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Friday, July 11, 2008
The Shandalar Project - Questing
As mentioned before, classic MMORPGs don't have quests, they have errands. You aren't on a journey to search something, you just take on small jobs. In our hypothetical MMORPG Shandalar, we want to do better. We want quests to start with players wanting something, which then makes them gather information and adventure to get it. That something in my original idea would be cards, but of course the same system would work for equipment or anything else.
So lets start with a player wanting a specific card for the deck he is building. Of course he could buy boosters to get cards, but as the cards in the booster packs are random, that could take a while. He could trade for the card he wants, but then he would have to give away his existing cards. And maybe some cards are "bind on pickup" and can't be traded. So to spend his points on the one card he wants, the player has to find the place where this card is sold.
The search starts in a city. Having cities with a central function where people need to go back to is important for a world to feel alive. In this case cities have sages, which have books showing every single card in the game. Of course with some good user interface that lets you search, filter, and sort. Once he has found a card there, he clicks on it to ask the sage for information about where that card can be acquired. The sage answers by giving the player some general information, about what region (zone) the card is in. And so the voyage begins.
Once the player is in the right zone, he can ask for the card in the villages there. So NPC dialogues are linked to your quest journal: if you have a quest for this zone, an option appears in each NPCs dialogue window there, enabling you to ask him for that card. If you are in a village which isn't the closest to the final goal, the NPC will send you to the right village. If you are in the village that is closest to the card, the NPC will tell you where to go, like "a cave in the northwest, guarded by orcs".
We can invent some sort of lore about altars left by the ancients, explaining why you get cards at those altars. But in any case the altars are guarded by some monsters. So while the quest isn't asking you to "kill 10 orcs", you end up killing them to get to the altar they are guarding. Having a reason to fight monsters other than that somebody wants 10 of them dead is an improvement. Once you finally arrive at the altar, you can exchange your points for one or more copies of the card you wanted. And then it's time to return to the city and go on your next quest.
If we make one specific altar give one specific card, a week after the day is released there will be a website showing all the cards with all the locations. So I was wondering whether what card what altar gives should be different for each player, and random. What do you think?
- posted by Tobold @ 8:34 AM Permanent Link
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I personally think randomness spoils the generation of goal focussed playing and is unpractical and uneffective in my opinion to generate random content for each player. An alternative could be to mix up crafting ideas in the couldron. For example powerfull cards could be like blank slates, i.e. becoming really powerfull when the player adds to them (or sockets if you want) special attributes or abilities (these could be collected in a variety of different ways). But not all card can carry all different attributes. So the player should select the type of cards that he wants to invest time in searching (for example magic or melee or a combination) and then he has to travel to collect the attributes or abilities thet he wants to imbue the cards with. Thi way you would still have the position of all cards on a website a week after the release of the game but that would not count becouse is hte player that has to empower them collecting the attributes and abilities (he would have also to discover) all over the world..
just an idea
just an idea
Hiya,
I must admit reading most of this information and the concept seems great. This may have been mentioned before, but the biggest part of any game for me, is the progression. If I understand it your Avatar doesn’t gain levels by any means and can only improve by acquiring new or more powerful cards.
While I think that the questing for new cards is a sound approach, have you considered the cards themselves lvling up?
What I would suggest is that you have a Holy card which heals you. As you gain, colour points(?) you can invest these into current card improvements. Each card has a lvl range, small to stop there being a divide between new and experienced players. In game animations could be the only change, if power levels of cards are to remain static.
i.e. lvl 1 card heals 20 Hit points (hand glows, animation), lvl 3 card heals 30 hit points (larger animation, avatar gains wings) and top lvl card summons an angel that heals 50 hit points.
I suggest this as, most players need some sort of measure of success and there is not better way to do this other than to have not only rare cards with rare animations, but rare cards with rare animations.
Mossop
I must admit reading most of this information and the concept seems great. This may have been mentioned before, but the biggest part of any game for me, is the progression. If I understand it your Avatar doesn’t gain levels by any means and can only improve by acquiring new or more powerful cards.
While I think that the questing for new cards is a sound approach, have you considered the cards themselves lvling up?
