What's the worst thing that can be done to a linear story? Putting it in an open world.

But maybe I should rather call these evolving quests. Based on if you do them right away or not. I'm not talking about a clock on the side of the screen counting down till worlds end...I'm talking about the quest changing if the player chooses to do nothing or put it off till later.

I know games like TES are all about doing what you want when you want to...but I don't think the world should wait for us all the time. Sure, for simple fetch quests like finding 20 bear pelts, there shouldn't be any rush. But for things like Sanguines quest, where you have to "liven" up the party, its suppose to be tomorrow but in reality the game waits and they keep partying untill you get around to it.

Either that's one hell of a party that's still going on 2 ingame months later, or something needs to change.

The best way to fix this, in my mind, would be to rework the writing for a more open format and at the same time tweak the game-world so it isn't so staged. A better way to handle the party quest would be to say that every Thursday they hold it at 8pm, and you have to liven up the party on one of the days they meet. And then the game world would change so that they infact only meet on the days and times given to the player. With this the world then becomes more believable, and at the same time its still open.

Other things that would benefit from timed quests would be when we're told to meet someone at a specific time. They say to meet them tomorrow at 2pm, but really the npcs visit the designated spot night after night untill you show up to continue that quest. Missing the time doesn't have to mean you fail the quest either. Say you miss the meeting. Instead of just getting locked out of the quest, maybe you could find the npc again and ask to meet another time. If they hate you, maybe they'll say no untill you improve your standing with them. If they're neutral, they could act upset but set up another date. If they like you, they could act like they understand you had things to do and propose another time to meet. Failing to meet the time doesn't need to mean you fail.

Another thing that would gain from timed quest would be parts of the story where threats are pressent. Remember the Oblivion gates outside the cities? Supossidly everyone was freeking out and scared to death from the doom that could be attacking at any second...except that doom never came no matter how long you waited. The enemies of the world would wait for you. That...makes the world look really staged.

And just because you don't beat the imaginary clock, that doesn't mean you fail. The quest could then change, evolve so that you don't fail but rather it now becomes harder to complete. Like for the Grand Gate near bruma. If you don't beat the clock, then the crab thing gets outside. Now instead of just failing, instead you have to stop it before it reaches the gates. If you just sit there and watch it, its gonna take Bruma out. You shouldn't fail if you don't beat the clock, but things might change. Curcomstances may change, get worse, if the clock isn't beat, but you don't fail and reload the game.

If the writing says theirs an imminant threat that demands action...shouldn't it really demand action? There's no real threat, even if the story says there is...if the threat waits for the hero to get around to saving the day. Say a kid was kidnapped, and you take the quest from the parrent. If you wait say 2 ingame weeks till you go to investigate the cave, the kid may all ready be sold off into slavery. The quest could then get harder because you didn't act right away, and now you have to buy the child his freedom, or rescue the kid of a rich mans estate which is crawling with guards.

Radiant story basically allows quests to have variables. Could one of those variables be time? I hope so.

Basically, does anyone want to see quests evolve and actually take time into account and change accordingly?

No. The story only doesn't make sense if you decide to not continue the story right away. If you started the game and did the Main Quest in order right away it would be perfectly synced together. You could even stop for a day or two and take a break. Same with any other quest. The time YOU choose to devote to a series of quests determines how real the quests feel. I don't want to be forced into doing something I'm not ready to do because it is a timed event.

I'm all for having a bunch of open choice kind of things, like making quests with a lot of different outcomes. But only a rare few should be "Fail-able" due to running out of time.

A few quests should have some mild time restrictions, but I don't believe in restricting world size. The oblivion Crisis shouldn't have started and ended in three days, so its not unreasonable to take a break from the main quest in oblivion and still have everything going on.

The biggest mistake in this argument, I think, is the wording. A "less open world" never sounds like a good idea in TES games... but I think I know what you're getting at. Certainly the writing could allow for different outcomes depending on different circumstances from the time of acceptance of a quest to the time of completion. But any hard and fast "timed" quests is a definite "No" as far as I'm concerned.

I always do chuckle, though, when a dire circumstance that needs my immediate help goes unresolved for a few weeks before I get around to it. But, then, it never really bothered me that much either.

I agree with the OP. I don't want less freedom, but certain times quests would be nice.

I despise timed quests. It's like having to get to work on time, having a timed test, timing contractions, time limit for homework, getting dinner on the table at a specific time....sounds like work and I hate my entertainment to seem like work. :shrug:

Its not like every quest would be timed, only specific parts of them. The world, in order to be believable, kinda needs to work like this. Having a completely 100% open world makes the world come off as staged. And not getting their on time doesn't meen you fail, it could just get harder or the cercomstances could change.

