28 réponses à ce sujet

[Tigress M]

In an RPG, how do you create a sense of urgency without making it too linear?  I don't want to be forced to do things in a specific order, but I rarely feel any urgency to complete a quest because I know it will be waiting for me whenever I finally get around to it, thereby breaking immersion.  

In Origins, I think they tried to do this a couple of different ways.  At Redcliffe, once you're there you can't leave (except to go back to camp) without wiping out the town and in the Circle, you're locked in until you get to the end.  I don't mind the Redcliffe scenario, but the Circle one had me feeling trapped and uncomfortable, especially once you hit the Fade (which may be why so many people hate the Fade since it's a trap within a trap).  

In DA2, I was pleasantly surprised to find this show up in Fenris's A Bitter Pill, where if you put off his quest you'll encounter a random attack and Fenris will actually leave if you don't head directly to Hadriana afterward.  It proved there was a consquence to not following through with his quest in a timely manner.  But, this was the only time in the game I felt that urgency.  

So this got me to thinking.  Would it help if more quests had consequences based on the timely manner in which they were completed?  And would we even want that?  For example, what if by not rushing to complete Magistrate's Orders, Lia dies?  Or what if there was a way to save Saemus's Qunari friend by getting there sooner? 

Would that make the game more enjoyable, or would it make it feel more restrictive (like the game's forcing you into completing quests in a certain order)?  

What if they did something, even if it's just an illusion, like remove lootables from the Foundry in All That Remains (or have the companions chastise you for trying to loot while looking for your mother).  I'm OCD when it comes to looting and I always find myself losing immersion in the moment because I spot a shiny over in a corner that I "need" to go investigate.  But, on the other hand, I'd be bored stiff if I ran through empty rooms (which my OCD would compel me to do lol) and found nothing for my troubles.  So how could you help create more of a sense of urgency in a quest like that, to help hold the mood?  

I'm sure these are questions the writers have asked themselves countless times.  I'm just curious what the community thinks about urgency (want or don't want) and if wanted, what could be done to implement it more or in better ways?

[Wulfram]

It's annoying when the game is telling you to that there's this urgent stuff going on, but will reward focusing on other things. I'd have preferred it if some of the main quest stuff you actually had to act urgently on, but that there were times when there wasn't anything urgent going on. As it was, in act 2 and 3 it was pretty hard to find a time when it would actually make sense to do sidequests unless you actively avoided going home and reading your mail.

[Corker]

Tigress M wrote...

In an RPG, how do you create a sense of urgency without making it too linear?

At best, provide several ways to solve the urgent problem, or allow it to be ignored but at a cost.  By making something urgent, you are saying it needs to be done *now* and that pretty much specifies your quest ordering.

So this got me to thinking.  Would it help if more quests had consequences based on the timely manner in which they were completed?  And would we even want that?  For example, what if by not rushing to complete Magistrate's Orders, Lia dies?  Or what if there was a way to save Saemus's Qunari friend by getting there sooner?

It would seem somewhat odd that, in a game where I can pause combat indefinitely, I'm on the clock for quest completion.  Certainly, there'd be bad feelings if there was no indication that *this* quest was really urgent, while the other quests were fake-urgent, and somebody died as a result.  At least with "A Bitter Pill," you get a heads-up as a warning.

ETA: Also, I might get cheesed that I was in the middle of doing something and, just because I happened to click on a quest-giver out of curiosity, am now yanked into their "urgent" quest.  Because in some way, the urgency is faked - he's standing there with a gold exclamation point over his head indefinitely, right? Why does the clock only start when I click on him?  There would be much moaning over needing to manage one's acceptance of quests, and needing to avoid quest-givers and then backtracking to find them again, when people would rather just load up on quests as they find them and then do them whenever is convenient.

