6th Quest Invitational

[Nightmare]

TK8305, bigjoe, Gleeok

Drafting the rules again:

1. You may not change the Overworld unless it's to show a secret or a level.
2. Underworld, feel free. Change the graphics if you please. No color restrictions either.
3. Scripting allowed, try to keep it in the spirit of Zelda and the NES.
4. New enemy tiles allowed, but must fit an NES theme.
5. This is unfortunately a must. You MUST use a custom soundtrack. A lot of people are getting into copyright trouble, so it is now required that there is replacements to the NES Zelda tunes. Go to http://www.vgmusic.com if you need to download new tunes.
6. Your difficulty should start at 2nd Quest level and be no harder than 3rd Quest's. It has to be hard, but innovative at the same time. If it's James Quest level, it's probably at the absolute hardest it should be.
7. No maze paths in the Underworld, and you may not change the Maze Paths in the Overworld.
8. You are allowed to make cosmetic changes to enemies (like new colors for grave Ghinis, or new colors for the old same colored Octorocks)
9. New enemies should be featured within and showcased. No Kaizo Enemies like Death Knights.
10. You must have 9 normal levels, 10 levels tops. Uses for a 10th level could be a bonus level, a hidden level at the end of Level 9, or Level 9 is a preparation for Level 10. Absolutely not required to have a 10th level.
11. Quest Rules: Keep in spirit of the NES, fast scrolling allowed, multiple strings allowed. No advanced things like screen wipes. All NES bugs must be present. Level 3 color difference not required.
12. This is a requirement: You should put some custom-palettes if you're not using anything but classic tiles. No one likes clones and copy and paste these days: Play around with the colors and create new sets. (using First Quest palette numbers): 4/6, 5/7, 8/9 likely candidates
13. TEST FOR BUGS! Buggy quests will not be considered.
14. Whistle Warps not required, especially if making difficulty levels. If you don't have Whistle Warps the whirlwind MUST take you back to the Overworld beginning.
15. Everyone is responsible for making a playthrough of their quest on YouTube. Judges don't have time to play them all, so this is mandatory this time!!!!!!
16. Init Data MUST be the default, like a new game on the NES. May allow starting off with the Blue Candle as an init item, but if you do that it may not burn bushes and you need to have 2 candle upgrades, and the Red Candle must replace the Blue Candle in item shops.
17. Entrances and Triforce rooms must resemble Zelda 1. Everything else is OK to change
18. Easy Mode is mandatory for everyone now. The deadline for it will be during the testing/revision phase.

Some cool things that will be allowed:
Title Screens (but no cutscenes)
Difficulty Levels
ROMhack style enemies (once again within reason, speeds faster than the NES allowed, no things like Death Knights: Try to keep walk speeds at 100 or less)
Startup dialog for dungeons, mentioning dungeon name, etc.
Extended enemy palettes
Upgrades to existing items
LA Slash if given like Imzogelmo's 5th (where you get it via upgrade room and not at start)
Same goes for Spinning Sword Slash, is allowed, but you're not allowed to start with it
Selection for both buttons
Trees and other overworld titles in dungeons (if you want to theme things)
Wallets and other new items allowed (like expansions to memory)
Hammer/Hookshot (only if given in later levels, like 7/8/9, can be quite broken)
Bomb Bags that replace More Bombs rooms
Super Bombs (though you must have a way to regenerate them eventually)
Custom Guys (if you need the script let me know)
Recolored enemies in the Overworld if a new power table is introduced
BS-Zelda Power Table
Multiple entrances for dungeons
Multiple floors for dungeons

Some things NOT allowed:
Infinite Bomb Bags/Rupee collection/anything of this like that violates the spirit of the NES
Lens of Truth
Fire Boomerang (just breaks the game way too much, but a custom Lv. 3 Boomerang might be allowed that doesn't have those features. If you REALLY want to stun Darknuts and Wizzrobes that bad change their values, or add a Hookshot)
True Arrows (no, NES does it by Rupees)
Magic Meter (not allowed under ANY circumstance!!!!!!!!!!)

I'll add to this list as things come up. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or want to join (though spots are limited and I might require you to make a sample level before I approve you)

Discord Server for this: https://discord.gg/8RrvzSW

-James

[Nightmare]

Added a few clarifications from conversations today.

In essence, mostly along the lines of allowing more dungeon freedom and item freedom, and banning things that break NES rules.

Imzogelmo, Questwizard88, tagging you two too

Edit: New Quest Rebuilt Alpha 1 out, featuring all the 1.90 rebuilt colors. If you want your 1.90 colors back, I highly suggest participating in this beta test, because then the faster I can overlay the colors into example_1st.qst and get it out to people

-James

[Gleeok]

I'll revamp my 5th quest and enter that. It's very unique with some subtle scripts and some tricky puzzles so I think it might be worth playing for people that like challenging-type NES quests. Why not? :)

[Gleeok]

Anybody up for an actual 6th quest contest, or something similar?

[bigboylink]

I might be game to submit something. After playing most of the 5th quest entries and reading the numerous reviews, I think I have a good idea of what this community likes/appreciates. Of course, it's been years since I've messed around with ZQuest, but I anticipate having a chunk of free time this summer that I might like to put to use here. If there's going to be a one-month (or similar) deadline I'm probably out, but if there are loose deadlines I think I'll be down for this.

At the very least, I'll certainly be happy to play any/most of the 6th quest submissions.

EDIT - I just looked/browsed around, and I'm pretty sure I never played (or saw) your quest, Gleeok. Any chance you have an available link to it? No worries if you'd prefer to wait/save it for the 6th.

[Tamamo]

Gleeok
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/How+about+no+i+felt+like+funnyjunk+needed+another+ how_d8c3d3_3607965.jpg
'
Seriously though, i would rather see new quest along the lines of what saffith did in his classic quest then have a official 6th quest

[Gleeok]

EDIT - I just looked/browsed around, and I'm pretty sure I never played (or saw) your quest, Gleeok. Any chance you have an available link to it? No worries if you'd prefer to wait/save it for the 6th.

Hi. I did make a 5th quest but I didn't enter it because there were already over a dozen entries--it was crazy how much support we got for it! In addition, it was better to not enter it so I could remain non biased in judging entries and just concentrate my efforts on running the contest.

I'm going to release it as a 6th quest though so no worries. This will either give me a chance to 'fix' some of the craziness I have a habit of doing when making quests, or, what sometimes happens is I just end up making it more insane.... we'll see. :P




Gleeok
Seriously though, i would rather see new quest along the lines of what saffith did in his classic quest then have a official 6th quest

Other options are just as welcome.

[ZoriaRPG]

I'm not sure that an 'official 6th quest' is a very good idea. What we need, are a set of new default quests that use open assets, not another baggage quest to support in a Zelda.pack.dat collection of sequentially numbered quests, and bizarre how-to-get-there rules and passphrases that might need to change based on the .dat pack...

