Quest Digest 1/2/95 From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 01 Feb 1995 10:20:25 +0000 What appears below is the Quest Digest as only recently mailed to every member of a Quest e-mail list I maintain. It contains all the posts mailed to me for inclusion in the Digest (which deosn't make it as much a digest as a compilation, but never mind). If you would like to be on the list, just mail me at the above address. >>-Josh-> "Dreamer... Nothing but a dreamer..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> Hello and welcome to another digest. No new people on this time, but here are the info points anyway: o All material for inclusion in the digest must be marked clearly and be put in a seperate e-mail. Initialised paragraphs would be appreciated too. o Please don't use this list to mail everyone. We don't want people complaining about too much post. o If you ever want off the list, just say, and I will be happy to oblige. o All material here is the exclusive property of the author and may not be used without their permission. JPG> I ought to get around to putting those is a file for inclusion each time. I'm sure I come up with different ones every digest. Never mind. Okay, without further ado, on with the posts: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 21:33:20 GMT From: Paul Noble <editor@elbon.demon.co.uk> You didn't change it!! =) JPG> oops. Sorry. PN> As you know now it's not George Brown, it's George Jones. PN> Alliances, what a bummer! I thought that the attitude routines would be free for the normal alliances and if you wished to become official you'd get the chance at opening a shop if you wanted. I'm getting more and more annoyed by the idea that you have to have such a gaping money loss if you wish to become official, if the shop can't be put in towns then it'll be so easy for hostiles to locate the HQ and rob it. Why can't we have a HQ in a town or even in a village? It's well out of line, Join our alliance, you can have *another* chance to lose your hard earned money to *more* people and still not be able to stop them. Not what I'd call a great RPG business idea. Why is it so much more to set up a second HQ? If you have to fork out so much money for officialdom and stops friendly fire surely the more poor of us (or just the tight arsed =) should have an alternative, why not more attitudes? Surely you wouldn't sit there thinking 'Ummm well I like him him him and him but I dont like him him him and him but now I've got a new friend, that means I have to stop hating him' PN> Keeping eyes open, why is ther only 1 slot for this order? A keeping eyes open for anyone who comes near us would be an improvement. How about Keep eyes open on groups in the same suburb? this would perhaps stop people from robbing off your group. > How much difference is there between the different games of Quest ? For > example in G3 powders cost 40 - 130 gp's and I am yet to see plate or > scale or a Religious book after 85 turns . PN> I know G16 the prices are around 40-60gp with the occasional expensive 121gp comp from a magic training shop. G6 powders 8 & 9 are about 100gp. > Why are alliance Hq's not allowed it towns ? With only 20 cities its > going to get very crowded . PN> yeh why not?! |( > Does anyone have advice on Group V's Group fights ? One of my groups is > going to a warzone and I'd rather not have them crucified . How good is > Deflect Magic III ? Should I stay inside the city or out ? Any help would > be much appreciated . PN> I too would like to know the effectiveness of Deflect III, I've heard a friend of the Emperors Of Kharne say that they run with a 99 skill & awareness mage casting deflect III. It has been said the the Deflect spells are only really effective if the caster has a higher awareness and skill than the offensive caster. PN> I can't and won't pretend to speak of the older games, but in G16 there are only three eventualities, 1) You hammer them with so many spells that they run away 2) They mash you with spells and you run away and 3) Both groups spell each other and run away. It seems that a lot of supposed experienced players joined up in G16 to kick ass, only to find everybody else has the same idea, mash em with spells shoot them and then see whats left. In all the 42 turns time of my groups (3 of them) the only long melee fight was when my 4 turn old group came up against a 30 turn old group, I assume my 6 char group slipped in under their ASL's it was only me casting spells. > On a similar note - shouldn't it be one of KJC's priorities to stop groups > being wiped out in a couple of turns , after all it must cost them > players new and old - as much as I like the game I wouldn't start again if > a couple of years of time and money got wasted . PN> In G6 two old groups were reduced to 1 char, both had trouble getting the last char dead, Stefan do you care to tell of the Twilights? Both the Twilight of the Gods (is this right?) and the Purebloods were reduced to 1 member, as I hear it the last