So, sitting up late last night in pain from my newly-extracted wisdom tooth, I had quite a bit of time to think.

I've been playing Hellgate: London (awesome game, by the way), and I like many of the quests and I believe some of the quest types could be adapted to Morrowind.

Mainly, these are "small jobs" of various sorts, and might not necessarily require the player to be in a faction to get them (or, if in a faction, would certainly not be excluded from obtaining the quests)

BOUNTY
There are numerous smuggler and Bandit caves in Vvardenfell, yet no one in the cities and towns acknowledges their existence. I'd like to see that change. These quests could incorporate already-existing NPC outlaws, or create new ones. Another style of quest would be to kill unique, dangerous creatures (over-sized Kagouti, rabid Guar, etc) or troublesome lesser daedra.

1) Creature bounties: these would be requests by the town or by a certain individual for the destruction of a unique creature that has been causing trouble. Proof for payment would be some identifiable body part that would be placed on the corpse (i.e. an ear, tusk, mandible, etc).
Rewards: gold, skill or attribute training, some item (unique or otherwise), and/or improved disposition with NPC(s)

2) Bandit/Smuggler bounties: requests by a faction, townspeople, or an individual for the death of an outlaw. Location may be vague. Proof for payment: some identifiable item the outlaw is known to carry (such as a unique weapon) or has stolen.
- faction-related bounties: completion of one or more of these may influence faction (or more than one faction) disposition toward the player character. For example, if you accept an Imperial Legion bounty on a Telvanni slave trader, Telvanni faction might like you less, and Legion like you more.
Rewards: gold, skill or attribute training, some item (unique or otherwise), and/or improved disposition with NPC(s)

3) Some Ashlander camps may ask you to deal with rogue Ashlanders that are giving them all a bad name...

There would be several bounties available, but only one at a time in a particular town/settlement. There would, ideally, be a time delay before the next bounty is posted (several weeks or months). The quests would be "backwards compatible," such that an exploring player can kill the bounty target and acquire the proof of payment before actually getting the quest. A note would be made in the journal about finding an unusual/unique object, and suggesting holding on to the object. Once the player gets the bounty quest, then he/she can proceed to collect the reward.

The bounties could be posted in popular locations - at the local tavern, guardhouse, or other location appropriate to the NPC(s)/faction(s) posting the Bounty.

Reward collection methods from bounties:
from townspeople: go to the head guard or a high-ranking member of the dominant faction (e.g. Hlaalu in Balmora) - whomever the Bounty Notice specifies.
from factions: go to the faction member specified by the Bounty Notice
from individuals: go to that individual

COLLECTION
These are quests where an individual NPC asks the PC to get some stuff. It could be dwemer cogs, ingredients from creatures or plants, or a certain number of weapons, or other misc. items (cups, jugs, etc). Ideally, these would be unique items, so that the PC can't just buy them at a merchant. Thus, these quests would require the creation of uniquely ID'd items or creatures, and specific placement of them. Again, these quests could be "backwards compatible" to maintain the "open world/non-linear" feel of Morrowind.

1) Plant Ingredients: obviously, from unique plants placed in a specific location. These would not be actual ingredients that could be used in alchemy (lest the player be tempted to use them)
Some Reasons:
- Apothecary wants to try a new recipe for a potion/salve, or to cure a disease
- Spellcaster needs ingredients to prepare a summoning spell
- Spellcaster had an unfortunate mishap and learned that some ingredients might help reverse the physical damage. Previous assistants failed to return from their quest...
- Merchant has an order for some ingredients, but has no time or assistants to get the items
- Tavern owner wants to try a new recipe for a dish
Rewards: gold, skill or attribute training, some item (unique or otherwise), and/or improved disposition with NPC(s)

2) Creature Ingredients: unique items (not truly ingredients) found on creatures. Examples: Guar tongue, claw, fat, eye, etc. Again, same reasons as Plant Ingredients.
Added complexity:
- some creatures may only appear at certain times of day, weather conditions, locations, or even months (example: the creature's breeding season).

