There are plenty of quest mods out there that offer fun action, maybe some new weapons, and the occasional nifty environment, but more often than not, the mod's story is just a rather weak foundation on which to build the experience (there are exceptions to this rule). Some stories have been ok, but I've yet to find something great, something that made me take a step back like "woah", like the final moments in Bioshock Infinite's final moments. What elements would you guys like to see in a story that you haven't gotten to experience yet?

I've found that almost no mods give you characters to care about. Even the vanilla companions do a better job at this than most mods (I know a lot of people like Willow and Niner; they can be the exception if you please). What I want is a great cast to play with the players emotions. A situation in which the player will be happy to see a character succeed, or feel bad if they fail. Now, I'm a huge fan of Silent Hill, and there's a scene in SH: Downpour in which you take control of a monster and have the option to kill one of the main characters (I forget her name) quite violently. I'd want to see that. Take a character that the player has grown to adore, and make them directly responsible for their demise. Actiony adrenaline is easy to put into a player. Sadness and fear are harder. What I want is something with such great characters that you light up throughout their experience, and then brings you down like nothing else. It's not disappointment that the story didn't go so well. You're devastated. You feel sick.

My all-time favorite quest-driven mod is without a doubt Vault 101 Revisited by KineticKat.  IMO it is brilliant, and a mod I always, always have installed.  It adds a substantial questline that actually feels like something that could (and at points, should) have happened lore-wise in the game.  It alleviates my biggest complaint with Fallout 3: the way you are exiled from the vault no matter what you do, no matter how much you help them.

The mod's only lacking area are the 'synthetic' voiceovers for a couple of the NPCs, but KK didn't have access to voice actors at the time so I don't blame him/her.  Something is better than nothing!

I've actually PM'd KineticKat and told them how awesome I think V101R is.  I wish that person made more mods!

As for your ideas toward the end of the post, I personally dislike forced-failure stuff. Games like Mass Effect 2 are perfect to me in that regard... if you don't help your crew or give a damn about them, they can literally all die during the final stretch of the game. If you assist them though, do their loyalty missions, hear them out etc.... all of them can make it out.

That, to me, is incredibly compelling gameplay.

One of my biggest complaints about ME3 was how hellbent it was on killing certain characters and with almost no option to save them. And even when you could, it took pretty terrible decisions or had really awful consequences (see Wrex on Virmire, or the Destroy ending).

That's not to put your thoughts down though. I get the value in that kind of gameplay/decision making. I just prefer to save my companions/characters whenever I have a chance.

Why does destroy ending have awful consequences ? You don't like red color ?  



As for story driven mod that could induce sadness... what do you think of The Inheritance?

Le Spoiler:

Nem wrote:

Why does destroy ending have awful consequences ? You don't like red color ?  

Less to do with the color and more to do with my adversity to 'you lose no matter what' decisions in games. Its a very poor design.

That was the joke

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't want the player to lose. They get to win. They just don't get everything. The usual recipe for success is to let the player save everyone (and I'll be the first to admit that saving everyone feels damn good), but I'd like something with some meaningful heartbreak. Mass Effect took it too far and failed.

The inheritance was fun, but I didn't build a connection with the guy at your side (I forget his name). It's more like a "Oh, he's gotta go. Aw shucks" than something with depth. The closest a character has ever come to making me feel anything was actually Russell when he opens up about his past with Titus Vulcanus.

Jsev33 I agree with you. Hence why I am and a currently a legion of modders are trying to make a emotional questline with it's own unique wouldspace and atmosphere.

maybenexttime wrote:

Jsev33 I agree with you. Hence why I am and a currently a legion of modders are trying to make a emotional questline with it's own unique wouldspace and atmosphere.

Ah! Beautiful! I've been involved as a writer and actor with my college's film club for some time now (over a year), so while I'm sure you have enough cooks in the kitchen so to speak, if you'd like someone to flesh out characters or story, I'd love to help!

I don't mind on further opinions. If you want to read over our content I'm all for it. We have a official Google docs where we keep all of our information.

Ok, perfect! Is there somewhere I can access the link, or would you rather PM it to me, or...?

I'll pm it to you in a bit. And we are trying to keep a low profile aside from a few teaser pictures. Is the your nexus account Jsev33?

No, it's SwearByTheCheese. Don't ask. You'll recognize the same chicken avatar

edit: I get the whole low profile thing. I won't talk about it .

I tend to agree for the most part. I'm not a huge fan of endings that include the main protagonist walking off in to the sunset. That goes for film too. In order for any ending to be compelling it must invoke a sense of loss. A good example of this is Red Dead Redmption. Many people thought the ending sucked, I thought it was brilliant. To each his own I suppose.

P7 wrote:

I tend to agree for the most part. I'm not a huge fan of endings that include the main protagonist walking off in to the sunset. That goes for film too. In order for any ending to be compelling it must invoke a sense of loss. A good example of this is Red Dead Redmption. Many people thought the ending sucked, I thought it was brilliant. To each his own I suppose.

Difference of opinions, and I respect yours, but I don't think I could disagree any more strongly. I can name a hundred+ games/movies/trilogies etc that ended fantastically (imo) without some forced sense of 'but someone just HAS to die, damn it!'

I wholeheartedly agree that sacrifice can be an amazing part of a good story - like the Metroid sacrificing itself to save and empower Samus in Super Metroid - but it is not a requirement of a good story.

Sacrifice will be the core of my story. Or well at least a death that makes you partially sad. I am sure that you have seen movies or played games where an important lovable character dies. I am trying to achieve that effect.

I love situations where the playing is stuck between a rock and a hard case. These situations don't have a clear moral versus immoral decision. You have to make a blind call and be ready to live with the consequences. In addition, it'd be interesting if there was a game that made these real time decisions where the player can indefinitely prolong the decision in-game (like ME2 and FO3). Some examples include rewriting or destroying the heretical geth in ME2.

From real life experience these decision calls are the most horrifying. The decision with only a split-second to contemplate the outcomes and consequences. It'd make games like ME and FO a lot more dramatic (I think) and possibly a much more challenging game.

We're in the same boat man. What a lot of games lack concerning decision making is that choices don't always lead where we think they will. Say there's a FNV quest where you pass a check that let's you show off how terrifying you are. Maybe you get your way for now, but maybe you also inadvertently pissed someone off, and that anger later brews into bloodlust. We need more choices with unpredictable consequences. That's how life works.

Tesvixen wrote:

P7 wrote:

I tend to agree for the most part. I'm not a huge fan of endings that include the main protagonist walking off in to the sunset. That goes for film too. In order for any ending to be compelling it must invoke a sense of loss. A good example of this is Red Dead Redmption. Many people thought the ending sucked, I thought it was brilliant. To each his own I suppose.

Difference of opinions, and I respect yours, but I don't think I could disagree any more strongly.  I can name a hundred+ games/movies/trilogies etc that ended fantastically (imo) without some forced sense of 'but someone just HAS to die, damn it!'

I wholeheartedly agree that sacrifice can be an amazing part of a good story - like the Metroid sacrificing itself to save and empower Samus in Super Metroid - but it is not a requirement of a good story.  

Well if it feels like it's a forced sense of 'but someone has to die damn it!' then i'll concede on that point. I see right through endings where death is forced upon a character, but that's just because it's rarely done well nowadays. Again, I always go back to RDR on this subject. The death in that game felt natural and almost inevitable given the life the protagonist lead.

And I agree on the final points you made. Despite what I said, I don't think a sense of loss is a requirement. Though to me it is far more compelling than the standard fare games industry ending. And that's assuming it's done well. Saving the world is cool and all, but if there's nothing to counterbalance it, it feels flat imo.