member was saddled with all the groups equipment as the result was an indecisive fight. This is just what I heard second hand, Stefan knows more about it than I (and this isn't just a dig at an alliance enemy). PN> JPG, sorry can't quote you I've deleted that bit, but I notice the general idea with the banks is that the whole group goes and pays in or withdraws so why is the Letter of credit an individual thing? > JPG> I guess the race is now on to see who gets an official alliance set > up first. It may have already happened, especially in that 3 day > turnaround thing. Let me know what your experiences are of this. PN> Mintram is in G17, supposedly he has the money to make his alliance official, only he doesn't have an alliance....yet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 1995 23:39:16 +0000 (GMT) From: "Chris M. Dickson" <chris.dickson@keble.oxford.ac.uk> CMD> Opened my Quest turn the other day, as you do, read through it... blah blah blah... official alliance routines are in. CMD> Official alliance routines are in? CMD> YYYOOOUUU BBBEEEAAAUUUTTTYYY!!!!!!!!! JPG> It appears at this point that Chris was rather happy. :-) CMD> Congratulations and thanks are in order to Steve for finally getting them written and operational. Barring any nasty bugs that still remain :-) they should add a whole lot to Quest. I don't think the prices are too high at all, granted there will be very few parties indeed who can afford 30,000 at the drop of a hat but if you want to run an alliance under the official rules then you'll find away to scrape the money together, given a bit of time. An alliance that can't is one that's not worth joining. CMD> By the way, I've been experimenting a bit with recruiting recently, I've cast a 203 and a 903 before doing the J order and the results have been more than acceptable. 3 "good" elf mages (47 skill, 47 skill plus amazing other stats, 52 skill) in 3 successive turns for 588 (accidentally!), 1017 and 1117 gold respectively. Just a suggestion but bearing in mind how some spells and miracles call the routines for certain other spells and miracles, I would suggest that 203 works at least slightly similarly to 702 - possiblybeing exactly the same spell (not that I've tried theft after it!) merely on the other side of the alignment grid. Other peoples' thoughts on the matter are very welcome. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 10:45:35 GMT0BST From: DEAN P R SHEARS <eeshears@swansea.ac.uk> DS>Just for all of you who doubted my abilty to slay the pesky dragon, it was done in two turns (with my team only 16 turns old to start (GRIN!!)) netting me a nice 6000 gold pieces to further my teams career as official pyschos of game 16. JPG> Hmph. Not fair. I lost against one badly ages ago. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 12:20:18 MEZ From: Kai Hortmann CHBRIN5@nyx.uni-konstanz.de KH> I think the part of Quest that needs improvement the most is the part that is most boring now: wilderness. Experienced players just venture there when they know where they are going or when hunting monsters for quests. But I remember my first group that spent the first 25 turns stumbling blindly through the wilderness, first on a quest to find a village, then trying to find a city that sold spell powders (my starting town didn't). I know several players that started Quest, wandered around aimlessly for a while, got bored and quit. KH> How about signposts to direct you to the nearest town? Even simpler to program would be more NPCs. With a friendly attitude you should meet a NPC every two turns or so and he would tell you about the settlements in the vicinity. Maybe he could even offer you to tell you the location of the next dungeon for 100 gold. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 11:59:59 GMT From: Ewan Jones <c1ej@dmu.ac.uk> EJ I just have a couple of points to make about several comments that people have made recently concerning making robberies harder and reducing mages powers. Firstly I would like to point out that not that many people are able or are willing to make a living off just robbing and gaining 99sk and 99aw for a thief does take quite a bit of effort and is something 90% or more of questors have not done. Secondly by making these changes you are limiting peoples choices as to how they play the game, ok there is abuse but cutting down what you can do is not the answer, i think by adding more things to do (such as some of stefans ideas) people won`t want to do these things. While I`m at it I would just like to add my support to Stefans point a few issues back about people dropping out of quest if more isn`t done to keep older parties interested, in game 10 I have known of many parties that have dropped out simply because there is nothing to do and no challeneges to be met. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 12:34:47 GMT0BST From: Angharas Thomas AT>does anyone know if it's ,true, that once your mages have learnt all the spells available to them at their skill you can buy spell research and it will increase their skill up to the next level(hope that makes sense) AT>does anyone on the digest play in g14 if so wanna join the phoenix alliance -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 12:38:11 +0000 From: Neil Benson <9365040@mull.sms.ed.ac.uk> NB> Questors, here is a copy of a script I sent to Bill Godfrey, the game5 newsletter ed. I thought you all might like to see it, as it contains some nice ideas for all the games of Quest. NB> Dear Bill... NB>The allainces that I want to start are quite different from the usual Quest alliance in several ways. One, they are run by characters and not by players. A player plays a character in the alliance, this may or may not involve his group. A player can play a role in one or more allaince so long as she is able to create vivid, distinguishable characters, and so long as it adds to the spirit of the game. NB>The alliances may or may not appear in the game, depending on the new rules introductions. But I hope they will. NB>Initially I'll be playing all the characters (unless I get some help soon), but I want to step down from as many positions as I can, as soon as possible. I hope to inspire others to play the roles I have created, and encourage them to create their own charcaters within one or more of the allainces. NB>Soon the newsletter will be filled with some high quality role-playing as players build up the interactions between the various alliances. This will not necessarily affect the game directly. For example, if a player creates a character called Garon and Garon is a member of the mercenary guild, then Garon will have no affect upon the game, unless Garon is also a character in the player's group, in which case Garon will be a "real character" which other characters can meet upon Kharne. However, Garon may not be in the players group in which case Garon is an NPC, and the player simply says that Garon is a mercenary who usually frequents the Lazy Dog in Marshtown, for example. (Is this clear enough to understand? It is very hard to explain. I'll work on this to make it easier to comprehend). NB>The Allainces. I have sketched ut ideas for five allainces to introduce. I've tried to make them quite varied so that players can play any type of character they want. Players may also wish to make up new alliances, but we should try and limit the number to around eight (max). The gods and their affects upon the allainces haven't been worked into the idea yet. The alliance description also includes an idea of how I will introduce them to the players in the newsletter. NB>Order Of Yggrynd ============= NB>The Order of Yggrynd is an allaince of magi who have formed together to further the study of magic. They are a powerful group,but small in number. They have a great influence upon the two Kingdoms of Kharne and the other allainces, becuase all seek to employ the might of the magi and have to be careful not to cross their path. NB>...letter from an initiate to his master relaying his concern that his employer, a member of the Tradanthian Guild, is trying to control the component prices in Qiftoll... NB>Valorianae ath Earnedale ================= NB>The Valorianae are a gathering of mercenaries and hired arms. Essentially they act as a huge army for sale, and their services are donated to the highest bidder. The leaders of the Valorianae dabble in many pockets to manoever their way to power. NB>...a call to arms pinned to a stake in the centre of Zanul recruiting soldiers for a mercenray army... NB>Guild of Tradathian Houses =================== NB>To enter the merchant's guild requires that one sign and uphold the Tradathian Code. This code binds merchants and is designed to secure their profits from the hands of greedy tax collectors and bandits alike. The merchants have influence in many circles, whether trying to buy a guard unti from the Valorianae or persuade the King of Beyla to release the iron grip of his extortionate tax. NB>...a copy of the Tradathian Code... NB>Kingdom of Beyla ============= NB>The Kingdom of Beyla covers most of south and western Kharne. The seat of power in this fuedal kingdom is the King himself. Many knights make up his army and his influence is great. Perhaps he could be the most powerful man on Kharne were it not for the eternal war against the Deep Shires are their vicious raids. NB>...a letter from the King's Chief Advisor to the Queen regarding his concern for the King's security which is under threat from all the other allainces... NB>Deep Shires ======== NB>Other peoples of Kharne, who have not bowed to the will of the King, have established pockets of resistance known as the Deep Shires. The shires are often located in mountainous or treacherous terrain, safe from the King's armies. Their people are hardy and resiliant, and nearly always in confrontation with the Beyla Kingdom. NB>...conversation between two Shire Reeves concerning the rates of iron mining and weapons productions in the face of the impending