What if they did something, even if it's just an illusion, like remove lootables from the Foundry in All That Remains (or have the companions chastise you for trying to loot while looking for your mother).  I'm OCD when it comes to looting and I always find myself losing immersion in the moment because I spot a shiny over in a corner that I "need" to go investigate.  But, on the other hand, I'd be bored stiff if I ran through empty rooms (which my OCD would compel me to do lol) and found nothing for my troubles.  So how could you help create more of a sense of urgency in a quest like that, to help hold the mood? 

You don't put companion gifts and iconic armor in lootables, first.  When I'm finding the Book of Shartan in a random sack and the Shield of the Knight Herself in a crate, I get the message that story-related items can be in lootables.  Any lootable.  Even this one.  Even though it probably just has torn trousers, I have to look and see...  Rewards given at irregular intervals are like brain crack.  Putting important items in lootables just once in a while creates a very strong urge to check every available lootable.

If there's only ever junk, non-unique armor and weapons, potions and small change in lootables, it'll be easier to ignore them.  Not for all people, though, so.  Next - in an urgent quest, cut the padding.  Get rid of the empty rooms, or cut them down.  (You can urgently tear through a few empty rooms looking for clues, after all.)  Get rid of the lootables.  Removing these distractions may even *create* a vague feeling of urgency in less emotionally involved players, who suddenly find their usual side-tracks missing.  Now, you do need a few things to keep the PC from just charging right ahead - without some pauses, there's no dramatic build-up.

Bartrand's Haunted Mansion was golden with this.  Instead of lootables (okay, there were maybe a few? In the storage room, I think) you had animations, sound effects, and triggered companion dialogue.  It added to the ambiance - not of urgency this time, but of creepy dread.  There was something in every room (even if it didn't trigger til you backtracked.  ).  The notes in "All That Remains" certainly helped; I think there was some companion reaction, too.  (For me, honestly, it was the lootables that were a problem.  The rest of the run through the board worked emotionally rather well.)

Modifié par Corker, 08 avril 2011 - 01:53 .

[Knightly_BW]

Hmm... Interesting question. I don't prefer forced urgency (you need to be there if you fail. Just like CoH timed missions. Pfft I always log off when I get one).

Instead I prefer more subtle approach by making the quest appealing. By making player wonder what is the next one will bring. Both "Enemies Among Us" and "First Sacrifice" made me feel that cruosity (on first play thru' tho latter I turn back to usual haul and make them in dozens behavior).

Also I leave many loots behind me during, All that remains, Qunari Assault and in last stages of game. There is a strong focuses behind those quests (life of your mother, your city and preventing more bloodshed). No matter how precious loot for you, Do you delay All that remains after talking to Gamlen? I can't put another quest between those two. It is not a timed mission but compulsion is so strong.

I hope those make some sense.

[Moondoggie]

People would complain the game is too linear if it forced some urgancy on the main quest. I never really understood in these sorts of games some of the lame side quests you do when you are supposively in a race against time to stop some sort of ancient evil like in Origins you were supposed to be urgently gathering an army to fight a rapidly advancing horde of Darkspawn but still found time to help find lost children and stuff.

At least in Dragon Age 2 you felt like you were living a life so the side quests just felt like you were doing stuff to earn money or helping out fellow citizens in goodwill. And i like the idea of consequences of urgency. That had a similar concept in Mass Effect 2 where you can save more of your crew if you hurry to save them.

I would have liked some sort of this concept used in "all that remains" any way of saving your mother would have been nice like if you get there quick enough with the help you get or something. I get they wanted some drama but i hate the fact that it HAS to happen no matter what just like how you must lose a sibling for most of the game or all of it even if they become an important part of your party in the first act theres no way to keep them

[KJandrew]

I like the idea your onto. Soemtimes they don't even have to be that important. Like when you have to go find Emric after he's given the fake letter. If you go straight away you'll find him being killed by the shade but if you put it off you'll just find a dead body or nothing at all.
Or it could be that if you put off going to the DuPuis mansion you could arrive to find Quentin has already been there and has taken the lady and maybe killed Gascard or made him hide or flee

[Corker]

As far as implementation goes, I'd want to ask a modder how the development environment makes this easy/hard to do. From what little I've seen in the toolbox, I get the impression it's a bit of a pain. Doable, obviously, as some quests make you wait (Wade in DAO) and some make you hurry (A Bitter Pill) but I suspect one reason it isn't done more often is that it's not trivial coding. And adding elements of scheduling could make flag-setting in other quests more tricky - I'd have to think about that.

