Centralised Rewards Resource

[Muratus del Mur]

An other ideea i was thinking of doing later, when wish shop will be more complete.
A central resource with rewards of all kinds, where quest makers, non-rpc including, can pick rewards based on previous rating for their quests, and use rewards from this resource FREELY to give to other players for solving their quests.

My english is bad tonight it seems, so lets try again ...
One centralised resource, with:
- creatures
- predefined md shop items, such as tokens, powerups etc
- avatars
- items
- wishpoints

Players of all kind that can do quests with their current abilities, abilities that they work hard to achieve, either by solving other quests or by other ways, get the right to distribute some of these rewarding resources to other players. The amount of rewards they get access to will be based on the quality of their previous quests, the more interesting quests you do the better rewards you are allowed to give.

This resource will be filled by rpcs, from sanctions, periodicaly. For example after i sanctioned the drachorn holders some time ago, i ended up with a buch of drachorn, creatures that i sometimes use as rewards. In the same way, these creatures, or other things, could be used to stimulate other players to create interesting quests and stimulate others to solve those quests and not only rpc quests.

Its a delicate thing, because combined with the wish shop that gives out important abilities, it will compete with the rpcs in a big way. The rpcs will remain the only source for wishpoints, the wp that get into this central resource are wp gathered from baned players, penalties, donated by players with many wp, or other. The creatures will probably be the most common rewards. The items could be made specialy for this resource by the krafters.

Its still an open ideea, with a long deadline, but please share your opinion on it. Do you think this will be a good, great or terrible thing for the evolution of md? There is no need to go into details about possible bugs, but you can share your oppinion on logic flaws that you can forsee.

[Udgard]

Well, for one, I hope that the rating system for previous quests are handled by a special team or something, not by everyone that 'tried' someone's quest. That would be too easily abusable with people asking their friends to rate their quest highly, and then they get access to rewards that has a good possibility to be distributed unevenly. Example: I tell a friend to rate my quests good, then in return I say that s/he did well on my quest and give him/her a reward, and then maybe give some to my alt and transfer them back to me. This system is indeed a very good idea in that it allows the system to sponsor quest makers much easier than requiring them to manually ask every RPC to sponsor their quest, but I believe a strong control system is needed to prevent abuse.

[Shadowseeker]

Although I do agree with the current system not being the best for most players, first there is what udgard pointed out.

Secondly, sometimes it may be better to "remove" a bit from game: After all, inflation will keep happening if we constantly add and add....SO the penalties may be better off just being sacced or so.

As for such a fund, in a sense it already exists: But the RPCs usually dislike funding with anything else but a use of their spells, spelldocs or WP.

It's rare for them to hand out rare creatures, out of their own pockets.

So I'd actually suggest a fund where some things are placed in which normally are not rewarded:
Items
gold/silver
creatures
avatars

etc.

As for such a fund, RPCs can claim something out of it to reward people, but in return they have to add something back of equal/similiar worth. That way there's no inflation, and donations may actually keep it alive. In case really too much gets hoarded there we could remove the put stuff back rule for a bit, but I doubt that will ever happen.

And this would be a great way to see what players like most: What they desire and what the rpcs reward. (They should offer a selection of what they could give)

[Chewett]

I Love the idea and i propose this way to moniter

If these items were given out like wishpoints (ie rpcs had to write something into a box when its granted) Then if you gave all rpcs the ability to see all rewards given out then it would also be controlled via ourselves and you wouldn't need to patrol the things given out since everyone would be able to see who has given what. And the meer fact that all rpcs would be able to see what you are given would further deter abuse

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Muratus del Mur' date='08 August 2009 - 02:53 AM' timestamp='1249692790' post='38945']
An other idea i was thinking of doing later, when wish shop will be more complete.
A central resource with rewards of all kinds, where quest makers, non-rpc including, can pick rewards based on previous rating for their quests, and use rewards from this resource FREELY to give to other players for solving their quests.
[/quote]
I like the idea but I would change the requirements. Quests vary a lot in quality and quantity. To extrapolate based on previous ratings isn't going to give accurate estimates. Instead the quest for which a reward is wanted should be reviewed. The obvious choice is to have a couple of independent reviews from RPCs. Some sort of entrance requirement based on public vote wouldn't hurt to keep the RPCs from doing overtime.

1. Player makes a trial quest, which is rated by everybody that tries the quest.
2. Player makes a quest for which they want to give a reward and submits this.
3. Three RPCs independently review the quest and report how much they think the reward should be, if any.
4. Player runs the quest and distributes rewards; RPCs monitor the process.
5. Jump to step 2.
If at any point in the above scheme the outcome is negative, go back to step 1.

Why make it three independent reviews? I am sad to say it but I don't believe in RPC objectivity and having multiple opinions should decrease the odds of subjective reviews. Since it should not be the same three to review all quests and there is an entrance requirement, I don't think the workload will be that high.
Practically I'd suggest a list of submitted quests that all RPCs can see. They can then decide if they want to review any of them and quests that have been reviewed three times are removed from the list. Maybe include a button to indicate which quest is being reviewed, just in case 4 people start doing it at the same time.

[Liberty4life]

i will say one really important thing, its all fine ideas are fine everything is fine, actually its all great, but as said before abuses... thats MAJOR and ONLY problem to EVERYTHING that is tried to be built

how to prevent this, well ya wont stop it with fancy anti abuse system, ya need trusted ppl to give them position of game manager/monitor, everything must be monitored and anything suspicious must be investigated, and mur ya are only one dude ya cant do it all, if ya want to stop abuses ya need to have ppl to do it, its simple king can rule in his kingdom but if he doesnt have police to watch out the crime there will be crime

[Guybrush Threepwood]

If you're going to have a couple RPCs review the quest anyway, how is that much different than just getting an RPC or RPCs to sponsor your quest? But yeah, having the entire public vote on a quest seems like a bad idea considering that alts are abusable as it is.

