OB: An RPG Quest that wasn't: The Gray Prince

[Odorousrex]

OK Ignoring the horrible interface, underpopulation, and bugs. Let me get to an example of a content thing that upset me.

This contains spoilers BTW (like you could care)

The Quest is called "The Gray Prince" or some such. It starts with a gray (go figure) Orc who is Grand Champion of the Arena. He doesn't know a lot about his family life, and he wants you to find the ruins of his familial homestead and discover his origins.

Sounds great at this point!

So he sends you to a place called Crowhaven, on a beautiful golden grass covered hill overlooking the Aebecean Sea.

So far so good.

I find the dungeon, a vicious rat assails me. I valiantly slay it, and head in. The dungeon is fairly linear, and is not laid out as one would expect a homestead to be. This lets me down a little, but I press on. I must see if there is some clue here that will lead me to the Gray Prince's origin.

I finally reach the end of the dungeon, and a half naked man named "Lord Lovidicus" attachs me with a small dagger. I surprisingly easily dispatch him. Searching his room, I find out he was a Vampire Lord (wtf! I took him down at level 3?!?!?) and he was the Gray Prince's father.

I vainly search for more. Then reluctantly return to the Orc. He trains me as thanks. Then reads the diary I found and finds out he's half-vampire. He gets upset. And then refuses to broach the subject anymore.

End of quest.


I was so let down. This quest has POTENTIAL to be GREAT!!! I could write better shlop then this. And I'm not a writer, just a lowly programmer.

There is just so much POTENTIAL in this world they've created. I'm hoping modders can put it to good use.

 

[bryce777]

If the vampire lord had a chance to kill you, that would break immersion.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

God forbid.

 

[Chefe]

So... Morrowind type quests.

Unless, of course, later on in the game vampires attack you for slaying that guy... or whatever. Then you surrender and you're suddenly thrown into this complex weave of vampire politics and devious schemes to overtake the manors in the Imperial City and imprison all Khajiits in Tamriel. But don't get your hopes up.

 

[HanoverF]

Sounds like the height of quest design, you go someplace, get something, bring it back, and never speak of it again.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

This quest has POTENTIAL to be GREAT!!!

Yeah, it should have been called the 'The Gay Prince'. That'd increase it's potential exponentially and stuff.

 

[Irwanday01]

not to burst your bubble, but he is the champion of the arena.... which means you will have to fight him if you want to be champion......which means this quest could be only half over....... wait and see.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

The thing is, would players have to fight him regardless of having perfomed that quest or not? If they have to fight him at the top opponent tiers it doesn't seem like much of a connection between them... If it will somehow influence the outcome, however, directly in regards to the player solving the quest, than it might be alright.

 

[Odorousrex]

not to burst your bubble, but he is the champion of the arena.... which means you will have to fight him if you want to be champion......which means this quest could be only half over....... wait and see.

Which is what I'm hoping for.

What I want, would be a longer, more involved quest.
I would like to have found a clue a burned diary, a locket perhaps, in Crowhaven, instead of a Vampire Lord. That leads me somewhere, to a fallen priest perhaps, who illegally married the orc's mom to the vampire lord.

This leads to a sidequest of helping the priest rekindle his faith in Mara, or if not, continuing on the Gray Prince quest line.

I report in to the GRay Prince, with the locket I found, and the info the priest gave me - that his father was "a pale-noble, or so he said" He trains me in thanks and tells me not to give up the search. He suggests I bury the locket at his mom's grave.

I find the grave, and bury the locket as requested. That night, wherever I may be, when I'm alone I'm visited by old Lord Lovidicus. He tells me not to meddle, before vanishing in a puff of smoke. (Before I can attack him or what not)

I tell the orc about this, he thinks his dad could be a mage. Checking in at the arcane university reveals no clues, but one of the mages suggests a necromancer or a vampire.

This gives me two leads, one bad, one good. Sends me to two different places. I find either a Necromancer coven and a dead end, or a den of vampires, Lord Lovidicus nowhere in sight.

After confirming the vampire option, I tell the Gray Prince. He is upset and sulks but thanks me anyway. Tells me to come back when I'm a better fighter. or whatever.

I come back several levels and/or arena ranks later, and he says he found a guy who knows where the Vampire Lord lives, he'd like to come with me to confront his vampire father.

