@grumpygamer In almost every RPG I've played going back to Seiken Densetsu 3 (secret of mana 2) on SNES (it might have been a fan-translated ROM, sue me) I've always been a fan of quests that originate from your party members.
Going over to a party member and asking something like "I've heard you mumblin in your sleep, what's up?" then hear that NPC pour his guts out... I know the world is burning and all, but my friend's in trouble so I'll help him first.
@grumpygamer The Purification quest in Oblivion at the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline, when you have to kill al the NPCs of the brotherhood you have been getting quests from and interacting with. It felt so weird.
@grumpygamer Two series of quests come to mind, the ones where you buy/renovate a house in Zelda BoTW and the series of quests to make Crescent Isle in Skies of Arcadia.
Although they weren't quests I also really liked the little storylines the people in Sonic Adventure had, and how they'd change over the course of the game.
@grumpygamer I like quests where you've been manipulated to side with someone. You do their quest, and then they destroy the town, kill the king, release the kraken etc..setting you up for quests to undo what you did.
@grumpygamer I like quests that tie into narrative, character- or world-building, and are designed to draw you into areas you might not have explored. I have no issue with “kill X things” or fetch quests if they’re given via good characters or deliver a bit of change to the game world.
@grumpygamer Star Control 2: just that first “get radioactives for the star base” quest. Rocking up to earth and seeing it like that?. The reward being an info dump on the state of the world?
Nothing particularly special design wise, but incredibly memorable from its content alone.
@grumpygamer The one where where you have to collect 5 bear gallbladders. But somehow none of the next 29 bears you slaughter have one. The 30th has two.
@grumpygamer I like quests with options. Say I need to get inside the castle. Is my only option stealth? Or could I bribe the guard, or seduce the guard, or distract the guard, or find an old tunnel from the monastery?
@grumpygamer Quests that do world building. I loved all the side quests in The Witcher 3 for example. They were all unique little stories in the Witcher universe, making the game more immersive as you played it.
@grumpygamer The once from an unsympathetic NPC that rudely ask you to do something mundane with no connection to who you are and your overall glorious main quest. Those are great!
@grumpygamer On the contrary - "Oh can you deal with the pest in my basement? It's killing my wonderful pets." Goes to basement "Yes, the pest was a mountain lion and my wonderful pet rats must be protected, I bet it was my neighbour who set the mountain lion on my precious rats!"
@grumpygamer Ugh, kill N of X must be the most boring.
But not as annoying as gather N of X, which is dropped by Y at a drop rate <1, because those depend on the RNG how long they take. I still have nightmares about grinding for points with some WoW faction or another.
I prefer story chain quests with a bit of light grinding, light crafting, puzzles, etc. If they take me all over the map, it's a cool way for discovering new areas, and a terrifying way for adding more quests to the backlog.
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