Quest Digest 31/8/96

From: Joshua Gallagher <Joshua@dial.pipex.com>

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 00:00:00 +0000

...___         _
  / _ \       | |
 | |_| |UEST__| |IGEST
  \__  |   / _  |
     | |_ | |_| |  An e-mail discussion forum for the fantasy
     |_ /  \___/   play by mail game;  "Quest".  Compiled  by
                   Josh Gallagher.      Joshua@dial.pipex.com

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 / _ \          Hi there all, and welcome to the people who are new to this
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 \___|          for being late with the issue, and usual thanks to all of you
                who have written in...  Well, as I have nothing else of
interest or value to say, I'll leave you with the articles!  :-)

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Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 12:12:55 +0100
From: Paul Noble <editor@elbon.demon.co.uk>

>BW > I don't think that there is an actual limit on the amount of gold you
>can actually physically carry - you are only limited by the strength of your
>characters.

PN> A group in game one hit the carrying limit for cash, although i
can't remember how much it was (embarrased grin).

PN> Normally 5 trainings will rack up about 10 health and over ten
toughness, 5 or 6 turns should see 20 health EMs up to the 80-90s.

>strength skills per party member and the Alliance Head then transfers the
>Treasurer position to the next party.
>This is certainly not right, and the sooner KJC introduce an xp charge the
>better.

PN> I disagree, if the alliance has been set up by the players why
shouldn't they get the untold benefits? To hand the leadership of your
beloved alliance around you have to trust your allies rather well, there
are only about 5 players that I'd trust to hand the leadership of Smith
& Mighty to. Sure the loop hole should be closed (and Im surprised it
hasn't already), but how would it be done?
>
>each of my characters. We then hit them with missile weapons, at which points
>they legged it. We engaged them again, sucking up 2 more of their number and
>fried the last one with a Wrath of Sundonak. What a waste of time casting the
>enchant weapon 3 spell, only one round of missile fire benefited from the spellPN> I think you've missed the point, not much will stand and fight after
getting the crap kicked out of them in magic, the monks get scary if you
are unprepared and go to melee with them. Most oldish groups who are
prepared for the battle stamp the monks into the dirt without needing
deathspells and call monster.

PN> As a side order> I hit a knight Lore with 26 call monsters (dejavu
Dave?) and it was still just lightly hurt and it proceeded to beat the
pap out of my group, hehehe.

>KW> A new piont has come to my notice about the Allaince, An alliance that will
>remain nameless was roatating the treasurers position between groups so to let
>the player allocate funds to himself until his strength was increased to
>maximum, Then the position was transfered to another player so not tying up any
>other players turns. Any comments!!PN> yeh, thats the way to make sure all alliance members get a fair
crack at the advantages of the OA. We do that in G16.
>
>DR> I am giving up Quest. I have had enough of KJC's poor standard of
>service, and their 'We don't give a shit' attitude towards players. Typing
>errors are up again, even on Emailed turns. You have to draw the line
>somewhere, this is mine.PN> what? like effective immediately? that is a real pisser.

>some mounts fight in combat. Like if you have extremely high charisma then
>why not ride a dragon? Their breath could be like a fireball in combat ( usedPN> bloomin heck, we ain't even got horses and he wants dragons! any
guesses for number of years this one would take?
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From: <stuart_2@tds.bt.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 09:14:59 +0000

> MDS>I finally had the chance to tackle some Monks! What's the problem? They are
> easy to destroy. I met 5 Monks of Baldor (ok, these guys aren't known for their
> fighting prowess),one of my mages had used up his mana transporting my party to
> the Monks location and casting enchant weapon 3 (he has a skill of 99), so only
> 3 mages had chance to cast spells. 1 Monk was sucked into a black void, one was
> engulfed and the remaining 3 were hit by a magic blast and 5 priest miracles.
> The Monks cast some pathetic miracles that did a couple of points of damage to
> each of my characters. We then hit them with missile weapons, at which points
> they legged it. We engaged them again, sucking up 2 more of their number and
> fried the last one with a Wrath of Sundonak. What a waste of time casting the
> enchant weapon 3 spell, only one round of missile fire benefited from the spell.

SDL> I would hardly regard casting Enchant Weapons 3 as a a waste of time!
Firstly, you get the experience points. If your group is a little under 200
turns then such experience must surely be welcome. Secondly, If you don't know
what you're up against in terms of the way that Monks fight (as is obviously
the case here?) casting such spells is hardly a waste - you never know if it'll
be useful or not. You also don't know whether you are going to come up against
any other monsters in the same turn, so it's always useful. The only time it
would be a waste would be if you hadn't got the powders. A waste of time
though? One order! Hardly a waste!

