Spread the Quest Wealth?

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Vipplin
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Spread the Quest Wealth?

Postby Vipplin » Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:47 pm

What about limiting the ability of characters to repeat quests ad nauseum? This would give more opportunity for new players to find and complete them, plus would reduce eq flooding. Here's a couple of ideas:

#1 - Each quest has a number assigned (1, 2...10 etc.), and each char may only do that quest that many times per RL month.

#2 - Once a given character has completed a quest twice, they may not do that quest in the first 24 RL hours after a boot from then on. I like this idea better, but it would have the potential problem of people getting the quest items and then just waiting, thus still keeping others from doing the quest. This would be less of a prob if the items were !rent (ppl maybe less likely to sit online for 24hrs).

Interested to hear what others think about whether this is a problem, and if so, any other ideas regarding a fix.
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Postby Corth » Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:00 am

Impossible to enforce. You can have one of your alts complete the quest. Or if its based on IP address, just have friends and guildmembers complete the quest for you.
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

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Postby Ambar » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:11 am

also since people share IP's ...
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Postby daggaz » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:25 pm

I think its a great idea. It maybe impossible to enforce, ENTIRELY, but it would certaintly have an effect. I am SICK of people farming quests hard every single boot within minutes, when Ive got the items in my bag and im doing it once, maybe twice for a friend.

Lots of the quests I am thinking of cant be done with just any char, to solo you need specific high level characters. How many people have more than one 50th elementalist for that matter? It would put a well deserved damper on things.

Please consider implementing this idea, gods.
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Postby Disoputlip » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:34 pm

I am positive about the idea. If it should be enforced with alts then there should be a system where a player reported his/her own alts, and that doesn't exists here.

But 1 char can only complete 1 quest within a given period of time sounds fine to me. Only few quests that has the problem should be touched by this though.

If the codechange is made then it also should not be coded based on what you should turn in. it should be done so that a certain rare becomes !kill to a player for a time after it has been killed by that player. I am aware that this is wierd if 10 players suddenly no longer is aggro to the beholder in meileich etc, but it could be explained with its aftraid of those players cuz it's cusin just got killed by them. Zones that I could see these changes in could be MD, UM2, Meileich, TB.

Mabye a small addition to rule 6 about hoarding quest eq could also be made, but I prefer it coded.
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Postby Eshacin » Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:14 pm

It's a good idea, even if it couldn't take alts into account.
Would limit he scope for quest farming and also camping an alt near a quest zone.
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Postby kiryan » Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:30 pm

it's been successfuly coded in other game systems and every implementation I have ever seen relies on two important things.

"no transfer" flag that trully prevents a character from transferring the item to another char.

"Unique" flag that prevents a character from having more than one of the item (regardless of location, storage, bag, corpse, ect...).

----------

The alternative is Admin enforcement which is 100% doable since everything from picking up to dropping to looting a corpse is logged. However, the amount of time, the potential for "lopsided" enforcement, and the need to make sometimes "subjective" judgements would create a lot of animosity between the players.

------------

The real challenge is to make a case for restrictions of this nature. Saying "share the quest wealth" could be read "eliminate the competition to me completing a quest" or "I'm not having fun because I can't complete this quest so take someone else's fun (doing the quest over and over) and give it to me".

The only non game reason to restrict the number of times a quest can be done by an individual or group of individuals is because the quest was designed to be done only once per person (or once ever). RP quests fall into this category. Do we want to Orcus to "destroy" bloodstone once a week?

On the game play side, you have two primary considerations .

1. The item is too powerful for a character/guild/world to have more than one.

This has to do with how the game designers want characters to progress. For example if you implement a 200 hp ring when 100 hp rings exist, you raise the effective hp cap 200 (100 for each of two fingers)... If you can limit it to one per character you can better control gains in character power.

2. How cock-blocking the quest "locks" people out of content.

a. For example, in some games you have to quest a "key" or get a "character flag" before you can enter certain content / areas / zones.

b. To a far lesser degree, how blocking a quest prevents others from experiencing the content of that quest.

Both A and B are highly dependent on the underlying game vision.

In a pay to play environment, you pay extreme attention to things that prevent people from having fun; one group blocking off a majority of the content (that you designed for everyone to experience) is bad if lots of people are complaining (but not necessarily bad if there is no desire to experience that content or the complaining players are not ready for the content).

