What about the guards handling those attacks and none of the civilians will get hurt?

How can I say no? Choices and consequences are my favorite part of the ES series though I'd like to have more. Ofcourse I don't want to have EVERY repetitive quest like that, maybe just 1 or 2 and that's it.

Yes and yes. It would be a lot of fun, but they have to make sure it doen't feel to generic.

I like the random quests that are more or less 'infinite', but I'm not sure if I want them to have too dire consequences. Not as long as they are only rumours anyway. If someone mentions "goblins at large near this town" then no consequence if I don't do it, but maybe once you've accepted the quest, I think it would make sense for it to be timed in a way so that the goblins will actually attack the town even if you choose not to show up. Thus, the town will have to deal with it themselves and as the player you chose whether or not you could live with having the goblins potentially killing some townsfolk. But not until you've accepted the quest!

I'd like to see it in the final game. It could even have an effect on the town or settlement's economy, for example if bandits have been raiding the town or robbing traders this may limit items within the town, making items more expensive and leaving shopkeepers with less gold to buy things.
With Radiant Story it should be fairly simple to implement, like the OP states.

I heard that before... I believe you want a holodeck...

I believe you misunderstood what he said. What he meant is, after finishing all quests, he can still explore the world, and find things, and fight things, and talk to people, etc because containers respawn, creatures respawn, and NPCs have generic dialog. I guess adding a "save my town" dialog line wouldn't be an issue, but that "setup" isn't necessary, if what you want to do is fight things and find things.

I also think you are using the wrong term: a quest is something that has stages to it and allows you to make decisions along the way. What you describe is more of a random encounter, to which is what the other poster was referring: even after the story ends, you are guaranteed random encounters because of respawing assets.

As general rant...
There's more than one way to look at this from the now cliche "immersible living and breathing world " perspective.

For example, how immersive is it to find the same 2-3 small towns always being attacked by different creatures/NPCs over, and over, and over again, and they not being able to defend themselves and needing your help?
In a role playing game, I want to have the choice to tell them the first time, or the 2nd or 3rd time: "hey, you better learn how to fight or defend yourselves, I am not doing it (again)" or "I may not be here in time next time", and next time I come around, the village is either wiped out, or now they can defend themselves. NOW you have a bona fide role-playing situation with true consequences, but effectively there will be no need to summon you again, and therefore the quest ends.

Personally, if I want to be the hero and play the same scenarios over, and over, and over again, I just replay the game over, and over, and over gain. Of course, I make mods for my game even as I play the first time, so even after various replays making different choices, my game still has something different in it... I rarely download other people's mods, but I download quest mods, because they give me a fresh perspective

I guess the idea of the never ending game was born out of MMORPGs. A single-player game may not effectively end, like Oblivion, but the story in a role-playing game will end, unless something is added to it.

Im suprised more people have not voted no for both options.
I would not benefit from repeatable quests as they would likely offer small rewards and just be boring after already doing them once, why do the same thing over and over again when there is a huge world to explore and many other quests to do.
I also think that failure to do mundane repeatable quests having negative effects on a town a poor idea. How would you know when to save the town? There was a system like this in the red dead redemption nightmare pack where if you didnt defend the towns they got overtook by zombies and you had to go take them back - sounds fun but just got very tedious. I dont want my regular shopkeeper to be killed by random goblins because I didnt babysit there village regulaly

I wouldn't want dire consequences either. And your character should either be notified when the consequences are about to happen, so that you can intervene (i.e., the Goblins of Witherrun have gathered their forces and are now preparing to march on Alpine village), or else that the consequences are only triggered when the player is in the nearby area etc. I also wouldn't want the people offering the missions or asking for aid popping up in the middle of your dragon battles. Perhaps they would only seek you out when your other quests have all been completed, or when you have idled for a certain length of time without completing any quests and without taking up any new ones.

As to those who say the replayable missions would eventually get boring. . . for one thing, as the technology advances, as someone said, this will be less of a problem as the minor quests generated will be increasingly varied and unique.

But, putting that aside. . . I never said even infinite quests and missions would keep players eternally entertained. I don't know if anything short of a genuinely living world beyond the current capacity of game developers could do that. But it will enhance and extend the gaming experience for many. It will keep the world from becoming entirely stagnant.

Sorry Selbeth, as good as your post was, I didn't want to clog the forum with multiple word walls, since people tend to scroll past them.

But yes, I have to totally agree with Selbeth on this one. Infinite, repeatable quests are a recipe for disaster, and the "Respawning" World OP speaks of comes off more as a stagnant world without consequence. These kinds of things seem good on paper, but in implementation, they are terrible and design-sores on the game. Respawning dungeons, in particular, were a blight on Oblivion's game design. It practically ruined any reason to explore, because you'd just repeat that Imp Cave over and over until you got an Amulet Of swords. Though Morrowind wasn't innocent either. THe tomb outside of Caldera comes to mind, where one may obtain limitless Daedric weapons from an Occasional-spawn Golden Saint.

