Remove the party system?

[Dante]

Either way, players themselves are to blame for these issues. If there are no quests, players complain that they want more fun events. When quests are made, players care only about loot, and if suddenly we're talking about reducing loot, they threaten not to appear because they "deserve" more loot than others. Way to go

Considering how many quests I've held, this is my major experience.

What I do takes about 4 hours in total - preparing the mobs, creating the quest and then summoning players, then baby sitting players (ressing/refreshing/teleporting) and finally handling pages about whines/problems/ICQ complaints.

The only enjoyment I get from quests these days is watching players fight challenging mobs or working together effectively. It's so disheartening to put in so much effort and then people complain - but this is Pangaea and the community are very vocal about their opinions and entitlements.

Unfortunately most of my quests are spontaneous - I'm not the most organised and sometimes slightly manic and this does have repercussions on the style of quest - mainly hack and slash, save the city etc, I have a few ideas but I'm limited in the lack of my scripting knowledge. Tonight the book on the mob had a relevant phrase/paragraph to a future BOSS MOB for players to fight. However since most were completely obsessed with loot - they couldn't be bothered. Others asked for it to posted on the forums.

I do struggle with the limitations and templates for quests, I get very few ideas posted to me, inevitably every quest will involve hack and slash because other types are both tedious and boring, i.e a merchant quest to gather X resources for no real reward = boring imo. I could have made it so that players would have had to gather X resources to clean up Britain, but based on the complaints I couldn't be bothered.

Another thing is the restrictions and whines with regards to consequences of failing quests - if it was down to me, I'd be shutting towns down, deleting vendors, and blocking access, taking over cities etc- this is drastic and unfair sometimes.

I also check the player counts and who's doing what and I must say I'm disappointed with the number of people who'd prefer to macro day in day out rather than attend events that bring people together - perhaps this is a comment on my quests or the current player base. Who knows.

Anyhow I'll review the quest deeds with Iktomi once I understand dice rolls and loot groups etc.

[Hilda]

I also check the player counts and who's doing what and I must say I'm disappointed with the number of people who'd prefer to macro day in day out rather than attend events that bring people together - perhaps this is a comment on my quests or the current player base. Who knows.

4 of my 5 characters are merchant, so unless you give me super powers (I don't really like my warrior) or the pet AI gets fixed (they go apeshit retarded when there's plenty of mobs), I would indeed prefer to macro!

[Cyrus Tegyr]

I also check the player counts and who's doing what and I must say I'm disappointed with the number of people who'd prefer to macro day in day out rather than attend events that bring people together - perhaps this is a comment on my quests or the current player base. Who knows.

4 of my 5 characters are merchant, so unless you give me super powers (I don't really like my warrior) or the pet AI gets fixed (they go apeshit retarded when there's plenty of mobs), I would indeed prefer to macro!

3 out of my 5 characters are merchants. That being said, it has nothing in my case to do with the quality of quests, I just never know when I am going to get bored and have to run and I don't want to get tied down to stuff unless I plan for it and I rarely plan for anything in Ultima right now since my work schedule is shit I don't have the time to play as often as I used to. I do log in and try to make appearances as a counselor, but actual quality play time, I have little of.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

As for the Party system, I voted no and here is why.

- It's in place, I would much prefer to see the staff given the ability to when they spawn for a quest to be able place a cprop on all mobs involved with the quest that ignore the party system loot setup, whether this be a dot command to mass select, part of the spawnnet system (or spawnpoint system which I think is what Pangaea uses) it doesn't matter.

Now, just because it is in place doesn't mean it couldn't be ripped out and I realize that my first statement is very weak so I will exapnd.

The party system is functional in the sense that it has been scripted in the basest of functionality on the players end. One day, there is a list of things I would like to see added to the party system, I havent posted an idea for it because, well honestly, the push to get the mayor system done has put everything it seems on the back burner and quite honestly I am not sure where the heart of our staff is at at adding functionality to systems we have in place that desperately need it.

[Quintoz]

@ Dante I would suggest you keep making quests targeting a specific part of the shard, such as religions, only blues, only this or that. You might have less players there total but they will be more engaged. I know atleast during Tek quests I tend to have a bigger intrest for what's being said etc then in a free-for-all quest, which is one of the reasons I tend to avoid most quests unless I've been asked to come create some trouble for the adventurers

[Ivan]

Perhaps if you wish to create a quest, dont have time or dont want to spend time on the layout and whatsoever... also want to avoid the whine, you should hold smaller quests once in a while? Example hunting groups are always up for monster smashing, but for big quests definetly go for no loot and better quest deeds.

Also perhaps some small low reward, or story like quests for people like hilda would be more fitting, riddles, treasure hunt and so on without HC monster smashing.

