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The Escapist - Quest for the Sidequest!

by Skavenhorde, 2009-11-07 15:18:01

Shamus Young is at it again and this time he is taking aim at moronic sidequests. He's fed up with having to kill a horde of bad guys in search of that ever elusive 'key'. Here is a taste from his first few paragraphs to get a feeling of what the rest of the article is about:

You've just arrived at the abandoned house where you think the diamond stash may be hidden. The windows are broken, the steps are falling apart, and the yard is a sea of knee-high grass. You walk up to the front door, but you can't open it because there's a strip of yellow police tape across the door with the words DO NOT CROSS written on it. Drat! How can you get in? Suddenly a wandering hobo gets your attention. He tells you that there's a crack den just down the street filled with bloodthirsty, heavily-armed gangsters. The hobo is pretty sure they have a pair of scissors in the basement that you could use to cut the police tape.

I submit that the person who goes into the crack den for the scissors is the second stupidest person in history. The stupidest person in history is the one who came up with this quest in the first place. I've played more than my share of quest / adventure / RPG games in my day, and I've seen this quest in one form or another about infinity times. It is well past the point where game designers need to quit doing this.

 

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