Author Topic: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest  (Read 3486 times)

Rizin

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #15 on: April 14, 2008, 06:53:00 am »
People in the real world may often misunderstand us, but outside of challenge-response at a sentry point on a battlefield or, possibly, some spy recognition exchange, we usually expect a little more flexibility in the interest of actual communication.  While PlaneShift is unlikely to ever offer the versatility we experience in real life, it seems to me that NPC dialog ought to strive more for communication rather than mind reading.  Moreover, I think that is the intent, but sometimes the report and response about particular problems is, well, on different tangents...  Yes, players are sometimes stupid, but sometimes they may just be pointing out a problem in a quest with little to no useful information other than their confusion over the dialog.  That should be a reasonable starting point for a review when more than one complaint is made about a given quest.  After all, the players generally don't have the entire quest script available to them to provide context or to help them focus their point.

Did you just skim over the part where we offer help and request feed back from players? Please stop painting the "oh, we don't help" picture and take the time to do what is asked to help. Sure you've posted here, but I've YET to get an e-mail or PM from you with anything I can hold on to and work on.

If you've looked around you might have noticed things like this or this....

Soo...that being said...if you want to help....

PM me (private message not a public post) the following information:
1) Name of the quest.
2) What you were trying to answer.
3) What you tried that did not work.


Xillix Queen of Fools

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #16 on: April 14, 2008, 06:59:47 am »
Also in almost all cases (not this one) the npc gives you the next trigger VERBATIM in what they say.

Really when you figure out this quest, you will feel kinda silly ;).

Nedward Dufflin

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #17 on: April 14, 2008, 09:13:37 am »
Did you just skim over the part where we offer help and request feed back from players? Please stop painting the "oh, we don't help" picture and take the time to do what is asked to help. Sure you've posted here, but I've YET to get an e-mail or PM from you with anything I can hold on to and work on.

I did not skim over the offer to help or the request for feedback though I will admit to intentionally providing feedback through the forum.  I have a personal preference for open discussion.  My apologies if you think I am painting an "oh, we don't help" picture.  That isn't my intention nor is it something I have a reason to believe from my own experience.  In any case, you will not receive a PM from me simply because I am "not allowed to send personal messages" according to the forum software.  As for email, I will resort to that if I am unable to PM in the near future.

In the meantime, the specific point I was making about the "Drinks in the Deep" quest was described in my original post.  To recap, Crosh asks you ** *accept that or any other affirmative response ***.  The quest dialog can only be completed if the player replies "[removed by Mod]"  The requested fix is for Crosh to provide a reasonable response to "***" and then complete the quest as usual.  Otherwise, the player may be forced to "**" just to complete the quest.

If I am eventually able to PM, I will send more information about other quests such as the "Govell Mihdren Needs Tattoo Ink" quest I alluded to previously.  However, I do believe there was at least some generally constructive criticism in my original post that should at least be considered when revisiting quests.  If nothing else, consider implementing the log of player responses so that you can refine the dialogs to work with reasonable entries from actual players rather than relying solely on the author to think of the acceptable responses.  Preferably, the quest author would be able to tag specific player inputs to log.  I realize that it is possible that the PlaneShift developers may be using third-party code for the NPC dialogs and therefore implementing such a mechanism would effectively be impossible.  However, if that is not the case, it would be a far more effective way to gather that kind of information than relying on players to report anything comparable though the forums, PMs, or the bug tracker.

*edit*

Also in almost all cases (not this one) the npc gives you the next trigger VERBATIM in what they say.

Really when you figure out this quest, you will feel kinda silly ;).

Yes, well, I did figure out my problem with the quest and it was to just say "***."  However, the almost unrecognizable corpse of the horse I have been beating will attest to my having made that point originally.

----

O.K.  The preceding has been edited with what I believe is the intent to remove "spoilers."  If there were other reasons, I think it best that the moderator explain his or her intent rather than have me characterize it...

