Let's talk about quests

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Dolus
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Let's talk about quests

Post by Dolus »

We could really use some more quests. Right now there just aren't that many and most of them are too short, so filling the world with a bunch of new quests would really breathe some new life into the game world and give players some goals other than grinding.

Post/elaborate on ideas concerning quests here. I'll start by posting a bunch of poorly thought out disorganized thoughts here (and i think all of these have already been suggested, at least to some degree):

- Does the idea of a main quest line appeal to anyone? Ideally something long (longer than the wolfsbane quest) with multiple branches. It would be a bitch to put together, but it would be epic if done well.

- Quest spawners would be awesome. I'm probably being pretty unrealistic here, but I like the idea of an npc that basically tells you go to x and kill y or whatever, which would spawn a random dungeon like what's already done for cartog, but with a boss at the end.

- Live quests modded by DMs and/or GMs. People have always seemed to like the few times where DMs spawned monsters in shrines etc. What if we did stuff like that, but with a plot (egg gets kidnapped by macro and the players have to find him or something)?
DMs would be able to spawn monsters as well as play as monsters or npcs. This would be completely doable with such a small player base, and it would add a lot of flavor.
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Post by Gulnar »

I'd like more quests. I gather that adding quests has involved a significant amount of work for egg before. I don't know if moving to LUA has made this an easier. Would be nice if MAPED allowed the map creator to add quests, although I suppose that quests involving multiple maps would still be a pain to implement (not to mention the pain of adding quest implementation to MAPED).

I like the idea of a main quest line. Werewolf quest works since it provides a cure to the player only. The drawback to main quests is that they usually involve saving the world, which doesn't work so well in a multi-player game. How many people can save the world at once? As far as the storyline to EUO goes, going through a lot of steps to get the Sandlewood Box to Lord Eggleston in his Brittanian quest would fit in. Since EUO is mostly deultimafied now, could look for a new storyline for Lord Eggleston's absence. His return would still have to be inexplicably delayed due to multiplayer instancing issue.
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Timed/Repeatable Quests...

Post by Dudle »

How about repeatable quests that take into account starting/stopping on new/full moons...quests that give usefull items that get used up - and can be done again to recieve another of said item, but only if the item is truly gone (not in the bank or at your house).

Ill repost one of my earlier 'Quest Ideas Posts'

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Last edited by Dudle on Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Reposted

Post by Dudle »

I was thinking that it would be great to have some shrine quests. There would be a soulbound enchanted ring at the end of each quest as a reward. Players would need to be a certain level to enter the quest map - done by entering thier own tp located within a shrine next to the braizer.

These were the enchants I thought would be appropriate: the enchantments on the rings are non-voilent, and the low level enchants would simply replace having to buy certain items like imj scrolls, cyan pots, ect...

LVL | ENCH | SHRINE
0 IW Honesty
13 EP Honour
25 IMJ Humility
38 KOP Valour
50 SL Sacrifice
63 AXE Compassion
75 IP Justice

88 * Spirituality

100 ** By Stygian Abyss -

* - I havent thought about what would be the item(s) for the last Shrine yet. Ring of Protection mabey...

** - High lvl artifact...

The 'Prizes' could be tweaked - seeing as these would not be as usefull to a magic user.

The rings could be used as items only if it was equipped - assign a ring to a #, pressing the # would activate that ring - without using mana.

My first idea for quest prizes was low lvl arti's: these resemble the enchanting theme mentioned in the enchanting ideas thread.

- not soulbound
- +10 stat (or +5 & +5)
- +3 mr/nv/def


Dudle
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Post by Aristarch »

There were a lot of things added lately that might be made object of questing. I have thought about the specials you buy for weapons - despite the cute looks of Mrs Ability it should take some work to get one. Warriors should prove their skills to receive specialistic trainings, maybe to get some use of arena and opponents there to beat? Or some simple killing x monsters quests?

