Founders! Unite against a common foe!

I'm on the fence with this one... while I agree delivery quests are usually unexciting, it does give a reason to travel between POIs for easy returns.  

I don't see the Galactica ever doing a mail run... but the Serenity, for sure.

I feel like fetch and fedex quests in the early stages of relationships with new species have a very distinctive narrative purpose. Obviously you don't want too many in the game. However, this could be a way of convincing the players to go in a direction they might not otherwise go.  "There's nothing there, why would I go there?"

It's not the quest nature that's bad, it's the realization of it. Picking up something that you never gonna need/use and bringing it to somebody else for RU or XP is truly lazy programming and boring feat to accomplish. But when you, for example, fetching a vaccine from one race to another and use it as a bargaining chip to get what you want or decide to keep it for yourself for future and/or other reasons is preeeetttttttty goooood...

Also, the example of OP's transport package quest can be realized in a form of random events coinciding with each other. It goes like this:

You're at some random starbase. Random event triggers and some alien approaches you with a package and delivery instructions. You can agree to it or not depending on your schedule and/or mood at that moment. Let's say you said yes and continue on your journey to deliver the package. Another random event triggers as you're on your way to the destination system, like this one: 

Some ship tech came to work drunk and made a blunder while doing a routine check. 1. One of the docked Mukay ships cannon went off and hit the Vindicator's fuel line (lose 50% of fuel and 10 crew) 2. One of the docked Tywom ship engines went off and burned everyone in the docking bay (lose 30 crew) 3. Missile exploded in one of the docked ships and destroyed it and two other ones (along with the drunk bastard).

And then the pirate attack event triggers putting you in a pickle. The occurrence of it is minimal, but when it happens, you're gonna have to turn your brain back on to get out of it.

It will make every play-through unique and events like that memorable and forum-post-worthy.

It could also get the game rid of quest markers above npc's characters heads (another lazy ass way of side quests realization). They will always be there waiting for you to trigger the quest... How exci......

The quest I've been thinking of is a fight with a starbase.  It should be barely winnable, so there should be another option to not have to fight the starbase for people who don't want to fight it.  It could be cool to make it reminiscent of Star Wars.  There could be a second solar system within range of the starbase, and that system has some kind of big planet based weapon overwatching the starbase that must be dealt with before fighting the starbase.  There could then be a quest to this other planet ("Endor") to either disable the gun to fight the starbase yourself, or capture the "big weapon" and use it to destroy the starbase (thus avoiding the starbase fight).  You might need an item from a previous quest to capture and use the weapon to destroy the base.

It's just this idea I've had swirling around my head for a while now...

Fetch and FedEx missions are not a bad way to make some alternate cash. I think they should be side missions and not critical to the plot line development except that doing the mission successfully help with a species' cooperation later in the game. They may remember what you did for their cousin Blork so they are more malleable for your needs or to help you when you run out of fuel or get into a scrap. Using them as a filler sucks but used right can make the game better.

This is especially true of the original game, where RU and credits were the only systems to level up. Lazy programming. 

I'm not into quests that simply exist to stretch out the story, no matter what form they take.  So, like others have said, I don't think the type of quest is as important insomuch as its integration in the story.  Basically, any quest that makes me forget I'm doing "a quest" rather than following the natural continuation of the story I'm immersed in is a success in my books.

I gotta add a related footnote to this thread after having played FO4 pretty much everyday now since Nov 10 and I'm on my second play-through (yeah, I got no life)... But first let me say that there are No Spoilers here. This isn't so much an SCR issue, its just something I wanted to bring up to SD so they know to avoid it.

So I've decided to give the Minutemen more love this time around and build up my settlements and such.  And of course, answer the call of any settlement in need, which seems to happen far too often despite my settlements having a ton of defenses including rocket and laser turrets, and me even arming and armoring out lots of the settlers themselves.  And despite doing that, settlers still get themselves kidnapped or are easily raided, needing me, a single guy with a sidekick, to go kick some butt on their behalf instead of taking 20 or so ppl in the camp and getting the job done themselves.

These repetitive "go kick some ass" bounty missions are a waste of time and do nothing to move the plot forward, especially when they recur with the same settlement or involve some POI that I've cleared out several times.  Its gotten to the point where I don't bother helping unless the mission point is somewhere I've never been, as there is really no reward worth my time (not counting the legendary foes I get to loot).  I'd be more excited about them if, say, there was a reputation gain involved, or a great (randomly generated) boss fight in varying fight area or something.

Bounty missions, for the sake of bounty missions, is boring.  If SCR has them and they are done in the same unimaginative way as FO4 then I'll probably only do half-a-dozen or so of them before ignoring them and moving on.

Well I think the differences between the Genre of Fallout Series and Star Control Series is what will make the difference.

I liked in SC2 you could avoid combat for the most part unless its scripted in. The FO series is very difficult to avoid combat especially if you can't fast travel to a destination. This makes fedex missions almost not worth it at times. SC series has regenerating power and ammunition vs FO which does not and you are forced to plan more carefully before goin into a hot zone.

