Quest Digest! 23/4/95 From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 00:00:00 +0000 ____________________________________________________________________ | | | THE QUEST DIGEST | | The forum for the E-mailing Quest-players | | Compiled by Josh Gallagher: J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk | | Date: 23 April 1995 | |____________________________________________________________________| o This is not an automatically generated compilation, so if all contributions could be sent to me in a seperate e-mail with paragraphs initialled, I would appreciate it a lot. o Please do not use this list for your own purposes; people do not appreciate thousands of pieces of mail arriving a day! o If you ever want taking off the list, just say, and I will be happy to do so. I don't want telling off for any nuisance mail! o All material here is the exclusive property of the author and may not be used elsewhere without their permission. JPG> Hello again folks! I hope you had a good Easter, and if you had a holiday I hope you enjoyed it... For me, it's back to work... JPG> Thank you Chris Dickson for bringing out a digest last week (well, nearly 2 weeks ago now!)... he had some problems getting it mailed properly (the list is so long!) so if you didn't receive it and would like a copy, please e-mail me. JPG> Hello to those new to the list! I think you will find it is easy enough to get into, so I will only add to the above comments an encouragement to write material for inclusion, and feel free to comment on anything that appears here! JPG> Okay, on with people's messages. Sorry if some material here has been repeated; it has been difficult to sort out all ready included stuff after the holiday, so I thought I'd play safe. :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: The Hamster <godfrey2@coventry.ac.uk> Quest Helpline service. This helpline is chaired a by a panel of experienced Quest players, who will be available to answer any queries or solve any problems to do with Quest. Send e-mail to <godfrey2@cov.ac.uk> and give "Quest help" as the subject line. Contact me if you want to join the panel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bensey <9365040@mull.sms.ed.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 10:38:17 +0000 > JPG> Firstly, items that we would like to see implemented: > Mage Prisms, Shining Helms, Mage Robes, Crystal Balls (Glass orbs, > whatever), Religious Book, Magic Book. Even just some of these as > magical would be nice. NB> I would tend to agree with the common consensus here. I tooam very annoyed that when I first bought those items they didn't do anything. But after thinking about it, are mages powerful enough already? If we enable these items then they'll surely become worse. We need to try and balance their total death capabilities with those of the other classes, not make it worse. If you are going to implement these items then make plusx armour partially resistant to spells. Regarding mirrors. Yup, yup yup! I had my best character in plate mail with all the party gold in a dungeon petrified by a purple fungi at the very end of the combat when it had been killed in combat during spell casting! NB> Regarding new classes and races - I think we are doing just fine. There is enough unexplored roleplaying opportunity in the game as it is. The introduction of trolls, assassins and ogres is just a plea from muchkins (no offense intended BTW). (JPG> You calling me a munchkin?? Right! I'll see you outside Troub in game 11, if you think you're hard enough... :-) NB> New spells - sure go ahead and create some new spells but what out for stoneskin - TSR will try and sue Kev's ass if they find out - they tried to do it to me! As for new priest miracles I think that would be a good idea except first I would get rid of Molwanh. She just doesn't make sense - a goddess of the wilderness, who fights civilization tooth and nail - who has a huge temple built in every city?! Catch a grip! JPG> Ah, but Molwanh didn't _build_ the temple... it was her worshippers who have still not shaken off the evils of brick and mortar. Sorry for interrupting your contribution here Neil. :-) NB> Regarding all your complaints about 16 chars for an allaince name - surely Steve can change this pretty easily. I mean is there any good reason for the name being so short. 24 would be a more realistic number. JPG> Not without changing the field width of all shop names, as the alliance HQ will appear as a shop in the listing. (Alert: Geek talk arriving...) If it was implemented as a pointer, or even a variable record, then a special printing case could be done for it on shop lists though. > AH> Looks like it could be G14 then - is that the Kharne with the Black > Knights ? Call me a product of a failed society if you like <G> but I > always have to play the bad guys. Also to keep up with NB in the > roleplaying stakes they may well be 100% halfblooded (once I start TQing > anyway) , called Skulking Vermin and with an image that matches. NB>I am wary of taking that as any sort of complement, it's been a long time since I heard one! But seriously though, if you are looking for a role-playing challenge and what to start play in a land ripe for the picking then come to game5. Although I am the only alliance going, I don't have any competition (yet). I'll send you all the maps and shops if that would help. Its 10 day and you get Bill for a newsletter editor - what more could you want. Kharne5 needs some bad guys - especially now that the old bad guys (the RKM) have turned over a new leaf (see the Guards of Zanul). NB>OK time for a group name change. " Unknown party" may have been funny for half a turn but the "joke" has worn thin and I need a new name. Bear in mind, they are a law abiding group, the leaders of an alliance, they protect the city of Zanul, not necessarily Garthranian, the leader is the captain the the guard and is called Colquin. Any ideas? I had thought of G.O.D.Z. - the Guards Of the District of Zanul, but it's a little contrived! Would