OTOH, Any contests to promote new quests that are similar in theme to 1st/2nd (difficulty, and gameplay) that use a collection of open assets are probably good ideas. After we have an official Open1st.qst / Open2nd.qst, we could then have contests to make new 3rd, 4th, and 5th entries for it, but I'm not sure that such things are warranted. (I'd rather give more freedom to the Quest Number than what we now have, by allowing the questmaker to pick a skip-to-name and other such nonsense, and to allow forwarding various elements from one quest, to the next in a series.)

These are the audio assets (http://timelord.insomnia247.nl/zc/zc_dev/Assets.zip) thus far. I could certainly use some help with selection, and filling in the blanks. Feel free to have a contest for new music, graphics, or any other original content. That would indeed be helpful.

[Gleeok]

I'm not sure that an 'official 6th quest' is a very good idea. What we need, are a set of new default quests that use open assets, not another baggage quest to support in a Zelda.pack.dat collection of sequentially numbered quests, and bizarre how-to-get-there rules and passphrases that might need to change based on the .dat pack...

OTOH, Any contests to promote new quests that are similar in theme to 1st/2nd (difficulty, and gameplay) that use a collection of open assets are probably good ideas. After we have an official Open1st.qst / Open2nd.qst, we could then have contests to make new 3rd, 4th, and 5th entries for it, but I'm not sure that such things are warranted. (I'd rather give more freedom to the Quest Number than what we now have, by allowing the questmaker to pick a skip-to-name and other such nonsense, and to allow forwarding various elements from one quest, to the next in a series.)

These are the audio assets (http://timelord.insomnia247.nl/zc/zc_dev/Assets.zip) thus far. I could certainly use some help with selection, and filling in the blanks. Feel free to have a contest for new music, graphics, or any other original content. That would indeed be helpful.

Besides Neo-first, there were other kinds of new-first ideas that were thrown around in the past. Problem is complexity goes up... and up and up. For example; you'd need tilesets, scripts, custom resources, etc., which is cool, but then the amount of work it takes to create it goes up exponentially to the point where it's not feasible for one person to be able to make. Thus, we enter into the realm of community quests. In theory, this would be pretty great, but it hasn't worked out so well in practice... yet, anyways.

[ZoriaRPG]

Besides Neo-first, there were other kinds of new-first ideas that were thrown around in the past. Problem is complexity goes up... and up and up. For example; you'd need tilesets, scripts, custom resources, etc., which is cool, but then the amount of work it takes to create it goes up exponentially to the point where it's not feasible for one person to be able to make. Thus, we enter into the realm of community quests. In theory, this would be pretty great, but it hasn't worked out so well in practice... yet, anyways.


Eh? Were you not involved in the conversation regarding the need for an open assets pack, and I was effectively stuck with the job to put it all together?

At present, we have permission to use Koten, and to modify it; and a potential new gfx pack from another contributor (WIP), some music, loose sprites for Koten (to replace the Link tiles and some npcs), and an audio pack that I have been gathering from open sound libraries. Once this is all in a presentable format, we will need to utterly replace 1st-5th.qst in the open source domain, so that our .dat files do not contain infringing materials: Essentially, wholly new default internal quests.

[Gleeok]

Eh? Were you not involved in the conversation regarding the need for an open assets pack, and I was effectively stuck with the job to put it all together?

At present, we have permission to use Koten, and to modify it; and a potential new gfx pack from another contributor (WIP), some music, loose sprites for Koten (to replace the Link tiles and some npcs), and an audio pack that I have been gathering from open sound libraries. Once this is all in a presentable format, we will need to utterly replace 1st-5th.qst in the open source domain, so that our .dat files do not contain infringing materials: Essentially, wholly new default internal quests.

My point exactly. How many other past conversations are you not aware of? ;)

It's difficult, but if you guys have done the work (I'm assuming there are script packs as well? ie; Enemies/bosses all set up and ready to go; no scripting required) already that's definitely a good starting point. I'm sure a lot of people would be happy about that. Thanks!

I'm against changing the existing 1st-5th quests, however.

[ZoriaRPG]

My point exactly. How many other past conversations are you not aware of? ;)

It's difficult, but if you guys have done the work (I'm assuming there are script packs as well? ie; Enemies/bosses all set up and ready to go; no scripting required) already that's definitely a good starting point. I'm sure a lot of people would be happy about that. Thanks!

I'm against changing the existing 1st-5th quests, however.

http://www.armageddongames.net/showthread.php?97764-Content-Packages-Open-Source-Media-Files-for-ZC-%28Progress-To-Do-Details%29

At the very least, the open source package should have clean .dat files that do not have any infringing content. I don't see why we can't have either a dat pack loaded for 1st-5th, or a single quest file with all five quests in it and a global script to handle selecting the quest mode (1-5). This seems relatively easy.

I'll note that this is different to my model for quest template packages, including scripted quest templates. I do stil plan to have a few of those (Z3, LA/GB, BS, and RPG).

[Dimentio]

I'd love an official 6th quest. Why leave it at 5?

[Nightmare]

I'm not sure that an 'official 6th quest' is a very good idea. What we need, are a set of new default quests that use open assets, not another baggage quest to support in a Zelda.pack.dat collection of sequentially numbered quests, and bizarre how-to-get-there rules and passphrases that might need to change based on the .dat pack...

I've been busy, but IDK how truly "official" this will be, but considering we got smacked by Mario Maker at the end of the 5th contest, a few of us wanted another shot. I'm still waiting on some people, but we've got 2 more people interested (I'll be verifying demos soon) and while not huge, it's a good source of even development practice.

Still waiting on Imzo and HoF, but other than that, we're starting to take some shape. Looks like there's going to be a bit more diversity this time too in styles.

Once Gleeok gives me his demo and the others submit their demos to be approved/denied entry to the contest, I'll officially update this thread with some videos and statuses from the Discord Channel for people not in it

I'm very close to having a "drop dead" date for new entries so we can start setting some deadlines and getting busy.

-James

[Dimentio]

The only real way we could get a lot of people to join is if this were an official contest with the chance of your entries getting added into official ZC. Whether or not that happens is if the devs want it to happen. Seeing how flexible the rules are this time, this could mean a lot more people willing to join, and a much more unique "6th" quest, so I'd support this becoming an official contest.

(Plus it would make us look less dead.)

[ZoriaRPG]

The only real way we could get a lot of people to join is if this were an official contest with the chance of your entries getting added into official ZC. Whether or not that happens is if the devs want it to happen. Seeing how flexible the rules are this time, this could mean a lot more people willing to join, and a much more unique "6th" quest, so I'd support this becoming an official contest.

(Plus it would make us look less dead.)

I ultimately want to make quest numbering useful, and allow passing quest data and script data from one quest number, to the next in series.

Game->LoadQuest() is still on my wish list.

How are serialised quests not more interesting, in the long term?

[DarkDragon]

At the very least, the open source package should have clean .dat files that do not have any infringing content. I don't see why we can't have either a dat pack loaded for 1st-5th, or a single quest file with all five quests in it and a global script to handle selecting the quest mode (1-5). This seems relatively easy.

