Quests - what do you want to see

[*teker*]

We're going to be doing work on the quest system - what would you like to see. Examples from other games are probably useful.

One of the areas I want to focus on is providing information about unfinished quests or quests in progress. Most modern games let you view status and flash messages on the screen when you complete a step or an entire quest.

I know there's been discussion about quests offered for a set amount of time. We're looking at implementing something for this also. Let us know what you think.

[Vegetable]

It will be interesting to have some way to track ongoing quest. i.e. type questlist to show quest undertaken or where are you in a chain quest. Being able to abandon and retake failed quest is nice as well. Also, how about a weekly/daily random quest for everyone in exchange for drachma & honor? This provide a chance for player who dont have much time for group (busy/timezone difference/etc) or prefer to farm for drachma gear on their own.

- Vege

[Ker]

Good day Teker,

Are we looking at content for quests or technical support for players?

Regards,
Dr

[cyprimus]

Well, i have seen a number of different systems for it..

Personally i see the problem with closed systems... newbie /latecomers suffer.. but thats just me.. i also dislike gaming the pit, so i miss about 1/4th the in game dracma because i refused to powergame. But thats me.. others enjoy it.. so let it be..

Not sure like dr said, are you wanting new system for drac, or honor.. or are you wanting individual quest ideas?

I suggest making it open ended, since the current system is closed... but not really closed.. cause ppl used to get drac from epics, flawed gems, making additions to the game, participating in live quests.. etc.. new players likely cannot do most of this, leaving them at a noticeable disadvantage from the start.

I have seen games with multiple currency systems before, the exchange rate either set or variable... ie-trade coins for drac, or honor for coins etc.. some exchanges are one way.. others are reversible, but you loose a percent in the exchange. Each form of currency has something its best for... ie-honor is good for cosmetic changes..restrings etc.. drac good for major gear.. and usually one form is exceptionally rare.. like drac here..
Others i have seen allowed completely automated eq additions, limited in power only by your patience in collecting the points for it.. but, sloth is a low power mud, so that could easily get abused.. Anyways, usually the super rare currency is only payable for imm run live quests.


So far i can see coins, drac, exp, and honor.. maybe add autoquester style quests based on level? for quest points? Not sure autoquester fits sloth though.. but would limit ppl by time.. ie-one quest per hour.. or day or whatever..

anyways, lots of possibilities... trying to list some of the more likely ones..

Sacraficial offerings.. essentially a repeatable drac forge... taking lots of coins ... think devilskin like ..redeemable repeatedly for drac.. you sacrafice it to you god to receive rewards ...similair to jb's unconditional love of a clown token..

also, i have seen it go in the other direction... removing all but coins from the game for example.. you buy rank via becomeing a leader of a house/clan, increase it by recruiting more ppl.

Also, never seen a long term scatter here... where an imm scatters items and ppl need to collect sets to turn in, ongoing for weeks or months.. ppl can trade them etc.. First one i remember was a simple 4 item one.. collect a set ...bra panties stockings garter belt... redeem it for points.. stuff was scattered each reboot.. and a constant level was maintained.. -ie right now there are 20 in game.. someone pick up one, and one loads somewhere else.. Seen this done with quest point tokens, as well as sets.. We used to have flawed gems..random pop that could be turned in for drac... maybe would work better that way..


Ok, this is getting so long ppl will roam off before finishing it..

will add more later once i have slept better..

[cyprimus]

OH, also, the website gives a list of quests you have done.. long quests are divided into smaller ones, so you can in effect see your progress on quest chains.

Not sure if you wanting to open up dracma eq to more ppl, or redo it entirely.. I notice there are tiers of drac gear ... ie lowbie and high gear.. but giving finate closed system, no one will likely get the low stuff, because it would leave you short for getting elite high items.

bleh... anyways, must sleep.

