Evilgnomes, your post has just surpassed all of the previous notions I have had of what a truly awesome creative post should be.
That was truly fun to read. Those are some really cool ideas. Awesome, awesome job. I really liked the murder mystery concept. It would be amazing if something like that were implemented. I think it would make things a lot more interesting if we were given a few options for responses and the quest NPC would react differently depending on what we said. We sort of have that, but it's pretty cut and dry. Perhaps it could cycle through a variety of different dialogues so it would be difficult to keep track of for the people who just look up the ways to get through the quests online, maybe to keep things a little more dynamic.
Overall, awesome, original quest ideas. I'd be up for doing quests like those anyday.
Your warlock ambushing part also gave me an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if there were some section of a quest where we, as the players, were hunted down by something else?
Here's my long, detailed, drawn out idea.
Say, for example, I'm exploring out in the middle of nowhere and I come across a ruined old tower, ravaged with age. Naturally, I want to explore this tower and find out what's inside. So I walk inside, it's barren and empty. There are runes carved everywhere along the walls and dusty old books are lining shelves all over the place. Obviously I'm inside the ruins of some old mage's tower. I travel up a staircase to the top of the tower and find a glowing orb sitting on a stand. It still pulses with magic, even in it's old age. The orb is clickable, so I right click it and select inspect.
Right after I inspect the orb, I get a tell from an NPC monster saying, "Why have you awakened us? You shall pay for your foolish mistake, mortal.."
Another message a moment later saying, "Our bonds of magic have been broken! We are free to roam the earth again! I must find the one who has freed us, and..reward...him..."
A few seconds later I would get another tell from a third NPC saying, "Can you possibly imagine what it feels like to have your soul imprisoned for five hundred years? Perhaps you shall find out soon enough..."
If this actually happened to me in the game, at this point, I would be freaking out. I would get the feeling that something was chasing me, and I would want to get the bejesus out of that tower.
I would run to the entrance, and a gnome, a high elf and a human would have popped at the doorway, all dressed in robes. They would make short introductions, explaining that each was a Conjuror, a Wizard and a Coercer, each hailing from three different towers in the corners of the zone. They have sensed a powerful evil magical disturbance, and realize that their worst fears have come true. In touching the forbidden orb, I have released the spirits of three evil Necromancers that used to capture and perform necromantic experiments on unsuspecting adventurers many years ago.
The ancestors of these three good mages joined forces and sealed the evil necromancers away with the power of a magical talisman (or something, hehe). Who I am speaking to are the decendants of these mages, who have guarded the secret of the locking away of the necromancers for generations. They tell me that the remnants of the magical talisman used to seal them away has been kept secret, even to them. All that they know is that the talisman has been divided into three pieces, and that they accompany the three original mages in their burial chambers.
Over the years, their location has still remained a riddle, and if I hope to send the necromancers back to their prison, I must solve it and recover the talisman. They each give me a clue, in riddle form, which is all that they know about the locations themselves, pretaining to where I can find each of the three small burial chambers and recover the talisman shards. Finally, they tell me that since I was the one to release the spirits, I must be the one to seal them away and I must go alone. ((Edit: it could even be that the burial chambers pop in the zone in random spots upon recieving the quest, and one of a couple different sets of riddle clues are given, just to mix up the quest and somewhat keep people from finding all the locations and running straight to them after looking them up online.))
As I start to leave, the ghost spirits of the necromancers pop on top of the three good mages and they start to fight. Two of the mages are slaughtered in battle, with the high elf being the only one to gate away in time. This is where the chase begins. The three necromancer spirits become unengageable by myself or anyone else and are ^^ red cons. They begin to chase me, but at a very slow, walking pace. I can easily outrun them, but if I stay stationary for a period of time, they will certainly catch up and destroy me. It's up to me to solve the riddle of the locations of the talisman, while I'm being pursued or hunted by the lurching necromancers.
I find all three locations according to the clues, reassemble the talisman and seal the necromancers back in their evil prison. Afterwards, I would be greeted again by the high elf, thanking me for saving the forest and it's inhabitants.
Then he would offer me two items, a necklace, the prized magical possession of the fallen gnomish mage, and a staff (or something) that belonged to the human mage. He explains that in their passing, they would have been honored to bestow these gifts upon a hero such as yourself. Then I am offered a gift by the high elf, a book that he has been writing for many years, chronicling the history of his ancestors and the original magical confrontation beween the necromancers and the mages. This could be placed in our houses.
Wow, that was a long, streaming thought. Definitely fun writing it though, I think of stuff like that a lot when I'm bored, hehe. Don't really know if it is something that is feasibly implementable or anything, and there are some holes in the short, sloppy story, but you get the idea. It would be fun to do.
It would be crazy to try and keep a cool mind while scrambling to figure out the answers to a riddle to solve a quest while you're being chased by lurching mobs. Them moving slower is actually scarier than if they were always running after you. Anyway, that was my long, drawn out quest idea, hehe. Again, not complaining about the current quests, it's just fun to think up creative ideas for what we could experience.
Any others?
Edited, Mon Jan 10 23:24:11 2005 by Vanrael
Edited, Mon Jan 10 23:31:13 2005 by Vanrael