If a believable world is the goal, the world should apear to follow its own timeline. Even if it mostly follows after our character, it should in my mind try to look like it doesn't.


I agree. I don't want the world to actually follow its own time...that would be a very bad idea. But it should try to apear as if it were following its own timeline, instead of waiting for the character. Good open writing, and mild time restrictions could go a long way in doing this.


Like I said, not getting the time restrictions doesnt have to mean you fail. The quest could get harder, or the cercomstances could change. After a kidnapped child is taken to a cave...and if you wait to long, the quest may change to having to track the kid down to his new owner now that he was sold into slavery, and you would have to buy his freedom or rescue him from an estate full of guards.

I don't think you should ever fail a quest in an open world due to not getting around to it...but the world acting in a believable way and the details of the quest changing could add a lot to you feeling like the world around you is a real one.

As long as you get to choose the timing of the quest I don't see a problem with it (ie you have to agree to the meeting beforehand). I wouldn't like it if it was forced on you.

I put maybe, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion all had them.

Well, I think a time limit would in some cases provide a sense of urgency and thrill that most TES games lack. I would really not like to see time limits employed simply because "IRL we wouldnt be able to take this long". The OP said that the party house should have a time limit - I disagree as that quest stands. On the other hand if you got to the house and realized there was no wine - suddenly you have to rush to surilie brothers and pick up a few cases all before the guests come - thats more exciting and adds to the game more rather than some arbitrary limit.

i would say some..... If it's like billy is being held hostage by the old crazy priest.... Then that should be timed.... But if its like.. Kill all the goblins in a cave.... That shouldn't be timed...

Billy's being held by the priest ??! That [censored] pervert! To the batcave!

In this case... who is up for an in-game Blackberry?? This should keep all of your timed quests in your calendar and every so offen provide you with updates/warning.

Of course we could not call it a blackberry, but maybe The Tome of Time / which actually keeps record of events done each day etc etc...

The funny thing is that I am not even sure if I am serious or not - please help; new thread maybe

no way. one thing I hated about those in legend of zelda: oricina of time was that I would suddenly notice a secret heart or something as I rush past and I would have time to get it and I might not remember how to get back to it, or other things like a killed enemy droping something cool and not having the time to pick it up.

how this would translate into TES is not being able to loot a chest or a corpse because I have to beat the clock, since the whole principle of time based quests is to make a normal quest more challenging but making you do it in a time frame that is only barily possible.

If this is in, I will be extremely annoyed. Seriously, the fully OPEN WORLD is the whole point of TES! you want to play a linear story, fine go play CoD or some such. I suppose having it happen only on a certain day each week, doesn't sound so bad, but no timed quests, e.g do this within this amount of time or you fail.

The latter would be fine with me, but the former, no, I'd hate that. the Elder Scrolls is supposed to be an open world, anything that unnecessarily reduces the openness is unwanted. It's certainly true that having a story that assumes you should hurry while not supporting this with the gameplay can dimminish the credibility of the story, but the solution to that can just be to change the story. I play games for the gameplay first, story comes after that, I can enjoy a game with a boring story if the gameplay is fun, but it's going to be pretty hard to get me to want to keep playing a game with terrible gameplay even if the story is good. Therefore, rather than designing the gameplay to fit the story, the story should instead serve to complement the gameplay, the story can be used to bring some logic and direction to what would otherwise be abstract actions with no clear purpose except to advance the game, and explain things like why I can do the things I can or why I should do the things I must, certainly, the story should try not to contradict the gameplay if possible, or else you get the feeling that the story and gameplay are taking place in two seperate worlds. Still, there's no reason why the gameplay should have to suffer for the sake of the story.

I wouldn't mind if a few, VERY FEW quests have a reasonable time limit, only where you'd logically expect a time limit and it's clearly stated that time is of the essence, but if Bethesda decides to force players to do the main quest by imposing a time limit on the entire questline like in Fallout 1, then I'm not playing Skyrim, not until someone makes a mod to remove said time limit, at least.

A good example of a quest that could have benefited from a time limit in past games was the stage in Morrowind's main quest where you needed to cure yourself of corprus. As a whole, Morrowind's main quest benefits from writing that really fits with the open world style of the game, but in that one quest, you're infected with a terrible disease that transforms people into deformed monsters and is said to always be fatal, and you have to find a way to cure it. This is the kind of situation which is perfect for creating drama using a sense of urgency. In this case, it somewhat diminished the impact of the whole thing when you realized that no matter how long you waited, no real lasting concequences would occur. Each day that passed upon recieving the quest and before actually taking care of the disease would cause you're case of corprus to worsen, but all this really did was increase the affects that would be removed once you were cured. There was no actual danger of dying or losing your mind as a result of the disease. In that one quest, there's a pretty good reason to have a time limit, but if the entire main quest had one, it would have ruined the "freedom" the game promised.

