[NotUS]

Thought it might be interesting to come up with some quest ideas. What can you come up with, what would you like to see. Who knows, CDPR might take some ideas from here to implement in their game, or transform them into something more interesting.

Many will be lame, I know mine will be, but I'd be curious to see what some of your creative minds can come up with.

Simple Quests
Knights Duel/Jousting - Like in Knights Tale.

Town trials - Like in the First Knight movie where you have to pass various challenges

Horse stampede - Seize control of the stampede before it storms through a small village.

Side Quest
You are walking or riding down a path from one town to the next, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, a beautiful sunny day. In the distance you see a mountain, bottom half covered in grass and trees, the top half thick snow, it looks out of place. The closer you get, you start to hear an echoed voice calling out, naturally you investigate. You start making your way up the mountain, voices get louder, become sentences, you've now hit the snow. The going is slow a thick blizzard forms, visibility is poor. The snow turns to ice, you hear the mountain laugh in a loud roar. The ice cracks, you fall inside the mountain.

You've hit the bottom, landed in a pool of tar. It's a dungeon, a deathrap. You see eyes piercing the dark, footsteps coming towards you. Visibility is poor, your movement is slow, your reaction time poor, the tar is wearing you down. You get out of the pool of tar, and are suddenly being attacked by these creatures. Your swings are slow and have less impact, you use your signs to reduce damage, you then set the pool of tar alight.

All of a sudden there is visibility, the creatures freeze out of shock for a moment, you see a doorway with three symbols above it, a puzzle to solve. The creatures begin to attack again, but the light from the fire has weakened them, they are easier to fend off. You focus on solving the puzzle, whilst fending off the creatures.

You eventually solve the puzzle, the magic door opens, daylight streams in, the creatures are frozen solid. The light engulfs you, raises you so you hover a foot above the ground. The mountain speaks and chants a spell. You have just earn the ability to enchant your sword with the power of daylight. When enchanted for 10 seconds it will yield double damage to creatures of the night. It can only be used once per day. You leave the mountain, the daylight disolves away all the tar, you continue on with your journey.

Ocean Quest
I know Sea Creatures have been brought up, but what about part of the sea being haunted with the dead, kind of like what you see in the Lord Of The Rings swamp area. At a certain section of the sea, dead fish are floating, your boat speed slows, it's like you are sailing through sludge. Suddenly dead appear to come up from the ocean, they begin boarding your boat, hoards of them. Easy to kill, you keep fighting them off, but they keep coming. They start weighing the boat down, its slowly sinking due to the weight and pull from below. You turn to the sorcerer on the boat, they cast a spell and you possess/become one of the dead.

Everything begins to look different, you see a huge symbol on the ocean floor, now understanding the boat is trapped, in the middle of the symbol a dead king sits on a throne. You jump overboard, and have a boss battle with the Dead King Of The Ocean on the sea floor.

You lose, you see a flashforward of Triss, Yennefer, Zoltan, Roche etc all dead.

You win, ghost armour drops to the floor. You pick it up, swim back to the boat, all the dead are gone.

Ghost armour grants temporary invisibility, ideal for future thief quests.


Apologies if I've rambled, I hope you would like to contribute, it will give us something to do for the next year while we wait for the game.

[.Volsung.]

Interesting, but all that sounds like an action game or a Hollywood blockbuster.

I'd rather see more scenes from slavic history and mythology than generic fantasy. Also Geralt should get to use his wit, sarcasm, knowledge and experience, not just his swords.

[guipit]

We were talking about unpredictable quest giving down at the Afterlife forum.

For example, Geralt shops at particular merchantand every time he buys the merchant makes a little bit of small talk, by the 5th time you buy something they offer you quest because they're familiar with you.

[.Volsung.]

Just remember Witchers are not heroes, errand boys, knights-errant or anything in between. Geralt in particular doesn't put up with other people's crap. But he does care about certain things.