I completely agree that including a set of free (as in speech) assets and a free example quest with the source code would be very useful. It would probably also be a good idea, long term, to split the Zelda-specific assets into a "content pack" that is hosted separately from the code (and to do this before War Lord is issued a cease and desist demanding a takedown of all ZC-related content).

That is orthogonal to a 6th quest contest, though. There is no harm to allowing quest authors not interested in helping with a free asset pack to work on a 6th quest.

I'm ambivalent about merging 1-5 into a single .qst. There is some merit to scriptable quest transitions and removing the official quest progression from being hard-coded in the source, but that's way down on the list of priorities.

[Nightmare]

I completely agree that including a set of free (as in speech) assets and a free example quest with the source code would be very useful. It would probably also be a good idea, long term, to split the Zelda-specific assets into a "content pack" that is hosted separately from the code (and to do this before War Lord is issued a cease and desist demanding a takedown of all ZC-related content).

That is orthogonal to a 6th quest contest, though. There is no harm to allowing quest authors not interested in helping with a free asset pack to work on a 6th quest.

I'm ambivalent about merging 1-5 into a single .qst. There is some merit to scriptable quest transitions and removing the official quest progression from being hard-coded in the source, but that's way down on the list of priorities.

Talk to HeroOfFire about it. A Randomizer based on them would be very interesting.

-James

[Nightmare]

Entry Deadline next Friday (essentially your first level demo)

That means looking at you Gleeok and anyone else I invited.

-James

[Gleeok]

Entry Deadline next Friday (essentially your first level demo)

That means looking at you Gleeok and anyone else I invited.

-James

Why so soon?! I'll have to withdraw if you want a complete demo. Otherwise, you've already played LV1! -It's mostly unchanged from last time.

[Nightmare]

By Demo I mean like Level 1 and 2, to make sure you understand the rules and don't break them, etc.

Definitely doesn't have to be complete.

EDIT: The participants so far are bigjoe, Nightmare, Lunaria, and Moosh

-James

[Gleeok]

By Demo I mean like Level 1 and 2, to make sure you understand the rules and don't break them, etc.

Definitely doesn't have to be complete.

EDIT: The participants so far are bigjoe, Nightmare, Lunaria, and Moosh

-James
I have decided to redo levels 2, 3, 6, 7, 8. You can have a demo of lv1 if you want but that's about all right now.


Also,
You should give some other people more time to see this (this thread gets buried for periods of time and agn isn't super active all the time), and creating an artificial cutoff point might not be the best way to do it. There's /some/ interest in either an official 6th, or something new as well, which is something. ..I know half the people at purezc are totally against NES spirited ZC things, but in all honesty there are much worse things than having some kind of quest contest for ZC every five years; if anything it just means it's not dead yet.

[Nightmare]

I have decided to redo levels 2, 3, 6, 7, 8. You can have a demo of lv1 if you want but that's about all right now.


Also,
You should give some other people more time to see this (this thread gets buried for periods of time and agn isn't super active all the time), and creating an artificial cutoff point might not be the best way to do it. There's /some/ interest in either an official 6th, or something new as well, which is something. ..I know half the people at purezc are totally against NES spirited ZC things, but in all honesty there are much worse things than having some kind of quest contest for ZC every five years; if anything it just means it's not dead yet.

The thing is Gleeok, we've now got 7 entries (maybe 8 if TK enters) if you get your demo in. Time-wise, I really can't handle any more.

Special cases might be made for AlphaDawg, Imzo, LoveForFire, and HeroOfFire, because of their outstanding contributions, but really, the contest is closed at this point, unless you want it going on another 2-3 years (which no one wants!, lol)

Basically want 2-3 months for dev, like 1-2 months for testing/rev, then voting. Final 2 might get public runoff on all forums, undecided on that.

I said it was an "invitational" for a reason, not an open contest.

-James

[ZoriaRPG]

The thing is Gleeok, we've now got 7 entries (maybe 8 if TK enters) if you get your demo in. Time-wise, I really can't handle any more.

Special cases might be made for AlphaDawg, Imzo, LoveForFire, and HeroOfFire, because of their outstanding contributions, but really, the contest is closed at this point, unless you want it going on another 2-3 years (which no one wants!, lol)

Basically want 2-3 months for dev, like 1-2 months for testing/rev, then voting. Final 2 might get public runoff on all forums, undecided on that.

I said it was an "invitational" for a reason, not an open contest.

-James

Well, what precisely is making it official in any st4anding if it is purely private? If @PhamtomMenace wants to pop in and list some rules for it, or sign off on its standing, that is his business, but you are essentially telling s lead ZC developer at this point that his suggestion has no merit because you don;t have time to run a full open contest. I'm utterly baffled. I have no seen a peep out of War Lord on it, either. Slapping the word official 'on it and making it a private event smacks of nepotism at this point, where the entire package is s4upposed to be open content.

[Nightmare]

Well, what precisely is making it official in any st4anding if it is purely private? If @PhamtomMenace wants to pop in and list some rules for it, or sign off on its standing, that is his business, but you are essentially telling s lead ZC developer at this point that his suggestion has no merit because you don;t have time to run a full open contest. I'm utterly baffled. I have no seen a peep out of War Lord on it, either. Slapping the word official 'on it and making it a private event smacks of nepotism at this point, where the entire package is s4upposed to be open content.

I never said it was official. Apparently you missed my last post before I posted it. We never said we were packaging it in or anything.

-James

NOTE: If you want to make it official and open, do it on your time, and spend 2-3 years, I'm not stopping you. But just telling you quite frankly I do not have time to judge 25+ entries and play through them all, and quite frankly, neither does anyone else at this point. If you would like to do it yourself, make videos of everyone, judge yourself, at about 3rd, 5th, or James Quest difficulty, and still do what you want to do with your life, that's totally fine by me. I'm at limit's end as is in getting this done in any type of timeframe with about 10.

I know it might not be the most "fair" and "open" thing to do, but honestly, if we do an open contest, take 2-3 years to get through everything, the landscape might not even be the same honestly. We started the 5th in 2014 and by the time we got done, we had Mario Maker come out, and that forced people to change their way of thinking.

I'm doing my best here, and that's why I didn't promise packaging in. If you so desire, I will turn the reigns over to you, and you will see the issues TSA, DarkDragon, and I had getting things done in a reasonable time somewhat by yourself. I wish you luck if that happens.

[ZoriaRPG]

I never said it was official. Apparently you missed my last post before I posted it. We never said we were packaging it in or anything.

-James

NOTE: If you want to make it official and open, do it on your time, and spend 2-3 years, I'm not stopping you. But just telling you quite frankly I do not have time to judge 25+ entries and play through them all, and quite frankly, neither does anyone else at this point. If you would like to do it yourself, make videos of everyone, judge yourself, at about 3rd, 5th, or James Quest difficulty, and still do what you want to do with your life, that's totally fine by me. I'm at limit's end as is in getting this done in any type of timeframe with about 10.

