My suggestions regarding NeoFirst

To start things off, I say avoid remaking the first quest, and avoid making something like DemoQuest.

The problem I had with DemoQuest was that it wasn't accessible to everyone. I remember playing that thing a long time ago. It was extremely difficult, and things were well hidden. I never finished DemoQuest for those reasons.

I'd like to suggest something a little more simple. Make the quest be a procession of screens, one after another. Each screen should showcase a new feature, or a few new features if they are related. Avoid hiding parts of the demo. What you should have is a showcase. It shouldn't be challenging to see all the sights. The purpose is of course to show off new features.

I kind of draw these ideas from the recent Half-Life 2 Lost Coast display. It was a straightforward, very easy level, that was full of new features with commentary along the way. Can you possibly document each screen to tell about the features on that screen?

I personally am not yet accustomed to the new features, so I can't say much for the feasibility of my plan having been off the ZC scene for so long. However in any case, I think that the "spirit" of my suggestion will work well.

Well, I also didn't completed Demo.qst by those reasons.
Hopefully, I think NeoFirst will not be as hard as Demo.qst

Thing is, all I want is to play the thing in one sitting, and have seen all the new features in less than 15 minutes, and never be in danger of death along the way. If I die even once, I'm going to quit playing it.

Well, we've lost one player. We haven't lost yet though. :p (Kidding, kidding.)

Well, in your favor, DoY had quite a few players who died quite frequently, (Myself included, with more than 150 deaths on my first run through it. Bloody darknuts. :sweat: ) and the quest was quite huge, and had no exhibitions of tips and tricks and such. However, it was passworded, and said password kept under lock and key. Obviously.

NeoFirst will be completely open to the public, and whatever they find will be fair game for them to do whatever they wish with. It was that way with Newfirst, and NeoFirst will be relatively similar to it in purpose. (Though not in construct.)

To have it ONLY be an exhibition would be a possibility, but it's not our only option to attain a similar effect while being able to stack yet more onto it. It can be a real quest, yet with a "gallery" of tricks and tips to show off. Again, the vast majority of the game's new features will be shown off in NeoFirst, and you'll more than likely see all of them within.

My opinion is it should be interesting and, um, a bit challenging to play too. Being able to play through a complex dungeon with real enemies and a possibility of dieing etc., then looking at how it's all done in zquest, that's what I'd suggest.

I agree with Glenn as far as that it shouldn't be almost insanely hard (think demoquest), but what with up to 8 possible warps on one screen we can do so much more with ZC than just a progression of screens. Indeed this new warping power is one of the things I'd most like to see used.

1.Use an Intro. Have a custom intro to the quest to help show the new comers to 2.11 how to impliment such a thing as it is a very popular topic.
At least they would have something to reference before they come to the forums and ask "How do you create an intro?"

2.The use of over and under bridges. I've seen many people ask how this could be done and there has been many tutorials made in its favor. But if you include it in this quest, again ZCer's will have something to reference when they try it on their own and see how it works if they can't figure out what's wrong.

On the whole, I agree with everyone about not making it too hard! Yes, DemoQuest WAS rediculous.

Yeah. It won't be too hard. I mean, it'll be hard, but not ridiculous. DemoQuest was TOO Ridiculous. DoY was also sort of "Too" hard. NeoFirst will be somewhere between "Medium" and "Hard." "Medium," by the way, is somewhere akin to 1st.qst's Level 7. Goriyas and Fireball statues, but nothing frustrating. IMHO, if the player becomes too frustrated, you've failed as a quest designer. They should be challenging, and the player should have to look for things occasionally, but if you're malicious about it, you shouldn't be designing quests except for madmen and evil geniuses.


Great ideas about the intro, Rocksfan. :) I'm debating with myself (and rapidly becoming irritated with my inflammatory nature.) whether or not to have a "Main Hub" type area (Similar to what I have in UCoL, or in Petoe's MMDWR Intro screen.) I think we should. Obviously, it'd contain an intro to the quest, (A "What is NeoFirst" type intro, with an explanation as to how you work it.) And a hub choice to go to a tutorial for the new abilities of ZC 2.11, ... and finally an area to go to the quest itself. It'd have a magic building where you can go back to the hud and heal up, of course.