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From: Jens J Loesel <Jens_J_Loesel@sbphrd.com>
Date: 19 Aug 96 10:11:47 EDT

THOD> Sorry if the QUEST-Guide may be unavailable for a
short while. Seems it caused some trouble in our allaince. This
has to be sorted out first before it gets back to the net.

From: Klein21 @ ibm.net (J|rgen Klein) @ INET
here are some statements to the last Quest.Digest:

>BW > Official alliances are definitely open to abuse, and the simplest way
>to work the free strength scam is to transfer the Treasurer position to a
>group. They then repeatedly buy Strength skill and transfer the money back
>to their party. After 5 or 6 turns they shoul have racked up about 30
>strength skills per party member and the Alliance Head then transfers the
>Treasurer position to the next party.
>This is certainly not right, and the sooner KJC introduce an xp charge the
>better.

JK> I doesn't think that this is a good move !!! ***YOU CAN*** return 15K
to the players each turn, ***WITHOUT*** wasting your turns with the
extra transfer order. We (The "Bruderschaft", Q3-germany) are doing it
this way and I think it's a main advantage, that a ***lot*** members
of our OA are profiting ...

>BW > Is there any chance of Jens Loesel posting a summary of his priest
>skill findings in the Digest ?

JK> ***IF*** we will, I have to talk a ***serios*** word with him. Sorry
Folks, I think our Quest.Guide (english/german) is going a litte bit
too far sometimes, there is no need to publish all (you could found us at
"http://member.aol.com/Bruderscha/welcome.htm" (Q3-german)
(sorry for being so uncooperative, but ***a lot*** people could interprete
the data ...)

>> RJT> My suggestion is not to carry all that money. Put it into the
>> bank, or spend it!

JK> A very wise decision, buy Strenght skill, or some +3 Armor in your HQ

MDS>> This is a valid suggestion, but unfortunately at the time my bank
MDS>> account
>contained 50,000 gold (the maximum allowed) and I was waiting for the +3
>armour I had ordered from the alliance HQ to arrive. I always like to keep
>around
>20,000 gold in the bank just in case one or more of my characters gets wasted
>and I need to have them resurrected.

JK> There are ways to be sure, that some will have the money to buy, others
won't. Select a third of your party to have the money and B 99 23 158
(If shop # 23 is your HQ) will solve your problem. Next time you select
another third to buy ...

MDS>> I have a priest at skill level 89. My group has been running for a
MDS>> little
>under 200 turns, so I guess practise makes perfect. I have two P0 orders in
>my standing orders section. Every now and again these do not work, so I have
>to also issue a P0 order as a normal order.

JK> Sorry pal, I'm in turn 107 and have a priest with skill 81 (no pushing !!!)
I'm willing to push now, so expect to have at least in turn 135 Skill 99

>> THOD> Is there anyone around with a priest above skill 90 ??RJT>> I know of a couple of groups in game 8 who have priest skills
>above 90. Game 8 is pretty old and is a 10 day turn around game. These
>old groups were around before the days of the restrictive Priest
>skills. As a results, most had their priest skills into the high 80s
>long before KJC decided to slow down priest skill progression. The
>number of turns that we are talking about here is over 200.

JK> There have also thiefs with Skills >120 in these old days .... they have
begone before we started, what a shame ...

EJ>> The way temple quests are going these days experienced players would be
EJ>> able to the same without alliances anyway. It`s the less experienced
EJ>> players who are benefitting from official alliances.
JK> But even for the experienced, OA are a cute "help"

DR>> That's a sure way to have an ex-group at the end of the turn.
:)

DR>> What's wrong with opening an alliance, just to sell cheap skills and
>items to anyone who wants them?

JK> And there are still other things to do with an OA

DR>> QM V3 is nearing completion. It runs on any Amiga running WB2+, so if
>you want a demo, mail me in a couple of weeks and I'll let you have one
>when it's ready.
>New for V3 :
>Runs on the Default Public Screen. Multiple projects. Menu support added.
>Keyboard support added. Journey planner.

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From: <Roy.Thomas@ubs.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 13:57:11 +0100

RJT> Well, I got a surprise last week when I received a personal
     letter from Mr KJC himself! After my comments in the previous digest
     about the errors in turn inputting for E-Mail turns, and the comment
     on an E-Mail turn being 'hard to read', I was sent a copy of the turn
     print out with a letter explaining everything!

RJT> For some reason, all the orders had appeared on the same line
     (even though I typed them on separate lines). Seems that it was the
     way my editor was formatting the text, so I am taking special care
     now. That clears up that problem (although I would have preferred a
     more descriptive comment in the first place).