In any case, this particular quest has what is in fact a very minor problem, but it is a problem nonetheless.  There is no puzzle or clever trick involved that might spoil the experience of another player if revealed.  The problem is that a single question has two very simple and equally correct responses depending on the actual experience of the player.  By the time the question is asked, the player has already performed all of the actions requested by the NPC and the NPC has already given the player his reward.  What remains is a bit of dialog and the final completion of the quest.  Of course, there are the experience points awarded at the completion of the quest, but they are not actually given by the NPC.  However, giving one response truthfully leaves the quest in an incomplete state with no indication of how to conclude it.  Aside from the experience points, there are no negative consequences to the player except that the quest remains in the player's active list.  This can be corrected by providing Crosh with a simple response appropriate to the currently unrecognized alternative response and then allowing the quest to terminate normally.

Until the quest is modified, is there any reason to not leave intact in these forums the information that the player should type answer A instead of answer B just to complete the quest even though the player would naturally reply B given the appropriate experience and the fact that Crosh should have no problem accepting either answer?  After all, "spoilers" are things that would negatively impact the enjoyment of other players, not work-arounds to game play problems.  Granted, this is very minor and probably does not impact most players trying to complete the quest.  I do not expect it to be corrected any time soon because it is low priority.  However, I would appreciate an explanation of the heavy-handed editing of the already vague problem description above and the apparent desire to keep this trivial problem out of public view.  (By the way, I don't mean to imply anything conspiratorial.  So far as I can tell, the problem reporting mechanism and the editing of my problem description are driven by a desire for "spoiler" prevention.  Is that right, or is there something else at play?)
« Last Edit: April 15, 2008, 03:46:29 am by Nedward Dufflin »

Mordraugion

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #18 on: April 15, 2008, 01:17:54 pm »
O.K.  The preceding has been edited with what I believe is the intent to remove "spoilers."  If there were other reasons, I think it best that the moderator explain his or her intent rather than have me characterize it...
As my edit included my usual statement Edited to remove spoilers which you chose to remove, there is no reason apart from contrariness to imply other reasons or attempt to characterise it

....However, I would appreciate an explanation of the heavy-handed editing of the already vague problem description above and the apparent desire to keep this trivial problem out of public view.  (By the way, I don't mean to imply anything conspiratorial.  So far as I can tell, the problem reporting mechanism and the editing of my problem description are driven by a desire for "spoiler" prevention.  Is that right, or is there something else at play?)

You say you don't wish to imply something conspiratorial then go on to imply exactly that, an explanation was given which you deleted, the editing was inline with all my previous edits and was certainly not "heavy handed" as you allege, if that was the case I would have just deleted the whole post (a far easier option for me) to answer your second point if I wanted to keep this trivial problem out of public view I would have deleted the entire thread.

Rizin has given you several options to discuss this including forum PM (which due to a pornspam problem users are restricted until having made 10 posts) email, IRC via #planeshift or /query and of course there is the ultimate way to effect changes, join the settings team
No longer a member of the PlanShift Development Team
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Nedward Dufflin

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #19 on: April 15, 2008, 11:39:39 pm »
As my edit included my usual statement Edited to remove spoilers which you chose to remove, there is no reason apart from contrariness to imply other reasons or attempt to characterise it

All I did was hit "Modify" and then append to the post leaving all previous edits unchanged.  I do not know what happened to your standard comment, but I suppose I may have accidentally deleted it, though I don't know how.  It certainly was not intentional.

....However, I would appreciate an explanation of the heavy-handed editing of the already vague problem description above and the apparent desire to keep this trivial problem out of public view.  (By the way, I don't mean to imply anything conspiratorial.  So far as I can tell, the problem reporting mechanism and the editing of my problem description are driven by a desire for "spoiler" prevention.  Is that right, or is there something else at play?)