On the flip side, In a hands off approach, developing for perfection or along some grand vision, your essentially running a simulator and watching. Your trying to eliminate bandaids and address root causes / dynamics instead. A hands off approach to a "quest hoarding" scenario would be to figure out why the quest is being hoarded... This is most likely because the risk vs reward vs time formula for the quest is not "balanced" and possibly because there are simply too many people at a specific point in character development (usually the very top tier).

Personally if you ask me, we could definitely use a "unique" flag. I'm not so sure on a "no transfer" flag as there are very few game based reasons to use one (powerfully cursed items are the easy example). I'm even less sure on "sharing the quest wealth" because its probably the quest or the playerbase that is "broken".
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Postby daggaz » Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:55 pm

damn kiryan...

First off, I think 'farming' is a definite in-game negative issue of questing, which is addressed in the rules and is definitely something the gods want to minimize... (remember pbone shields?) so you might want to add that in with your narrow 2 point definition of ingame reasons to limit said activity.

Bluntly labeling people who are the victims of farmers is pretty base. I can't even imagine narrowing it down so thinly as to 'remove the competition for me' or 'take away that persons 'so-called' fun.' Sure, in some instances that probably does apply, but you gotta take the other instances into account, as well.

How about when I am trying to quest some snazzy whatevers, and player X happens to hit that zone within 30 seconds of a reboot, almost regardless of time of day or night, almost every reboot for several months? Player X gets to rent in a close by hometown to which I dont have access. As I dont feel like breaking the camping rules (or even if I did, probably dont wanna go thru the trouble of camping all the way up there each time i log off), it is pretty much impossible for me to beat this person to the zone.

Is player X doing that for 'fun?' Doubtful. And even if they were, it borders on the legal fringes of fair play. Most likely, person X is doing this to eq their entire guild with said snaz, or perhaps even using them for the occasional trade. In the end, player X just gave me one of the rare items, which was nice, but seriously took the fun out of it for me, as I didnt get to do it myself. And I still had to wait many more weeks to quest the items, as player X didnt stop farming until I finally lost my nerve and told them in a not-entirely nice manner to stop f-ing farming.

One year after learning this quest, I am just finishing it for the second time, as a favor for a very good friend. Am I being greedy or trying to ruin X's fun? Not a chance. (and btw me and X get along pretty well, hope they dont take this too personally)

Ultimately, I believe there are far more solutions to the problem than you describe, and I most firmly believe they should be implemented. A flag which remembers certain mobs which a player kills and limits them in engaging this mob (whether starting or assisting) is probably within the realms of the all mighty coders (or how else did they manage to build the defunct trophy system, which does after all track our mobs).

Sure there are ways around such a system, but that is no reason not to imp it.

Aggros would have to remain aggro no matter what, or twinks would be far too easy.

You could use a different alt. Fine, but most players will run out of useful alts which are capable of soloing specific mobs..

You could bring other people to help. Hmm.. HEY GREAT!! Good. Let other people in on it. More fun for everybody. And If its an uber secret quest, you wont want to. And if its mundane farming, people will get bored and refuse to help you.. seems to me it would balance out pretty evenly.

And this is a solution you could add piecewize, starting with the most obvious problem quests and adding the flag to others as they come along.
(I also think specfic rooms warrent an increased presence for anti-bot enforcement).

In the end, I would much rather compete with 20 people part time rather than just 1 full time, and I think such a system would go to great lengths in accomplishing this.
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Postby Dalar » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:34 pm

In the MMO community we have a certain sayings for posts like these.

Cry more noob.
It's fine learn 2 play.

As for Daggaz's post, can someone translate that for me?
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.
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Postby kiryan » Thu Mar 09, 2006 12:26 am

but that is exactly what it is daggaz.

If you implement guidelines to limit the # of times one person/group completes a quest, you are essentially removing the competition for completing the quest aka making it easier for people. If some people get a thrill from finding those uber rares/quest items the 10th, 15th, 40th time... you are removing their fun by making it illegal or impossible for them to continue...

I used to enjoy running around the realm and doing all the rares/solo items... I did it for about 2 years religiously. Why, I'm not really sure, but I did it over and over and I must've enjoyed it. If a god had jumped my ass over hoarding, then that would've sucked and I daresay I would've felt that I wasn't having as much fun since I wasn't getting to do what I wanted to do (farm semi useless crap).