There might be also a storyline to be able to make clans - like proving te ability to efficiently rule a group of people - maybe a quest from the Lord of Cammerata to help him solve various problems with his land. There might be a lot of hints and ideas on how to nobly rule a clan smuggled within a quest - a sort of tutorial/manual, well at least a try to make leaders more responsible.

Edit: A quick bubble sketch of quest idea - the first thing I've ever done using this tool:
http://bubbl.us/view.php?sid=34270&pw=y ... U2dQb3lqTQ
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Forced level quests...

Post by Dudle »

I like Jaral's idea:
Jaral wrote:Perhaps there could be required quests every 5 levels or so. ie, once you get lvl 10 you cant go on until you finish the lvl 10 quest. You could have different quests for different classes. This is a lot of work...
This would be great if applied to allready in place quests from guards and other NPC's...characters would have to grind a little in order to be able to get quests from the next NPC.

Also Dolus has a couple:
Dolus wrote:Quest spawners would be awesome. I'm probably being pretty unrealistic here, but I like the idea of an npc that basically tells you go to x and kill y or whatever, which would spawn a random dungeon like what's already done for cartog, but with a boss at the end.
Could be like doing mercenary work...made available at monster town's or Bucc's Den...perhaps only money or items for quest rewards.
Dolus wrote:Live quests modded by DMs and/or GMs.
I think this would be awesome...perhaps the idea of towns being assaulted could be played out here. The more a person helps against the assault, the more xp they get at the end of the assault, (total monsters killed/total monsters spawned * 10000xp).

My own idea for a new class of quests were Defend quests...having to escort/protect a NPC. This could take on many different guises...protecting Henry while he gathers herbs on a full moon, Phil has to goto Lilyvale despite all the 'snakes' to scout the situation there. Think up some more...


Dudle
"I know that you knew that I know, but did you know I knew that you knew I know?" Cassanova Frankenstein 'Mystery Men'

"Buddah, Zeus, God...one of you guys do something!" & " Help Satan! You owe me!" - Professor Farnsworth 'Futurama'

"Hmm hmm hmm, when you do things right, people wont be sure you've done anything at all." Probably a computerized space probe that collided with 'God' 'Futurama'
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Post by Kybare »

Back from the depths...

Almost 2 years ago, I put together a bunch of new quests to be added to EUO. I'm pretty sure that these were sent to Egg and if not, I'd have to check my hotmail account to see if I still have them somewhere. If memory serves, Egg and I agreed that they were good quests, the problem was that we couldn't agree on how to introduce them or why the players should do them. I'd explain further, but I don't want to ruin any surprise since I still think they can be added some day... I don't remember them at all, but they were pretty sweet!

Anyway, my laptop with all the info I had on them was stolen back in May. This means that I currently cannot help out with making quests. The problem with a large quest is that to make anything substantial, it is quite difficult, time consuming and prone to bugs/cheeses that all need to be tested. Perhaps I'll get in touch with Egg and then see if I can muster up some excitement, now that I have a computer again.
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Post by Jaral »

Avatar thing could be more interesting if you gave players the opportunity to choose between good and evil, ala Fable.

Um only quest idea I had was some sort of a personal Ascension. It could work with the stones quests. The stones could be used to make a portal to the astral plane or somesuch, and there could be a final quest there involving fun high level stuff that you have to solo your way through. Ascending could give you a cooler avatar and a hp/stat boost?. I guess this idea is really similar to Avatar. It might kinda work though because it doesnt need the global storyline to evolve with it, such as a save the world or find lord egg quest would. The only effected person is the player.
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Post by Grodst »

Seriously brain dead from stress of preparing a new store location and training new crew members, much less the 20 days until our actually moving my store.
That said, the thing that comes to mind is how awesome it was to energize the playerbase when Voy would just randomly spam areas with massive numbers of seemingly invulnerable mobs. Guys who didn't give a shit about playing anymore would hang around for days trying to get lucky and have it happen again.
Some quest that would involve solving a chain of such spawnings would seem incredible. How to tie this into a plot of a quest? No clue. Not a creative thought left in me other than that gradually more and more areas would be overtaken by mobs until progress was made?
Very random presentation here, sorry for that. Basically just loved how many players got insane into EUO after getting killed like 40 times in 10 min....along with all the rest of us!
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Game ending and player retirement...