[Yasik]

Thanks for asking! Here is what I'd change if I had means to:

1. Color the quest_keyword so it stands out in quester's task text so we know exactly what to 'undertake' in next step.

2. Change all questers' tell to 1-Tell instead of multiple tells per line of text. Example:

BAD:
Ian the Bard tells you "I stood under her bedroom window, throwing up a brick"
Ian the Bard tells you "No one came, I threw one more, that really did the trick"
Ian the Bard tells you "Her daddy came and banged my head, he said what kind of man"
Ian the bard tells you "Is this that's hanging 'round my girl and threw me in the car"

GOOD:
Ian the Bard tells you "I stood under her bedroom window, throwing up a brick,
No one came, I threw one more, that really did the trick. Her daddy came and
banged my head, he said what kind of man is this that's hanging 'round my girl
and threw me in the car".

ask ian about girl

Ian the Bard tells you "I need someone to help me to get laid with farmers_daugher, but I'm too afraid of her father. If you could lower his awareness somehow, make him sleepy... Maybe a fine booze will do, huh?".

undertake farmers_daughter

Ian the Bard tells you "I heard dwarven booze is quite strong. Especially one that is brewed for their kings. Would be nice if we can get some of that.".

(after this point the player clearly knows that he need to seek dwarven king, probably kill him and pop an item from them like 'barrel of dwarven booze' or something, or we can make dwarf king task the player with brew quest to go and collect resources from other mobs, etc, doesnt really matter).

3. 'questlist' command would be nice, something like this:

questlist
You doing the following quests right now:
farmers_dauther
judges_daughter
richmans_daughter

4. Daily quests with drachma reward imho is bad idea, it will provide unlimited drachma and water it down, lowering the prestige of drachma eq, in the end everybody will wear all drachma stuff, which is bad because we need to keep players aiming to achieve what they desire, but not letting them achieve it too easily, or they will get bored. Monthly quests is ok, I think, but not big rewards, maybe 10-20 dr is ok. Then it will take ~1 year of questing only "monthly" to buy -1.4 helm, seems acceptable. Want it faster - take part-time jobs and finish regular quests. Must NOT make the game too easy, or they will finish it, declare they won and leave.

Thats it for now, will add more if any thought comes to my mind.

[*teker*]

Are we looking at content for quests or technical support for players?

I'm looking for a couple different things.
1) Where does the current system fall short. I think it falls short in that I can't look at a list of quests that I have discovered that are pending completion and that I don't get notifications when I've done something to move closer to completing a quest. As a result, I don't attempt to complete many quests because I can't keep track of them.

2) What do other modern games do for quests that make them better than a MUD? I'm not just talking about MMO - single player RPGs have their systems and I'd like to know what people like. It doesn't really matter the genre, could be anything from Elder Scrolls to GTA to Red Dead Redemption. What makes systems in modern games fun to play?


Basically I want us to build a good system that provides the framework for our builders to add interesting and fun content so that people are excited to play the game. That last part is the most important - how do make it fun and exciting.

[Yasik]

hmmm

journal current
journal finished

[*Splork*]

@yasik

Great post of ideas, I actually liked 90% of it!

Nice job!

[*Idjit*]

We had the token of recollection which
a) cost drachma to buy it to even see what quests you'd done, which people didn't like
(it is now basically a pitfall to avoid like personalized octagonal tokens, a reason for higher level people to go around to newbies and say "for the love of g-- don't buy that thing. ever"
b) went inactive after only 1 or 2 uses, which people didn't like
c) is now redundant because the website will list your quests.

We might either take it out of the game entirely, or make it unlimited charges and make it no rarer than, say, the wheel of opportunity is. Keeping it around in-game has the benefit that you don't need to log in a different alt char each time on the website to view your alt's quests progress, and can leave your website login on your main character. You'd just use the website for your main, and the recollection object for your alts. Or some combination thereof.

Just thought I'd mention that item so that at least it gets taken out of the game before someone spends drach on it.

What I do see Teker talking about is reports of partially-done quests, which would be new functionality.
What we could-do is not only record the partially done quest but also which quester mob you last-visited in the quest chain, and the verbiage they spewed out.

replay quest mine_canary
result "You last spoke to the Jeweler about this quest, and she said the following: ..."

