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Wild Life - Quest Design Manifesto #1
🕑 Added 2022-09-28 13:29:07 +0000 UTCHello dear patrons,
This time we have something special for you. One of our game designers has put together something like a manifesto about our game - and quest design processes and the philosophy behind it. This post is the first of a few that we will be sharing over the coming months, probably once per build cycle (roughly every 2 months). Now without further ado, here are his words:
“Hey everyone!
Nice to meet you all! I am Brudi from the Wild Life design team. You may have seen me around in the Discord. I have been on the project for quite some time now. Today I want to give you some insights on the current state of development in regard to the upcoming Patreon release and talk about our quest design.
Over the last months, the design department worked hard on the game’s setting, main story and side quests. As of now, we have defined a character’s job, relations, background and motivations for most of the ~130 NPCs planned for the game. Working this out, in combination with Kerpals history and its conflicting factions, was crucial to enable us to do the next step. Designing and implementing the meat on the bones of every open-world RPG: the side quests. And this is what’s happening right now! We are implementing the game logic and dialogues for ~50 designed side quests, with more to come. The implementation state is far from finished though. We aren’t aiming to reach polished release quality yet. Dialogues are text only, animations are missing, fights and items are placeholders. Our goal here is to test if things pan out the way we imagined them to, if the content is properly spread over the game world and if certain goals are technically achievable. In short: it is still very much work in progress and some things will look straight up broken. Nevertheless, you can already deduce a lot of the content, which could lead to heavy spoilers. Since we are a bit unsure whether most of you would like to have this early sneak peek or rather wait for a more finished version, there will be a poll in a follow up post. Should we publish most implemented WIP quests with the upcoming builds in the game world or wait until they reach a certain degree of polishing?
So much for the ‘What are you guys up to?’ part. But I don’t want to leave you without some juicy bits to look forward to, so let’s get into quest design. Wild Life is meant to be an open-world RPG, and from our understanding, meaningful decisions and the players’ freedom to play as they want are what make this genre so great! If you wonder how the quests will play, think of the Elder Scrolls, Kingdom Come: Deliverance or, since we are a Germany based studio, the Gothic series. The above mentioned setting also plays a big role, since it gives us the fodder to tell entertaining, yet in the game world believable stories. Here are two examples of recurring topics and how they are used in quests:
The clash of two cultures of completely different technological advancement.
Quest example - Max
An inventive boat builder observes the arrival of space shuttles and is fascinated by their rocket engines. His inspiration is to assimilate the technology and apply it to one of his boats, enabling him to leave the island and explore the whole archipelago. You are tasked with making contact with the tribals and studying their ways of living, so this would make a formidable opportunity to get in touch. But is it wise to supply a more than amateurish tribal boat builder with rocket fuel and electronics? You decide and have to live with the consequences.
The duties of a warrior tribe member
Quest example - Maya
It is the warrior tribe’s obligation to protect the other tribes from lizards and other threats. To do so, they established permanent mercenary outposts in other villages and demand supplies in return for their services. The line between protection money and treaty of protection blurs. The lake village is late with the last payment and Maya is sent to investigate. Lizards raided the lake village, stealing vital supplies, while the local warrior mercenaries were ‘busy having their spears polished’. Should you retrieve the stolen supplies or remind the local warriors of their duties and send them after the lizards? Will this solve the problem in the long run?
But there will also be quests of a totally different structure. Expect Dark Souls-esque quest lines with NPCs pursuing their own goals, changing their location in the world multiple times. But don’t worry, you won’t need a wiki to solve these ;). This type of quest will also be used for some prolonged romantic affairs! Generally speaking, we seek to make quests which either let the player notably change the game world, force them to decide on a moral or wealth dilemma, or tell engaging stories of any kind.
To wrap it up, this was just the first devlog of more to come. We are well aware that Wild Life is an adult game and there will be dedicated posts toward sex and romances, as well as combat and other topics (feel free to leave suggestions :) in the future.
That’s it from me. Thank you for taking the time and reading my very first dev diary! I would appreciate feedback in the comments and don’t forget to vote on the poll. See you around.
Brudi”
As a little extra we have some images of the quest/dialogue editor us devs use and the current ingame quest journal work in progress.
Comments
Chris
You should test some of the side quests with patrons. Otherwise, you won't know what works well for the market.
Rudolph
I would wait to release quests
Aaron
Yes! Please release some side quests. It'd be great to see how the game will pan out.
Sébastien Guyot
That's so true.
