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First steps in a open world: properly designing the first quests of your RPG

As I mentioned before, I have been implementing a basic quest system, which I consider that can be greatly improved. But I'm not going to talk about it, because... well, it is crap.

But working on the quest system made me revisit the script and think about the first quest that the player will find in the starting location. Those first quests must fulfill certain basic requisites:

  • Introduce the player to the environment (here other elements lie encounters or conversations are important too) and give him a glimpse of what to expect.
  • Familiarize the player with the gameplay mechanics, like using objects, trading, combat and using skills.The main quest should provide some sort of backup or redundant activities, in case the player misses some of the basic quest.
  • They must be simple and quick. There is a reason why the first quests are easy: the player is starting the game and doesn't knows how things work, even if he/she is a hardcore RPG player. Anything taking more than five minutes or demanding deep research will be boring. The time to make the player think or face hard fights will come later. It is valid, though, to set the foundations for long term quests, like discovering some mystery that requires collecting clues through all the game world.
And of course, these quests should provide at least one level, to give a sense of progression; after all, an RPG is about getting levels and better items! A classic example of this is the Temple of Trials, in Fallout 2. There you learn to fight, but also how to interact with containers, about traps and how to use the corresponding skill to disable them, lockpicking and using explosives. In a few minutes you get a tutorial covering most of the game mechanics!

In a next post, I will talk about what can we learn from Mass Effect: Andromeda quest design.
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