Yeah, the over-under tutorial could be in there as well, as well as several screens utilizing said trick in the quest itself. Easily done.

Here's a checklist of sorts of things that, imo, must be in the quest: (in no particular order)

--Treasure Chests
--Appearing Treasure Chests
--Triggering things in order & other uses for tiered secrets
--A Custom Boss
--Cutscenes
--Title or Intro Screen
--Sprites that you can talk to on the overworld
--Multi-warps (if you're using the latest beta)
--A timed warp (for whatever purpose, like with the cutscene or custom boss, or a minigame)
--All items that were not in the original LoZ (hammer, hookshot, din's fire, superbombs, lens, flippers, etc.)
--True Arrows,Quivers, & Arrow Ammunition
--Bomb Bags & Bomb Ammunition
--Slashing (by default or learning it later in the quest, either way)
--A lot of Push Block Puzzles with 'Block Trigger' flags
--Weather or environmental effects, such as Rain, Snow, Fog, Heat, Underwater, Poison, Wind, or any combination thereof.
--Combo Cycling for things like spikes that go up & down, or retractable walls that go back up x seconds after being triggered.
--All enemies since the original should be included as well, and used carefully too (in other words, don't just pack together herds of death knights to show them off & make an area riduculously hard)
--At least 1 Link-Tile Mod (other than for the shields)
--Magic System (demonstrates how to set up the magic meter, shows off magic jars, use a magic enhance room type, etc.)
--Direct Warps
--Use of the Reset Room Combo
--Lock Blocks & Boss Lock Blocks
--Freeform Dungeons & Off-center Doors
--Use of Room Carry Over Data
--Inherent Flags
--Inherent Flags combined with Cycling Combos
--Use of Initial Data (perhaps have the player start with an item you usually don't begin with or have more or fewer heart containers when beginning
--Save Combos
--Heart Container Pieces
--The latest Subscreen Type
--Autowarp Combos
--Multiple Undercombos
--Over & Under Bridges
--Bushes & Flowers
--Layers & Autolayers
--Eyeball Combos
--Enemy Shadows
--Water & Shallow Water
--Dmap Titles & Intro String
--Linked Strings

Pretty much anything you can think of that was not in the original game should be in this quest--it'd be great for veterans & newbies alike. It'd be nice to see everything new that you can do in one quest that you couldn't do years ago and it help teach different techniques.

A custom Boss would be a great idea. I did forget to mention that in my prior posting.

However, I would believe they would all be there as that is what Britannianhero4 wants to do.

Another would be: Those new enemies that we had a competion for and the new combo competition winners. Maybe we could include them?

Obviously. :p I think we're going to be doing at least four custom bosses for the quest. One at the end of Level 1 and Leven 2, and two in the Final Dungeon.

By the way, Rocksfan, ... my name is either BH4, or ST. (For ShadowTiger.) The name "Britannianhero4" has long been dead to me. Thanks.


We'll certainly be including whatever new entities have been introduced and tested.

Sorry BH4.:( I didn't mean anything by it. I just remembered reading something about how you preferred not to be called BH4. I must have though the wrong thing. It was a long time ago.:shakeno:

Anyway, another thought I had might be to add some sort of minigame. I know alot of people ask about those as well.

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Originally Posted by rocksfan13

Sorry BH4.:( I didn't mean anything by it. I just remembered reading something about how you preferred not to be called BH4. I must have though the wrong thing. It was a long time ago.:shakeno:

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Perhaps you're thinking of me wanting to be called 'ShadowTiger" or "ST" rather than BH4. Since you thought "Okay, he doesn't want to be called BH4 anymore," then maybe you're thinking that I wanted to be called Britannianhero4 instead. ... Think? ... Either way, BH4 or ST is fine, thanks. :) ... Hey, it's a helluva lot shorter than Britannianhero4. :p -I- am the only one who should ever have to type that in the future. 'tis my curse. - -, *lol*

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Anyway, another thought I had might be to add some sort of minigame. I know alot of people ask about those as well.

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Of course. :p We can do a helluva lot of minigames at this point, thanks to the developers creative genius. Just so much stuff, really, ... Question is, where? :p We could even get them started off of that "hub" I was speaking about earier.

