a result. How hard is it to understand that?
  20. Odarbi
    That's not really an issue if the "quest timer" only starts from the point in time you pick up the quest. Which makes no sense. Somehow the gods have decreed that nothing is urgent until hero X hits the 'accept quest' button. I figured someone would try this argument. "Picking up" the quest could be done in many ways, and some might be as simple hearing a town crier exclaiming that a nearby farm is burning. Journal has been updated. No need for dialogue, no need to "accept" the quest. You know of the event - decision time. Do you go, or do you not go?
  21. Odarbi
    That's not really an issue if the "quest timer" only starts from the point in time you pick up the quest.
  22. Odarbi
    Going to second this. While I have always enjoyed getting xp from killing mobs, it always ended up making me feel like I *had* to. Being able to sneak past or avoid combat in some situations while still getting the same XP for it gives players more options about how they play the game, which can't really be a bad thing. Ultimately, killing may and probably will still end up being better in the long run because you can loot the dead to get more gold/equipment/whatever, but it's nice to have the option to avoid it if you really want to.
  23. Odarbi
    You shouldn't fail to get the quest, but you should definitely not be able to spend 1 year of in game time after hearing about it to go deal with it. Inaction on the matter is just as much a choice as going to save the kid right away, and the game should reflect that.
  24. Odarbi
    I love the idea of time affecting the game world, and I agree that time needs to have an effect on certain aspects of the game. However, I'd prefer it was implemented on a per-quest basis, rather than being done as a global timer. That being said, the above example sounds very intriguing and I think it'd also be okay to have sections where you have multiple quests and only having a limited amount of time to do any/all of them.
  25. Odarbi
    I'm really not sure why this needed a new thread, as I'm pretty sure this is exactly the type of thing everyone in the "Urgency" camp is fighting for. Time sensitive quests can play out exactly like this, instead of being "do this in 7 days or get game over". Parallel missions work for this style of thing too, but still lack the true sense of urgency as they still wait for the player to get around to it. People still seem to not get it though, I assume it's because they immediately stop reading when they see "Time sensitive" or "Timed quests". They want an awesome roleplaying game, yet are against one of the things that will make the game great and allow them to play the game over multiple times in different ways... all because they want to prioritize exploration, I guess. The game should not wait around for you to do everything. There NEEDS to be situations where the game progresses without you in some way. If there is no reaction to your inaction, which is as much of a choice as taking action, then what's the point of it being a role playing game? Time sensitive quests makes the options feel much more real than simply making it an arbitrary choice of "you can only do 1 of these 3 quests", and if you play it out right, you might even be able to complete all 3 of those quests instead of being restricted to one. Not wanting to feel rushed is not a valid argument. You are supposed to be playing a character within a game world that has a story of it's own. That character should have to deal with urgency, and risk not being able to do everything because he got too far off track. I've seen people suggesting that quests should give a greater reward if done quickly as some sort alternative, but this is still ultimately a punishment for people who do things slowly. Urgency needs to have it's place in a roleplaying game. Not every single section of the game needs to be an urgent rush to finish things, but there does need to be situations where inaction will have an affect on the game world.
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