I've read people are looking forward to doing racial epic questlines or racial storylines that gets you through content.
There will be racial starting zones. This provides racial background and depth to the chosen character.
How about making this racial depth worldwide for Terminus?
This could mean that certain NPC would only offer quests to certain races and those quests can NOT be shared.
The storyline of that quest or the reward can be linked to the races or the race-specific Lore.
Example: A Skarr npc providing a quest somewhere at forest edge. Only a player who's a Skarr can start the quest, other players might not even be able to interact with the npc or can not chat their way into getting that quest. This could be done in various ways: Skarr -> Skarr only or Skarr -> Skarr + certain other races that NPC favours.
Another suggestion would be that quest starter items can only be accessed by certain races. They can unlock the quests, start and finish the quest, but NOT share the quest in group.
Example: Gnomes might find or access certain magical items found in the world that renders them a quest.
These quests do not have to be epic, or have entire storylines filled with follow-up quests. It could just be 1 -2 quests or so. Just enough to top of your racial feel ones in a while. To make you feel unique to your race again.
Most games provide very little racial content outside the startingzone or epic lines. I hope to see more racial depth in Pantheon
The core of the suggestion is, more racial quests outside the starter city.
What do you think of this suggestion?
I've searched for this topic, but I haven't found any that really fits what I'm meaning to say.
If it's a repeat thread, you can block it ofcourse.
It depends on how it was done, and it would have to be extremely limited with trivial rewards for me to like the idea. Something like a sacred racial rite of passage that only makes sense for the specific race.
Otherwise I am not a fan. If someone puts the great amount of time and effort into grinding to the point that a race considers the person an ally then they should have access to just about everything they have to offer.
I like the idea, in fact they did this for the monk classes that led into their epic, so yes I love the idea. And the rewards to me doesn't have to be trivial but at the same time not a BiS either more like going in the right direction as in it doesn't have to be replaced to do more challenging content but there are better out there to be more prepared, but have the quests last trough more than one expansion or something so it doesn't lose it value.
I could see this as newbie race/class quests. Where the Skar newbie learns about the Skar and their ways and is subltey taught how to generally role play or be made aware of what the world expects of their kind.
The newbie would have a home field advantage since as they are learning about "themselves" doing skar only class quests, they are also building home-town faction (IF there are seperate faction quests- VR may have different ideas since questing will be more meaningful, maybe a faction quest can be long?). That way, when strangers come in and wish to learn the ways of the skar- no matter what level the stranger is- the stranger will also have to do the local, newbie-like, faction quests just to walk freely or do banking or shopping, but could never do the race/class specific skar quests.
Iksar said:It depends on how it was done, and it would have to be extremely limited with trivial rewards for me to like the idea. Something like a sacred racial rite of passage that only makes sense for the specific race.
Well, it wouldn't be gamechanging, but consider it a moment of extra attention concerning races in Terminus. For example: a dwarven hovel near a tunnel or mine. A dwarven player can talk to the dwarf near the home and get a quest. (don't shoot me on names or words, it's the general gesture here) A veign of ore is inside the tunnel, the dwarf needs it for making a shield to use during the celebration of Dwarven New Year. Only a dwarf can spot the veign in the tunnel and find the resource. The Dwarven npc would be accept anyone but dwarves to gather this "special" resource for this important dwarven event. (Does that make sense now? It could just be that this Dwarven NPC doesn't trust any other race on Terminus and only speaks to other dwarfs to ask aid on his problems.
Iksar said:If someone puts the great amount of time and effort into grinding to the point that a race considers the person an ally then they should have access to just about everything they have to offer.
I'm do not mean to talk about quests relating to grinding or putting in effort. This is PURELY RACIAL. So you either are of the same race of that npc or you are not. OR as an other option I mentioned before, this certain NPC might have 'reasons to favor' certain races and thereby allowing these races to pick up a quest from him.
So this is not about players grinding faction or becoming allies. This is purely about an NPC being scripted, that the race of a player will be the key to a quest.
I get what you're saying. I won't go into that much since I don't want to derail from my aimed topic here. But if there are factions in the world and certain npc's are linked with that faction, it seems logic that a player with good faction standings would have access to that quest or content. However, this doesn't mean that every npc of that race would have the same "minset" towards other races or entrusting "sensitive information" with races other then his own. Purely scripted that is.
Riahuf22 said:I like the idea, in fact they did this for the monk classes that led into their epic, so yes I love the idea. And the rewards to me doesn't have to be trivial but at the same time not a BiS either more like going in the right direction as in it doesn't have to be replaced to do more challenging content but there are better out there to be more prepared, but have the quests last trough more than one expansion or something so it doesn't lose it value.
