Mystery - As a Mechanic

[Luridis]

No, I'm not talking about Sherlock Holmes and the butler did it.

 

Mysterious signs, items, hints in conversations; all things I've been missing for a long time now. You find an unusual item, perhaps even in random loot, that has a purpose somewhere. No quest dialogue pops up or automatic quest markers to show you where you need to take it. You adventure across a strange carving in a tree that points to a hidden cavern somewhere without saying exactly where. A "rumor" you picked up at the local tavern leads to some ancient Pandora's Box somewhere on the other side of the world. But again, the most important thing is that your hand isn't held all the way through it. These days you run across something like this and a quest dialogue usually pops up with arrows showing you where to take it on your minimap; way to make me feel intelligent for figuring it out, or accomplished for doing so.

 

Am I the only one who misses these little diversions? Even though then can sometimes drive you mad, especially when the developer puts one in that looks like a mystery but actually is useless junk.

[Tsuga C]

This sounds appealing. I'd rather not have everything handed to me on a silver platter. Picking up information from overhearing people and then, usually after greasing their palms, picking their brains for information is a good way to encourage interactions with NPCs. Finding a random, odd widget and taking it to a scholar of some sort to open up a quest also sounds better than reading about quests 1-7 on a billboard located in the town square.

[Hassat Hunter]

What? You don't want to find random items and immediately know who to give it to (Dragon Age)? Blasphamy!

 

Sarcasm aside, yeah, I'd love that...

[Luridis]

What? You don't want to find random items and immediately know who to give it to (Dragon Age)? Blasphamy!

 

For just a minute I thought you wrote, "Dragon Wars" (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dragon-wars) And, I was going to say that I don't remember anything of the sort.

 

Dragon Age you say? Well, after my experience with Neverwinter Nights when I saw it years later and bought it without question... Three days later I tossed it in the trash. Then I went looking for information about what changed at Bioware; that was a less than happy moment for me.

 

Edit: I know it's not the developers fault, thats just business. I'm just sad that we've come to a point where business and compelling, long-lived gameplay are at odds with each other. That is probably why I'll end up more $ into this kickstarter before it closes.

 

Edit 2: It's not just studios I mourn for these days. I can remember great games coming from: Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Activision, Konami, and Capcom. In fact Archon was made by EA. There's no one to blame for the buy and trade market, development costs went up and consumerism took over. I'm just glad the Obsidian guys are willing to take on an old school project like this for the love of thier own craft.

 

Edited October 15, 2012 by Luridis

[kjrubberducky]

I love a good puzzle or mystery that I have to piece together myself.

• Learning new things. This includes finding out previously unknown information, like the location of town or a hidden door, or uncovering secret knowledge, like a potion recipe or the true name of a demon. Or maybe you just want to know a good place to gather materials like ore or herbs. We will make abilities that let you find things out.
  

Possible game mechanics for acquiring clues and hints?

[GhostofAnakin]

I like the general idea of the OP. It would be interesting to sort of come across an artifact that you don't immediately know its use, and its description is vague, at best, until you actually then come across something else later on that sheds more light on it.

 

Or as said, perhaps during a conversation with a bartender, he mentions a rumor about something, but no actual quest option triggers. You just have to try and follow up on the rumor on your own without the game saying "now go see Person X for step two".

[ohmygodsquad]

This was one thing I thought Arcanum did extremely well. There were so many different avenues through which quests were found: Newspapers, items, notes, rumors, stumbling upon locations in the map while randomly exploring, talking to people, reading books. Stuff like the ancient gods quest where all you had to guide you was a cryptic book given to you by a researcher. It was up to you to puzzle out the meaning of the symbols and find the various alters. He didn't give you a detailed description of what to do because it was a mystery even to him.

 

Planescape did it nicely as well. Stuff like tinkering with the toy Modron and snatching the frozen piece of the river Styx from the art museum.

[Tale]

Depends, am I going to end up with a bag full of random junk weighing me down because I'm not certain which of it's worth anything without a guide?

 

1 or 2 items that make an effort to stand out, that's cool. Enough items that it qualifies as a "mechanic" and it's increasing miscellaneous tedium. I already despise carting around gemstones on the off-chance they're needed for a crafting recipe I won't find out about until 30 hours later. I fear this being a version of that.

[Pyradox]

I think it could work pretty easily if you just pick something up, get an "updated my journal" message if it's interesting, and then there's an entry in your quest log saying "I found something weird, I should look into it when I get the chance". Then anything you find out is logged under that entry. It offers no guidance, but if you forget about it for a while it's useful to have all the information you've uncovered in one place. Which is pretty much how I'd expect a journal to function anyway.