3) Items: not unlike the TB quest for those unique silver daggers, these types of quests would have the PC scout around for some unique items (old coins, a set of chalices with historical value/meaning, the first printing of a book, plates made by a master craftsman, etc). Depending on who gives the quest, some of these items might be owned by someone else already! The items might be in merchant inventories, or belong to NPCs (whom you'll have to bribe or be on good terms with in order to purchase the needed item from them), or be lost in some Daedric Ruin.
- given that some items you might have to steal or coerce from their owners, it is possible that these quests might affect NPC disposition (negatively, from your victim) or even faction disposition toward your character.
Rewards: gold, skill or attribute training, some item (unique or otherwise), and/or improved disposition with NPC(s)

EXPLORATION
These sorts of quests requite the player character to explore a certain area (interior or exterior). The reason, of course, would be to gather data. Like the other quests I've detailed, this kind of quest could be given by a faction, an organization/group of NPCs, or a single NPC. Some reasons: scout out a mine, explore a remote island, locate/map/rediscover ancestral tomb locations, make a map of the roads along a stretch of land, etc.

How could it be done? I don't really know, but one idea is to have some activators that the PC needs to walk over. These would be sprinkled about the area the PC needs to explore. The quest is only updated once all hidden activator thingies are tripped. I'm not familiar with this kind of thing in the CS, so I don't know if what I'm thinking is even possible.

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So, that's what I've got so far. I'm not skilled at making quests at all, so I doubt I'd be able to actualize these ideas on my own. I'd be happy to write some of what an NPC would say, and generate quest ideas and specifics. The dialog would hopefully be able to have the NPC acknowledge the PC's faction and reputation - in other words, slightly different dialog for different factions? I don't know.

Discuss!

Another wondeful set of ideas Alaisiagae!

I loved the http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/488222/images/ffxii_hunt29.jpg in FF12. Something could certainly be implemented into Morrowind, the special monsters you hunt could just be very simple variations on the preexisting ones. A retexture here a few frankensteined meshes there. If someone wants to try and implement a mark hunting system in Morrowind, I'd love to try and make a few creatures for it, maybe given some ideas.

The collection type quests have been implemented in a fashion in the http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=689 mod which I always use. Though it doesn't quite fit seamlessly into the game, it won't conflict with mods like LGNPC since it adds its own NPCs. They even have some decent dialogue with them as well. Though this doesn't go along with your idea for unique item-ingredients. The unique plants though could be frankensteined as well. Or just renamed... I know that the http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=6064 mod has some quests just like that.

Another thing I was thinking was that I wonder if these could be implemented into Random Missions.

I really like your idea for the exploration quests. Something like that sounds relatively simple to me (though, scripting isn't my strongpoint). Perhaps what might work better would be a getdistance function on some sort of scripted obbject in the cave. So that the player only has to go so far in or something. Then it would just give the PC a journal entry when they are within range.

Sorry if my banter is hard to follow....

Write me up an outline for a few quests that includes: NPC(s) that give the quests, the quest location(s), the quest target(s), and the reward(s) and I'll see what I can do. I may include some of these in a new companion mod I'm working on.

Between this and your Bloodmoon idea, I'm stoked at the possibilities, I am so tempted to start playing the game again purely because I am excited about these ideas!!! Now if only I can pull myself away from the damn CS for a few hours!

It's tough... my problem is always that if I ever actually play, then I decide I want a custom house... humble abode isn't in my vocabulary....

ManaUser made an exploration mod called Map Deluxe which uses trigger activators to track quest progress - should provide some good examples for implementing an exploring/mapping type quest. You can http://webpages.charter.net/manauser/morrowind/ (http://webpages.charter.net/manauser/morrowind/files/MapDeluxe-Readme.txt).

Map Deluxe is a very good mod, indeed. A strong recommendation from me as well.


It's not exactly what you had in mind, but I'd like to bring Elim Garak's http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=1380 to your attention. It's a series of quests in which the player learns to extract new ingredients from a couple of creatures (Alit tooth, Guar sinew, Hunger tongue, Daedroth claws, Twilight sting, ...). The quests are interesting and well made.