Post by Dudle »

I recently bought a game for my girlfriend called Fate. It has one feature I found interesting - player retirement after completeing a main quest. When you retired you got to pass an item onto your decendant (new char) with bonuses to player characteristics (better skill gains). This retireing in fate is cumulative.

I could see something like this making some (not all), lvl 200 characters 'retiring' if thier new char gained 10% more xp & skills and had a 5% class cap increase. Have this option available up to 5 retirements/descendants for a total of 150% class cap & 50% skill & xp increase. This would make ppl want to complete the main quest sooner that the lvl cap.

My personal favourite would be an end quest that transfered your character to the next game. :cool:


Dudle
"I know that you knew that I know, but did you know I knew that you knew I know?" Cassanova Frankenstein 'Mystery Men'

"Buddah, Zeus, God...one of you guys do something!" & " Help Satan! You owe me!" - Professor Farnsworth 'Futurama'

"Hmm hmm hmm, when you do things right, people wont be sure you've done anything at all." Probably a computerized space probe that collided with 'God' 'Futurama'
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Post by Ulric »

How about when a player of lvl 200+ chooses to retire the char. A head stone and grave are place in to a grave yard. This would imortize the char forever in EUO. There could also be quests build around old long dead chars. For example:

If Heikki was retired and he had a ring +39 str then a quest to find the ring +39 str could be to find Heikki's ghost and send him to the after life and in return you would get the ring +39 str. Note Heikki's ghost would be imune to glass weapons. And Heikki's ghost would have all the stats and uber weapons he had when he was retired.
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Post by Keighn »

I had a very dark idea about finding Lord Eggleton and lemme say that it doesn't end like Ultima 5. To get the most out of puzzle solving finding triggers and levers and using them correctly is a grand way to go. I did have one question about quests and that would be possible quest items/rewards and branching and paths.

i.e. Say you talk to Mr X. somewhere in there he tells you to uber goblin is causing some problems. Saying gobber (quest activated for /aq to see). And he gives you a key. To access some dungeon gobber is in (or perhaps a section that you can't get to gobber).

You access the area and find gobber. Now here is where I generally have a problem with quest monsters. They can be attacked immediately (not so big) and slain and quest is generally completed. Note that you can usually talk to these beings for them to give some "One liner" about how they hate you and want you to join the dead zone. Couldn't said quest monster actually have stuff to talk about like say. "Cake" (the goblin give you a delicious baked bread - 1 bread added to your inventory). Then goes on about how nice it is to have a hobby but lately he's missing ingredient "Z" and wishes he had some. You say "Z" and whatever "goblin ingredient quest is acquired" and off you go to find this ingredient wherever it might be. (note he gives you a separate key to some other dungeon that could never be accessed normally since the door is (unpickable/breakable). Thus killing this goblin right off the bat would deprive the character of finding this dungeon.

I was also wondering that perhaps when you first talk to sir gobbo that maybe mention of him killing or his being evil he "laughs evilly and tosses a skull at your feet "skull acquired" Anyway you kill him. But You find a golden ring (gold ring acquired). You go back to Mr. X and he notices the skull. He says my friend Mr Y. Than you for finding part of him so I can bury him. And he gives you a few coins for your trouble. Saying "gobber" finishes he goblin quest and he gives you a LAUGHING OUT LOUD LIKE A MORON or whatever for being such a good citizen.

Hopefully you see what I'm trying to explain although rather oddly. The general branching out of quests via certain conditions on where you have an item or some certain previous condition is met and having multiple said conditions for just one NPC (including quested nPCs that you would generally just kill).