How about you add a cool minigame to the "gimmick" dungeon? Maybe the minigame can be determined by the dungeon. Even better, you could make MORE THAN ONE DUNGEON as the second. As in, you could have the entrance be a random warp, which will take you to one of 4 dungeons. You could have the Triforce piece in one of them while the rest have simple items, or maybe upgrades and major equipment, like a Hookshot, for example.

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Originally Posted by pikaguy900

How about you add a cool minigame to the "gimmick" dungeon? Maybe the minigame can be determined by the dungeon. Even better, you could make MORE THAN ONE DUNGEON as the second. As in, you could have the entrance be a random warp, which will take you to one of 4 dungeons. You could have the Triforce piece in one of them while the rest have simple items, or maybe upgrades and major equipment, like a Hookshot, for example.

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... Hey, that's a really great idea. http://www.purezc.com/forums/style_e...t/icon_heh.gif A gimmick to be warped to a random area of the dungeon to do certain things there, then you'd need to leave and be warped to another area of the dungeon where you'd have to do something else, like collect a key, or work toward getting a special item so you can explore the rest of the dungeon. You'd easily need at LEAST three special items to get around it though. I can definitely see that dungeon being shaped like some sort of a triangle, with like, .. circles at each tip so you have room to work. That'd make for a great dungeon. ;) :thumbsup:

How about using room state carry over to make cutscenes appear only once. Also I can give ideas for your dungeons (puzzles and stuff). I'll give you one later... :)

Sort of like how in OoT, when you entered a new area, it'd show a brief synopsis of each area, then snap you right back to where you were. Yeah, you could do that. :p May as well. ^-^'

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Originally Posted by Britannianhero4

... Hey, that's a really great idea. http://www.purezc.com/forums/style_e...t/icon_heh.gif A gimmick to be warped to a random area of the dungeon to do certain things there, then you'd need to leave and be warped to another area of the dungeon where you'd have to do something else, like collect a key, or work toward getting a special item so you can explore the rest of the dungeon. You'd easily need at LEAST three special items to get around it though. I can definitely see that dungeon being shaped like some sort of a triangle, with like, .. circles at each tip so you have room to work. That'd make for a great dungeon. ;) :thumbsup:

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Thanks. It's not everyday that I get an idea that you actually think is good. Maybe when a full release of 2.11 comes out, I'll use that idea in one of my own quests. It IS a good idea, especially when you take into consideration the addition to the idea that YOU made. I think that just makes it even better.

Well, there are ideas and results. Burning the picture of Mars onto every pancake made this year could be a "revolutionary" idea, but it wouldn't be all that practical, nor easily done. An idea like the one you'd come up with would add something new to the concept of a Dungeon. A randomized start position would do a few unorthodox things to said dungeon:

Upon your first arrival in the dungeon, you'd think that's the only place you can start off. (Like any other dungeon.) So you go around collecting keys, killing enemies, triggering secrets, bombing walls, etc.... but you find yourself rather short in terms of what you can and can not do. So you leave, go around the overworld looking for more stuff, then you back into the dungeon, and BAM. You find yourself in another spot entirely.

That concept is completely unique to ... well, .. just about anything I've ever seen. It's also very practical as you've just read.

You would also then gain the general "sense' (Context: "Common" sense, etc.) to go around entering and exiting everything multiple times. You'll be doing it a lot in that dungeon, and maybe, ... just maybe, ... the player will do the same for most other entrances and exits in the world. You could even have a cave where 3/4 of the entrances lead to the normal area, and the last entrance leads to a little area with some sort of bonus or something. With the Random Warp combo, a ton of new stuff is possible.

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Originally Posted by Britannianhero4

Well, there are ideas and results. Burning the picture of Mars onto every pancake made this year could be a "revolutionary" idea, but it wouldn't be all that practical, nor easily done. An idea like the one you'd come up with would add something new to the concept of a Dungeon. A randomized start position would do a few unorthodox things to said dungeon:

Upon your first arrival in the dungeon, you'd think that's the only place you can start off. (Like any other dungeon.) So you go around collecting keys, killing enemies, triggering secrets, bombing walls, etc.... but you find yourself rather short in terms of what you can and can not do. So you leave, go around the overworld looking for more stuff, then you back into the dungeon, and BAM. You find yourself in another spot entirely.

