So about Ciri maybe a side quest could that you are one of the people who meet Ciri by giving her money and place to stay also maybe she will give so gifts from her world also maybe if you play it right you could get Christmas in your bed after the whole mission either Christmas stay for a while in your game and story and help you in other mission or she leaves the next day depending on your choices.
Or
Another it could is that all the city werid stuff has been happening so you investigate then you find these monsters that are not from this world you kill them and then you find this book about witchers or something tying to the Ciri and Geralt.
In the end of either side quest you should get something like clothing to make you look like a witcher or a new skill that only witcher have or a new skill quest or new place to explore just something that show this side quest is very important and money just won't do you should get something special.
I was at the work this afternoon and these two side quests occurred to me.
(My persistent lack of knowledge about cyberpunk 2020 universe is a shame, so I'm not sure if these side quests are possible in that setting.)
ANYWAY:
Side quest 1:
You're "Alone with the Machine" (that could be the title of the side quest).
You're in a complex, locked with a really old AI, which already experienced the world in other forms but now is imprisoned in that place (for various reasons). It's been imprisoned there for years and years. It is really dangerous outside in the world.
The thing is: this AI, right now, wants to experiment mortality, death. It wants to die as a human being.
Like it sometimes happens to an ancient vampire, this AI got bored, tired and doesn't want immortality anymore.
I don't know... a faulty AI could want a human death.. (or it's a romantic AI who was in love with a woman/man once and said person died so it wants the same. but maybe this is too silly).
Anyway. It wants you to transfer its consciousness into a human being so it can die. Because only in this way it thinks it will really experience what it means to be organic... You will have to help the AI for some reason. The AI can't do it alone but it can, for example, kill someone you like/love (and is also imprisoned in that complex). So you will have to hunt a human being for the AI to die a human death.
I imagine many endings for this side quest, many interesting dialogues with the AI, many considerations about life, death, immortality, mortality, quotes from Poe, Shakespeare, etc etc. Should you do it or not? Should you hunt someone? Even a horrible murder, scumbag deserves to die because of the boredom of an AI? And who would you choose to hunt? If you choose not to hunt anyone, your character would lose something/someone really important.
Side quest 2:
You have to help a 7 years old child but you discover this kid is actually a copy of you (lost in time for some reason).
Well, he/she looked familiar since the beginning.
Someone in the future, for some reason a nobody like you still don't know, cloned you. Long story short, you discover your clone will be used for something nasty - really nasty - if you don't kill him/her. Or hide him/her really well somewhere, far away from the corporation who cloned you. But the possibility of your clone do something outrageously bad for a lot of people will haunt you.. something like this.
I think those are relatively good arguments. They could be good short stories / side quests.
Edit: she's actually lost in time (past) for a reason. but my limited English..
besides, yeah. better stop right now.
A quest I wanted in FO4 was that you would borrow milk from your neighbour, which became a ghould after the nuclear war. The idea being that at the very near end of the game, your neighbour would come at you - having carried a grudge for the milk not being returned for 200 years - with him attacking you decked out in top-end gear.
I never got that quest. Maybe Cyberpunk 2077 can deliver! Have your character borrow something your character needs from a neighbour. If you return it, nothing happens. However... if you DON'T return it, then near the end of the main quest your neighbour has become a psycho, bearing a grudge against you for not returning what you borrowed and siding with whatever enemy you are facing.
I've just always loved the general concept of a mundane and trivial quest at the start of the game having a huge impact near the end of the game for some petty reason if you don't do the right thing.
Not kidding, at some point we actually had a quest pitch about a sentient soda machine called Brendan. It was very emotional and I loved it. Seems like this is an universal idea.
Honnestly, a soda machine, with it's IA getting glitched up (who know, a punk tried to hack it? or some soda leaked and made a short circuit?), trying to send you do, at first random stuff, but all linked to a bigger scheme would be a pretty funny idea, and a nice nod to Wintermute/Johnny 5
Dunno if you played that game "Seaman" on Dreamcast, it was some kind of almost sentient IA with which you could interact, something like that would be nice to see, like having some kind of deep "intelectual" connexion with something as random as your fridge or something, not knowing if it's sentient or just a pretty elaborated bot could be a nice cyberpunkish touch, with the "punk" touch of the machine being something random as a toaster.
I'd also love to see some actual classics CP2020 missions as side quests (arasaka brainworm, eurotour when you were a roadie for a hardcore band, etc...) but fitted into night city maybe, or the sentient machine could be a very well hidden easter egg where a bunch of crazies worships a sentient fridge/toaster/soda machine, being a taxi in Night City could be pretty funny aswell.
Also, if you've watched the movie "Screamers":
The machines uses seemingly inofensive human apparence to manipulate people, I'd see something the same way with IA, like, you'd be wandering the Cyberspace, hear a lil kid crying, you'd help it, only to discover that it was an AI using you to launch an attack somewhere, killing tons of people (and sure, you'd be the one getting in trouble for it).