There is only one true "game" reason why you should implement a unique/no transfer flag and that is because a certain object was designed that way for theme... Everything else is a bandaid to another problem and indicates some sort of "imbalance"... even if that imbalance is as simple as supply vs demand.
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Postby Lahgen » Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:17 am

Just to play Devil's Advocate, daggaz:

Perhaps if you aren't willing to live and breathe being leet like that one guy, maybe you don't deserve to have that gear? Perhaps this is the game's way of separating the true players from the mere casuals. Play seriously or don't play at all.
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Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby Sarell » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:06 am

I agree with Kiryan in that it would be a bandaid for something that isn't the problem. If quests are being farmed, it's because they give too much reward, the people are trying to do it for their friends, or they hate you and don't want you to complete the quest. The 3rd is illegal so let the admin know. If you apply this stuff to quests, you have to decide which quests? Is the 10p quest in GN going to get it? Some people just do lots of quests because they don't live in USA time and it gives them something to work on when they can play.

If quests can't be done again, why should zones be done again? You have already smitten tiamat once, surely you can't smite her again, that's not fair? One leader leads izans a lot, stop them from doing that so you can?

I really dislike of moderating things only to accomodate small, current sections of the torilmud community. When the game changes a little, as it does each month, this changes become defunct, and the once glorius zones or quests are ruined. There was a time when some guy kept sitting at zog getting chains, claiming them, selling them. People stopped helping him do anything, it worked out well without nerfing zog for everyone else.

Trollbark presents a problem, lots of little items. People ruining the quest as the zone writer made it by handing out the items, so no one was actually doing the quest. Now this breaches the quest information rules I would imagine. People often are given walkthroughs of quests these days, and sadly, it has to be that way or the quests couldn't be started by most. You can't just stumble on Gor anymore. There's two sides to the coin still, maybe it's a bonus of being in a guild where people help eachother out with collecting items they may be on to get. Maybe it's deterring from people participating in quests in the spirit that the areas staff made them in.

In the second case, where doing quests for other characters deters from the 'vibe' of doing a quest, the unique/!transfer flags are okay, but made the mud look cheesy or unrealistic for want of better terms. Now this is where I bring up my tirade 3 tirades from now.. DG scripts, with my Qnum add on! A script, that can not only write to room/mob/zone/item .. but can write, and be triggered, directly off a variable in your pfile (a Qnum array TM!).

E.g. A stinky dwarf says 'OmG you smote tiamat Sarell! If you smite gormal for me I'll give you 1K'....

You can only participate in the quest if the character itself did the groundwork. I have a much larger post on this, after I've posted enough about exp and then tokens for posting in gameplay discussion at the end of zones :P
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Postby Latreg » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:01 pm

let's talk some specifics
glittering golden mask
that use to be a hot item after a boot/crash, and they use to fetch a good amount of plats at the auctions, it's gear, it's a quest item, it's both! Many people had to resort to purchasing or in some instances given said item because if you weren't ultra fast you couldn't do the quest before someone else. This is true of some of the mundane items people get just to sell (I'm guilty of this as well) rather than leave for the newbies to gear themselves up with.
I remeber killing the cat burglars with a few people for their rings because that was decent gear......ah that takes me back.
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Postby Lahgen » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:05 pm

Devil's Advocate again:

So...become faster. :p

Just because you want something doesn't make you entitled to it.
Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
daggaz
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Postby daggaz » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:55 pm

Lahgen, umm... devils advocate or not, umm.. you are just plain wrong there.

I'm hardly a casual player, and while I may not have amassed all the uber uber spanky gear yet (I did take a long ass break), I think my reputation as both a skilled and hardcore mudder speaks for itself. Don't know if you meant that personally about me or not, but sure sounded that way..

Second, in such a farming instance as I described, skills end up playing a significantly inferor role compared to people just being there first. And the whole point of my complaint (and the basis for this thread, if you havent noticed) was to limit the number of times one person could 'be there first.' It doesn't require much skill at all to just spam in and smite the same three mobs every single boot. More like just a perm-logged char with an alarm set to go off whenever the mud boots/crashes, a whole lot of free time, and greed/inconsideration versus your fellow players.
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Postby daggaz » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:03 pm

Sarell,

First, why need to use those flags kiryan mentioned. Seems to me like you could have the mud remember your mobs and just limit you in killing them. Not a perfect solution, but it would help push the balance back..

As far as it being just a bandaid, well perhaps, but if you tried to lower the values of all the quests so nothing was that valuable, everything would be kinda mundanely equal, which would probably be pretty boring.

And you could vary ít too, vary which mobs it applies to, and vary how many times/how long/how many boots/whatever is the limitation for that mob. Just give the flag some modifier values. So you could pick certain quests, things like trollbark and GG mask perhaps.

