Quests in PlaneShift are an important part of the immersion of the game. They are intimately tied into the progression of the game giving information about the world as well as a way for players to acquire key items and knowledge to allow use of skills, magic, as well as get special items and access to special locations.
With the latest releases we reached the amazing total of 1530 NPCs, including creatures you can fight. Of those, we have now more than 260 sentient NPCs, which will be part of the different quests in the game and your progression. At the moment there are 394 active quests in game with more being added in each update. We are on track to have more than 300 NPCs and over 400 quests in the next few updates. The current in game quests range from introductory tutorial quests, to informational quests, introductions to and progression of crafting skills and jobs, adventure quests, and some just plain silly and fun quests. We hope they all help characters learn about the world of PlaneShift, it's history, settings, people and places. They also award characters with experience and tria, give instructions on how craft and use items and to obtain critical items and tools to progress in the game, as well as unique items to personalise your character.
In the last hand full of years quest and related systems have gone through a massive revolution. There were extensive numbers of basic quests which were relatively simple and were unfortunately filled with numerous errors. We can say now the majority of those have been fixed, improved and some cases completely overhauled as the game engine has been greatly expanded allowing us to use new features to expand the current quests. These now contain a much greater array of quest possibilities and make them much more robust, stable, and problem free. We have also used these new feature to make some new very complex, challenging, and fun quests.
To improve the playability of quests we introduced an automatic "quest note" system, whose purpose is to give help to players who might be stuck and to allow them to refer it to when they are stuck. We are continuing to improve this system all the time to make the dialogue as helpful as possible, without spoiling the challenge of a quest.
We have also worked very closely with the PlaneShift community to fix every single bug reported to us in every single quest. Due to our desire to make quests as complete as possible, every quest in the game has been gone through at least twice fixing every little mistake no matter how small. This is an on going process but we are getting close to being done.
The settings team is proud to say that the current version of quests have never been this stable, this complete, this complex or this enjoyable and with no currently reported bugs which could cause a player to get stuck in a quest. This will bring to players months of gameplay and fun.
Other updates & enhancements during this period include:
- Quest chains have been reorganized and improved.
- Tutorial quests and billboard in the tutorial area should lead new players to where they need to go to start most quest chains.
- Most skills/jobs (ones where you need a crafting book) have a quest which introduces it. Many of these quests are instructional in nature and help players get started with those skills as well as give info about what they should do as they progress. There are already such quests for skills in crafting weapons, armor, shields, as well as baking & cooking. In the last few years we have added leatherworking, mace making, enchanting armor, herbal, alchemy, and most recently bow making. Next on the horizon is brewing, jewelry making, and enchanting weapons. Kudos to the rules team for developing the crafting and for helping on many of these quests. It has been a collaborative effort.
- Repeatable quests have been and will continue to be developed where NPCs ask you to make items in accordance with your skill level. This can be a great way to practice your crafts without falling into the pattern of making the same things over and over.
