Re: CF: one time solving quests

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

Scott Wedel wrote:
> 
> One time solving quests are very difficult to implement in a
> multi player game because it just creates an incentive to find
> a way to bypass that checkpoint or avoid completely winning the
> quest.  Such checkpoints detract from gameplay because there is
> no obvious reason why doing something is prohibited for one
> character, but not others.

 True.  I think this depends on some factors.

 It is reasonable that you may need to receive a quest first before doing it, or
otherwise unique knowledge.  But even that doesn't help much, as all that
happens is the players who have done it before know the right people to talk to
to get the right items.

 I think that last problem is difficult to solve in any case.  The best hope
would be to use the invisible MARKER objects and have them inserted into the
players inventories is not necessarily obvious places (within the maps I mean). 
So it would be difficult for players to know exactly what spaces they will get
the marker objects, but they do need them to complete the quest.  It would be
hard to cherry pick just the right spaces and complete the quest then.



> I think the biggest problem regarding repeating quests is that
> the finishing rooms of a quest refresh way too quickly.  I think
> there should be CF config file which allows specifying the refresh
> frequency for any map.  An entry would be a line of the pathname to
> the map relative to the top of the maps directory and the desired
> refresh delay.  That way it is easy to make treasure rooms refresh
> much less often depending on the preferences of the DM.  That way
> a DM could also decide that one quest is being done too much and
> make the key rooms refresh only rarely.

 This can already be done.  The map reset times for each map can be custom set. 
There are some min and max defaults in the config.h, but those can easily be set
to very low/very high values so they never have an effect.

 Note that really, the entire series of maps should get that new delay - as a
player, it would be frustrating to hack your way through the dungeon only to
find out that the treasure room hasn't reset yet.

 More likely, if one quest is being done too much, that quest should be
examined.  Is it too easy for the rewards gained?   That is a broad question,
which could range from difficulty of the monsters, to just being able to zip
through it in 5 minutes and get to the treasure room.  Or the other question
might be 'is there just not enough alternative quests of that level range?'

 One advantage (and problem) with the client is that you can effectively save
your player anyplace (compared to only savebeds).  This means that quests out in
the middle of nowhere are not quite such a disadvantage.  And with things like
alchemy, pulling out all the items is not quite so critical.

 But I think some quests are sort of skipped just because of the effort needed
to actually start the quest - either prequests, or just distance or other
conversations.
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