Plot mission: They kidnapped my SON! Arthur, we’re forming up a posse and riding into town to get my son back! [yellow mission marker appears on the map]
Me: Oh, that’s awful. I’m sorry to hear about that. [Ok, so I still need to find and kill a cougar for my satchel. Let’s see, the best spawn point for cougars is a few days ride away up north…]
–
So many of the missions in that game are cliffhangers and imply that you need to do something now. But, I’m always off picking flowers, hunting rare beasts, looking at treasure maps, and so on.
It actually ends up ruining the plot to a certain extent. Like, the plot missions are all about how the gang is desperate for money, meanwhile I just finished a treasure hunt and brought back $1000 and donated it to the camp. I’m financially supporting this group of 20ish people, plus I’m feeding them with all the meat I bring back for the stew (even if I’m only allowed to have stew every couple of days). Dutch keeps saying we need one last score so we can get on a boat to Tahiti. I’m like “give me a couple of days and I’ll buy first class tickets for all of us.”
I get the feeling that by Chapter 6 you’re supposed to be losing confidence in Dutch (as a player, as Arthur you still seem to have confidence in him for some reason). But, for me, he was an idiot many chapters ago because he was suggesting all these illegal schemes to make money, when my hunting, herbing, etc. was bringing in the big bucks.
And, I’ve barely played the fishing minigames yet, let alone the legendary fish fishing games…
I would love an RPG where time actually matters. If some NPC tells you to meet him under that tree tonight, and you’re not there, he should get mad and refuse to help you. And if a mission is urgent, there should be consequences if you go off doing something else, maybe even failing the mission. It would be awesome if there are multiple missions but you only have time for one or two.
Related, how about no radar and mission markers? So if you get directions, you actually need to follow them. And you need to actually explore instead of simply following a quest marker with half an eye on a minimap. IIRC one of the early Elder Scrolls did this?
Sounds like you’d really enjoy Pathologic 2 - it does everything you described! It’s not a classical RGP, but it’s an incredibly unique and impressive game. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the story since I first experienced it ~2 years ago!
I mean, Morrowind did this to an extent. But the result is that some vital NPC would get randomly killed by a bear halfway across the map, and you’d get the dreaded “you can’t beat the game anymore lul get fucked” message. Then you’re stuck reloading your last save, desperately hoping to find whatever NPC it was.
The details escape me, but there actually was still a way to progress after getting that message. I remember it involved the dwarf with the spider centurion legs; I think he knew something about where some of the pieces were.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has tons of time-sensitive missions where your decision to do something else results in changed circumstances. Didn’t work out well for me as a player that wants to explore EVERYTHING, which I did in Act 1.
My girlfriend and I just finally got through DOS:2 and started BG3 this weekend. She stresses THE FUCK out about things like this, because we have to do everything ‘right’ or close to it. Can I ask in a relatively spoiler free way if it’s going to lead to huge negative consequences? Or more so just different than outright negative?
Sometimes I wanted this, but thinking back again that kind of mission just doesn’t fit open world games. Like, I can’t imagine Elden Ring with any deadline in it. So I just swallow my disbelief and accept that open world games also means open time games.
My first impression was that this puts an awful lot on the player to remember, that wouldn’t even be a thing for somebody who actually lived in the world.
I think I could tolerate some of this though if games would stop having main storyline plots that revolved around rush rush rush. Looking at you, cyberpunk 2077.
I feel like this could be solved just by having a journal with a recap of where you have to go. “NPC said I need to go to the hut near the river just north of X village”, and then you could look at a map, find the river, and know it should be somewhere around there. No need to remember, but also no need to just mindlessly follow an orange marker.
This is what Morrowind did, but the journal was organized chronologically so it was a hilariously incomprehensible mess. You basically just had an unorganized bullet pointed to-do list, with zero context surrounding the individual points. So if you started one quest then picked up another in the middle, the first quest would be split in half as bullet points landed on both sides of the second quest.
Time actually mattering is what I’d like to see in an MMO. Like, instead of a repeatable weekly raid that everyone gets to do multiple times, once a dragon / monster / supervillain is dead, if you weren’t part of the event killing it, you missed out. But, there will be more threats to the realm / universe.
Basically, I’d like to see the actions of players mattering the way it does in say Eve Online, but in a world with powerful NPCs and some story.
This is me in Red Dead Redemption 2.
