Working out a single strand first and adding more from there on out allows me to iron out bugs and resolve any usability issues as soon as possible through playtesting (either by myself or by other players).1.
ConclusionĬrafting side-quests for Skyrim has taught me how to apply iterative design methods to foresee future issues and improve the quality of the content. So to make things a little bit less straight forward, I added extra dialogue options to the refugee at the start of the quest to give players some more insight into his background. After hearing of the Orc's escape, the refugee provided the player with more exposition into his character, leading to the player feeling a little uncertain of her actions. When playtesting my quest, I noticed the player instantly decided to save the Orc, simply because he provided the most amount of backstory up until that stage. To keep these choices interesting, writers had to ensure both characters would have to have had the same amount of exposition. One thing they mentioned, was that when players were confronted with a decision between saving one person or the other, players would often try to save the character they simply knew the best.
In 2013, Telltale gave a talk at GDC about the narrative design for The Walking Dead: Season 1. The results lead to some insightful conclusions. It was time to playtest my quest with someone. Using my limited acting range could provide the quest with temporary voice assets. As you can see in the flow chart, it's a dead end - but does add some extra insight into what these Imperials think of the Orcs of the valley. For instance, I added an option for the player to speak to the captain in charge of the prison. Knowing that the first strand had been easy to craft (and finish, as a player) I decided it wasn't a bad idea to add some extra strands. So no additional topics for stuff like: "Where you from?" etc.īuilding something as soon as possible makes easier to foresee scope. It was simple, and I managed to fully write, script and implement the first strand within the first day. The red line you see in the quest flow chart to the right indicates this. When I build multi-linear quests, I initially focus on completing one vital strand from start to finish. At the same time it also provided players with a moral dilemma, which helped underline the world introduced in Lordbound had no outright heroes or villains. A quick quest where two NPCs give you conflicting information and objectives to serve as context would be an ideal way to do this. The quest's main design goal was to introduce players to a major conflict that had take place in the Druadach Valley, the worldspace of Lordbound. Knowing this made it easier to set up my quest objectives and journal displays later on in the process.Īt the same time, I also conducted more research into the Elder Scrolls lore and wrote around 300-word character bios for the Orc and Refugee NPCs. I also noticed immediately that both the 'Free Orc' and 'Kill Orc' strands could potentially share an objective: find the key. Assist in communicating the quest concept to Lordbound's quest team for review. Help me get a good overview of how the quest would be structured and foresee possible difficulties. (Like how will players collect a disguise?)Ģ. This flowchart served two main purposes:ġ. Yellow indicates dialogue and blue, player actions. That same day, I sketched out a more detailed flow chart for my quest. The Orc, on the other hand, asks the player to help him escape. A refugee from that village tasks the player with killing the Orc and avenging is lost wife.
The Consequences of War began as a brief list of notes written by one of the other quest designers in the team. The premise was simple: an Orc has been imprisoned for his crimes in taking part in a siege on a village. I wanted to explain how I recently created the side-quest ' The Consequences of War' and share some insights into my iterative approach to designing quest content with branching narratives. It's being developed by a team of +10 industry professionals and students to learn more about AAA development.Īs quest designer, it's my job it design and implement quests using the Skyrim Creation Kit. I'm currently working on Lordbound, a DLC-sized modification for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
My name's Nick Witsel, I'm a freelance narrative designer by day, and a mod developer by night.