favorite/memorable quests?

[Terpsichore]

The haunted hotel from Bloodlines comes to mind first.

 

[MrMarbles]

Receiving the final divine blessing in Arcanum, after piecing together the order of the deities from a painting in Tarant and endlessly trecking around the wilderness to find the altars

 

[thesheeep]

The haunted hotel from Bloodlines comes to mind first.

Yes, quite simply the best haunted house dungeon/quest outside of pure horror games.
A whole game like that would be rather lame, but only one location like that nailed it.

 

[V_K]

I prefer adventure-style quests where you're not given a lot of instructions and have to figure out a creative solution on your own. One that springs to mind is the Trools' strike in Arx Fatalis.

 

[DraQ]

The Codex gold standard for the RPG Quest seems to be the branching double-double-crossing skillcheck-heavy investigation with a plenitude of ambiguous choices and horrifying consequences. But I can’t actually think of very many particularly interesting small-scale examples of the above.

Actually, it would be neat if this thread focused on those, because otherwise it's easy to get lost in pointlessly trying to argue over merits of one massive questline over another.

Another really memorable quest was the break in to save that priest woman from the Ministry of Truth in Morrowind. Maybe because for like the first or second time in the main quest instead of clearing a dungeon and then having some task giver tell you some more of the story, what you were doing actually was the story for once. I guess the key here was that just fighting your way in was pretty hard at non-high levels and would pretty disastrous for your relationship with the Ordinators, and so was a pretty dumb approach. And Morrowind actually had the mechanics to make breaking in interesting (various stealth/magic/Temple faction ranking/items like keys etc could all come into play).

Actually, that was a very well made quest. Not only was it well rooted in the setting (which tends to be the norm even for otherwise poor MW quests), but it was organically linked to number of things like faction mechanics

Spoiler

You could just waltz in and demand the key or something like that if you were a high ranking Temple memeber - you got some grumbling this way, but no actual resistance

, and had logical, but in no way telegraphed solutions like

Spoiler

disguising yourself as Ordinator and being convincing enough when you say you're authorized for doing what you're doing

.

 

[Night Goat]

Exile II's journey to the Vahnatai lands. The long trip down the river, finding traces of the Vahnatai along the way...then reaching their lands, learning about a strange new civilization, encountering creatures you've never seen before...such a simple game, but the memories stay with me almost two decades later.

 

[Jaesun]

The haunted hotel from Bloodlines comes to mind first.

That'a Area Design, not really quest design.

 

[Tigranes]

Arcanum, FNV and AoD rise far above the rest in this one.

The Gnome Conspiracy is a masterpiece, but diplomatic envoy / assassin to the King of Caladon is also exciting, with a gigantic castle and a lot of buildup, and with two very different experiences regarding the same event. I also thought the murder mystery is rather charming. Arcanum quests don't necessarily have the best C&C, but tell a great narrative and make you really love the setting.

FNV and AoD for sheer reactivity, and I'd say AoD wins out quite comfortably in terms of how 5 or 6 different backgrounds get different entryways into the same sequence of events, of which you only ever get specific partial views and modify in multiple ways, all culminating in the fate of that city as a whole, which you come to realise over multiple playthroughs of each background then with different backgrounds. Then of course there are some sweet, memorable moments like the standoff in the treasure building in Maadoran, getting your employer to pay your targets to go kill your other targets and then having the same employer reward you for both, and of course getting backstabbed by NPCs, a lot.

 

[Azrael the cat]

The haunted hotel from Bloodlines comes to mind first.

That'a Area Design, not really quest design.

The quest design does a lot to bring the area to life though: you go there with a fairly generic goal (eliminate the ghost), then you get a very personal story fed in drips (but without resorting to audio logs, diaries or cut-scenes).

 

[Jaesun]

The haunted hotel from Bloodlines comes to mind first.

That'a Area Design, not really quest design.

The quest design does a lot to bring the area to life though: you go there with a fairly generic goal (eliminate the ghost), then you get a very personal story fed in drips (but without resorting to audio logs, diaries or cut-scenes).

Again, that is excellent Area Design, not Quest Design.

Quest Design is something more like The Siamese twin skulls in Arcanum. Of which it is never answered..... Or is it?

 

[StaticSpine]

Aside from PS: T quests

I remember the quest from FO2 when you need to get back man's liver, which he had lost playing poker.

 

[Cadmus]

This thread made me realize how little I remember. I was sure there were tons of great quests I played but I can only recall the goddamn Ajira...

 

[Carrion]

I usually like quests where it's not instantly obvious how you'll achieve your goals, where you're encouraged to explore and talk to various people and where the first NPC you meet doesn't instantly tell you where to go. A vague "investigate X" is usually more interesting than "talk to Y about X", although the latter can still be interesting if Y is Ravel Puzzlewell or Lord Vivec. Too bad that so few games have quests that are interesting structure-wise, and even seemingly complex quests usually follow a fairly linear A -> B -> C pattern.

The OP mentioned finding the water chip, and that is pretty much the best example of an great cRPG quest that I can think of. You talk to people, pick up pieces of information here and there, travel to different places and follow clues that may or may not lead anywhere, but aside from the travelling part none of that is mandatory. For me it's pretty much the ultimate detective quest.