Because people not only want to remember which ones they're partway through, but which step they're on.
now: this requires flagging not only the main quest mob but also maybe a new kvp "quest_supporter" on the subsequent mobs after the quester, which would store I suppose
a) the quest_name of the quest they're supporting
b) the step number in the quest (1st 2nd 3rd)
c) a visited_by list of all the players that have made it to step X in the quest.
quester mob is always step zero? just thinking out loud.

This would all come together in a system where you query your quest and you get
"You last spoke to the Jeweler about this quest who is the 1st creature in the quest, and she said the following..."

I mean if Teker really wants to do this, this might be the direction we're heading in.
This gets tricky if you have multiple quests where each waypoint in the quest "arc" is a full quester mob.
look at how lengthy flux of dreams that die is...or interwoven circle..
Teker may need to review the various quest types and go through how they've been implemented.

I'll stop here otherwise i'll keep rambling.

[Ker]

Good day Slothers,

I will digest as much as possible and give some feedback to what I think

Teker wrote:

"I can't look at a list of quests that I have discovered that are pending completion and that I don't get notifications when I've done something to move closer to completing a quest."

There is a token of recollection @ the Dream Weaver which somewhat helps a player list most if not all quests done like how Idjid mentioned. Though I would say it really is in bad design and players have no choice but to spend additional drachma to earn this "privilege". Recently we saw addition of "Quests" link on Sloth website but I found it to be slightly inaccurate.

"As a result, I don't attempt to complete many quests because I can't keep track of them."

You see, way back before drachma was introduced, the only original way to seek out a quest piece was to actually participate in a quest group ran by an Imm/Admin. The prospect of earning any sort of quest piece kept players on their toes, even normal high forge gear gifted after a Quest kept players going. Moving forward a couple of years, we saw an imbalance of power between the classes because the more active players who put in more time obviously were quest geared head to toe. Moving forward a couple of years again, drachma was introduded through Quests via NPC's so all classes could benefit equally one way or another.

Having said all the above, should any player from any class type seek out these NPC's to undertake quests to gain drachma, imho shouldn't the player keep track of their own progress? I don't need to say how to do this but I know many who do including myself.

Unless of course I understand that Slothmud is moving towards a direction in removing this shroud of secrecy around general questing or what Cyprimus calls "closed system", then I would lean on to NPC's having way more interaction with players, under the basis of making it more "newbie friendly" or a simple command for players to use to see what Quests are flagged. Until further progress of what can happen, I will suggest more on it like how Yasik has done though Idjit has pointed out some very interesting features for the game.

Regards,
Dr

[Teron]

I've played WoW a bit and have to say it has one of the best quest systems I've seen.

I'll mention both what they have ingame and what comes with addons, but this distinction doesn't matter here.

Like people said, we need a list of quests. The trick is what kind of the list we need and how to do it.

Here's what I suggest for the main list:
- a list of visible quests per continent, per area: quests show bh, quests show matterhorn
- show, which quests are done, which are not
- show, whether the quest starts the quest line (like a & flag near it) and how many quests are in the chain and, possibly, total drachma in the chain/quest
- show quest difficulty (a x40 range)

As you request more info on quest (quests show leah or quest #), you see:
- a story behind the quest
- if it's a chain, where it starts
- all the quests in the chain and which of those you've done, if applicable
- where you are in the chain, if applicable
- who to talk to at this point: the quest mob
- maybe, also the full hint info
- quest restrictions
- the imm, who created it

For the UI, check the addon screenshots here:
http://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/loremasteraddon

It gives you all the data at once, but we can replace UI mini-windows with commands: showing all quests at once would be too much.

For another quest list, check Aardwolf MUD and the goals there. Essentially, they are autoquests that give you a key or a quick-access point to an area.

Basically, you type "goals" and get a full list of goals, with level requirement, difficulty rating, and a done or not mark.


