Quests

Goals within games with rewards associated to their completion.

While players need to complete many goals in a game, not all are clearly described with how they should be completed nor what rewards they will give. Quests on the other hand are goals where both finishing requirements and rewards are well-known in advance.

Examples

The gameplay in roleplaying games such as the Fallout series and The Elder Scrolls series is structured around solving Quests, some which are needed to finish the game and some which are optional. This also goes for action roleplaying games such as Torchlight.

Games such as Ravenwood Fair and Zombie Lane on social media sites direct players efforts in games by providing several Quests players can work on in parallel.

Using the pattern

Designing Quests consists of selecting goals, Rewards, and how players are made aware of them. Most goals can be used for Quests but some are more common than others: Capture, Collection, Delivery, Eliminate, Evade, Exploration, Gain Information, Gain Ownership, Herd, Race, Rescue, Stealth, Survive, and Traverse. These goals can of course involve various types of Enemies, Game Elements, Traps, etc., depending on what type of goal is used, but MacGuffins is worth mentioning since they do not have any gameplay function besides that of the goal but can still have diegetic roles. While any type of Rewards can work, gaining Companions may be more suitable than in other contexts due to the diegetic social context. Another type of Reward is to let players prove their Loyalty. While game systems can provide Quests directly to players, it can be done diegetically through Dialogues with Non-Player Characters. By using NPCs that are connected to Factions this can linked to Narration Structures and possibly Internal Rivalry. An alternative in how to provide Quests is to let it be known through Gossip or Eavesdropping.

Two main varieties of Quests exist, Main Quest that needs to be completed to finish a game and optional Sidequests. The gameplay of Quests can be made more Challenging and Complex by introducing Enemies, Factions (potentially with Incompatible Goals), or subgoals (i.e. Hierarchies of Goals consisting of Quests). They can be made easier through using Helpers. By making Quests into Committed Goals, Penalties can be linked to failing them and thereby making them into Risk/Rewards considerations.

Testing Achievements are be linked to Quests to further encourage them to be completed, or to replay them in other ways.

Diegetic Aspects

Since Quests explicitly state the Rewards and the requirements associated with received them, they draw attention to the mechanical aspect of a game and thereby may work against Narrative Engrossment and point out any problems with Diegetic Consistency. This is especially true for Persistent Game Worlds, and Quests may be necessary for these to be able to have Narration Structures.

Narrative Aspects

Quests have many aspects related to Narration Structures in games since they require providing players with intentions for tasks and planning what the effects of completing those tasks, as well as possibly creating Agents or Factions that provide the Quests. They are quite often started and ended through Cutscenes, possibly combined with Quick Travel as Ultra-Powerful Events.

Consequences

Given that the designs of Quests include having planned how players are introduced to them, how they complete them, and what effects solving them would be, they are Predefined Story Structures. Since these link the Narration Structures of a game with how the Agents in it behave, Quests can be seen as a way of defining them and creating or steering their Open Destiny. Quests can provide players with both Anticipation and Hovering Closures since they can observe their own progression and know what the requirements for completing them are.

When Quests give players to clear direction where they should move in the Game Worlds they lessen the reason for Exploration by promoting Traverse goals instead.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Loyalty, Narration Structures, Predefined Story Structures, Traverse

with Committed Goals

Penalties, Risk/Rewards

with Enemies or Hierarchies of Goals

Challenging Gameplay, Complex Gameplay

Can Modulate

Agents, Companions, Internal Rivalry, Open Destiny, Persistent Game Worlds

Can Be Instantiated By

Capture, Collection, Dialogues, Delivery, Eliminate, Evade, Exploration, Factions, Gain Information, Gain Ownership, Herd, MacGuffins, Main Quest, Non-Player Characters, Race, Rescue, Sidequests Stealth, Survive, Traverse

Can Be Modulated By

Committed Goals, Cutscenes, Eavesdropping, Enemies, Factions, Gossip, Helpers, Non-Player Characters, Testing Achievements

Possible Closure Effects

Quick Travel

Potentially Conflicting With

Diegetic Consistency, Exploration, Narrative Engrossment

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

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Acknowledgements

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