17 July 2009

Quests and new NPCs

As posted in previous blog entry, the current focus is on the quests and NPCs.
I added 45 new NPCs, and 3 quests, and I don't plan to stop from doing that any time soon. Most players seem to enjoy the quests, and a lot of them actually talk to the NPCs and finish the quests. The increased rewards do help a little, I guess.
I also started to upgrade the scripting engine, such as adding the ability to make objects dissapear, and get notifications when a monster is killed. There were very few improvements to the scripting system since I originally added it in 2004, so now it's time to add a few more things to reflect the changes in the game since then. For example, there is no way for the script to know if mines or wards are in an area, and that can be used for some interesting quests.

There are a few quests that are kind of hanging in the air since 2004, and some players expressed their desire to have them continued, so I am brainstorming on a big quest related to the pirates that plague Portland.

Hopefully, by the end of the year we will have at least 10 NPCs in almost every map of the first continent, an by the next summer in almost every map of the game.

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why dont u make the quests more interesting and combine them with instances ,at the end, give a big exp award , it will make players make teams and finish the BIG quest together...
just a small idea to expand if u want, that imo sounds more interesting

22/7/09 03:40  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello, long time reader, first time poster :)

New NPCs sound good, just wanted to say keep up the good work, and people are still reading your blog.

I also wonder, are you ever going to write another article like you postmortom series, about your server code? I know i would be really interested in how its designed. I dont meen show code, i mean show us how youve designed. Have you gone with managers Like Planeshift or what not.

Anyway Bye :)

Ant

23/7/09 07:14  
Blogger Ayorama said...

Hi Radu,
I love those quests :) What I would like to see is a improved questlog but i have no idea it it is hard to make it. Like this:
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/48/questlog3du9.jpg
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/6611/questlog2pe2.jpg
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/3352/questlog1ja9.jpg
1.Open questlog.
2.Open quest with done part.
3.Open quest with todo part.
Hope you have nice holiday and I am looking forward to the pictures.

29/7/09 02:49  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice one, the quests are great. :)

1/8/09 05:35  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

just want to thank you for putting all this work into this awesome game.

9/8/09 00:11  
Anonymous an old EL player... said...

Can you give us any idea of when the new engine is going to be implemented?

23/8/09 14:11  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its been over a month since the last post! What are you developing and/or working on?

29/8/09 19:49  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I play the game, i like playing, I like the quests I have done. I don't know them all yet, haven't been in portland long enough to check (will do later), but these things added makes it more complete.

Also I searched the EF forum, about stuff like being able to drink the wine etc, much is still in the pipeline I think/hope...

20/9/09 15:10  
Blogger Andre said...

I just read your article http://www.devmaster.net/articles/mmorpg-postmortem/

Just wanted to say thanks for writing it :)

I look forward to spending some time playing your game this coming weekend.

bunnibunni.com is my game if you get time to have a look.

5/10/09 07:15  
Anonymous Nick said...

Hey!

Finally got EL working on my laptop. Thank you for a very nostalic feeling "classic" game. It's wonderful.
I actually switched to EL from WoW. (Some of my friends think that's a downgrade, but they are wrong.)
If possible- would there ever be a chance of adding either different hairstyles or something just to add a little more diversity amongst the players?

8/10/09 14:29  
Anonymous -St said...

If you struggle with not having time to work on the stuff you wanted to, you should just put in a cap on the levels, so that you can work on a time-limit you set for yourself, instead of a time-limit set by your more 'enthusiastic' players, so that you don't have to focus on supplying them with more content to go through. It will also give your slower playerbase time to catch up with them, and balance things out a bit more. Then YOU control the pace at which they progress, and it will also make them try out other content which they previously disregarded. You can then later increase the cap, when you release new content into the game, and a more significant amount of players will benefit from it.

Anyway, good luck with your game, I used to have great fun on it.

24/10/09 09:01  
Anonymous DIProgan said...

I just read through your devmaster postmortem series and enjoyed it immensly. Maybe I'll check out the game some day beside continuing to read here. Community seems nice.

17/12/09 15:59  
Blogger ShemsEddine said...

is this Blog going to be updated soon? I hope it will because I really enjoy reading it.

11/2/10 16:28  
Blogger ShemsEddine said...

is this blog going to be updated I hope so because I enjoy reading it.
thanks

12/2/10 12:19  
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11/5/10 08:37  

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