I just hope most quests provide something worthwhile and not just combat, or even worse, combat out of context. In RPG's characters need valid motivations. Gaining experience points or skills or whatever should be a natural result of character progression, but never a goal. That is, unless you're meta-gaming and simply want to have a "strong build".

[NotUS]

.Volsung. said:

Interesting, but all that sounds like an action game or a Hollywood blockbuster.

I'd rather see more scenes from slavic history and mythology than generic fantasy. Also Geralt should get to use his wit, sarcasm, knowledge and experience, not just his swords. ›››

Hmm, Hollywood blockbuster quest. Maybe I should add that when Geralt leaves the mountain, he turns to it, looks it up and down and says, 'I may look 163 years old, but I'll be back'.

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Truly epic quests would combine elements of what Volsung is talking about with new levels of bad ass-ry, and doing something bad ass doesn't always involve combat. My own "quest" wishlist is a bit juvenile, though: I would like to blow up things while sailing, throw daggers while on horseback, have a duel while compromised in some way, fight the wild hunt in the midst of a battle between the northern and southern armies, fight two bosses at once, race across the land against obstacles to save a friend, and finally sail to paradise on whores arses. So, basically the antithesis of Volsung's idea.

[guipit]

.Volsung. said:

Just remember Witchers are not heroes, errand boys, knights-errant or anything in between. Geralt in particular doesn't put up with other people's crap. But he does care about certain things.

I just hope most quests provide something worthwhile and not just combat, or even worse, combat out of context. In RPG's characters need valid motivations. Gaining experience points or skills or whatever should be a natural result of character progression, but never a goal. That is, unless you're meta-gaming and simply want to have a "strong build". ›››

with my shopkeeper example earlier it could be quests that have a not so urgent feel like in Chapter 4 of TW1 there was a request by the Blacksmith's wife to get rid of her husbands succubus. It wasn't really problem that needed a contract and it's rather shameful to admit your husband prefers a succubus.

[M4xw0lf]

I'd like more "witchery" side quests. Involving monsters which plague peasants and stuff. But not only "kill 10 drowners and bring me their brains", but with more context and possibly different solutions. So the example with the blacksmith's wife is a step in the right direction, as it involves solving a monster-related problem. But then you go killing some noonwraiths to gather shimmering dust, that's all.
A better example is "with flickering heart" from TW2, where you investigate what's been killing some young men, and there are different ways of solving the riddle.
The best example imo is from TW1: http://witcher.wikia.../Six_Feet_Under You need to find out what has been killing inhabitants of vizima, you have different suspects to conclude the quest with, plus there is a moral choice involved (or several actually). I'd like to have LOTS of quests like this, they are the essence of witchering.
Oh, and unique monsters - I loved the trophy hunt in TW1. It would be nice to have that back. And the dentist quest, which spans three acts. Collecting rare specimens of monster's teeth also has the right witcher-like feel, for me at least.

[NotUS]

With over 100 hours of hand crafted quests in the new game, I wonder how many don't make the grade. They may sound good on paper, but once tested in the game don't quite come off very well and are discarded.

Wonder if CDPR could implement the option for a blooper campaign once you complete the main quest. The option opens up to play 'Quests That CDPR Reject'.

Could be a bit of fun, half assed quests, kind of like American Idol audition rejects. Possibly even with some commentary from the developers stating why they didn't like it or what didn't work.

[blackgriffin]

can ve have a quest to restore Kaer MORHEN, recrut new candidates for the trials of grasses.
Cant remember witch book i read that said something about Geralt saving a traveler and his belongings and he promised Geralt can have whatever the traveler didn't expect to find home ( a child) and a different story where he goes to a castle because a boy was promised to join the witchers.
Something similar can be done in the game. Geralt saves a vilage and he is promised a strong lad to become a witcher

What are your thoughts?!

[.Volsung.]

guipit said:

with my shopkeeper example earlier it could be quests that have a not so urgent feel like in Chapter 4 of TW1 there was a request by the Blacksmith's wife to get rid of her husbands succubus. It wasn't really problem that needed a contract and it's rather shameful to admit your husband prefers a succubus. ›››

Yeah, that was fun. Something like this and the succubus quest from TW2 in Vergen are great examples.

