For a future mod project of mine, I would like some input on what you guys consider a sufficient incentive to embark on a quest to defeat an evil lord and his minions.

*Cash or enchanted item reward by villagers/noble/king?
*Rumors of great treasure hidden in the villain's lair?
*To vanquish this great evil? (Paladin-style motivation)
*Being challenged directly by the bad guy?
*Curse, only curable by taking down the bad guy?
*Unlocking services or restoring ruined/corrupted zone?
*Promise of gaining lesser/greater power upon completion?
*Potential companion?

Or something completely different. Why would you (or your character) do it?

For me, motivation is good writing and interesting characters. Having a more powerful character is not an incentive to me because the game is already plenty easy and the escalation of numbers gets old quickly for me. I'm far more interested in something that tickles me on an intellectual level. But that's just me. Some people just don't enjoy dialogue and feel ill when they see walls of text.

I also like innovative gameplay. Doing something unusual as opposed to a typical fetch quest or a battle to the death which is just like all the other ones except the opponent might have more HP. Using scripts can lead to some fun results and there is a lot of room for creativity.

Excellent! That's exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for.
I gotta remember it's not all about reward and power. Story telling and originality is quite important too.
Thanks for posting.

For me, definitely restoring purity where there was once evil. That, after all, is one of the themes of the Main Quest and the one I find the most intrinsically rewarding. This isn't to say I don't enjoy my share of story elements (essential) or atmosphere (also essential), but the end goal is important as well. One of the things that bothered me with games like Oblivion was areas like but then what? For such a major disaster no matter how much longer after it you play (without mods) the area still remains a shadow of what it once was.

An idea I've always wanted to see play out was a quest where a land was plagued by evil, and as you vanquished foes from areas slowly but surely you gained support of the people and the area begins to go from decrepit slum to shining jewel once you're done.

Me? Curiosity alone. "What happens next" and "what will I find if I go here" are the reason I'm still playing Morrowind after all these years.

I like the rumors of a great treasure part.

I always enjoyed quests when you were given a title, like the Thirsk quest after killing underfrykte you became chief. Also, i loved the raven rock quests where you see how the town changes as you progress.

Revenge would be a strong motivator - if this Evil Lord had killed a good friend of mine.
Conspiracies also make me want to complete quests - when nothing seems wrong on the surface, and several key npcs are trying to hide the truth from me.
Any quests that frames me for a crime or have characters blackmailing me would motivate me too - this works well because it can wrong-foot characters who are already the Nerevarine etc and don't feel threatened by anything anymore.

Treasure, power etc on its own, or tales of an evil Lord wouldnt bother me that much - unless, for instance, you could see the people of a certain town/ village who I cared about really suffering. Creating characters that you really care about I think is the key to most quests. I'll fetch grubs and mushrooms for a starving widow if I'm really moved by her situation. But if some stock npc tells me to go kill an evil lord because I'll get a new spell or sword, I dont really give a toss.

I think ideally there'd be a range of possible reasons, to allow for role-playing. My Telvanni mage might be interested in defeating the evil lord in order to usurp their place, or to claim the lands for House Telvanni. A Redoran character might do it for reasons of honor and justice. A member of the Mage's Guild might do it in order to acquire some powerful magical artifact or learn a powerful spell. An Imperial Legionnaire might do the quest just because the law is being broken. One of the religious factions might do the quest with the understanding that if they succeed, they'll be able to establish a temple or shrine in the village. Etc.

I think it's also always good, for these "evil lord" characters, if we can see some evidence of their evil, as motivation. If we see some houses in the village burnt down, see some people taken as slaves and forced to work cruel hours, etc., that is better than just hearing that the lord is evil.

Aside from role-playing, for myself personally, I can say that that big incentives for undertaking a quest are 1) as MrTea writes, to encounter new experiences that I haven't seen in the game before--interesting new characters and well-written dialogue, new models and textures, new puzzles and scripting, new weapons and armor--and 2) to effect some sort of change on the world: if I complete a quest, I want people to recognize that I did so and treat me differently.