As far as applying this to zones, its a whole lot trickier to lay claim to a zone. You have to get a full on group that is capable of smiting it first, and these days thats often tough. Jot/Musp used to have this issue, and yeah, the gods did slap on a bandaid. Branches. Everybody hated them at first, but they did resolve some issues, and personally, I think its kinda fun to have to bust in these days.
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Postby Latreg » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:08 pm

Lahgen wrote:Devil's Advocate again:

So...become faster. :p

Just because you want something doesn't make you entitled to it.


I understand what you are saying but this is not a good way to get and retain new players or a pbase of any size for that matter.

Just because you can do something faster than someone else doesn't mean you should.
Talona responds to your petition with 'Sweet, I fixed something!'

Talona LFG: [55 Evil Human Nec] 'Don't make me mud castrate you all.'

Some people are like slinkies, not really good for anything but you still cant help smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
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Postby Lahgen » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:13 pm

So...you're asking people to intentionally hold back from gaining capital just so someone else can have it?
Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
Latreg
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Postby Latreg » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:26 pm

Lahgen wrote:So...you're asking people to intentionally hold back from gaining capital just so someone else can have it?


no, what I'm suggesting is people intentionally hold back so that others may enjoy the game as well. This can only help retain and bring back players.
Talona responds to your petition with 'Sweet, I fixed something!'

Talona LFG: [55 Evil Human Nec] 'Don't make me mud castrate you all.'

Some people are like slinkies, not really good for anything but you still cant help smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
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Postby Dalar » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:46 pm

Latreg wrote:
Lahgen wrote:So...you're asking people to intentionally hold back from gaining capital just so someone else can have it?


no, what I'm suggesting is people intentionally hold back so that others may enjoy the game as well. This can only help retain and bring back players.


So would bringing back artifacts, but that's all opinionated. Making a carebear system for quests isn't going to bring anyone back. Also, cry more noob. There is a ton of content for new players and there are so many items with similar qualities in this game. If you can't get a scorp earring, quit crying. Go find another one that's of similar value.
It will be fixed in Toril 2.0.

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Postby Latreg » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:02 pm

[quote=
So would bringing back artifacts, but that's all opinionated. Making a carebear system for quests isn't going to bring anyone back. Also, cry more noob. There is a ton of content for new players and there are so many items with similar qualities in this game. If you can't get a scorp earring, quit crying. Go find another one that's of similar value.[/quote]

stop being "In before the Lock" get the key, open the lock and get your head out of yer arse ;)
we are talking about quest items, no idea what in the world you are talkin about.
Talona responds to your petition with 'Sweet, I fixed something!'

Talona LFG: [55 Evil Human Nec] 'Don't make me mud castrate you all.'

Some people are like slinkies, not really good for anything but you still cant help smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
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Postby Lahgen » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:09 pm

There's a quest for scorps earrings.

I'm guessing Dalar is saying, albeit needlessly rudely, that if you can't compete to be faster than the other guy camping, then perhaps you should settle for obsidian skull earrings, which are only slightly worse and much easier to get. Just as an example.
Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby hagah » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:10 pm

The name of the game is GREED and it's not going to change, and no one can make it change. If anything I would like to see more difficult/rare quests happen just to push the current uber equip down to where I can get a hold of it!! :)

gimmie gimmie gimmie

P.S. I would love to go do some little zones with people and we could take our time and everyone could learn a thing or 4 about the zone specifics and what rares load, we could read the room descriptions and comment on the lovely use of ansi, etc.. etc.. as an alternative to the joy of running full speed to rape a zone of eqs :)
Last edited by hagah on Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Lahgen » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:30 pm

Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby sotana » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:23 pm

hagah wrote:The name of the game is GREED and it's not going to change, and no one can make it change.


Lol I gotta disagree. :-P I know different folks play for different reasons so speaking just for myself, there really isn't anything fun about accumulating items that aren't immediately useful to me just to prove I can or even to amass large amounts of plat to sit in my bank account. I love the thrill of the race to an item I'm questing when it's something I don't have and really can immediately use or if it's a quest that has never been done before. However, once I have it, there's no fun for me in blocking other people from achieving the same item. The 'thrill of the race' for many folks ends once they begin to understand there really is no race since they don't have the time to 'outcamp' the person who is currently farming the item. I have no interest in getting in the way of other folks who also enjoy that thrill I love so much.

