Add a basic rock-hauling repeatable-task quest

[Feronius]

The @work system is different in that it still requires other players to be near. And you will not earn any XP from using it.
You can technically use the @work system when on your own, but you are essentially either AFKing or RPing with yourself.

To avoid going off-topic from the original post, I would suggest that we discuss existing features in a different thread?

[ljuslek]

What about having a PC hauling rocks or performing other, similar repeatable tasks doesn't make for players role-playing with themselves? The only thing that would be changed with adding in tasks like these is players being forced to click around the game, instead of as I tended toward with @work, multitasking and offering the occasional emote and wander about the areas while waiting for others to log on. I would rather see it as role-playing against the server's setting, as opposed to role-playing with oneself however.

I do fail to discern any major difference between the current system and what's being proposed however; except that the @work system is already in place and might work towards the stated end goal if tweaked a little. It wasn't my intention to bring the thread off topic, simply wanted to discuss the end rather than the means.

[EventHorizon]

Okay, to avoid going off topic in a comparison to @work (a necessary comparison, I believe), I will show what can be done that @work alone just doesn't stand up to.

See by this topic that the Temple is in ruins and isn't being rebuilt with any haste because even entering the Temple is something of a challenge. Looks like the common people can't take care of this. Something for the adventuring class - or the exceptional peasants.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1625

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Rubble and Ruin:

Whatever storm the Temple of the Triad must have endured, it seems to have left the building a total mess, and for something to be restored and rebuilt, its wreckage must be removed to make way. Broken stones, bricks, and statues have probably been left aplenty to be taken. This kind of cleaning is, however, a piecemeal work, so labourers must reclaim their Temple one armful at a time. Whatever of this they can carry, they can bring to the Sarshel collection pile for their tiny compensation. For more deliberate pay, they can haul carts of mass rubble to Outentown, where an entrepreneurial merchant will receive the resources; he is also happy to buy the smaller quantities, if one should travel all the way to sell them to him instead of to the Sarshel collection pile. This merchant isn't picky, and will take the same kind of rubble no matter where it comes from, whether that is from the Temple of the Triad, or Relgar...

Corpses, Viscera, and Body Parts:

The Temple may not have been filled with bodies before, but surely some old bodies and dismembered parts might be found lodged within the rubble. Besides the old bodies, there could always be the newbodies, desperately scavenging or cleaning the Temple for meagre pay - the most desperate of whom might sometimes meet with unfortunate accidents of falling debris, frost, and bouts of fatal insanity. Their remains can be brought to the Sarshel collection pile for less minor pay and experience reward - handling the brutalised viscera of the dead does not leave a person unchanged. For more significant pay upon initiation, less frequently, the manifest death can be carted or otherwise hauled to a growing (or sometimes, shrinking?) pile of bodies in the Fields of Lament, whereupon the experience reward is granted. It can be a long and potentially dangerous trek if something catches an intriguing whiff of corpses on the move...

Miscellaneous Rubbish:

There is more than death and stone in the Temple. Candelabras, scattered donations, lost weapon scraps, shattered carpentry, and broken glass might all litter the floors. Sometimes, when picking amongst this scrap, trivial items of normal merchant value could be found - and for the rest of it, the generic scrap can be returned to the Sarshel collection pile... or perhaps to some resourceful artisan out there.

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>Hampered by the unrelenting frost.
Outdoors placeables representing rubble of the temple; click them to gain piecemeal rubble items (five lb at at time), up to a maximum per placeable which is either randomized 3-10 or simply 5 (later, skills/attributes could be made to factor in). Each activation has a cooldown of several rounds, and incurs a fortitude save vs the cold or 1 damage. The weak won't work out in the cold long.
The rubble items from these placeables can be brought to a spot near the Temple, where all the rubbish is first gathered, for minor experience (1 per rubble?); if funds can be found, perhaps the Triad would pay a Sardil for each 5lb.

>Like a splintered mirror ... few dare to venture back inside. Any effort at rebuilding results in a series of failures - one after another, from a fallen worker, to hallucinations and whisperings of demonic possession to drive one insane.
As there is a bunch of rubbish inside the Temple, there is plenty to drag out. But how many would dare to try?
More rubble placeables of the same as before can be put inside, but instead of fort cold saves, an array of will-based ones, more frightening and dangerous, - with twice as much rubble to be removed per placeable.

Other placeables may exist in the temple, representing the many things to be excavated; the details of what can be conveyed through server text in addition to the "loot" found.

Here in the Spoilers is a lot of images showing where placeables might be put and how they might be proportioned, and other sites.

