Uhh...

Explain to me the openness of Kavatch. Always a pile of rubble. Every...single...time...no matter what you did.

Wit timed quests, if you hurry there after tripping a part in the main quest you could actually save some people and part of the town. That's open. It's your choice to go save the people or not. Its not open if the game says this town is rubble no matter what you do, and the quests will always end up this way no matter what you do.

Kvatch needed to be destroyed to move the story forward the proper tone. With the town being utterly destroyed, it makes the enemy appear to be more dangerous. If you, as one person, could turn the tide by showing up, at that point in the game, with low end equipment, and low end skills (ignore level scaling here) then the enemy would not really be that much to worry about.

Now, could Kvatch have been rebuilt after? Sure.

Heck, I even hated the timer on the final Oblivion gate so much, that I would just go TCL and walk straight to the final spire bypassing all the other ones. I did it the correct way one time, just to see if I could do it, but after that, never again.

Timers on quests are at counter purposed to having an open ended game that you play the way you want to. Otherwise I will have to save before I speak to each and every NPC, in case they give me some quest that I need to drop everything I am doing and get it done now. With untimed quests, I can take quests when I want, do them when I want, finish them when I want and for the most part, do them how I want.

Timed quests make sense in a linear game, as the game's story is what moves you along. In TES games, it is your decisions that move you along the story.

Nah, If they are anything like the assassins creed ones, I Will be annoyed.

Agreed, I have enough people giving me stress, and I'm not gonna take it from a game.

Based on if one takes the poll and the original post literally, I've changed my vote to NO. My vote would be YES to "Evolving Quests". The reason I'm doing this is because it is irking me that people are interpreting this as having a timer in the top corner when ResistanceKnight has stated throughout the post on many occasions that he also does not want a timer and meant to say that he wants Evolving Quests based on your choices or based on the passing of a very long period of time. Not a timer that starts to countdown, like some Assassin's Creed collect the flags mini-game. I see RK's suggestion as implementing a few (not all) side quests that are driven by how you as a player decide to play the game and your choices, actions, conversations, interactions, and decisions playing a role in shaping how your game plays out. RK, I'm no longer coming back to this post to see the same rants about a timer popping up in the corner of the screen. I think, if you started a new post with the poll and topic of "Evolving Quests" that maybe it will be better received. If it's already been done, I'm sure I'll stumble onto it.

IMO, you've put forth some good ideas bud.

But that's not what I said. Not meeting the time wouldn't mean you fail. Time is a real thing in a world, and for a game world to act like a world and not look staged it has to play by the rules of time. Time being better represented would allow for a much more open game in the long run as well.

If the npc says you are suppose to meet him tomorrow, you should have to meet him tomorrow. If you don't, you should have to find the guy you were ment to meet with, or a representative of the guy you were suppose to meet with, and have to find a way to set up another meeting. Time sensitive quests allow for quests to exist in a world without feeling so stale and staged.

Also, if you fail to make the time, the quest would change. Instead of devending the small town from the bandits who keep taking gold from the people, the people who asked for your help got taken captive once you do finally show up a week after taking the quest. After tracking the bandits to the cave you could find them there and save them. Or if you choose to do other things for another ingame week, then the bandits could have gained more members, or hit a large score and are sitting on a lot of goods right now that just happen to be ripe for the taking for your character. Evolving quests, stuff like that is what I mean when I say timed.

When most people think of timed quests, they think of a countdown followed by a "GAMEOVER/MISSION FAIL" message.
But a quest that changes and evolve depending on time is quite interesting and much more complex. Not a bad thing at all when used in an adequate way.
I totally agree with you. :thumbsup:

Well, the only way for an evolving quest to work is if it were timed. Sadly I hadn't come up with that name for this kinda quest type till after a few pages of descution. At any rate, I don't want a timer either. I'd much rather have quests develope even if we don't do anything with them, to make it so that you can feel the passage of time. With time feeling like it flows on its own, even though it really is paying close attention to what you do, the world will give off a much more believable feel.

It could add a lot to the replayability, and quests could be more open to success and failure.