[Tigress M]

Wulfram wrote...

It's annoying when the game is telling you to that there's this urgent stuff going on, but will reward focusing on other things. I'd have preferred it if some of the main quest stuff you actually had to act urgently on, but that there were times when there wasn't anything urgent going on. As it was, in act 2 and 3 it was pretty hard to find a time when it would actually make sense to do sidequests unless you actively avoided going home and reading your mail.

I agree the inflated urgency is a little annoying, but I also understand that actually making too many things truly urgent in a game would get old, quickly (at least for me). I would wind up rushing through the game, missing several sidquests in my attempt to "beat the clock" so to speak.  

And it's funny you should mention going home and checking your mail.  In my second playthough I made the mistake of picking up The Final Straw out of my mailbox before I had completed Cullen's quest about Aveline in Act 3.  Heading to Gallows to tell Cullen what I'd discovered pulled me into the final battle, leaving me sevral unfinished quests (which grated as I'm also OCD about quest completion LOL).  The result was in my third playthrough I avoided checking my mail until I'd run out of all other quests.  

[Tigress M]

Corker wrote...
At best, provide several ways to solve the urgent problem, or allow it to be ignored but at a cost.  By making something urgent, you are saying it needs to be done *now* and that pretty much specifies your quest ordering.

Yes, I like the idea of variables and consequences, but I'm sure that's a lot of extra coding.  And I don't want to be shoehorned into doing quests in a specific order because of necessary timing.  I actually got annoyed with that a bit in Origins, although it wasn't timing based, it was level based -- I felt I had to do certain quests in a certain order because of the area level scaling they used.  

It would seem somewhat odd that, in a game where I can pause combat indefinitely, I'm on the clock for quest completion.  Certainly, there'd be bad feelings if there was no indication that *this* quest was really urgent, while the other quests were fake-urgent, and somebody died as a result.  At least with "A Bitter Pill," you get a heads-up as a warning.

So would it be better to do away with urgency all around?  I'm asking, not out of snarkiness, but because it's something I've actually considered.  My problem (if you want to call contemplating a game as a "problem") is that I like the feeling of needing to do something in a timely manner, but I don't want to quests forcefed to me.  I guess part of this thread is me trying brainstorm how it might be possible to give us a little of both worlds.  

ETA: Also, I might get cheesed that I was in the middle of doing something and, just because I happened to click on a quest-giver out of curiosity, am now yanked into their "urgent" quest.  Because in some way, the urgency is faked - he's standing there with a gold exclamation point over his head indefinitely, right? Why does the clock only start when I click on him?  There would be much moaning over needing to manage one's acceptance of quests, and needing to avoid quest-givers and then backtracking to find them again, when people would rather just load up on quests as they find them and then do them whenever is convenient.

I completely agree with this.  That's why I actually kind of liked the mail at home.  I could ignore that, while knowing exactly where to go to find them when I was ready to begin.  Perhaps that's a solution.  Give us time sensative quests through a central location (like the mail) so we can pick them when we want without having to remember where the quest giver was located.

You don't put companion gifts and iconic armor in lootables, first.  When I'm finding the Book of Shartan in a random sack and the Shield of the Knight Herself in a crate, I get the message that story-related items can be in lootables.  Any lootable.  Even this one.  Even though it probably just has torn trousers, I have to look and see...  Rewards given at irregular intervals are like brain crack.  Putting important items in lootables just once in a while creates a very strong urge to check every available lootable.

