What Are Some of Your Favorite RPG Quests? 229
Ryosen asks: "The current issue of PC Gamer Magazine has a rundown on the MMORPGs due out this year. Reading over the list of hopefuls and checking out some of the websites and comments, I continually ran across complaints from players about the tedium in a lot of the quests from various games. These are typically of the non-imaginative 'take this message to that person' variety, or 'go kill 4 of these creatures' sorts. Obviously there have been some great quests and plots in games of the past and, with so many new RPGs in development, I thought this would be a great time to reminisce over some of our favorites. Who knows? Maybe some of those designers might find some inspiration for their upcoming creations."
While in Final Fantasy... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:While in Final Fantasy... (Score:2)
On another note, the Rat Tail quest in the Castle of Ordeals from is one of my favorites. Did you have any idea what this Rat Tail was going to do for your party? What does prove your courage really mean? In Link you got more hearts, in Dragon Warrior you got new kit, but in Final Fantasy you got a complete transformation of your party. All for a little Rat Tail. End to end, delivery to reward, one of my favorite ques
Re:While in Final Fantasy... (Score:2)
-d20
Baldur's Gate 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
I never get bored playing BG2.
Re:Baldur's Gate 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite RPG quest of all time: escaping Irenicus's dungeon from BG2. I don't quite know how to explain what that quest does for me. The experiments in the jars; the discussions you can have with them. That one quest packs in a lot, including the death of a major character from BG1. It sets the tone, for me, for the entire game, and I always get a rush once it's over because, y'know, IT'S ON! That, and poor Immy gets kidnapped. I was _so pissed_ at that point.
Just one example of the many great things about the Baldur's Gate series.
Re:Baldur's Gate 2 (Score:2)
Re:Baldur's Gate 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
In my mind, Baldur's Gate 2 has not been outdone yet.
BG2 vs NWN (Score:5, Informative)
That said, if you were willing to look beyond the official campaign, NWN becomes more competitive. There have been a lot of fan-created, really great modules. At the top of my favorites is Adam Miller's Dreamcatcher series. Some people swear by Stefan Gagne's work (which is prolific). Almost everyone agrees that Rick Burton's Twilight/Midnight modules are fantastic. I'm really fond of the Aielund saga.
Go here: http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/TopRated.php?content=m
If you have NWN installed. And play some of the top rated modules that sound appealing. There's some great stuff, stuff that you may well enjoy a lot more than the original NWN.
Bioware, for their part, got their act together a bit for their expansion, Hordes of the Underdark. It had a much more enjoyable single player campaign. Even the developers said that by this time they'd really gotten better with their own tools, the engine was refined, and lots of important art assets (robes, for example) were in the engine.
Meanwhile, the expandability of this game may never be matched. There is literally tens if not hundreds of gigabytes worth of custom content - tilesets, weapons, icons, creature models (with animations), to say nothing of actual modules. People have hacked in ridable horses. It's amazing.
Right now you can pick up the NWN Diamond edition in stores and it comes with the original game plus both expansion packs PLUS some of Bio's "premium modules" they sell now.
Meanwhile, online, you can play with others in a way you never could play BG2. Since the game has a DM client, there are a ton of people running bona fide campaigns. Neverwinterconnections.com is a matching service to hook up people to play together. There's also a list of "persistent worlds" a mile long, some of which actual merit being played; they're like mini-MMOs (or graphical MUDs, perhaps) where 20-60 players will play all hours of the day and you can return and keep playing the same character.
One ambitious project even attempted to create a huge set of servers which connected the Forgotten Realms all togther (ALFA, although it's sad that enthusiasm and competence don't always go hand in hand, although the Roleplay level there is pretty amazing).
So all in all, Baldur's Gate 2 for someone who just wanted to buy a game off the shelf and play it was certainly a better game, in my opinion, especially for its time. But NWN quite literallly broke new ground. For those who were willing to go out and look for fresh content and people to play with, it continued to pay dividends. NWN, if you got into it, is probably pound for pound the best value any game has ever delivered. I probably played all the way through BG2 at least a half dozen times, maybe more - there are some good addons for it, including David Gaider's hacks that make some of the "big" fights a lot more difficult, add NPCs and quests, etc. But even still, that amount of time and fun is dwarfed by the play of NWN because of the fact that I can always go grab something fresh. I think you really have to be a fan of that TYPE of game to fall in love with NWN, but if you are, I think it's unmatched on the whole.
