Quest Trees Visually #gamedev

I was chatting with my Daughter several days ago about adding more quests into the game. Not just adding new quests, but also linking on a few quests that we have already designed and placing them into the Quest tree,

It is ok Having 100 Quests, but they also have to be unlocked in a good way. A good way can mean several different things.

 Such as logical progression... A quest to fetch something moves onto a new quest to deliver that item. Then to round it off it could finish up with you taking the delivery money back to the initial quest giver. A nice little island of a quest sequence.

There is also Association quests... these can be just about anything. For example you get a quest that has a Hammer in it and you have to get some nails, but also you get a quest that has you dancing to some Hammer time music. They are not naturally related, but by Worldly association (general knowledge) they can be partners.

Another aspect to Quest trees is actually HAVING a tree. So here we are with a Sharp Axe, but I knew I wanted to have a Blunt Axe and then get it sharpened and onwards to do several more Axe quests. I couldn't quite figure out where to put this in the tree to make it seem like the world is opening up, as that IS an issue with a quest line. It comes to an end eventually.

Along that way you want to expand the number of quests available to a player so they feel like the world is opening up to them, a wonderful feeling in my humble opinion.

This image above shows my Quest tree in it's new and current form. It was not always so spread. In fact it was downright bad. While I was busy trying to add new quests and not knowing where to add them to the tree. I figured I would put them into an excel file so I could get a more visual overview of them. WOW, did it shock me. I was so linear with them. Only a few quests ever opened up more and then they simply ran till they ended or went daily. After having this it was much, much easier to place a few new quests more meaningfully into the tree, including the Axe quests.

Creating the visual tree was essential in my mind to allowing me to get a true overview of what the player can experience at any point in the game. It tells me what will be available when etc.

There are probably other ways to do this, but excel was very easily available to me.

Good luck in creating meaningful quest trees.
Da Voodoochief