In terms of specific rewards, in addition to loot, I like the idea of a title, as Arfien suggests; I like your ideas of visibly restoring the village in some way, and of unlocking services (a merchant who legitimately had a lot of gold and a high disposition would be nice); and I'd add that the ability to claim some sort of abode--a house or castle or tower or whatever--is something I really like.

While reading all your replies, a lot of aspects of my project are changing. But one thing remains the same: once the quest is complete, the evil lair (which will be more of a fortress really) will be up for grabs. With a couple of optional renovations, I think I'll be able to make the lair interesting for more than one type of player/character.

Additional opinions are of course more than welcome.

*Unlocking services or restoring ruined/corrupted zone?
*Promise of gaining lesser/greater power upon completion?

These two are the most quest-worthy reasons in my opinion, and the most rewarding. A large treasure is always nice, though.

I hadn't thought of this one, but I think it would really motivate my character. Unfortunately for the bad guy, he'd get wrecked by my character.

That's the problem if the main villain is physically present. An 'Arrow of Instant-Powning Justice' could very well be able to take him down before he leaves.
And then what? The quest can't continue as if nothing happened. "Muahaha! I wasn't really dead, I was just pretending!!"

Another way would be to use an expandable minion to carry a message from the bad guy, preventing his premature death.

I think permanent change to the world is a really good motivation for quests. That's what made Raven Rock awesome, and it's why strongholds are awesome. Restoring a ruined/corrupted zone sounds like a great idea (although it could be hard) because it means world change, banishing evil and gives you new areas to explore. It also made Okami and Majora's Mask awesome.

If you have a final boss fight, it would be nice if you couldn't kill him or her or it by conventional means. A lot of people overlevel their character so they end up steamrolling everything they come across. It's more interesting when you have to think to outmaneuver an enemy.

You just gave me an idea. I just hope scripting will be powerful enough to allow me to achieve my goals.

I like a challenge beyond merely defeating monsters and villains, something that requires thought and some amount of role-playing - puzzles, mysteries, figuring out what will motivate the major NPCs to cooperate...

I also like to see the results of the quest in-game, such as physical changes to places and people, NPCs acknowledging your success or failure in dialog, unlocking of new areas and options, etc. There's nothing quite so disappointing as completing a heroic quest and nothing changes but the player's inventory.

Normally I do quests because oh look, a quest! I just enjoy collecting completed quests. Other than that, because I care about what happens to an NPC who needs my help. I want to earn that NPC's friendship/respect and avoid disappointing it, and I want to see how its story ends. Though if an NPC was a jerk to me early on, I'd be motivated to go kick the crap out of it when the plot eventually gave me an excuse.

If you surprise me, I will want to do your quest. That works in several ways: Any game mechanic or quest type I haven't seen before is automatically interesting. I will continue a funny quest or do what a funny NPC asks. I'd do a quest that involves exploring a new area. (A bigger mudcave is not a new area.) If a place has a great atmosphere, I will do quests just to spend time there.

I'd accept a direct challenge if my last save was recent and nearby. (Sometimes my character is a steamroller. Sometimes my character is level 13 and gimped by mods.)

I like permanent changes to the world. I've been playing PAX Redoran and when someone dies, that NPC's house gets reused instead of it sitting abandoned forever. Small, logical changes to the world like that make it feel like I've done something beyond tick off another quest. Unlocking services could work, too.

On the other hand, dialog changes, where I keep hearing a title or being thanked repeatedly, are just irritating. I like when the world feels like time has passed and things have happened. I don't want the NPCs to keep telling me "this is your automatic reminder that you did a quest here." And I have enough companions. I take generic loot-carriers whose every word I can ignore (I get them from MCA), and actual companion mods who are designed to stay interesting even when I'm constantly talking to them. Anything in between is disappointing every time I talk to it.