Re:BG2 vs NWN (Score:2, Interesting)
Whenever I think of NWN it's his series that comes to mind.
Involve players in the epic storyline (Score:5, Insightful)
That's if you're talking about GM-run quests. If you plan on automating your quests, you're going to be kind of doomed from the start. Anything automatic will eventually become boring to players.
Re:Involve players in the epic storyline (Score:2, Funny)
Like Nethack? [nethack.org]
Star Control 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Without a doubt, the best Quest I have ever played is Star Control 2. Its source code has recently been released and ported to modern platforms, too, now known as The Ur-Quan Masters. [sourceforge.net]
Disclaimer: I deny all responsibility for the days/weeks of "wasted" time if you decide to download this game.
Recent? (Score:2)
I always was partial to Curse of the Azure Bonds growing up. And Fallout, naturally.
My tastes changed later and I don't like non-multi ones anymore.
Re:Recent? (Score:3, Informative)
I've just started going through Fallout 2 again (I quit the first time, due to lack of character planning), and it's an amazing game.
Re:Recent? (Score:2)
Just the other day I was feeling nostalgic about the old Gold Box series; Pools of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades; the Dragonlance series, hell, the Buck Rogers games that used that engine, those were fantastic times, on me old C64.
Re:Star Control 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really play RPGs but I wondered if there were any out there that used a more natural format for quests. So someone's talking in the town about a rising threat in a nearby area. It's not mentioned as a specific quest, but should you not decide to deal with it, the threat's power may develop at a later date to the point at which it is simple too difficult to defeat. e.g., take care of a brooding Sauron before he's amassed his power.
Or is the concept of a quest to finely engrained in the level-up, "I've achieved something" format of games?
Re:Star Control 2 (Score:2)
Legend of Mana (Score:5, Interesting)
Returning back to real life ? (Score:4, Funny)
AWx
Re:Returning back to real life ? (Score:2)
KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:3, Informative)
Related Note: I like the quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online a lot better than most MMORPGs. If you pay attention, some of them have some great story lines, especially the Catacombs.
Re:KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:2)
Re:KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:2)
Re:KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:2)
KOTOR2 is still well worth playing; the ending is just a bit abrupt.
Re:KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:2)
* glances at shelf full of Neal Stephenson novels *
Yeah, OK. KOTOR2 is a great game :-)
Re:KOTR and KOTR 2 (Score:2)
http://www.team-gizka.org/ [team-gizka.org]
Most of the material that was cut at the last minute was still available on the disk (if you extracted the sound files, there were whole trees of dialouge that was left out of the retail game). Just about the only thing that was left unfinished before being cut was the droid planet; everything else exists in some form.
These folks have been trying to reintroduce the removed content via player-made mod. They aren't done yet, but if you check th
EQ: The Spirit of Garzicor (Score:2, Interesting)
There's one quest though that stands out. It's an epic-length quest to return a legendary dragon's spirit to rest named The Spirit of Garzicor [allakhazam.com]. Even with my feverish playing (over 110hr/wk) it took me over six months to complete and required large amounts of assistance, including a raid at the end. Of course this quest at the time wasn't well charted, which made it more fun fo
Aid Grimmel (Score:2)
EQ was my baby for about 4 years as well. Till my wife got pregnant then I knew I had to give it up.
Re:EQ: The Spirit of Garzicor (Score:2)
That's 16hrs a day, 7 days a week. He's serious, but he's also exaggerating.
Admiral Harkov's betrayal in Tie Fighter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Admiral Harkov's betrayal in Tie Fighter (Score:4, Interesting)
Tie Fighter really did kick so much ass it's not even funny.
Re:Admiral Harkov's betrayal in Tie Fighter (Score:4, Interesting)
True. The games that came after that (X-wing vs Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance) were good too, but Lucasarts hasn't done anything in that vein for a long time. I really wish they would though. It would give me an excuse to dig out my old joystick. They have roughly 20 years between the end of Episodes III and IV that they could develop.
Re:Admiral Harkov's betrayal in Tie Fighter (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Admiral Harkov's betrayal in Tie Fighter (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing like doing a flyby on the containers while waiting for backup in a T/I. By the time you finished that mission and all it's objectives, you damn sure knew how to jink.