Lots of funny stuff and counter-intuitive consequences to play with in that setting
A quest about an urban 'werewolf' (bear with me), that doesn't necessarily have to be a wolf (canis lupus) - some other animal will do, like a street dog or even a big cat - that haunts Night City at night and kills random strangers. First, you find out about this thing in the papers around the city, or via telescreens, radio, tv reports, etc. Then, you start seeing that thing on the streets, at random occasions, lurking around nearby. You shouldn't be able to clearly see it, or take a detailed look at it. Only by glimpses here and there; you hear its calls, feel its presense. When you do see it, the first thing you notice is that it has glowing eyes (red, yellow, whatever), like it's some kind of a demonic entity [not glowing in a natural way, like animal eyes do sometimes in the dark]. You can add other visual effects to make it look scarier and more mysterious (to a degree, of course).
Now, about that 'werewolf' part. When NCPD finds dead bodies left by that thing it's always the same deal: a person gets torn/bitten to death by an animal, but also robbed of anything valuable, including jewelry and cyberware. Forensics always show signs of human intervention - bruises left by human hands (no prints left though), common knives (for cyberware extraction) and so on. Also, human footprints left at every crime scene - two legs, same person. (You can tell all that info via in-game tv repots or smth, no need to spend too much time on showing all that if you don't want to). Hence the 'werewolf' nickname given to that thing in the media.
To keep it realistic, make it kill people in areas where there's no hidden street cameras around, so that nobody would know what the hell is going on. It's all a huge mystery - to the police as well as the public. Rumors go around the city, as they usually do in such cases, and they are always exaggerated.
So, at first you introduce that tale to the players as some kind of 'another fucked up thing in this weird city', feeding them various media/police reports and overhyped urban rumors. Not shoving it, just showing that it's there, that it's part of this CP world. Then, further into the game, you start showing that thing by little glimpses, lurking around. And finally, you introduce a separate sidequest to find out what is really going on. It might be an NPC asking for help to hunt this thing down, or NCPD, or smth entirely different.
As you can guess, in reality there's no magic transformations or demonic beings. This is not the Witcher world and there's no need to turn it into one. It's all a trick, a Scooby-doo shtick if you will, that took place all that time. The creature in question is real, however it is heavily augmented with cyberware and can be manually controlled from a distance, like a remote control toy car. The most important part is its cyber eyes (that glow at night) that work as a remote camera. A host (maybe wearing some kind of a headset) can see what the creature sees while lurking around the city. And that host - hiding somewhere nearby - can 'make' it kill random people. Then, when the job is done, the host comes out of the shadows and robs the body of jewelry and cyberware. Sloppy job, but they leave no fingers.
There's a bunch of potentially cool moments that can be used here. For example, the creature (being a semi-robotic dummy operated by a person with a mic) could say actual phrases like 'don't follow me' or smth like that, via an installed voice modulator.
As I mentioned above, this is not the only possible conclusion to this quest, and quite honestly, if you will make smth like that in the game, I'd love to see a different, more creative and cool outcome.
Cause, you know... damn self-made spoilers...
Or you could make the creature spread some kind of digital virus and kill augmented people that way, using bite marks as cover-up
hell yes, kinda like the jetpack in GTA V but not so insanely cryptic.. and actually being a thing in the game. could become like a community effort too, gives the game a whole other layer that can really draw people in, especially when its done in an odd mysterious kind of way.
I know the idea of creating stuff that requires huge amounts of effort from the player to ever see seems like a waste, but in the long run the amount of buzz it can create is really cool and can have a lasting effect. + it gives the world that extra feeling of mystique that real life kind of has as well, that feeling of maybe there still are things out there to find but we haven't discovered them yet.
Never saw that GTA quest but from the looks of it - yep, you pretty much nailed it. A player shouldn't be a one-man CIA team with a personal Batcave to crack the case; like some game puzzles expect you (roughly) to know Morse code, gamut, ancient Greek and quantum algebra. Sometimes all at once. IMO, it should be more like an attention game where you need to be observant and attentive to details to move further.
Wouldn't it be cool if the cars you own are stylable? Where you'd have to perform a sidequest for a mechanic which enables you to use his/hers workshop. In the workshop you would be able to do visual changes to your car for example: Changing the color, rims, add a spoiler etc. And even do performance upgrades, stronger engine, better torque, armor plating and various options to make changes for the handling of the car. How's about not just making one upgrade option for a stronger car, step by step. Instead the player could choose from different kits of upgrades that affect the driving experience, like better handling or more effective brakes, armor enhancement but a slower acceleration. In a City full of dangers, it would be appealing if the player is able choosing to avoid and evade certain chasers by pushing the pedal to the metal and floor it to tranquility.
One idea I have which could be cool to see is a series of side quests that go into the class roles of CP2020. Since you are more of a blank slate character, they could instead let you get jobs that fall under a cop, nomad, rockerboy, corp etc class system. With each having 5-10 different side quests as a mini-campaign if I were to lowball it. The limit being once you get a job you have to stick with it for that playthrough or make switching jobs very difficult.
One idea I have which could be cool to see is a series of side quests that go into the class roles of CP2020. Since you are more of a blank slate character, they could instead let you get jobs that fall under a cop, nomad, rockerboy, corp etc class system. With each having 5-10 different side quests as a mini-campaign if I were to lowball it. The limit being once you get a job you have to stick with it for that playthrough or make switching jobs very difficult.
Really like that idea! That would for sure increase the replayability for different playthroughs, although i'm sure that CDPR have great plans in store for replays.
