The too short main quest and the problem with side quests

I thought long about something Lum said here on the boards. That reaching Necropolis is about halfway through the love quest. There are a few problems I have with this:
1. You can reach Necropolis in about 2-3 hours - which would make the Love quest about 4-6 hours "long"
2. If you just follow the main quest and reach Necropolis you suddenly are in five skull area about 3 hours into the game - which is very frustrating.

Now it has been said that we should not rush the main story and that the devs will add more side quests so that we will have more to do before we go to Necropolis and also get better so that the five skull area is not too hard.

This brings up other problems:

1. There is an undead menace in the land threatening to destroy all life. But instead for us to try to thwart the plans of the undead as fast as possible we are sent on side quests. So we have this very urgent main quest but we are distracted by unimportant side quests. This is something many RPGs suffer from. You have this very urgent menace but instead of doing something about it, we help a farmer gather his crops...
2. Side quests often feel like they are shoved in. Why should we do them? What is the intention for the hero who has to save to world to go and kill 10 wolves?

Side quests can be good but if there is a main quests that is very urgent then the side quests should be integrated into the main quest. By this I mean: In order to talk to the leaders of Ardoris, we should be "forced" to do some side quests. Without having done those, we cannot talk to to the leaders and can't continue with the main quest. Maybe we have to do some side quests in order to find the guide to Necropolis, too...

Just adding more things to do outside of the main quest won't do it as there are players who are just interested in doing the main quest. And those will be the first to complain about it being too short and reaching an area early in the game that is way too hard.

 

Agreed. The side quests should also build on the story, enriching the experience. When I played the Ultima games I never felt like I was wasting time. All quests were essential or at least felt essential to completing the game.

 

Is that REALLY a side quest? Say it ain't so...

 

Agreed.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...cugel-until-after-you-helped-a-refugee.51002/

 

If the side quests can be their own chain of story lines, it may help prolong the game hours like how witcher 3 and the elder scrolls series.

Skyrim main quest line isn't that long, but there are plenty of other things to do that some people may not even touch the main story even until today.

 

Sure but the problem remains: Why should I do a side quest when the undead army is threatening the continent and destroying cities? Isn't it more logical to try to stop them before I do some side quests?

 

But you don't need to do that within 4-6 hours after you hop on the rift gate into Solace Bridge, right?

Sometimes "pressing matters" can be a relative to a person. Think of real world examples, we have nuclear power plant leaking radiation into water, oil platform spilling oil in the Gulf, we have the terrorist states killing people on the other side of the world, but yet there are significant numbers of people worrying about who get to use which rest room.

To make it more specific to Novia, those who live in Valhold would probably care more how to get rid of the damn kobolds than worrying about undead hordes who are destroying towns and villages on the east coast.

The side quests could also still be related to the undead. Instead of going after the sources and try to stop them, the avatars could may just go around and help people that are currently being affected by it before start going after the root cause.

 

But that is not how it is presented in the game. The leaders of Ardoris know about the undead menace, they know that Solace Bridge has been attacked. They know how pressing the matter is and send you to the Necropolis. They don't say "Hey, this is not important". There is a sense of urgency during this quest and I am sure many Players will want to solve this matter sooner than later.

 

I agree with you, there is something wrong in the progressing curve of the game regarding to Necropolis.

Thus I have heard from some players that we were not supposed to fight against everybody in Necropolis since they are not "evil".

However, I didn't managed to find a way to go to the end of Necropolis without fighting/dying in loop/rushing in ghost mode... I'm not sure it is working as intended.

 

First, Valhold and the kobolds is already a part of the main questline of Courage.

Second, side quests based on the undead problem would not make sense after you took care of the undead problem.. which means they would have to come up with more side-quests in the long run. This making side-quests only work within the main quest timeline, would create a linear feel to the whole world, which I believe they're trying to avoid.

I definitely see and understand the problem here, and agree. Maybe the answer is more quests, both along the main storyline, and optional in and out of the story.. but that content will take time. Hmm..

 

There were plenty of quests you could do in Ultima games that were non-essential to the story, but still weren't a waste of time, because they made the game better. For example, in U7, I could spy on the mayor of Britain, Patterson, to find out he had an affair. This wasn't essential to completing the game, but it still told a lesson about the Fellowship. You could give a message to one NPC that another had a crush on him, or pick pumpkins for gold. You could deliver a bill helping clean up the pollution in Lock Lake. You could search for artifacts off the main roads, like the mage blade. None of that really directly had anything to do with defeating the Guardian. And, in fact, if you already knew what to do, or were reading a walkthrough, all of the Ultima games could be completed pretty quickly without doing the side quests.

