JFSOCC

My Stronghold is in a place of power on the world, I can tap the ethereal energies and... teleport! just an idea. Or a floating island which you can steer. (maybe I've played too much Bastion)

I think Fallout 2 had a number of awesome quests, mostly because a lot of them could be approached from many different ways. Edit: I also really enjoyed the quest in KOTOR1 where you had to figure out a murder, although it has little replay value. (maybe if they have a quest like this in PE they could make it variable by play-through, so that the answer isn't set in stone when you begin.)

because you like to, because some problems can't be solved by sending an army in, because of diplomatic issues (someone you want to get at is in another sovereign state.)

two souls competing for the same body would also be interesting.

You can have the full spectrum of personalities with just humans. That's one thing I've hated about some fantasy fiction, Elves and Vulcans are not the noble race we could one day be, Gnomes or Ferengi are not the trader race, and Orcs and Klingons are not noble warriors. that's as one-dimensional as it gets. You should have the full spectrum of personalities and they shouldn't be dependent on race.

pff, so many good ones! some I forgot, some in games I haven't played (maybe I should!) I enjoyed the quest in Morrowind where you have to trail a man in Seyda Neen, to see where he kept some of his stuff. It felt real and unforced. no hand-holding either.

it'd be cool if you could be asked to investigate your own misdeeds, you could fess up, or decide to frame someone else. or maybe just sabotage the research enough so that it wouldn't be found out.

and subject to the law of diminishing returns.

I too fondly remember the cult quest, I remember being scared ****less of the beholder hoping it wouldn't see me.

I once left the forum for two and a half days! then I came back yesterday. Honestly though, unless you have very little do do than build your own hype all day, once or twice a week seems easily enough, spend 20 mins reading all the new threads. if you click on the white icon it automatically goes to the first unread post, so you won't have to get behind on the discussion. it's a very active forum right now though, so you might have a lot of reading to catch up on, if you want to keep track of everything.

If I travel by map, a random encounter is something that gets in the way of what I was planning to do. I want to be able to freely travel without every three inch having to fight another encounter. this way travel becomes a chore. This is something I feel strongly about. I can't stand it when I am planning on going somewhere and it goes "Nope, first you HAVE to do this" it breaks flow. and rare has been the time that a random encounter was interesting enough that I even cared.

If I have a charismatic character, at least I would like to be able to have my companions be convinced by me. Maybe not on everything, but it should be a two-way street. This is why I liked the KOTORII alignment shifts you could affect your party with.

You make the thread and I'll work on an idea to post. I see quite a bit of love for exploration so far. which reminds me of another thing. some games only have you go places A-purpose. This prevents me from actually looking at and caring for the world. having quests open up just by exploring (in areas that you have absolutely no reason to visit) will probably allow me to look around and enjoy the world, it comes back to pacing. If I constantly have stuff to do I might not take the time to look around. solving mysteries with visual clues (and no hand-holding) helps. indeed the sewers in the slum district were a good example of stumbling onto something cool.

there are two ideas I see popping up: on one side there is "you don't want your experience ruined" on the other side I see "you're free to choose your own experience, even if that ruins your enjoyment" Maybe it's good to look at why people abuse the game: It could be because they are zealous at having the maximum result out of every encounter (power-gaming) that could be fixed by making it unclear what the maximum result is, having different outcomes be beneficial in different ways, and detrimental in different ways. Some might abuse out of fear to fail. This could be prevented by either making failure less catastrophic, or having the result be ambiguous enough that it is unclear whether or not you failed. players are smart however, and I have no doubt they'd figure it out. having no failure at all removes any challenge from the game as well. it's this type of abuse that is the hardest to deal with. I think that perhaps a player can be subtly conditioned by having the early game show that failure is not to be feared, at least not all the time. I think the team went in the right direction by offering rewards for encounters and quests, regardless of how they are dealt with, because my failure to detect a trap won't mean I missed the experience for dismantling it. Why else would a person abuse the game? well, they could be a beta tester, or a critic, trying to find balance issues, infinite xp exploits and the like. in which case I'm fine with them abusing the hell out of it. What else... well, perhaps the player doesn't care for the specific challenge he or she is currently offered, and wants to get through it, fast and efficiently. As a developer you should ask yourself some serious questions if this happens. This could be solved by having only few essential quests, designing the quests so that they are enjoyable (though you can't always please everyone) and not trapping the player stuck in a location or quest. (so allowing them to cancel quests, and not locking the door behind them when they enter a dungeon.) Finally the last reason I see someone trying to abuse the system, or cheat, is because they wish to be entertained more than engaged. I think that an RPG might not be for you if that's the case, however, even here you can have workarounds. Don't care for dialogue? Find Combat too unenjoyable and want to progress in the story? This is solely at the doorstep of the developers. If they make a game engaging, players will be entertained as well as engaged. Don't let dialogue consist of just walls of text, making it a chore to read. Don't let combat be hordes of enemies without pause. don't let every door you open be a path to more of the same combat, don't let everyone you talk to have a book of text to read through. Pacing is important. Find other ways to challenge to player, find other ways to tell the story. (visual narrative is just as important as good dialogue)