That concept is completely unique to ... well, .. just about anything I've ever seen. It's also very practical as you've just read.

You would also then gain the general "sense' (Context: "Common" sense, etc.) to go around entering and exiting everything multiple times. You'll be doing it a lot in that dungeon, and maybe, ... just maybe, ... the player will do the same for most other entrances and exits in the world. You could even have a cave where 3/4 of the entrances lead to the normal area, and the last entrance leads to a little area with some sort of bonus or something. With the Random Warp combo, a ton of new stuff is possible.

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Well, I made the idea with the thought of ustilizing the random warp combos in mind. Only problem is that there's no "Cave (Walk Down) [Random]" combo. I wish there was.

Well you could always warp onto a black screen for a few tics with the "Random Tic Warp" screen flag on. That'd pretty much accomplish everything you need to do. :)

... That is, ... if that screen flag does what I think it does. > >.'

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Originally Posted by Britannianhero4

Well you could always warp onto a black screen for a few tics with the "Random Tic Warp" screen flag on. That'd pretty much accomplish everything you need to do. :)

... That is, ... if that screen flag does what I think it does. > >.'

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Ooh, good idea. But a Random Cave Warp would be easier.

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Originally Posted by Britannianhero4

NeoFirst will be somewhere between "Medium" and "Hard."

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You're making a BIG mistake, and I know you won't listen to me (no one does).

You need to make the quest "Easy" to "Moderately Easy". If you make a hard quest, only skilled ZC players are going to complete it.

Remember that your audience will be made up of a lot of ZC Newbies who are coming into ZC because of hype generated by newer versions with new features. They are not all going to have played Zelda 1 before, much less be any good at it.

By making a hard quest, you are going to isolate everyone but the "ZC Regulars" that you probably know by name.

I think you are giving the regular ZC contributors here and at PureZC some kind of preferential treatment.

If you make a hard quest, you will be experiencing constant annoying questions from "noobs" for the next year or more; that same that happened with DemoQuest.

If I am not mistaken, this project is intended to be a demo with the purpose of showing off new features. Think back to other video game demos you have played. Usually they contain the first few levels of the game (the easy levels, naturally.)

I know you want to take this opportunity to make a grand adventure, but I believe that is not appropriate for this project, and should be done at a later time. For now, focus on what your real goal should be: the showcasing of new features.

It doesn't have to be a strict procession of screens like I suggested in my first post. Use your mulitple screen warps to segment the quest into areas.

Please respect the less-skilled players in your audience. I'm just afraid you are going to shrug this post off your shoulders like you have seemed to do with my first post in this topic.

Well it needs to deal with all members of the ... well, ... of the public. If it's too easy, people will complain. If it's too hard, people will complain. .. In either case, some WON'T, but many WILL. Thus, you can make a transition from a very low level of difficulty into a higher level of difficulty. The easier areas will hook the newcomers, and the more experienced users (Even by combat alone.) will get really, really far into it.

Besides, we'll be using save points. When the player reaches that save point, they'll have the option of continuing there from then on if they want. Every single savepoint will have full healing abilities nearby. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. "Hard" doesn't mean not fair.

BH4, nobody is going to complain if it is too easy. They will understand that they are playing to see new features, and that will overjoy them.

I totally agree with BH4. The more experienced players will think it's too easy. But you can't make everone happy. There are going to be some, even when it's easy, will say it's too hard. And the more experienced people, even if it's hard, will say it's too easy. There will always be someone or people who will complain. This quest should be made at a happy medium. Having those save points will make it better.

I agree with Glenn insofar as that the first part should be accessible to newer players, and I think a "gimmick" dungeon can be better appreciated without it being insanely hard. However, that shouldn't stop later levels from being challenging, making a dungeon where you have to watch your life meter and can't just 'stroll' through is one of ZC's features too.

In short, I wouldn't like to see this become a new 'armageddon quest', but I wouldn't like it to be too easy either.

You should make an optional dungeon where you get something awesome (like the gold ring) in a dungeon that's insanely hard, but keep the rest easy to sanely hard.