Quest Docs

[Greywolf]

I created this thread to discuss if some form of official Quest Doc might help increase the number of new players we have. The following quotes came from another thread.

Detailed walkthroughs that you can write a script from are not necessary at all and could still be illegal. A quest doc written in a narrative style that includes the general information needed to solve the quest but would still require someone to explore the area in some detail is all that is needed. for example:

I came across giants today. Couldn't get out of there fast enough and ran off to the north where I found a cave to hide in. Much to my surprise it was community of dwarves whose king needed a lift up. I noticed a duck waddling around the caves as well. Perhaps THIS is what the orcs have been sacrificing....

This is less information the the illegal quest doc I have gives and no more info (probably less) information then you get if you simply asked someone for help. Since this information is already available to some people it should be available to everyone whether they have a quest doc or not or whether they happen to know someone who can/wants to help them or not.

So then the answer is: We already have quest docs - the hints provided by the quest orbs

Hardly...the orbs are no more then a list and the hints just tell you where the quests start. Important but hardly sufficient. People frustrated by obscure syntax and logic or from excessive examining and searching are going to stop playing.

Well, Obviously!
I gave a stupid answer to a stupid comment, making it short to not have this thread taken over totally. If someone moves this part to another thread or starts a new one, I'll be willing to argue further, but I'll stop messing up this thread... again.

Booger (If you were referring to my comment) - Stupid?... I'm sure you meant my comment was profoundly uninformed. Stupid is the kind of language that doesn't really lead to a constructive dialogue. What is it about an official quest doc that gives general directions and the actual syntax needed to solve the quests that you think is stu....profoundly uninformed?

[Booger]

Yes...
I apologize for calling it stupid. I was trying to not clobber that thread with other stuff, but kept feeling forced to reply.
So, since we now have a thread for quest docs I'll try to make my answer a bit more elaborate and hopefully less offensive.
My first response to your suggestion ("then we already have quest docs") was because your suggestion added very little extra help - people who solve quests themselves will manage without it and the people asking for quest docs will not be much happier to get another text to read through in search for vague hints that will not bring them closer to solving it.

I am not against what you are suggesting - it will add more feeling to the quests and could provide a little extra help in case you get stuck. But it will not convert anyone hating/disliking quests.

So on to the real problems with quest docs: Who will/may make them? How detailed may they be? How to set rules that work? How to control it?

Best would be to have the docs in the game, somehow incorporated like the quest hints. Or perhaps on the new web page. That means immortals will have to do the work, which means a _huge_ extra load for them (you need good knowledge about the quest and about the areas and creatures involved, and then you have to write something that gives just enough extra help). Would mean good control of what extra hints you hand out, plus a possibility to make these texts similar in looks and information. But won't happen.

The other alternative would be to let players provide quest docs, copy, share, put on home pages, etc. No extra work for immortals, but then you have to set rules for how much information will be allowed to provide. SOme examples and the problems:
* "Not allowed to write how exactly how to walk, but you may write it in general words"? So "n-e-n-n-n" is not allowed, but "a bit northeastwards" would be ok? And so how about "North, east and then straight north"?
* "Vague hints on what to type but not exact"? So "kick king" is not allowed but "I gave him a fot in his behind and he flew up on the throne." is ok? Then how about "I kicked the king in his butt to help him."? Or "I did a 'kick king' and that worked fine."
As I hope you understand, drawing the line is a really hard thing to do. If you allow mortals to write things, you'll have major trouble setting good guidelines, and no matter how perfect you think you managed to set the rules, they'll be bent more and more. And then someone will have to try and control this? Doomed.
You can, of course, say that "Not too specific information - common sense is expected" or something similarly general. The result will be the same.

And then there's the possible mix, where mortals write the docs and send to immortals who approve and incorporate them. Still means tons of work for whoever approves, to go through them, (still needing to have full knowledge of the quests). No _huge_ extra load on them, only great load, but the quality will suffer.

And in the end, the result will still be that people hating quests will still hate them and want _real_ quest docs. So what you get is, if done well, a possibility for quest-lovers to get past the current problems of missing info, illogical solutions and similar things - problems best handled by fixing the quest rather than by giving out extra information to bypass the real problem.