Another note would be that most Quest NPCs you kill are all the same with no special abilities. I wouldn't mind running into say some near unstopplable gazer with 5k in hp that shoots poison fireballs.
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Post by eggmceye »

keighn - that is all doable. Only since 1.2 tho with lua. It is just that generally I'm not creative enough to come up with them. I think with the girl in jail in the lycan quest you can talk to her or kill her - that is about as fancy it got pre 1.2.

Quest authoring aint that hard but there a few tricks. Unfortunately there is only minimal documentation on it.
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Post by Keighn »

That's weird, I thought I typed "l o l i p o p"
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Post by Kybare »

Back to the stones quests (since they ARE already made and tested...):

The Ultima side of things - In U4, you had to collect the stones to get the 3 parts key (or was that the 3 key parts?) in to bottom of the dungeons where they all connected. Only with these 3 parts could you get to the Abyss (or finish the Abyss, I can't remember). We could do something similar here: get the 3 parts and then you can open a certain dungeon. Personally, I'm not a fan of this because this usually means that the dungeon has to be 'special' in some manner - probably really hard and good for grinding... two things that I think take away from quests.

Non-Ultima: I personally don't like the idea of each stone doing something. If memory serves, the quests weren't all that hard (at least some of them) and so having them all do something special would mean that everyone would be running around with these cool stones, of which about 3 would probably end up getting used. Here are some other possibilities:

1. Together (perhaps with something else) they form something that itself is useful.

2. Each stone casts KOP to a different place. These would probably have to be set places, but I suppose they wouldn't have to be.

3. (I don't think this is currently possible) After X number of people get all the stones, then something happens. Perhaps a dungeon opens, a new island is created, the underworld gets larger, who knows?

4. I'd like to see these quests coincide with character progression. For example, after obtaining all the strones (for Nestor?), he gives you the ability to do something. For example, perhaps he teaches you how to read the Ultima font - allowing you to cast spells (not really feasible, but why should we assume that you can automatically read runic?). Or perhaps he teaches you how to use a raft. In other words, remove these abilities from everyone until they do the quests.

For #4, this would force people to do quests which may not be optimal. But if we could come up with some other type of character progression which wasn't necessarily needed (such as reading runic or using a raft), it may be worthwhile. For example, what if Nestor had a moon beam (TP) next to him that you couldn't access unless you had all 8 stones. Perhaps this moon beam could teleport you to someplace random, or maybe another (9th) shrine which gave you something different when you leveled up. Who knows?

These are just some ideas, none of which are necessarily any good. I'd just like to see quests give you something other than XP, gold, or items.


By the way, for an "overall" quest, I created a quest where you ended up having to kill the person who gave you the quest. At the time, after you killed the NPC, they didn't respawn until the next server reboot. So it's not entirely impossible to have a quest that only 1 person can do.
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Post by Dolus »

eggmceye wrote:v) quest spawners - humf I think they are a bit fodderish ... esp if done poorly - maybe the key is to make them not poor. What do ppl think of the random cave thing?
The random cave thing would be great. The code is already there, it's already implemented to an extent with cartography maps, and while randomly generated quests won't be as engaging as a handmade one, they still provide a bottomless pit of stuff to do.
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Post by Catherine »

Forest / VoT especially could have quests in them.

Off the top of my head:

Forest:

Trell - clear gremlins / goblins etc

Undead Lord in 1st part supposed to be a NPC -> bandits, kill leader, return amulet

Kill the hydras / wizard. NB: that's one of the last remaining 'cheesable' Balrons there, stuck in fields. I think there's one under duogon as well.

Woman in shack - clear orcs / trolls / ettin warlord at top of tower / Black dragon

Ghost -> difficult shrine, set him to rest. Ghost NPC in wrong place.

Old man -> apples. Gremlin in wrong place, supposed to be in the hidden parts, middle after 3 IPs.

Numerous hidden mini-dungeons. Trell could get players to hunt down lich, imps / demons in orc part etc etc. Pretty sure players rarely visit most of the little ones, barring the dragons.

Hidden Balron on first map- needs trigger on certain part of dialogue to make him aggressive - gremlin gives quest, reward is the treasure chests.