Understood brudi. And that sounds good. I can’t speak for everyone but as far as I’m concerned, i’m happy with any progress update as long as it is convenient to y’all and y’all‘s workload. If it starts at any point making things more complicated, stressful, slowing progress down, in my opinion it ain’t worth it and the update can wait.😉 Y’all keep up the good work, it’s exciting stuff
Leif
Square kilometres don't mean anything anyway. The world needs to be just big enough to provide believable vistas, and to avoid the feeling of the dungeon being in the quest-givers backyard.
<3
I love the suggestion, will definitely do that in the near future!
<3
Hey Sébastien, thank you so much! Fun fact: The world is actually smaller than what you are used to from most recent open-world RPGs. But on the other hand, the density of content will be much higher, thus making the world feel like it's way bigger than it actually is. By the way, if you liked the hunt quest from the demo you will LOVE what we have coming up for you! Cheers!
<3
'Maybe one day I will be casually playing and forgetting that it is an adult game xD. ' And we shall be damned if you don't, Phantomluck003!
Thank you, Leif! This is how we see Wild Life! We want to make an open-world RPG which convinces with it's sex, combat, exploration and questing equally. All of these four are the pillars of the game, designed to complement each other. Players not interested in the adult content should still be able to play through the whole game and be like 'that was a great experience!' in the end.
Hey RemnantRyku, thanks for the feedback! No matter what the poll is gonna say, we will definetely have our patreons test the quests and give feedback before the final release. Cheers!
<3
Hey Iñaki, thanks for your feedback! We completely agree with your points there. We want to finish Wild Life in a reasonable timeframe with an amount of content that makes us feel like the world is populated and every nook and corner offers something to explore. Because this is what makes open-world games so great in our opinion. And yeah, even the cheapest umbarian hooker will have a better dialogue than "Let's have sex" :D We got you covered, cheers!
Hey Dan, thanks for the kind words! It's most convenient for us to not publish anything WIP until it is done. This is true for everything released during development, and we happily do those extra pieces of work to keep you guys engaged and as excited about the project as we are. Your support is what enables us to do what we do after all! But be sure that we learned our lesson, meaning everything we are offering as WIP release was evaluated to not delay the project in a notable way or hinder our internal processess. Thanks for the feedback and see you around ;)
Sébastien Guyot
This game is really beyond my expections. The world's gonna be huge. I really liked the hunt quest with Jadeen and I would like to try some other quests but I don't want to be spoiled...Huge dilemna
Azirahael
Publish with spoiler warnings. That way those curious get what they want, and those that don't want spoilers can just not read.
Adamus
you are on fire! great progress and engagement of your community
Phantomluck003
awsome! Very excieted how the game will feel one day! Maybe one day I will be casually playing and forgetting that it is an adult game xD. Love your work!
Leif
Thumbs up for putting the RPG part first and planning actual romance. I am looking for a game that would also work and be fun without the adult content, instead of some paper-thin mechanics with lewd stuff shoehorned into every plot point and interaction.
Cyberpunk fanboy
Will we have sm like Witcher Contracts (TW3 Wild Hunt) or Fixer Contracts (from Cyberunk 2077)? It would be cool as hell!
RemnantRyku
I say hold on off on making story/side quests available to us until they're more polished or fully ready, this way players/testers can have a better experience with that quest. Unless early feedback is wanted then I don't have issues either if a WIP quest is added. I'm fully aware that having early access I may unintentionally spoil game content for myself by playing a game still in the works.
Chris Jacks
HYPE! HYYYYYYYYYYPE!!!!!! I'm with Tattorack, stuff like this is why I became an investor. Never have I seen a development team so engaged with their community.
MrPerezoso
I would prefer to wait for the game to be released before discovering the story. Also I think it would be advisable to fix a goal in terms of content and comply to it just because sometimes developers amplify their goals making the game a never ending project (like star citizen). The DLCs are a good way to develop what had to stay out of the main project. Also, I think it would be nice to have really immersive and believable dialogs in quests and romantic relationships, and not a simple straight forward go to have sex dialog. But I think you already are planning great quality content. So I am not worried at all! You are great guys. Keep the hard work, it will pay off!
Thx Brudi! Appreciate this dev diary update. I love yawls passion for this project and thoroughly enjoy all the updates, but when I see talk of the main story and side quest and NPC/Mc Roles, jobs, background etc and world all centered around the RPG framework… I get really excited!😁. Will look forward to the upcoming pole but honestly I just white whatever situation benefits y’all the most. Whichever option if either, is most convenient for y’all and the work being done. Don’t want to cause any hindrance or complexity in that regard from my end. Just keep up the good work and enjoy the updates as y’all put them out 😉💯
Copoc
You people are making amazing progress <3
HScorching
Awesome. I hope to see more character background info. I want to know more about their backgrounds.
Tattorack
See, this is the reason I support you guys!
