What was your favourite quest in an RPG? Why?

[JFSOCC]

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.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

Someone reminded me of the Half Ogre Island quest from Arcanum recently. Forgot how awesomely memorable that quest was.

[DocDoomII]

I just know that I enjoy every quest that's not "kill X of Y", "fetch me 50 shrubberry" or "can you escort me alive from X to Y?"

[Benison]

Dragon Age: Origins. The Fort Drakon rescue mission.

You where thrown into the gaol and two of your henchmen would have to save the day, at first without your help. It was hilarious!

And if your companion´s subterfuge skills where full of fail, they could always resort to violence.

The Fort Drakon rescue mission had tons or replay value, because every npc team would try a different ruse on the guards.

[Sensuki]

I really liked a lot of the quests in The Witcher involving removing curses.

 

The thing is because I've played a lot of the games so many times, I can't remember which ones I thought were awesome on the first playthrough.

 

A lot of things can make a quest good. The initial objectives might be simple but you might be affected by the atmosphere of the environment you're travelling through while on the quest, or something else that happens along the way.

 

Thus often, the journey is more important than the actual quest itself (This may not be the case for everyone)

 

I really loved just wandering around in the Swamp Forest in The Witcher during the daytime.

 

I enjoyed rescuing Dynaheir from the Gnoll Fortress, but my favourite parts of that quest were going through all the individual wilderness areas along the way.

 

From Icewind Dale I loved journeying through The Vale of Shadows, Dragon's Eye and The Shattered Hand Fortress to the main objective for those.

 

Cloakwood was also a lot of fun.

 

In Baldur's Gate 2 I found the standalone stuff more fun. The Guarded Compound, The Twisted Rune, etc.

[cosmin haraga]

bg 2 for world

torment for npc depths and variety

arcanum for world - sadely it was capped at level 30 and you had to replay or mod to fully savor it -

had way to many specialty and mastery quests for one play trough

and once I see the end ( say me 3 ) it's hard to replay for mid game quests ( or the dlc ripp-off)

[UncleBourbon]

Fort Drakon has my vote (the sort of switch in main character from the warden to the companions was cool). Competing with that, though, was the Prison of Planes instance in DDO. It switched it up between races/classes/monsters in the prison, and while the lore was light, it was kind of cool. It was the some of the planes' worst criminals, with a bit of a quest through it.

[mstark]

I loved that skinner quest in BGII!

 

I also love "indirect" quests, such as the one you get from entering and thoroughly exploring the sewers under the slums district, and finding the pipes with strange inscriptions on them .

 

Exploration was always rewarded in such a way in BGII. You'd stumble across all kinds of interesting bits and bobs, areas always had a purpose, without it ever feeling too strained.

 

I also like when what you say in a conversation actually is meaningful, you talk to people, find out who they are, and (depending on the choices you make in the dialogue) get an option to help or ruin their day. Thinking of the slaver mission of the slums. The only sad thing here is that, while I loved the quests, the "reputation" they gave rarely made any difference to anyone but the quest giver, and certain protesting party members.

[cyberarmy]

Deathclaw quest from Fallout 1.

Chicken Transformation from Baldurs Gate 1.

Half Ogre Island quest from Arcanum.

Many quests from PS:T but especially saving Morte

Autopsy quest from The Witcher 1.

Fort Drakon from Dragon Age: Origins.

Removing Henselt's Curse from Witcher 2.

Claptrap's Secret Stash quest from Borderlands 2. (her really got me there that little bastard)

[Soranor]

I loved quests that sidetracked you a bit from the main quest, ideally like in BG1 where for a while you didn't even know what your main goal was, so you started out just exploring different paths. For example I remember a quest in Amberstar, where you found an abandoned wizard's home, fought a few smaller monsters that he seemed to have left to protect his home and eventually got into his cellar. In this cellar you found a teleporter and a snowglobe-like device that showed a small island with a house, where a skeleton lay in the grass in front of the house. Now you had to figure out that the wizard was experimenting with artificial places he created, like that sole island and that he went there by this teleporter. One day he didn't take the key to another teleporter that was in the house (you couldn't see it in the snowglobe) and would have taken him back to his cellar with him. It was possible for you to get stuck on the island like him. And it was your guess if he was ending his life on the island on purpose or by a mistake.

 

What was so great of this quest to find your way back from the island? The sense of exploration and the vision of how this wizard was living in his time.

 

Maybe we should start making a contest of subquest writing, eventually voting for the best among them and offer them as a gift to Obsidian to make use of them if they think they fit in. What would be of help of course would be if we were granted access to some descriptions of the world they're making up.

[Jarmo]

I'll go with NWN: Dreamcatcher

 

At one point you'd be poisoned, stripped off all items and clothes and tossed into this dungeon/deathtrap.

You have 1HP, move real sluggish and throw up every 20 feet or so. Unnerving and hilarious.