Side quests can serve a lot of purposes. Building trust with NPCs. Revealing more about the characters, the world, and the background to the story. Helping the player earn gold or gain weapons to complete his quest. Etc...

I haven't really tried to get into the Love quest, so don't know how it plays out. But also look at the bigger picture of an "undead menace threatening to destroy all life." There are many times in history that nations have been at wars for hundreds of years. There were other things to do besides be part of the war efforts. Who are the players? Why do they automatically think they have the ability to thwart the plans of the undead and save the world? Aren't there NPCs working on that too? Why haven't they succeeded, but why can the player succeed? Who do players think they are? Just because we've learned from Ultima RPGs that our job is to save the world, doesn't mean we should expect to pop in the game and save the world, when nobody else could.

Most gameplay in the earlier Ultima games in fact was building your character; building stats, gaining weapons, earning gold, maintaining food. When you were ready, and only when you were ready, you could go into dungeons, and proceed with your quest. All aspects of what you had to do in the quest weren't even obvious, so you had to figure them out, and do other things in the mean time. In Ultima V, why didn't you just march into the Underworld and rescue Lord British? Why waste time talking to someone for a Create Food spell?

 

As I said it is all about how it is presented and integrated. So how about the guide to Necropolis getting abducted so that we have to rescue him? This would be a sidequest that would be integrated into the main quest so that we don't reach Necropolis too early in the game.

But why should I help farmer X gather his pumpkins when an undead menace is threatening the land and the leaders of Ardoris asked me to help them?

 

@Lord_Darkmoon I entirely agree and support your OP.

 

Or, maybe the guards of Ardoris could just spar with you, kick your butt, and tell you to your face that you're not ready to face the dangers of the Necropolis yet. You can go do some recommended side quests, until you can face the guards and they say they think you're ready..

 

Why did you gather pumpkins in Ultima VII when the Guardian was threatening to come through the Black Gate? And which he happened not to do until the exact moment you arrived there...

Yes, if the leaders of Ardoris beg you for you to help them right away, because only you can save them, that's a problem. I haven't played through the quest yet, so I don't know what the wording is. If its a general call for help, which you may or may not be ready for, based on your own personal assessment, I don't think its as big a deal. What Miracle Dragon suggests sounds good, too, as a way to guide the player some more.

 

Each of the 3 main virtue quests may only be 5-6 hours by themselves, and then there is a fourth part of the game after you complete all three virtue sections. If the main plot completely by itself is 20 hours, then that is fairly standard.

Now add time for exploration, leveling and side-quests and you're easily at 40 hours per episode.

If you've invested hundreds of hours in pre-releases so you level quickly (especially with the XP boost) and you don't need to explore, and very few side quests are in the game currently, then obviously it will seem short when you do the bare minimum for a plot line.

People have done Morrowind speed runs in 3 minutes.

Now I wish the main plot were longer, but we're also in an era where people say 8 hours for a single player campaign is often the norm. The good news is that the world can be fleshed out with more sidequests.

 

@op - granted I do believe side quests should have more of a character building exercise attached to them in terms of what the quest requires (killing 10 wolves is character building but not immersive)

Having a short main quest isn't always a bad thing if the side quests are to help to develop your character along the way - I for one as a lord wouldn't send a pesant straight to kill a rival lord but instead get that pesant to undertake a series of side quests to become a hero then a champion then go and take on that rival lord. thus I do believe side quests are crutial to the development of the main quest provided that the story line doesn't detour too much from main to side

Also to note that the questing system in this game isn't 'Is all that ends all' as has been said on numerous occasions that this game will be a community driven engine which means that the questing system is only one SMALL part of the entire world of Novia.

 

I don't see how the "community fact" could drive you game as an avatar, especially in SP mode.

For those who played it, a reputation system like Mounts and Blade could be a fine way to build your character.

 

@Darkmoon, I'm interested in your opinion of the start of the Love story line quests? I found them a bit unimaginative - for the necropolis all I did was run as fast as I could past all the creatures as I was not high level enough to beat them. I could find any treasure or side quests in there, did you?

 

I agree. I would have preferred multi-facted quests that change while we are doing them. Quests that offer twists, surprises and maybe change the whole quest midway through. What we have mostly is standard quests, fedex quests, talk to this guy, bring him this letter... This is a bit disappointing. More disappointing is that the quests are not complex. That we don't have to look for things, search for clues etc. We all know what happened when Portalarium tried to include such things with the quest to find the key to the doors of Highvale...

I haven't been able to survive Necropolis yet as I went there too early. I ran away from every monster and didn't even look for tresures etc.