New Vegas also had a bunch of quests that I thought were really good structure-wise, like the quests where you had to either make alliances with other factions or destroy them, and I wish more games would offer something similar. Arcanum had a few terrific quests in addition the gnome conspiracy, like the negotiations between Tarant and Caladon that could potentially make some fairly influential people very angry or even lead to a regicide. PS:T had a ton of fetch quests that were nonetheless immensely enjoyable because of the writing. It'd be pretty easy to list quests that are good or interesting, but there aren't many that truly stand out.

 

[Backstabber]

[Sarcasm] I love the quest to collect turnips in Gothic 2.

Now seriously, I agree that FNV had some interesting scenarios. I liked the entire thing with the cannibals in the luxury casino, and I consider Vault 11 to be the best Fallout "dungeon" since The Glow in Fallout 1.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I got around to playing Darklands about a year ago (thanks to seeing it touted on the codex) and I think that the way the "main" plot is handled was just terrific. I love the way that if I hadn't been spoiled on the plot, it would have just arisen in a really natural way after I stumbled upon a curious detail to investigate ("what did that priest say? What's up with that weird lady in the woods?). It was also pretty cool the way I could have theoretically never known about it and just wandered around Germany killing Raubritters and clearing mines until my characters retired as famous and rich.

 

[DalekFlay]

I really liked the Veronica and Brotherhood of Steel stuff in New Vegas. When she thinks she's out and they follow and... well, it's really good Fallout moments in there. Also anything with faction play in that game is amazing, like going undercover for Caesar and fucking up the NCR base, or whatever else like that.

Give Fallout 3 its rare props as well, that Tenpenny Tower quest was pretty good.

Anything in Morrowind that got deep into the politics and lore of that society is ace in my book. Too many to mention, really. The Temple has some surprisingly good stuff toward the end too for what originally seems to be a rather bland faction. Morag Tong is simplistic but I loved the idea of legalized assassination. The Morag Tong sidequest where you poison that dude's food is really memorable, as there isn't much like that in Morrowind.

I remember that New Reno mob boss stuff really well in Fallout 2, mainly because there are so many ways to fuck shit up.

Risen 2 is a really flawed game but I liked the questline in the second large area where you're managing the colonizers at the fort and the native village and you really have a wealth of options about who to fuck over and when.

I really like faction play in case it wasn't obvious.

 

[Servo]

I like hidden quests with rewards, such as recruiting Ignus.

 

[Chunkyman]

I liked the quest in Oblivion where you had to kill all of the guests at a party, and you had various ways of goading them into murdering each other. More games need to have quests of that variety, as too often the choices for solving a quest involve clicking option A, B, or C, as opposed to having a more organic method of resolving the situation.

 

[Gord]

The whole Arl of Redcliffe quest in DA:O was quite nice due to the way it integrated into the general plot and the various possibilities for C&C in it.
Even when the final outcome to some degree degenerated to Biowarian fake C&C, the overall quest (and its various stages) were cool.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

The whole Arl of Redcliffe quest in DA:O was quite nice due to the way it integrated into the general plot and the various possibilities for C&C in it.
Even when the final outcome to some degree degenerated to Biowarian fake C&C, the overall quest (and its various stages) were cool.

Yes, even though it hurts to say something nice about DA:O, that was a really well done questline. Fake C&C or no, the integration with the mage's circle was really nicely done. I remember at the end of it realizing I had just gone through three large quests, including two of the major plot points without noticing any abrupt, gimmicky transitions. I do think the Crazy person village was a bit of a let-down though. The investigation portion of it was too perfunctory for my tastes. IIRC I figured out they were a bunch of weirdo cultists I was going to have to either murder or join after talking to the town entrance guard. But it was understandable considering how much had already been included in the quest.

 

[Lhynn]

Give Fallout 3 its rare props as well, that Tenpenny Tower quest was pretty good.

Nope, it was one of the absolutely most retarded parts of an already awful game.

 

[Carrion]

The Morag Tong sidequest where you poison that dude's food is really memorable, as there isn't much like that in Morrowind.

A quest where you walk into an empty house, click on a pot and you're done?

I've got to join the Mehra Milo bandwagon when talking about the best MW quest.

 

[Akratus]

Give Fallout 3 its rare props as well, that Tenpenny Tower quest was pretty good.

Nope, it was one of the absolutely most retarded parts of an already awful game.

It's still memorable, but only because it's the only quest which doesn't give you the most obvious outcome.

I personally quite liked some NV quests as well. Like 'For auld lang syne.'

Also, the detective quest in The Witcher 1. It's really great that there's a way for you to think you accomplished it, and then have it bite you in the ass later since you actually fucked up.

 

[Outmind]

There was a quest with the Temple in Morrowind where you had to take a vow of silence and head to a shrine in the north of Vardenfell all the way from Vivec without speaking to anyone. Not that hard if you are a mage, but warriors needed to trek all the way in real time.

 

[Stephane F.]

A good quest is a quest you can refuse without being penalized. OR a quest that you can't refuse at all ("you suddenly wake up, coughing. The whole fucking house is on fire.").

Most of all, a good quest is a quest that occurs real changes in the world of the game. Heavy consequences.