[JFSOCC]

 

 

Maybe we should start making a contest of subquest writing, eventually voting for the best among them and offer them as a gift to Obsidian to make use of them if they think they fit in. What would be of help of course would be if we were granted access to some descriptions of the world they're making up.

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.

[MattH]

Maybe the pirate island and asylum in BG2. Convoluted and full of twists.

[limaxophobiacq]

I enjoyed a load of fetch-quests in Torment like all the stuff you have to get the girls in the brothel just because the things you fetch are cool and the characters and conversation is so great.

[Ignatius]

The Cult of the Sightless Eye in BG2 was always satisfying to me for some reason. It starts so humbly with some crazy cultist, then before you know it, you're unearthing ancient civilizations and killing Elder Beholder's with world destroying magic items.

 

I guess it works for it's unpredictability. Much like a good story, I suppose.

 

I also like the Slaver quest in BG2, because I like to kill slavers and you feel particularly righteous in this one when you take down the entire organization. Sure, it's pretty straight-forward but still satisfying.

 

FO: NV also has a ton of great quests. They all offer some major choices and the end-result is always interesting. Particularly Boone's quest where you have to find out who sold his wife into slavery. Just leading the culprit to their deaths is both satisfying and a bit unnerving. And I suppose it's a bit like your skinner quest, though a bit easier to solve.

 

NV has a lot of fun quests actually. Very underrated game, if you ask me.

 

I know I'm forgetting a ton. Really, all I need in a quest are interesting choices wrapped up in a worthwhile narrative that isn't too predictable. Pretty easy, right?

[Freddo]

Investigation quests are my favorite, well, as long they are well done of course.

 

Diplomacy quests are generally quite nice too, especially if it involve something more to be able to persuade them than just a high charisma, like sneaking into a house and get some important papers and use them for blackmail or whatever.

 

I find it a bit hard to come up with actual quest examples though

[UncleBourbon]

I completely forgot about the cult quest, Ignatius! And I hadn't really been thinking about F:NV, either. F:NV is probably one of my favorite recent rpgs, if only because of Raul and the overall tone of it.

[dknight99]

My personal favorite is in Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quest in which you're in a house with six other people trying to survive the night and you can pick them off one by one and the other people start panicking. One of the most satisfying quest in my mind.

[JFSOCC]

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

[Starwars]

I really like the Arizona Killer quest from New Vegas, which is the quest where you have to assassinate President Kimball for Caesar's Legion.

 

Loads of ways to do it depending on your skillset. And also plenty of "unscripted" ways if you want to get really creative yourself. The game has a few such gems, dealing with the Kings for the NCR or handling Benny... Excellent design in some of those quests.

 

Purely writing wise, helping Ingress in Torment really got to me when I first played that game. I was so happy when I was able to help her out. Simple quest but the writing really made it come alive.

 

I really liked the infamous Gnome quest in Arcanum also, and I liked that you couldn't really do much about it. However, I wish there were more ways for the player to *attempt* to do something about it. It ends too abruptly as is I think.

[GhostofAnakin]

I don't have a specific quest from a previous game in mind, but in general my favorite quests are the ones that end up revealing more information and backstory about a person, place, or thing. The kind of quest where you go into an unknown city, with almost zero prior knowledge of its inhabitants or its history, but during the quest you learn the origins of the city, and learn the dark secrets of the various factions residing there.

 

Similarly, I like quests where you begin with an almost one dimensional character you have to track down, but over the course of the quest you learn a lot about that character and his/her background, motivations, etc., and thus he/she is fleshed out into an interesting character compared to the one you'd first learned about.

 

So basically, quests that flesh out the world as a whole, whether it be more details about a city you're traveling through, or more backstory for an individual you come across.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

My personal favorite is in Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quest in which you're in a house with six other people trying to survive the night and you can pick them off one by one and the other people start panicking. One of the most satisfying quest in my mind.

 

The best part about that quest was that if the last NPC left was unfriendly they would conclude you must be the murderer and attack you. But if you made them friendly through diplomacy they ask for your protection and to help them find a way out.

 

My favorite quest was the one from Throne of Bhaal where you get the Bronze Pantalettes from the low-level adventurers. Not only was the NPCs' response priceless, but some of your own party members comment on how far you've come since then.

[TommeH]

I love the quest in Fallout 2 in which you have to investigate the "ghost" farm.

The quest itself was maybe simple but it had a very tense and creepy feeling.

You walk into Modoc and you hear this absolute brilliant soundtrack.

Then you hear the stories about a farm nearby, where strange things happen.

Word is that strange lights are seen by night and people vanish.

Edited October 22, 2012 by TommeH

[Metabot]

I liked the skinner quest in bgii as well, but it really wasn't all that hard or involved. All of the witnesses are in one small area and its too easy.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Metabot

[Pwillig]

My favorite quest would have to be from IWD where you must rebuild the broken astrolabe to restore sanity to Larrel. Everything from the story, the music, the art...ah, it was definitely one of my favorite moments in gaming.