[Quest Discussion] Main Quest

[Seniosh]

Alright guys, to clean up the boards a bit, and start generating MainQuest discussion, i merged two old threads concerning the topic.

If you go back a page or two, Bob made a really good quest intro, detailing how and why the player comes upon Dumac, and how the quest is started. I'd vote to change very little of his ideas.

However, we still need the rest of the quest! What happens after you find the ruins? What is the objective of the quest? There must be some difficulty, and then a resolution, but that's basically the only bounds. A plot twist of some sort would be nice.

Also, i'd like to keep this a fairly easy to follow quest. No soap operas, science fiction novels, etc. Keep it interesting, understandable, and do-able. Consequently, we might want to decide against having the "Synthesis Machine" concept be a prominent role of the Main Quest, seeing as we don't have a model or scripting for one... Plus, then we can save it for a really big & exciting sidequest.

This is just my two cents, be sure to contribute guys!

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Alright guys, to clean up the boards a bit, and start generating MainQuest discussion, I merged two old threads concerning the topic.

If you go back a page or two, Bob made a really good quest intro, detailing how and why the player comes upon Dumac, and how the quest is started. I'd vote to change very little of his ideas.

However, we still need the rest of the quest! What happens after you find the ruins? What is the objective of the quest? There must be some difficulty, and then a resolution, but that's basically the only bounds. A plot twist of some sort would be nice.

Also, i'd like to keep this a fairly easy to follow quest. No soap operas, science fiction novels, etc. Keep it interesting, understandable, and do-able. Consequently, we might want to decide against having the "Synthesis Machine" concept be a prominent role of the Main Quest, seeing as we don't have a model or scripting for one... Plus, then we can save it for a really big & exciting sidequest.

This is just my two cents, be sure to contribute guys!

Ok, so I'm gonna take a stab at doing some creative thinking for a quest (my first one, actually, so bear with me; also there may be some background details I'm not aware of or lore I'm not aware of).

Ok, so you come across the crazy guy and take him to a sanitarium or some padded cell. And you have the talking sword in some sort of machine (or not in a machine - I'll explain both pathways later on). Well, how did the guy become crazy? How did the sword get around to talking in the first place?

See the crazy guy, in his past history, had always been crazy - he suffered from the Nirn equivalent of Split Personality Disorder, whereas two or more personas or personalities simultaneously inhabit his mind (or soul), taking turns as to which was present and dominant, of which the one that was dominant at the time interacted with the world through the crazy guy's body (talking to other people who were normal or what have you).

Somehow you find out, that the crazy guy, through some bizarre experiment or maybe just by accidentally getting too close to the machine, somehow got one of his personalities sort of "soul trapped" into the sword (this soul-trapped personality may even be the crazy guy's real self, or one of his odd ball personalities). Or, if no machine, some sort of special "soul gem" near the sword trapped his persona.

Well, you find the sword, and maybe the diary of the crazy guy says how his "genious" persona was trying to become the dominant persona over them all and the diary was written mostly by the genius persona, with some insane babble scattered here and there throughout the text when another persona took over temporarily. The genius persona was setting up the experiment in his dominant times, over time, to become sole heir of the body. But something went wrong, as the genious persona was about to throw the switch to the machine or use the gem, in a bout of bad timing, an idiot persona took over or something, and activated/chanted something wrong, so all personas were destroyed except for two personas: the insane idiot persona (is both an idiot and insane; insanity within insanity), and the persona that is the most well-rounded and that should have been in all natural occurences, the only persona of the guy's body.

So after this happens, the gem or machine breaks, pieces seen on the floor when the player get there. The insane idiot persona was left in the body, while the normal persona is in the sword.

Somehow you fix a new gem or fix the machine, and am now on a quest to help the crazy man regain his sanity. So you fix the machine or gem (find special pieces to fix it or something). Well somehow, the crazy guy got to the ruins too, from his padded cell. The insane idiot persona does something idiotic or insane, killing itself , but the player transfers the normal persona into the guy's body just in the nick of time. The machine or gem break again, but this time beyond repair. The guy gets up and is normal, thanks player, lives a normal life for the first time ever, happy ending, yay!! OR, the idiot persona is switched into the sword while the normal persona goes into the guy's body. The insane idiotic persona can also be criminally insane, and makes for a fine bloodlust sword after all!

THE END.

Koniption

(Yes, I have taken college creative writing classes, if you were curious to know. Whee!)

[bob196045]

Your 2 cents is worth a nickel

Agreed I like my idea as well for the beginnings of Dumac
but I'm bias

Anyway

We discussed very little of the other ideas in quest form, at this moment I will only add a penny to your 2.

We have the Doran Searor Journal (aka the Altmer Society of Archeology) This gets us in the Door, once through the tests were does the player emerge.

We discussed a small underground city, with housing, schools places of worship, ritual etc. etc. etc.

We discussed an industrial area. Machines, scores of steam pipe and machines to run the city, mine and industry. One suggestion is a smaller cave with an active lava flow to use as a source of power

We discussed a mine, recently even ghostly miners or miner, which we could adapt into a small quest

So we have

The Doran Searor Journal
Society of Archeology asks you to find one of their missing members Doron of Sunhold. The Journal is found and gives clues in order for the player to safely pass the Tests until the Test of Confrontation which the player will need to defeat the Large Construct guarding the enterance to the city.