What I would suggest is that you have a Holy card which heals you. As you gain, colour points(?) you can invest these into current card improvements. Each card has a lvl range, small to stop there being a divide between new and experienced players. In game animations could be the only change, if power levels of cards are to remain static.
i.e. lvl 1 card heals 20 Hit points (hand glows, animation), lvl 3 card heals 30 hit points (larger animation, avatar gains wings) and top lvl card summons an angel that heals 50 hit points.
I suggest this as, most players need some sort of measure of success and there is not better way to do this other than to have not only rare cards with rare animations, but rare cards with rare animations.
Mossop
# posted by 
: 11/7/08 10:34
: 11/7/08 10:34
hi i want to play this game in india but i don't play this game in india so tell me what i do ? my e-maill = nishit_patel86@yahoo.co.in
# posted by : 11/7/08 12:53
: 11/7/08 12:53
That is a very intersting hypothesis. In essense then, the world of Shandalar will be open ended - i.e. there will be no goal to work towards.
IF this is just a conceptualization, and you are not seriously thinking about making money, then I think that the current open-endedness will be cool. However, if you are looking at casual players to jump in also - you will need to design the game in a way that people know what to do next, and what they are aiming to achieve. The end goal (e.g. take down illidian, reach lvl 100) still eludes this thought process.
At this point, I have a few thoughts which just stick out.
- Sages can be anywhere. Its not really important that a sage in the city will have the information. Maybe the adventurer makes enquiries in a Tavern, and then hears a rumor - for which he needs to travel to another city to dig up more news about the rumor. The sage may live up in the himalayas for all that matter.
- having a book with all the cards in the world. hmm. i think it should be different. lets take the book as the manuscript. maybe it is in some old monastry - the book about the cards of luck. or maybe for the lower lvl cards, one can have them in the books with something like 'legend talks about a more powerful card in the possesion of the heretics of the sankien desert'.
- how many active 'quests' can a traveller have ? i think being able to gather a bunch of quests and then going off in search of them makes more sense than linearly doing quests one after the other. that will become boring.
- can questers group together to go after one card ? or will it be always a 'i need that card more than you' ?
IF this is just a conceptualization, and you are not seriously thinking about making money, then I think that the current open-endedness will be cool. However, if you are looking at casual players to jump in also - you will need to design the game in a way that people know what to do next, and what they are aiming to achieve. The end goal (e.g. take down illidian, reach lvl 100) still eludes this thought process.
At this point, I have a few thoughts which just stick out.
- Sages can be anywhere. Its not really important that a sage in the city will have the information. Maybe the adventurer makes enquiries in a Tavern, and then hears a rumor - for which he needs to travel to another city to dig up more news about the rumor. The sage may live up in the himalayas for all that matter.
- having a book with all the cards in the world. hmm. i think it should be different. lets take the book as the manuscript. maybe it is in some old monastry - the book about the cards of luck. or maybe for the lower lvl cards, one can have them in the books with something like 'legend talks about a more powerful card in the possesion of the heretics of the sankien desert'.
- how many active 'quests' can a traveller have ? i think being able to gather a bunch of quests and then going off in search of them makes more sense than linearly doing quests one after the other. that will become boring.
- can questers group together to go after one card ? or will it be always a 'i need that card more than you' ?
Quests with a reward that you can actually choose is a good idea. It would be even better if the location of a specific card is randomized somehow, to avoid websites with all the answers and shortcuts. Also quests should allow grouping, although with lots of cards (and thus decks) around (presumably) it may not happen that often.
Maybe we can implement a mechanism that locks the reward card location once you accept the quest. This way a location can house all cards in principle. But then some safeguards against cheating/optimizing gametime :) must be implemented too. You cannot just delete the quest and take it again if you dont like the location the sage tells you. The card you chose will be there and nowhere else.
(Of course now the aforementioned websites will offer clues on all particular locations...)
Public quests should be implemented also, and ideally be story driven, with rare cards as a reward (or a lot of points for you to spend on your favorites). This story should have a definite end, after which we will put our expansion pack on the market:)
Within the setup we have, grouping may be difficult to implement though.
