State of the quest system

I so agree with this. That's why I want to say episode 1 questing was an experiment. Perhaps much more enjoyable experiences for episode 2. Not to say all the hard work on quests is not appreciated. Our quest builders have worked their fingers to the bone to try to make this system work.

Now episode 2 could possibly be a pleasure to do if multiple choices were more the normal. Perhaps then there would be time to get more reactions and choices in instead of continuous fixes and rewriting from our quest developers.

I agree let's streamline this. I've played so many games that challenge you in the choices you pick from the conversation list and those choices are there already you did not have to guess on writing them yourself. I loved these games. @Lord British
Episode 2 Kickstarter could advertise new quest system going forward and the features. These quests could show up on the new map and land masses. Just thoughts.

 

I agree with Almar. I don't like to see politics, real world matters or locations mixed into my MMO. It is annoying and unimmersive.

I recall an older MMO that had Kodiak bears as a creature... Really, like the island in Alaska? huh?

 

Typing to npcs needs to go

 

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It should've been a priority since day one. Today, the system would've had many years of iteration. I'm not going to suggest that it was rushed but... it was more or less left at it is since 2014 (if not earlier).

To my knowledge, they only had one guy working on it and he admitted that he wasn't good at writing a text parser. So it begs to question if they delegated enough people (and the right ones at that) to the task.

Typing to NPCs isn't bad. They could certainly use better parsing logics but, despite my thread, I'd be one of the first to defend the texting-to-NPCs functionality. A better parsing tool is critical but even if that were fixed or that the dialogue system were replaced completely, there's still the issue of problematic/faulty quest triggers.

And THEN, you'd have to fix the inconsistencies with how quests relay information. They've used the big-white-text in the centre of the screen for too many different things like the "you hear sobbing at the nearby inn" descriptions (like in Aerie), "I'm talking to you from far away" type dialogue (Tower of Shuttered Eye) and even quest objectives "you finally cleared the siege!" And that's just ONE of the many ways quests relay information and that one-of-many is inconsistent with itself. Dialogue is being displayed in the dialogue window, the chat window and the centre of the screen.

... and so on and so forth...

But, you know, we got a revamped targeting system (a controversial topic at the time), sieges, emblems, ways for players to rent property and large monsters like trolls & dragons... all things (and I omitted a few) that could've been added later in Episode 2 and I don't think anyone would've batted an eye if they weren't present in Episode 1.

Questing, however, that's your entry point for new players before they see anything else! It doesn't matter if they're the twitchy pew pew gamers of this new generation or the old folks that grew up on Ataris and Commodore 64s, they're all experiencing SotA with questing up front and centre.

Considering that most of us have already paid to get access to Episode 2 and beyond; I'm not exactly sure.

We can certainly hope that they'll fix most of the bugs beforehand but Starr Long has stated in another forum that they need to replace the entire underlying architecture in the future.

 

I expect to see an NPC named Cohen in the next release who you uncover has been receiving payments from the Britannia Mining Corporation in exchange for political influence in Brittany. Your job is to inform a special magistrate who is looking into these matters and bring the report from him to Lord British before the Council of Elders removes him (quest could go both ways)

 

Real world references are a risky thing... a few here and there add to the experience in a "that's kinda neat" sort of way, but for the love of everything gaming, do NOT go the WoW route and make EVERYTHING a reference. Also, depending on what's being referenced, it can date the product in a negative way. Keep the references minor at best is my thought.

The typing/keyword system is something that made Ultima 6 stand out and gave the NPCs more life at the time. I always thought the "click the keyword from the list" the way it was used in Ultima 7 took a lot out of the picture. I think the current system is a good hybrid, but it does have its limitations and some of the earliest quests that are still in the game require keywords or phrases that do not always show up in the clickable selections which makes the quest needlessly more difficult.

The other issue I see is that earlier development MUST be brought into sync with later development. Over the course of its lifetime, UO has had several development teams and several teams put in various quests and questing systems. The problem is that these questing systems are completely separate from each other and do not act the same. Whatever underlying structure the questing system uses, it needs to be consistent across the entire game. I also agree that one of the single biggest issues with the quest system is the system NOT clearing finished quests or completed objectives.

 

As a new player (1 week vs. 5 years in UO), I understand the appeal of UO AS IT WAS. The MMO world has changed vastly, and new players bring an entirely different level of expectations. While UO was largely built on exploration of "profitable" areas (loot, challenge, co-op conquering, pvp - as ugly as it was, and a lot of collecting/crafting), the notion of coherent quest lines is pretty well embedded in the vast majority of player expectation now. With that in mind, the "quest system" in SOTA is utter trash. with years of early access under their belts, Portalarium should have had some understanding of what current players expect/need to move forward in a game. Let me explain:

So, I start as a noob (no shame in that) and wonder what to do. I get oddly incomplete and directionless indications of what to do when exiting the first starting point (Highvale Outskirts, in my case). I wander about in the outskirts wondering where things are because the map gives little to no help at all. It's directionless. Yes, random exploration can have its benefits, but utter lostness is confusing and frustrating. With no little amount of determined wandering (oxymoron intended), I find the quest NPC's that point to some vague direction and goal. This is phenomenally annoying. Then on finishing quests, the references remain in the Journal forever or disappear at random. WTH? The paths of virtues are supposedly fundamental to the game. I didn't pay good money to be confused by fundamental game mechanics. For a game to hope to survive on sentimental ambiance (UO) is silly. The game must be crafted to address the audience. I now log in wondering WTH to do.