I just finish FO4 so I'm very familiar with the title. SC doesn't have crafting were that is very big component of FO architecture. I frankly could do without the crafting aspect. I would rather have geeks that can make new equipment with the items and resources I return with. I know that everyone now days likes crafting in their games. I just beg the developers to try to keep this a little more pure towards SC heritage. I would even be receptive to being able to suggest research based on current needs.   

Well, crafting doesn't necessarily mean that your character is the one doing it. Even if some eggheads are the ones crafting whatever it is, I feel like the player should still have agency in how that is researched and accessed. Either give us control with crafting or don't put it in at all, imo. BUT this is off-topic, my apologies.

Well we didn't go too far off point. At least SC was part of the discussion.   

It's really not the nature of a FedEx quest that's the problem - it's the implementation of it. You have to make it feel like it's not a fetch quest. If you think about it, there were tons of fetch quests in Star Control II! 

Fetching the pieces of the Ultronomicon for the Utwig? Fetching the Syreen's ship? Fetching the sun device for the Chmmr?? 

In essence, every one of these is a fetch quest, but NONE of them ask, "Hey, can you go take this letter to my uncle in ______?" 

If you frame the quest in a creative and narrative way that makes sense, with much more involved tasks than just taking object A to point B, then quests like these can be amazing! 

Instead of avoiding these entirely, we should coax the developers in the right way, how to make the right decisions surrounding these quests! 

^ Coax developers? I think it's easier to move a mountain.

Nobody has a problem with fetch quests that are part of an overarching plot. What we're rallying against is filler.  Stardock needs to avoid quests that only serve to grant experience, money (thanks Hunam), or safety (thanks GnarlyFurtardo).

I just finished playing a game with a ton of filler: Mad Max. The game is an open-world exploratory game (with lots of driving). I enjoyed the game tremendously, and I appreciated that all 220+ of the scavenging sites and war camps had unique layouts. I didn't feel like they suffered from Bethesda Sameness Syndrome.

However... Only 1/5th of those sites and camps had items worth hunting down. The rest only reduced regional threat (used to unlock upgrades) or had cash. What incentive did I have to complete these remaining sites? None, unless I wanted a Steam achievement. Thus, 4/5th of the work put into creating these unique sites went to waste. They were filler.

If they were to have spent time on creating new enemies, vehicles, upgrades, or character development quests rather than creating unique spots on a map, the game would have been even more immersive.

Star Control 2 suffered from filler already. The universe was vast, but you got to a point where exploring planets and fighting enemies didn't yield anything useful. That type of filler is hard to avoid. (Fortunately Vaelzad is aware of this.) However, we do not need to worsen the balance even farther by adding filler fedex/fetch quests to the mix.

Eh, Mad Maxe's war camps may have had unique layouts, but you cleared them all in exactly the same way. Absolutely nothing new in them. And in Bethesda's defense YOU try making unique dungeons when you're using essentially the same engine for 13 years But I get your point.

However, I feel like having optional fetch quests isn't necessarily a bad thing. Obviously have some sort of indicator that it isn't a main plot quest in the interface (such as a color-coded quest log). Might help if the quest briefing itself was clear enough that the player can tell it's optional. I know that seems insignificant, but you'd be surprised how often briefing clarity is overlooked.

Quoting Volusianus, reply 15

Eh, Mad Maxe's war camps may have had unique layouts, but you cleared them all in exactly the same way. Absolutely nothing new in them. And in Bethesda's defense YOU try making unique dungeons when you're using essentially the same engine for 13 years But I get your point.

 

However, I feel like having optional fetch quests isn't necessarily a bad thing. Obviously have some sort of indicator that it isn't a main plot quest in the interface (such as a color-coded quest log). Might help if the quest briefing itself was clear enough that the player can tell it's optional. I know that seems insignificant, but you'd be surprised how often briefing clarity is overlooked.

Hah - sounds like Bethesda needs to ditch the Gamebryo engine. It has REALLY started to show its age. The people hover across the terrain, the humans especially look so hideous, and did anyone else notice? You make your character looking in that mirror in the beginning of IV and he/she looks great! Modern graphics, even... yet once you get into the actual game and your character appears in dialogue? Is it just me, or does it all of a sudden look like you stepped into a time warp back to 2010? Hideous. Harsh shadows. Stiff facial movements. Terrible lip-syncing. How NOT to do dialogue, Stardock.

Either way, even Fallout and Elder Scrolls didn't fall into the whole pointless fetch-quest stuff. But that's ONLY because of the presentation. Nobody in those games said, "Can you take this letter to so-and-so" - they FRAMED it within an interesting quest. I mean, REALLY, when you get down to it - ALL quests are fetch, fedex, or kill. So, Volusianus, you've touched on an incredibly important point! It's the presentation that turns a fetch-quest into a REAL quest.