Selbeth went out of his way to mention Radiant story, and a concern I likewise share. But they've pointed out that they've changed how Radiant Story works. Just changing a few variables (Location, target, or Origin for example) While keeping the quest, very much hand crafted. Now, the Radiant Story system still sounds like it has room to be misused by being overused, or, if the team doesn't keep the reigns tight enough on it. (svck as scenarios spawning out of context), but I loved that they were professional enough to get over their "New toy" and see the faults it was presenting.

Also, if you want to experience a system almost identical to OP's idea, just play Red Dead Redemption, and see how quickly you just ride right by them all, because they're boring and uninteresting.

Missions will not be infinite becuase they will run out of dialog, but there will be a lot and who knows a few may be reused or ambiguous, so it can be used for certain situations, like timmy has been trapped in a cave near here

From the interviews I've seen, I gather that the Radiant Story aspect means that the OP is correct in the sense that there will be if not infinite, then at least a very large number of quests available to a player who continues a super long playthrough for hundreds and hundreds of hours.

- some quests are triggered based on if you haven't been to a certain area in X amount of time
- take into account a number of NPC variables such as current status of relationships with various NPCs, past player actions, etc.
- direct you specific dungeons you haven't visited in a while (out of 140+ dungeons)

I'm extremely excited about this, as I have tended to stick with one playthrough for hundreds of hours.

I also think the wiki pages and walkthrough guides are gonna be completely screwed up by the Radiant Story elements.

Which is kind of cool.

I should have clarified in the consequences category,. I would not want dire consequences that force the player to do anything right away. I would even be fine if the consequences only manifest themselves when the player is in the area of the target I.E. if you are told a village will be overrun by goblins, the goblins only begin their attack when you are in the vicinity of the village. I am even fine with the consequences being minimized. I.E. enemies of The Mages Guild attack, but do not actually breach the defenses of the Guild house etc. When I say "consequence" I do not mean punishement for the player, only that events follow sequentially.

These minor quests would mainly serve the purpose, like respawning enemy NPCs, and occupations for NPCs etc., of adding to the verisimiltude of a living world, that doesn't simply lapse into inertia or a half-dead state the minute the player completes all the pre-arranged quests.

That is far too grand for random quests, which usually don't involve full attacks on cities. Think on a more personable level.

That's only interesting if the guards all have names and places in society, isn't it? Now, what town can exist if it is being continually attacked and in need of a savior adventurer to wander along all the time? No town worth having, that's what town.

To those saying random quest get old I agree. Thats why I want handcrafted ones also. Even if I see through the cracks after 3 random thief quests, thats 3 more thief quests for me to do and very little investment on the devs end(esp since Beth already has a system in place to do this). Its add a lot of potential gameplay, how much will vary from person to person. Unlike other add this ideas where people don't take in to account dev time, here there is already a system in place to do this.

I think random quests could work if they are a rare occurence.

The attacks on cities aren't the random quests, they were the consequences for not doing a quest.

This would be fantastic, instead of "building the perfect world" like in previous games...

I think they could be good, but it depends on how good Radiant story works. If it's just "My child has been taken here, save him" or "This artefact is stolen, retrieve it" every time, that will svck, but if they can program it to be more interesting, then great.

Yes.

But I'd hate it if they were timed.

"Go to save the village from the goblins in two days, or they will kill half of them." quests are particularly annoying, they distract you from your current goal every time they show up.

But I think there should actually be a preset limit of random quests occuring at any given time. Like once there are 5 villages in danger, there will never be anymoreuntil you complete the quests.

I find that in most games that put in recurring quests, once the quest is done once I have no motivation to do it again. If I have saved people from slavers at the bottom of a random cave three times, I don't really feel like doing it again regardless of whether or not it's a different cave or enemies. Also these replayable quests tend to be very simple and uninteresting, something like: Talk to person, go to place, kill enemies, maybe grab item / follower, return to quest giver. I much prefer the more unique quests like "canvas the castle" or "paranoia" or the daedric quests. On the second point, I don't feel it is in the nature of oblivion to have timed quests, where if you don't complete it within a certain time of receiving it has negative effects. Maybe skyrim will be different, but being a sequel I doubt it will be too different. Doesn't having punishments for doing something other than the last quest you signed up for go against the do anything go anywhere feel of Bethesda's games? But that being said, if those two things are done well I wouldn't mind, It's just that I usually don't like their implementation. Also, I like things like a random npc getting in a fight with the gaurds or pickpocketing, or highwaymen.

i wanna finish the game eventually lol

Option 1 : No
Option 2 : Yes

I opted for no in the first Poll since recurring Quest themes with consequences can be frustating if you have quite a lot quests going on. After the Vanilla game quests end I am sure there will be tons of Mods flying around. I believe if the game can handle recurring themes with varied objectives and enemy types with different difficulty and enemy sizes with certain limits to the no. of such events at any given point of time then I will opt yes.

Edit:
Else this can always be modded in later

Yes please. I don't like fairy tales "and they lived happily ever after".