So we go to a vicious dungeon, finally track down his dad. Rather than being half naked, and attacking us out right, he parlays. Gray Prince is enraged, and wants to kill him (for some reason I can't think of right now) Lovidicus paralyzes him and offers me options. Leave (leaving Gray Prince to his fate and an easy Grand Championship for me in the Arena, let him sire me as a vampire and together we feast on the Gray Prince, or attack him and kill him)
depending on what option I pick leads to something. Becoming a vampire is an option here and we kill the Gray Prince but then I have to deal with all the vampire shit. Leaving is another option, with no real reward except what I can take out of the dungeon. Heck maybe if I leave Lovidicus comes after me one night for revenge.
Killing him is best. Perhaps after he's dead, and one day I meet Gray Prince in the Arena for the GRand Champion match, he throws the match to me in thanks...or something and I get a great reward.



Crap that took me 5 minutes and it sucks but it's 10x better than the in game quest.

 

[bryce777]

It would be better to have a quest where you stumble upon things later - not something where you just do one quest to completion. Lawnmowing should not be possible....

 

[Chefe]

If the quests were like that, I might actually get the game. But alas, they are not.



"Thank you for killing my father, HERO. We shall never speak of this again."

Blade skill increased by +1

 

[Odorousrex]

If the quests were like that, I might actually get the game. But alas, they are not.



"Thank you for killing my father, HERO. We shall never speak of this again."

Blade skill increased by +1

Thank god for modders.

The POTENTIAL is there to do quests like this.

It just all has so much potential. I wish they had spent as much money on quest content as they did on things like graphics, RAI, etc.

The in-game books for example, are quite excellent. If the writers of the books could do the quests, I'd be cool!

 

[HardCode]

But see, Bethesda thinks that bad animations an long view distances with shit textures are worth the development time. Story? Writing? With all of that, the ADHD kids, ever so active on the TES forum right now, wouldn't tell mommy to get them a fucking chocolate milk and Oblivion.

 

[bryce777]

If the quests were like that, I might actually get the game. But alas, they are not.



"Thank you for killing my father, HERO. We shall never speak of this again."

Blade skill increased by +1

Thank god for modders.

The POTENTIAL is there to do quests like this.

It just all has so much potential. I wish they had spent as much money on quest content as they did on things like graphics, RAI, etc.

The in-game books for example, are quite excellent. If the writers of the books could do the quests, I'd be cool!

The quality of mods is so various, though, even within the same mod. There always seems to be at least a couple really annoying things in every large mod I ever see.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

snip...

sometimes I have the impression that "fan quality" is better then "developer quality", your post gaved an excellent example. And has you sead "Thank god for modders"


But seriously, is Bethesda trying to avoid doing a good job? It's like:

Developer #1: We finaly acheived in making next-gen graphics, now we only need to add dinamic shadows and ...
Todd Howard: Leave it, the graphics are just fine, go work on combat!

2 months later

Developer #2: The combat is trully kinetic, now all we have to make it 100% different from the Morrowind one.
Todd Howard: Why? Morrowind's combat is just fine, go work on RAI!

2 months later

Developer #3: The AI is almost human-like, NPC are truly living and breathing in the world arround them, we only need to add the final touches...
Todd Howard: Leave it, we don't have time for that, go get started on the Havok physics

2 months later

Developer #4: 9000 interactional objects boss, now we only need to make some of them breakable and make physic-based damage
Todd Howard: What? Stop making these dumb ideas, we need quests not physics!

2 months later

Developer #5: Well I'm planing to make a quest called the Gray Prince, I want to add a hole epic line of sidequests to it and a plot so complicated that it will turn even the smartest brains upside-down.
Todd Howard: You're fired!

 

[Chefe]

Romaniandude: "What? Stop making these dumb ideas, we need quests not physics!"

Thank god for modders.

Too bad all the good ones have quit. Haven't you been keeping up with the latest Elder Scrolls happenings? A couple of them were banned from the official forums even!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

They give a reason why?

 

[Data4]

Romaniandude: "What? Stop making these dumb ideas, we need quests not physics!"

Thank god for modders.

Too bad all the good ones have quit. Haven't you been keeping up with the latest Elder Scrolls happenings? A couple of them were banned from the official forums even!

I know about Kagz and Qarl-- both of them were a while ago. Are there new bannees since Oblivion's release? I know that the Oblivion Mods forum is 90% old lady ass, with the occasional glint of hope put forth by compass disabling and fast travel disabling mods.

-D4

 

[Chefe]

Astarasis left, so did Balor. Dongle is out of the picture too. There were a few others I believe.

I'm not sure if any of these guys were banned though. With all the effort that Qarl put into MW, it was a fucking disgrace to kick him out like that.