I know it might not be the most "fair" and "open" thing to do, but honestly, if we do an open contest, take 2-3 years to get through everything, the landscape might not even be the same honestly. We started the 5th in 2014 and by the time we got done, we had Mario Maker come out, and that forced people to change their way of thinking.

I'm doing my best here, and that's why I didn't promise packaging in. If you so desire, I will turn the reigns over to you, and you will see the issues TSA, DarkDragon, and I had getting things done in a reasonable time somewhat by yourself. I wish you luck if that happens.

Ah, fair enough. The tone of the topic, and he title made it seem as if this was supposed to be an official ZC include, when I read it. I apologise for the miscommunication, and I fully comprehend a lack of time to spend doing monotonous tasks.

I am more apt to open up contests for prepackaged quest templates, but we all have differing goals.

[Nightmare]

Ah, fair enough. The tone of the topic, and he title made it seem as if this was supposed to be an official ZC include, when I read it. I apologise for the miscommunication, and I fully comprehend a lack of time to spend doing monotonous tasks.

I am more apt to open up contests for prepackaged quest templates, but we all have differing goals.

If you want to ask War Lord and open it up, be my guest. But we need to find a host that's willing to play 25+ entries.

Also, I agree if we package it in we have to go open.

It's not monotonius, it's just more work than I can handle when I got other things to do. I heard you hosted a contest once, you know, now imagine that with quests as difficult as James Quest, times 25 or 30 of them..........

-James

[Gleeok]

Nightmare: For the record, you only listed 4 names. I had thought you were trying to get more people instead of less, which is a little strange, but I can tell you that after the 5th contest you want about 7-8 entries max, otherwise it does take much longer you are right about that.

Anyway, it sounds like there might be around five total, which isn't too many.

[Nightmare]

Well, here's my list:
bigjoe
Nightmare
@Lunaria
Moosh
Dimentio

Potentials and people I'd let in from past experience if interested
Gleeok
TK8305
Imzogelmo
Love For Fire
HeroOfFire
AlphaDawg
HeroOfFire
Shoelace
Questwizard88

So far QW, HeroOfFire and Shoelace haven't responded, the others haven't been on in a while. And Chris Miller and [MENTION=40218]Matthew Bluefox were invited, but are confirmed nos so far.

I will be making a massive update on demos and rules once everything is more set in stone. Right now a lot of moving parts. Right now trying to get a judging system in place and getting people to not be super kaizo with difficulty in Level 1. :(

EDIT: I think most people will be cool with the top two quests to be on a public runoff between all 3 forums (here, PureZC, and speedrun.com). How we get there and narrow it down I don't know yet. I'm all ears for that one that'll take a reasonable amount of time.

-James

[ZoriaRPG]

If you want to ask War Lord and open it up, be my guest. But we need to find a host that's willing to play 25+ entries.

Also, I agree if we package it in we have to go open.

It's not monotonius, it's just more work than I can handle when I got other things to do. I heard you hosted a contest once, you know, now imagine that with quests as difficult as James Quest, times 25 or 30 of them..........

-James

(Emphasis, mine.)

Hence, you do not see me chomping at the bit to do it again. :p

That thing turned into a trainwreck because (1) I was too lenient in mediating between contest rules and wishes of the participants, and (2) running into a work-related conundrum that ate away at my free time in December and January, or January and February. (Probably all three.)

Trying to balance all of that was an administrative pain in the arse, but keep in mind that I was not judging the entries. They were community judged, which might give a more fair bias on what to select, or it might lead to general chaos. If I were to host a contest to make a quest pack, i would do it in stages.

Allow four ( to six, based on assets requirements ) months to create all the entries. Pre-designed original assets would be allowed, and this initial time window is purely for submission, so authors who already have custom assets, such as @Aevin, would have an edge toward generating a package if they desire to submit one.

I believe that is sufficient time to create a graphics package, find or record audio, and find music; write or assemble sets of scripts, and generally make it work along with a small playable demo. Add two months to the end of this for general handling of evaluation, rejection, and community evaluation; then one more month for finals, for a total of about nine months. That just...seems fitting for something of this scale.

After authors send packages:

1. Check the entries for general quality, and adherence to the standards set for them. Remove any that violate rules, either rejecting-and-returning them to the author for revision, or simply removing them if they are plain awful or ignored critical rules.

2. Allow authors who did not meet the requirements within the allotted time, a possible a 30-day grace to fix any issues, re-evaluate if the package merits it. This would cover, as an example, rejections because of copyrighted music, or a few loose objects, but not if they simply ripped assets out of a bunch of Touhou games and called them 'original '.

3. Pass the entries into a public voting pool. This, assuming there are enough: perhaps more than ten, or more than two that fit any single theme category. After the community votes on them, go through the user feedback, and decide which to deselect. If a category only has one package, it would become the default. For this, I imaging the following groups:

NES Adventure, 4-colour
NES RPG, 4 colour
NES Sidescroller, 4-colour
NES Metroidvania, 4-colour
NES Puzzle, 4-colour
NES SHMUP (V), 4-colour
NES SHMUP (H), 4-colour
-----------------------------
SNES Adventure, 16 colour
SNES RPG, 16 colour
SNES Sidescroller, 16 colour
SNES Metroidvania, 16-colour
SNES Puzzle, 16-colour
SNES SHMUP (V), 16-colour
SNES SHMUP (H), 16-colour

Clearly, we would not have all of these assets in one contest, but those would be the ideal packages for an editor. I would also like to see a true Gameboy Zelda assets pack, and a true Z3 assets pack, and I have been slowly working on both of these on whatever free time I can allot to them.

4. Weed out entries with a panel of judges, assembled by the developer staff and community site staff, to make final determinations, if any.

5A. Present completed packages that contain generic assets in the editor, using a prefs dialogue in the ZQues editor under 'New Quest', replacing the generic rulessets that we use now.
5B. Feature assets packages that cannot be distributed openly, such as the aforementioned Gameboy assets pack, as 'add-ons ' that you can install into the editor, by loading them, which appends them tot he new quest dialogue menu.

I would expect the administrative overhead of this to require three to five people who can evaluate the assets, and either three or five panel judges. It would clearly be a much larger undertaking, and if I did it alone, I would need an undertaker shortly thereafter. :darkmage:

---------


Back on Topic

@Evan20k, Russ, and NewJourneysFire should probably all be on your list of potential contestants (that you would recognise and approve), given their past questmaking experience. I fully anticipate this being a Moosh show though, as his revised classic tileset style fits with the general feel of a 'sixth; quest, without being NES bland, and he seemingly has the time and material to pour into this at will.

I would love to see an entry from Shoelace, and I should pester him to work on something for it.

[Nightmare]

I don't see why we can't have more than one contest honestly, and why we can't have more community-sponsored contests over official ones. Sometimes we just need damn practice game developing, and if we have them and not every month it's cool.

As for an "Open" Contest, I know that was being discussed, but you have to find someone who's willing to run it, and allow for teams too. That's a whole different ballgame.

