A quick question

[Amberlee]

Completely agree with Chanele here.
Questing, even for us oldtimers here, is quite frustrating.
Syntaxes that dont make sense.. Not getting any hints at all where to find things needed et cetra et cetra.
And not to mention VERY TIME CONSUMING even for SMALL rewards..
In fact some of the bigger quests take LESS time then many of the smaller ones.

[Booger]

No!
Make the quest hints better instead, where they need to be. And fix poor syntax where they need to be fixed. Bug report anything you feel is illogical or stupid (like not getting any hint on how to help the dwarf king, and the options there being so limited).

And no, I have not used any quest solutions here... yet.

[Rhaegar]

Booger, you probably haven't seen some of the quests on gen yet. When you manage to finish for example the "Bury Bones" quest in Sybarus on your own, please come back to this thread and review your opinion...
Some of the quests are damn hard to do even with walkthroughs.

[Booger]

You are right, Rhaegar. I haven't seen most.
But if that quest is so poor, how about making a number of bug reports complaining on the lack of quest leads? If everyone does it, maybe it will get fixed?
(Oh, and when making a bug report, if you give a suggestion on how to fix things, you will probably have a higher chance of something actually happening).

[Rhaegar]

Can't make a bug report because technically nothing is bugged. Personally, I wonder myself how did people come up with the original solutions. I mean, some of the harder quests are definitely doable if you invest enough time, but figuring out the MM entrance where you need not one but two people who must know what to do and synchronize their actions? Seriously?

[Booger]

Right!
Then make an idea report. Or several.
Though if the solution is virtually impossible to figure out, I'd say it's a bug.

I do totally agree that poor syntaxes and missing/crappy hints can ruin a quest and force you into asking for help or rely on other people's solutions. We may have different views on the solution, but we want the same thing.

[Booger]

Hmm... Cherek has offered to work on making the quests better.
http://www.genesismud.org/forums/viewto ... f=6&t=1249
Good ideas, sounds like he has some coding knowledge. If he can be trusted, how about giving him access to work on them? No need to give full access, just give access to one domain at a time. Ought to work, and wouldn't take any power from other wizards' work on other projects.
And if this works, let it be known, so people can mail him with complaints and suggestions (and access to report files, so he can look through them for complaints/suggestions).
Or maybe someone else would be interested in doing this work?
I don't know how tough it is to get accepted as a coder and get trusted with priviliges, but if someone with coding skills, good ideas and trust offers to do this, it might be worth considering.

[Cherek]

From what I heard some similar project is in the works. Kitriana had the same idea as me and also contact the admin about helping out. I am still up for helping with that, and since its such a big project I think the best would be if it could work like the quest-orbs. Mortals come with suggestions in exchange for some type of reward, and current wizards implement them. (or if some of us mortals wanna make a wiz-second and do it would also work of course.).

Rhaegars initial suggestion would work fine as a base, it describes the quest, and the hints needed. Just add some RP-style "talk" for the quest NPC, send it in, and it could be implemented right away I think. By anyone with with just a LPC little coding experience. Of course, it needs to be structured in some clever way first by someone who is good at... structuring. I am terrible.

Btw Kitriana, any updates on that?

[Kitriana]

I think there are some other projects that are priority right now by wizards.. So I have nothing to report at this time. But a plan has been sketched out on my part about how to tackle... I just need to review with upstairs team on what criteria they want from me. I do like some of booger's ideas.. so hopefully we can integrate some of that.
I believe the quests will become more intuitive and syntax friendly with what I've suggested. I have a lot of ideas as this has been a topic I've been dreaming on for some time.