Looting would be very boring though if it didn't on occasion result in something good.  I like finding gems among the fluff and I'd hate to see that go by the wayside.  

Next - in an urgent quest, cut the padding.  Get rid of the empty rooms, or cut them down.  (You can urgently tear through a few empty rooms looking for clues, after all.)  Get rid of the lootables.  Removing these distractions may even *create* a vague feeling of urgency in less emotionally involved players, who suddenly find their usual side-tracks missing.  Now, you do need a few things to keep the PC from just charging right ahead - without some pauses, there's no dramatic build-up.

This I really like.  I enjoyed following the blood trail.  That was fun.  But, I did find myself veering off to check out the rooms I passed along the way.  Maybe swap the room exploration with clues, fights, or glimpses of who we're chasing so that we can get the build up without breaking immersion with lootables.  

Bartrand's Haunted Mansion was golden with this.  Instead of lootables (okay, there were maybe a few? In the storage room, I think) you had animations, sound effects, and triggered companion dialogue.  It added to the ambiance - not of urgency this time, but of creepy dread.  There was something in every room (even if it didn't trigger til you backtracked.  ).  The notes in "All That Remains" certainly helped; I think there was some companion reaction, too.  (For me, honestly, it was the lootables that were a problem.  The rest of the run through the board worked emotionally rather well.)

I agree this was a good map.  And, even the lootables here didn't bother me because you were forced to go through the side rooms vs instapoofing into the main area.  

[Tigress M]

Asperius wrote...
Hmm... Interesting question. I don't prefer forced urgency (you need to be there if you fail. Just like CoH timed missions. Pfft I always log off when I get one).

Instead I prefer more subtle approach by making the quest appealing. By making player wonder what is the next one will bring. Both "Enemies Among Us" and "First Sacrifice" made me feel that cruosity (on first play thru' tho latter I turn back to usual haul and make them in dozens behavior).

I do agree that I hate having timed quests.  Ran into that with an MMO I was trying out just recently and it really soured me on the game.  And subtly works well... if it's not too subtle.  

I'm a odd RPGer.  My focus is normally to get all the best loot and the most XP I can, but I secretly want to find myself so caught up in a story/character that I "forget" my "prime objective" and just start playing the game.  BioWare generally does a good job of that, but  nothing ever grabbed me like that in DA2.  As I said in my first post, I was pleasantly surprised to have Fenris jump on me for not doing A Bitter Pill fast enough, but in the back of my mind I thought (hmmm... in the future I can wait and get another fight in [more XP] before I go do his quest).  See the immersion breakage here?  Whereas in Origins, I've played over a year and it wasn't until my most recent playthrough that I thought about letting the fake Waylen dupe me into going to Lake Calenhad, just for the extra XP of killing the thugs that jump you... I get so invested in my Wardens I don't like the thought of anyone getting one over on them.  But... I digress... sorry!  LOL

Also I leave many loots behind me during, All that remains, Qunari Assault and in last stages of game. There is a strong focuses behind those quests (life of your mother, your city and preventing more bloodshed). No matter how precious loot for you, Do you delay All that remains after talking to Gamlen? I can't put another quest between those two. It is not a timed mission but compulsion is so strong.

I hope those make some sense.

I wish I could do that!  I always find myself, in both Origins and DA2, wondering why on earth I'm looting stuff on the way up to the roof of Fort Drakon or making my way through the streets to the Gallows in Kirkwall.  I know I can't do a blasted thing with any of that loot except sell it for gold I no longer need, but I have to loot.  Have to.  LOL

[Tigress M]

Moondoggie wrote...
People would complain the game is too linear if it forced some urgancy on the main quest. I never really understood in these sorts of games some of the lame side quests you do when you are supposively in a race against time to stop some sort of ancient evil like in Origins you were supposed to be urgently gathering an army to fight a rapidly advancing horde of Darkspawn but still found time to help find lost children and stuff.