-James

[Dimentio]

As for an "Open" Contest, I know that was being discussed, but you have to find someone who's willing to run it, and allow for teams too. That's a whole different ballgame.

-James

It's a good thing you already found someone willing to do it, then.

[Nightmare]

It's a good thing you already found someone willing to do it, then.

I was actually referencing something else that Zoria said, like an open asset non-copyright infringing contest.

I should've been more clear.

-James

[bigjoe]

I am writing to inform you all that I am forfeiting the 6th quest contest. I will include a link to a zip file which includes the music file and an unpassworded quest, with most secrets blanked in the overworld and up to Level 3 complete. You may use this as a resource if you'd like.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7n5nn7j7ndgpdrn/bigjoe_6thquest.zip?dl=0

[Nightmare]

Sorry to hear BigJoe. Maybe if you can stay on to make NSF'S for people that'd be cool

[Nightmare]

OK, if you guys want it official and be open, I need to find a host that's willing to do a lot of the work. Quite frankly, I don't have time to play more than 10 entries, which is why I limited it in the first place. If it were an open contest, you'd have to play 18-25 entries most likely, along the line of JAMES QUEST difficulty of worse. It has burned out almost every previous host and is a huge undertaking. But I put it up to the community to respond to this if they're interested.

Basically, here would be the job description:

A: able to stream
B: have the time to stream potentially 25 quests without taking 2-3 to do it, about a year tops.
C: have the patience to stream through 25 quests from start to finish regardless of how good/bad/hard the quest is without using cheats. You may be able to quit the worst cases, but in general, this would reflect poorly if you did.
D: be well liked or at least neutral standing with all the forums
E: be a good enough challenge player to beat all 25 quests/ Here's an example of something you'd be expected to beat without cheats: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZg6iQHFIdmj0fpcjPXIOzGh7dZBhE1XI
F: Not be too lenient or too harsh, and able to be able to tell off even the most ardent and veteran questmakers if necessary (like Moosh and me)

If you're willing to put in the work, send me videos or streams of you beating some of the hardest quests without using any type of cheat (extra modes not included). I will review them and if I feel the person is qualified, I will consult with the AGN Staff if they would be acceptable to them.

Once this is taken care of, hopefully I've handled the conflict of interest issue, and we could possibly go open and official.

If we can't decide, then oh well, I did my best.

EDIT: Ruiles Change: Easy Mode is mandatory now. All the early levels are looking like Kaizos.

-James

[Questwizard88]

I would possibly make something if I had the free time (I don't right now), and if it wasn't for the YT requirement. I pretty much gave up on posting videos to YT a while back cause I got fed up with the daily onslaught of Content ID/Copyright claims on old videos from 2008/2009.

I'd practically have to re-learn ZQ all over again too. I barely remember the basics at this point.

[Lunaria]

Question is if we even want this to be an official contest. I was under the impression that it was a much more casual thing when going in. (And I don't really see the need to push this contest to turn into an official sanction one anyway).

Furthermore, the slippery slope that has been seen when it comes to rules is a bit troubling. My quest is fine currently and follows all rules, but it seems like they keep changing all the time. Some things are minor, but such as demanding an easy mode is pretty big, and is a detail that should have been hashed out before the contest started. (Especially considering what difficulty quests had to be around was already established in the original ruling, now it's more ambiguous, is easy more or had more the one who needs to be between second and third quest difficulty? etc). And some rule changes further down the line may seriously hamper my quest if not outright force me to concede from the contest entirely, there is just no way of knowing.

[Nightmare]

I think the most major rule changes have been done. It's also been an exercise in fluidity too: I want to deal with freedom and don't want to end up being M. Bison either to everyone. Some things are my fault, other things, we just didn't know until we started deving. Once all competitors are locked in no more rule changes period (a.k.a. when Gleeok's demo is approved and he digs in)

Hope that helps.

-James

[Nightmare]

Sorry for the double:

Sorry to hear QW. Glad to hear you replied. If you want to play though you're more than welcome.

-James

[Nightmare]

OK, I have some videos to show what some of the people are doing right now. This is the first chance for the peanut gallery to comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu-vYiqaY0 Moosh's Level 2

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q6mliazh01qt966/Stream%207-6-2017.mp4?dl=0 - Lunaria's stream demo

https://youtu.be/TbfNFa7Vh1o and https://youtu.be/nOgxJ4HuvKk - My Levels 1 and 2

https://youtu.be/Lsx_sxL5Uxk Dimentio's 6th Quest - Level 3 and Level 1

Gleeok, get a video of Level 1 out god damn it!

Anyway, first looks. Have fun people.

-James

[Nightmare]

We will be hitting our first draft deadline this weekend. I will post everybody's first draft to test here.

So far the contestants seem to be Lunaria, Dimentio, Nightmare, and Gleeok

Paging 4matsy, bigjoe, Chris Miller, King Aquamentus, Brasel, TK8305, and anybody else who might be willing to give these a try.

-James

[Nightmare]

http://timelord.insomnia247.nl/zc/6th_unofficial/

The drafts are now up! Feel free to comment, test, or meet us in Discord to talk more.

-James

[James24]

So, umm... who won the contest?

[Gleeok]

Hey James. What's new?



So, umm... who won the contest?

Of course I did. ;)


...jk.

There's only 3 entries, and my quest might be too hard for the judges to beat, so I'm expecting to lose big-time. :(
However, I mostly just want to get my quest beta-tested so that I can release a final version; I'd love for you to play through it when it's done though, since it's geared to hardcore players, and there really aren't many of us left. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has even released a challenge-quest since LOH;IE.

[Anarchy_Balsac]

I'm not sure anyone has even released a challenge-quest since LOH;IE.

I did it with Zelda 3, though I've been too busy IRL to work much on Zelda 4. That MAY change very soon though.

[James24]

Hey Gleeok. Yeah, I check in on Zelda Classic every year or so to see if there are any challenge quests that I would really enjoy playing. So just doing my rounds now and checking out the forums and the database entries. Not expecting anything though.

I had a try of your entry from nightmare's link, but I couldn't find the wooden sword (or any other kind of sustainable weapon) after about 30 minutes of play so I gave up. One of my pet hates is people hiding key items and dungeon entrances and me having to search for them. It really ruins all the fun. Key items and dungeon entrances should never be hidden. I tried a quest called 1492 and same deal again very challenging first 3 dungeons and then I can't find the white ring and potion that was promised. No choice but to quit.

Maybe you should consider leaving your quest unpassworded like LoH:IE. Challenge players will know not to meddle around with your beautiful difficulty and normal players - well they mostly won't go near your quest and even if they do they probably won't have the time to go fiddling around with things. So really nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Did you ever finish LoH:IE? I wouldn't blame you if you abandoned it half-way. It was a quest made purely for my tastes so I can't really expect much of an audience.

Anarchy did you finish LoH:IE? Or do you mean you are making a challenge quest?

Lastly, the rule that there must be a mandatory easy mode is highly discriminatory. If easy mode is mandatory then so should kaizo mode. With so many rules that are not essential no wonder there are so few entries.

