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[Heker_88]

Iv allways loved the traditional "heroes quest" story lines of good fantasie books , and it looks to me like df should soon be able to give them to us. My idea would be that at the end of world gen, or befor you start adventure mode, the game could randomly generate a large quest ark for you to play through e.g. it could designate an end boss (forgotten beast or demon etc) then maybe and item you need to defeat it a series of people you need to meet ,train with,help etc. It could allso randomly generate things about you, I would love for it actually to be a surprise I can do magic like in all those books iv read. The one thing you would have to newly implement as I can see it, is a guide you follow, like Gandalf in lotr or Morain in wheel of time series. These people or person would be telling you what to do and its your choice to follow or not. I just really like the idea of being part of a truely epic story where I don't instantly know what's gunna happen like in most video games. What does every one els think.

[DG]

I think it would be cool. I posted something similar a while back.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is not to rain on or kill your thread in any way. Just ideas already discussed. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111667.msg3380562#msg3380562

[Loud Whispers]

The one thing you would have to newly implement as I can see it, is a guide you follow, like Gandalf in lotr or Morain in wheel of time series.

Urist McGandalf leads you into the caverns.

Neither are seen again.

How would this be implemented in a sane way that wouldn't eat your computer? What would be the result of said person dying? Seems easier to have them follow you.

[AfellowDwarf]

Perhaps a simpler version of this would be having an option to pick some kind of goal at the start. Like retrieving some manner of artifact or killing a megabeast or named character. You could have a quest option at npc's, so they'd sometimes point you target's whereabouts.

[Heker_88]

I was thinking less about a prophesy style thing where the result could or could not happen as that would be a logistical nightmare. I was thinking it would play out more like: you meet said Urist McGandalf after a goblin invade your town. He sees your alive and tells you you'll need to get to his wizard tower and hell meet you there. There he gives you some simple kit and sends you to person of intrest 2 who joins you and teaches you a bit of sword play. You both go on the Instruction of Urist McGandalf to go see a king but hes far to buisy to help. King sends you to magic weapon (gain extra follower here) etc. Urist McGandalf sends you to kill big baddi everyone is going on about etc etc. The game could use already created people and areas and mosters of intrest and just create some randomly generated text about what you need to do. Add in halfway through Uris McGandalf finds you can use magic and stuff would be really cool. Plus it would work nicely with the one life one chance of DF (a bit like FTL). As for what these arcs would be they could all be based around the "Heroes journey" http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/ref/summary.html 

[Heker_88]

And one more thing personally I think if you just picked :I want to go get that cool sword: at the beginning it would have no sense of mystery or unknown. I guess it could make for some good story ideas l'm thinking hunt for the Holy grail esc here but id like to see a little more exposition. 

[AfellowDwarf]

I was thinking less about a prophesy style thing where the result could or could not happen as that would be a logistical nightmare. As for what these arcs would be they could all be based around the "Heroes journey" http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/ref/summary.html

The amount of evets you describe sounds like a logistic nightmare as well. It'd be rather scripted, in contradiction to DF's free and sandboxy nature. The way you make the story sound also inclines that your story would always be similair, with changing targets and locations. Heck, do you know how quickly civilisations will perish if every adventurer gets a foreboding destruction/takeover of his hometown? Remember, adventurers have the tendency to die every few years.

And one more thing personally I think if you just picked :I want to go get that cool sword: at the beginning it would have no sense of mystery or unknown.

It doesn't need to be a cool sword. You can pick the cat-bone amulet from one of your earier forts and see where it went, what its users did. But yes, you could chose something easy and unoriginal, or nothing at all. But think about your cool sword. If it's that tough, your next adventurer will want it too. And the ones that follow him. Your cool sword will have a whole history of brave heroes and vile bandits to its name in no time.

[Heker_88]

Am I missing something here does df world gen create adventurers constantly throughout its time? If it does i wouldn't assume all of them would be given a quest ark. That, as you say, could be computer destroying but to write one for player controlled adventures would be enough. But to them all being samie, I dont know if they would be, not if you have a wide enough pool of events, people, places and magical abilities to pull from (and df has a very wide pool). As to scripted thats just volume of writing, I sometime feel my adventures seem a bit scripted when every kill this vampire for me "quest" follows a similar pattern. 

[AfellowDwarf]

Am I missing something here does df world gen create adventurers constantly throughout its time? If it does i wouldn't assume all of them would be given a quest ark. That, as you say, could be computer destroying but to write one for player controlled adventures would be enough.

Adventurers die. A lot. If a village gets burned down for each player controlled adventurer, there will be enough ash in the sky to put the world into a new ice age.

[Putnam]

Planned. Seriously, that's half of my thoughts when watching The Hobbit. "Planned". This is planned to come up procedurally, not quite as canned as this would suggest. There would be no great big final boss, at least the game wouldn't make there be one; there would be, say, the leader of a goblin army (who is, quite likely, a demon).

[Heker_88]

Exactly, I was thinking things like demons and megabeasts would be the enpoint of a quest ark. And I know adventures die allot but think if it worked like this. The game bases the first quest conversation you have based on the area your hero is starting,(eg the place just got burned down and your the only surviving dude) but that would have already been generated by the game, it could easily be a really dull place and the first bit of quest is just telling the guide how board you are of this boring town where nothing happens. The events the quest would "generate" would be based on what's already happening in the game. By the look of what Toadys allready adding I don't think that's to much of a crazy idea. As to when a adventurer dies I was thinking the rest of the quest you didn't get to could stay the same and it could just rewrite the beginning.

[Escapism]

What would be the result of said person dying? Seems easier to have them follow you.

This is what's so great with DF having perma-death as well as the intention of the player "playing the world" instead of just a character - as everything is procedurally generated, it doesn't matter if a vital quest person dies. Ideally, the game would then just generate a new quest person (with the requirements being something along the lines of "knows x about y magic", "is of creature type z", "is at least of rank v in faction w"), or it would instead trigger some kind of consequence which is actually noticed in the world. Failed to interrupt the summoning of a demonic entity in the underground catacombs of the capital city? Instead of showing a cutscene followed by a "game over" message and a reload to a previous save, you instead experience the destruction and mayhem firsthand. Maybe you can stop it afterwards by defeating said demon, maybe you try and fail miserably, or maybe you just say "screw it" and flee as fast as you can, leaving the area to be corrupted into an infernal wasteland. When these kind of things start to happen, and when they also happen during worldgen, then the world will start to get really interesting to explore.

[Heker_88]

Yeaahhh that would be really cool, maybe give them ridiculously high dodge skill just in-case. But the thing with the guides like Gandalf, is there never really around when anything big actually happens, there always far enough away to let the adventurer deal with the problem even if they could deal with it far easier. And when (gandalf inperticular) does help its only in the situations that the hero can't deal with and would probably die, but you know in df the hero would just die. cos that would e fun.

[Putnam]

How about just let the game generate these without forcing it to? The plan is for the game to make epic stories that Toady doesn't expect at all.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The biggest problem with this kind of idea is Dwarf Fortress's openness. Have you ever GM'd a game and the players solved the problems "too fast"? Imagine that, but with a creativity-deprived GM. It would go down in flames too easily, or be extraordinarily complicated. (Quests aren't epic if you decide the warlord is enough of a threat to burn down the entire town they're in, or if you build a wall across the door to his fortress and wait for starvation. And I would be amazed if a computer program was flexible enough to deal with anything any Bay12er could throw at it.)