Play for whatever reason drives you but there's definitely more than one 'name of the game' :-P
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Postby Botef » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:43 pm

Running around checking and smiting rares every boot is fine...its the people who camp next to rares, and only log those characters at boot to check/smite a rare and then camp again that really rub me the wrong way.

I agree that preventing the # of times a player can do quests is a rather poor fix to what I see as a somewhat limited problem, but something could be done to address INDIVIDUALS hoarding rares and preventing anyone from discovering/completing quests.

I haven't been up near Ashgorrock in several months, but back in the fall there were quite a few people who camped out there so that at boots they could log and immediatly kill and hoard rares...This kind of behavior is what bothers me. Players like this have multiple rare objects for the same quest before finishing it, rather than collecting the individual pieces - completing it, and then starting again. This kind of hoarding shouldn't take place on long quests with a variety of unique rares ), unless thes quest is meant to be done at nausem like driftwood staffs, etc.

In example, a player farms the zone every boot, and has 3-4 of the same rare object...That kind of behavior is what bothers me as they prevent anyone from working on the quest, giving said person the market control over the final item. Further more, it means that the only players who can compete for the quest are those of a class that can camp and be the first to log at boot and start/claim the mob...

Doing the same quest over and over, sure whatever. Hoarding rare quest items, by camping the mob, so nobody can complete the quest while you do it over and over - that I don't jive with. The thrill of racing to an item first is nonexistant when people camp the mobs.

Really, I think this isn't something that needs a coded fix...I think it would best be handled by the administration sphere enforcing policy to prevent this...camping rare mobs is like camping zones like jot/musp and should not be allowed IMO.
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Postby hagah » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:44 pm

But you had the desire to get it once right? And then what, you had the desire to get something else? and then something else...

This is a game, the object is to collect and amass wealth and powers, group together with other slayers and accomplish tasks.. if you're not playing it towards that objective then what is the point of the game?? To develop an ever lasting alter ego? I don't know.. I just think many reasons for playing this game are lame..

I guess there is the RP aspect, but even that has a winner, the person who RP's the best and effects the most change in the RP environment.. Thats the "winner" .. they are declared the winner by the other players opinions..
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Postby Vipplin » Fri Mar 10, 2006 12:04 am

I appreciate all the discussion. I am very interested to hear people’s points of view on this. My apologies for answering everyone at once, this is a novel...

1. Corth: You’re absolutely right, any code-based solution would have work-arounds. Even so, as Daggaz said, I would rather have people have to do a work-around, it would be an improvement, and it would technically be against the rules so I’d like to think ppl would refrain for the most part.

2. Ambar: I don’t think the restrictions should be based on IP (players), only characters. Got 8 characters that want to do a quest? Go for it IMHO. Thus, IP wouldn’t be a prob. :)

3. Daggaz: Yup!

4.
Disoputlip: I agree I don’t think it should be enforced with alts. Let each character live their own life without restrictions from what their player’s other chars have done. As for the !kill for the solution, I don’t really like that since I think it should be ok for someone who has done the quest to be in a group doing the quest again and should be able to help. The easiest thing to code would be to disallow the quest mob from giving the quest reward during the restricted period to that character, maybe would just drop the quest items. Ideally, in my mind, characters would be restricted from picking up the quest items during the restricted period, but I think that would be a huge pain to code.

5. Eshacin: Thanks. I agree.

6. Kiryan: The “unique item” and “no-transfer” implementations you talked about don’t seem right for Torilmud to me, either. “Unique” might be nice for some items, but I don’t think it would solve the problem I’m concerned with. You say “the alternative is admin enforcement”. I agree that relying primarily on admin enforcement is a _bad_ idea. It just serves to create work for the imm’s and friction between the imm’s and the players. Code-based restrictions are the way to go when possible IMO. I disagree with you that those are the only options. See my suggestions in the first post, especially #2.

As for “making a case” for restrictions, Daggaz answered some of your thoughts well, but here’s my take.

-- “taking fun” -- slowing down farmers by allowing others to get a first shot at a quest maybe takes a little of their fun, but I think everyone will agree that doing the quest the first time can be a real thrill. Farming it for the 20-50th time, although it may help your character’s wealth, is not so thrilling (unless cock-blocking is your thrill), so overall I’m ok with the farmer having to wait to see if someone new finds it first. Figuring out new quests and successfully exploring new areas should be encouraged and enabled. Remember, if someone else finds it and does it, then afterwards they are restricted same as the farmer, nice even playing field thereafter.