You say you don't wish to imply something conspiratorial then go on to imply exactly that, an explanation was given which you deleted, the editing was inline with all my previous edits and was certainly not "heavy handed" as you allege, if that was the case I would have just deleted the whole post (a far easier option for me) to answer your second point if I wanted to keep this trivial problem out of public view I would have deleted the entire thread.

No implication was intended; however, the editing still seems heavy-handed and a bit pointless because you did not also edit previous posts in this thread with the same information.  For example, saying that a player has to "lie" to this particular question asked by Crosh is hardly a hint or spoiler.  It is just another way of reiterating the point that the quest should handle both possible answers because neither the required answer nor the unrecognized answer have any practical impact on the quest other than the unrecognized answer leaves the quest laying around in your "uncompleted" quests list.  Frankly, none of the other information are spoilers either.  At least, I can offer a simple fix.  The other impression a player could have is that the quest was simply bugged and therefore unable to complete normally.  Fortunately, that is not the case, and whoever takes a look at it in the future can easily fix it.

Rizin has given you several options to discuss this including forum PM (which due to a pornspam problem users are restricted until having made 10 posts) email, IRC via #planeshift or /query and of course there is the ultimate way to effect changes, join the settings team

O.K.  I will not be sending an e-mail.  A PM would be fine, but I won't needlessly generate posts simply to enable access.  If I ever make enough posts and have another quest for which I wish to report a possible problem, I'll PM.  In the meantime, I'll leave it to others to report quest problems.

Please stop trying to read between the lines.  One of the reasons (besides my own personality quirks) that I have been so verbose in my posts on this minor problem and my suggestions for quests in general has been a desire to avoid misunderstandings.  Obviously, I failed in that goal.  Look, no criticism of or sleights to the developers, game masters, or anyone else involved with PlaneShift was intended.  I just reported a trivial problem and made some suggestions that you are free to ignore and which certainly have been ignored in the responses.

Of course, I will admit to a less than helpful response to Jeraphon, but then his posts in this thread were what motivated my gratuitous use of "condescending crap" in my original post.  That was clearly a poor choice on my part, but I don't think that is the only thing that has caused this exchange to spiral down the way it has.

Rizin

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Re: Crosh Dunehammer's "Drinks in the Deep" quest
« Reply #20 on: April 16, 2008, 12:53:20 am »
Please stop trying to read between the lines.  One of the reasons (besides my own personality quirks) that I have been so verbose in my posts on this minor problem and my suggestions for quests in general has been a desire to avoid misunderstandings.  Obviously, I failed in that goal.  Look, no criticism of or sleights to the developers, game masters, or anyone else involved with PlaneShift was intended.  I just reported a trivial problem and made some suggestions that you are free to ignore and which certainly have been ignored in the responses.

Dealing specifically with " I just reported a trivial problem and made some suggestions that you are free to ignore and which certainly have been ignored in the responses.".

One thing I will say without jumping into the whole conversation. Quests are improving and we are working on older ones. It just takes time. Patience is a virtue. 

Also, I've asked and asked for people to send me things (PM, e-mail) that they think are odd. Some I can use, some I cannot, and some I can get to quicker than others, but I do keep them all and work on them as I can.

Did you just skim over the part where we offer help and request feed back from players? Please stop painting the "oh, we don't help" picture and take the time to do what is asked to help. Sure you've posted here, but I've YET to get an e-mail or PM from you with anything I can hold on to and work on.

If you've looked around you might have noticed things like this or this....

Soo...that being said...if you want to help....

PM me (private message not a public post) the following information:
1) Name of the quest.
2) What you were trying to answer.
3) What you tried that did not work.

Rizin has given you several options to discuss this including forum PM (which due to a pornspam problem users are restricted until having made 10 posts) email, IRC via #planeshift or /query and of course there is the ultimate way to effect changes, join the settings team

No one has ignored you...

I've asked you specifically for information, you have ignored every request to provide information in the format we use it in.

Request for thread lock.

Update: Thank you, Nedward, for contacting me via IRC.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2008, 01:18:59 am by Rizin »