After no few hours of reference to google, sotawiki, and constant out-of-game map referral, I sort of understand travel (a pain in the butt for those fully attuned to recall runes...) I got guilded with some very good people, who are a constant reference for in-game wisdom, butthis does not forgive the fact that the game simply cannot stand on its own for a new player. The amount of out-of-game referral needed to make sense of the most fundamental elements of the game is unforgivable in my mind.

I will soldier on, but with much less optimism than I had on entering the game. I'll give it a month or two. My one piece of advice to the devs would be: STOP CREATING NEW STUFF AND FIX THE NAGGING PROBLEMS THAT HOLD THE GAME BACK FROM A BUILDING TRULY PROSPEROUS AUDIENCE. Going backwards can move you forwards quite a bit in this case. I live 15 minutes from the Portalarium office, and get tempted to drop by for a cup of coffee and a chat... This game could be SO much better with some back-work. As an executive coach and trainer, these guys need to learn a fundamental lesson of growth: learn what NOT to do.

One last note: I actually watched the most recent LiveStream on YouTube. Holy cow. 4 hours? I got through an hour, and the quality was utterly bush-league. The cringe-factor was so bad I couldn't bear to watch it anymore. What a waste of company time and money... the substance of it could have been contained in a 250-word post and not wasted gamer's time with hamming and random gesticulation (and unforgivable audio lapses from Garriot - sheesh! any software engineers available over there?)

 

They're rewriting the quest system.

 

@Vangard Just to give you a general "What in the hell are they doing?" roadmap:

Darkstarr always posts a Quarterly Road map, you can see the latest one here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q3-schedule-update.132153/
There you can clearly see what it is they will be working and focusing on.

The Quest System is yeah, it is what it is, and just is in desperate need of an update. The Developers are fully aware of this, they however need a few things in place first. From one of the livestreams, @Chris (Atos) basically summarized the current Quests system, and WHY it is pretty bad at this point.

The Current Quests System was introduced VERY early on. It was also never designed to be modular and to adapt to the new systems and changes they would keep adding to the game. So this would continue to break the Quest System and they had to keep fixing it.

They basically need to finish adding the last bits of Systems (Fishing) and then Chris will be tackling the Taming/Summoning tree (which is also equally needs help). At some point they will then be implementing QUEST SYSTEM 2.0 finally. There is probably still some preliminary work they still need to do, as well as there could be one more systems they might need to add or adjust before going forward with QUEST SYSTEM 2.0.

They already have some tools, which also were in development when they had a large full team. Lum, for example was writing some tools to help with the new Quests System, and was working on that.

At SOME point, I'm sure @DarkStarr will make some mention of the QUEST SYSTEM 2.0 going in, of which, that will probably be the most liked post in the entire forums history...

Hang in there, and always feel free to ask questions on the forum! Everyone here is very friendly, and are always happy to help. And don't be afraid to ask even noob questions.

 

Also @Vangard, yes, watching the livestream after the event would probably leave you baffled and wondering why they seem to be doing there best to stretch out content updates that could be done in a short message, but the real purpose of the livestream is 'live' community interaction and fundraising.

The team make a great deal of effort to communicate as well as possible and engage with the community to take on board feedback to generate new content and fix stuff that is bugging people. At the same time running in the background is a flash sale of game items, a monthly set of stretch goals and other funding activity, such as the new subscription service.

Obviously, time allocated to the telethon is stretched out to max the revenue they can get and to enable folks to log in at various times and ask questions and make suggestions.

When what is actually going on is totality understood, and the event watched live, this format makes perfect sense and can be fun. When watched retrospectively on UTube... Well, you know

Does this make more sense of it all?

 

Been playing a couple hours a night for about a week. I started in blood river outskirts with the truth quests. Once I got to the point where I was seemingly almost done with the quest in the are and started taking some in Aerie, the quest system started being very irritating. An NPC said the location for a quest objective was to the northeast when it was southeast, then for a different quest, it was just very unclear whether the quest was finished or not. Is it just bugged? Or is it just supposed to be open ended? The uncertainty of the quality of the questing system makes the questing even worse, cause you don't know when it's messing up or not. It's aggravating because I do enjoy there ultima themed quests.

 

Yes, the quest system is bugged. The quests themselves should work to where you can complete pretty much all of them. There is supposedly a new quest system coming but there hasn't been any ETA on when. If you are stuck or the quest mechanic is not working feel free to post and usually everyone has had the same issue and can walk you through how to complete it or what the workaround is.

