My take on the Unique Quests/Castle in Scorn thing

[Tom Barnes-Lawrence <ug97tbl@cs.bham.ac.uk>]

Hi,
  I've been playing CF on and off for about 3 yrs now, and lurking on the
lists a bit, but something Michael Toennies (& mebbe others) posted
recently about Unique Quests made me want to chip in and make a few
suggestions myself. Then when I came in today, with my idea 80% ready or
so, I noticed PeterM had already implemented something with the Scorn
Castle that would probably be similar- but then I figured I'd just send
the thing anyway and see what everyone thinks.
 Hope you don't mind my input (always seems like kind of a free-for-all
anyway ;)

 Basically, my idea was similar to that put forward by Michael, with
random quests from a guildmaster or similar, to get titles, but varies in
certain ways (IMHO mine would be even more interesting for a start, but
requires more implementation).

 It would require maybe 2 new types, one for a guildmaster or similar,
who could assign players quests, but also another like a floor tile
(could also be implemented as a flag, but could get messy).
 When a guildmaster (who could also be, eg- a sage, a lord, a politician,
a gangster, a high-priest, and give different, partially overlapping sets
of quests) is contacted for a quest, a quest is created for the player,
partially dependent on the player class, overall skill, strongest skill,
etc, that would determine the players ability to actually complete it.

 What is involved in the quest's creation, however, is very different-
3 files (kind of like the artifacts file or the formulae file) could have
sets of data describing-
Characters, eg some dragon from the mountains that keeps attacking the
 cities; some subversive figure who is in conflict with a politician; a
 big arch-criminal; a powerful follower of an enemy god. The file would
 cover various details- of character's archetype, alignments, enemies,
 a description, story, and data concerning aims or motives (probably
 very simple ones)
Items, not necessarily like artifacts, maybe some piece of evidence of
 a plot, some sacred trinket, a magical device that allows character (but
 not player!) to do foo, or whatever. File would mainly be archetype
 pointer, plus brief description, story, and who is interested in it.
Plots, such as  X has returned from hiding to cause trouble; X has been
 reincarnated/ escaped death by trickery; X has stolen foo; X is possibly
 up to something and we want to know what; X has kidnapped Y; X has sent
 Z to spy on us; or even- X's powerful follower/apprentice, P (a high
 level player associated with opposing quest-giver/god!) has been doing
 lots of quests for X and we're not happy about it!
 File would probably have to cover types of entry possible for X,Y,Z, etc.
 and maybe some other details (not quite sure what!). The one pitting
 you against another player would probably have to be a server option
 and not need to be put in plots file.

 Then, the code would *either* select a set of these that work properly
with each other and the quest-giver (probably taking into account past
history), possibly with the characters themselves created on the spot
(along the lines of Henry the Fierce, Geoff the Scourge of Wyrms, you get
the idea) and then stored as well for later reuse, *or* just a fairly
simple random situation like the monster-vaults in nethack.
 It further picks one of a limited number of possible quest goals
(return with thing, kill character, free character, find information),
along with policy for the quest- generally how open it is to others and
whether player may play it twice- and a suitable location. It finally
picks the position of one of the new floor tiles (remember them?) as an
entrance to the quest-map(s), and generates map(s) according to the quest
details, by similar means to the random-map system.

 As to other players who are nothing to do with the quest, or may be too
low-level to survive it, the quest policy comes into play. In certain
cases, the entrance will be visible to all between its creation and its
removal; in others, it will be hidden, but players may find it if they
search for it- they may wonder where someone had just vanished to; other
cases, the entrance is only visible to the player whose quest it is.
 This may mean that players may end up trying to finish certain classes
of quest before someone else does it before them, who may or may not
know/be able to get anything for doing so. Other types of quest (eg return
an ogre's arm from this cave somewhere) could be completed by more than
one player, but it might not be allowed if the quest is deemed personal
to him.

 I should cover the entry tiles a bit more as I forgot to. Basically like
the normal floor tiles, with styles like forest, mountain, desert, urban,
arctic, etc, that are also somehow associated with areas of the world-
either from the map they're in (easy but inflexible) or a field to say
what areas they are in (eg tile in scorn could be- "Scorn", "Main
Continent", plus "Port area of Scorn" rather than "Posh area of Scorn",
even though Scorn is one map and the Main continent is many.) These
attributes would be taken into account to make sure you didn't have, eg- a
dragon building a huge lair in the city.

 So anyway, I think thats finally all of how my version of the random
quest maps thing would go, PeterM didn't seem to go into much detail
about his version and I'm still using 0.95.4, IIRC.
Like Michael and Peter's versions, I think giving titles is a great idea,
but I was thinking more along the lines of "Vanquisher of Bert" or
"Rescuer of Doris" and stuff, but perhaps you could get one type of title
for certain quests, the other type for others, and other rewards for yet
other types of quests, eg access to special restricted areas of guilds.

 Sorry to have made such a huge posting when I'm new to the list (and will
be changing email soon!), suggesting quite big changes, but I just reckon
it would give a really good amount of variety, interest, and stuff to the
game- and it sounds like role-playing to me, and people keep saying they
want more of that- So what do you all think? Good? Bad? Dull? Impossible?

 I look forward to hearing from you all- but as I'll be leaving university
soon, any mail direct to me after this wednesday should be directed to
 tomble@barnes-lawrence.freeserve.co.uk   or I prolly won't receive it!

Tom Barnes-Lawrence (aka Tomble)
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