-- RP reasons for restrictions – This isn’t really what I was getting at with this idea, but now that you mention it, rp-wise _many_ quests make no sense to do more than once (e.g. in Scardale there are mobs you can help with the same problem many times in one boot – not rp-consistent, but good since newbs can find the items and learn to do quests. Someone strictly rp-ing wouldn’t do most of them more than once). This was not, though, my reason for suggesting restrictions and I would vote _against_ enforcing this aspect of rp.

-- Gameplay reasons for restrictions -- you point out what you consider to be the only 2 reasons, “too powerful” and “cock-blocking”.
a. Too powerful – if this is the problem, then a “unique” flag would do the trick. This isn’t the problem I’m concerned about in this thread, though.
b. Cock-blocking – you said, “In a pay to play environment, you pay extreme attention to things that prevent people from having fun; one group blocking off a majority of the content (that you designed for everyone to experience) is bad if lots of people are complaining (but not necessarily bad if there is no desire to experience that content or the complaining players are not ready for the content).” I don’t think this is only a problem in a pay-to-play environment. I think both the imms and the vast majority of players would like everyone to have access to all of Torilmud and its quests. The real question is, “what kind of competition for quests should there be?” I just think that characters who haven’t done a quest should have a leg up on those who have. Once they’ve done the quest once, they lose their preferred status, and it’s back to “he who farms first wins” just like you like it. Also, you say this might remove the competition for completing a quest. So what? I _really_ don’t think the hardest part of doing _any_ quest is _supposed_ to be beating a mob of farmers to the punch.

You say, Kiryan, that you think the root problem if some quests are being hoarded is that “the risk vs reward vs time formula for the quest is not "balanced" and possibly because there are simply too many people at a specific point in character development (usually the very top tier).” I don’t agree that if someone wants to farm eq then it must be from an unbalanced quest. You said yourself, “”I used to enjoy running around the realm and doing all the rares/solo items... I did it for about 2 years religiously. Why, I'm not really sure, but I did it over and over and I must've enjoyed it. If a god had jumped my ass over hoarding, then that would've sucked and I daresay I would've felt that I wasn't having as much fun since I wasn't getting to do what I wanted to do (farm semi useless crap).”” You farmed crap eq just because you could – that doesn’t make those items overpowered or the mobs underpowered, it just means you like to farm. As for the idea that too many people are playing at the same point (the high point) in their char’s development, that could be the problem with some quests. If that is the problem, then my solution would work well (unless you’re advocating another p-wipe, which would be the only real way to address the “root problem” there).

Personally, I think the “root problem” is not a problem at all. Everyone wants eq, everyone wants to have valuable eq to trade, and many people like to be the only one or one of a few people to know things. That is what is at the “root”, what drives people to farm quests. That’s fine, I don’t want to change the mud to remove those motivations. The problem I’m addressing is that we’re de-motivating and disenchanting rising new players AND established players that can’t be on 24/7 by allowing farmers to mindlessly cock-block people from appreciating what I consider to be one of the most fun parts of the mud: quests and the satisfaction that comes from doing a new one.

I don’t appreciate item farming that doesn’t involve quests, either, but at least it doesn’t, as Kiryan says, cut people off from game content, just an item.

7. Dalar: ROFL

8. Lahgen: “Just to play Devil's Advocate, daggaz: Perhaps if you aren't willing to live and breathe being leet like that one guy, maybe you don't deserve to have that gear? Perhaps this is the game's way of separating the true players from the mere casuals. Play seriously or don't play at all.”

I don’t think logging on at boot and running to grab a quest item like daggaz was talking about shows you are “l33t”. It shows you are aware that the game has booted, are camped/rented nearby and know where the item is. To me (who knows maybe I have a misguided idea here) “l33t” means that you know a lot of tough zones intimately, have played a lot, have great eq, and know how to use your character skillfully. For some reason I’ve never thought farming was “l33t”. Finally, do we really want to restrict the pbase to people who only “play seriously”? I think we should do like the cigarette companies did/do – get ‘em in through casual use and let the addiction take over... :) Besides, just because someone has a job and/or family doesn’t mean they don’t play seriously, it just means they can’t always answer the mud’s siren call when they wish (e.g. if boot is at 11 pm, most people are asleep and then won’t get to the mud until after work the next day to discover the boot). Also, the player who can’t do the quest due to farmers is likely to get the item eventually anyway through buying/trading/gifting so we’re not talking about being “worthy” of the eq, we’re talking about just being able to figure out and do the quest. Besides, if you or your group can complete the quest, then by definition you are worthy of the rewards.

