Infinite Random Quests?

The hit game Skyrim has a feature where various NPCs can generate an unlimited amount of randomly generated quests that may have similar structures, but would provide a player with a somewhat endless incentive to explore and/or kill specific amount of monsters/people/ponies. Would a system like this be implemented in Starbound? Would you prefer this system to be implemented in the game?

 

Judging by how a good chunk of this game is indeed procedurally generated I have a good bet that it could go either way depending on if they think of this.

 

We're going to get procedurally generated quests. From an interview, it was mentioned:

My thoughts on this are just like the interviewer's. I personally think the "infinite" quests in Skyrim wasn't a good feature at all. Usually it ended up being just a recursive task, you explore some cave, and kill some unnamed bandit and receive some coins.

With Starbound, Chuckfish is going to have to work hard to get procedural quests that remain interesting. Though I trust them, because they're awesome people.

 

I just hope they're not bad quests that are like "Kill 200 of these and collect these".
I absolutely hate those types of quests and grinding

 

Yeah, I reckon this might be good, if they're set as though Chucklefish said they would.
Otherwise if they're like Zail said, no. Just no way.

 

there is a really strange problem here, On one hand, if they randomly generate infinite quests then its going to be like Zailiner said, we are going to be running into caves, looking for half a dozen blue fish to kill.

however, if they only make a handful of quests, but randomize how they work then your going to run into the same quest over and over. the "save the npc, form the acid rain" quest (shown above) would be fun, but if it was the 5th, 6th, 50th time you had to deal with acid rain and a man with no leg, it might be pretty boring, even if it did happen on different planets with different mobs.

hopefully that can come up with alot of the unique quests that "really make use of the game’s engine." the more they add the less likely you would be to cycle though them.

 

I'm pretty sure they're going to have a good amount of varied quest types that will keep us hard at working maintaining(or destroying) order on planets, saving (or not) NPC's, destroying items, structures, and killing bosses. There are also suggestions for side quests, so we can always make suggestions and see what happens from there.

 

I am indeed wondering on this. One possibility is per campain save, the quests that show up are once and done. (Like how you got your NPCs on the maps in Terraria. Once and done.) So we will find the character with the broken leg once. Do his thing, then we have him on our station. The other likely possibility is that random civilian saving. A research stations defences have failed/etc. and when you arrive just in time you can secure it and save them. Another possibility are the quests and things the npc's they themselves want to have done. Its been noted that they will occasionally have needs that you will probably want to fulfill. Which, chances are, involve going off and fetching a specific resource for them. The machine leg guy might need more oil, for example.

I got this weird feeling we may be seeing all of these.

 

This was one of the things that I disliked about Spore's procedurally generated quests...they were basically only 10 or 15 quests that asked me to go to [star name(s) and planet name(s)] and [verb] the [fauna/flora/item] and return.
So, in essence while there were an infinite number of quests there was not infinite variety, so eventually I stopped questing because it got boring.
That will happen with any procedural quest system, (unless the devs are super brilliant) so I am simply hoping for a good algorithm for quests that lasts me 20 or so hours of gameplay before repetition gets boring (I am not a grind-fan).

 

I like this idea it would always give users something to do!

 

I hope so what if I get to endgame and I rule the universe, i need somthing to do!

 

We're getting procedurally generated trees, so at this point I think everything is a possibility.

 

Personally, I was never a quest guy.
(Also, I'm gonna guess there are a lot of NPCs, so there might be a few quests from each one. All different and stuffs.)

 

Quests have never been a part of sandbox games. I don't really know why they are including them at all (Terraria doesn't have any).
The problem is that there is no way you can please everyone. The more quests you put in, the less free the game will feel, or the more quests in the game the more they will feel repetitive.
The devs could spend the next two years putting in unique quests and usually they take a few minutes to do each one at most.
I just think that development time would be better spent on adding variety to the method for producing monsters.

 

Just because something isn't there doesn't mean you shouldn't add it. And there's no way you can please everyone anyway, so why worry about it?

 

I personally don't mind a few 'kill X of these' 'Go and find one of these' 'Take this here' quests, as long as they're interspersed with other more interesting quests and I'm not forced to do them over and over again when I don't want to. It sounds like they've thought about this so I'm hoping there'll be some variety generated Worst comes to worst you can always just go exploring on your own and scrap the quests!

 

When it comes right down to it, procedurally generated quests aren't generally too exciting.

BUT on the other hand, you might say it's a choice of whether they are in, or out. They may not be exciting, but i feel they are much better than not having any procedurally generated quests to keep you busy once you've finished every single unique and exciting quest in the game.

 

I would like it because they can make fun and entertaining quests that you want have be procedurally generated quests that are fun and not grinding.

 

I have feeling that they will add this feature.

I bet there will be a guy on your space ship that always asks for a certain number of a certain item and once you claim a homeworld he will build a house and will ask for supplies.

 

I really hope that with this feature, there aren't too many "kill X amount of Y" of "collect X amount of Y". Those are the kind of quests that get me bored quickly with MMOs and other quest-based games. I would really like quests such as "Distress signal coming from *planet coordinates*, go help them" because then you can get more NPCs and discover new planets ^.^