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LockeZ · 09-21-2010, 01:04 PM

I find it curious that all the posts in this topic seem to either take for granted that quests should be repeatable, or attempt to find excuses to make them repeatable. In my mud (The Unoffical Squaresoft MUD) all the quests are one-time-only. They play out like quests in singleplayer games (or like non-repeatable World of Warcraft quests, if you prefer). Every player can do all of them once.

Actually, UOSSMUD has two types of questish things - called quests and missions.

Quests are riddles that the player has to solve or hidden goals they have to find, and it's illegal to discuss them with other players at all. They might be told that they need to find the hidden Couch of Mana, and the clue in the quest's help file would be something like "Behind Aberdast Falls, a furniture salesman who once sat on this legendary couch might know more about its current location." Then in some area somewhere would be a room where the salesman, and he'd tell you he needed you to find a bottle of ochu ink so he could draw you a map. The ink might be a random drop in a different area. And then the map would probably lead you to a boss fight. (Note: This is not a real quest in UOSSMUD. But it's how they work.)

Missions are partyable combat tasks. They usually involve killing a bunch of mobs, protecting an NPC, killing mobs until certain items drop, or killing a boss (or several of the above). They are also cutscene heavy, and feel like a mission from a console RPG. In an early mission, a pair of NPC adventurers are looking for a magical artifact, and ask you to kill 30 monsters in a certain area. When you're done with that, they move forward to the second to last room, and ask you to kill the boss. After you kill the boss, they automatically enter and tell you that the artifact has been taken by someone else already. This is a prerequisite to another mission some 30 levels later where you find more info about that artifact. We don't actually move the NPCs, we use conditional invisiblity to make it appear as if they're in different rooms to different players.

09-21-2010, 01:04 PM	#9
LockeZ New Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 2	Re: Quest Design I find it curious that all the posts in this topic seem to either take for granted that quests should be repeatable, or attempt to find excuses to make them repeatable. In my mud (The Unoffical Squaresoft MUD) all the quests are one-time-only. They play out like quests in singleplayer games (or like non-repeatable World of Warcraft quests, if you prefer). Every player can do all of them once. Actually, UOSSMUD has two types of questish things - called quests and missions. Quests are riddles that the player has to solve or hidden goals they have to find, and it's illegal to discuss them with other players at all. They might be told that they need to find the hidden Couch of Mana, and the clue in the quest's help file would be something like "Behind Aberdast Falls, a furniture salesman who once sat on this legendary couch might know more about its current location." Then in some area somewhere would be a room where the salesman, and he'd tell you he needed you to find a bottle of ochu ink so he could draw you a map. The ink might be a random drop in a different area. And then the map would probably lead you to a boss fight. (Note: This is not a real quest in UOSSMUD. But it's how they work.) Missions are partyable combat tasks. They usually involve killing a bunch of mobs, protecting an NPC, killing mobs until certain items drop, or killing a boss (or several of the above). They are also cutscene heavy, and feel like a mission from a console RPG. In an early mission, a pair of NPC adventurers are looking for a magical artifact, and ask you to kill 30 monsters in a certain area. When you're done with that, they move forward to the second to last room, and ask you to kill the boss. After you kill the boss, they automatically enter and tell you that the artifact has been taken by someone else already. This is a prerequisite to another mission some 30 levels later where you find more info about that artifact. We don't actually move the NPCs, we use conditional invisiblity to make it appear as if they're in different rooms to different players.