Maybe we can implement a mechanism that locks the reward card location once you accept the quest. This way a location can house all cards in principle. But then some safeguards against cheating/optimizing gametime :) must be implemented too. You cannot just delete the quest and take it again if you dont like the location the sage tells you. The card you chose will be there and nowhere else.
(Of course now the aforementioned websites will offer clues on all particular locations...)
Public quests should be implemented also, and ideally be story driven, with rare cards as a reward (or a lot of points for you to spend on your favorites). This story should have a definite end, after which we will put our expansion pack on the market:)
Within the setup we have, grouping may be difficult to implement though.
# posted by : 11/7/08 13:38
: 11/7/08 13:38
I agree with the randomisation of locations. You'd need to have a mechanism to make players visit all the zones, and therefore keep track of which quests sent you where.
But having a random distribution will mean that players have to pay attention to the quests, the dialogue etc, rather than clicking through it and following the instructions they downloaded from WoWwiki or wherever.
But having a random distribution will mean that players have to pay attention to the quests, the dialogue etc, rather than clicking through it and following the instructions they downloaded from WoWwiki or wherever.
Cards leveling up is an interesting idea, although could be tough to balance.
As for quest randomness, that could easily be done, and is needed. Asheron's Call had a similar system for spells, but unfortunately it followed a set pattern, and soon everyone figured it out.
In this case, just have the game randomize which location it sends you to (out of say a possible 100 or so caves) possibly filtered by card rarity. (the rarer the card, the tougher the cave)
To take it a step further, once inside the cave (instance), its layout could be randomly generated like in Diablo, to keep that aspect at least a little fresh as well.
As for quest randomness, that could easily be done, and is needed. Asheron's Call had a similar system for spells, but unfortunately it followed a set pattern, and soon everyone figured it out.
In this case, just have the game randomize which location it sends you to (out of say a possible 100 or so caves) possibly filtered by card rarity. (the rarer the card, the tougher the cave)
To take it a step further, once inside the cave (instance), its layout could be randomly generated like in Diablo, to keep that aspect at least a little fresh as well.
# posted by : 11/7/08 15:21
: 11/7/08 15:21
You could have quest chains to get to a card. I'm thinking of epic poems where there are many tasks, go to this island and slay the cyclops and grab his card. You'd have to trade the card in to the npc to progress towards the one you want, or use it yourself. Maybe if you use it for yourself that opens up more quest chains for other cards, because now the Sages are pissed at you for defying the gods, or something.
Following on from my previous post about card levelling, I appreciate this may be hard to Balance, but in PVE balance would not be an issue mainly due to the old MMORPG design of time>Skill i.e. it will be possible for every1 to get there at some point. PVP balancing could be in the form of cards having point values, and a card deck for PVP having a point limit. 60 cards in a deck, PVP value of 60, lvl 2 cards could be 2 points etc.
Regarding quests, I find that Warcraft has to many addons to aid questing, I played from launch and found that the questing was great as find this east meant you walked east until you found what you needed (I have spent a few hours walking around to find the quest was next to the quest giver) but this added to the fun of the game.
I would vote for random quests, and any lore based quests as well. I mean why are we all walking around using cards to fight? Simple question, but lore wise could be an epic story to be played out. I also think there should or could be luck based quests, by chance you kill a mob and you receive a torn corner of a ‘special’ card. This is then presented to a Sage and an epic quest is started. While I appreciate longer quest lines, there has to be intimidate rewards as well, doing 3 quests to find you have to do a couple more before any reward could put casual players off, a simple answer to this would be ‘colour points’ to be presented as a half time reward of the players choice.
I like this idea and must admit I would probably play
Mossop
Regarding quests, I find that Warcraft has to many addons to aid questing, I played from launch and found that the questing was great as find this east meant you walked east until you found what you needed (I have spent a few hours walking around to find the quest was next to the quest giver) but this added to the fun of the game.