I'd rather collect a dungeon full of medium loot than find one special sword at the end. I'm going to sell it all and keep using gear I've already got anyway, and if there's one artifact that's good enough to be a reward for a whole quest, I feel like I have to hang onto it, so it doesn't get used or sold. The same applies to a big house at the end. I'll enjoy exploring it for three minutes, but my loot/decorations are already elsewhere. Cash rewards can go three ways: too little to matter, useless because I have millions of gold already, or unbalanced due to economy adjusters making money seem more valuable.

I find a lot of things rewarding, depending on the quest.

In the Main Morrowind Quest, the twists and surprises in the story, combined with the lore, were huge rewards to me. Plus there were a number of mysteries that were posed with additional information slowly leaked, in the MQ and with the Dwemer for example. Pacing is really important for this, you need to build slowly, not in 2 back to back conversations for example.

In Building Up Uvirith Legacy, watching the town get built was a big reward. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that.

Watching NPCs develop or change can be rewarding. But this also needs to happen slowly, and is a lot of work to mod.

In terms of items, uber-items are pointless. Either they're going to be tossed away, or they'd reduce the already rare challenges in the game. But, you could get away with it if you throw in a surprise, maybe with a moral choice. For example, the PC acquires the item, then a week later somebody comes to solicit the item (it was a family heirloom, or whatever). Or you could have a group of representatives from a faction (or several) request the item as a donation. Then the PC has to choose who to give to, or to keep it.

Services can be rewarding. One service that I'd pay 100k gold for (even if I had to collect it), or do a huge quest for is: an item sorter and/or seller. You're the head of a faction (or several). You have underlings. Why can't you just hand off all your junk and have them sell it or put it in the appropriate containers? Of course, the actual reason is that it's difficult to mod. But my character would go through a lot to be provided with an underling that takes miscellaneous items and sells them in the background, never to be seen again. It would be fine if I got back 20% of the value or even less..

Also, I don't know if others would agree, but if you're going to have a fort that can become a player's home, make the player put serious money down for it. Need to fix things up, add a wing, etc? Make the costs big, 10K, 20K, even more. For a little bit, BUUL motivated me to go out and get extra money because of a weekly 2500 gold upkeep cost. It turned out that wasn't very much, and it took no effort to cover the cost and still accumulate gold like crazy. And my character doesn't even bother to loot corpses anymore. Also, charge for servants , retainers, etc.

I completely agree. The optional renovations I'm planning for are going to be pretty costly. Depending on the fortress location, I may include the optional development of some farms. Plus, guards will have to be hired. Ka-ching! Say goodbye to your precious gold. I'll just need to keep in mind that gold might not be as rare for the player. 50000 is a huge amount for me, but it's not that much in vanilla Morrowind for example.

Thanks you for all the replies. It's all extremely valuable information for me.

It kind of depends. Some people use mods that control the gold "faucets" in the game, though I'm inclined to think that the majority of players are not so concerned with that. As you say, in vanilla, 50k is not a huge amount as you can grind Daedra for weapons once you reach the correct level and amass a pile of weapons worth a million gold in a relatively short period of time.

I'll definitely need to tweak the prices with the vanilla game in mind. The economy on my side is just too different.

To give some examples:
-In my game, an item worth 9000 will only sell for around 2000 (with decent mercantile skill).
-Deadric weapons show up much later than in vanilla, early levels deadra being equipped with weaker replacements called Dremora weapons.
-Training costs a lot more.

I'd go the other way, and cater mainly for people with mods to reduce the silliness of the economy.
Anyone playing Vanilla is only going to have to grind for longer no matter how far you put the prices up.

Good point. Whatever I do with the prices, I can never compete against a bunch of Deadric Claymores + Creeper/mudcrab merchant.

Well, try not to get too caught up with balancing. As it's said, you can't please everyone all of the time.