This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Please Help Us Player Character: From YKTTW
Someguy: Uh, isn't this the exact same thing as Fetch Quest? Or did I miss something?
BritBllt: I'm kinda wondering that too. Anyway, removing the natter...
- And then subverted when almost everything ends up furthering your goals in a direct way. For example, that mining venture? You get a diamond out of that, which is used to free a band from their contract, who then defeats a boss that seemed to constantly regenerate health, which allows you to retrieve a kidnapped party member. And you need to go through another seemingly unrelated sequence of events just to get to where she is in the first place. And another one to make the captor docile enough to allow her to leave without incident. (Well, besides the robot sentries The Dragon had ready.)
- But it's played straight in that there are still numerous side-quests, such as returning a person's 'insignificant item' to get a one-off battle item.
I really don't think that's a subversion. You could take almost console rpg and trace a straight "for want of a nail" line between all the different sidequests; that's just how the gameplay works.