Planescape: Torment (Score:5, Informative)
the whole game is unique and unlike anything else i have ever played. the "choose between 4 relies" thing gets tired after awhile, but for sheer inventiveness, 5% of this game is more creative than 5 other videogames put together
Re:Planescape: Torment (Score:3, Interesting)
Planescape is really one of the only RPGs to have actual storylines, as opposed to maps or enemy sets to navigate or eliminate.
The implicit sidequest to find the truth behind your beloved is probably the best in all of CRPGdom.
PST -- A quest to know YOURSELF! (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, what better quest can there be, than a Quest to learn who you are? A chance to discover yourself and, just maybe, make amends for past sins and save your own soul and prevent the suffering of others.
Beautifully written, IMO it is the high-water mark of videogames.
P.S. For those who enjoyed PST, I highly recommend Stanislaw Lem's novel, Solaris. The central character (Kelvin) asks many of the same questions. If you've seen the Russian f
Re:Planescape: Torment (Score:2)
Definately loved the character side quests - finding out more about your companions made the game feel alot deeper. PST, the KOTOR games and the BG series are just about the only D&D style RPGs where your party memebers were more than just pack mules. Not surprising, given that they were developed by the same two teams (Bioware and Black isle/Obsidian).
My old time favorite... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My old time favorite... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My old time favorite... (Score:2)
Re:My old time favorite... (Score:3, Funny)
Chrono Trigger (Score:3)
Unless, of course, you count nethack...
Nethack uber alles (Score:2)
Best quest ever (Score:4, Insightful)
It must be the best quest, since it appears in the two best RPGs ever written.
Re:Best quest ever (Score:2)
Kingdom of Loathing and what else?
Re:Best quest ever (Score:2)
Progress Quest is -- by far -- the most entertaining RPG I've played.
Ambermoon (Score:3, Interesting)
Ambermoon [umcus.org] on the Thalion Webshrine (files for Amiga emulators on the last page of the article).
Oooh, I remember reading a "complete walkthrough" (that won an award/money prize IIRC)in one game magazine that didn't even cover half of the game.
You could easily tell because the "complete list of NPCs for your party" didn't contain two key figures and didn't mention the place where you find one of them.
And without visiting that NPC and place (as there is a - literal - key item), there is no chance to ever get to the second part of the game that mostly takes place on two other worlds instead of the (only) one you know of up until then.
It was a little like "Fellowship of the Ring" ending on the gate to the mines of Moria because nobody could open the door.
I am still somewhat amazed that nobody cared about all the dangling storylines, hints or even that there were some islands/areas on the (included) map that he didn't figure out how to reach..
Forget the Hand & Eye! I'll form the Head! (Score:2)
Would have to be The Bard's Tale (I II and III) (Score:3, Interesting)
Was one of the games that helped to put Electronic Arts on the map. 10 or so years later (after it wasn't sold anymore) I got nostalgic and called EA to see about ordering them , I missed playing them and low and behold they still got many requests, and had plent of not only games but clue books on hand. It developed a cult following.
I liked the view the most, I think
I enjoyed Ultima, FF and the rest, but Bards Tale was my all time favorite.
Re:Would have to be The Bard's Tale (I II and III) (Score:2, Informative)
Bard's Tale 3 was my first RPG. What a great game! I don't remember if I used a clue book or not, but I do remember how freakin' difficult the final battle was. What a feeling when I finally won!
Re:Would have to be The Bard's Tale (I II and III) (Score:2)
Also, the modern remake/game with the same name (but is a totally different game) includes the first three Bard's Tale games as a bonus.
Re:Would have to be The Bard's Tale (I II and III) (Score:2)
With my luck, that's only the PC version, right?
Are we there Yeti? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Are we there Yeti? (Score:2, Informative)
Final Fantasy VI - The Opera (Score:4, Insightful)
It's so beautiful, but sad, and it foreshadows what happens during the second half of the game. Arguably the most famous sequence in the game, in 2002 Electronic Gaming Monthly declared the opera scene one of the "20 Greatest Moments in Console Gaming."