Indeed, I'm not reinventing the lightbolb here. Usually it's been done with class quests. This idea is just another angle to work from.
These quests could in fact be linked to possible upcoming expansions. For example; Ogre specific quests relating to a war from long ago and the return or connection to spirits of fallen warriors...which happens to be in a new expansion zone later on. Or certain relics they might use in a "new town" later on to unlock more racial specific quests.
Manouk said:I could see this as newbie race/class quests.
It is quite often used in games as newby zones and starter zones. My suggestion here is in fact is to have these race specific quests beyond those boarders and have them also spread across Terminus. So not only in those first lowby zones.
Manouk said:That way, when strangers come in and wish to learn the ways of the skar- no matter what level the stranger is- the stranger will also have to do the local, newbie-like, faction quests just to walk freely or do banking or shopping, but could never do the race/class specific skar quests.
I think it's a lot of fun to play in starter zones and learn about your own race. For another race to come in and earn faction to access the commodities, could be an option. (not really a fan of it, but I see this happening in Pantheon anyway) But yeah, the suggestion is here to offer quests that would NEVER be accesable to player of a different race. No matter how much good faction you have with certain other races or organisations. It could be an attempt to maintain that unique feeling of a race even beyond the starter zones.
Can be great or poorly done, like most design, depending on how it works :
- Interesting / Uninteresting quest on a gameplay perspective
- Overvaluable/Valuable/Undervaluable rewards
While it can be great to feel immersed in a race's lore, it can also break any fuse of choosing to play your character as a marginal of your own race, so it "should" remain as quests you can shutdown in progression if you don't feel like it's your character's path. Too many themepark mmo's are forcing your hand on "how your character acts and belief" by making quests you have to complete and cannot skip, making you enforce against the opposing faction wether you like it or not, and thoses quests usually end up beeing ignored by roleplayers because of that.
For thoses who remember, clerics from different cults had specific quests in EQ leading to valuable (or not) necklaces depending of your god's choice. But many quests weren't fully completed, or ended dead lines where some cults had valuable rewards, like Innoruuk's clerics having access to a necro/sk dot+snare, which basically gave them a functionnality they didn't had access to : Snaring.
Most other deities had poor rewards in this domain, or none at all, making it an obvious choice if you wanted a little sparkle of bonus there.
Racial, quests, class quests, racial class quests. All are fine.
It has been clearly stated Pantheon will not be quest-centri, as EQ1 was. But that's largely just to cover their butt. I am sure there will still be plenty if they get enough people and time after more pressing work gets done. It does not take great programming skill to design and code general quests, just time.
As a side note. One of the last streams showed a quest being done. It is looking a lot like old EQ. Requiring you to dialog with the NPC using key words.
No spinning question marks, no map markers, no hand-holding. Although Joppa did have to teleport the guy to the quest objective otherwise he might have spent an hour+ searching.
I am a fan. Racial depth is an important depth as well. This will be something great within Pantheon.
I love race- and class-specific quests. As someone who spends a LOT of time on multiple characters, such quests add to the replayability of game content for me.
The only thing is, the quest rewards can't be such that if you don't pick X race or Y class, you lose out on something super important that affects character power. Basically, the rewards need to be balanced across all races/classes.
Definitely on board. Racial quests to learn about your lore and hold your hand for a couple levels... then release you to the wolves!
Perhaps something every 10 levels for racial quests and 5 for class quest? Given at home race city.
Meh.
EQ1 did all of that, it was fine. Certain races could only use some items, certain classes could only use certain items, certain religions could only use certain items. And likewise with being able to do the quests to get the item. It all centered around faction though, and I think that's the better and more realistic approach.
To piggyback a little off your example, a Dwarf questgiver would only give a fellow Dwarf the quest UNLESS whatever other race had spent days/weeks focusing on their faction with the Dwarves (and the individual subfactions within the Dwarven race such as the Warrior Guild) to the point that the other race now has the trust of the Dwarves and can also receive the quest. Now, he might not be able to use the item or reward since he's not a Dwarf (if it's size specific, etc...), but he could sell it to someone that could. In this way, the quest is generally racial in nature as any Dwarf could get it, but it allows for someone of another race to work really hard to raise their faction to be able to do it as well. To me, that's realistic, and it was also an enjoyable aspect of EQ1. Being a Human running around Cabilis doing the Greenmist SK Iksar quest was extremely unique and rewarding. It just took me weeks of killing certain bandits and handing in a bazillion bone chips.