Too much RPC involvement will defeat the purpose. On the other hand, being as potentially abusable as it is it does seem like it would have to be monitored somehow. One possibility would be to have RPCs watch over a quest and then allow that person an amount of autonomy if it goes well.

[Fenrir Greycloth]

What lib says is true. What we need first for something like this is an unknown player who investigates things. Perhaps like a switch or spell to thir account that temporary name change. So that they may investigate secretly, and hopefully unbiased.

As for the rewards, I think drachorns need to be limited to a certain ammount per person. The remaining drachorns can be placed in this reward system.

[Udgard]

[quote name='Guybrush Threepwood' date='09 August 2009 - 01:09 AM' timestamp='1249754950' post='38998']
If you're going to have a couple RPCs review the quest anyway, how is that much different than just getting an RPC or RPCs to sponsor your quest? But yeah, having the entire public vote on a quest seems like a bad idea considering that alts are abusable as it is.

Too much RPC involvement will defeat the purpose. On the other hand, being as potentially abusable as it is it does seem like it would have to be monitored somehow. One possibility would be to have RPCs watch over a quest and then allow that person an amount of autonomy if it goes well.
[/quote]

It came to my mind as well, but after thinking aout it more, the centralized rewards resource will allow people more option to pick from when choosing what rewards to give. When a quest's sponsor is just one RPC, the rewards will mostly be limited to either a WP or that certain RPC's spelldoc (which becomes useless once someone has obtained it once). And also, the reviewing process will only need to be done once by each member of the committe, then the reward can be given to the winners directly. It seems to me like a much more time efficient method for quests that involve a large amount of winners. Having 20 people searching for a time to meet an RPC to claim their reward is a bit time consuming..

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Guybrush Threepwood' date='08 August 2009 - 08:09 PM' timestamp='1249754950' post='38998']
If you're going to have a couple RPCs review the quest anyway, how is that much different than just getting an RPC or RPCs to sponsor your quest? But yeah, having the entire public vote on a quest seems like a bad idea considering that alts are abusable as it is.

Too much RPC involvement will defeat the purpose. On the other hand, being as potentially abusable as it is it does seem like it would have to be monitored somehow. One possibility would be to have RPCs watch over a quest and then allow that person an amount of autonomy if it goes well.
[/quote]
[quote name='Udgard' date='09 August 2009 - 08:07 AM' timestamp='1249798050' post='39008']
It came to my mind as well, but after thinking aout it more, the centralized rewards resource will allow people more option to pick from when choosing what rewards to give. When a quest's sponsor is just one RPC, the rewards will mostly be limited to either a WP or that certain RPC's spelldoc (which becomes useless once someone has obtained it once). And also, the reviewing process will only need to be done once by each member of the committe, then the reward can be given to the winners directly. It seems to me like a much more time efficient method for quests that involve a large amount of winners. Having 20 people searching for a time to meet an RPC to claim their reward is a bit time consuming..
[/quote]
The difference is that it is more centralized and efficient. Players do not have to contact every RPC until they find one that is willing to sponsor them. RPCs that don't want to review/sponsor will not be bothered by those pms anymore. RPCs don't have to provide the reward themselves, which might make them more likely to approve a quest. As mentioned there will be a wider range of rewards. The rating of quests will be more consistent too.

And finally the RPCs aren't required to be active after a player finishes a quest. It would not be the first time for me to finish a quest and be promised a wish point but never to get it. There is one that I know I'll never get, and one that's only been due for two months yet... but then again the current record for slow rewarding is 6 months. I understand that there are personal circumstances, but that does not decrease the frustration for me. The person who made the quest shouldn't be too happy with it either.

[Ignatious]

Think I may have caught this idea from someone else but...

What if there were a set of standardized, easy quests on every RPC "Q" page. Example : A quest to go get your documents, which rewards a standard amount, something pretty easily acquired, like a silver coin or whatnot. Again, this exact same quest would be viewable on every RPC. These simple quests could be limited to MP3 levels in order to encourage people to stay interested in the game, and involved. Obviously getting your documents is a one time deal, but you could potentially even have repeatable, easy quests.

[The Warrior]

I like this idea!!!

I also agree that the better the harder the better the reward should be.
So I propose:
In the reward rescorce each reward has a [i]'cost'[/i] - the higher the [i]'cost' [/i]the more [i]'Reward points' [/i]needed to obtain a batch of the rewards.
To obtain the [i]'Reward points'[/i] the quest creator would have to submit his/her quest to an impartial dificulty calculator (I have no idea how dificulty should be calculated).
Then the difficulty calculartor (could be RPCs) would give the [i]'Reward points' [/i]to the quest creator.
Then the quest and rewarding process would have to be monitored.

[smartalekrj]

that sound like the theory of WP's. A new idea should be original. Even with RPC's monitoring, there would still have to be an overseer, someone who mainly just watches it... One of the main things i notice lately is it's alot harder to find specific people, and the logs make it hard as well as the alts of people are normally ridiculously high amounts so one person would recieve a reward and then their alt would for the next thing etc. so finding abuse that way would be a hard thing to do imo. and with the trading of things going on i wouldn't be suprised to see the alt trading with the main so the main still would reap the benefits at some point.