Updates on quests and settings

[Talad]

The silence of the last few months was due to devs working hard on new items we are now ready to release! A series of updates are planned  in the next few weeks, and today we present you the first one. In particular the settings department have spent the last two months putting together what we hope will be a pretty exciting update, it's been a lot of work! Here are the details:

• We have now a way to keep track of your progress in a quest. Basically every time you speak with an NPC the server will automatically add 'quest notes' to your quest description based on your progress. To view them you just open the 'Quest' window and in the description section you will see a list of notes for the quest you have selected. For old and completed quests it may or may not show correctly (depending how far in time you completed those) but any that you start or progress from today will have them showing.
• Quest names have been improved to be more meaningful.
• The syntax/structure of quests has been updated, to simplify their maintenance for devs.
• All 'yes' and 'no' steps have been removed so that should stop all cross quest triggering of steps by mistake. This also means that you can use the menus to progress quests when the response from you looks like it should be yes or no and not just tell the NPC directly, exceptions to this include when a free text response is 'yes' or 'no'.
• Some quests rewards (armor/weapons/food/animal parts/raw materials... etc) have now increased quality. In general weapon/armor between 50 and 100, others may go up also in the range of Q150-300. This will make the quest rewards far more valuable to everyone but mainly new players and crafters.
• Many repeatable quests have been improved a little so you won't always do the same thing (unless you do the quest lots then you will run out of options). Harnquist for example now has a more wide ranging diet, and Remant wont always lose his bracers in the same place.
• The Blackflame quest line has been improved so that you no longer get quests showing if you should not be able to start them.
• The first part of the Magic Way quest updates is done. You can now get to adept in all ways (quest 6) and as soon as you pick a masters quest other quests will start to be locked out. The correct locks for all the quests have been added, and the settings about which quests are possible to get have been altered. To apply this logic to existing players, all master quest accomplishments have been wiped. This means you will have to redo the master quest again. In addition the Red Way quests now have more Way related settings explained to you in the quests (sorry to those who have done them as you'll miss this).
• We have tested in the range of 170-180 of the quests, so there should be very few bugs to start with, but there are likely to be some we have missed. Please either file them on the bug tracker and/or file a petition in game and we will fix it as soon as we know.
• All Xacha references should finally be removed from NPC descriptions, action locations, KAs and books.

The team really wants to thank Venalan and Mordaan for the exceptional work done on the items above!

[LigH]

Variable repeatable quests ...

[derula]

I still didn't get my Molecular Blue... achiev...

WHAT IS THIS? All my shiny achievements are now gone, except one! And that's the most embarrassing one of all!

*weeps*

[Mordaan]

Also keep in mind, you still have the ability to add your own quest notes the way you always have.  The two should not be confused.  Personal quest notes are done by players and are recorded in your settings folder.  These quest notes are automatic and done server side.

They can be very valuable in case it's been awhile since you've started a quest and forgot where you were or what you needed to do next.  Think of these quest notes as a running summary of what has been done.

[bilbous]

wonderful news, maybe time to login some dweebs and see if I can get to 300 ahead of bilbous

[Shurrim]

Yay!!! Thanks! Thanks for helping the ones going out in the wild without a pen!! hihihihih

[Venalan]

I really need to point out that I did essentially all of the work listed above myself, the only bits I didn't were from Talad who added 'quest notes' to a few quests and Daxa and Sarva who helped with a lot of the quest testing which was great hugely appreciated by me.

[Gilrond]

One critical point needs to be addressed, otherwise these kind of changes to magic are a serious settings regression. Since master quests are blocked out (settings wise circles not promoting masters of opposite circles etc.), how new players are supposed to get glyphs which come from the master quests? According to the settings glyphs are occurring in the nature and can be obtained from the glyph hunters. I.e. according to the settings there is no direct logical relation between being a master in some way, and obtaining glyphs. I.e. someone who for example avoids circles, can still be trained in magic up to high levels and getting the glyphs can practice spells. But if the only source of glyphs are master quests - it creates a problem.

Secondly, since circles become now more closed, you need to provide some "out or circle" trainers. Magic is a phenomenon not bound to social groups (which circles are), so if some powerful mage doesn't belong to a circle, he/she still can teach others. Introducing such kind of societies will broaden the settings. But the most serious issue is the first one. If it won't be addressed - the current magic system can be considered crippled.

[LigH]

@ Venalan:

So you say that Mordaan did nothing?!

[Candy]

• We have now a way to keep track of your progress in a quest. Basically every time you speak with an NPC the server will automatically add 'quest notes' to your quest description based on your progress. To view them you just open the 'Quest' window and in the description section you will see a list of notes for the quest you have selected. For old and completed quests it may or may not show correctly (depending how far in time you completed those) but any that you start or progress from today will have them showing.

Thank you so much for this! It'll make coming back to a quest after a long time away so much easier. 

Edit: And, y'know, all that other stuff is pretty neat too. 

[Mordaan]

@ Venalan:

So you say that Mordaan did nothing?!

   I would have loved to help on the quest notes but ended up being too busy with all the alchemy stuff.  Venalan did a tremendous amount of work in a short period of time.   

[Cirerey]

A real +1 for the game. Less taking notes, more playing the game. Bravo.

[Erebey]

A real +1 for the game. Less taking notes, more playing the game. Bravo.

The problem with notes, is that they get deleted... I did a break sometime ago, and than, most of my notes got deleted, I did another break and all of them were gone!

[Taya]

I have to echo Gilrond's concern about glyph availability. Making it impossible to obtain certain glyphs doesn't fit with the settings as I understand them.   Reducing the number of spells people can access due to limiting glyph availability also lowers the play value of the game. (Less to do and try out = shorter time until a player gets bored, and as much as RP is and should be the primary focus, game play does still matter in this way.) But maybe new means to access them will be added? This is only the first step of these updates after all.

I think the quest notes are a big plus. And Erebey, your own personal quest notes can vanish if you reinstall since those are among your own logs I think. I'm assuming these new ones won't be likely to vanish in this way.

[derula]

I think the quest notes are a big plus. And Erebey, your own personal quest notes can vanish if you reinstall since those are among your own logs I think. I'm assuming these new ones won't be likely to vanish in this way.

Shouldn't vanish on "reinstall" (of PlaneShift) assuming the installer is sane and doesn't wipe your complete old PS settings directory... but indeed are only stored locally instead of on the server and require manual attention if you want to transfer them to a separate PlaneShift installation. If you wipe your PS settings, they'll get deleted; but so will be your logs and screenshots.