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Quest Pumps

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:43 am
by Interkarma
I've been thinking about a more "in-world" means of delivering quests to testers, rather than having to start manually from the console.

What I've come up with is to use quest-giver NPCs at guilds to hand out jobs from that guild's quest pool. There's no guild membership or rank, of course. Just standing quest pumps you can visit to pick up a random quest to play with.
fighter-guild-questor.jpg
fighter-guild-questor.jpg (153.38 KiB) Viewed 2855 times
Right now only the Fighter Guild is supported, as they have some of the more straight-forward quests befitting the current state of Daggerfall Unity. I can add additional quest pumps from other guilds as things progress.

And this is still broken as hell, of course. Many quests offered do not compile properly due to one action/condition or another. But this is what I'll be working on for the next few months ahead of a proper test release.

So, I want to ask of the folks waiting to test: would you be happy for an "almost completely broken" test build to play with sooner rather than later? I wouldn't expect any constructive feedback yet, because we both know it's not done yet. I'm just thinking it might help you gain familiarity with the systems (quest debugger, scripting, etc.) ahead of the real testing phase.

Please let me know if this is something you might be interested in.

Re: Quest Pumps

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:28 am
by Jay_H
Give me anything with a test module and I'll use it!

I like the idea of having random quests available at some point. However, since they'll probably be given at random and several would be blind non-starters, its value doesn't seem apparent to me at this stage. Starting quests from the console would give the most controlled testing environment.

Re: Quest Pumps

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 10:01 am
by Interkarma
I probably should have posted question in its own thread. :) The "completely broken" build is for testers to start coming to grips with the early quest system around topics like the following:
  • Learn how to write quest scripts and execute at runtime.
  • Understand the debugger and follow quest execution.
  • Experiment with different kinds tasks (standard, persistUntil, variable, globalLink).
  • Test existing resources, conditions, and actions in isolation to see if/where/how they break.
To be a really effective tester in late 0.4 will involve a lot more technical investment. You guys will basically need to learn a small programming language so you can grok the difference between a bad script and a problem in the quest engine. I wrote a bit of a primer here but nothing beats hands-on contact.

I'm hoping that if I can get 3+ proficient testers, they will be able to help train and communicate with others. Much in the way that Nystul, TheLacus, and Lypyl are always willing to share their experience and help newcomers. This takes away some daily distractions for me and I can spend more free time coding.

Re: Quest Pumps

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:21 pm
by Jay_H
I've been interested in learning to make quests in Daggerfall for awhile, so learning this would be key anyway. I very likely won't be one of the first to enter this (unless I have a particular amount of free time in the next several days), but learning a coding language for this doesn't sound far-fetched... yet. I'll see who else is in and then I'll decide.