The Sysnthesis Machine
The player discovers plans and parts for a new Dwemer machine which can replicate, repair and manufacture items based on components used. For our purpose it will allow the player to make a small number of throwing explosive devices, repair a Centurian Companion and bring life to a talking sword**

**I think discovering the sword nad finding whats needed to make it talk should be 1 quest on its own EDIT I just read Koniption post (which was done as I was typing thiis) The idea for the sword might do well here !!
The Dwemer Mine
I don't recall too much about what was discussed, I think a good quest for this would be to find the mine completely intact but not functioning and the quest could be to repair broken pipes which allow
this automated mine to operate and produce (a metal) which the Empire of course will take charge of

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With the Addition of the Dwemer Ghosts we briefly discussed a Ghost in the mine, possibly a slave or criminal who was made to serve as a miner

Also with the addition of the Ghosts we could possibly bring a small quest to unite a family IE Husband to Wife or Parents to Child (if we can get a child face)

AND another ghostly quest can be added to defeat a Dwemer Spirit who may have been held captive in a chamber which when the chamber was discovered and opened released this evil spirit

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I think we need to decide how many other areas will be discovered throught the course of the gameplay once we decide that we can come up with a small quest for that area, As we have it now, the player will receive a message every so many game weeks that He/She is needed to clear a new area that was discovered


Anything Else ?


Enjoy
Bob

[Seniosh]

@Bob - I like those ideas a lot, especially the reuniting ghosts idea. Perhaps you should re-post them in the Quest Ideas Thread? I wanted to focus on the main quest more than anything.

@Koniption - try to keep it dwemer-centric i think. We're really shooting for a main quest for Dumac which is larger and more involved than the crazy guy

As we've seen, there are an infinite number of really good sidequests that we could have going on, but i'd like to concentrate on the first, and most important quest - the Main Quest.

One idea that had been thrown around was that the arrival of the player somehow activated the ruin? Since it was designed as a fortress, maybe we could have the player stop some long-forgotten weapon from activating. We could go so far as to say it was a failed numidium, in that it wasn't a god, but was still pretty darn powerful. Even if the entire thing exploded, it would still be catastrophic.

The player would have to solve puzzles and stop the machine from activating. It would also be really interesting for the player, because of course we wouldn't tell the PC any of this. First he'd enter the ruins, then he'd notice activity, then he'd have to figure out what it was, then he'd have to go and stop it.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Seniosh........@Koniption - try to keep it dwemer-centric I think. We're really shooting for a main quest for Dumac which is larger and more involved than the crazy guy

As we've seen, there are an infinite number of really good sidequests that we could have going on, but i'd like to concentrate on the first, and most important quest - the Main Quest.......

Aww, shucks... :poorme: And it was a nicely twisted story too...

Well, not to hijack this thread much longer, but what if with a few changes it could be a sidequest of some sort? Maybe a different crazy guy, or somehow ties into the current crazy dude but separate from main quest? The sword could be replaced with a soul gem or relic that has the trapped normal persona in it, so the talking sword can be for the main quest. :]

If you want it to tie into Dwemer lore, didn't the Dwemer try to "ascend" to immortality? Maybe the machine/sword capturing a persona was an early attempt to immortalize oneself, by putting oneself magically in objects that don't decay. But they found it didn't work so well or didn't work at all, and you couldn't do much being trapped in an object and all - gets rather boring, me thinks.

Either way, I'll let you guys get back to the discussion of the main quest.

Koniption

[InsanitySorrow]

Originally posted by Koniption

the talking sword can be for the main quest. :]

Koniption

The talking sword was originally planned as an easter egg, something to help lift the tone of Dumac a little with some comedy and humour. Though a sidquest would be nice.

Any ideas you have you sould post in the new thread, there we can discuss them more thoroughly. As for the main quest, maybe we should gather all the good ideas and put them together in some quest form, then we can discuss it further. Maybe a new thread entitled "Main Quest Discussion" or something can be made just for the main quest.

[Seniosh]

I might just re-name this "Main Quest Discussion" Cause we can do that - we have the technology.

What do you guys think of my previous ideas? The major problem is that the player needs some plausible problem to solve upon entering the ruin - once we figure that out, everything else falls into place.

It could be something like my idea of de-activating, or at least controlling the ruins, or it could be calming a bunch of angry dwemer ghosts.

Another thing to consider is that the main quest doesn't necessarily have to start immediately. It could be rather long and drawn out, so that the player can just do side-quests between stages. The ideas i put forth have a certain sense of urgency about them, but that doesn't have to be the case.

It could be something like doing excavations and explorations for a guild of archaeologists - initially, the player would just do missions at his leisure, but later on, it would get more involved, and could culminate with the revelation that the archaeologists have some deeper, more sinister purpose.

[InsanitySorrow]

I like the idea of some sort of threat, maybe the dwemer uncovered something thats been buired for a millenia and would destroy the world if not stopped. Or maybe its that the dwemer had a safe guard system in place and the archeologists have set it off and are in danger, so the player has to stop it and save the people.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'm not sure about those. They sound very much like a standard quest. You would need to approach the storyline with real ingenuity in order to make anything of it without it being very humdrum.

So I guess you could have a quest involving the ongoing search for a special type of ore that the unrestful Dwemer spirits are still intent on finding and cannot even return to their final resting place until it has been found. This could be a 'cosmic crystal' of some kind that possibly has a magical property and which legends says contains within it the original resting places of the souls of the Dwemer amongst the stars.....in finding it, there is the possibility that the Dwemer might walk on Tamriel again once more through the powers of their long-lost gods and this special element.....

[InsanitySorrow]

Unique is the best way to go, I like your idea as with most here in Dumac, I will have to search through lore and see if there is anything we can use or relate to for the "Cosmic Crystal". But the idea of them using magic for their own ends is something that you can expect from the dwemer and could work well.