Plot mission: They kidnapped my SON! Arthur, we’re forming up a posse and riding into town to get my son back! [yellow mission marker appears on the map]
Me: Oh, that’s awful. I’m sorry to hear about that. [Ok, so I still need to find and kill a cougar for my satchel. Let’s see, the best spawn point for cougars is a few days ride away up north…]
–
So many of the missions in that game are cliffhangers and imply that you need to do something now. But, I’m always off picking flowers, hunting rare beasts, looking at treasure maps, and so on.
It actually ends up ruining the plot to a certain extent. Like, the plot missions are all about how the gang is desperate for money, meanwhile I just finished a treasure hunt and brought back $1000 and donated it to the camp. I’m financially supporting this group of 20ish people, plus I’m feeding them with all the meat I bring back for the stew (even if I’m only allowed to have stew every couple of days). Dutch keeps saying we need one last score so we can get on a boat to Tahiti. I’m like “give me a couple of days and I’ll buy first class tickets for all of us.”
I get the feeling that by Chapter 6 you’re supposed to be losing confidence in Dutch (as a player, as Arthur you still seem to have confidence in him for some reason). But, for me, he was an idiot many chapters ago because he was suggesting all these illegal schemes to make money, when my hunting, herbing, etc. was bringing in the big bucks.
And, I’ve barely played the fishing minigames yet, let alone the legendary fish fishing games…
I would love an RPG where time actually matters. If some NPC tells you to meet him under that tree tonight, and you’re not there, he should get mad and refuse to help you. And if a mission is urgent, there should be consequences if you go off doing something else, maybe even failing the mission. It would be awesome if there are multiple missions but you only have time for one or two.
Related, how about no radar and mission markers? So if you get directions, you actually need to follow them. And you need to actually explore instead of simply following a quest marker with half an eye on a minimap. IIRC one of the early Elder Scrolls did this?
Sounds like you’d really enjoy Pathologic 2 - it does everything you described! It’s not a classical RGP, but it’s an incredibly unique and impressive game. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the story since I first experienced it ~2 years ago!
Thanks for that! I put it on my wishlist so I can grab it with the next sale.
Awesome, I hope you enjoy it!
I mean, Morrowind did this to an extent. But the result is that some vital NPC would get randomly killed by a bear halfway across the map, and you’d get the dreaded “you can’t beat the game anymore lul get fucked” message. Then you’re stuck reloading your last save, desperately hoping to find whatever NPC it was.
The details escape me, but there actually was still a way to progress after getting that message. I remember it involved the dwarf with the spider centurion legs; I think he knew something about where some of the pieces were.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has tons of time-sensitive missions where your decision to do something else results in changed circumstances. Didn’t work out well for me as a player that wants to explore EVERYTHING, which I did in Act 1.
My girlfriend and I just finally got through DOS:2 and started BG3 this weekend. She stresses THE FUCK out about things like this, because we have to do everything ‘right’ or close to it. Can I ask in a relatively spoiler free way if it’s going to lead to huge negative consequences? Or more so just different than outright negative?
Let’s just say that no one path through BG3 is correct or wrong, but there are definite in-game consequences for a quest that is missed or ignored.
Majora’s Mask
Sometimes I wanted this, but thinking back again that kind of mission just doesn’t fit open world games. Like, I can’t imagine Elden Ring with any deadline in it. So I just swallow my disbelief and accept that open world games also means open time games.
My first impression was that this puts an awful lot on the player to remember, that wouldn’t even be a thing for somebody who actually lived in the world.
I think I could tolerate some of this though if games would stop having main storyline plots that revolved around rush rush rush. Looking at you, cyberpunk 2077.
I feel like this could be solved just by having a journal with a recap of where you have to go. “NPC said I need to go to the hut near the river just north of X village”, and then you could look at a map, find the river, and know it should be somewhere around there. No need to remember, but also no need to just mindlessly follow an orange marker.
Yes, this is what meant. That would be great.
This is what Morrowind did, but the journal was organized chronologically so it was a hilariously incomprehensible mess. You basically just had an unorganized bullet pointed to-do list, with zero context surrounding the individual points. So if you started one quest then picked up another in the middle, the first quest would be split in half as bullet points landed on both sides of the second quest.
Time actually mattering is what I’d like to see in an MMO. Like, instead of a repeatable weekly raid that everyone gets to do multiple times, once a dragon / monster / supervillain is dead, if you weren’t part of the event killing it, you missed out. But, there will be more threats to the realm / universe.
Basically, I’d like to see the actions of players mattering the way it does in say Eve Online, but in a world with powerful NPCs and some story.
Mmm, Arther, you’ve been gone a long time… Come back to camp. Please?
Nah, I’m good, I still have 11 different fish to catch and this mutant one around all these hillbillies is bugging me.