What do you look for In a Quest Mod?

[modder3434]

I'm working on a adventure quest mod for Skyrim.

 

Working Title is, The Old Ways: An Adventure Plugin for Skyrim

 

What i would like to know is what do you in the community (weather a fellow modder or just someone who signed up for a bunch of mods) look for when browsing quest mods?

 

Any and all comments, opinions and concerns are appreciated.

 

This thread is to ensure that when I release my mod it is up to your (the community's) standards for an enjoyable adventure experience.

[IsharaMeradin]

1. a combat challenge would be nice. not mindless hacking and slashing thru a bunch of enemies but rather being up against some enemies with smarter AI than your average skyrim foe

2. rewards that are worth it. nothing overpowered mind you, but I do feel let down when the treasure horde is leather gear, iron weapons & petty gems and I'm already wearing elven or better gear.

3. a new dungeon, fort, cave that has portions of it available just to the mod quest and other portions available to the radiant quest system. It gets old quick when 90% of the time the "radiant" quests send you to the same locations each time you play a new character.

 

But most importantly, a story that makes sense.

[slainia]

I definitely agree with Ishara. To add on to it in my own way, instead of rare or enchanted armor, I would be more excited about rewards that are unique to that quest or mod. For example, treasures, or things you can display in the house where every time you walk past it you remember the quest. I'd also really enjoy it if the writing was decent enough to make me care about the npcs, or one in specific etc. Actually on that note, something that almost always gets my attention & emotions so to speak are helping animal npcs, or dragons or w/e. There's this one vanilla dungeon with a trapped spriggan. The instant you free her she runs out of the cave - theres no interaction at all, but l always follow her just to make sure she gets away safely. Sometimes it's odd things like that that make a quest stand out. :)

[volnaiskra]

Most of this is probably obvious, but anyway...

 

• Something that feels like a natural extension of the game. It doesn't matter how much work and talent went into the mod: if it feels radically different to the rest of the game, it'll break immersion and I'll probably hate it. Some examples of immersion-breaking elements: maaaaaaassive dungeons that are much longer than anything else in the game, hugely overpowered rewards, or dialogue/journals that are way too long because the author forgot that not everyone loves the sound of his voice as much as he does. Basically, exercise design restraint: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
   
  
• Keep your own voice as invisible as possible. It's ok if the mod has a strong tone, but that tone should come from the subject matter and the characters, and not from your own writing/design style. I downloaded a quest mod the other day that started off by getting you to read an in-game note that said "Hi! Thanks for downloading this mod by xxxxx! Have fun!". Bloody hell, I can't imagine a worse way to start off your mod. Some other examples of an author's voice being too intrusive are: books/dialogue written in too contemporary a style; bad grammar, spelling or punctuation; houses/locations being decorated in a vastly different style to vanilla locations (unless there's a good story-related reason for it of course);
   
  
• Story. Even if it's not very long or has modest rewards, I'm likely to most enjoy your mod if it doesn't just feel like a mechanical process (intro, combat, reward), but introduces some interesting characters into the game (either directly via NPCs, or indirectly via books, journals, abandoned interiors or other clues)
   
  
• Nuance. Often the smallest details are the most memorable, because they activate the imagination. I can't remember whole swaths of the main quest in Fallout 3. But I can still remember coming across a skeleton lying next to a locked door next to a book about lockpicking. I spent hundreds of hours in Oblivion, yet I can't remember much about the story besides that it had to do with demons or something. But I still remember the feeling I had when I found a dead traveller with a note from his daughter in his backpack, urging him not to set out on that dangerous expedition. The story in both this instances was implied rather than directed, which meant that my brain had to automatically fill out the details, which in turn caused me to become more immersed in the gameworld.
  

[mindw0rk2]

Great plot. Memorable characters. Interesting scripted encounters. Nice reward.

[KingsGambit]

Something new, something polished and not immersion breaking. I take no issue for example, with using humour but modern language, bugs and misspelling give me pause. The extra level of polishing and testing makes a great difference.

 

Also, if you could do something which didn't involve snow or a cave, that would be wonderful too :-)

[ChampionOfHircine]

I think this has all already been covered, but I'll throw in my 2 cents anyway.

 

It seemed to me that almost all the quests in the vanilla game consist of fighting your way through a dungeon. For the Companions, that's fine. For the College and Thieves' Guild? Not so much. Avoid repetitive dungeon crawling if possible. Meaningful rewards are great too. Not a vanilla weapon with an overpowered enchantment, but ideally something with a new model and texture, something that would catch my attention on it's own. Maybe not even something usable, maybe just a trophy. Just a final thought. In my opinion, no voice acting is much better than bad voice acting.

[Varana]

Quest != Combat. NPC interaction, world interaction in various ways other than "go there, kill that, get this". For a good quest mod, combat is not necessary (better to have some in a game like Skyrim, but in principle). A quest is something different than a dungeon crawl.

Volnaiskra has a good point regarding implies stories. Mods tend to drop big background stories on the player in detail and completely. It is understandable that the author wants the player to get the story he invented, but that can be done in several ways: The use of world objects instead of texts (like the skeleton in front of the locked door). Extensive use of points of view, instead of exposition. Snippets that the players can piece together themselves to get a more complete picture. And so on - i.e. not serving everything on a platter, but requiring a little bit of thought.

[modder3434]

thank you all for your input.