Penalty for Waiting to long to address the main quest. : V - Skyrim

» Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:56 am

What I would like to see is a "trigger" so to speak. The Game would go "oh hey the player has a family, friends and a house in Tiny village. Good for him, BUT WHATS THIS? No main quest line completion? We will send in 2-3 dragons to burn his little town TO THE EARTH, let him taste vengeance and sorrow! MAKE HIM WANT TO END THIS!"
And then you would work to complete the main quest line. :evil:

» Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:40 am

Yeah, I want to see a real moving scene that will wrench me away from helping peasants to slaying those dragons...

Like say a dragon kills 10 townsfolk and my wife... I think stuff like that should happen to motivate the player to continue the main questline.

Of course, nothing should FORCE you... but definitely push you towards it.

EDIT: SO basically what the guy above said.

» Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:26 am

I don't want there to be any penalty or time limit for not doing the main quest. This game is about being able to do what you want and I don't want to be forced into completing the main quest before I want too. I have no problem if the main quest is harder if you don't start it after a while, that's fine but where I draw the line is if there is a time limit. A time limit would be unacceptable, I don't mind a Great Gate situation where that was timed but not the whole main quest. Don't give me one year to complete the main quest that wouldn't be fun at all and would ruin the game. I don't see what's wrong with having the main quest be doable at any point, it allows you to fully explore Skyrim's world. How can you do that if you have to do the main quest by X Date or X Time.

» Fri Aug 12, 2011 4:54 pm

You're not being forced to complete the game, the game is just changing based on your actions, what all of a sudden thats a bad idea now?

They don't want the negative consequences for those who don't want to participate in the main quest yet. Haven't you beenton the other threads on this issue?

» Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:48 pm

So I was thinking about previous RPG games and thinking about what Bethesda said about Radiant story, and I have come up with a scenario that could be in the game. Here are my postulates:

Bethesda says that depending on what you do and if you have faced a dragon recently, that could affect where/when they spawn. They also champion the radiant story to be able to send you to different locations that you haven't been to for quest. OK please don't read the next sentence if you haven't played ME2 before.....
In, ME2 if you wait too long to go after you shipmates in the relay mission, they could end up dead.

Bethesda could punish you for being a hermit. In that if you decide to wood cut your way through life and you already know that you are the chosen one to stop the dragons, dragons could start scorching small random villages off the map each month or two of game time you wait.

This could motivate you to pursue the main quest if you have personal ties to small towns. And besides, the end of the world shouldn't wait for you to decide to get up and do something right? Anyway I think it would be a nice feature as it would introduce more unpredictability in the game. And maybe if you were really bad in the game and took so many years to tackle the problem, then there would be nothing to save..

Would anyone appreaciate main quest inactions having some negative effects?

Having played ME2 and knowing of which ye speak, I've often thought that it would be a good idea to put "urgency" in a quest story line. I'm not saying force everything on you, but lets face it: who here played the main quest first in Oblivion? Morrowind? Exactly (not very many, and no one that I know personally). Knowing the Mythic Dawn killed the emperor, and what did you do? You carried the Amulet of Kings around in your pack for several game MONTHS before finally taking it to Jauffre. Yep, a little urgency at times would be good. I'm not saying all the time because that would kill exploration, and I would also be concerned with the AI coming up with two or more simultaneous events that you had to get to at the same time, eg: "Your village, with your wife and kids there, is being attacked by a dragon...buuuut a major event in some large city or some such was also about to happen and if you don't go there it can fubar a major quest line...so what do you do? Fine line to walk, but again, some urgency would be good. The first time I played ME2 and lost my entire crew because I finished every other quest first....I went back to a save almost 40 hours older in order to not have that happen again (and yes, with half a dozen playthroughs, and 3 characters played through 2+ times, no, I never lost a crew member, always reloaded if it happened).