make great punchlines though in newsletter adverts - "come and join the GODZ", etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 12:40:55 +0100 From: magnuz.aemp@medstroms.se (Magnus Cassersj\v) MC> The text below's from Thomas Nilsson, a Quester who get's the QD from me, or at least the most intr snippets... I'd like to ad that I hardly think that KJC will make any more improvments to Quest for quite a long while now. With one programmer and, how many - 6 (?) diff' PBMs, I don't think so. Now we got the long awaited (in my case ... yeah... sure...) off' alliances, so that'll perhaps keep us (questplayers) satisfied for a while. (JPG> Sureright... we're never satisfied!) TN> I can't really see why an aligned city would bring more action to the city. I reccon most players would be just as uninterested in fighting as usual. And it must be a pain in da ass to program!!! City warfare could however be improved and made more honest. The Engage-order must work, more miracles too, but troublemakers should be banned by the militia from the city for the remainder of that turn. One E order (or a failed S order) and you are out of there! A few offensive spells/miracles and you has to spend the night outside the citywalls. That might bring more action to town, without being too unfair! If anything should be added to the weapons damage done, it should be a part of the fighters strength (I.e. Toughness)! They are the true warriors and deserve a damage-bonus, the priests & co ain't that skilled. Toughness divided by 10 and added to the melee-weapons damage. I heard that KJC couldn't decide wether or not the Spears should be a melee or missile weapon, and thus unable to program it. But make one of them a melee and the other a missile weapon then! Short spears like the javelin are usually a thrown weapon, and longer spears are melee weapons, thus the short spear could be thrown and the other one used in hand-to-hand fighting. Both using the spear-skill, and perhaps with a couple of larger versions too - like a Glaive and a Pike. And the horses. Why not introduce three types of them. The first kind is the palfrey, a beast of burden, that only increases its owners carrying capacity and doesn't affect movement. Secondly is the mustang or riding horse, that is used to enhance movement - if you got one for each of your characters, too few and nothing happens. A riding horse won't help much in carrying stuff around Kharne. Third and most expensive is the Warhorse, similar to the mustang but is much stronger, perhaps could be armoured, and it can fight in combat! Thus we got a variety of horses for different tasks needed, and a wellequiped party might have a palfrey each, a mustang each except for the warriors that each got a warhorse. :-) And what is to be gained by Pancorbo's new movement table? More confusion? I don't mind that diagonal movement is somewhat faster than horizontal or vertical moves. It's the same for us all. And if diagonal squares are considered as further away, they also should be harder to investigate by 'I 0' and the R-order, etc. Nah, not really worth it. There are things that are much more important to do first! And for new character classes or new character types. If there is to be more sorts of them both, they really should add something new to the game. Ogres and Trolls are basically just another kind of dwarf. Tough and skilled in fighting, but awareness or charisma - are you kidding!? Unarmed combat specialist Ninja? Recruit yourself a thief and train him real well in hand-combat and then you got that ninja-type. Good at stealing, but not quite as good at fighting as the real warriors are! Assassin's? I don't think KJC would even DREAM of introducing a killing machine, no matter how good or bad they are!!! JPG, I like your spells, the ideas of Investigate All in a dungeon room (at a mp-cost) and the option to increase/decrease all ASL's at once. Oups! That was quite a long text! And I don't even have access to the NET! Logout, the pagan known as Thomas Nilsson -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Egil Geir Brautaset <egilbra@idt.unit.no> To: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk> EGB> I just got a turn back from KJC and found I had been in a fight with a group. This is not uncommon, but looking closer at the combat report I found that I was no longer informed of the number and composition of my opponents. This probably came about when the party-profile subroutines was implemented, but I feel that you should still be informed of your opponents numbers when fighting them. Does anybody have other bugs in the Quest system that are just irritating? Another lack is gender. If I should decide to name a character Maria, I will inevitably get messages like: Maria cannot give Small Shield, it is not HIS to give. Not a great lack, I dare say, but an irritating on nonetheless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- <Post from Stefan Anderson snipped as it went in Chris's Digest... as I say, please mail me for a copy if you didn't get one> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:47:51 GMT0BST From: DEAN P R SHEARS <eeshears@swansea.ac.uk> DS>ASLs do correspond to monster levels but does anyone know what ASL teams are? I know weak six member teams are ASL 2 but no others. Is it an additional ASL level for every three characters? IF so this is sadly lacking as a team full of mages is far more deadly than any level 9 monster can ever be. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> Okay folks, that's it for today! Please feel free to comment on anything in here, and forward your own ideas! (Our beloved programmer still reads the digest, so you have the ear.. or eye.. of KJC here...) If there is a subject matter you are sick of seeing (aligned cities?), where the discussion goes on but doesn't seem to get anywhere, feel free to ask everyone to shut up about it, but I can offer no flame-proof clothing... JPG> Until next time, happy questing folks! >>-Josh-> "Dreamer... Nothing but a dreamer..." Up