One thing that seems to have been lost since the emergence of WOW is using your brain to do quest. Like in Fable you're following the yellow dots. Makes you feel like pac man. I'm hoping for more creative quest, with preferably a variety of ways to complete it, I'm not saying that is needed for every quest like in D&D variety is important. My favorite quest in oblivion though short and simple was "Who dun it" but you can only play that so many times in so many ways. But it was the only one of it's kind and it wasn't too in depth, but still even in it's simplicity it was enjoyable because it was less simple than most other things. What do you all think?

The more challenging a task is the more satisfying and rewarding would be it's when you can finally beat it and complete the task.

TES RPG is about role playing, developing your character, obtaining better items and spells, adventuring and finding new things, and performing quests.

If your character starts in a really limited condition, where he can not go far into wilderness before the dangers force him to retreat to safer places, if you can not initially use higher level items, before developing your skills and gaining perks, if you initially can not complete a quest because the conditions are to tough for you, or if you are not skillful or prepared enough, and you are forced to back off and try again, later in better condition, then when you can finally break from the chains that initially limited you, and finally can do things that you could not do before, and when you can finally reach places that where off limits before, then the sense of triumph and satisfaction of the conquests would be immense.

Gad, how I miss those old RPGs that had non forgiving environments and non pampering game theory that left anything to our ingenuity and quick minds to decipher how to overcome problems without any hand holding that is the case in current games. :wallbash: :banghead:

Not a single quest or enemy besides the last thieves' guild quest required much thought (mainly because I did it at level 40 with those nasty gloom wraiths floating all over).

I'm all for more thinking. In quests, in combat, in magic (especially in magic!), in stealth, everywhere.

AMEN brother AMEN!

In Morrowind I remember "Breathe the waters of his grace, and the path shall be made clear."

Racked my brain on that one. Tried everything I could think of. Even made a waterbreathing on target to cast at the barrier.
Never occured to me to drown myself.
This was before I had internet and it is the one and only time on Morrowind that I went to a friends house to find a guide.

When I finally was able to complete the pilgrimages it was very sweet indeed, even though I had cheated.
I had tried for at least a month on my own after all.

Yes, I think games in general are very much seemingly aimed at, as someone else here so colourfully said on another thread, a coconut.
That is to say, not someone with their thinking brain in any sort of shape.
I would love to see a return to real puzzles, real challenges, real head ache causers, as the pay off will be that much better.

I think oblvion only had that one mages guild quest, where you had to figure out what to cast at a pillar. It wasnt a real stretch, the provided scrolls a good indicator. And again, would have been a better quest if what I needed to finish it I had to go get myself.

Does anyone remember the Myst adventure/ puzzle game series?
They were fiendishly difficult, but logical, and the hardest part was figuring out what to actually do. There were very few hints and those were cryptic. Very rewarding to finally get to the end.

None of this hand holding for me please. No detailed explanation of 'first this, than that, then voila.'
Kids have their own kind of games. They feature Mickey Mouse and the like, and cute cartoony graphics.

Elder Scrolls should be aimed at a more mature audience, and there should be things in there that are not as simple putting your pants on right way round.

AMEN Sister! I'm so glad to see that I'm not the lone wolf in my thinking that these games have been catered too much to our dumbed down society. More thought intensive games would be more enjoyed and help society

So no one else hopes for a true quest? Looks like we're alone guys.

Well, removing the magic compass will help with this issue.. so let's hope that odd thing is gone this time

Well...I wouldn't call it dumbing down. I would like to see some harder quests though. But there will always be people like SSoHPKC out there, if you've seen his walkthroughs you know what I mean. They're extremely helpful in their own, but he gets lost inside small little homes if the door isn't hitting him in the face. If that man didn't have a map marker, he would never get anywhere in any game like this, and I'm willing to be there are many people like him. So, there should be something of the sort. Something to point you in the right direction.

Fallout had a few unmarked quests, where you were infact given an item to search for in a general area. It was unmarked, so you had to think about how the area was discribed, and then go lookin for it. I'd like to see more unmarked quests. You can have some marked with something to help point people in the right direction, and have a lot of unmarked ones as well. We'll see how it's expanded on in Skyrim.