war. We assume that this war is against the Kingdom of Beyla, but this may not be so... NB>Well Bill [and Quest mailing list subscribers], what do you think? I am hoping that the players of game5 are ready for a real role-playing challnge and that we can find a few worthy players, who are willing to put the time and effort into creating a new Kharne. NB>My dream is to create a dynmaic and vibrant Kharne in the newsletter outside of the Kharne on my turnsheet. In this world we can do anything becase we are not limited by the mechanics of the game. I hope the players will seize an opportunity like this and run with it. NB>Let me know what you think. If you are willing to help and think it is a worthy idea then I'll begin to develop it further and send you some drafts to look at. In the meantime, I have posted this document to some friends who may be helping me with it (?), and I may send it to the mailing list to get their reaction. NB>Thanks for reading. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 13:11:08 GMT From: Ian Robert Anderson <phyira@caledonia.hw.ac.uk> IRA>Something needs to be done about Hit'n'run style and generally groups with lots of spellcasting ability as the more fighter orintated groups just dont stand a chance. Magic is too powerful, total death style spells are virtually unstopable and can cost as little as 8 power points(engulfing globe) so with a few mages and a couple of engage orders any group (other than another with 80+ mages) will be utterly wasted. Such high powered spells should take alot more power to cast (50+ so only one can be cast a round) and magical resistances could also be added to give the opposition(I like the tougness=magic resistance idea, except mages should get some bonus due to skill) a better chance. Also to stop hit'n'run taktics (I dont beilive anybody thinks that they add anything good to the game except perhaps thoes who ues them) the attitute and flee factor stats could be merged so if say you wanted a hostile attitude your flee factor would be automaticay set to an appropriate level. This would mean if you want to fight a group you will have to be willing to actualy get in to melee combat. IRA>Aligned citys are a very nice idea, some nasy cities where groups can lay into each other as they want, theives run riot, town guard are a bit useless and few respectable shops to be found whereas other nice citys where any groups trying anything naughty like fighting or robbing will be thrown out or fined (or quests offered for their death). IRA>Temple quests need improved, or at least sorted out so they make sense, being offerd gold to kill Gnomes at the temple of novala then not being able to because I had a +15 to novala at the time and so did the gnomes is just sillly. IRA>Most monsters need to be toughened up, my group has yet to meet the monster that gives it any hassle in melee combat, and most startup groups have to be very unlucky to have any characters killed by monsters. The only execption to non-nasty monsters are the ones with special abilitys such as shadows or puple fungi which seem a bit too nasty compared with any other monsters I have seen, dose anyone know if you can actually stop them draining toughness or turning a character to stone?, dose killing them off in spellcasting help?. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 14:30:52 +0000 (GMT) From: Bill Godfrey <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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 15:07:30 +0000 (GMT) From: Chris Clarke <ctc@coventry.ac.uk> CC> I am currently updating the FAQ and converting it to AmigaGuide format. So, if *anyone* has *any* contributions to add, now would be a good time to mail me <ctc@coventry.ac.uk> All information will be accredited to you, so please send your name and confirm you email address (our mailer tends to spin addresses, so that replies to that address, fails). I would also like to include the information from Stefan Andersson with regards to damage done by a weapon, etc. Is this OK? Mail me yea or neigh! The toughness of monsters using number of monsters v ASL level cast would also be of interest, I think, if you have no objections? At the moment, the FAQ does have a heavy KJC bias, if anyone from any of the franchises would like to get in touch, perhaps I could redress the balance. I've done a section on KJC People - perhaps xxx Franchise people would be nice too? As well as AmigaGuide and straight text, I may convert it to other formats. Would it be possible to do a quick count as to what format everyone would prefer: text/AmigaGuide/html/purple wombats etc? Thanks for everyone's cooperation. JPG> And more...! Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 17:26:07 GMT From: ctc <ctc@coventry.ac.uk> CC> In reply to Allan Hooper: Magic Rings, potions, Wands do work. Books do not. As for what they do, I the item to get the blurb! Investigate the relevant item number or shops to find Plate, Books etc - I found +3 Armour like this. I can't find any logic to how Temple Quests are distributed. I always send a high charisma priest and I can get 600-60 gps as a reward! Inside cities are safer, but multiple S orders can take your group into hand- hand combat. A good group could take you like this - a friend of mine uses this as a method of fighting people hiding in cities. CC> To Neil Benson ("Bensey" - now *there's* a change of image<EG>) SETTLEMENTS I admit that things will be different once these total hostile/friendly attitudes get into place, properly, but at the moment my view on combat in settlements is "no". Groups go into a town to recupperate from fights, bank gold, change armour (and in my case, rob it silly), not to get beaten-up. If you want a fight, go and stand on the road just outside the settlement and wait until everyone and his mother walks into you. All I am saying is that PRIOR TO THESE NEW ATTITUDES the safest place was in a settlement (once the major damage-causing spells were removed). And it's hardly fair to let someone think "I'm safe!" once they'd limped into town and then hit them with Wraths, Call Monsters and 55 sk DF's on ACE! One of my groups were attacked when they were very young. They lost a fair amount of health and equipment. They limped into town and the same guy then wapped me with one of his other groups. If spells/miracles could kill (not death-spells) then I would have lost about three characters. Admittedly, my groups are mainly peaceful. But now my gruops have decent fighting abilities they may become more warlike. If they lose a battle, then it was my decision to take that risk. Yes, life without combat is boring, but if I want to be boring, then why shouldn't I? If you want to attack other groups, do it with other groups who want to be fought and who you won't badly outclass. See you around G8? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 18:49:59 GMT From: Melandra <misd2arw@vaxd.dct.ac.uk> I think I may have confused the issue on praying for priestly power.... I have normally got 3 P0's on my turn card each shot... I have never had a priest go up more than 1 skill a turn... however, I have had most of them going up each turn until recently, when only 1 or 2 of the priests would go up at any one time..... Still...its handy to have an increase in their stats each turn! Mel. ________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:55:52 +0000 From: NEIL DAVID CALLAWAY <ndc3@aber.ac.uk> NDC> I don't know if this subject has been discussed here before, but i have heard other people's opinions about it. The subject is resurrecting dead characters. I think that the fairest way to implement a method of raising the dead would be as a shop service costing no more than 10000 gold per character. The shop would be a temple, of course, and so party alignment could have a bearing on whether the resurrection is allowed in that shop, and possibly on the price. NDC> I think this is fair because as a shop service it is available to everyone, new and old groups alike. The price would make use of the service a rarity; a group would have to consider carefully whether they wanted the character back. 'Old favourites' could be returned to life after they died heroically, but perhaps new recruits would still be better to replace most dead. If in a fight a party had 2 or 3 killed, then raising all the dead would be a possibility, so they would not be afraid of fighting again. Also, accidental fights could be better compensated for if any dead could be raised. If a group had a disasterous battle and had 10 or so characters killed, most players would drop the group, and perhaps quest altogether. If the same player were able to resurrect 2 or 3 of his best characters (all anyone could afford) and use them to rebuild his group, the situation would be entirely different. NDC> This service would be used 99% of the time by old groups, of course, but then young groups wouldn't have any characters worth 10000 gold. I know that within my quest groups i have characters i would definitely raise for 10000 gold, and some i wouldn't. OK, what do you all think? :) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 13:58:28 GMT From: Phill Coleman <colemanp@cs.man.ac.uk> PC > How would i go about becoming a magazine editor? I quite fancy the idea of playing for free! PC > Does anyone know the damage that the different spells do? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- JPG> Okay, that's the lot for the moment! Please keep them coming in. Thank you to everyone who has contributed today. JPG> I now have all the Quest Digests of this year easily available to anyone who wants them. Sorry if you mailed me before asking for some and I never got back. If you still want any or all of them (if *all* then beware the size!) then please mail me again and I'll get it sorted. JPG> *sigh* no Quest turn back today. Gonna have to stop using those damn unreliable second class stamps. JPG> Until next time, happy Questing! >>-Josh-> "Dreamer... Nothing but a dreamer..." Up