My suggestions regarding NeoFirst

[Glenn the Great]

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.

[firefly]

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

[Glenn the Great]

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.

[ShadowTiger]

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. ) 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.

[koopa]

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.

[rocksfan13]

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.

[ShadowTiger]

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.

[idontknow]

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.

[rocksfan13]

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?

[ShadowTiger]

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.