There needs to be probably about around 70-30. 70% fetch and kill, 30% deeply envolved quests that take awhile. And even the fetch and kill quests needs to let you decide what faction you are working for. Like FNV let you be in the Legion, NCR, Mr.House, or the Brotherhood of Steel. This makes it emersive and helps make you feel like you have done more than just kill so-and-so. Deciding who you are working for takes some time too. That is what i think makes great quests.

What I hated about Oblivion was the missed opportunity to add more faction quests. In Morrowind we could join the Legion, but in Oblivion (which takes place in the imperial capital) you can't! There are hundreds of abandoned imperial forts that dot the landscape, and I can see why some wouldn't be operational anymore when they're miles in the wilderness, but they could've at least have imperial soldiers garrisoned at the forts along the main roads.

And why couldn't we join the Necromancers? It would've been so great to be able to choose between joining the Mages guild or the Necromancers.

And 50-50 for fetch quests/involving quests seems much better than 70-30, that's just too much filler!

Indeed. I thought this lack of choice made Cyrodiil far too happy clappy. I think I may take it as granted they'll never abandon this now they've done a FO game, even if TES is another universe...

Joining the necromancers would have spoiled the best bit of the game for me which was wiping the smile off that smug git Mannimarco's face . The destruction of the Bruma guild made the following quests personal. Exactly what we want in this game.

As long as there's no more Nirnroot quests.... :cryvaultboy:

Maybe not, maybe one of his underlings could ask you to aid in a coup on Mannimarco. Which reminds me, they completely ruined Mannimarco, he used to be a cool lich king and they've reduced him to a whiny High Elf in some damp cave!

If course, nobody would force you to join the necromancers, you could just as easily join the mages guild

60-40 maybe, 50-50 is a little too optimistic if you ask me.

Thats far enough regarding all the abandoned forts and can't join the legion that really annoyed me with the abandoned forts

Oblivion had some wonderfully written quests. The problem was they really weren't RPG quests but more suited to action adventure. There was no flexibility or branching in them, you had to follow a linear path and at the end you could (usually) choose between three dialogue options. Now i'm sure there are exceptions to this just as FONV had a few utterly linear quests but this was the general approach to quests in OB and (marginally less so in) FO3 and seems at odds with the open world freedom of choice game.

It felt to me like the designers were so in love with the mini stories that had been created for the quests they didn't want to allow deviation. It also felt like, and this goes for the whole game, they weren't willing to deny you anything so choices were nearly all removed and consequence was almost non-existent. "This player has a high speechcraft skill but if we allow him to use that to solve the quest then he doesn't get to fight all those goblins or find out the twist in the quest when he finds out the goblins were the quest givers cousins turned by blah, blah, blah..."

What I really dug about NV was they weren't at all precious about the content they created. I tended to go on wikia and read up on the quests i just completed and i was consistently impressed by the swathes of conversation, fighting, places, rewards etc. that i missed out on based on my chosen style of play. For example there was a fantastic convo i had with a nightkin and his brahmin skull (hilarious writing and explained everything about what had happened at Repconn) but i stepped on a landmine afterwards and reloaded. This time I killed more nightkin on my way to the chamber and the nightkin attacked rather than starting speech and the whole dialogue was bypassed. Choice and consequence even when you don't realise it.

Points taken but that's the point he was a whiny elf hiding in a cave, and that's why killing him was such a high point...you're a disgrace to your race! Now joining the conjurers would have been my idea of fun.

Well, I agree, but that was a mere example. Like there could be a Legion vs People's Liberation Front of Skyrim. And Skyrim's People's Liberation Front.

I didn't play Bloodmoon so I (obviously) don't remember that quest. Sounds like a good quest, but I'm pretty sure the original game had none like that.

I think FNV is a big step forward in quest design. FO3 had a few choices, but not that many really. What I don't like about FNV is that there is still the 'good/evil' theme. I want more shades of grey. In FNV cesar's legion is evil, the NCR is good (with some post-apocalyptic badass behavior added). I want choices where I really don't know what I should do. Factions that aren't more evil than any other faction. I don't want to be either a merciless psycho killer or a nice guy. I hope they can do that in Skyim and don't make one faction evil and the other faction good.