I would agree, certainly we don't want what Fable had, which makes you feel like pac man following the yellow dots, but a compass isn't too much of a nuisance. What I want to know though, in game, is what I know, out of game. That is to say I don't want a map with the cities marked. Also though fast travel is very nice I would prefer to have a travel network, including caravans, and traveling merchants, which would allow you to be a freelance highwayman.

AMEN

In order to accomplish "true quests", I'd say:

1) Get rid of quest markers for "normal quests", add voice-acted directions/hints instead. For randomly generated quests, add a "Let me mark it on your map" dialouge so that it doesn't get too expensive for Bethesda with all the voice-acting.

2) Add puzzles, riddles, touch choices, tough enemies. Sometimes the quest should be so tough that you have to try again later, or use your super-pro-skills and work really hard and still complete it.

3) Some quests should challenge your strength (tough enemies), some should challenge your wit (need to think a lot), and some should challenge speed/agility (stealth). Add some moral choices as well.
Perhaps even one single quest can be completed in different ways like these.

Don't let quests be some robotic, static approach, where you just do what the NPC told you. Of course I don't mind a few quests to be like that, but... as I said, only a few, for variety's sake. Let most quests force or allow you to think.
Things shouldn't be like:
1) talk to NPC,
2) go get item or kill NPC,
3) return to NPC and get reward

I completely agree with what Spaghne and Merari said.

I'm agreeing with all of you. In Oblivion (when I first got it) I just tapped A (Xbox) and followed the marker. It should be like this in Skyrim. Skyrim should have real challenging quest and brain teasers.

Loved your post already right there. Agree.

Very well said. :thumbsup:

daggerfall quests were the hardest. I loved those ones. You really felt like you achieved something when you found your objective because it took so damn long. Sometimes it'd take me two weeks in real time searching through a dungeon.

There was one quest in Oblivion where you had to pay attention and think a little. It was the quest where you had to use the Akaviri soldiers journal to find landmarks he described in it and go through Pale Pass for the Akaviri artifact.

That's why people don't like the compass and map markers it makes it really easy. I like the way Morrowind did it. Quest givers would just give you directions.

In short, no more hand holding please.

I want less hand holding, and more difficult quests.

Right on ollix. (love the avatar BTW :thumbsup: )

I love this thread! Remember the riddles in Arena? Man, I want more of that!

And I LOVE the Myst-series! I have Riven on PS, Exile on PS2 and Revelation on PC and they're all GOLD. Beautiful environments and scenery, awesome and sometimes unfrogiving puzzles (Exile was perfect) and intriguing story. The real acting in Exile was brilliant!

I'm not too fond of riddles, but we need more difficult quests.

I think you missing the quest that demanded the most brain use in Oblivion.
That is the quest where you had to read 4 books and solve a puzzle.

I don't know how you handled that quest,but I was reading all the pages of the 4 books looking for some metaphors or allegoric words and I just couldn't find anything.

I was looking at the content of the paragraphs to find the answer,but the answer wasn't there.
The answer was only at the first letters of each paragraph,and you had to line up all the first letters of each paragraph to learn where you had to go and what to do.
When I read that in the internet my mouth dropped and I thought "How the heck I didn't thought that".
Also,do you remember the puzzle of the Rosethorn Hall quest ?
I never solved that on my own.

I think that removing the quest arrow completely isn't a good idea.
But the addition of more quests that actually have puzzles that require from you to think might be a good idea.

:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

I was bored the other day and picked up my son's DS and had a go at the curious village. I was doing one of those sliding block puzzles and couldn't help thinking how cool it would be to have something like that in Oblivion. You clear a scary Ayleid ruin filled with undead, but the treasure chamber has a puzzle lock ( they mentioned one in the Bruma vampire hunter quest, but all you had to do was kill one weak Dunmer with 3 keys in his pocket ). Would certainly break up the talk to a beggar, get quest marker on map, kill some stuff, haul treasure to town, sell it routine.