Re:Final Fantasy VI - The Opera (Score:2)
Dragon Quest VIII (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to chime in for Dragon Quest VIII. It probably isn't the best RPG I've played - I'd say there are some parts of Final Fantasy US3 that can make my eyes water (locke's girlfriend and the phoenix)... but DQ8 is a throwback to Old school RPG's. It has excellent grapics in the "cell shaded" style, and I can not possibly say enough good about the music. The game has a good storyline, it's never taking its self too seriously, and I can't wait to see how it all ends.
~Will
Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:3, Insightful)
Coming back on topic (or at least this particular thread of it), I personally enjoy doing the quest chain that gives access to Onyxia's Lair. It's one of the longer, more complicated quest chains in the game but it has one or two really nice parts to it. I don't know exactly how much health and armor that Highlord Bolvar Fordragon has, but he can tank for me anyt
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Anyway, I wish I were able to mod you up. Here's one reason why:
The basic problem with quests in World Of Warcraft is that they have to be accessible to the average player, and by that I mean that they have to be pretty much idiot-proof. Any quest that wasn't would only:
1. Cause a disproportionate number of GM tickets (support requests from a
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Cluck, cluck, chicken!
Re:Favorite WoW Quest (Score:2)
Probably my favorite WOW quest of all time though has to be The Mechanical Yeti Quest. You basically go to winterspring, talk to a goblin who has you collect a bunch of stuff to make a summonable pet 3 times that is a combat pet. The cool part of the quest though is once yuo get him built you have t
Paranoia (Score:2, Funny)
Arcanum's Half-Ogres (Score:2, Interesting)
There's an extended, wholly optional, and even somewhat difficult to acquire quest that starts in Tarant (Arcanum's largest city, comparable to London) in which we discover why the gnomish capitalists almost all have half-ogre bodyguards, and why prostitutes
Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
All of the quests in that area are nice but the best is helping a zombie remember her name. It has multiple solutions and none of them involve killing anything just making what you think is the best choice.
Same as, what can chance the nature of a man. That one had me really thinking about what to answer. It doesn't matter of course as the game continues on the same path but I felt the 'right' response was important.
Those are the best quests for me. When you can make choices that perhaps don't 'matter' but wich you feel are the ones you can live with. When you choose a response not based on loot or XP but just on roleplaying THAT is when a RPG is at its best.
Vampire Bloodlines has another quest like that. You come across an apartment of a prostitute and can read her diary where she talks off how she hates the live but has met someone nice. It also becomes clear that some vampire has infected her and her new love with a deadly disease. She is dying and you can talk to her to find out more. Depending on your race of vampire you can comfort her by pretending to be her love. It doesn't do anything. Just feels right. As the mad vampire race you even have some very poignant observations to make.
Nice. When I went to slay the vampire that infected her it wasn't for the XP.
MMORPG's rarely if ever can achieve this. How can they? It would ruin the moment of her passing away if there was a line behind you waiting to talk to her as well. The nameless zombie would be more comedy for having thousands of people tell her her name only to forget again.
A truly great RPG is about roleplaying, where you make your choices based on the character you have chosen to play. To me a that would mean that an evil character would indeed have more wealth and power but also find himself ultimately alone with noone to trust.
BUT a purely good character would be poor (not nice to accept a widows wedding ring as payment for rescueing her childeren) and ultimately just as alone as a purely good character could never tolerate say a thief in his/her party.
For me a true MMORPG would have 3 alignments. Good, evil and the most common one. Slightly evil. The alignment most of us have in real live. Make a player pay throught the nose if he wants to play a dogooder. Make evil characters outcasts from society who like real criminals have to spend much of their wealth in bribing people to be their friends.
Oh and stop it with the quest que. It ruins it when a dozen people are getting the same quest if everything in the story suggests that the quest should be unique.
PlaneScape: Torment (Score:2)
* Plot
* Interaction with NPCs
* Interaction among NPCs
* Best sidekick/party member (Mort, a lecherous floating skull who gets a *lot* of great lines.)
I also loved the part where you can play with a toy adventurer. Short, but priceless.
My runners up are Fallout 1, Balder's Gate 2, and Fallout 2.
The Babel Fish! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Babel Fish! (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Put your towel over the drain.
3. Put Ford's satchel in front of the Robot panel.
4. Put your junk mail on top of the satchel.
I think that was everything. You push the button, the fish shoots out, hits the robe, falls to the towel. A cleaning robot comes out, hits the satchel, sending the mail flying. Another robot flies out, cleans up the mail. Somewhere in all this, the fish lands in your ear. Anyone else remember how this went?
