Post by Moral Anxiety Studio in Embracing the RPG Side - Roadwarden Devlog + Demo Update comments

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Thank you for the review. <3 I think this is the kind of impression I aim for!

I'm actually not afraid of adding New content, it's figuring out which one is Worth Adding that scares me. : P There's a plenty of things already in the demo areas that can't be reached yet as they are unlocked in other places. Ideally, the PC will return to various settlements many times, revealing more layers of the things to do as well as reactions to PC's progress.

However, I grow harsher when it comes to judging the quests structure. Some of the older in-game tasks involve fetching for items, and I start to see them as a bit lazy. But that's a problem for The Future Me - for now, I'm all about adding NPCs to new areas.

superjamie3 years ago

I don't think there is anything wrong with fetch quests. You could reduce almost every adventure game puzzle down to a "fetch quest" if you wanted. It's the story around them which matters.

Asterion is a great example. I'm presumably going to find him dead at some point, then return to the starting location and get his items. The "fetch quest" isn't even an item, it's a piece of information which I'll "pick up" automatically.

However, the quest doesn't just send me over the other side of the map and back again with nothing in between. There's a whole storyline and mystery about it, the relationship between Asterion and other NPCs to explore, it's actually very exciting.

You actually do have a single-item fetch quest in the berries for the innkeeper, but if you talk to the guards then you'll learn this is a basic test to make sure you're trustworthy. The quest isn't about fetching berries, it's about proving that you're reliable and humble to another NPC. That's a lot of extra stuff added to a simple basket of fruit!

I trust you'll add a compelling story around most long puzzles. You seem very good at writing these intertwining storylines that make solving puzzles very rewarding to the reader.

Moral Anxiety Studio3 years ago

I appreciate your trust. ^^ I think what killed my enthusiasm for fetch quests is how pointless they often seem. In one game I was asked (multiple times) to bring animal skins and other resources gathered from respawning enemies. It usually involved almost no storytelling ("we lack meat, we won't explain why we can't get it ourselves, go get it, here's your coin"), and completing these quests had pretty much no impact on the story or the state of the world. It felt like a recycled structure, in which voice acting most likely costed more than the rest of copy-pasted code with hardly any innovations. And having a flexible motivation such as "we need help, do a chore for us" was also removing many possibilities.

I think about my experience with games such as this one a lot.

In my mind, Asterion is less of an object to fetch and more of a MacGuffin with a personality, kind of like R2-D2 from the original Star Wars movie, but he is present in stories and the results of his actions even before PC finds him. : )

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