Good luck

 

Yes, fortunately the quality or lack therefore of the quest system (rather than the actual quests) and the journal is known. As others have said.

They have said they are going to rebuild the system from the ground up. Though this may mean that is take longer for us to be using a better system, I think this is a right choice. Trying to patch and re-patch the current system will probably also take a decent amount of time, and more than likely leave them with most of the same problems for future releases and quests going forwards.

Regards
Spung

 

@jacksweather is there a certain quest you need help with?

 

There is that nostalgic feeling we all remember and then there is technical progress in games that has taken place. We have a hard time realizing some of the new stuff is a good thing. While we can all fondly recall bonding over dragging corpses in other games.... Did we really enjoy losing a few hours to a full raid wipe in a distant area? Did we really enjoy dying and de-leveling? Did you really like working hard and having someone take all your stuff when they killed you?

I think there has to be a good mix between bonding with our fellow players and the game and still having an efficient gaming time that is still complex, worthwhile and enjoyable. Different players will want a lighter version then others. So what if we do quest response options that are already pre-determined text and then do a more achievement based exploration type of text based piece. I really love exploring and finding that little note in the wild that tells a piece of a story or even learning about the background of characters in areas that isn't really quest based, but lore based. A lore text parsed system could be quite interesting and as frustrating as you want to make it.. reward could just be titles, deco or even a belt item (we need more of those).. but it would be quite epic in nature and unknown to unlock. Think something like the old SWG process to learn to become a Jedi in nature of discovery, but as this isn't the main quest for the game story; it can be optional.

 

Since I am doing quests (2014!) I wrote about that kind of distracting, disturbing and annoying things.

Let's say the most important "by design" bug was corrected a few releases before:
"Player xyz is on/offline" ...
Unfortunately this was only helpful for online players ...

My short summery (the complete one can be found here):
1. Get rid of the input line (until you get a parser like infocom had ... well: get rid of it )
I know in a few dialogues the player must enter words: should be no problem to place a keyword therefor.
2. Let used keyword fade to grey until they give new information. Let the used and grey keywords shift right, so the highlighted are left.
3. Onlly ONE more text line in dialogue window would prevent scrolling in over 90% cases!
4. May be you could spend the dialoge window one cm left and right? This should solve the other 9%
5. Please give it a try to show NPC text right and Player text left of the dialogue window, like I tried to describe here.
6. After a quest is done, please remove quest sensitive words which aren't needed any longer.
Example: Quest in Aerie Tavern with Marlin and Natasha. After the quest is done you can still ask him about Natasha.
If keywords are providing no new information (may be like a ... to be continued quest ... I am missing such quests!) remove them with quest finishing.
This prevents bugs and frustration for players thinking they could do something ...
7. If a bug is told in QA, please fix it a least until release launch +1.

8. Further ideas for a great story feeling are still provided here

I am in great hope for the quest system relaunch with Episode 2.
And I hope, story content will have first priority (not like before, telling it will be done at the end ...)
and the work will start as soon as possible so we can give creative feedback with early access of Episode 2
The story is what new players recognize first - it's the red line through all Episodes. It should be something we remember with joy!
And, again: I really like the book 'Sword of Midras' - and the whole story in this game.
Not the story, not the quests are the problem, the -bugged- quest/journal system is what takes the fun ...

I am really looking forward to early access of Episode 2

 

@Jaesun , Paladin Michael just mentioned the one which was frustrating me most recently. In Aerie after you determine that Harcourt Drumplemouth is forgiving loans and Marlin and Natasha are like, "we're not Marlin and Natasha". It's unclear if you can do anything more in that quest line. Like when you talk to Drumplemouth he gives you another Loan Forgivenss for Belana and Kyle, which in other mmo's would imply there's something you need them for. The quest journal still says you should go talk to Drumplemouth after you already have. It's just a bunch of mixed messages. Another quest line that was unclear if it was ending or not was the Gus in Bloodriver Outskirts one. I found the big mushroom and killled the anti-druid guy, returned to Gus where he doesn't tell you anything more to quest for, but that the anti-druid will return. The anti-druid is in another location right by Gus's home, he drops a hand of naturamans, and dropped the eye earlier, but there seems to be no quest attached. Again, maybe I just missed something inbetween in the area, but its frustrating that there is a possibility that I might be missing something in a more mechanical/technical sense with the quest system itself.

 

Also, I assumed that with the words you can click on with npc's thats all the relevant words you can ask them, (with the addition of future words from further dialogue or quests). Are there words you can type, that are not offered to click on, with npc's that are relevant?

 

What makes you so optimistic?

• Quest rework was 'promised' after the layoffs as immediate priority but wasn't even mentioned in Q3 Schedule Update
• Questions about it were ignored in both that post and livestreams
• Standup posts haven't even mentioned anything about it

Story content never was a priority and i don't see any hints this can be changed.

 

Sometimes, yes.

I remember doing one quest (no idea which) where I needed to talk to someone about something and there was not a related keyword in their list, because I clicked them all. I pulled up the quest journal and read my note and typed in a different word specific to the quest and it worked.