Hot Stones

[Burns]

Hey folks, as promised, here goes the first Drach Charm Quest!

I've ran around with my trusted Drachorns and searched for 6 stones around MB and NML. I've had each stone engraved with a number, then turned it over and had my babies breath onto it to heat them.
As they are, you probably won't get to turn them over, they are just too hot. But over the next day, they'll likely cool off again.
If you find a stone, you need to use the password 'Hot Stones' to get in.

You win this quest by sending me a message with the SUM of all the numbers i left behind.

Drachorns Flames are tricky, though. Some will find them hotter than others. The closer you are to balance, the cooler they will feel, and the more heat you carry around with you (including erolin devices), the hotter they will feel. So you might want to rid yourself of your heat and get balanced to increase your chances...

And if you feel sneaky, you can invest your own heat to make the stones hot again and make sure the others who want the numbers can't get them...

Good Luck, and i honestly wonder how this will play out.

Only one prize, a drach charm.

(Also, the stones have an evil log that shows me if you saw the number or not. You'd better show up on all 6 logs if you send an answer, obviously with the one account that wants to win.)

[Also, for the sake of fairness: There is one location with more than one stone, and one stone is NOT on the ground.]

Edited March 16, 2013 by Burns

[DARK DEMON]

[font=comic sans ms,cursive][color=#006400]I'd love to participate, but I'm in the Day of Fear, along with many others. [/color][/font]

[font=comic sans ms,cursive][color=#006400]Won't this give a clear advantage to those not participating in Day of Fear?[/color][/font]

Edited March 17, 2013 by DARK DEMON

[Burns]

That's obviously the case. There's also a clear advantage to people who don't have any appointments on this fine sunday, to people who can control their heat, to people who were balanced before the quest started...
It's not my fault if somebody else creates a quest that doesn't allow you to play normally. I don't even require a sign up, something i very much intended to do to have better control over alts. You are free to come and play, or not.

[DARK DEMON]

[font=comic sans ms,cursive][color=#006400]But this is something not in my control.[/color][/font]

[font=comic sans ms,cursive][color=#006400]Being balanced, not having heat, etc are things you can control and fix. I am free to come and play, yes, and I'd love to. But I can't...[/color][/font]

[BFH]

I have a small question sorry if i'm being half a newb here.

Does the charm have a limited amount of uses?

BTW: Quest sounds very interesting.

[Burns]

The charm is consumed when it's used. You can take one thing, that's all. (Or store one thing, if you wish so.)

[Burns]

Pity, i had hoped hell would break loose in the end...
But all we got from it was a spell spree. -.-

And the winner is: dst!

I hope for some feedback, it was a rather experimental thing after all. I must admit that i was not entirely satisfied with the way it ended.

Stay tuned for the next quest! And don't forget that i'm also rewarding charms to people who try to make creative, enjoyable quests themselves!

[BFH]

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1363549700' post='134153']
The charm is consumed when it's used. You can take one thing, that's all. (Or store one thing, if you wish so.)
[/quote]

Epic Thanks

and Congrats DST!!!!

[dst]

Ok...now a bit of feedback.

The overall idea is very good and in theory it should work flawlessly. The problem was that there were too few active players who concentrated on getting the number rather than keeping the stones hot because those active players were balanced (like Lightsage, Ratbert, Clock, Shem) or were not affected by heat + a low number of battles (new players like Dan). So for them it was just a wait, see it be the first who sends the PM with the answer. I was probably the only imbalanced one (with almost 200 difference which translated into 200 seconds - it's HUGE). So I would suggest a better incentive for players to heat the stones.

Then, there was the timing - once you knew when the stones would cool down you'd just forget the rest of the day, come like 1 hour before the last one cools down, get all the others, get the last one and ta da! I would suggest some tasks in between (to add a variable which depends entirely on the player's skills - it can be a riddle, something combat related or skills related or anything) in addition to the waiting time. This way doesn't matter if you started earlier than the rest or later - it's all up to you how fast you do your tasks. Maybe have something like: player 1 did task 1 in 10 mins - this will reduce waiting time by x amount and he can use that bonus on whatever stone he chooses; player 2 completed task 1 in 5 mins - this reduces bla bla - you get the main idea.

I understand your disappointed Burnsy but I had no other way since I was handicapped by the imbalance. And hey! you said you like creativity, right?

Anyway...now that the adrenaline cooled down I can say I did have fun . It's the first clicky quest I take part in in...OMG more than 1 year!

Thank you, my opponents, for making me THINK and thank you Burns for making me feel excited as I used to when I was a young MD player

[Change]

Congrats, dst!

