Optional quests

[mingoran]

Hi, can we find optional quests in AP? Are maps big enough and varied enough like in DeusEx to support this?

 

One example, when we enter DeusEx hotel map there's an optional quest involving the hotel owner, his daughter and some pimp that goes over several map helicopter flights. There are a few bums being harassed by tugs which will reward the player with info on how to enter a weapons store. There's a spy that tries to get info from the player and can be exposed.

 

What i'm asking is that if AP maps are strictly formal and mission based or if there are extras in those maps that provide optional quests and things just for the sake of exploration and mood.

Edited June 29, 2009 by mingoran

[Llyranor]

I'm guessing there should be, but what I can confirm is that there will be full optional missions/levels.

[mingoran]

Thanks Llyranor. No answer from a dev and only the info that there will optional mission/levels. I suspect this will be more Mass Effect than DeusEx.

[Enoch]

Granted, I lost interest in Deus Ex somewhere towards the beginning of the Paris level, but I don't recall it having particularly strong support for optional quests. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of any other examples beyond the ones the original post mentioned and the optional M12 base in the sewers. As RPGs go, that's not much optional content at all. And I'm not really sure why Mass Effect is the go-to counter-example here. Although the game was littered with disconnected time-sink optional content, I can also think of several minor quests that pop up in the course of larger missions and help to reinforce the mood and themes of a particular location (e.g., the Citadel quests given to the player by that news reporter, and the optional smuggling and industrial sabotage quests in the first area of Noveria).

 

That said, I appreciate that the little side-missions in Deus Ex enhanced the general atmosphere of the game's core locations, and I do hope that AP includes comparable little details to flesh out their areas and themes.

[mingoran]

Maybe not optional quests but events we can play a small role and change. It's those small details we find everywhere in DeusEx that give so much life to the game. The hooker that is about to get beaten and killed by a pimp in the corner of a city and will be if the player let's it happen. The journalist in the bar who is actually a spy. The beggar who wants money to buy food/drugs and as seen some guys using a secret passage on the wall. The spoiled girl in chinatown who is looking for a dancing club and got lost in the sewer area. The weapons dealer in paris who got pissed off because MJ12 has occupied the city and can't do business any more. And a lot more i can't remember right now. This is what makes DeusEx to be a rpg, besides having multiple approaches with different skills. The maps/world aren't just there for a combat/explore scenario but to make everything look as credible with other npcs that make their lives in those areas and go about their own interests.

[LatwPIAT]

Deus Ex didn't have many optional quests in the classical sense, but it did integrate the NPCs into the game in a quest-like fashion, it was just that often the player (Unless they had played before) did not know of the existence of the quest.

 

If you talk to a kid, he'll reveal the NSF password for a Soy Food package. You haven't actually been told he will do this. He just will. Likewise, if you save one of the Mole People from thugs, he'll tell you the Mole People password. At this point, you haven't actually been told you even need this password, or that taking down the thugs will do anything at all, or that the mole people even exist. All you know is that thugs are threatening a bum.

 

There's also an issue of sidequests making sense. While an anti-terrorist agent might want to look into a pimp with terrorist connections beating up the daughter of the local hotel owner or investigate the kidnapping of a biochemist by heavily armed mooks, there's really no reason for him to help people with their laundry, and there's no reason anyone would ever ask JC to help them with their laundry.

 

Since Alpha Protocol probably is going to share some elements with Deus Ex (Who wants to make bets on when your parent organization betrays you? I bet a cookie that it's at the half-way-point.) what applies to Deus Ex would occasionally apply to Alpha Protocol too. While Thornton might not want to do people's laundry, looking for a rumored third-party spy while beating down on a terrorist takeover of an embassy or cracking down on an FSK barricade to get better deals from an arms dealer might be things that the player should be allowed to do.

[Mr. Fob]

Hm, playing DX I never felt the actions I took were inappropriat for JC to do. Why would I not give a kid on the streets some food? If I see a guy, threatened by thugs and I know I have the ability to help, why not do it? And I think it is one of the strong points of DX that you weren't always told the exact context and consequences of your actions. That's what made the life like credible feel mingoran was talking about possible in the first place. If I had had a journal telling me: "save the bum to get the password", that would have felt artificial.

And how do you figure AP will be so similar to DX? I don't see too many indications for that. That said, I think it wouldn't hurt to have those small "quests" or optional errands or whatever you want to call it in AP. Of course they should not fell like being added but they would have to integrate.

Another question: Anyone knows if there will be aoptional missions that you may or may not access from the hub itself? May those could even appear or not appear according to the alliances you made in the past.

[Sannom]

Who wants to make bets on when your parent organization betrays you? I bet a cookie that it's at the half-way-point

 

Isn't it right at the beginning? I mean, in Deus Ex it was a surprise. Here, it's one of the basics of the story. Not that I don't agree that this game will be reminiscent of Deus Ex in some ways. Just not in the "open world feel" I think.

[Oner]

Who wants to make bets on when your parent organization betrays you? I bet a cookie that it's at the half-way-point

 

Isn't it right at the beginning? I mean, in Deus Ex it was a surprise. Here, it's one of the basics of the story. Not that I don't agree that this game will be reminiscent of Deus Ex in some ways. Just not in the "open world feel" I think.

I think they just initiate the Alpha Protocol (you're officially rouge, unofficially still with them), not mark you as traitor.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

I'm pretty sure one of the recent trailers said that you go AWOL from the Alpha Protocol program as well.

[Oner]

Dunno, I got confused after a while, and this made the most sense to me.

[mkreku]

It would be a pretty boring RPG if there wasn't anything else to do than follow the main story quests. So I am assuming there will be side missions.. for pimping out your apartment, perhaps? Or pick up girls! Or just earn more money? Even if you're a super spy, you need to live, right?

[Wrath of Dagon]

I get a feeling it's just some fairly linear missions you go on, and you choose which order you do them in a given part of the world. Doesn't seem like there'll be much exploration or side quests, as you're basically in combat mode once the mission starts and until you get back to the safe house. I hope I'm wrong on this, but that's the impression I get from what I've seen so far.