EDIT: Perhaps some quests should be more of recruit type: you know end boss is something balron class and so on and act as some lord recruiting people to vanquish evil brigands all over the map who are ruining the world and so on... So it would be more of small group of players attending, also skilled most likely so the amount of whine is less and easier to adjust the monsters towards the group size and invidual player skill. (also partying and loot sharing most likely comes natural as long as group size is less than 8 players and its easy to see that no one gets left out)

[Darian Darkmind]

@ Dante I would suggest you keep making quests targeting a specific part of the shard, such as religions, only blues, only this or that. You might have less players there total but they will be more engaged. I know atleast during Tek quests I tend to have a bigger intrest for what's being said etc then in a free-for-all quest, which is one of the reasons I tend to avoid most quests unless I've been asked to come create some trouble for the adventurers :)

This would be my hint to Dante as well.

Also everyone, good or bad, Nature, Tekstone, Imperial and Law all joining the same quest and hanging out like best pals don't really make any sense. Never have made any sense, never will unless it is a threat so huge the lives of our gods depend on us working together.

[Edward Sinclair]

The lag during the quest (I'm not sure if it was a one off or it was something to do with the mobs) was the major factor in a few of us leaving the quest. As for the loot, I would join quests that give reward at the end w/ no loot. I'm around ressing/helping people get on their feet but if the lag is too much I just flee the scene

The party system is incredibly useful in hunts, but in quests it can be annoying. If there is only concern for the loot when it comes to joining quests maybe those aren't the kind of people you'd want to spend a lot of time with in the first place? Though to be honest, it was quite disheartening to see that any assistance in taking down a mob was just benefiting a particular group than benefiting everyone in the quest as a whole.

[Kira]

Dante i would be exited to help you build up some quests other than hack'n'slash and i've allready revealed some ideas for you, but yeah in the end of the quests i send you for ideas is indeed hack'n'slash but not that much, i hope that those ideas could enhance some more RP than just kill kill loot loot politics but yeah i am just a lowly fighter yet and still in training so when i actually attend a quest its not quite noobfriendly either, most likely the first group of mobs i can attend to and the second but when its getting to the end, getting instakilled each time you get on your feet even with boosts then i feel like i dont belong in the fun anymore.

I've put some ideas like theese:
Fishing Quest:
(A single mob but with fierce strenth)
I've lost my ring!

Catch the deadly serpent and retrieve my ring!
i will greatly reward anyone who helps me out!

any fisherman will be needed, and some great fighters.

the beast have been seen swimming around occlo (example)

requirements is a boat and someone with fishing.
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Hunting Quest:
(alot of mobs and a naste shit dragon at last something like the one yesterday just more global.
That even force the Religions to split up and fight for their own towns to.)
Dragons start War!

a fierce dragon has attacked brittain(or any other city, perhaps multiple!)

Some sort of angry ancient dragon has convinced hi's fellow dragons to put an end
to the humanity of Pangaea and launched the greatest attack on humans ever
all dragontypes attacks the city/cities and the goal is to get the ancient dragon
killed in the end.
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Rescue Quest:
(follow the clues and beat a nasty magician, or something like that, possibly he spawn something)
Rescue me!

A powerfull Magicuser like a GM'rp'ed magic user (something lord Tolsar or might even better, he captures one.)
the goal is to rescue "(a player)" from this evil man/woman and needs to find clues like torn clothes to pinpoint the
captured character!

the closer they get they get to hear the cry for help.
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Collecting quest:
(Help this poor guy collect he's items, the more of it you find the bigger the reward you get,
all kind of mobs drops the items, so its not only the fittest who gets most)
i've lost my special items!

something like santa lost his reindeer rudolph thingy, but its items there has been shattered all over pangaea and are
collectible in a week and the more you find the bigger the reward in the end.

might the system of the old quest with specialmade weapons can be used for that
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I do hope someone likes my ideas and maybe much of it fits in another Topic but hell! i would love to know peoples oppinions so i might get more blood on my teeth to really write a good quest to be rewieved by Dante and the other GM's and then you might start running around like headless chickens doing my quests.

[Elsabet]

It's too bad you guys can't script some special mobs for events and quests that are not part of the distro, only spawnable by GMs with the following traits:

Do not loot players
Have specific quest loot table
Special abilities, traits, etc. that make them interesting to fight

It would also be a good idea to make a special area for holding events and quests that is designed just for that...off screen monster pen (for holding and bringing out boss monsters), enough room for players to fight and spread out...you know a place that would be readily adaptable for different types of stories, fights, and quests that you could decorate and then clean up when you're all done and use for something else next time.