NPC X is a cheapskate.

[Prolix]

Rizin
I am sorry you are disappointed and it was obviously the second quest we discussed. I suppose your characterization of my intent as "to cause a stir" is fair enough although I do not really think it was my intent. This is, however, the complaint department.

The thread serves as a cautionary tale as much as anything, a warning that some quests may well seem like they are not worth doing. Appearances can be deceiving but if I get turned off of doing quests because I keep failing then who wins? Do you? I sure do not. The fact that so many quests are one-time only means it is really important for the player to get them right the first time.

How do I get satisfaction from an NPC that I think has wronged me? If he was a player I could /challenge him, with an NPC there is nothing. So I come on here and call NPC X a jerk, well he is a jerk and many of them are. Big deal. A jerk is someone who gets his own way and there is nothing you can do about it. I'm a jerk too sometimes.

If enough people tell me I am wrong I might start to believe it, I will at least stop talking about whatever the heck it is I am currently spouting off on.

All the same, if I knew this game was going to turn into Zork I never would have bothered in the first place. It surely isn't that bad but if you go along creating ever more intricate puzzle quests without listening to feedback it won't be long.

BTW that is not the answer to my riddle -5 blowhard faction points to you!
Anyone else want to try for +5?

D'oh -5 to Socius too!

[Socius Rockus]

  Noo I was wrong?

BTW that is not the answer to my riddle -5 blowhard faction points to you!

Bummer, just when I thought I was doing it good with the Blowharders faction
I should have never taken that Blowharder's riddle as an acceptance quest...
Argh no help from the Blowharders when it comes to blowing hard i guess, that blows...

* Socius Rockus moves on with his life, for always scarred with his own stupidity and knowing he would never be able to blow as hard as Prolix

That's how you (me thinks) should deal with it IC and OOC

[Prolix]

You do not know just how funny that is. Soo sorry you failed to cut the cheese mustard. 

I mostly made this thread to talk game philosophy but only managed to stink up the place. 

I am not overly upset about it but thought it might form a reasonable platform for discussion. 

I sure hope your car windows open.  Of course Meg, you must not open them, this is what boys do. 

[Under the moon]

Some quests are going to give you very little or no instant reward. In fact, some may put you in the hole and seem like an outright waste of time. What you have to remember is that quests unlock other quests.

You pay countless tria to advance your character in skills. Simply put, you may be required to do something similar in certain quests as well to gain certain things.

I don't like giving out unrealistic rewards to compensate for time spent. Yes, you can earn far more doing things other than quests (for the most part), but you gain things from quests you can not from other places. Such as a good story, items, access to new areas with NPCs and trainers, and possibly much more. However, as Zan said, some quests are going to be drifting away from the linear guarantied reward format.

[Prolix]

The problem I have is that if I feel cheated such that I do not want to do further quests then it doesn't matter if my partial failure opens doors I am not going to discover. If it costs too much in intangibles then I will not continue and when you insist that you only know the setting by reading everything in the game and doing the quests but make them unpalatable then eventually I will stop caring. Now I can get along without knowing any more than I already do, just leveling my skills. I am virtually certain I could start guild shopping until I have all the spoilers locally, I have had many many offers over the years. I am just not willing to do that.

I have yet to be given an in character reason for joining a guild. It is "do you want to join my guild???" well, no I do not. That is the end of it. There is never any discussion of what the guild is and what it stands for, there is no attempt to indicate why it is me you are asking except for the fact that I am a warm body. Of course it is usually only bilbous that gets asked, the others are anonymous and rarely seen anyway. Even bilbous is somewhat anonymous ... just a familiar name with little sense of his history.  Does anyone remember his tall tale about ulber encrustyllation? Well I guess there isn't that much to him anyway.

I do not think getting your costs covered can really be considered a reward. Not having them covered can definitely be considered a penalty. Of course a special item, a rare glyph or whatnot can take the place of covered costs -- even if the character cannot use it himself.

Maybe there was no way I could have succeeded with that quest due to my quest history when I started, it certainly seemed like I did everything in my power. I got on the road here and got off there, I didn't see any junctions. I guess the exception taken to this thread indicates that the side roads were there and I just did not see them.  I was too busy admiring the good intention paving stones.

