Boards < Community < Writing < Sticky: User Text Quests - do we need them?

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  • Angel
  • Game Developer
  • Posts: 3,050

Posted at 2013-03-25 23:06:30 — Link

Text Quests are running in the test mode now. Here's a quick overview on the further possible integration.

We have a plan of using player text quests in 2 areas:

1. Daily Quests
Every player will have a text quest to do and get some small reward for this. The quests will be randomly selected from the pool of player created quests approved by staff.

2. World storytelling
We're still working on the concept and it may change, this is how it looks right now.
The players will literally write the history of the game world. For example, every month there will be an event happening in the BeastKeeper world. The players will write their variant of the event in the form of text quest with several story branches (what has happened and how it can be finished). One of the quests will be chosen as an official version of the event and will be added to the history of the world. The other players will go through this quest and the ending reached by the most part of the players will be the result of this historical event written down to history. The results of the previous events will directly affect the future events, and the key characters, places and laws which players add to the story can be encountered in future.

Such quests will have requirement like pet species, gender, characteristics, genetics and epicness. The last one will be obtained by participating in the major history events.

Example

Event start: the peasants are talking about a shooting star which hit the land a couple of months ago. The terrible rumors about giant carnivorous plants appeared in a while. The Council of Mages started the reasearch of the new menace and found the remains of the meteorite which crashed on the one of the islands. The collected examples of meteorite matter contained the seeds of an alien plant which wasn't dangerous itself but was hybridized with Europa hydras and evolved to the new life form which people call Devourers. Not like the hydras who stick to their native island and have a limited population number, these new carnivores prefer to spread on the new territories as much as they can, and now islands inhabited by people are suffering from this voracious disaster too. The further research told that the spreading Devourers are all females. To deal with them, the single male should be found and destroyed.

Event progress: players create text quests telling how to find the male Devourer and how to deal with it. One of these quests becomes an approved canonical version of the event and we put to the world history, while the others considered to be apocryphal stories but still are available for the other players to play.

Pets and users who participate in such quests can earn awards/achievements.


We need your opinion!

Do you want to see these features live? This is a new big layer which will allow players affect the history of the game world. Although we don't know how many players are interested in this and how many participating quest writers will we have. The final decision on this feature is up to community.

You can try creating your own text quests here and post them here.


  • willow(rose)
  • User
  • Posts: 68

Posted at 2013-03-26 05:24:44 — Link

These text quests sound like an amazing idea. I am all for it.


  • Mouse
  • User
  • Posts: 210

Posted at 2013-03-26 15:24:29 — Link

I really like this idea. It's creative, will help me expand my small stash of coding knowledge, and passes the time while I wait for energy to be regained.

I call Vermillion "Vermi"

I occasionally use an IPad- please excuse spellcheck.


  • Piemaster
  • User
  • Posts: 22

Posted at 2013-03-26 18:47:22 — Link

Oh dear god guys there's going to be an "epicness" factor XD

by the way, would anyone know how to insert a line break into a hoot game?


Nevermind, I found out   ...Or not, apparently it screws up br tags when you save


  • Angel
  • Game Developer
  • Posts: 3,050

Posted at 2013-03-26 19:30:17 — Link

Piemaster, you can use br tags, just don't auto-close them. <br> will be valid, <br /> not valid.

Slash symbol is a delimiter in hoot scripts, so using it for closing tags will result as an error.


  • LunchInABox
  • User
  • Posts: 10

Posted at 2013-03-27 07:18:55 — Link

I love this idea. I think the Daily Quests would be really fun to do. Though, it does take a lot of thought to put the story all together, which is fine. Once you got a handle on how the coding works, it's a breeze. I wouldn't mind this feature to be up and running permenately on the site. :) This would be a great challenge for any writer/coder.


  • Nightingale
  • Moderator
  • Posts: 2,929

Posted at 2013-03-27 19:13:22 — Link

Yes! I think this is an amazing idea that will really set this site apart! It allows for users to create something unique- what a truly wonderful idea. I would love to see this live!

This also really gives an important role to writers as well and values creativity. I love it when sites embrace both artists and writers so this is truly a wonderful avenue. This also brings in coding! How awesome!

 

Love it.

 

Whatever I can do to help le me know! I'd love to be of assistance!

Always looking for Expand Stable Scrolls

  Chan eil aon chànan gu leòr

  • Piemaster
  • User
  • Posts: 22

Posted at 2013-03-28 15:14:11 — Link

I tried saving as a br tag, but for some reason when I save it, it automatically injects the / into the br tags in the saved file O__o


  • LunchInABox
  • User
  • Posts: 10

Posted at 2013-03-28 19:11:19 — Link

I don't think you can use the br tag with this script. They have an example in the Docs showing how you can split up your paragraphs which is using two underscores. They show you two different ways of writing them because they are 'non-whitespace sensitive' as quoted from the Docs. Br tags are a form of html code too, and Hootscript is a completely different language from html. Hope that helps. :)


  • Angel
  • Game Developer
  • Posts: 3,050

Posted at 2013-03-28 20:55:55 — Link

Sorry, it seems that HTML purifier auto-closes all tags.

We added the conversion of line-breaks to <br> tags inside the text blocks, so now it has simple visual formatting. Text blocks are white-space sensitive now, it should make the formatting of text a bit easier.


  • LunchInABox
  • User
  • Posts: 10

Posted at 2013-03-29 06:19:52 — Link

That's very helpful. Thank you, Angel. :)


  • Spottedstar
  • User
  • Posts: 16

Posted at 2013-03-29 17:41:10 — Link

This is certainly a wonderful idea! I would definetly participate.

I play CS and Alacrity and I am planning on joining Lioden.

I'm 28821 and 28829 on Alacrity; I would be thrilled if you put me as your referrer! Also, I am Warrior Cat Fanatic pn CS.

94% of people think that wolves are vicious, evil animals. Copy and paste this into your signature if you're one of the 6% who love wolves and think they are shy and amazing creatures.


  • Piemaster
  • User
  • Posts: 22

Posted at 2013-03-31 09:32:53 — Link

Thanks =)


  • S.the.Unicorn
  • User
  • Posts: 197

Posted at 2013-04-10 17:15:37 — Link

Umm sounds intresting but I suck at those. xDD


  • Timain
  • User
  • Posts: 723

Posted at 2013-05-14 12:30:13 — Link

I don't think i would be able to write anything worthwile for this, but i asolutely LOVE the idea! It includes playerbase writers, which is rare in online games from what i have seen and it sounds like a wonderful way for the other players to actually influence what happens in the world! I'm all for this!



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