Quest List 11/2/95 From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk> Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 17:25:59 +0000 ____________________________________________________________________ | | | THE QUEST DIGEST | | The forum for the E-mailing Quest-players | | Compiled by Josh Gallagher: J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk | | Date: 11 February 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> A smaller digest this time around. As I say, I will try and release it before it reaches 30K in length to avoid mailing problems. I am still getting bounces off addresses; please try and fill in the ReplyTo: field if your e-mail is to be sent to a different place. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then don't worry! JPG> Without further ado, on with the messages; -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: "Chris Clarke" <ctc@coventry.ac.uk> CC to all Any info sent will be included in the FAQ if requested and will be accredited! JPG> For new people's information, Chris Clarke has a wonderful Quest FAQ that she is compiling for various text readers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paulo <l41497@ci.ist.utl.pt> First of all my name it's not Paul! It's Rodrigo Fung... JPG> Well, Paulo just appears as who it is sent from! Change your "personal name" in PINE if you use it... IGO> Is follow order that important? I rather have horsies! IGO> Hey! Christian Nielson about "Thou shalt not steal". Quest is Fantasy! Not like nowadays! You can steal, main and etc. Can even kill and not be put in jail! Anyway I doubt the efficiency of caught thieves loosing all his/her possessions as probably all inteligent players would pass their thief possessions before attempting the steal. If a thief is caught stealing it should be thrown out of the city but for only a few turns (between 1-3 turns)...10 turns is a lot! Being caught inthe wielderness, well if you want your gold back! Attack me, without free attack. If you had a free attack. Why can't I get into your camp during night, automatically kill all your characters and get your stuff? :) IGO> Transfer accounts would be great! As told it would be the starting of a new style of play..."officials" mercenaries and bounty hunters! IGO> Programming...Everyone knows that programming is not as simple as it seems! So...a lot of silly and cosmetic ideas are discussed in here and we aren't getting nowhere! I ask everyone, please think carefully before writing to here...and what do you really want programmed first! :) IGO> Argh! Dean Shears, please don't refer to your party as team! Team is for football! "Do I not like that" as CD would say. :) IGO> I say no to the ressurection spell. I agree with Paul Noble. even if you had to pay 10000gp to get your 99 skill character back it would be VERY cheap...and any decent party can get 10000gp pronto! Three temple Quests! Besides it wouldn't be fair to new players. IGO> Editor position...if you are thinking of becoming one, please be at least regular! To release a regular newsletter i swhat I believe to be the most important characteristic of a good editor...unfortunatelly there are some out there who only do two newsletters a year! :( IGO> Setting two alliances in the same city? Who would do such aa thing?! It would get too crowdy! Not to mention foolish. Better is to set in another town and go on holy crusades against the other city (alliance). IGO> Hey! All editors out there! Why not advertise some of the ideas discussed in here in your newsletters?! The more ppl we get to support this ideas greater is the chance of them being implemented! IGO> When you write to here, please type Return when you are at the end of the line, or else the messages go a bit astray! :) Like last time :) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stefan Andersson <t94stean@und.ida.liu.se> Date: Fri, 10 Feb 95 17:00:11 +0100 SA> Some comments on Dave Rees points (And yes Josh, I know there is A LOT of quoting in this one!!!): > 1) Priests : There is no way a priest of Ythcal would cast Bless, make the > god stop priests casting opposite alignment spells. SA> This should either be limited to the 3rd level miracles (eg if you have a positive alignment towards a god, you shouldn't be able to cast its opposites miracles) OR all the opposite god's miracles should be impossible to use if the alignment is above +10. > 2) Make any skill etc harder to get I.E. remove it from the majority of > settlements. SA> I don't think it's a good idea. This would lead to some cities becoming useless because they don't offer eg magic skill. All groups would concentrate on just some 'top-cities' which offer all kinds of training. > 3) Start to close down games and start them afresh, with a more balanced > system. SA> Close down games! Are you nuts?!? I've played in Quest game 6 for over four years, do you think I would continue playing Quest if this game was just closed down? Na, I don't think so... A better idea is to start up NEW games with a more balanced system, and those who want to continue in the old 'unbalanced' worlds could do so (and that would be a majority!), but I don't think the new games would attract that much interest. > 4) Give fighters multiple hits in combat and give them multiple missile > attacks. SA> This is a good idea! Or why not change it like this: Only the fighters and thieves shoot with the missile weapons during the missile phase, which should be before the magic phase (the mages and priests must concentrate on their magic). While the mages and priests cast their spells and miracles the fighters and thieves switch their weapons to melee weapons, and in the first melee round, they are the only ones who will deal out blows. The mages and priests deal out their first blows in the second round. Maybe the mages/priests only should be allowed to hit every second round? This would give the same effect as giving fighters multiple attacks, but in a more realistic way. > 5) Increase the power points of Black Void to 16 and Engulfing Globe to 28 SA> Sounds fair... Maybe Total Death should cost over 50 power-points AND work every time too... Or at least more often. > 6) Mages should not wear armour above chain. (Don't want to tip the balance > too far) SA> Mages should not wear armour above leather... > 8) Start programming other planes of existance NOW. Wouldn't you be > interested to find a portal to the plane of Air or a portal to the plane > of Ultimate Evil? SA> Yes, that would be something... > 20) Make the minimum flee factor at least 10%. SA> Naaa... Maybe this is a bit wrong. Groups who absolutely don't want to fight must have the possibility to have flee factor 0%. To get around the problem with hit-and-run groups, set a flee factor limit of min 30% to be able to engage another group, steal from them and cast spells at them. SA> I agree with all the un-replied points, just don't need to include them here... SA> The Amiga map-program by Ragnar Fyri mentioned in the last Digest IS really great in all ways, the only bad thing is that it's a bit slow, but what can you expect from a BASIC-program? Maybe I should do one in C++...? Don't have the time, really. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 17:09:16 +0000 From: NEIL DAVID CALLAWAY <ndc3@aber.ac.uk> NDC> I've heard a lot of drastic suggestions for solving the hit and run tactic, but i think most of them involve changes which are too big and would change the game too much. Enforcing minimum flee factors is unrealistic in my opinion, since why would a group of mages want to stand and trade with a group of fighters after the magic and missile rounds which they'd win, only to get chopped to bits in melee? I believe the Quest combat system is unique, and it does represent the range between the two sides as they close for combat, magic being at furthest range, then missiles as they get nearer, then finally melee. I see 0% FF as declining to engage in melee, because melee is just one aspect of a fight. NDC> I think a better way to resolve the situation would be to lessen the effect that magical attacks have. This could be done by making magical attacks do less damage, or give characters a chance to take half damage or something like a saving throw in D&D, AND/OR by making healing spells actually WORK. I mean, Healing IV heals about 5 hp per character on a good day, how pathetic is this??? I am sure that healing spells which healed the same as or more than damage spells cause damage, then party's could defend against the hit and run tactic, errr parties, make that :) NDC> Peoples' thoughts? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> That's the lot for today. Keep stuff coming in! In the mean time, happy Questing! >>-Josh-> "Dreamer... Nothing but a dreamer..." Up