If I had the spells, I would have done the same thing. I'm assuming that you can use heat jars to reheat stones? If so, I could have been very mean, but with just under a 900 fight imbalance I doubt I would have stood a chance anyways.

I'd definitely like to see more of these types of quests. (I had to go to bed, so I slept through most of this one). Great quest, Burns!

[tankfans]

Overall a good and short quest
Haven't have clickie quests for a while

I'm imbalanced by ~-580... <-feel my pain, I was never be able to balance my win/less ever since I became mp5 a few years ago
can we have more scattered clickies next time? it's almost crowded in one place

Edited March 17, 2013 by tankfans

[Burns]

[quote name='dst' post='134157']
Ok...now a bit of feedback.

The overall idea is very good and in theory it should work flawlessly. [/quote]

Thanks

[quote]The problem was that there were too few active players who concentrated on getting the number rather than keeping the stones hot because those active players were balanced (like Lightsage, Ratbert, Clock, Shem) or were not affected by heat + a low number of battles (new players like Dan). So for them it was just a wait, see it be the first who sends the PM with the answer. I was probably the only imbalanced one (with almost 200 difference which translated into 200 seconds - it's HUGE). So I would suggest a better incentive for players to heat the stones.[/quote]

I almost would've launched the quest with an age factor, so that any active day beyond 100 gave you an additional second waiting time... But that seemed too cruel
It was really tricky to find a sensible value for the delay. If i use any kind of stat to lower the time, vets have an advantage. If i use days, you can't do anything to actively lower the waiting time to improve your chances. I thought heat would be a smart way because it'd force you to decide if you want to go for a re-heat or to read the number when the stone is getting cold. And i've worked on that factor for a week, because it's the essential part of the quest, before i got to something as sensible as heat. The balance factor just came in because it's my opinion that constant, long time activity and work to get balanced should pay off in terms of rewards every now and then. (And because it's one factor that many newbies have and many vets don't.)

[quote]Then, there was the timing - once you knew when the stones would cool down you'd just forget the rest of the day, come like 1 hour before the last one cools down, get all the others, get the last one and ta da! I would suggest some tasks in between (to add a variable which depends entirely on the player's skills - it can be a riddle, something combat related or skills related or anything) in addition to the waiting time. This way doesn't matter if you started earlier than the rest or later - it's all up to you how fast you do your tasks. Maybe have something like: player 1 did task 1 in 10 mins - this will reduce waiting time by x amount and he can use that bonus on whatever stone he chooses; player 2 completed task 1 in 5 mins - this reduces bla bla - you get the main idea.[/quote]

Tasks would've been interesting, yes, but i honestly couldn't imagine any tasks for that. In my head, the participants were running like mad to get numbers and re-heat stones, and would only have done a task that was so short it didn't stop them too long. And one of that kind would be so simple that anybody would've done it. With that in mind, i decided against additional tasks and instead gave a little gap by default.
Speaking of which, there's also a reason for the gap to exist at all. I've had the choice between leaving a gap between read and re-heat or not, and went with the first because i didn't aim for a 50 hour online marathon like head contest. That's not an achievement imo. The gap was rather small, just 50 seconds with perfect balance and 0 heat, and that seemed sensible. If you miss the gap, you might get re-heated and the stone would be out again for 20 minutes. (Originally i intended to use full heat, but 4400 second is too long for the effort it takes, so i've cut that to heat/4)

[quote name='tankfans' post='134160']
can we have more scattered clickies next time? it's almost crowded in one place [/quote]

With viscosity, the location of things is a factor that could decide the winner. I went with places without viscosity so new players could compete. If i had stones in Golemus, because that's convenient for me, people would (rightfully, imo) complain that GG people had better chances. So i'd need to go with at least 4 lands to even out the land loyalty advantages. 4 lands would mean 4 gates, and suddenly you'd need to have the LR guards down, enough AP to cross the bridge to GG and connections to get into Necro. Not very nice towards anybody under 1000 days, i think.

[dst]

Ok, I see your logic Burnsy and on paper looks flawless. The problem is you can't really predict the behavior of the players. After seeing that I was the only one who reheated stones because the others were counting on their balance, I realized that I will never ever be able to do anything (something fast and simple) to overcome the handicap. And another thing is: even if I was going for balance, I wouldn't have had enough time to get the vics since most of the players are out in the East. So, imo the "issue" was the low participation. Imagine 10-15-20 players all competing. It would have been madness and at the end you'd have had your bloodshed. On the other hand, the low participation opened opportunities for creativity: Dan used several alts to play, others, came to play in the last few hours (or at least that was my impression), some stayed in the shadow until the very last part, I had also a backup plan in case this one failed .

Maybe is time for old encrypting/decrypting quest or Yoshi style .