An open call for testing

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 5:15 pm

Hello all,

For the last week or two, I have been attempting to have more of crossfire's maps track 'quests' in a formal manner.

The initial target for this has been the low level quests in scorn. The aim is to ensure that these are as well defined as possible in order to guide new players during their first hour or so of play time.

So far I have (depending on how you count) between 10 and 20 quests defined. These are all packaged up in a tarball on the tracker here https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=d ... tid=313833

The status of these quests is described on my questification page on the wiki.

For anyone who has the time and inclination, I would ask you to play through these quests, and see if you spot anything odd, text that doesn't flow smoothly, responses that don't work the way you think they should, etc.

Please post the server console output and the client output so that I can piece together what has been done.

I will be looking to move these quests into SVN after the next release, which should be in around 10 days time.[/url]

Panthera Leo · Post by **Panthera Leo** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:18 am

Two problems:

1. The file download appears corrupted.

2. The assumption that someone knows what to do with the file contents.

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Tue Apr 06, 2010 12:35 am

ooh, that's interesting, it does look like tar is complaining about trailing junk, seems to list the files ok though (at least if gunzip is used first)

as to the file contents

The files in maps should be copied into maps, overwriting any existing contents

The files in arch should be copied into arch, overwriting any existing contents.

The arches should then be recollected before starting the server.

klippy · Post by **klippy** » Mon May 10, 2010 3:25 pm

Don't know if this is the right kind of feedback, but i'd say that with the nobility quests, the main problem I've had is locating where you're supposed to go. The local ones are easier, but when you get to the mushroom quest - very unclear where you're meant to go.

cavesomething · Post by **cavesomething** » Tue May 11, 2010 1:45 pm

I'm inclined to agree on that point.

I haven't yet committed the nobility quest changes I have made, but one of the things I have done is add a quest trigger on finding the correct entrance. - This doesn't make them easier to find, but does let you know when you have found them.

I haven't made changes to the layouts of the world maps themselves, since I consider that a separate change, and probably a mini-project in its own right.

Certainly, flattening the landscape a lot would help, there are far too many mountains and hills which make it harder to establish landmarks.

More forests and plains, with more hamlets scattered around would give more markers to give directions from (saying "it is just north of the hamlet of foo" is easier to follow than saying "it is far to the east").

I'd also be inclined to favour greater uses of rivers as landmarks, as well as natural locations for settlements, and obvious pinch-points for navigation (before the invention of the railway, many settlements were on rivers because they could trade bulk goods by boat).