I've more than once hurt my own character creation by choosing aesthetics over traits. Why should an Elf not be as fit to be a beserker as an Orc? because Orcs get more strength, while elves get a penalty to strength and a bonus to dexterity? I've always seen this happen in MMO's where certain builds just don't exist, because they aren't efficient. If you're going to be a fire elementalist, and there is a race that gives you +10% fire damage, that doesn't present a real choice. Racial traits narrow down choices in this manner, because if you want to play a certain way, you're required to limit your choice to what allows you to play like that. So I hope that if the different races are significantly different, they differ in a way which doesn't hinder your choice like that. perhaps a human cleric may play differently from a dwarven one, but either option should be equally viable.

just out of curiosity, what if they were variable in how they played out?

I like dualist gods in my fiction. Gods of both creation and destruction, life and death, Lies and truth. Secrets and knowledge. Light and shadow. you get the gist. I have more trouble believing someone would worship a god of lies, in the hope his lies won't be seen, than someone who worships a god of truth and lies. after all, if the truth comes out despite him preferring it didn't, well, the god of truth and lies decide to go with the truth this time.

With the no-fetch quest topic, I thought maybe we can frame this in a way so we can all think about what we would like, as well as what we don't like. I would also maybe see if we can categorize them. I'll start My favourite quest was in Baldurs' Gate II, an investigation quest that made me search out someone who killed and skinned people. I enjoyed it because I had to work out myself al the way to the end. It was challenging, it was multi-part, it wasn't a chore, and it was fairly unique among quests. It also played out differently based on how you had prepared yourself, meaning that it mattered to think about the quest and not follow from point A to B and just experience the ride. As for the Categories that I can think of, there are. Fetch Quests (steal priceless artifact by stealth, or go over there and just barge in and take his head; gather these resources so I can craft this magic weapon) Straight up "go there and kill X" Escort missions (NPC X must survive) investigation missions (as per example) Diplomacy missions (convince X to do Y) Exploration quests (often seen as "please locate my probably dead relative") Rumours are always true, which by the way, is a terribly lame trope. "It is said that at the top of that volcano there are treasures, but ach, it's probably just a rumour" nope. never is. you know that no story is ever false. Puzzles and riddles and obstacle courses. there are probably a few more, so feel free to suggest more, I'll add them to the list.

Repeatable quests have two big weaknesses that I can identify 1. They encourage grind. 2. The become a boring chore. If Obsidian can put in repeatable quests that don;t play exactly the same every time (how do you script that?) but stay varied in how the play out And make those quests to be entertaining in their own right, regardless of completion, then I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a few.

I'll tear my eyes out and join the beholder at his right side. I would enjoy little cults getting bigger throughout the game. maybe that's a bit too much to wish for. the list of things "wouldn't that be wonderful" is limitless.

I hope PE stands alone.

Do let us hear some of what you're working on, every so often during the development process! If I can hum a tune in anticipation life will be good

I just like to say that while I am a big stronghold fan, I agree that it should be optional. As much as I know *I* will enjoy building, upgrading and roleplaying around my Stronghold, not everyone cares for it, and the game doesn't need a stronghold in Everyone's campaign. I enjoyed the suggestion I read earlier that you could sell your Stronghold. (maybe if you tire of it.) Perhaps the price you command for it depends on how much you put into it, I don't know... I do hope that a lot of love will go into the feature, but optional is fine with me.

merge with this: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61510-whats-everyone-looking-for-in-strongholds/ ?

if it's going to be only 8, I had better enjoy the company of most of them.