At least in Dragon Age 2 you felt like you were living a life so the side quests just felt like you were doing stuff to earn money or helping out fellow citizens in goodwill. And i like the idea of consequences of urgency. That had a similar concept in Mass Effect 2 where you can save more of your crew if you hurry to save them.

I would have liked some sort of this concept used in "all that remains" any way of saving your mother would have been nice like if you get there quick enough with the help you get or something. I get they wanted some drama but i hate the fact that it HAS to happen no matter what just like how you must lose a sibling for most of the game or all of it even if they become an important part of your party in the first act theres no way to keep them

I agree that people would complain (I'd be one of them) if the game was too linear.  But, like you, I'm always a little shocked in both Origins and especially Act 2 of DA2, that I can run all over the map without consequence.  DA2 did let me feel like some of what I was doing was for a purpose  (although earning all that money and then being able to borrow it anyway left me feeling like "What's the point?" in Act 1).  

Knowing full well that saving mom wasn't an option Gaider wanted us to have, it might have been possible to create a sense of urgency if we'd been able to get there soon enough to talk to her (like we do) or have our delay mean we just stumble across a corpse.  Maybe just little differences like that could help give us a sense that some things are urgent.  

[Tigress M]

KJandrew wrote...
I like the idea your onto. Soemtimes they don't even have to be that important. Like when you have to go find Emric after he's given the fake letter. If you go straight away you'll find him being killed by the shade but if you put it off you'll just find a dead body or nothing at all.

Or it could be that if you put off going to the DuPuis mansion you could arrive to find Quentin has already been there and has taken the lady and maybe killed Gascard or made him hide or flee

Exactly!  Like I just mentioned with Leandra.  They did a really good job of changing the outcome regarding your sibling depending on who you take to the Deep Roads, so giving us different outcomes based on our timing would be great!

But, as Corker says in her next post.... there could be a coding difficulty with something like that.  Like her, I'd love to see a modder comment on the feasibility of sticking a time limit on things.  

Modifié par Tigress M, 08 avril 2011 - 04:04 .

[Lithuasil]

A sense of Urgency would have (imho) massively improved the first act, and would have been relatively easy to implement, if there was a system to prohibit using magic too openly (like the masquerade in VbTm). After a certain time, even if bethany / mage hawke do not cast openly, the counter goes up, leading first to Varric telling you he had to bribe someone off, then a smaller templar attack, then a bigger templar attack where you have to bribe/kill witnesses - and eventually being dragged into the gallows, whether that would be a game over, or just the loss of a companion / alteration of the rest of the game. 

But then, I also advocate doing away with the pausable combat, so there's that.

[Maria Caliban]

"How do you create a sense of urgency? And is that wanted?"

I am glad you asked the second question.

In a normal narrative (book or movie) you often want a sense of urgency. One of my favorite movies in the last year was Inception and it had a wonderful device for doing this: The heroes needed to wake up by the time it took a van to drop from a bridge into the water below.

Due to the nested nature of reality within the movie, this actually meant several minutes to several hours for different heroes, but whenever the director wanted to crank the audience's anticipation levels, he'd go back to that sloooo-moooo shot of the heroes in freefall as their van plunged into the river.

I've always been an advocate for games to attempt to be literature, but last year I picked up Amnesia: Dark Decent (http://www.amnesiagame.com/#main' class='bbc_url' title='Lien externe' rel='nofollow external'>Demo here. Only $10 on Steam). I thought it was a superb example of pacing and storytelling in a game. I went to the developer's blogs and the lead designer writes about how story gets in the way of gameplay and gameplay gets in the way of experience.

[Corker]

Tigress M wrote...

It would seem somewhat odd that, in a game where I can pause combat indefinitely, I'm on the clock for quest completion.  Certainly, there'd be bad feelings if there was no indication that *this* quest was really urgent, while the other quests were fake-urgent, and somebody died as a result.  At least with "A Bitter Pill," you get a heads-up as a warning.