Spoiler:

Sarshel Collection Pile:

Temple

Spoiler:

Key: red=rubble; gold=rubbish; purple=viscera/corpses

Final destinations

Spoiler:

Will save challenges (will complete later):
Confusion
Fear
Illusory Encounter (as real as your mind makes it!) - imagined spiders or other monsters attacking you...
Mortician's madness!

These will saves may be accompanied by awful visions or quasi-illusory experiences.

Reflex save challenges:

Falling rubble, or Balance

Fortitude save challenges:

Outside cold, stomaching the viscera

Bodies are then hauled en-mass to the graveyard
Rubble is hauled en-mass to Outentown
Scrap is ...left a mystery if not redeemed at the Sarshel collection pile
Actual trash like candleabras, lost donation coins, and such, can be kept or sold

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Sarshel's Snow:

Considering the extreme snow in Impiltur and Sarshel particularly, if PCs could get shovels, they could assist in shoveling the snow out of the way, for minor pay as well. A handful of snow for each instance of shoveling should be sufficient honor-based evidence for a friendly and low-paying questgiver... Of course, I suppose one could just keep the snow, if one had a crafty use for it, though that would require some imagination to make special use of.

A snow-shoveling service is also a great way to direct new players (and, let's not forget, new characters) to the doorsteps of all the most important and interesting stores and establishments. Those folks have to keep their fronts clear, after all! Perhaps some entrepreneurial fellow will make a cheap, seasonal business of it. One shovel service in Sarshel, one in Outentown.

Perhaps after a certain amount of shovelings each reset, certain snowpile placeables could disappear until the next one. Take that, Auril!

Here are some spots, will add more later:

Spoiler:

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So, ljuslek, these tasks give players some tangible definition to work with. Some of these tasks could actually work very well with @work, however; a character might decide to so regularly perform certain tasks (with real in-game effects) that it actually becomes their job, in which case they might like to be @work throughout it. Part of the magic of having a server to roleplay on is that the player is not burdened with creating all of the things with which they will interact. There needs to be a balance of what is presented to players/PCs and what players/PCs can create (with just their text roleplay) on their own. It's fun to click things in the game, simply put.

[Feronius]

Keep in mind that it takes a lot of work to develop, implement and test custom quest mechanics. Even though the situations in your examples (temple in ruins, dead of winter) may remain in place for quite a while, they are ultimately temporary situations that are subject to change in a matter of months. It would probably take at least that much time to develop, implement and test those features.

I would suggest focusing on tasks that do not revolve around a single season and that continue to be needed indefinitely.
Warehouse work at the docks, labor down in the mines or working on the fields. Places that have work almost year round.

If you are set on the clearing of rubble/ scavenging idea, may I suggest salvaging ship wrecks along the coast?
After some time the salvaging would be done, but by that time more wreckage will have surely washed ashore.

[ljuslek]

My worry is that these repeatable tasks will become a tedium, more frustrating than they are worthwhile. Playing what amounts to a cookie-clicker game inside the NWN engine does not constitute, in my mind, a fun or engaging experience. No matter the flair I know our talented build team would ensure permeates the labour intensive flavour text and NPC interaction that would go hand in hand with the proposed systems. This though, it goes without saying, is only my take on it.

A brief string of randomized (but non-repeatable) fetch type quests that might draw new PCs towards suitably challenging combat and dungeons however is something I can see making the journey towards levels 2-3 less drawn out.

[Kilaana]

First of all, thank you for the suggestion.

This idea, I feel, would be excellent for a single-player module but perhaps not so much for a persistent world where the goal is to create an environment where players meet to roleplay, tell stories and have fun. Writing the code to accomodate all these menial quests, and to fashion a cohesive narrative around each of them that fits the setting, which itself changes every few months or so, entails more than its share of time that the team has at their disposal.

To return to my first point about being a place for meet-and-play, I'd like to address the crucial period that is the long haul between Level 1 and 2 for some. TER is known for its somewhat unorthodox mechanics, such as the exploration xp and the dungeon xp, as opposed to xp gained solely from monster kills. In that respect, it is possible for the solo player to achieve level 2 with some careful exploration. I hesitate to award xp for menial tasks as highlighted above, because hauling heavy things from one point to another isn't going to provide the small milestones that add up to a character's experience points. Maybe he dodges falling rocks along the way, or encounters a monster while doing so and tries to defeat it - but how is that any different from a dungeon experience? Yes, you are essentially describing a dungeon disguised as a small-task as far as scripting and narrative is concerned.

I understand that solo players do have a tough time meeting others on a server with such a small playerbase, but creating scripted quests to move from one level to the other seems ill-fitting for a server that encourages interaction, be it online or offline. A quest needs to have more meaning than simply being a delivery boy, and that meaning can only be imparted by players behind a screen, not scripted NPCs.