9. Sarrell: I didn’t suggest that quests wouldn’t be able to be done repeatedly. You are right, though, which quests restrictions would apply to would have to be chosen. Those people you talk about who might like to do quests because of their time zones etc would not be hurt by this. They could still do the same quests, just not until after characters that hadn’t done them got a shot at it. Do it every boot unless a new character finds it that boot in the first 24 hours. This change wouldn’t nerf anything or anyone. It wouldn’t be harder to do anything other than farming quests, and that wouldn’t be harder, just at a different time.

I like your idea of enabling mobs to see a flag on your char and reacting differently. That would be great.

10. Ok, that’s all the individuals I’ll respond to in ONE post, heh. Maybe more later.

I think this would also encourage people to change from the pattern of “Hey, a reboot! First I’ll farm all the quests I know, then maybe I’ll go looking for new stuff” and perhaps get them to say “Alright, a reboot! Now I can go try to do those quests I’ve been trying to figure out! Or maybe I’ll help someone else who hasn’t done them yet and needs a group. Maybe later (after 24 hrs) I’ll see if those other quests I already solved haven’t been done yet.” That would seem like a big improvement to me, but hey, I’m idealistic.

All considered at this point, I think my preferred solution would be the following (and I’d be interested to hear from someone in a position to know how hard this would be to implement code-wise on Toril):

Hard-code – once a quest is done by a character, that quest mob will not react to that character from then on unless time elapsed since boot is +24 hours. This would also enable players to tell which quests were restricted – after the quest has been done once, sometime before +24 hours ask the quest mob “hello” and if it doesn’t react you know where you stand. This _doesn’t_ need to apply to quests that pop more than once per boot or to quests that tend to take more than a couple of days to complete.

Rules – any system would be more effective with rules to back it up and to spell out the intent of the system. The code should be the primary enforcer to reduce staff burden and player-staff friction, though. I think the only rule I would want to see would be something like “Don’t collect any quest items before boot +24 hours on restricted quests if you have completed that quest before”.

The only impact to the game I’d like to see is a reduction in (thanks Kiryan for the term) cock-blocking. The reduction in fun for a few would be far far outweighed by the increased enjoyment of many, and most importantly for new players. After all, the farmers can still get those quests done each boot if nobody new has done it in the first 24 hours. I also think a shorter period could work, like 12-16 hours, but I think 24 would be best.

Edit: Added some boldface
sotana
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Postby sotana » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:23 am

hagah wrote:But you had the desire to get it once right? And then what, you had the desire to get something else? and then something else...

This is a game, the object is to collect and amass wealth and powers, group together with other slayers and accomplish tasks.. if you're not playing it towards that objective then what is the point of the game?? To develop an ever lasting alter ego? I don't know.. I just think many reasons for playing this game are lame..

I guess there is the RP aspect, but even that has a winner, the person who RP's the best and effects the most change in the RP environment.. Thats the "winner" .. they are declared the winner by the other players opinions..


Sure, I'm competitive and I must admit I do get all drooly over spanky procs but they're not my endgame and they're not the reason I come back for more. And I certainly can't be RPing to show off my leet RP skills cuz I'm barely average :-P. I find the dynamic, unpredictable environment of RP interesting and worthwhile in its own right.

Probably half of my 200-odd pdays were spent exploring by myself/throwing myself at mobs for no other reason than because I enjoy seeing what's out there and solving puzzles and I'm still at it. So I guess we'll agree to disagree about the name of the game. :-)

P.S. Sorry for thread hijack. I'll behave better in the future, I promise. :-P
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Postby kiryan » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:31 pm

vipplin, I can see value in some of your responses to my points although I think you misread me in a couple of places, im not going to quibble. you might try reading my post again from a purely theoretical approach assuming I don't really care about whether or not it becomes legal/illegal to farm crap (cuz i don't care) and am instead only concerned with game dynamics.

One additional danger to making quests doable once is that you start to create what I'll call a game script. A series of quests every character goes through in their life time as character development instead of for the development of their personal fortunes. I'm thinking of early Final fantasy games where you just ran along and did a bunch of quests, sometimes for new weapons, and at some point you "win" and the game is over. Greed or Escalation gives most MMORPGS long term draw and is why most single player RPGs end after 50-60 hours.