[Gleeok]

Hey Gleeok. Yeah, I check in on Zelda Classic every year or so to see if there are any challenge quests that I would really enjoy playing. So just doing my rounds now and checking out the forums and the database entries. Not expecting anything though.

I had a try of your entry from nightmare's link, but I couldn't find the wooden sword (or any other kind of sustainable weapon) after about 30 minutes of play so I gave up. One of my pet hates is people hiding key items and dungeon entrances and me having to search for them. It really ruins all the fun. Key items and dungeon entrances should never be hidden. I tried a quest called 1492 and same deal again very challenging first 3 dungeons and then I can't find the white ring and potion that was promised. No choice but to quit.

Maybe you should consider leaving your quest unpassworded like LoH:IE. Challenge players will know not to meddle around with your beautiful difficulty and normal players - well they mostly won't go near your quest and even if they do they probably won't have the time to go fiddling around with things. So really nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Did you ever finish LoH:IE? I wouldn't blame you if you abandoned it half-way. It was a quest made purely for my tastes so I can't really expect much of an audience.

Anarchy did you finish LoH:IE? Or do you mean you are making a challenge quest?

Lastly, the rule that there must be a mandatory easy mode is highly discriminatory. If easy mode is mandatory then so should kaizo mode. With so many rules that are not essential no wonder there are so few entries.


I did not beat Insanity's End all the way through, no. :P This was partly due to the fact that I already beat LOH, and partly because it's so hard I have to be in the mood for it. However I did play through half of it or so without cheating just to check out the changes. All in all I like IE a bit more than the original; some of the new rooms are designed very well.


If you were walking around for 30 minutes without a sword then you probably played one of the bugged versions. I had accidentally saved over the wrong quest and this led to a few unplayable files and a big headache trying to fix the endless random things that broke (including some scripts and warps), so you may have played one of those. I'm shooting for a full beta in about a month though, so if you want I can email it to you and you can be the first to play it if you like.

And yeah, as far as aimlessly walking around in hard quests goes I agree. My quest comes with a README with all Dungeon Locations and Heart Containers/Item suggestions listed in the mini-FAQ portion.

[Anarchy_Balsac]

Anarchy did you finish LoH:IE? Or do you mean you are making a challenge quest?

Any quest I have EVER made was a challenge quest. Easy mode shouldn't be mandatory, but it can help more people to enjoy your quest, and if people like it enough, they can practice on easy mode to play the quest proper.

[Gleeok]

Anarchy_Balsac: If you like really hard quests you should try out LOH;IE. I think it's the hardest quest to date!



In other news, this contest is dead.

[James24]

Just because we get along so well Gleeok, I'll make a point to check in in about a month or so just so I can see your lovely quest. I am really looking forward to it, this will be your first true Zelda quest and I'm happy to help you test. Your quest probably won't be well received by the ZC community but at least you and I can enjoy it and that's very important.

As for the later levels of LoH:IE I reworked a lot of them for version 1.2 (now on the database) feedback from Yloh and a few others. Level 4 with the 10 blue darknut room used to be the highlight but now its the later part of level 7. That thing pushes me to the brink and back every time I play it. I would highly recommend it to you if you ever decide to pick up the quest again.

Anarchy, I remember your name as well as playing a few of your quests. I remember one which had a large desert and I stopped playing for some reason although I remember that it was quite challenging. Probably because I got stuck finding an item or a bombwall or push stone or some other secret. Anyway, if you do make more challenge quests I'd be happy to try them out.

As far as easy mode is concerned, my experience is that if you spend your precious time and effort making a "true" easy mode (as opposed to a cheap nerf by just halving damage or something) then people will just play that and ignore your hard mode.

[Gleeok]

Well, I don't do "Easy Mode" anymore after experimenting with it a little in DI and GRIKARUGUN - it's just not worth the effort and impossible to get right, but instead am more inclined to do a Hard Mode. I purposefully didn't make the 6th quest too hard (The design was to allow speed-running and 0-deaths (even no-hit!) just like normal games, while still maintaining that it be the hardest Nth-NES-quest in the world. It's a difficult balance to achieve in practice I've found out the hard way. But anyway.


Anyway, If there is still support for an actual 6th quest contest then let me know. If there are enough people behind it we can still do one; a community-run and not an invite-only format.




Just because we get along so well Gleeok, I'll make a point to check in in about a month or so just so I can see your lovely quest. I am really looking forward to it, this will be your first true Zelda quest and I'm happy to help you test. Your quest probably won't be well received by the ZC community but at least you and I can enjoy it and that's very important.

As for the later levels of LoH:IE I reworked a lot of them for version 1.2 (now on the database) feedback from Yloh and a few others. Level 4 with the 10 blue darknut room used to be the highlight but now its the later part of level 7. That thing pushes me to the brink and back every time I play it. I would highly recommend it to you if you ever decide to pick up the quest again.

Anarchy, I remember your name as well as playing a few of your quests. I remember one which had a large desert and I stopped playing for some reason although I remember that it was quite challenging. Probably because I got stuck finding an item or a bombwall or push stone or some other secret. Anyway, if you do make more challenge quests I'd be happy to try them out.

As far as easy mode is concerned, my experience is that if you spend your precious time and effort making a "true" easy mode (as opposed to a cheap nerf by just halving damage or something) then people will just play that and ignore your hard mode.

Thanks, I'll let you know about any early-beta release or whatnot, although I doubt it.

Was the Anarchy_Balsac quest you played have 'Paradox' in the title? IIRC he lost that quest, so if you have a copy I think he would like to get a copy.

[James24]

The Anarchy quest I played was downloaded from the database, so I highly doubt that he could have lost something that he uploaded.

Since this is AGN and not PureZC, I feel more at ease to speak my mind about the difficulty problem and I have thought extensively about it. And you seem to be more open-minded than most other people so you might be able to comprehend this better than most. Here's my two cents...

I believe that everyone is inherently a passionate type A or type B player. That's just part of our brain chemistry - its fixed at birth and unchangeable. Now, when it comes to quest making, this involves a lot of time, energy and resources to be spent by that particular individual. Inevitably, that person's passion is going to come through and they are going to devote their precious quest-making resources to the type A or type B game that they are so fond of.

When the opposing camp rejects the work and requests their version be made then it puts the quest-maker in an awful position. Either they spend a lot of time and resources making a game that they really don't enjoy at the end OR they ignore the request and are forever shunned by that group of players OR they make two versions of their work. The first alternative is absolutely unpalatable for a free quest-maker. Essentially the other camp is asking them to perform a job for them and the only thing they get in return is popularity, being played, fame, reputation etc... But I don't really believe that that is sufficient compensation. To do this kind of job requires financial payment since what you are asking for is for someone to devote their precious time and effort solely for your enjoyment knowing that they won't enjoy their own work at the end.

The second alternative is slightly better but its like choosing between the devil and the deep-blue sea. The quest maker will be very unpopular, reviled and hated with the other camp but at least they will conserve their resources for what they passionately love.