I'm a fan of those types of racial quests, as long as they don't have a hard lock out to other races. If someone wants to really work hard on their faction, it only makes sense they would be trusted to do the quest as well.
I would say I am a fan of racial quests whether limited to the starting areas or scattered around.
I do not disagree with Mathir but it makes sense that some quests would be race-only regardless of how much the race may love you.
Thus, maybe a dwarf God doesn't choose to exert Her powers on behalf of an elf no matter how many days of grinding the elf spends sucking-up to dwarves. Maybe the God understands that an elf greedy for the fruits of dwarven artifice is just ...greedy .... not one who has the best interests of dwarves at heart. Maybe a special reward of dwarven gear wouldn't fit the elf unless he spends months being ...shortened .... hardly a good reward for a friend.
I'm not sure I want to see quests that are unique to specific character races. Though, I would support that for introductory quest chains (like newbie armor/weapon quests).
Instead what I would rather see is this:
- Each major city or town in Terminus has one or more ongoing storylines associated with it.
- If your faction is high enough with that city or town, you can participate in quests that are part of that storyline.
- These storyline quests start at lower levels but continue all the way up through higher levels, with level-appropriate rewards that are "flavored" based on the storyline and its origins.
- Many of the storyline quests intersect in parts, creating shared objectives with other nearby storylines.
I feel like this accomplishes the same thing that racial quests would (contributing to cultural identity) while allowing players the freedom to adopt a different home than where they started, if they wanted to. Of course, someone could try go go completionist and do all of them, but it would likely require a lot of faction work.
Nephele said:I'm not sure I want to see quests that are unique to specific character races.
- Many of the storyline quests intersect in parts, creating shared objectives with other nearby storylines.
What if there exists a quest line (or lines) common to all races but each race needs to start it at their home city and, after some number of steps, the questlines all merge into a common path. This way the races can keep some unique portions of the quest yet still allows everyone to reach the same conclusion. I think this would be very apropos to class specific quests as well.
Having some quest lines interspersed throughout the levels that must be started from your home city does help to keep that city more alive with players having definitive reasons to keep visiting their home.
Racial quests are fine but racist quests I am not so much a fan of. Again, if someone puts the countless hours in to raise their faction to ally (or whatever the highest is) then they should be able to partake in almost any quests that race has to offer (except class or religion specific quests). They might not be able to use the rewards and those might be racially limited, but they can still obtain/do the quest(s).
Iksar said:Racial quests are fine but racist quests I am not so much a fan of. Again, if someone puts the countless hours in to raise their faction to ally (or whatever the highest is) then they should be able to partake in almost any quests that race has to offer (except class or religion specific quests). They might not be able to use the rewards and those might be racially limited, but they can still obtain/do the quest(s).
This reminded me of some ideas where people spoke of long quests to change deity, if so, that would open the option to "go native" and not only get common racial faction but also deity faction.
If this were to occur the mechanic would have to be, once 100pct ally- then items so coded to allow race only would recognize 100pct ally even though the user is coded as a different race. Likewise with deity- item so coded to see deity in the different race once changed- this may be a little easier. However I don't see how class specific items can be shared or obtained because as class specific, a different class would not be able to hold it or MQ it. The only other reason I would see is if for selling purposes, which defeats the whole idea of having those quests but will allow a Ogre to "go native" if they wanted to spend the time and effort and become a "persona gnome grata" in gnome city, being able to shop and quest and be protected by their gods, and bemoan the vertigo they feel whenever using the gnome-sized restrooms or furniture.
I would really like to see a class/racial quest line similar to SWTOR's story quest line. Instead of doing errands for for farmers and clergyman which are all fine and good, I'd much rather go on one long. epic adenture quest line like the fellowship of the ring uncovering mysteries and fighting along the way. Thats just me.
I both like and dislike this idea. Racial and class quests can and should be in to an extent. Starter area's giving some lore and racial gear and maybe even later getting upgraded or better racial gear.
Here's the only holes I'd poke in your thought process to this:
~Can't limit any quest to race only. Can limit it to faction requirements with said race however. Starter/lowbie quests exempt from this one. Reason being, if an item is good but only available to 1 race people will get upset. If they can grind faction to get the item, it's fine.
~Balance. If all races have their own quests then it becomes a balancing act to ensure that all races have enough to not feel 'left out' so to speak.
Yea I know it's minor stuff but never underestimate the tears of the internet when their chosen race/class gets the shaft in any way lol