I wouldn't want it like that either. When I say timed quests, I dont' want a little count down timer in the corner telling me I have 2 minutes left to save Billy before they kill him. I mean you have about 2 ingame weeks before Billy is sold from the kidnappers to a slave owner. Being timed doesn't have to mean if you don't beat the clock you fail, they should mean the world moves on in specific instances so the story doesn't come off as staged. Things could get harder, or the cercomstances could change to finish a quest if you wait to long.

Writing can ease the transition a lot. For instance, when going into Paradice to get the amulet back Martin said he was ready to open the portal but you should go do other things because once you go in there is no getting out. Normally the character would go in because everything was ready and there should be no need to wait, but the player may want to do other questlines first. The story is to linear there and it contrasts with the open world. Better writing would have Martin say that he'll have the portal to Paradice ready in a few weeks, so the player should go off and do other things. After one week, the option to continue the main quest would apear, but the character woudln't know, and Martin would go about as if he were still working on the portal till the player shows up and is ready to continue.

The world is open, and the writing takes that into consideration.

Also, the world can allow for if the player misses a date for a meeting, that doens't meen that quest is failed. Find the npc who wanted to meet you and set up another date to meet. Allow for the player to choose when to try and meet again by opening up the challender and give a range of days and times to choose from.

Its not about making the game harder. Its about the world trying to be believable. Its not believable for the world to wait hand and foot till you get there. Not getting there on time doesn't have to mean you fail, with more open writing threats to Skyrim would be believable and yet not forced upon the player. Its possible, and timed quests would help. Once specific parts of quests are tripped, there would be consiquences for both your actions or your inaction.

If we want our characters actions to have a larger impact on the game world, a great way to do that is to allow for our inaction to have an impact as well. The game should try to give the impression that the world is real and not staged for the character, even though it is. The world in my mind should react in believable ways to what our characters do, along with reacting to what our characters don't do.

I recall such feature in Daggerfall (in Daggerfall even MQ have time limit) time management was interesting feature (still need some tweakage), but today it can be too hardcoe for newcomers, perhaps in some quests and in hardcoe mod it can be implemented?

yes for me. not all quests of course. but then i like game features that make the world not care about me except if i do something to make it. that means the world goes on its own way, not waiting for me take my time, not conforming the creatures and loot to my "level", and not giving me abilities that other world denizens dont have, just because im the player (being dragon-born doesnt count since the abilities are because im dragonborn and not because im the player and so long as other dragonborns have them too).

also its a bit silly when someone gives you a quest saying "please hurry!" and you dont actually have too. i like Din's Quest way of having things go on with or without you.

I dont want everything to be linear. Never did I say that. I want the world to take into account that a story is trying to be told here...and I want the story to be writen in a much more open format.

Specific parts of quests...once tripped, should be timed. Let's look at how Oblivon's story could have benefitted from such things. The main quest was pretty much thrown at your face in Oblivion with no way to dodge. Not good for an open world game. The writing was way to linear for an open world. How could that be fixed?

You get the amulet and leave the sewers. Your'e told Jaufre is a monk that lives in a remote part of Cyrodill, and even Uriel Septem doesn't know where he has retired to. Once you leave, youre mission is to find where he lives, but you have no idea where to go. The monks at Weinon Priory are the only ones who know of Jaufre's location, but you don't know they know. So you just start to wander, starting quests and the like.

Now get this, because the main quest isn't forced at you, Kavatch is a town you can visit now. There are a few quests there, and other things to do. You can get to know the people there, even buy a house.

After two ingame weeks, if you have yet to visit the monks at the Priory, you here a rumor that the blades are holding a meeting at Weinon Priory with all the old members showing up. Choose to show up or not, your quest log now tells you that the blades may have ties to Weinon priory and going there may give you leads on how to find Jaufre.

Once you visit the Priory, they'll inform you on how to find Jaufre if he no longer is there. Still, you don't have to go go find him yet. Its completely open on what you have to do. Once you find him in the woods however...the quest trips a timer. He informs you of Martin in Kavatch, and you should go get him now because he fears for his safty. Leaving the amulet with Jaufre, you set out.

