what is The World?

[Alcrin]

I think a game with time limits on quests could very well be interesting: Making a choice between doing one thing and doing another because you don't have enough time to do both. It's a fantastic way to set up internal conflict. I think it could only work though if:

 

A. All quests are timed and there are no indefinite quests. Why? Because the player will always feel rushed to get the stuff with a strict time limit done first and will always feel like the stuff with no time limit can be pushed on the backburner. Except stuff put on the backburner like that tends to never get done. You see this all the time in real life, how many people do you know who have dreams they want to fulfill "someday" but never work toward them because "today is more important"?

 

B. The player needs to have a legitimate motivation to refuse a quest other than a lack of time (or a lack of fun). Otherwise, there's serious risk of the player getting frustrated due to thinking "Man, this game would be much more awesome if only I could see all of it instead of having to skip at least half of the stuff I'm given to do." The solution to this is to give the player a reason not to partake in the quests they refused even if they were given a second opportunity to do them so that this can be justified away. Probably the best way to do this is permanent death: The player dies once, they return to the beginning of the game. But this is a very tricky thing to handle well and thus comes with its own plethora of problems.