VoT:

Needs entire quest / NPCs doing. Original plan was to have trigger at each hidden temple at the altars giving passage past the 'impassable' barriers at the end. Also a whole rescue the explorer party (mini dungeons) / find out their fate / rescue the floozy at the end.


Under duogon tower: Percy the ghost -> uni -> back

Vampire hidden quest for 'evil' players? Lots of dialogue there.

Arena - find & set free Helg, requires the player to solve the mystery of who dunnit, and get the key off them.


@ Egg - any chance of emailing me a complete set of the maps with features / spawners etc included? Old HD is long gone, but I could write the NPC / dialogues for forest / VoT, and also do a little spring cleaning on them all.
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Post by Gulnar »

Been waiting to work on a few more of the quests to post this, but since Catherine mentioned hers...

Cat, egg stuck in a bunch of yours, and they're pretty awesome. Am I the only one who has checked the new quests out? Everybody should check out the K'van/Melkior (hydra mage in the swamp in TF) quest. The battle with Melkior is not a typical kill quest-I'm impressed by what's been done there (although the battle isn't especially challenging, having the cheesable bally there does spice it up a little more).

Cat's TF quests:
Josanna (old woman in shack)-both quests working, but black dragon is a go and return quest, not a kill quest. Some dragon killing quests would be a good addition to the higher levels of the quest tree.

K'Van/Melkior-works, fucking awesome. Rework K'Vans dialogue a little though? I think he'd rather have the antidote than Melkior's skull. Drop the antidote reference, or make the skull an antidote with appropriate impact on the conversation.

Trell doesn't do anything ATM. Thought he might initiate the ghost quest, but no dice.

Ghost quest still not working??

Haven't found Undead Lord, Old Man, Hidden Balron. Not sure if they exist or if they're just well hidden.

-----------------------------
Cat's Other Quests:
Percy/Uni-I hear this works, haven't tried yet

Helg-works, but kind of buggy, and not quite as Cat describes it. Quest just involves revealing that Helg fixed a match.
-----------------------------

Stones quests are pretty sweet. Will post some bugs here (since it seems egg isn't announcing them publicly) once I've finished them all.
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Post by Catherine »

Ye, spent a few moments looking for new quests:

Helg certainly isn't working as intended, although I recognise some of the dialogue I wrote. Hay barn... yep, reference to lady chatterly's lover ;)

Original intention was to realise that the match had been fixed, but to discover the reason why: Helg being blackmailed into it through his love of Gel, then kidnapped as he refused to throw matches; so he ditched one fight as not to kill his lover, but One horn / shady peeps had kidnapped him - original end was to free Helg, expose one horn and re-instate Helg as champion. End part was intended to fight horn in one of the arenas... As it stands, only three of the seven NPCs have dialogue.

Current quest is incorrect, in that you have to find Helg to finish it, and he 'only admits it due to his circumstances' (i.e. imprisoned). Originally, this was about 1/3 rd way through the quest - and there was a dialogue gap that meant you could force someone to tell you where Helg was being held.

Old man / strake / beggar had some dialogue as well - I can tell most of it is missing, as I never left a NPC saying 'I am a 'x' (where x = the mob title). Ever. Was some amusing (well, to me) stuff between the fish & the old man. Helg's 'easter egg' is his mention of Crom, and his name.

k'van's quest was to harvest parts from the hydra's (specifically the mutant one labelled by a sign) and force the wizard to make an antidote, and heal him. The easter egg here is that K'van is a character from an Anne McCaffery novel - weryleader of southern if you're interested.


I'm happy Egg has put some in, and its his game - sad part is that the quest parser was totally unusable by me, meaning I never got to make the quests. Dialogue is easy; making unique hex codes ain't, esp. without the list of what's been used.
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Post by Keighn »

Wasn't there some sort of Shard quest for the Fair Lands of Melniborn (sp). I recall one of my pd guys has 2 shards right now (humility and honesty I believe).
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