Yeah, I spent all this time preparing thinking 'Oh my god this is going to be so hard!' and then I get there and kill him in 15 seconds with a sword.

On another character related note, the current leader of the Dark Brotherhood should look mysterious and badass, like this.
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/m/moriarty.gif

I'm not even sure why I would need simplistic fetch and kill quests. I do a lot of independent exploring, which does about the same thing (get experience, level up, get rich, etc.) without the insane ned to be a delivery boy. I would prefer that the writing focus on in depth quests. If I want to grind a bit just give me an interesting environment where I can do it my way (theiving opportunities, etc.).

It sounds like they are doing the right thing. Randomly generated quests should fill the simplistic fetch and kill niche while hand wrtiks quests will (hopefully) be much more involved.

One thing that irks me and I know it won't happen is the lack of a Bard's Guild. This would be a perfect opportunity to have a less combat oriented quest line and I'd love to see a picture of a lute and the word Skald in my factions/ranks inventory page. This could tie in beautifully to something like the unimplemented Nobility/Elder Cuoncil questline

Having some randomly generated quest could be nice, IF done properly, otherwise it would become really boring really soon.

They need to make sense, otherwise they might just as easily be another fetch quest. Nor can they be a substitute for actual hand written quests.

I found nothing wrong with the oblivion quests. The only improvement among the quests that I would like would be more of them!

But Bards are like... poets. How would you implement that as a game mechanic?

I appreciate it would end up falling into the fetch quests category but you would have a quest related reason to find all those lore books[one of the best parts of TES imho] and charming all the nobles for a reason other than buying houses. Also exploring areas for the sake of it could be tied in you can't sing about it unless you've seen it. I definitely wouldn't want fable style lute minigames. When I played Daggerfall the first thing I did was join the temple of Dibella which had collect the painting quests . They could have quest rewards such as staffs of charm daggers of command and fortify personality/speechcraft amulets. I did a lot of persuading and talking in Oblivion maybe that's just me . Also a few Inns could give you a free bed on membership. Just vague ideas I know but I'm not a creative writer for a Games company, and wouldn't be any good if I was.

IMO.....Fallout 3 and Oblviion had much better quests than NV. I feel just the opposite of this statement and I felt that NV had more bland and borijng quests. If Obsidian was doing Skyrim then yeah I would get the game but I would not be anywhere near as excited as I am knowing Todd and the Bethesda crew are doing it. I prefer their writing style more then Obsidian.

Favorite quests

Oblivion:
Whodunit?
The Purification
Any between the Fighter's guild and Blackwood Co.
The Ultimate Heist
A Rat Problem

Fallout 3:
Take it Back! (I don't know why you want better writers than the guys who came up with a giant robot with anti communist slogans)
Reilly's Rangers
Tenpenny Tower
The Power of the Atom
Trouble on the Homefront
The Kid Kidnapper

Doesn't get better than these.

Again, these are great stories but not great RPG quests. Do a flow diagram of these and it looks like a straight line. Where is the ability for you to really put your PCs personality on them beyond how you kill the enemies. Admittedly the FO3 ones do at least have different outcomes.

I think calling one better than the other is wrong. They are antithetical approaches to design. One is about telling a story the other is about letting the player write their story. Which do you think fits an ES game better?

The Oblivion sidequests were more fleshed out and varied compared to those in Morrowind, although often fetch/kill quests fundamentally. The Thieves Guild was better, for example. Green arrows and quest pop-ups decreased my enjoyment of them, however. Also, the main quest in Oblivion was awful.

One more vote for more choices, more non-hack-and-slash quests, and more consequences of your actions. Maybe you can't shoehorn these into every quest, but as often as feasible.

I think they should add more quest wich are a bit more complicated, were you need to figure things out by yourself. I just like to solve puzzle or find things out by readig wierd notes with some hidden clues in them.

I guess we'll just have to wait until we see our first quest gameplay video :mellow: