Static quest API
Moderators: ALFA Administrators, Staff - Technical
Baal told me about his reservations, but I'm doing it anyway. Too many players play without DMs and other players to overlook the obvious benefit of a scriptless, speedy auto-quest system, in my view. So we'll develop it for our mod and post it on the ftp. I've spent way too long writing 5 scripts for each of the 50-100 static quests, squashing bugs and maintaining them (this is not counting the major NPC static quest matrices) to do it again. And that's no cop-out....we aren't talking about major NPC quests...this is just the "Feed my horse for me would you" quests to keep a bored player occupied.
In my opinion it's better to make one good NPC dialogue per quest to set the mood better than to have the limitation of oneliners for quest-assignment, mid-quest help and hints and quest-finish. It doesn't look good, and it doesn't help setting the mood and feel for a server.indio wrote:Baal told me about his reservations, but I'm doing it anyway. Too many players play without DMs and other players to overlook the obvious benefit of a scriptless, speedy auto-quest system, in my view. So we'll develop it for our mod and post it on the ftp. I've spent way too long writing 5 scripts for each of the 50-100 static quests, squashing bugs and maintaining them (this is not counting the major NPC static quest matrices) to do it again. And that's no cop-out....we aren't talking about major NPC quests...this is just the "Feed my horse for me would you" quests to keep a bored player occupied.
Since the quest scripts work for all types of quests, the debugging has already been done. It's just a matter of putting in the correct scripts on the different dialogue nodes in the conversation. The quest system caters a multiple of quest types:
1. Fetch me item X
2. Fetch me item X and Y
3. Fetch me n number of item X (reward per delivery up to n is reached, then the quest completes)
4. Fetch me n number of item Y (reward and completion when all n is handed in).
In addition I made a sub-version of type 2, which catered alternative endings to quests. We did this so that good players go let a fugitive get away, while evil aligned players could deliver the fugitive's head.
It was my experience on Whitehorn that these 4-5 quest types catered most of the "keep the players occupied" quests, while allowing their reputation to reflect their character's action. With the reputation system in place, we could make sure that they can't do all quests, as some quests required a high reputation in one faction and not in another. So a know Zhent can't rise in the ranks of the Harpers.
What we did on Whitehorn was that we had the quest designers provide
a) the dialogue
b) resref and location in the toolset of item and NPCs involved
c) the persistent Journal entry for 1) quest started and 2) quest completed
d) the reward (xp, money or item)
Quests could be implemented really fast. The tweaking we added afterwards was done through local variables on the quest giver, and that was the reputation, level, class restrictions to ensure it was in accordance with the quest tree we planned for Whitehorn.
Baalster
Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build, too.
I'd completely overlooked persistant reputation. I'm not sure the journal is the best way to do that though. Any PC that's been around for 6 months has had a rebuild for some reason - journal entries will be wiped in that case.
There is no reason we can't have both systems. I dont' care if I'm asking a Harper or a Zhent to go pick apples near the Goblin Hills - I just want my pie. OTOH, I'm not going to start a series of quests to initiate a new member into [GuildA] if they're already known to be involved in [GuildB].
There is no reason we can't have both systems. I dont' care if I'm asking a Harper or a Zhent to go pick apples near the Goblin Hills - I just want my pie. OTOH, I'm not going to start a series of quests to initiate a new member into [GuildA] if they're already known to be involved in [GuildB].
PC: Bot (WD)
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_)/\\_//(/|_)(__)/\\_//(/|_)(__)/\\_//(/|_)(__)/\\_//(/|_)(__)/\\_(The persistent quest journal is just fancy. It's just for reference. The reputation is not stored there, but in seperate tables. If you rebuild a character, and the playername+pc name mathces, it will load everything. Of course we could make this more fancy to allow one PC to access one set of reputation/journal... But I never really got around to that because I didn't see the rebuild as being a problem. If someone is rebuilt, then we also need to set their reputation, so the rebuilding DM should use the RAW (Reputation Adjustment wand) to list the reputation before the rebuild and use it again to set the reputatio for custom factions once the PC log back in.Fionn wrote:I'd completely overlooked persistant reputation. I'm not sure the journal is the best way to do that though. Any PC that's been around for 6 months has had a rebuild for some reason - journal entries will be wiped in that case.
There is no reason we can't have both systems. I dont' care if I'm asking a Harper or a Zhent to go pick apples near the Goblin Hills - I just want my pie. OTOH, I'm not going to start a series of quests to initiate a new member into [GuildA] if they're already known to be involved in [GuildB].
If you pick apples without being in the union, the applepickers will be very upset with you. And if you are directed to an apple tree field that the questgiver doesn't have ownership of, the real owner will be very upset.
But I agree. I just want to eat the pie, I don't want to make it or know how it is made. Or of who's apples...
Baalster
Castles in the air - they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build, too.