Skyrim Will Have Infinite Quests, Director Says

[Tusck]

Amazing information released today, not only about the longevity of the game, but also confirms what happens after your finish your guild quest.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/11/skyrim-infinite-quests/

If you like getting bang for your buck, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will give you a nuclear blast.

You’ll never have to stop questing in the upcoming open-world role-playing game, to be released November 11 for Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3. Skyrim director Todd Howard told Wired.com in a phone interview Monday that the game will feature a never-ending stream of procedurally generated content, giving players an infinite number of things to do.

“The vibe of the game is that it’s something that you can play forever,” Howard said.

The game’s Radiant quest system randomly generates new tasks based on your progress in the game. An innkeeper might ask you to hunt for bandits in a place you haven’t found yet, or an aspiring alchemist could request that you collect 10 undiscovered flowers for his work. Howard claims that the options are endless.

In addition to these minor tasks, Howard says you’ll be able to do extra work for each of the game’s factions, like the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild. Once you complete the scripted quest lines for each group, you can go to their respective hubs and pick up randomly generated missions to steal gems or assassinate shopkeepers across Skyrim’s massive world.

Though some players might not love the idea of endlessly collecting groups of random ingredients, Howard says that Radiant quests play into one of the game’s major strengths: environmental storytelling.Skyrim’s world is sprinkled with secrets and minor bits of narrative that you’ll have to piece together as you explore, an aspect of game design that Howard says the team picked up while working on their last game, Fallout 3.

“With Fallout, it’s not as beautiful a world to everybody,” he said. “We had to find ways to make exploration of [a destroyed wasteland] interesting.”

For Skyrim, Howard says that Bethesda has learned a few new tricks and gotten better at the old ones. The most enjoyable part of the Radiant system won’t be completing quests, he says, it’ll be the things you discover along the way: bandit-infested fortresses, or a terrifying lighthouse.
“The world is probably the one thing that sets [Skyrim] apart from other games,” he said. “It feels really real for what it is … It’s just fun to explore.”

Wired.com’s full review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be published on Thursday.

 

[Demut]

Interesting news. Although, I think we already heard a similar statement some days ago. Someone posted it in the guild leader thread if I remember correctly.

 

[Travis]

Oh man!! This sounds really great. Think we were talking about this before, but this world sounds like it is going to be incredible to explore!!

 

[hexperiment]

I would really love it if this is true. I have my doubts because it sounds all to gimmicky. Remember when they said Fallout 3 had over 200 endings? :/ Still, it's still amazing that it's in there.(or at least technically)

 

[Tusck]

There are some confirmations from people who played that this feature is in fact in game.

 

[Travis]

Well, and it doesn't actually need to be "endless" for me. I just like the idea of "assisted exploration". A simple way to help me see what they spent so much time and effort on.

 

[Flamingtaco]

Wow I literally completely missed this and posted the exact same topic, although I did also talk about the unlimited dragons. I think this is pretty awesome as long as they aren't just generic fetch quests, and there are still plenty of scripted side quests.

 

[Tusck]

I'm sure there will be plenty of generic ones, but if you get the occasional "kill that merchant" quest, it will be worth it.

 

[Flamingtaco]

I'm sure there will be plenty of generic ones, but if you get the occasional "kill that merchant" quest, it will be worth it.

And luckily Radiant Story will take it a step further and make his son take over after he's gone. What I wonder is if it will generate targets to kill because otherwise you could potentially kill everyone in the game if you play long enough.

 

[Travis]

I bet they will be pretty generic. Can you image... after a while the whole place is just abandoned because you have killed everyone. Do you think they have a plan for such things? Like maybe the dynamically created quests for assassination will create a new NPC for you to kill, so you aren't actually depleting the inhabitants.

 

[Flamingtaco]

I bet they will be pretty generic. Can you image... after a while the whole place is just abandoned because you have killed everyone. Do you think they have a plan for such things? Like maybe the dynamically created quests for assassination will create a new NPC for you to kill, so you aren't actually depleting the inhabitants.

Well this is Bethesda we're talking about. They may not be the best at making stable games, but they're not some newbie developer. They've almost certainly thought things through.

 

[luvs2slpooge]

sounds awesome!

 

[Corey]

If the game will be endless, then there should be something to make your character better as well. If you're capped out on level, thus cannot increase skills anymore either. So when that happens, I would want to make a new character, not continue on one that cannot increase anymore. :/

 

[wheato]

If the game will be endless, then there should be something to make your character better as well. If you're capped out on level, thus cannot increase skills anymore either. So when that happens, I would want to make a new character, not continue on one that cannot increase anymore. :/

Sounds interesting, but what specifically do you think they could do to make this happen? How could you make your character better once you've hit the lvl cap?

 

[dragonborn---]

So a whole life time huh?

 

[Corey]

Sounds interesting, but what specifically do you think they could do to make this happen? How could you make your character better once you've hit the lvl cap?

Well maybe something like continuing to perk up the other classes. Or add an area that is extremely hard and you must be high level to enter and then the skill boosts would make sense. I just hate reaching a point where there's not really a point in continuing a character.

 

[Khazrihl]

I've been pondering on this "Unlimited Quest" thing... I mean yea... it helps you explore places you haven't found, but after you've found everything? I'm assuming it recycles the dungeons... and just respawns baddies in them. Unlike Oblivion, I've noticed that bandit camps I've cleared out (after a few days or so) have new enemies that have taken up residence.... unsure about actual caves and dungeons though.

 

[bosspatrone]

This infinite quest thing is, in my opinion, crap. I felt completely annoyed that I was leading both the Companions and the Mages Guild in under 10 quests for each. That really made me feel like they will just hand over the reigns to any low-level yahoo.

I didn't even realize that I was stuck in an infinite quest loop until the third time I was asked to hike to a far-flung location to kill a <insert mob here> in someone's house. Why would these people not simply ask the town guard to handle this? I dragged one of the lazy guards into the house with me on the third task and let him handle it with no assistance from me.

Admittedly, I quickly stopped asking the Companions for work after that, but to me, the idea of someone paying a courier to beat feet to deliver a message to a Whiterun Companion, who will sit on his/her duff until I come along and accept the request to kill the thing when I finally end up in the same area because I have an unrelated side quest INSTEAD of simply getting a guard is ludicrous.

OK....rant aside, I still freaking love this game.

 

[PunWisp]

I agree on the part about the main questlines being very quick.

I mean just because your dragonborn doesnt mean you should be the listener of the dark brotherhood, guild master of the thieves, harbinger of the companions and so on... They are all so quick... They needed to make quests lot longer, infact make it so you are not leader of everything! Sure make it possible, but don't make the main part of the quest lead to you being leader. A separate quest that involves you killing the leader or something and bribing members to choose you as leader, something like that.

The quests themselves are good, but as always they decide you should lead quickly. There isn't much of a ladder of success in the game.

and besides that annoyance, I too love the game. The endless quests is nice, there is so much to do and discover, I spend days just cleaning out my misc quests.

 

[Corey]

I do agree that all the quest lines focus on quantity, not quality. It's a sinking feeling when you've completed a faction and the main story line. :/ Especially when you're only around level 35 when completed. I know I could go do other factions, but if I'm an Orc Berserker, I don't want to go join the Mages Guild or the Thieves, lol.