So would it be better to do away with urgency all around?  I'm asking, not out of snarkiness, but because it's something I've actually considered.  My problem (if you want to call contemplating a game as a "problem") is that I like the feeling of needing to do something in a timely manner, but I don't want to quests forcefed to me.  I guess part of this thread is me trying brainstorm how it might be possible to give us a little of both worlds. 

I think players who do not want to feel urgent should not be punished for playing that way, while on the other hand, those who are looking for a sense of urgency should not have too many obstacles thrown up or likewise punished.

Keeping "urgent" quests tightly focused doesn't hurt laid-back players, and it helps adrenaline players get into the run.  I'd use quests with a real time (or transition-counting) component sparingly, and then make it extra-specially clear that there are consequences. I'd rachet down the dialogue that implies untimed quests are actually timed. 

Quest prompts shouldn't, OTOH, derail a laid-back player's intended schedule or force them to work around the quest-givers in some fashion.

I would hesitate to use any kind of real timer.  That's kind of like saying, "Choose: stop to check for traps, or miss important dialogue with Mom!"  Realistic, possibly, but guaranteed to tick people off.  I can have injuries or I can miss last words.  Yaaay.

FWIW, I was fairly well spoiled for "All That Remains," and (looting aside) was able to convince myself that Marian needed to run, run, run along that blood trail without too much work.  I think the environment did generally help that emotional goal.

[Asdara]

What I did like about DA2 is that a lot of the quests, especially in Act 1, didn't furnish a false sense of urgency - people say they have stuff for us to be doing, but give us our own time to get around to helping them out for pay.

Urgency is fine, when it reasonably applies. Like, when slavers are only going to be in a certain place for a certain time, or someone has taken someone to kill them. Other things, like favorite pillow is missing, could you find it for me? Obviously not urgent.

Urgency needs to be clear though - the game needs to be balanced about telling you something IS urgent and something else isn't - UNLESS they are trying to 'get' you - which would also be kinda interesting. For example: something that seems not-urgent, like a "check on this for me please" quest, actually was more urgent than either the giver or the PC believed and something odd / bad / or even good - happens as a result of delay. Makes things more like the real-world, and gives devs a way to introduce twists to the typical questing routine.

[tmp7704]

Tigress M wrote...

In an RPG, how do you create a sense of urgency without making it too linear?  I don't want to be forced to do things in a specific order, but I rarely feel any urgency to complete a quest because I know it will be waiting for me whenever I finally get around to it, thereby breaking immersion. 

Persona games had it resolved in rather elegant manner, imo. The games span over calendar year, and choosing your activities advances the clock day by day. At certain points of the timeline the key events happen, and you're given between 2-4 weeks of game time to resolve each of them or face "game over". While this doesn't prevent the player from doing extra things on the side, it does good job conveying the sense of the world operating at its own pace rather than at that of the player.

[Tigress M]

Lithuasil wrote...

A sense of Urgency would have (imho) massively improved the first act, and would have been relatively easy to implement, if there was a system to prohibit using magic too openly (like the masquerade in VbTm). After a certain time, even if bethany / mage hawke do not cast openly, the counter goes up, leading first to Varric telling you he had to bribe someone off, then a smaller templar attack, then a bigger templar attack where you have to bribe/kill witnesses - and eventually being dragged into the gallows, whether that would be a game over, or just the loss of a companion / alteration of the rest of the game. 

But then, I also advocate doing away with the pausable combat, so there's that.

I agree that it would have been fun to have to be careful with using magic (just as I thought it would have been good to be cautious with Morrigan in Origins) but I'm not sure that's feasible for a game that allows different classes becuase it would make playing a mage much more difficult than playing a warrior or a rogue.  

[Beerfish]

I really felt a sense of urgency a couple of times in the game. The FrakenLeandra quest, when the Qunari attacked. A little bit during the bone pit attacks.

[Tigress M]

Maria Caliban wrote...

