Xargoth Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Howdy, before I jump in, I guess I ought to get all this "Howdy-ya-do" stuff out of the way. I'm Xar, been in the TES scene since Morrowind, and (try to) stay active in it still. I really started in the scene way back when Planet Elder Scrolls was the biggest site in the scene and Skyrim was still a twinkle in Todd's eye. Apy (the site Admin) gave me a volunteer job as feedback administration for Morrowind mods, and like all youngins' with too much power and not enough brains, I kinda made a fool of myself.... multiple times. I also released a couple mods during this time, but nothing truly special. Anyways, Apy sorted me out over the years and eventually (when he stepped down) put me in charge of the site about 5-6 months before IGN took a hatchet to it, back in '12. Now, I mostly just sit pretty at GHF not doing much, and grow a constantly stronger hatred of the Nexus by day. Anyways, that's me and my backstory, so as for the mod idea itself, I'll jump on into it. To me, Skyrim has always felt far too whimsical and happy for the setting its in. Skyrim's a northern piece of land with a variety of gritty inhabitants, and a freaking civil war raging on, all while dragons threaten to tear apart the world. To me, everything seemed far too calm and relaxed... and just way too "happy" for all the events happening. Heck, if you go watch a season of Game of Thrones, you'll return to Skyrim and think you're in an amusement park. It's just so lighthearted, and for a long time, I've wanted to do something about that through some kind of quest enhancement or addon mod. The goal of this hypothetical mod is to create a series of quests with "No Win" endings. Quests that will test your moral decisions, and make you question your actions, regardless of the choices you make. This mod will not attempt to restrain the player's sense of open endededness, for in each scenario, the possibility to simply walk away is always there. However, upon the player abandoning the quest, a random end to the quest will happen on its own, and all involved will likely dislike the player for not taking a side. However, when a player does take a side, and follow through, the situation will likely unfold in a manner which will not be satisfactory to the player. So in the end, there's never a "happy" ending, ever, for any party. The following could be example of such a quest, if you want to understand what I'm trying to talk about. A female Khajiit asks the player to locate her missing Khajiit husband (mate?). Upon asking around, a guard mentions that a Khajiit was caught murdering a townsfolk and was thrown into a dungeon. Upon the player locating the dungeon and finding the Khajiit, the player discovers that the Khajiit did indeed kill the person, but out of self-defense, of a sort. His wife and cubs are starving, and the townsfolk will not give him work, due to their prejudice of him being a Khajiit. (if it already sounds silly, please hear me out, this is only an attempt to envision the nature of these types of quest) So he cannot afford food, and obviously charity is out of the question. So, he resorted to a Khajiit specialty, and tried to steal some food. He was caught in the act, and was blindly attacked by the store owner. Knowing he could get away with killing the Khajiit, the store owner was going to do just that. Nobody would ask twice, because nobody really cared about the Khajiit. The Khajiit was armed, however, and stabbed the store owner after being brutally beaten by him. This backstory will be explained by multiple parties. The Khajiit will explain his stance on the subject, and the store owner's daughter will also explain her stance. Friends of the store owner and other merchants will also explain their side of the story. The Store owner's friends and other Merchants won't be particularly sad that the store owner is gone, but all agree that the Khajiit murdered him, and don't question his action of attacking and attempting to coldly murder the Khajiit. The store owner's daughter is heartbroken that her father is dead. Whereas the merchants can be set up as sleazily dislikeable characters, the daughter will be more of a broken character. She's devastated that her father is gone, and through her, you can make the assumption that the store owner maybe did have a softer, even "good" side to him, despite his hate of Khajiits. The daughter explains that she wants nothing more than the death of the Khajiit for what he did to her father. At this point, it can be realized that there are multiple "good" characters, or at least more than one. This puts the player in a very moral gray area. If you help the Khajiit escape and return to his family, the daughter will be very upset, and rightfully so. In her mind, her loving father was murdered in cold blood by an evil Khajiit, she has no chance of getting a job, and realizes that prostitution is her only way out of starvation. However, if you do not help the Khajiit escape, and convince the guards that he must die for his crimes, the Khajiit's family will be very upset, and possibly starve, without his support. So in the end, regardless of the choices made, there is always a "rotten" ending. But it gets even better. Say the player helps decides to help the Khajiit escape. He returns to his family and prepares to move to a region in which his crimes are not known. But before he can leave, the guards find his home, and kill them all. This will happen off-screen, so it cannot be interrupted by the player, and upon returning to that city a week or so later, a guard will mention that the Khajiit and his family were killed for their crimes. The store owner's daughter will also be a prostitute, and will be devastated about the turn of events, and won't care about the Khajiit being killed. In every situation, the worst possible ending will happen. If the player starts the quest, a bad ending is doomed to happen, regardless of player choices. The mod will be meant to give a very dark side to the world, and a much more gritty and realistic spin on things. No longer will Skyrim serve to be a daydream snow land with chivalry and dragon slaying, for a very real, dark, and ugly side can be revealed. Now, I've really not done a lot in the realm of Skyrim modding. I've done plenty with Morrowind, and know the CS in and out, so I'm guessing a jump to Skyrim wouldn't be that big of an ordeal. The thing I want to know is, does this "idea" sound interesting? Could there be a potential user base for depressing mods, or would this likely feel cheesy and fall flat on its face when surrounded with Skyrim's very different atmosphere?