Morrowind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Morrowind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Morrowind (Score:2)
Re:Morrowind (Score:2)
Hardly the fair battle he wanted...I always felt guilty about that.
PC RPG vs. PnP RPG (Score:4, Interesting)
I do however have many fond memories of 'quests' from pen and paper RPGs like AD&D, or Shadowrun, or Star Wars. Actually I can't remember any that were boring!
I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way...and if I'm not...why then are pen and paper 'quests' so much more memorable than their pc counterparts? Maybe 'quests' were one of the things that never succesfully transitioned from the table top to the screen?
Beta testing auto-assault this weekend leaves me feeling the exact same way as the article describes, I'm jumping from one mission to the next without even reading what they are about =(...and I couldn't care less. It's a far cry from the glory days of pen and paper...the progenitor of all computer RPGs.
Re:PC RPG vs. PnP RPG (Score:2)
Well, lemme think...
Planescape Torment, the Modron Cube. Now that was wildly crazy, being a parody of old dungeon crawl games. After depth, sadness, fear, regret, shame of the main quest, serious sad issues that make you think, feel you ashamed of your own past that haunts you, discovering unexpected consequences of actions you didn't even remember, followed by trustful torn souls, you enter a parody of simplistic labyrinth (8x
Collecting Cuccos (Score:3, Interesting)
Legend of Oasis (Score:2)
From Progress Quest... (Score:2)
I recommend (Score:2, Interesting)
KoToR... (Score:4, Informative)
World of Warcraft has some good ones... (Score:3, Insightful)
After the fall of Darrowshire, the Redpath family was split up. The ghost of the daughter starts the chain sending you off to located the remaining living family members. Through magic you rewrite their historic battle to allow yourself to enter into the defense of the town. The last quest involves gathering up to 39 other friends to fight along side the ghostly town defenders against the undead scourge onslaught. Really an epic conclusion to an interesting fantasy story.
WoW: In Dreams (Score:3, Interesting)
The Glow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Glow (Score:2)
Re:The Glow (Score:2)
Ultima V: Lazarus (Score:2, Interesting)
Dragoon Quest, FFXI (Score:2)
System Shock 2 (Score:2)
Bureacracy by Infocom (Score:2)
Unfortunately, your mail has been misdelivered.
The initial challenge to retrieve your mail requires getting past an ultra-conservative deaf old lady and her parrot, a malicious llama, an ultra-paranoid, an anti-social philatelist, and an annoying geek. Depositing your advance took Herculean effort, and your health was measured by your (in-game) blood pressure. Listening to your voice messages almost killed yo
NannyMUD Quest: Keep the MUD tidy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Without a doubt, NannyMUD [lysator.liu.se] had (and perhaps still has) the best quest system I've ever had the pleasure of playing. In NannyMUD you need both QP (quest points) as well as traditional EXP points in order to level-up. Once players reached a certain level, they became wizards, and were given the ability to script their own portions of the game and create their own quests to go along with their areas. A very novel thing for a MUD, especially in 1990.
The real beauty was the diversity and ingenuity of the quests [lysator.liu.se]. Many required no fighting, just a bit of logic and a little hunting around for what you need.
A few of my favorites:
* The walking castle is sweet. You spend long enough inside it that you could be anywhere by the time you leave...often without a clue about which direction is home!
Eye of the Beholder (Score:2, Interesting)
so the main quests was, to get out of the dungeon and YEAH, you've had learn those friggin dungeon map by heart, or you'd constantly go in circles. i just love all those tiny secrets. the well hidden buttons, or the illusional walls. i've never bothered to use any cheats or walkthroughs and thus,
Chrono Trigger Anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
CRPG quests = mostly errands (Score:3, Insightful)
Good quests are about story (Score:2)
Manrik's wife in Wow (Score:2)
Re:Progress Quest (Score:3, Insightful)
"Placate the Ochre Jellies"
"Seek the Crafted Spangle"
"Seek the Proverbial Galoon"
Re:Why - The quest for Glory! (Score:2)
My favorite way to play through was as a thief with magic skills. I liked how flexible they were in offering you multiple ways to solve certain puzzles depending on what class you were.
They really need to rerelease these. And, hey, knowing Quest for Glory doesn't make you old! I'm 26