Hehe, I previously said I wouldn't post on this forum anymore but ...I've been reading and from the way the new Radiant Story and the updated Radian AI are shaping up, it seems like many of the quests will already evolve the way the OP wanted them to. Looks like it will be a cause and effect type of thing. You play your character a certain way, you'll get appropriate quests via rumours, NPC's, overhearing conversations, etc. You play your character a different way, you'll get different quests. You kill certain NPCs, other NPCs will take over or may come after you for vengeance. Anyway, seems to me like they are introducing a more "consequences for your actions" type of gameplay.

I do think that the radient story tool is capable of handling this, but its still a question of if they want to. Radient story basically allows a few parts of quests to have variables. It is posible that one of those variables is time, but its probably one of the more unlikely ones.

Here's hoping though. I personally think that the passing of time would add to replayability and believablity.

Some quests yes
To take an extreme example in MW Hentus would stand in a river for ever if you didn't get him his pants back
Small quests that don't affect other quests would be easy to add timing to

maybe. if it was short sidequests then yes but no to the main quest, there would be rushing to much, but yes if it was sidequests.

it doesn't have to be timed for that to work, more like requirements than anything else

for example: after a few number of quests of a certain faction, the city changes a bit of its aesthetics like town banners and guards uniforms to show these changes or by doing a lot of wood cutting, forging and mining you'd see local militia walking around with better equipment due to a larger amount of available resources.

If 10% of quests are evolving quests then it's good, but more than that and we drown in times quests that no human can possibly complete within the given time.

I'd be fine with a few timed quests, but not a whole lot. There should be consequences for ignoring imminently dangerous quests for too long, but not any that drastically force you to finish or fail.

Take the Oblivion Crisis. Instead of having a certain allotted time to save the world or having a completely false crisis, they could have had daedra spawning in the wilderness from Oblivion Gates and being fought by the town guards or hunting the player in war parties. They would increase spawn amounts over time, but would not continue increasing forever, just enough to make them a problem. Your incentive to finish what was started relatively soon would be not being bothered by the daedra that have been invading. But if you're fine with seeing daedric war parties around, then finish it whenever you chose.

The world is open but who said quests are too. All quests have quest lines. Put as much as choice to them, put or not put time locks, they are still lines. Think about this.

Now there can be smart ways to add a sense of urgency or make timed quests without using timers. It is all about tricking perception.

As always, real world is an inspiration to solve this problem.

In real life, if urgency is needed no one would send someone like us, an adventurer and a total stranger. They would hire a specialist or they would go themselves. Now keeping this in mind, a quest writer should NOT write the PC alone. The quests must start with "let's go" or "follow me". Now after that kind of start, things can change to every possible outcome. We can get separated and follow the quest line alone and become the hero. But we can get to the places in time because we must be following these people.

Another trick is(and this must be used with MQ) turning the tables with the "waiting" thing. Instead of making the PC wait on his/her terms and putting the time counter to make him/her push forward. Put the time counter to make him NOT go forward. And no, don't tell how much time it is.

In a linear quest situation, if PC has started something, he/she will follow the line to the next checkpoint. Between checkpoints, have cool time periods. Tell the PC, an event has to happen to move forward. PC will have to wait then. Then after some time, PC will come again if not, send a messenger. Push him again to the quest and he/she will follow to the next point. Pacing is important. No one will escape from it. Escaping is failing. Don't let them to wait in their own terms, always be the one to tell them to wait. Use an NPC to force them deep into the quest and leave them alone, rest will happen by itself. For MQ, this kind of high linearization is needed. It is not a sacrifice of freedom, it is the nature of the situation.

For untimely quests, if done timely, there can be increased rewards, extras. Getting multiple items always feels good. And again, don't tell these, make a surprise. Make it a reality of the world, PC will know to follow. It shouldn't feel as punishments, PC should always realize these are extra tips.(Means, don't scale items :nono:)

I am against timed quests, because it is impossible to know what the effect of time changes would be without resorting to reading a walk-through.

I don't want to play Skyrim, only to found out later that "oh, sorry. You missed out on this bit of reward because you were 30 second late."

At least with a quest that have a timer, like in Daggerfall, you know you failed the game completely by not getting to the destination on time. But I would be absolutely furious if I had to draw up a perfect timing schedule to get the outcome I want, and only knowing how to do it by looking it up online.

To have the quest change because of a invisible time trigger is almost as bad as levelled loot. I don't want to have to play Skyrim with a stop-watch.

I pretty much despise timed quests.