Quest Digest 17/8/96 From: Joshua Gallagher <Joshua@dial.pipex.com> Date: Sat, 17 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 o This isn't one of those automatic list thingies, so could all articles be sent clearly marked with paragraphs initialled to me. o If you want off the list, just say! No hassle, no pressure. o All material here is the exclusive property of the author and may not be used elsewhere without their permission. ___ / _ \ Well, back from holiday (most of which was spent at | __/DITORIAL the pub in the wonderful weather we had near the \___| beginning of the week). Thank you to all of you that have written in with inclusions whilst I've been away. Nine inclusions in the holiday period is indeed very good, despite it being a week and a half (at least) since the last issue. Keep them coming! Welcome, too, to the new additions to the mailing list. If you, or anyone else already on the list, have anything to say then just send it to me (in a similar format to the inclusions below) and I'll include it in the next Digest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "M.B.Walker -Ben Walker" <M.B.Walker@open.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 10:54:00 BST BW > If you are carrying less than 5000g.p you are fairly safe sleeping rough in towns. If you are carrying less than about 7000g.p you should be safe sleeping in an inn. If you are carrying less than 10,000g.p. then you should be safe in an alliance HQ. If you are carrying more than 10,000g.p then bank it, spend it, give it away, or expect to be robbed. BW > Just in case some of the new members of the digest aren't aware - a 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. 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. 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. BW > Is there any chance of Jens Loesel posting a summary of his priest skill findings in the Digest ? BW > And finally a message to Stig Norland - Your emails keep getting bounced back to me. Please get in touch with your new/current email address. Thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Aug 96 09:36:38 EST From: Mike Summerfield <MSUMMERF%ESOC.bitnet@listserv.gmd.de> > RJT> My suggestion is not to carry all that money. Put it into the > bank, or spend it! MDS> This is a valid suggestion, but unfortunately at the time my bank 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. > MJ> Inns are no safer than sleeping on the street. The best course of > action is to move 1 sector outside the settlement.That way you don't get > robbed by npc's. MDS> The only problem with this solution is you don't get the chance to search the settlement for hidden shops. MDS> When are horses going to be implemented? I am interested to see how they will be managed. > THOD> Is there anyone around with a priest above skill 90 ?? Please contact > me !!! Priests like this should exist in some ancient groups (if they haven't > been killed to early or the players dropped). MDS> I have a priest at skill level 89. My group has been running for a 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. 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: <Roy.Thomas@ubs.com> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 96 16:41:52 +0100 > 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. > MJ> Er, what limit??? > (JPG> 50K isn't it? Or am I wrong...? And what's the carrying > limit?) RJT> 50K is the maximum allowable amount of gold in the bank (otherwise the insurance will not cover it). Does anyone know if you can deposit in a bank in once city, and draw from another bank in a different city? RJT> I don't think that there is a limit to what you can carry (so long as you can physically carry it). You would have to be super strong characters, and you would have to have 15 characters, but I guess that it is possible to carry more than 50K in Gold around... > CM> 1. How about a system whereby players could pass messages to > each other through KJC? .... RJT> This has possibilities... Instead of having to send out messages, why not allow the posting of messages in the news papers. You can place a message / advert there for anyone in the town to read. You can buy newspapers, and hand it out to everyone in the town (like a flyer). RJT> The only problem with this is that I do not know where on the turn card you are going to enter the message text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 09:10:45 PDT From: Ewan Jones <stej@silsoe.cranfield.ac.uk> EJ> For those I haven`t yet mailed I now have a new e-mail address which is: E.F.D.JONES@cranfield.ac.uk All mail welcome!! EJ> RE: RJT on being robbed. I have found that having excess of 5,000 gold makes you a target for being robbed, if you stay in an alliance hq sometimes you are safe and sometimes you get robbed anyway and i suspect the more money you have on you determines this. EJ> RE: Strength skill for free. The idea is that the head passes the treasurers position to whomever wants to make use of strength skill for free so they can hand money back to themselves, obviously this is not entirely free since 1,000 gold has to be paid to maintain the skill although the way most people operate is to have the group using strength skill pay the maintenance for it. > RJT> Are alliance members really becoming all powerful through the > alliance, or is it that they are gaining power anyway, and the > alliance is only helping a little? EJ> The way temple quests are going these days experienced players would be able to the same without alliances anyway. It`s the less experienced players who are benefitting from official alliances. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Aug 96 12:30:35 EDT From: Karl Wasley <101523.2365@CompuServe.COM> 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!