quests for thought

[Spencerbutch]

i had a crazy idea while reading this thread.

2 medium/large cities, a few people(scholars? merchants? ) who are looking for safe passage back and forth. you will escort them - for a cost. say theres 4 different people, one is an old man/professor who can hardly protect himself, moving to a warrior/squire, a woodsman/hunter, and a fairly powerful (but still weak by the standards of a level 15+ character) mage/healer. (all the details are hypothetical and its a fresh concept so bear with me)

its like this - sally wants to travel from city A to city B. she will pay you 25 gold now and 50 when she arrives safely. after a week of game days she is ready to return to city A, whenever you're free to escort her of course. this could be a repeatable "quest", but i'd prefer to think of it as more of a .. task. the weak old man might give you 75 now and 150 upon arrival, as he is far less capable of defending himself. (Maybe he has a cane/limp and you have to constantly wait up for him.)

perhaps the old man is visiting a new grandchild, and the warrior is going to battle-school, but i think i made my point.

in fact, the repeatability of these tasks/escorts could be affected by the story behind the "escortee", (the trader wants to switch cities weekly, but the squire only wants a one way trip).

theres obviously still a ton of changes/development that could go into this; but for a raw idea i think it makes a lot more sense than having escort QUESTS. I know that if i were to fail a quest because an NPC ran ahead/lagged behind, i would have to reload a save, because thats how i am. additionally, this adds something more for the player to do than (fairly) straightforward quests/loot gathering.

final thought: perhaps if you fail in your escort and the escortee dies, they are no longer available for future escort missions. also, maybe a "travelers inn" or the like could be set up just outside the city gates for such travelers.

i could definitely keep adding to this idea, if people think it might be good (got a lot of ideas floating around but this is getting a bit wordy already.)


DISCLAIMER: slightly modified version of the Temple Trekking/Burgh De Rott Ramble minigame in Runescape (Copywrite jagex ltd blahblahblah)

i promise if someone tells me to add on i'll come up with something with more differences. i cannot stress enough that this is all hypothetical and a lot of it is off the top of my head, i just wanted to get the concept out there.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

That could be an interesting sort of task. I think the one sort of escort thing that might be more interesting would be one where you have to get a person to a specific place, and that opens up another dungeon for you. Then it might be possible for the person to die on the quest, but drop a bag that gives you the key to said dungeon (and nasty players could off the person themselves for the key) but not the experience for delivery (and possibly there's another item that only becomes available if the person gets to the spot).

[Vroqren]

DISCLAIMER: slightly modified version of the Temple Trekking/Burgh De Rott Ramble minigame in Runescape (Copywrite jagex ltd blahblahblah)

I saw that, and that was my first thought...

*Looks down as he realizes he still plays RuneScape...*

Great idea though. I think it's modified enough from Temple Trekking, it's not a blatant copy at all.

[Spencerbutch]

for the record, i haven't played RS since the Evolution of Crap (EoC) but that doesn't mean it wasn't a great game back in 2006/7 when i was a daily player..

im glad this seems a generally acceptable idea... *waits in anticipation of future responses*

also now that it's morning and i'm re-reading my post... i promise i passed 4 college english classes. it just doesn't show at nearly 1 AM, apparently.

[Lord_P]

for the record, i haven't played RS since the Evolution of Crap (EoC) but that doesn't mean it wasn't a great game back in 2006/7 when i was a daily player..

Me neither! Stopped playing sometimes in 2012-something. Then thought about trying in 2013. Almost puked when saw EoC. "Just another Wow-clone..."