Also, I agree that there are lots of quest docs available for most games. And normally this is no problem. In all the cases of solo-games, you compete against yourself, so a quest doc will be something you can chose to use to skip that aspect of the game, if you prefer. Just like you can often chose "easy" level if you aren't too interested in the fighting aspect. Another reason is that games today are rarely text based, so normally not scriptable. Which means that even if you have a real quest doc (walkthrough), you still have to do everything by hand - you walk to the place you have been told, kill the creature there, pick up his treasure and return it to the king... you know what you did. In a text-based game, if you are told to "go e-5n-w-s-e-2n, kick king, get all, go 2s-w-n-e-5s-w, give crown to peddler", you won't even know what you did or why.

So, again, I'm not against your suggestion - I'd really love to see some stuff like that added to the quests. But it's a lot of extra work that won't solve the problem. The problems with lack of hints and illogical solutions should be solved at the source - by fixing the quests. The problem with people hating quests... maybe a few will hate them less if the quests are improved. Probably not too many. If you have a good suggestion for solving that problem, great! One way would be to provide _real_ quest docs, as they've requested. But then you could just remove the quests altogether. Or reduce them to "kill creature X" type quests.

[Zestana]

There is a quest doc online that isn't to hard to find that I've run across multiple times in search of genesis webpages that I'd say has to at least give you 50% of the quests.

[Alorrana]

Yeah, there are loads of Quests online. + players share, and have always done so. Ofc I dont

[Booger]

So i guess this whole discussion is moot, then.
Oh, well. Never did think it would lead to anything useful.

[Uther]

I say make the quests public and open for everyone.

I know wizards have spend gazillion of hours making the quests, but heck we aint back in the
beginning of the 90's now. 95 % at least, and more has the questfile. Everyone knows what I
am talking about. Praise for the wizards that have coded all the quests as well.
So those who don't wanna peek, then don't. Don't blame anyone else but yourself if you peek.

I know it will take away some mystic feelings, excitement and so on. Genesis are unique
with the concept quests vs combat exp, I guess there are other LPmuds out there that has
the same. But heck we need to compete with online games that has everything public.
We still keep the guilds pretty much secret, or ?

NOTE: I am not saying we shall turn Genesis into "WoW 2", but perhaps this can be a way to
attract players since they can grow quite fast with the quests and combat. Or maybe getting
old ones back that don't have the urge trying to get questfiles to do quests. Oh look solution,
well I will use that.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Great topic.

Something I had also been thinking about myself and started working on.
I was going to try and do it anonymously, even created a new board name, but for some reason its gimped and can't reply here atm so screw it.

Over the years I had a lot of quest docs sent to me, Tarax was a repeat char so just ran through a lot of the stuff again without thinking and I have to say that is quite boring and frustrating, (as a lot of time dependant stuff comes up when you are rushing through them).
Also had a lot of help with tips.

Quest solutions are not what we need / really want. When I took Tarax to solve a few remaining ones in an area I often got totally confused when discovering stuff for already solved quests which would have been probably still in my memory if I had done it right the first time round.

Well structured hints are what we need.
And we need to record them to make it less reliant on having a friend there to help you at the time.

The orbs were something that was at the top of my top 10 wish list for ages back to the Eden forum days, and it is great to see them here!
But they are not yet enough by themselves.

I also suggested once a standard quest querying syntax like making global the fabulous "talk <npc>" command in Kabal.
If you have never tried it / knew about it give it a go. Its awesome, lets you figure out who the quest npcs are quickly, so its great for getting started.
But that is a lot of wizard work.

Booger raised all the same points I was thinking of as problems, burden on wizards, what is the right amount of hint, how to manage it, how to have each user able to track their progress etc...

In the end I think this is the best current solution.
Create a workspace/wiki type site for the community to help us help ourselves...

And here it is
http://genesisquests.pbworks.com/

example page.png (98.83 KiB) Viewed 4087 times

-------- Gap ------

example page more.png (58.9 KiB) Viewed 4087 times

I wanted to wait and get the majority of the structure set out before getting everyone involved. Its mainly there but had a few maps etc wanted to add and didn't have my old stuff to hand.
I've got that now
So this would be a great time to get more people adding stuff and some momentum going now I think.

Cheers

[Tarax the Terrible]

Check out the site and let me know your feedback.
I will be aiming on getting the main structure, ie all the domain quest pages, finished this week.

[Kitriana]

Wow tarax... i'm overwhelmed by how much info is in there.... will have to check it out when my attention span is better

[Booger]

*sigh*
Of course Tarax has to come in with some useful ideas and mess things up.
Right...
I guess something good might come out of this after all. Actually sounds like a possible solution that might work.

I'll try to stay off this topic so you can continue this in peace, without more negative vibes from me.
Great work and good ideas as usual, Tarax, though I hate to admit it.