I still would be entirely against non-story-based quests, though. This isn't the game for that. It's more for a game like Destiny. Go collect 10 Marks. And that just detracts from the experience of saving the galaxy. Because that's what you're doing in Star Control, people! Saving the galaxy!!!!

Agreed.  All the people and their limbs have this weird rag doll appearance in their movements, especially at the elbows.  Sometimes looks like Woody from Toy Story. Just terrible.

I would've like to see more facial realism like LA Noir in the conversations.  A game from 2011 btw. 

Also - Stardock does NOT need to worry about quantity of content so much that they put a bunch of filler fetch-quests! There's PLENTY of filler already built in, and that's a lot of the fun. The mechanics already include the good kind of filler! Planetary scouting, resource gathering, tons of combat - there's literally zero need for a "Bring me 10 tzo crystals" for whatever reason. You're already gathering tzo crystals for good reasons! 

On top of that, player made universes offer endless options and hundreds of hours as well. No need here! 

Not to say the campaign should last 10 hours. 80-100 hours should suffice. But 400 is not needed. 

Just don't put TOO much.

 - Shade A.I

Planetary scouting got old fast, though. There needs to be more incentive or a way to bypass it completely once you're far enough into the game.

80 hours is a long time for a game of this low complexity. 20-30 should cover it. If it drags on too long, people will lose interest and quit before completing it.

I didn't clear all of Mad Max, and I can see that star control could follow in the same footsteps. There are quite a bit of parallels (but differences too, granted).

You and I both have these complaints, but all Bethesda hears is the clink-clink of coins filling their coffers. Do what I did and put your money where your mouth is. Stop paying $40-$60 for the same rehashed engine FPS clone.

It's interesting how you rarely see fedex, fetch, kill quests in movies or in tv shows.

And in that sense you don't need fedex, fetch and kill quests in games.

For example in Adventure Books (Choose your own Adventure series of games).

Fetch, Fedex, and kill/protect are not even part of the game play. The game is about options.

Sure, the story can lead you to kill/protect someone or deliver a parcel.

However that is not what you play for. It is a detail of the game where you make choices that will influence your adventure, it is not your adventure - unless you are playing Lonewolf, revenge can be such a powerful bittersweet thing -.

But that is possible in writing because as we say in the trade "show don't tell". Example:

Tell: Arthur killed the evil lord.

Show: Arthur swung his sword with all his might as the evil lord staggered backwards to dodge the blade. However the blade was too fast for him and the nick of the blade raked across his neck and within its trail a valley of red erupted and blood gushed out like a flood. The evil lord gasped for breath and gurgled as blood sputtered from his mouth. He slowly dropped to his knees, arms limp by his side, strength fleeting away from his locked fist. The weight of his sword unlocks his fist one finger at a time and finally breaks free clattering on the cold stone with a cry of triumph. With blooding flowing from the gash on his throat and drenching his armor the evil lord slumps onto the ground and with one final breath is no more.

So how can you turn a quest from "tell" to "show"?

"Planetary scouting got old fast, though. There needs to be more incentive or a way to bypass it completely once you're far enough into the game.

80 hours is a long time for a game of this low complexity. 20-30 should cover it. If it drags on too long, people will lose interest and quit before completing it."

Hey! Speak for yourself, mister! I loved the planetary scouting. Agreed you didn't need resources much, unlike in the beginning, and it became obsolete. BUT, to this very day, coming across a new planet - and all the endless possibilities it might hold - is one of the most exhilarating and just-plain-fun aspects of any game I've ever played! I've beaten the game countless times, and never once wished it was skippable. I'd cry if there was a way to skip it! What kind of space explorer would you be if you ACTUALLY had the real-life chance to visit a million new planets and you just skipped em because, well, they probably don't have anything you need anyway! 

That's because movies and tv shows aren't necessarily made to be immersive, they're made to be exciting. I don't know about you, but when I play Star Control, I want to feel immersed. I feel like a lot of you are looking at fetch/fedex quests at face value, rather than what could be done to make them subtle. Quests don't need to be so 1-dimensional, and I think Stardock knows this. I think that quests are best when you mix several of these types together. HOWEVER you will NOTICE when they are gone, as they are an integral part of the structure of gaming as we know it. That means, yeah, you're delivering something. But you're not delivering it for the sake of delivering it ; you're delivering it for the sake of destroying x, ending y, or overthrowing z. Think of the entire arc, rather than what the quest you're looking at right this moment, and that's where depth comes from. Don't be shallow

I know you liked to explore. I do too. I want a reason to explore, though. Finding the same thing over and over (or finding nothing) is monotonous. Imagine searching for a needle in a haystack, finding it in the first minute, and spending the rest of the day searching through the hay and finding nothing. It's tedious. I want to have something motivating me. Otherwise, I'll go search a new open-world game.

I'll start the conversation of how long the game should be in a new thread.