As for the third alternative, several quest makers have attempted to do this and its interesting to see what has happened with their attempts. But, to the best of my knowledge, there is not a single quest in the history of Zelda Classic that has ever won consensus acceptance by both camps.

1) Dark Flame Wolf's Extreme quests - I remember some of her extreme quests simply swapped red lynels for blue lynels. Blue octoroks instead of red octoroks etc... Essentially a cheap buff. There was Origins Extreme but the only difficulty there was getting started and once you got started the rest was a cakewalk. I don't know about you but I don't consider her Extreme quests to be type B quests.

2) Evan's IoR. Clearly designed for heroic mode. Such lovely balance and a true type B quest. I would proudly recommend this to other challenge quest players and say - you'll love this. Evan had three other modes that were cheap nerfs and these were only accessible after a player died 5 times. In these modes, he would simply reduce the damage taken by varying amounts. The result was rejection by the type A camp on the basis that he was very "condescending" and there was no "true easy mode".

3) Ouch's Armageddon Quest and AQF. Armageddon Quest is universally accepted by the type B camp as a true challenge quest. He then went on to make AQF which had some new rooms and a cheap nerf - increasing the player's number of heart containers. Result: AQF rejection by both type A and type B camps because it was "in the middle".

4) Nightmare's Easy, Normal and Kaizo mode quests. Easy mode is rejected by the type A camp because it isn't visually appealing and some still say its too hard. Kaizo mode is rejected by the type B camp. I can zero-game the early dungeons without even coming close to sweating and don't really feel motivated to continue. I also take a big issue with him hiding key items behind secrets and saying "whistle while you work" etc...

5) Jamian's The Forbidden City. Almost universal acceptance by the type A camp. He also made four other difficulty modes which are cheap buffs. But even these cheap buffs weren't enough and a playthrough has been made of his heroic mode being done without any ring. Clearly this demonstrates that he either is unwilling to invest the time balancing the quest to type B standards or he is unable to. The result is type B rejection.

So in short, this is a big dilemma and the root cause of the problem is that Zelda Classic is a free to play game. Nintendo and such don't have a problem with the first option because they are paid by both camps to make quests that are acceptable to them. And, even if the resource problem was to somehow be magically solved, I think you'd need to be a very, very, very good quest maker to accommodate for a taste that you yourself find distasteful. Better than any quest maker that has ever existed in ZC history.

What do you think?

[Anarchy_Balsac]

'The most annoying thing is when some idiot one stars your quest for being too hard, or because they were too dumb to figure out that they ventured out to a part that they lacked the gear to explore without getting outright clobbered, and the admins at pure do nothing about it. It's quite irritating.

[James24]

Players do have a right to express their opinions albeit dumb ones. Free speech is always a good thing even when the other side abuses it unknowingly. You are also free to speak your mind about what you perceive as player incompetence or lack of fighting ability leading to bad ratings. Granted it will make you very unpopular very quickly but you have a right to do that. Keep in mind that talk is cheap - you can simply ignore them and I can't see any harm coming from that.

My advice to you is to keep in mind what is your motivation for making the quest? Who are you trying to please? If its the type A players... well... you're going to end up like Nightmare who put in all that hard work only to get rejection by both camps. If its the type B audience (Gleeok, Yloh, me, OUCH!, Evan and other challenge quest players) then we're more sympathetic to dying, bad graphics etc... So if you pitch your quest just to us then you'll be a lot happier. If you're only making the quest to please yourself then hey, whatever goes right? In that case feel free to ignore whatever the audience says and do whatever you like.

As for the gear aspect, I think that challenge quests should check that the player has adequate gear before entering a hard region and warn the player if they don't. Should be a simple script to do that. Also if the gear is very well hidden then its not really the player's fault for not getting it.

[Dimentio]

The contest sort of died due to a lack of judges and existing ones dropping out. *glances around nervously*

Anyways, my 6th quest beta should still be up there. You should try it out, James! (as a side note, you may need to enter a later level early to get the bow before you can enter level 1)

[Gleeok]

What do you think?

Interesting.
I can't really comment on other peoples' creative process, but I can offer some insight to my own (I don't think I even qualify as your definition of Type A or B, so I'll try to explain):

In general I have to be motivated and/or inspired to work on anything having to do with gameplay. This includes levels, maps, enemies, gameplay code/mechanics, etc.; this is probably the biggest factor why I hardly ever even come close to finishing a project! The funny thing is that when I do sit down and work on something I don't try and make it difficult at all, in fact difficulty doesn't even enter the equation 90% of the time. What I try and do is hash out some concept or idea the best I can and make it playable; I try and think what problems the player will face and what possible solutions they have at their disposal; I basically think of something I find interesting, or potentially fun, complex, or challenging and try to work with that--in the ZC realm, if it's a single enemy, single room, single puzzle, series of rooms, maze of puzzles, horde of enemies, strange scripts, powerups, what have it. In a sense I try to problem-solve how I want the player to problem-solve and this is where the shit hits the fan for me: Without even getting into a difficulty balancing mindset and just getting together something to playtest, almost always without fail, that game prototype I put together is just brutally difficult! :P In fact, anything I decide to keep I have to painstakingly go through over and over again making it easier to play each time until I think it's OK. This is why I find it amusing when people complain about the difficulty of my stuff. You remember "Dungeon Impossible?" That was originally just LV 3 of my first quest I tried to make-it was not supposed to be semi-hard until LV 5 or 6!!! I thought it was funny like that so I added a few bosses and released it mostly as-is. I did a quick prototype of a quest Green Ninja and purposely made it easy because it was for a purezc quest contest event. [Yes, on purpose, easy...] Turns out most people couldn't beat it and they thought I was being mean or trolling them or something (I wasn't!). So anyway, I do like casual and easy games as well, but generally I prefer to solve harder problems than easy ones and I think that comes out in whatever I do, in that I tend to contrive problems that are more unreasonable than reasonable, whether it's a good idea to do so or not.


Did you ever check out the 2nd Green Ninja demo (Kaizo Impossibru I think it was called)? I think you would get a good laugh out of that, as well as an increased death count. haha. :P


[edit]RE:Motivation:
-That one's easy. I don't make quests to appease other people, I make it more or less how I envisioned it. I think this is why no one would be able to predict what weird quest idea I will come with next, because not even I know yet! :P
Other than that, I experimented with easy modes and such more because I genuinely needed work at difficulty balancing and was trying different things. It wouldn't bother me if no one could beat one of my quests. I would simply declare complete victory over you human scum and all caps and bold it in my signature. :D

[Anarchy_Balsac]

Stuff

The point is that if some dumbass downrates you b/c it was too hard or they didn't know how to play, the lower rating still turns people away, who might not have been so reckless and may have either offered legit criticism, or even enjoyed it, not that everyone has to like what you produce. But quests should get a fair chance, it's one thing if someone downrates you based on a legit greivence, but turning other payers away with low rating because they sucked at the quest or played it like a retard shouldn't be considered okay or tolerated.