Then, by typing help goalname, you get details on the goal itself:

The story behind the goal.
Level range : 201
Goal Difficulty : Extremely difficult (Mini-epic)
Goal recommended at : 201 Maxxed
Goal Converter : Redryn / Koala
Area Author : Redryn / Koala

In addition to what Dr wrote, drachma did help us reduce quest drama and the time imms had to spend on this, dramatically. That being said, I'd like more items in the shop, e.g. more weap dam items or adequately priced +dam/+stab dam items.

Here's another idea:
- imms create a drachma item crafting shop
- list options at fixed pricing
- use coefficient multipliers (ie, lower ac cost for body/legs)
- allow players mix and match certan number of bonuses, depending on 40s, under cirtain limits
- item names will depend on stats, like they are in Diablo, WoW, Path of Exile, etc, or can be named for a fixed price

The shop will allow us to use more items, customize our eq sets and hopefully let us buy fairly priced items.

[*juggleblood*]

If we had crafted drachma eq, wouldn't that have big knock-on effects?

I am concerned that it would make it difficult to balance / add new equipment in the future. It could make all kinds of items obsolete and it could increase player expectations about how much drachma is available / how much drachma each quest should be worth.

I worry it would be an uncontrollable dynamic where players are all complaining about the lack of available drachma to craft their equipment instead of going out and popping/forging eq.

[*Splork*]

We are not looking to completely overhaul the current system or add an endless fountain of drachma. We are looking at ways to improve upon the current system and add to it.

Dr covered most of the history regarding automated quests but the main reason we added it was to give the chance for everyone to earn quest eq. For over a decade, the only way to do this was to either lead or tank an Immortal run quest. It was extremely rare for someone other than those two locations to win one of these items. The in-game fighting between everyone involved was brutal.

It has been one of the best additions we ever made and completely removed the negative atmosphere that used to surround these events!

The original drachma items were based off of an excel sheet with wear locations and prices of affects per slot. In the years since, the prices and stats have been adjusted and changed numerous times. When huge changes to current equipment have occurred, we have paid a certain percentage of the original drachma costs when the player turns it in.

A couple of thoughts:
- we shouldn't force players to use the website for features which other games put in-game such as listing available quests(if they aren't secret), quest progress, or possibly the recollection of the current quest
- we have debated adding crafted drachma equipment ever since Breeze coded personalized Avatar Staffs because that code could basically be reused (JB has already accurately expressed our concerns here, does that not mean we can't do it-just have to be careful)
- one option might be able to roll this out in one wear location and test the results over a span of time
- Yasik's ideas of removing multiple tells when talking to a quest mob and slightly coloring key-terms would be incredibly user-friendly

I would like to see a automated timed quest system added. I've played on other games where this really drives up the player base and activity. Every 30 minutes or so a new quest is announced and players of that level can participate(if they have not won one in the past x hours). This could be anything from triggering a certain room proc to bringing back a corpse from x area. Rewards would range from experience, gold, and occasional small amounts of drachma, to potions or other temporary items.


Keep the ideas coming, the possibilities are endless...

[*juggleblood*]

Well listing the quest data on the website was brilliant and well executed. It's a lot of information to take in, so really I think the web is a good format.

Regarding the token of recollection, I agree hard-coding it is the way to go. Regarding the object, we could increase it's quest value such that the mortals can sell it back for most of what they paid.

I'll also add that Teker's recent work on mudl has already expanded what we can do questwise. I think an elegant way to handle quests is by having the player receive a quest object that has special procs which can guide / activate the quest as it proceeds. My deck of undead miscreant quest for example, in which the players receives a deck that is activated each time a player kills a mob and the deck becomes completed when they all dead. Now that such an object can activate on mob death, it expands what we're able to do. i.e. in the past any mob involved with the quest would require a special proc, but now I could make a sword which does something when any dragon is killed for example without having to edit every dragon in game. I could give a player a herring and tell them to cut down the largest treant in the land and the proc on the herring could determine whether this was indeed the largest treant around.

Oh..and NPC guided quests also a good idea. Specially for newbies. Imagine questor solicits your help, you accept and follow questor, they lead you to the spot where you fight together. I think as mobtalk improves, this is a great direction to expand. We could make solo play feel like you really playing with people. Specially at newbie levels.