Quest Digest 23/4/96 From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 00:00:00 +0000 ___ _ / _ \ | | | |_| |UEST__| |IGEST \__ | / _ | | |_ | |_| | An e-mail discussion forum for the fantasy |_ / \___/ play by mail game; "Quest". Compiled by Josh Gallagher. J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk o This isn't one of those automatic list thingies, so could all articles be sent clearly marked with paragraphs initalled 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. ___ / _ \ Hello again folks! Allow me to present yet another late | __/DITORIAL digest. There were a few mail problems here over the \___| weekend, so sorry if anything sent to me bounced. It all seems to be sorted out now (famous last words). Again the Digest suffers from a bit of a lack of articles; send me some stuff! Any ideas you have that you might wish to discuss, and in-game talk... anything Quest related really! Welcome to the new additions to the list (you know who you are!). I apologise to anyone that has written to me in the last week or so that I haven't got back to yet. I haven't forgotten, I've just got this dissertation thing to do. The QD is a bit of a priority though! I remember a while ago a member of the Digest list was archiving the Digests for me. Unfortunately I don't remember who, and despite his offer to send in a message to the Digest every time a new batch was available for ftp (or Web access?), I have had nothing since. If anyone has room to archive Digests, I have about the last 20-25 sitting in my account. I don't have the time or facilities to make them available via ftp or the web though, so any offers of space and help would be greatly appreciated! On with the inclusions: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 09:56:58 +0200 (CES) From: ui99@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Roland Ottl) RO> The following paragraph(s) refer to Josh's idea about a Quest gamne for those on the list. RO> Generally I think this is a great idea simply because of the obvious advantages, most notably quicker contact. However, what do you expect of this ? I couldn't actually call me a poor guy, but another game with a 7-day rate ? Furthermore (and most importantly), what else would be the advantage? Face the truth: would it really be any different from the standard game? The kind of thing I would like to join is the idea of Mika (hmm forgot the complete name :( ), which Peter (and some other folks) keeps pushing your nose into and you just don't see it (seemingly). Why don't you check out Mika's homepage (adress see last digest). That's what we need, not just some quicker version of old Quest. And if we like to have a Quest with Mika's ideas then why the hell should we ask KJC to set up such a game if just such a game is about to be set up by Dynamic Games ? Is this some kind of loyality stuff or what ? RO> An absolute Must for a game like this must be 100% email (at least for people outside the UK)! It's simply impossible for a non-UK player to keep up a game of 7days rate. Believe me, I tried and failed, constantly being stressed by devising catch-up turns (without the advantage of knowing what happens from your first turn!). And if it is indeed 100% email then the idea of spending 1 pound for it seems horrendous to me ! I'd rather stay with Dynamic Games for 1 Austr. Dollar per turn (0.5 pounds ? Or even less ?). RO> As for the idea of preset alliances I think the idea might be good, but as someone already pointed out: What happens if you want to worship another god than that of your alliance. And who should be the judge as to which alliance you have to join ? RO> New spell numbers ? Actually there's no need to comment this as it's a prerogative (I think I heard that word somewhere) to have people join it (my opinion, of course). As Stefan pointed out: that was just the reason to join Dynamic Games (apart from the quicker contacts etc...see above) RO> As for the turn time (yup I'm jumping back and forth, I know and I sincerely apologize for my disorder), I can't understand how anybody manages games with less than 7 days turn rate ! Studies in Germany are far less strict than in the UK (you have 3 years, we have roughly 6 years !), yet I simply lack the time to be able to join a quicker game. Even the 7-day email game I've joined (Dynamic Games...again -> I get the impression I'm advertising :) ) is sometimes too quick for me (especially during exams time). RO> Parting words: As you will undoubtly know by now I'm not quite sure whether I would join a game with Digest members. Fact is: on the digest there are the most successful players of Quest (and even though I'm playing for more than 5 years now, I definitely don't count myself among them !), who would have their 99SK thief by turn 15 (record is turn 16 I think), 99Sk mage by turn 20 (record turn 22 ?), not talking about fighters (which are now the dealers of death in Quest !) etc etc, while others (and especially rather new players) would be far worse off. I also can't see how you plan to prevent that those powerful players sort of gang up...and be it only for not having the likes of you stalking you...We are talking about players who have groups in at least 3+ games, cooperating in at least some of them. Can they...and will they?...compete versus each other. Anyway, the thing I did want to say last was this: Just look at Mika's homepage and you'll find what everybody of us is longing for ! (JPG> Reply to this is below...) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 08:28:37 EDT From: "Chris Oswin" <chris_oswin@technology.britishsteel.co.uk> CO> Count me in for the e-mail game. CO> Does anyone agree that the increase in the amount gained for temple quests is spoiling the game somewhat. My last three quests have been for 3200, 2760 and 2700 gp. The creatures were each about 20 squares away but with the aid of teleport spells this in no problem for most groups. This has given my group 129,900 gp income over the last 11 turns with no risk, as none of the creatures have proved any problem even 8 Monks of Fleyshur ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 13:07:39 +0100 (BST) From: TLARKIN@tcd.ie TL>I have a couple of suggestions to do with alliance HQs and i would like to know what you think before i pass them on to KJC. 1- Strength skills at the moment are far too cheap. An alliance can build up everyones strength skills for a fraction of the usual cost, thereby increasing the gulf between older/richer groups and new/inexperienced ones. This will inevitably increase the amount of people on NA, as they will not be willing to risk getting wiped out by one of these super groups. there are 2 solutions: A) that the HQ only gets back a certain percentage of the money that a group spends on strength skills bought in there alliance- for example 100 gold is charged per buy- therefore alliances could set their prices at various levels depending on the amount of money they want to make, or B) charge 100 exp (or more?) per strength skill bought, thereby slowing down the rate at which a group can "power up"... 2- What happens when a group steals from your HQ? I think that a failed robber should have a chance of getting caught by the groups currently staying in the alliance, and a battle should occur. this would make it possible for alliances to raid each others cities and attack the alliance HQs. If the raider wins then they should be able to get away with some money or something...there are going to be problems with this idea- for example what if more than one group is staying in the HQ, who gets the priviledge of defending it? (or does the raider have to fight them all heh heh :) 3-I really like the suggestion someone made about storerooms too, and it could be that you could steal something from these as well as getting away with some money with a successful rob. (course then you get cunning alliaces cursing items and hoping theyget stolen...Ever done that? curse a helmet and give it to another group, they will really love you for it) Any suggestions/improvements/comments would be appreciated.... Official alliances are good, but they could be made a lot better. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 21:13:05 +0200 From: Mark Rotteveel <markrot@cistron.nl> >SA> I am one of those students at university. But here we don't close down >the school or anything during holidays, and you can always connect to school >from home via modem. The final solution, when entering longer holidays like >over the summer, and if you then doesn't stay at the place you are studying, >would be to put your group on holiday. But maybe a better solution would be >to have the oppurtunity to switch between e-mail and snail-mail mode, so that >you can play on in the game by snail-mail when not having access to e-mail. >At the higher, normal, cost then of course. It wouldn't be that difficult >to implement. MR>There already is an implementation for that, at least my GM (PBM Express, The Netherlands) has a function where you can switch between E-mail and snail-mail. MR>If anyone here is interested in a input-program(with mapper) for Quest, send me an E-mail (markrot@cistron.nl). If there is interest, I'll put it on my homepage, if anyone out there doesn't have WWW, tell me what kind of encoding you support (MIME, BinHex or UUENCODE) and I'll send it to you be e-mail. This mapper was created by on of the players in a game with PBM Express, and must be used for E-mail turns with them. MR> E-mail turns are also cheaper, and I'd say that is fair, because the GM no longer has to type them into the computer, nor has to print them out! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> Right, here's what I have to say on the matter of this game and the original idea for it: JPG> Being an Englishman I am pretty much limited to a snail mail game run from England (not the Netherlands, and certainly not Australia!). An email game could of course be run from anywhere, and I admire the concept and work behind Dynamic Games' Game 5. (Yes, I've been to the Dynamic Games pages and Mika's pages). JPG> However, I really do prefer the option to have my turns sent by snail mail. I feel I'm getting something material for the money that way. The idea behind the game was not to have it as purely email (Game 5 provides that already), but to have a standard game (perhaps with an email option) based around people with internet access so that communication between players is so much faster. In my experience, the higher the level of communication, the more enjoying the game is, and the communication is severely hampered by the postal system here. JPG> There appear to be two basic problems with this idea though. One is that many players who would join such a game would also be happy with email turns only, and hence would be more inclined to join the already running Game 5. The other is that for those players who would want the snail mail option, it is really only feasible if you live in the same country as the company. Most people on the Digest are from the UK, but the balance is tipping as more and more Australians join in, and the continental European content is high too. So any postal game would have to focus around a subset of the Digest members, wherever that might be. JPG> It is this issue of country that has been the reason I've been harping on about KJC running the game; obviously rather selfishly wishing it to be run in my own country! JPG> I'm not sure now whether to pursue the issue much further. The basic issues have been covered. I'll write to KJC and 'suggest' an email oriented game, or at least for email addresses for players to be included along with the address when a group is encountered. It is, after all, their decision as to whether or not to run such a game, and I have had quite a bit of support for the game from readers of the Digest. JPG> As for the idea of putting people in alliances; the general impression I've had from people is that it's an interesting idea with many draw backs, so I'll refrain from suggesting that in a letter. JPG> Just as a last note; one of those little bugs in Quest: Why does a party shout a battle cry at a dead opponent? I overkilled the spell casting on a werewolf, and once a single arrow hit it (so much for Enchant Weapons III) it snuffed it. Yet still my party warned the corpse to prepare to be eliminated. *sigh* JPG> Anyway, happy Questing one and all! Send me your articles for next time! >>-Josh-> "You can't always get what you want" - Rolling Stones Up