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 17:25:42 -0400 From: Explor555@aol.com EX> I have recently found a bug with my new party. My DF's weapon skill started lower than his actual skill. So I asked to put it up. I cast strength on the same turn, and KJC put it up to the skill total. Added skill as well!!!!! This is only really useful for people bying new fighter's though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jens J Loesel <Jens_J_Loesel@sbphrd.com> Date: 13 Aug 96 13:46:28 EDT THOD> Four more chapters of the Quest-Guide are out. Chapter 6 How to improve Skills (in english) Chapter 7 How to improve Stats (in english) Chapter 8 How to improve Weapon skills (in english) Chapter 4 Titan Oberursel - Ein Gruppenpotraet (in German) THOD> A chapter about quests will follow soon together with translations. And the one question lots of people were interested in: THOD> I have worked out a way how to get better Temple Quests. And it really works (proven data !!!) A good alliance has more advantages then just cheap training. Read more in Chapter 9 in the next 2 weeks. THOD> Where to find this guide ?? Go to the homepage of our alliance and look out for a link Quest-Guide with an english banner: http//:member.aol.com/BRUDERSCHA/welcome.htm or follow a link from the German distributor http://www.stevens.de/ just look for Bruderschaft. THOD> Sorry for telling you about Entry Arena last time. I heard, the number 602 is now given away for something else. Shame on KJC. This has always been something people were interested in. Probably something which was already partly programmed and now it's gone ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 20:22:22 +0100 From: barnaby@waistwear.compulink.co.uk (Barnaby Jones) BJ>Haven't contributed for a while, anyway here goes.. >THOD>Is there anyone around witha priest above 90 skill?? BJ>Yup! I know of many players with 90+sk priests, the biggest skill I have seen is 93, the person who runs the group is the co-leader of the alliance I am in. If you want, I'll ask him how long it took and tell you as soon as he replies. BJ>All this talk about inns being safe is new to me! Every time I buy sleep I get robbed! Sometime more gold than when I'm out on the streets, it seems a bit dodgy although you do get to save rations. >RJT>One of my mages has twice now been taught spells of the level abovethose they can cast. BJ>NO! That was the best method for boosting mage skill as it needed no exp. As you could get 9 piont skill increases for 500 gold insted of a max 0f 5! Mages are already the hardest characters to train up (in my opinion) and this has made it worse! I hope K.J.C are thinking of new ways to train mages because at the moment it is too time consuming. Admittedly you have to be patient and getting a good mage is a skill you learn but if they have stopped the skill increase from Spell Research then it is just making it harder. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 11:16:14 GMT From: Dave Rees <chaos@thanes.demon.co.uk> DR> You can be robbed in an alliance HQ, if you are carrying any amount over 5000gp. The amount of groups in the HQ and the defense level of the HQ make no difference to the chance of being robbed. > MJ> Inns are no safer than sleeping on the street. The best course of > action is to move 1 sector ouside the settlement.That way you don't get > robbed by npc's DR> That's a sure way to have an ex-group at the end of the turn. > >>KW: I have recently had a number of complaints about the abuse that > >thealliances are giving to the system. > >>KW I would be intersted if anyone has any ideas on this subject? DR> What's wrong with opening an alliance, just to sell cheap skills and items to anyone who wants them? > MJ> > However do not be surprised if the strength training loophole is closed > soon - perhaps by causing each training session to use up experience as > does the weapons training. DR> Maybe I could use up some of the 400,000 exp one of my groups has. Oh and you only use exp if you have any, if you don't the character just gets less but still gets something. Weapon Skill gives 6 to 9 and no H2H for no exp. DR> It seems that KJC have taken it upon themselves to limit the amount of gold that you can transfer to a group or bank in one order. KJC have imposed a 30K limit without telling anyone, causing several turns to fail because of it. You have been warned. 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. 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. JPG> Well.... Kevin has said that the Digest was used on occassion to say bad things about KJC. Guess it is..! The views here are those of the author and not the publisher by the way! Although I do sympathise with some fo the comments, perhaps to a lesser degree though. _Every_ time I have experienced an input error (and often when I have been the one making the error on the turn card) KJC have corrected it free of charge and without any hassle. I do think that an automated email->input process should be implemented though. There's no excuse for mis-reading emailed turns. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 14:43:06 -0400 From: Explor555@aol.com Horses are a great idea. But why stop there? You could have all sorts of mounts other than horses. You would have to have a high charisma value to ride some though. And bigger mounts cost more and more money. And why don't 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 ( used in the missile or spell round) and their claws and bite could be used as a considerable weapon as well. Claws acting as daggers or something. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> Just a comment about the idea for player messages in the game before I leave you in peace; don't you think it might detract from both the rumours section and the game newsletter? I rather enjoy receiving monthly(ish) newsletters and I don't want to see them fold due to lack of input to them. JPG> Anyway, enjoy the summer sun whilst it's here, and keep those articles coming! Happy Questing! -- >>-Josh-> "I never saw it as the start; it's more a change of heart" -- Ocean Colour Scene Up