There's a game I'm thinking of, but I can't seem to remember what game it is. Here is what I remember about it:
* The game is some form of RPG.
* One of the early quests involves going into a basement and killing the rats infesting it.

Anybody know what game I am thinking of?

Ambermoon or Amberstar maybe?

The Bards Tale?

https://www.gog.com/game/the_bards_tale

Well, your informations on the game are rather vague, many RPGs have early quests where you have to kill rats.

It's a quest in the prologue of Baldur's Gate 1. Reevor's Storehouse.

CandyBox :p

Fairly sure a Dungeon Siege started like that

There's a very early quest in Morrowind that involves going into a basement and killing rats.

Can you give us some more information? Was it 2D/3D? Approximately what year did you play it? Are there any other details you can remember?

90 % of RPGs...

I guess this is some kind of troll thread ?

The tension rises: Who will be the first one, that comes up with the right answer in this merry guess-a-game thread?
Stay tuned...

Quite clearly troll thread, since this describes so many, but yep, my first thought was also The Bard's Tale (2004). Fun game, that one :)

The kill the rats in the cellar quest became some kind of meme or internal joke in a lot of CRPG's indeed. Or the spiders/venom being the most dangerous enemies in the first low level moments of a RPG game.

EDIT: The joke is clear in Bard's tale 2004. The rat is a pretty dangerous beast :)

This goal of this thread is more than just identifying a game - it's really about the lessons we learned and friends we made along the way.

+1

TV Tropes has an article dedicated to the mandatory adventurer graduation test

I'm sure dtgreene can recite every occurrence in an RPG from memory, so the link won't be of much help.

A ton of games have that as one of the first quests. But the ones I can think of right now are:

Icewind Dale -one of the first quests you could get was killing the rats in bar's cellar.
Baldur's Gate - Reevors storehouse killing the rats in the prologue
Bard's Tale- Well that rat mission was certainly unforgettable...
ES:Oblivion- An early fighter's guild quest said it was about killing rats in the basement but was actually something else.