Posts from How to come up with quests.

Dear mapmakers, please share your experience and tell us how you come up with quests? What principle do you use when placing them on the map? Because sometimes it happens: I have an idea for a map, but I can't come up with interesting quests for it, and then I sit and think: "No, I'd better come up with a different idea for a map."

Well, I'll tell you. When I started working on the map "Ascension of the Adept," I only had the main tasks for the pre-planned storyline in mind. But there were no additional quests, and that's not good! After creating a blank map and adding a bit of terrain, I delved into the script with the intention of creating a test additional quest. I had many ideas, but I didn't know much about scripts at the time. In search of examples, I looked at the scripts of the original single-player mission about Agrael. There was a quest to capture gold mines. I decided to try and create something similar. That's how the quest "Dragon Steel" appeared, which involves capturing five blood forges on the map. I simplified the scripts but made them quite similar to the original. The quest turned out well and worked. This pleased me, and another additional quest was born: "Servants of Death," this time entirely my own, with my own script and storyline. The essence was to form an alliance with the Death Knights, which allowed you to recruit them. And then, when I improved my knowledge of scripts, I created part of the main storyline and played through missions by experienced mapmakers, I actively started creating quests, both scripted ones and those using the seer's hut. Find a source of inspiration, look at the works of masters, and quests will one day come to your mind, WizardNazyr.

I had an idea for a map, but I can't come up with interesting quests for it, and then you just sit and think: "No, I'd better come up with some other idea for a map."

Think through the plot as thoroughly as possible and implement it in the form of tasks. Quests should not be just for the sake of having them; they should be an integral part of the map. These are the tasks that your heroes face in the course of the conflict you have invented.
Who is a friend? Who is an enemy? What is the ultimate goal? What are the characteristics of the distribution of forces (territory, mobility, size and professionalism of the army, the possibility of recruitment or defection, strongholds, key points and important resources, including human resources)? Do the heroes have a plan to gain maximum advantage? Do the enemies have a plan that could interfere? Is this a local conflict or is there a possibility of intervention from outside? Perhaps not from certain people, but from certain circumstances – a plague, a fire, a flood, a meteor fall, five times more wheat than usual was harvested, but rats arrived, blacksmiths announced Oktoberfest and went on a binge...
If the plot does not turn out to be too elaborate and branching, consider making a multiplayer game based on it, rather than a single-player game. There will be no such requirements for the plot and quests; they can still be made interesting, but you won't have to come up with a large number of elements.

I find it easier to start with the map editor's capabilities. In most cases, the quest mechanics are conceived first, and then the story is developed around them. When I discovered that the size of static objects could be changed, I immediately came up with a quest where you had to find a couple of huge Christmas trees and figure out their secret. After finding a bunch of unused trees among the hidden objects in the editor, I created a quest where you had to search the map for unusual plants. Seeing that the illumination of objects could be turned on and off dynamically, I built a quest around turning off the lighting in one of the locations. The ability to create and delete static objects on the fly gave me ideas for a whole series of quests where you had to destroy or move something. Or, for example, a standard type of quest where you have to bring something. In the fifth game, this could be artifacts, resources, or creatures (as well as "virtual" objects that won't be visible in the interface, but their presence can be emulated with scripts). Learning a specific spell can also be considered a variation of the "find and bring" quest. For variety, it's best to use all possible options and their combinations, rather than focusing, for example, only on delivering artifacts.

What principle do you use to distribute them on the map?

As a rule, you can divide the map into a starting location, a middle area, and a high-level final territory. It's best when quests appear evenly throughout the game, rather than all at once. At the beginning, you can give a few small quests for leveling up, as well as a couple of long-term, multi-stage quests that will give the player a direction for development. Instead of aimlessly exploring the map in random directions, the player will rely on the information from these large quests to find out where it is best to advance. The final stretch is the time for serious combat quests, and you can also make the player race around the map for speed, as it is already all open.