If you ask such a thing from the team, consider an alternative avenue - create your own guild and offer small quests to your fellow players. Both your character and others will benefit from the interaction that stretches far beyond level 2.

[Feronius]

If you ask such a thing from the team, consider an alternative avenue - create your own guild and offer small quests to your fellow players. Both your character and others will benefit from the interaction that stretches far beyond level 2.

While I'm definitely a fan of player quests, I thought this suggestion had a completely different purpose/ goal behind it.

I thought the idea behind these repeatable quests was mainly to give players something to do when other players are not around or available. Simply said, to keep you busy when you want to play on TER, but you find yourself without any players or DMs around to RP with, send you on quests or do dungeons with.
Having something to do when other players aren't around would encourage players to stay logged in (without going AFK) and play on the server more. Which in the long run should, hopefully, help increase the average number of players online (especially during the less popular playing times) and make it easier to get started as a new player or new character.

In the end a busy server is simply more appealing than a near empty one. If rock-hauling can encourage that, I'm all for it.
I would prefer to see simple delivery and exploration themed quests. They are less menial and provide more RP opportunity.

[Kilaana]

We welcome interviewees into the build team if they feel they have time to dedicate to creating such a quest system to fit within TER. As I've said before, the idea is applaudable, but it is not one that can be easily implemented unless you are willing to invest time to work on it, with the team. And the team itself has a running to-do list already.

[EventHorizon]

cookie-clicker game inside the NWN engine does not constitute, in my mind, a fun or engaging experience.

When my character goes into the Temple and clicks a placeable to look for bodies, and is met with a small paragraph of flavor text in the server chat (the same as any I would see during Exploration) indicating something about plot and the Demonic problems underlying the Temple, or is struck with an awful vision that drives him temporarily crazy, I will find that fun and engaging. It is as much a cookie-clicker game as fighting monsters or clicking the loot out in dungeons, and I honestly find the repeated comparison frustratingly patronising, although I understand we must have different tastes in that regard.

In the end, the types of suggestions I'm making in this thread aren't about anything except leaving a reusable framework to make TER a more fun game to play, rather than a complete tabula rasa. Mundane and tedious as they may at first strike you, these activities,

but creating scripted quests to move from one level to the other seems ill-fitting for...

, are not meant to be theme parkish rides along the levels, and are not about the reward; they are meant to give the player characters something to talk about and respond to, even if they never set foot in the Temple; e.g. a common labourer goes in, then comes out and comments about a particular awful vision he had or horror he saw - you can do what you will with that information. I acknowledge and fully appreciate how much work it takes, and that features need to be constantly reprioritized to keep up with development. That fact does not make me shirk from laying out plans that I think will work.

I am very much done with defending the basic idea behind these activities, so I will cease arguing why I think the philosophy behind them is well-founded, and only hold further discussion on the actual details and implementation of the actual ideas, like Pilgrimages, Shipwreck Salvaging, and other tangible and appreciated suggestions. Sorry, my patience has just bloody well run out on debating the rationale. Now I'd just like to carry on with the productive stuff; on that note, I will make an application to the Dev team, though I want to focus on my player character and not get into all the gritty secrets of the server.


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I hesitate to award xp for menial tasks as highlighted above, because hauling heavy things from one point to another isn't going to provide the small milestones that add up to a character's experience points. Maybe he dodges falling rocks along the way, or encounters a monster while doing so and tries to defeat it - but how is that any different from a dungeon experience? Yes, you are essentially describing a dungeon disguised as a small-task as far as scripting and narrative is concerned.

Yes.

To return to my first point about being a place for meet-and-play, I'd like to address the crucial period that is the long haul between Level 1 and 2 for some.

I think this is a huge enough issue to warrant its own thread, now that you mention it.

And a big thank you Kilaana, by the way, for taking the time to respond thoroughly.

[Loreweaver]

When the @work function was designed, it was purposefully without specific chores so that it could be applied to as many occupations as possible, rather than shoehorning PCs into the traditional roles of farmhand, waitress and so forth. In some ways, what is described in this thread is an animated version for specific trades. That's something we did look into before, though the builder who began the project was not able to finish a prototype before they left us.

But as Kilaana also indicated, we're not really interested in isolated quests. If we're to add things like that to TER, it should be planned on a larger scale with proper integration into the server. One of the reasons for this is that it affects character wealth and, as proposed here, experience, which at the very least means all PCs should be able to come up with a decent reason to get involved.
You're all very welcome to discuss quest systems with us and to help make them happen, but be aware that it's a major project which may significantly change the way TER functions. We won't be rushing into this.