"How do you create a sense of urgency? And is that wanted?"

I am glad you asked the second question.

I've always been an advocate for games to attempt to be literature, but last year I picked up Amnesia: Dark Decent (Demo here. Only $10 on Steam). I thought it was a superb example of pacing and storytelling in a game. I went to the developer's blogs and the lead designer writes about how story gets in the way of gameplay and gameplay gets in the way of experience.

That is a very good point and an observation I'm sure the writers have made (and struggled with) in the DA universe.  When you control all the action (in a book) it's easy to set urgency, but to do so in a game is much more difficult, I'm sure.  

[Tigress M]

Corker wrote...

Keeping "urgent" quests tightly focused doesn't hurt laid-back players, and it helps adrenaline players get into the run.  I'd use quests with a real time (or transition-counting) component sparingly, and then make it extra-specially clear that there are consequences. I'd rachet down the dialogue that implies untimed quests are actually timed.

I'd be okay with transistion counting, but I know for a fact that a timed counter drives me nuts, personally.  I like to take my time with a new game.  As for making it "extra-specialy clear" (love that phrase!) I think the groundwork for that has already been laid with some things they did in Origins -- having Thomas run up to you if you try and leave Redcliffe or having your companions warn you about not leaving Lothering until everything you want to do is done.  But, OTOH, it's a little confusing when Anders tells you meet him in the Chantry "tonight" because that sounds urgent, even though it's just really telling you to do the quest at night.  

[ReallyRue]

Corker wrote...

Tigress M wrote...

In an RPG, how do you create a sense of urgency without making it too linear?

At best, provide several ways to solve the urgent problem, or allow it to be ignored but at a cost.  By making something urgent, you are saying it needs to be done *now* and that pretty much specifies your quest ordering.

That's one thing I really liked about ME2. There comes a point where you have to launch the suicide mission, or there will be consequences, so you feel a sense of urgency.

[Tigress M]

Asdara wrote...
Urgency needs to be clear though - the game needs to be balanced about telling you something IS urgent and something else isn't - UNLESS they are trying to 'get' you - which would also be kinda interesting. For example: something that seems not-urgent, like a "check on this for me please" quest, actually was more urgent than either the giver or the PC believed and something odd / bad / or even good - happens as a result of delay. Makes things more like the real-world, and gives devs a way to introduce twists to the typical questing routine.

That would be cool and maybe that's something they might consider, given more time and resources to diverging quests.  They've shown the ability to allow for different outcomes with the treaty quests in Origins where what you decide to do drastically changes the outcome of that particular quest.  

[Tigress M]

tmp7704 wrote...

Tigress M wrote...

In an RPG, how do you create a sense of urgency without making it too linear?  I don't want to be forced to do things in a specific order, but I rarely feel any urgency to complete a quest because I know it will be waiting for me whenever I finally get around to it, thereby breaking immersion. 

Persona games had it resolved in rather elegant manner, imo. The games span over calendar year, and choosing your activities advances the clock day by day. At certain points of the timeline the key events happen, and you're given between 2-4 weeks of game time to resolve each of them or face "game over". While this doesn't prevent the player from doing extra things on the side, it does good job conveying the sense of the world operating at its own pace rather than at that of the player.

Hi tmp!  (Love the Warden Armor you're working on for Origins, btw!)  A timeline might work nicely, as long as it didn't make the whole game feel rushed or force your hand at certain points (like giving us a time limit for each Act and not allowing us to finish side-quests if we were too "slow").  But, if we were questing along and were sudenly informed we needed to something "now", if we had the option to go back and finish other stuff afterward, that would be cool.  

[Wulfram]

ReallyRue wrote...

That's one thing I really liked about ME2. There comes a point where you have to launch the suicide mission, or there will be consequences, so you feel a sense of urgency.

The problem is that you can delay the thing which causes triggers this point, which removes the sense of urgency and adds an element of metagaming into the mix too.