[Chewin3]

Similar "leisure" quests like Shani's Party and Hung Over would be a nice addition. Though they also will need to fit into the setting of the game. With the North being at war it can be a tad difficult, but not impossible to share certain moments with people / friends around a camp fire, for example.

[.Volsung.]

I'd like a monster we can defeat with sarcasm.

[Csàszàr]

blackgriffin said:

can ve have a quest to restore Kaer MORHEN, recrut new candidates for the trials of grasses.
Cant remember witch book i read that said something about Geralt saving a traveler and his belongings and he promised Geralt can have whatever the traveler didn't expect to find home ( a child) and a different story where he goes to a castle because a boy was promised to join the witchers.
Something similar can be done in the game. Geralt saves a vilage and he is promised a strong lad to become a witcher

What are your thoughts?!
›››

He couldn't be a full fledged Witcher anyways, there are no witchers left who know how to do alchemy for it, as far as the wolf school. Plus Geralt doesn't want an apprentice, just to find his love and put an end to his quests.

[blackgriffin]

Csàszàr said:

He couldn't be a full fledged Witcher anyways, there are no witchers left who know how to do alchemy for it, as far as the wolf school. Plus Geralt doesn't want an apprentice, just to find his love and put an end to his quests. ›››

i was sugesting this quest hoping we will meat the previous witchers and have vesemir teach them, i believe he was the oldest of them and he was training Leo in the first game and have Eskel and Lambert help out maybe even Berengard if you spared him. I did't mean Geralt would be the MASTER.

[Eglard]

Few ideas, taken from some novels:

There could be a quest about winning Yens heart. After all shes been alive quite a while, and she could easily have gotten together with someone. A quest where Geralt has to compete with another NPC about Yens favor could be nice.

A quest where you free a monster from a curse: this kind of quest could easily include moral choices (is she a monster at heart?), doing some investigation (who cursed her? has the monster killed locals?) and fighting (kill the monster or fight the one who cursed her). Moreover the quest could fit well in the open world, because it could take place in some solitary forgotten tower. It could be pretty much like one of the short stories in "the last wish".

There could also be quests about protecting some transport, a merchant caravan or a trading boat. This kind of quests could also include moral dilemmas, and political choices. Perhaps the merchants are trying to smuggle fistech or some Scoi'atel try to ambush the caravan. Depending on your earlier choices siding with the Scoi'atel would make sense (perhaps the caravan transports prisoners that will be tortured in the destination, and the Scoi'atel are trying to free them).

I liked very much the quests in TW1, especially the ones where the player was forced to consider what counts as a monster, and should they be killed or spared.

I think that most quests should feature moral choices, not just "go kill the big beast". There shouldn't be any obvious right answer to the quests. Sadly in TW2 these quests were quite rare. For example the troll quest in act 1 was a nobrainer. Why would you kill the troll, at least if you don't need a troll tongue. The werewolf quest in TW1 on the other hand was great. You could not be certain whether the monster was a monster at heart or could he be cured.

[Wichat]

.Volsung. said:

I'd like a monster we can defeat with sarcasm. ›››

And I'd Enjoy this to the full

[guipit]

I loved that quest where we had to answer riddles in the enhanced edition.

Playing word games with a Djinn would be cool.

[AnthonyF1227]

I liked the quest in TW2 where we got to deceive the specter in order to get the standard. The only thing about it that was silly was that you could answer all of the questions without doing the research beforehand. I would hope that in TW3 if quests like this appear that the correct answers wouldn't appear until the proper research is done.

[guipit]

AnthonyF1227 said:

I liked the quest in TW2 where we got to deceive the specter in order to get the standard. The only thing about it that was silly was that you could answer all of the questions without doing the research beforehand. I would hope that in TW3 if quests like this appear that the correct answers wouldn't appear until the proper research is done. ›››

Maybe Geralt just got his memory back in that part and for people who read the books they don't have to do research.