RJT> My second comment about the comparison between Beyond the Stellar
     Empire (BSE) turns and Quest turns was explained by the way Quest
     turns are inputted. Since the printout is generated after the whole
     set of orders is entered, mistakes cannot be caught. BSE prints out
     after each order, and hence the increased cost for BSE turns.

RJT> He declined to answer my question about Mage Skills (not going up
     by research any more) because lots of answers would be winging towards
     me from other people anyway - come on then you lot!!

RJT> Right, on to some Q & A

> Exp> Horses are a great idea. But why stop there? ... Like if you
     > have extremely high charisma then why not ride a dragon?

RJT> This is an interesting idea, characters riding dragons, but I
     feel it is difficult to visualise. Logically, If you want to ride a
     dragon, you are going to have to find one, defeat it, put a saddle on
     it, train it, and then only it will be ready. If you have done all
     this, then you are well able to make a fortune through plunder, and
     you are not going to want to sell your mount off to another
     adventurers. The question then arises who is going to sell a dragon
     mount. Dragons eat lots, and are hated near towns etc. Fairly limiting
     on characters!!

RJT> But the original question has validity. There are already 3
     (proposed) mounts, Mule, Arabian Horse & Pack Horse. Why not add to
     the list later with Bears, Wolves, Giant Eagles etc. Each would
     ofcourse have its own problems, and some would be expensive.

> MDS> This is a valid suggestion, but unfortunately at the time my
     > bank account contained 50,000 gold (the maximum allowed)

RJT> Alliances do not have the same limitation on gold stored as do
     groups. About the only way you can avoid being robbed if your bank is
     full, you can't the money spend it yet and you don't want to leave
     town, is to give it to the alliance to store on the understanding that
     you can have the money back. I can't think of anything else that you
     might be able to do.

> THOD> Four more chapters of the Quest-Guide are out.

RJT> How about posting some of these on the digest? I don't have web
     access so can't see any of these.

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From: Ewan Jones <E.F.D.JONES@cranfield.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 17:34:06 +0100 ()

> simple way to make a bit of money in towns is to investigate an inn to see
> which NPCs are staying there and then issue a Steal order to rob them blind
> for a change.

EJ The money is not very good from stealing from npc`s,
   however the xp is pretty good, often as high as 100 xp
   a time - ideal for training thieves with 50 skill
   plus.

> BW > Official alliances are definitely open to abuse....This is certainly not right, and the sooner KJC
introduce an xp charge the better.

EJ I`m sure KJC saw this when they were deseigning
   official alliances, there has to be a major advantage
   to getting an official alliance or there would be very
   few official alliances around, it simply wouldn`t be
   worth it. Adding an xp cost wouldn`t fix the
   situation, most groups who are using strength skill in
   the first place are doing huge temple quests to be
   able to use it in the first place and therefore have
   the xp already!

> > MJ> Inns are no safer than sleeping on the street. The best course of
> > action is to move 1 sector outside the settlement.
> MDS> The only problem with this solution is you don't get the chance to search
> the settlement for hidden shops.

EJ Just call me paranoid but would anyone else feel
   uneasy walking around the wilderness with over 50,000
   gold on your party, its asking for trouble.

EJ Whilst dungeon bashing with my party in game 10 I am
   getting 1000 xp or thereabouts for every fight that
   reaches melee, doesn`t it get a bit sill when you a
   kill a caveman with one hit and you get over 1000 xp
   for it ? Maybe it would be more realistic if kjc were
   to change it so that once something is dead you don`t
   get any more xp off it from other characters hitting
   the dead creature, I can`t wait to meet something that
   will put up a fight, just think of the xp`s i`ll get
   for a couple of melee rounds (15,000 xp for 15 melee
   rounds ?!!?)

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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 16:18:09 -0400
From: PSykes6420@aol.com

PS> Can thieves and mages use shields and helmets?

PS> Here is another suggestion for the improvements to Quest section - An
order which enables all Fighters or Priests or Mages or Thieves to Hand over
items (either to shops, groups or fellow group members) or Buy items or
services.

PS> This would be most useful if you want all your fighters and/or priests to
buy some weapons training but you don't, for obvious reasons, want your thief
and mages to buy any.

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JPG> Well, that's it for this week.  Are the postal strikes still going on?
Anyone know when the next scheduled ones are?  Seems little point rushing to
send in turns if I'm not going to see them for a week or so!

JPG>  Anyway, Happy Questing folks, until next time...
--
                                   >>-Josh->

"I never saw it as the start; it's more a change of heart"
                            -- Ocean Colour Scene