static quest projects

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Kemeras
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static quest projects

Post by Kemeras »

Hello,

In light of the balance thread and the desire of some people to continue the discussion I started a new thread.

I am currently still working on the infectious zombie adventure and am almost finished to the point where it can act as a template for creating additional ALFA compatible static quests/modules.


So if people are interested in collaborating or contributing their time and effort into creating statics I am more than willing to help get people up and running and work on coordinated plots.

My plan for the once I am finished with the Infectious Zombies module is to make variants using different enemies (e.g. instead of zombies use kobolds or orcs, etc and change the main villain to a different type, change the areas a bit but not much over all, re-using sets happens a lot in pulp fiction productions ;)....Hey I know THAT rock!). Estimating another 2-3 weeks before I have a beta to start really testing.

After that move on to the next adventure module, I have 3 other stories worked out. The actual areas creation process I find is the longest time burner in the development process and would *love* some help.

PM me if you are interested in working on statics, the best argument for including them is actually having them :)

p.s. I am wondering about plundering the nwvault for existing modules as starting points and just converting them for use in ALFA with the original authors permission where it can be obtained and if that has been discussed before?

Cheers and thanks for listening!

Brainstorming thread:
http://www.alandfaraway.org/forums/view ... 52&t=45062
Adventure packs/server idea, dropped the plot tracking idea for now as AFLA already have good DB quest tracking, no need for it.
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Veilan
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Re: static quest projects

Post by Veilan »

Great idea, Kemeras. I am certain all HDMs will appreciate more stuff to include in their modules.

I'd love to contribute, but all I can is offer time for testing and maybe some ideas. The NWN 2 toolset and, I, however, are at war :(.

Cheers,
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Kemeras
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Re: static quest projects

Post by Kemeras »

Veilan wrote: maybe some ideas. The NWN 2 toolset and, I, however, are at war :(.

Cheers,

Here you on the war with the toolset, after my HD crash on Friday and nearly lost everything I have created a batch file that copies the mod to a network share each time I open it :)

Seriously thought Ideas are *good* I will take all plot idea (even a paragraph or two on the abstract and then I can run with it) and build from there.

The truth of the matter is that content is hard to create and it takes way more time to create than it does to play through, we have a fantastic community and I hope once the proof of concept is finish that more people will jump in.

The plot is very basic, nothing earth shattering, just plain simple fun with a Good option and Evil option at the end (goto to give the loving to the Evil PC's they are super hard to play without Skullport being up yet :) ). Some side options that open up for specific class/skill combo (short cuts basically, more dangerous to take in some ways, other ways they are easier).

I am back at work, I thought I would get it all done over my vacation but I ended up just spending time with my wife (it was awesome, we reconnected like we were teenagers again.). I work from home and got more of the work done during working hours, lots of hurry up and wait stuff that lets me use the toolset.

One thing that I am going to work on is a local variable on the quest giver to only allow X amount of parties to access the content in a 24 hour period. What I was thinking is that I would like a system that keeps the players coming in a trickle to the modules.

Couple of reasons for that, the server I am going to build is specced to have 6-8 PC's active within a module at a time. I am planning on a 4 CPU, 8 to 16GB RAM system so I can run 4 instances of the modules (1 for BG, 1 for TSM, 1 for Moonshea, 1 for Beta). The other being that content takes awhile and I am estimating that we can release adventure packs every 4-6 months so thinking of ways to make the content last.

May not be the best idea and I am not married to it. The other idea I had is locking down the other statics for a period of time after taking one of them. I kind of like that idea more, e.g. PC A takes static A, cannot take static B,C,or D until 48 hours real time has passed. Something like that just to put some brakes on the content so people don't burn through it to quickly (fair enough I think, good balance between content creators and players, gives us time to make more before they current batch gets exhausted by the player base).

If it works out well, I will move it to a data center for a better pipe. So if you have a half unfinished module OR an old PnP module that you want to convert, drop me a line.

I have been carrying around the Veil Society since I was 12 and I plan on converting that one completely once I get a chance (also thinking about working on Hillsfar, I think it would be interesting to have a xenophobic city for RP purposes, BAH Tangent alert!! sorry :) ).

Anyway, so what do people think of rate limiting access to the module, one of the key pieces that I need to figure out is allowing PC's to take the quest IF at least one party member already has it. I also want the quest giver to store the PCs names that have taken the quest so when the quest giver is 'locked down' it will tell people who to seek out that has already taken the quest.

The idea being that one person could take the quest, find a party, bring them back to the quest giver and then all head out(quest giver would probably be the portal OR jump the PC's to a location where the portal was).

My personal opinion with the quest givers is I think they should be plopped down by a DM (would have to be re-added after server reboots which is a bit of a pain), reason being is then the quest givers location could be anywhere and more than one NPC. Make 4-6 NPCs that hand out the same quest so that when ever a DM wanted to they could switch up the location and NPC to help manage META information about the world.

Please PM or add to the thread if you are interested and once I have the proper base mod and server package (working on self installing mySQL, vaultster and nwnx, should be able to script out a MVNA server... that's right I gave it a stupid name :D ).


Gah... sorry for the long ramble again, I am obviously excited about the idea!

btw due to the HD crash, I reinstalled with Win7 x64 and my god the toolset is so much faster and smoother. Anyone else experience this, the auto saves and load times are almost nothing now with the same mod running win7 x64 4GB ram.
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Re: static quest projects

Post by Castano »

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Re: static quest projects

Post by Swift »

+1
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Kemeras
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Re: static quest projects

Post by Kemeras »

thanks guys, I got some really good ideas from Dergon and Veilan and will start working on some of those after I finish up with the first one.
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Re: static quest projects

Post by Curmudgeon »

Scripted quests also need to work with the ACR system.
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Re: static quest projects

Post by CloudDancing »

I don't know if this will help you in your work but this is something I suggested awhile back ago:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... tail&id=92
TKL Quests is a system for creating scripted quests for use in Persistent Worlds. It takes
care of many of the tricky persistence issues, like disabling quests after completion, and
party participation. It also makes the creation of unique and interesting quests extremely
easy, requiring no scripting or toolset knowledge. (Quest-creation is done with a Toolset Plugin) Finally, it is easy for scripters to add
custom code to their quests, allowing an limitless number of quest types and plots.

TKL Quests is not for single-player quests. This is a system for Persistent Worlds. TKL Quests requires an NWNX4 connection to a database (tested on MySQL only, but others
may work).

For more info, see the included documentation and tutorials.

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