I'm interested in geocache quests, and thought it would be nice to have a discussion over what form they may take. I would love to read people's ideas on the subject. To kick things off, I have imagined the following hypothetical geocache quest. A wealthy but eccentric person is dying, and has no heirs. He announces a competition, the winner of which will receive a geocache chest worth 20,000g, and the announcement ends with the following cryptic verse: Not far from the port of Kings, you should seek the following things: enlightened heads above the stones, and down below a room with thrones is very close to what you seek, for those who dare to take a peek. Contestants will immediately head to Kingsport, where the following can be found: that seems to match the enlightened heads above the stones part, but the geocache chest there is empty. Another line in the verse says and down below a room with thrones. A contestant who locates the building's basement and explores will discover the following: In one of the side rooms on that level they will discover a geocache chest. Inside they will find a portion of a magical phrase, and the next rhyme to hint at the location of the next chest. After locating all the geocache chests the contestant will have the complete magical phrase. The first person to send this phrase to the game master via private message will win the prize. I hope this suggestion inspires people to think about other ways to create geocache quests, and I encourage people to post suggestions here (obviously without giving away specific details that you want to use in your own quests).
If books can be locked down but still be read, or if I can post a public notice/sign, there will be instructions in the form of a story found in a starting location that lead you to a second location. Instructions at location two will lead you to location three. There you will find instructions to location four, the chest. An alternate start would be to have my vendor sell instructions for one gold. If possible, the geocache chest will be stocked with Sir Frank's coins and will be limited to one per person. If coins are not possible, then the chest will be in leave something/take something mode. My concern is that somebody will post a walk-through, and nobody will go through the story/quest, and just skip to the end.
Yes, that is a worry if everyone who completes the quest gets the same prize. If the first to complete the quest gets a significantly better prize, then it is less of a problem, since by the time the instructions are posted that prize will have been claimed - possibly by the poster. Those who play for the fun of it are free to ignore spoilers. Those who play purely for loot are sad people who should be pitied. Let them have their ill gotten loot - it fails to compensate for the yawning chasm in their souls.
I like this idea. But we really need to be able to lock down readable/writable books (hopefully by next release). This will make this quest more flexible without having to solely rely on just public chests to read notes left by players.
I love a good treasure hunt! Following clues from place to place. There just has to be a way to keep the first ones from preventing others from following along. Locked down but readable books would definitely solve this problem. It would also be nice to be able to set a chest so only one item may be taken out per account.
There are many good options for a geocache quest. If guilds get involved, then clues leading to a member who will then give the next clue. If lockable books and semi public chests, then more options come online. The idea of chests requiring a key is nice. The first clue leads to the chest with a (or a few) key(s). From there only a certain number of people can continue. Even if this becomes something you want to run weekly or even daily, a half dozen locations would suffice to provide some randomness and only one (or a few) people could run it each time. If you do run weekly or daily, perhaps the first key costs a great deal, like 5k, and there are only 5 keys for sale. But the payoff might be 10k for the winner. It would be possible to gain money by running the competition. If the final chest is in one of six different locations people can't simply jump to the end. They could try and maybe get lucky, but maybe bust too. As long as you could sell all 5 keys, it is a net gain and fun each time. I love the idea and the possibilities are almost unlimited.
Maybe the key could be hidden inside of a stomach and when you eat them, it ends up like a bone that you use to pick your teeth?
I want to say I have read 'rumors' about NPC characters overhearing player characters conversations and being able to talk about them or repeat parts of them and spread them around. Don't have any references or specifics, but if NPC players can repeat bits of our own conversations, just talk about the geocache chest's location with or near NPCs and they will take care of the rest. A much slower start up (if it is even possible) but it would get the word out there for those paying attention. NPCs could 'listen' for keywords like geocache, cache, chest, treasure, as well as names of places in the game. Then pick apart bits and pieces of the conversation and start making up their own version and spreading the rumors.
I suspect that would be a nightmare to implement, but you could have a town gossip who inhabits the local tavern, who would respond to the gift of a drink and the keywords overhear or overheard with one of the last five statements that it overheard, selected randomly - something like "I overheard Womby say 'watch out the town gossip is over there'"