Issues About Current Quests

[dst]

I let this topic settle for some time.
Let's see what happened meanwhile...Hmm...almost nothing.

Except few notable quests:
1) Cutler's: we all know it and experienced it. It was a breath of air.A fresh and pleasant one. I enjoyed getting lost in the maze, I enjoyed testing my sense of orientation (the one that I don't have). Overall a very good quest. Congratz!
2)Asryn quest - treasure hunt. I must say that it was one of the best quests I ever done. It was strictly MD related, done without any clickies, fun, fun, fun. A beauty! It was a great chance for noobs to actually learn a lot about MD.
3)MRV quest - Mesmerized (it's still going on). I cannot say much about it since it would be a spoiler but I can tell you: it's amazing. It's one of the most complex quests in MD. You need knowledge of everything. If you manage to finish it you do have a white ball from me. It's great!
4)Burns quests - the one with the werewolf and bats: great idea. Too bad few actually participated actively in it (I am ashamed to say that I started it but never finished..shame on me!)
- teacher of magic: an easy and in the same time hard quest. I liked the fact that it is emulated on the participant. An mp3 will never get the tasks an mp5 would. And probably one of the new mp5s will never get the task I was given.

Right now there are some quests up with potential. Princ's quest is also something new but unfortunately it's what i call a "special" quest. A new idea but not that MD suited. Anyway, if someone manages to finish it...congratz!
MB's quest is also interesting and also a "special" quest. Why? Cause of its difficulty .The point of a quest is to be solved. So far...MB is the champion of impossible quests . I like it in a way even if I find it frustrating sometimes but that is just a personal thingy . And I bet I will kick myself when I will see the solution or find a way to solve it myself. Because I am expecting something really smart


I am sad to still see on the quest list essay quests.Why? Because they are waay to subjective. And they target certain players. And they show how lazy the quest creator is.
At least the "spam everyone to find the right person" type of quests seems to have died. Or at least I hope so from the bottom of my hart.

I will keep this thread alive and update it with examples of good and bad quests. I will not be able to test every single quest out there so I am proposing you all to post your opinions about quests here. Showing flaws in some quests and good things in others will hopefully help all of use design better and better quests.

[Shadowseeker]

Heh. If you call my quest also an essay quest, i should really post all te submissions and my ratings openly. I know this kind of quest isnt enjoyed by all, but it can be interesting what people come up with.

[I am Bored]

i must dissagree with you there, RJ is the master of impossible quests, because of his quest that very few have seen......... it involves clicking 71 buttons, each one gives and takes some of the 71 keys, the goal was to get all 71 peices..... but the first task find out that the quest existed

[apophys]

Awiiya's quest (the name of the tree) was a very good one, though a bit too easy.

Cutler's puzzle quest, also very good, was a bit too hard (I got stuck on the 7th; I never could solve it before going idle). Still, it's the best I've seen so far that deals with clickables.



Remember Bootes' puzzle gauntlet and Garg's Aurora Borealis? Those are my examples of perfect puzzle quests.


Could all quest creators make their profiles public? It really ticks me off when they have a quest, and I have to find them online to see it.

Edited December 28, 2009 by apophys

[Udgard]

[quote name='I am Bored' date='28 December 2009 - 08:44 AM' timestamp='1261964693' post='51229']
i must dissagree with you there, RJ is the master of impossible quests, because of his quest that very few have seen......... it involves clicking 71 buttons, each one gives and takes some of the 71 keys, the goal was to get all 71 peices..... but the first task find out that the quest existed
[/quote]

Well, that thing is rather similar to a hard-coded MD puzzle he solved long ago, doesn't it? =D And it seems like someone already solved it within a week of it's opening.. (I'd assume that's why I can't find it on the place it used to be anymore)

[cutler121]

[quote name='Udgard' date='28 December 2009 - 05:06 AM' timestamp='1261976794' post='51238']
Well, that thing is rather similar to a hard-coded MD puzzle he solved long ago, doesn't it? =D And it seems like someone already solved it within a week of it's opening.. (I'd assume that's why I can't find it on the place it used to be anymore)
[/quote]

RJ's key puzzle was actually somewhat different than the broken pattern gazebo puzzle and it took about 3 hours to solve which is a fair amount of time. But I didn't notice it right off as well so I was only the second person to solve it

One problem with complex quests, they can have a really nice idea (which RJ's did) and even be very complex to implement, but if it is a doable puzzle quest 6-8 hours of concerted effort by any reasonably intelligent person is going to crack it. I built in some death traps to my necro astral plane quest so that it would last a few days, but even with that after people died 2-3 times, they got to the complex puzzles and solved the quest in a short amount of time.

One big problem with quest creation is that it takes (for me) much more time to put the quest together than for people to run the quest. (The what number am i quest may be an exception to this since people are still running the game gauntlet and there are more people completing legs every day).

I think the MDscript adds alot of freedom to do interesting things (if you are into programming) but at some point the question becomes what is the point of an MD quest. If its solving puzzles, my puzzle arcade gives fresh versions of all the games to play each time so it is new each time, but that doesn't seem to me to be the point of solving a quest in MD. It should be for some reward and only the best/first few people to solve it should get the reward. This is another reason I have announced my last few quests several days ahead and opened them at a specific time so everybody has an equal chance.

I have some (3-4) other ideas for new quest formats which I will release when I have some more WP to gift (1 idea spoiler: true 2-person interaction within MD) but making quests takes a LOT of time and effort and there is currently no incentive within MD to do it. I think it would be cool if there were some kind of Mur approved (given) reward for quest creation even if that might lead to a deluge of poor quality quests from people just wanting the reward.

Cutler

[dst]

Since my last post I have taken part in 3 more quests and finally found what Metal Bunny wants from my life
For some of them I already posted a small review but they might get lost on the forum.

First quest:Sparrhawk's Stone Tablets
Good idea quest. Nicely done. One flaw: good only for native English speakers. And that had a direct impact: the ones that solved it (except me) have English as primary language. Good part:Sparr was fast in replying and tried to give me some hints.

Second:MasterB's quest:I liked it. It is dynamic, it has things that I enjoy finding in quests.I cannot say more due to the fact that it's not over and I don't want to spoil it for the others. His system of hints is really really good. That's one giant white ball for him

Third:BloodPrince:A really good quest with diversity and logic. Flaw:the clues were not distributed too good if you ask me. Too easy till phase 4 and impossible for me at least from there.But maybe this is for the best cause after all you do need filters.

And I just saw this in BloodPrince' post:
[quote]This part even held one of the best quest solvers (dst) in MD back. May be Mur should give me a medal for that [/quote]
Sorry to disappoint you but Metal Bunny kicked your behind in this . Except his mini quests for his spell doc and few easy riddles for other's quests I never ever solved any of his quests. And also Cutler is one of the persons whose quests I seem never to finalize .

And since I mentioned MB....DST DOESN'T have an eye for details!!! I cannot find Waldo (aka that damn word) unless he bits my leg or hits me in the face. Whenever I have masochistic impulses I open MB's map and after a while I am cured

Edited January 18, 2010 by dst