I know the difference between someone who just didn't enjoy my quest, and an idiot who is judging and downrating it unfairly, and no, ignoring it doesn't make the bad rating go away.

[James24]

Anarchy - I agree with you that it is unfair and that in a perfect world then yes everyone should give the quest a fair chance. But you also have to understand the type A mindset and to them it seems perfectly logical. Type A players think very much alike and are heavily influenced by each other's opinions because they have a history of liking similar quests. When one of them say a quest is good/bad it is a very good indicator for the others on whether or not to spend their time playing it.

Its the same with type B players. If Gleeok, Yloh, Evan, OUCH! or even you were to say to me "hey James, this quest is a top notch challenge quest" that would have a lot of influence with me. Similarly if they said "You'd better not go near this, its difficulty absolutely sux" that would also have a lot of influence with me, although if the quest claimed to be challenging I might just have a peek at it anyway to see for myself. Type B might not 1-star a quest and say bad things about it in public but we would do it in private and so there is very little material difference between the two approaches except that type A is more public.

At the end of the day only you can answer this question - are you prepared to commit the time and resources to making a type A quest like Light of the Heavens in order to gain type A acceptance? If yes, then I wish you the best of luck and if you are successful then you'd be the very first quest maker in the history of this great game to win consensus acceptance by both sides. If not, then I would advise that you simply accept that they aren't going to play your quest and not bother about trying to appease them or win them over. It will only end in heartache.


Gleeok - I don't remember trying a quest by that name but if its on the database I'll go check it out right after this post. As for making your quest difficult without even having to consciously balance the game - that is pure genius. Do you know how long I spent balancing LoH and LoH:IE so that the balance is just right? Without question the biggest time consumer ever - even longer than learning how to script! If you can balance your game without even having to think then that's a skill which I'll never have. Wow!

Edit: Can't find it on the database. Can you send it to me?

And yeah I can totally sympathize with the part about type A thinking you're trolling them. To them, they see it as if you're making quests to try and appease them and win them over when in reality you are simply sharing with them what you think is a very good quest.

As for motivation - I 100% agree with you. Quests should only ever be made to appease the quest maker. If anyone else is appeased that's a bonus. The only way I can see that wavering is if someone made me a very attractive financial offer. Then I would make a quest to appease them - but short of that its very going to happen.


Dimentio - yeah I gave your quest a shot. Couldn't find a key item after searching for a while so I gave up. Plus the fact that it was abandoned didn't help either.

[Dimentio]

James24: You had to go into level 3 first (bottom left corner) to get the arrow, and then buy the bow from one of the shops. With that you can enter level 1. Technically, levels 2 and 3 are "complete", but level 1 is the only one set in stone. I tried to add a lot of hints towards "you need to enter level 3 first", but ultimately I think I failed at showing it to the player.

I also really don't agree with type A/type B, simply because the two aren't black and white, they almost always overlap. Most challenge players I know like pretty things, and they also like challenge. It's the reason why things like Armageddon Quest and Isle of Rebirth are so popular with them. I think it's better to split them into two groups: determined, and relaxed. Determined players will commit themselves to beating challenge quests, partly for bragging rights, partly for the challenge, and partly because they're completonists at heart and cannot stand a loss. Relaxed players are more easygoing, and are able to drop something if they don't like it, unlike a determined player who will keep on going at the challenge unless it's complete garbage.

The difference is, both type of players will sometimes act more like the other group. This is why you drop quests you find too easy: that's the "relaxed" player kicking in. It's also the reason why relaxed players are able to beat and like Isle of Rebirth: because the determination kicks in. Sometimes, a relaxed player who plays a hard quest goes into determination mode and never comes out: they've become a determined player, and sometimes a determined player gets lazy, drifts away from videogames, and becomes a relaxed player. This is why I feel type A/type B is incorrect; because it assumes it's locked at birth, when in reality it' more of a state of mind that mot people are accustomed to, but can change with enough of a push. It's also why you try to make your challenge quests inviting: because it allows for the conversion of relaxed players to determined players. Some of the best challenge quests out there, like Isle of Rebirth, start out tough, but not too tough, but then grows more and more challenging until it's teeth-grindingly difficult; and that's why both types of people like IoR: because it's successful, at least temporarily, at converting a relaxed player to a determined player. Everything in IoR is designed around this, and that's why it's so beautiful.

[Nightmare]

Contest dead, couldn't find judges. :(

I'm moving mine into 2.54 testing, I think Lunaria's publically releasing hers. Don't know about Gleeok.

-James

[James24]

Dimentio - ok, I'll give the quest another try with that in mind. But ideally, when you design a quest, communication directly with the developer should be a last resort.

As for type A and type B, it does not really make any difference whether you call them that or "relaxed" and "detetermined". Fact is that you acknowledge that there are two distinct types of players and their preferences are in conflict and its a huge problem.

The reasons why IoR temporarily converts relaxed to determined is because the starting few dungeons are very easy compared to the rest of the quest. If you play on normal mode you could easily mistake it for a type A quest. Secondly, the dungeon design is type A as opposed to flat challenge gauntlets that are more or less what AQ and LoH, LoH:IE are about. I mean, for me its a little annoying having these gimmicks like water vs. dry, water and ice, prismatic rods etc... but I can tolerate it. I know that to type A players this is their dream. Its why they like IoR so much and probably why they are able to tolerate the insane difficulty. But make no mistake, if there were no nice gimmicks and no easy beginning I probably think IoR would be a flat rejection amoungst type A players. You can already see the comments by type A players that they absolutely reject the insane difficulty and that is despite having 4 modes of cheap nerfs.

Now there have been some type A players who have completed IoR (but what mode??) but I am more inclined to think they are Evan's type A friends more than anything. He certainly didn't win a consensus type A acceptance amoungst players who he had no prior friendship with.

As for being "locked in at birth". I shall tell you a true story about me. I remember getting a Nintendo set at the age of 6. When I was 8 years old, I picked up The Legend of Zelda (a true NES version) for the first time. I remember thinking what a great game it is. I also remember the sixth dungeon and how difficult it was when I first tried it. I kept losing all the time. Dying over and over again. I eventually won and my opinion of the game was forever positively shaped. I thought to myself, wow, if only every dungeon was like this it would be heaven.

Compare this to the Type A players who absolutely hate that sixth dungeon. They feel tricked that the quest started off so easy and they really enjoyed that. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this challenge quest dungeon appears and ruins everything. Its like IoR - easy at first and giving them so many things they like - only to betray them later when the true colours of Tartarus come out. And this is why I believe that type A and type B are locked at birth - its my own personal experience.

[ZoriaRPG]

I must have Type AB blood. :D

I tend to live difficulty curves that progress harder, and harder, and lots of puzzles,mechanics, and such.

[James24]

Only one way to know for sure Zoria - try known type A and type B quests and ask yourself how you feel about playing them. If you really are a hybrid then you'd be a very special exception. As for difficulty curves, some type A players regard the second quest as very challenging. And on a global scale of things the second quest is pretty mild - so you've got to see the truly challenging quests out there to be sure that you like huge challenges.