The reason I keep posting threads like this is because there is a real danger of group-think happening. When you work closely with a group of people you get a feel for their thought processes and while you may have your disagreements, they will tend to follow the same lines issue after issue. By standing aside as I do I can offer a different perspective. I am probably still too close but I make an effort. Do what you will with my efforts. If it sounds like a personal attack it is probably unintentional.

[Dajoji]

If your character feels cheated and does not want to do any more favors to anyone you can use that for your RP. See if other characters can convince you that helping others has its rewards too. Maybe they'll direct you to people who will appreciate your help and reward you handsomely. Maybe they'll agree with you. Maybe they'll tell you to mind who you choose to help to begin with. Why shouldn't there be NPCs who take advantage of people?

Now, if you as a player feel that the quests are not worth doing, then don't do them. It's your choice. Like Rizin said, you're free to discuss the details any time. Obviously, it is better to do that one on one to avoid spoilers.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

When a human being, a volunteer, offers their time to you personally to resolve an issue it is bad form to "go public" with your complaint.

Don't worry about group think, we argue all the time about issues and several prospects and associate devs have gotten a healthy scolding from yours truly for taking an internal matter "to the people" to try to over rule me :O

It is unfortunate that you feel x npc is a cheapskate, and perhaps you are right, but writing off all quests on a single bad experience, or losing all the potential fun of discovery by seeking out a spoiler forum, seems like a bad idea for one who has done all or most of our quests.

Try to be of good cheer, there will be more to gain on the long and winding road of questing.

[Prolix]

Ahh Xillix, I see once again my roundabout way of getting at what I am trying to say has given the wrong idea. It has never been specifically about this particular quest, I was just using it to try to talk about quests in general. I could have taken a bunch of Rizin's time for this but her time is better spent helping people with things she can actually do something about rather than philosophy of questing. Wasting her time would have been worse than posting here, don't you think?

I guess one of the things I am really trying to say that may be getting lost between generalities and specificities is that to some extent my problems are endemic to the system. The npcs can only do what they are programmed to do and to try to allow for more options gets pretty complicated rather quickly. Let me be clear that I think that the team tries very hard to allow for optional directions for the quests and it is a difficult task. It is also not so much the system that has been developed but rather in the nature of the task the system has been designed to accomplish that is the problem.

Are there any programmatic monitors behind the scenes to track usage of the various quest branches that are taken? I suppose they might degrade performance but I think it would be beneficial to see which routes are heavily trafficked and which are rarely taken. There is not much point in developing a fork that nobody will use. Indeed, if there are many such untraveled roads they might be removed or have signposts erected to show people that yes, here is a place to change direction.

If buddy npc cheats me I want some way to get even with him. There is no way to do that unless it has been specifically programmed. It is just something to think about.

Maybe it is too much to expect to be able to play a character who will not cheat another and will not suffer himself to be cheated with no recourse.

If my thoughts are hard to follow it is because I am an abstract thinker and do not spend a lot of time ordering my ideas.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Well, I asked just last week for such a tool and the engine team has agreed that it would be a good idea. So in time.

All things, in time.

And yes, you were a bit hard to follow.

And yes, the forked quests are a pain in the ass.

[neko kyouran]

You know what's more a pain in the ass?  an actual fork.

 

[Prolix]

An ass -- not the donkey kind -- can be considered a blunt kind of fork with two tines. It is very close to the answer to my riddle.

Sometimes I do not know what I am trying to say until someone tells me what they think I said. If I do not agree I have to rethink it.

[Quq Leque]

Why are we having this discussion anyway? NPC's have a limited set of predetermined answers. Yoo can't bargain with them on how much you want to get paid for a job, can you?

would be fun though ...

[Ralleyon]

You can't bargain with words, yes. But I have seen bargaining systems with NPC's using menus and depending on their disposition towards you (Faction + Charisma). Hmm.. that would be nice to see in PS as well.

[Prolix]

Heck you can't even ask them how much you will be paid which is very important to a mercenary person. I do not mean necessarily sword for hire mercenary but rather the anything for the right price kind.