Guest airdance Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Actually I went on a quest to find someones' daughter who had joined the stormcloaks. I found out she had been killed on a patrol, and I had to return to her mother and give her the news....not all quests end in happy feelings.
shinji72 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 I sounds you just want to make mature, intriguing quests. And this is welcome. Maybe "depressing" quest. I would change that. It's not catchy at all and is a bit misleading... I thought it was a mod in which your pc got depressed after all those bestiality rape! Something in the line of "tought decisions" or "Difficult choices". Or Dark quests?
gaggedgirl123 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Agree with Shinji, I think the term "depressing quests" relates too much to the fact that quests in Skyrim have so little consequences that they're depressing lol
Xargoth Posted January 31, 2014 Author Posted January 31, 2014 Good thought, changed title. Actually I went on a quest to find someones' daughter who had joined the stormcloaks. I found out she had been killed on a patrol, and I had to return to her mother and give her the news....not all quests end in happy feelings. The difference here, is that, the results would be directly influenced by the player's decisions, but regardless of the decisions, there would always be a "depressing" ending to the quests. So the player would be stuck with no feasible way out of ruining someone's day. And if they chose to ignore it, the player would feel partly responsible for not stepping in and doing something to stop it, but even if he/she did, it wouldn't change matters much at all.
Guest airdance Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Good thought, changed title. Actually I went on a quest to find someones' daughter who had joined the stormcloaks. I found out she had been killed on a patrol, and I had to return to her mother and give her the news....not all quests end in happy feelings. The difference here, is that, the results would be directly influenced by the player's decisions, but regardless of the decisions, there would always be a "depressing" ending to the quests. So the player would be stuck with no feasible way out of ruining someone's day. And if they chose to ignore it, the player would feel partly responsible for not stepping in and doing something to stop it, but even if he/she did, it wouldn't change matters much at all. Ah yes, the no win scenario, gotta love it.
DDproductions83 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 I actually have a whole questline written and sitting I titles Ascension, where it has a semi happy ending but the journey is rough as shit and even the happy ending is kind of a double edged sword. I actually have most of the worldspaces and stuff made for it and citys etc The issue I have actually moving forward with it is it isn't a cut and dry, it's hard to write something where basically you meet a character and watch them get beaten down lose almost everything then not fully rebuild but get stronger and see the story through no matter the cost. Dragon break is easier for me, it's more fun, there is banter it's mostly lighthearted and you can get people involved more in it Pulling the trigger on Ascension is really hard because I keep changing things and I am never totally happy with it because in my mind it needs to be done perfectly in order to work, at least for me. I really really enjoyed the new tomb raider due to that because it is kind of dark and more brutal and she doesn't come out of it the same at the end. It's harder to tell a story or quest like that with a silent hero as well. I tend to ignore the player and make them a escort in the story like I do in dragon break because it's harder to tell a story with a protagonist who is selecting text lines IMO Just my thoughts, I have wanted to do one but the perfectionist in me says meh I think we will definitely add a bunch of no-wins in Discworld as it is looking like a 20+ hour mod with myriads of questlines etc so we have room at least
MasterAaran Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 I can definitely see where Xargoth is coming from with the suggestions for quests that always end in ways that are not ideal, not happy. To an extent, these quests would give great depth to the world, and enforce the fact that life isn't always fair. It would be nice if it would go just a bit further though, in that when the endings did happen, it would unlock some potential dialog with friend's of the dragonborn, since things like this would certainly cause his or her own spirits to be low. The dialog with others would serve to let the PC get their feelings on the matter out, and perhaps receive some consolation in return.... On the flip side of all this, I'll probably get slammed up one side and down the other....but there aren't nearly enough heroic or 'in time' quests in the game either. What do I mean? How many dead adventurers and random citizens do you find in dungeons or the lairs of the falmer? Quite a few, and all very recent....isn't it possible that the Dragonborn would arrive in time to save even ONE? And it would be nice to have a quest where you manage to rescue a kidnapped daughter who has been turned into a whore for bandits....or find a lost child... ......yeah, this probably isn't the thread for that talk...sorry if I hijacked it ..... -MA-
Aliris Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Definitely a good suggestion. I read this as quests where there isn't a "Disney" ending option, where bad things happen to someone, and the best control you get is choosing who gets it worse than others. Other 'dark' quest options are ones where full success isn't possible, only a sort of revenge maybe - but have it so that the revenge is unsatisfying, and brings its own consequences (Killed the bandit? Well, now his daughter is an orphan, thanks to you).
XunAmarox Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 I'd say Dragonborn was pretty much a "no win" ending... xD
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