You have the choice to go to Kavatch and get Martin, or you could wait. However, in exactly 3 ingame hours the attack on Kavatch starts be you there or not. If you went there right away, you could actually help save most of the town along with Martin. If you show up an ingame month later, the town could look even worce off than it did in Oblivion. Martin would still be held up in the church however, and its up to you to save him.

Ya see? Timed quests and open world writing actually adds more to the open world...than just linear format stories and a completely open world that waits for you to act.

Although I wouldn't mind a few here and there (that made sense), as a general rule, no.

Being someone that sleeps at night and walks (not runs) everywhere, timed quests could get really annoying. As a role player, I don't accept a quest that would normally be timed, unless I already intended to do it right then an there.

That was the big problem with Oblivion's main quest. It was so out in the open that once your started it, you didn't feel as though you could put it aside. If I remember correctly, I completed the main quest somewhere between levels 5 to 8 because the consequences were so dire.

The whole ethos of a TES game is 'Do what you want, when you want'.

With that in mind I say no to timed quests, in real life yes you have time limits and yes you can ignore them, its a choice. But with TES games if you want time limits then set them yourself, if you want to make a kidnap quests seem urgent, then you do it straight away. Its that simple.

But for those of us that want to collect a few more plants or level up a few times before whacking the kidnappers then let us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ

Hi all,

This is my first post ever on these forums. I've been following along with all of you since TES III, mostly just reading about lore, the things you all liked/disliked in general, ideas on what people want to see in upcoming TES games, etc as well as chuckling at some of the heated debates between some of the users. I decided to start posting on the Skyrim discussions because frankly I'm too excited to wait until 11.11.11 for this to be released and feel like if I don't talk about it with a multitude of like-minded individuals, I'll explode.

Back to the topic. While I understand the OP's suggestions, I feel like (as with many posts) this is a bit of a grey area. To answer the poll, I definitely do not want timed quests to be implemented into the game, or quests that you fail if you don't complete in a specific time. I believe this would be unfeasible in a TES game where much of the game is based on completing a ton of side quests, several of which are given/accepted simultaneously and where the game itself engages the player in hours upon hours of gameplay at the player's own pace.

However, ResistanceKnight does have some really great ideas for creating more evolving types of quests. I like the idea of having certain (not all) quests change a bit over time (depending on the situation) if you don't get to them right away. This would allow the same quest to possibly be a bit different on your next playthrough, allowing multiple playthroughs to feel different each time. I like the idea of accepting an "urgent" request, where if not fulfilled immediately, the quest doesn't fail, but becomes harder and harder to complete. Really, if you've accepted a quest to obtain a frozen slaughterfish from an icy cave and then accept a request from some local townsfolk to clear out several grizzly bears on the outskirts of town, you can probably leave the fish which will not thaw out anytime this century and go take care of the bears. If you don't, and say, wait a few days/weeks/months, the bears may have cleared out of the area already. You would still be able to hunt them down, but maybe now the group is larger as cubs may have grown up, depending on how much time has passed. Perhaps the bears killed a bunch of people from the town who tried to deal with the problem themselves (I did see several requests for more advanced AI for NPCs posted in these forums) since it took you so long to get to it and then you'd have all that blood on your hands, just like when Toby Maguire beat Macho Man Randy Savage and then didn't stop that thief after he got shafted on his pay. Poor Uncle Ben, now he'll have to stick to making rice.

More than likely, there will be a bunch of ingredient/resource gathering quests where you have all the time in the world to collect the items and bring them to the respective quest giver. Though I wonder if flora and fauna would have a life and death cycle in this game. There will probably also be the "clear out this cave/dungeon of goblins/vampires" types of quests where again you'd be able to get to it whenever, but the longer you leave it, the more enemies/creatures you'll have to face and if you leave any survivors, they should be able to rebuild the horde/coven or whatever, given enough time. Then when you go back to finish the job properly, they would be stronger/harder to kill.

While all of our ideas are good (some great, and I'm not referring to myself either), what we have to remember is that BGS has been doing this for years now and have gotten pretty damn good at it. It's just not possible to FIT all this great STUFF into the game without it being huge and we also want it to be released on time with minimal bugs. We just have to trust that they will put in the right stuff from previous games and that the new features will be awesome. Regardless of what is or isn't in Skyrim, I say enjoy it for what it is. An escape from our monotonous lives into a phenomenal and massive fantasy realm where we can kick ass, take names and launch flames from our hands. It's called lube people, look into it!

Anyway, sorry for the long post...I must've had a lot to say
Cheers!

Theoretically, time-dependent events could add a lot of excitement and believability to Skyrim. However, I have a suspicion that they could become quite an annoyance. It's probably something Bethesda has looked into, only to realise that it's not practical.