I would vote for random quests, and any lore based quests as well. I mean why are we all walking around using cards to fight? Simple question, but lore wise could be an epic story to be played out. I also think there should or could be luck based quests, by chance you kill a mob and you receive a torn corner of a ‘special’ card. This is then presented to a Sage and an epic quest is started. While I appreciate longer quest lines, there has to be intimidate rewards as well, doing 3 quests to find you have to do a couple more before any reward could put casual players off, a simple answer to this would be ‘colour points’ to be presented as a half time reward of the players choice.
I like this idea and must admit I would probably play
Mossop
# posted by : 11/7/08 16:19
: 11/7/08 16:19
Tobold, it appears you already have a semi-specific concept in your head.
The initial thread in this series about Shandalar inspired me, but the consecutive ones feel like they have drifted from the ‘open brainstorm’ concept the first thread implied.
Maybe, instead of listing your more-detailed ideas, list general properties you either want or don’t want to see implemented in this game.
You’ve stated a few of those properties already in some of your posts these last few days, but instead of trying to sort them out, can you consolidate your thoughts into a general outline in its’ own thread?
I think it would be better if you actually lay down some guidelines on what properites you want in this game, and with a more defined outline, we can then still fill in the gaps with our ideas.
Because right now, this series seems like it has become a mess of thoughts… like spagetti sauce poured on a plate. If I was a kid, I might try to lick the plate and sort out the flavors later, but I’m not, and would prefer some garlic bread to mop it up. Otherwise, this spagetti sauce of ideas may not even be worth the time to try to consume. Instead it may just be easier to put the plate in the sink or rinse off the plate and try some meatloaf.
Mmmmm meatloaf…
Know what I mean?
The initial thread in this series about Shandalar inspired me, but the consecutive ones feel like they have drifted from the ‘open brainstorm’ concept the first thread implied.
Maybe, instead of listing your more-detailed ideas, list general properties you either want or don’t want to see implemented in this game.
You’ve stated a few of those properties already in some of your posts these last few days, but instead of trying to sort them out, can you consolidate your thoughts into a general outline in its’ own thread?
I think it would be better if you actually lay down some guidelines on what properites you want in this game, and with a more defined outline, we can then still fill in the gaps with our ideas.
Because right now, this series seems like it has become a mess of thoughts… like spagetti sauce poured on a plate. If I was a kid, I might try to lick the plate and sort out the flavors later, but I’m not, and would prefer some garlic bread to mop it up. Otherwise, this spagetti sauce of ideas may not even be worth the time to try to consume. Instead it may just be easier to put the plate in the sink or rinse off the plate and try some meatloaf.
Mmmmm meatloaf…
Know what I mean?
I didn't bother checking other comments, so if I'm repeating someone, all the better :)
While you wouldn't want to totally randomize the quest locations, I'd perhaps segregate the various potential locations into tiers of difficulty, so that an easy card could show up in one of 10 caves guarded by simple monsters, while an ultra-rare card might be in one of 15 far-flung locations guarded by more elite enemies.
As a side note, you could also mix in other types of challenge, so that it's not always a fight you have to complete to get to the altar: perhaps it's an easily accessible altar in some sage's basement, but you need to offer it the horn of a specific breed of stag only found in the highlands.
While you wouldn't want to totally randomize the quest locations, I'd perhaps segregate the various potential locations into tiers of difficulty, so that an easy card could show up in one of 10 caves guarded by simple monsters, while an ultra-rare card might be in one of 15 far-flung locations guarded by more elite enemies.
As a side note, you could also mix in other types of challenge, so that it's not always a fight you have to complete to get to the altar: perhaps it's an easily accessible altar in some sage's basement, but you need to offer it the horn of a specific breed of stag only found in the highlands.
# posted by : 11/7/08 23:23
: 11/7/08 23:23
Sorry Tobold, but this line of blogs has become self-indulgent.
There are creators, and there are critics.
This reader would appreciate your return to what you do well.
There are creators, and there are critics.
This reader would appreciate your return to what you do well.
# posted by : 12/7/08 00:06
: 12/7/08 00:06
Did you ever say how you go about getting these points that you spend to get the cards? Would you just have to grind mobs or something?
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# posted by : 12/7/08 01:50
: 12/7/08 01:50<< Home