Ultimately there is probably a balance to be struck between no questing limit and some sort of questing limit. We could develop some great one time only quests to do true character development (especially at low levels) that will give new players a path and give them some high reward for little risk to "hook" them up and into the game, but thats not really what is being proposed in this discussion. This discussion seems to focus on should I, as a part timer or less skilled player, get a break when competing against a professional mudder. I think the answer to that is no except in extreme cockblocking situations.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:10 pm

lahgen wrote:http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_PlayToWinPart1.htm


Great article.

Only comment I would make is the negative effects of "win at all costs" in a limited community or a social game can not be ignored. So you "beat" everyone you ever played, but now no one will play with you, you lose. In this scenario, longterm winning is about your social standing and attitude and not about your skill/lack of skill/loot.

Its perfectly within the leader's right to claim all zone loot (say from tia) and tell the rest of the group to suck a fat one (per the game rules). He won quite distinctively becoming the absolute richest player in the game in one zone trip. Unfortunately, now he might as well quit because no one will play with associate with him.
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Postby Lahgen » Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:42 pm

There's also 2 more articles in that series. Well, 3 if you count Part 0.

My problem with the "play to win" attitude, is, well, the attitude. I'm all for playing seriously, but I'm sure most people have had to put up with stuck up people acting better than everyone else in their lives, who wants to put up with that in a game?

And by that, I mean stuff like dismissing all complaints with "cry more noob," or calling someone a "carebear" just because they don't want to PvP or don't like the idea of competition. Well, if they weren't shamed by others for being "losers," maybe they wouldn't object to competition so much?
Kesena OOC: 'i wish my daddy bought me power tools'

Dorgh group-says 'damn, even with Cofen helping Mori, they STILL can't kill someone

Hekanut says 'I know level doesn't matter much, but most won't take seriously if a level 2 claims to be the best thing before, during, and after sliced bread.'



Rather than seeing "subpar race/class," see "challenge."
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Postby Vipplin » Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:29 am

kiryan wrote: ... One additional danger to making quests doable once is that you start to create what I'll call a game script. A series of quests every character goes through in their life time as character development instead of for the development of their personal fortunes. I'm thinking of early Final fantasy games where you just ran along and did a bunch of quests, sometimes for new weapons, and at some point you "win" and the game is over. Greed or Escalation gives most MMORPGS long term draw and is why most single player RPGs end after 50-60 hours.


I can see your point, but I think that (a) I think the same dynamics in the game now that make people want to do quests more than once would still exist if this idea were implemented and (b) it takes a hell of a lot longer than 50-60 hours to find and complete every quest in Toril :) ... people could end up long-term players just trying to do all the well-known stuff once, much less trying to find every quest in every zone. I'm not too concerned with the 'script' possibility since quest info is not public and one quest doesn't lead you to the next.

kiryan wrote:Ultimately there is probably a balance to be struck between no questing limit and some sort of questing limit. We could develop some great one time only quests to do true character development (especially at low levels) that will give new players a path and give them some high reward for little risk to "hook" them up and into the game, but thats not really what is being proposed in this discussion. This discussion seems to focus on should I, as a part timer or less skilled player, get a break when competing against a professional mudder. I think the answer to that is no except in extreme cockblocking situations.


I agree that if this is implemented the imm's should of course carefully consider which quests it is applied to in ensure it doesn't cause unforseen problems. You would prefer it only to be applied to extreme situations, and I would rather not see things get to the extremes - I'd rather not have someone have to get massively frustrated before something is done (like Daggaz's example). I respect your opinion, we just disagree there. I believe that even if it were applied to 80% of quests it would not negatively impact underlying game dynamics. Heck, in the earring example, the person who happens to complete the quest the first time in -24hrs will then have to compete with the farmer pro for the 2nd...

Finally, to make it even less of an impediment to repeat-questers while still reaping nearly the same gameplay benefit, you could make the 24-hr restriction only last for one RL month (renewed after each completion). If you only do a quest 1x per month you would then have no restrictions at all. Otherwise, do it as much as you like but only after the "open season for explorers" of boot +24hrs.

Great discussion.

Edit: Just wanted to add, I don't think most people farming quests are doing it just to prevent others. Some are, sure, but most probably just like doing the quests. But even if the 'cock-blocking' is unintentional, it has the same effects. Player A trying to beat Player B to the quest when they've both done it 100x is good fun, but when someone can't figure the damn thing out as a result, well that's collateral damage I'd like to see reduced.

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