Fifth Quest Planning and Discussion

[zcfan27330]

Here's my pathetic entry

http://hornet.sandhills.edu/mcswaint...I/T5%20(2).qst

[CJC]

Sorry, I've been either out-of-town or busy the last 3 weeks so I haven't been to very active during that time... Anyway, as it stands now there's a few issues with some entries (I haven't had time to go through all of them yet, sorry) which need to be fixed:
CJC: Overworld contains additional maze paths.

Overworld
In maintaining consistency with the first four quests, the overworld must remain almost entirely identical to those quests. There may be subtle aesthetic differences (such as changing the entrance of a dungeon to the entrance of a cave) but aside that must be the same.
Note that you are free to rearrange secret entrances, item locations, and cave types to your liking, but any entrances that are NOT secrets must remain in the same place, though of course they don't have to LEAD to the same place. You can change a dungeon entrance into a fairy pool or a whistle->stairs pool, and vice versa. And, of course, you can change First Quest's existing whistle->stairs pool into a fairy pool or an ordinary pool.

Specific Overworld Rules
* One DMap for the overworld. The following DMap flags must be enabled, with all others disabled: "Use Caves...",
"Allow 3-Stair Warp Rooms", "Allow Whistle Whirlwinds", "Special Rooms and Guys are in Caves Only".
* One 3-Stair Warp Ring per quest.
* One Whistle Warp Ring per quest.

Judging
* The first round of judging will be performed by judges, entrants, and the community, ideally eliminating all but the top three or four candidates. Picking a winner from the finalists will be handled much in the same way except with much more diligence. Anyone voting for the final quest should have played every entry in it's entirety. Public votes will be tallied and weighed as appropriately by any official judges and developers, and a winner will be decided. Finally, everyone can have a vote!
(Disclaimer: Some possible issues from this method may arise when a very strong 5th candidate does not make the first cut due to being underplayed or unpopular for any unknown or unforeseeable reason. Therefore, in order to maintain complete fairness for all entrants, no entry will be able to lose simply from lack of votes (lack of vote does not also imply non-vote), and judges reserve the right to un-eliminate any quest deemed worthy.)

Other misc. criteria for rejection
* The biggest changes here is obviously the fact that scripting is allowed. I cannot stress enough that you don't want to "over-script" or alter landmark LOZ mechanics in any way, in which case it will be rejected.
* If your quest is too easy it will be rejected.
* If your quest is too hard it will be rejected. (Although I have to note that the hardest entry to date was AlphaDawg's entry... and that won!)

* Note - Rejected quests are not disqualified. If your quest is rejected for one of possible various reasons (also reserved for judges discretion) that doesn't break any obvious rules stated above, you will have an opportunity to fix any problems and resubmit the quest, no questions asked.

I think it would be interesting if 5th quest had the freedom to change the classic 'lost woods' maze screens. Any screen with four exits at a choke-point on the Overworld should be fair game for a new maze, especially one that breaks the two classic "up, up" and "north, west, south, west" paths.

Two that come to mind are the screens just before the classic entrance to Level 2: 4D and 5D.

Screen 68 is another good choke-point that would work well for a maze. You can navigate around it, but only by braving the beach.



There are a few others spots where modification for the purpose of adding a maze should be allowed. For example, screen 3B (the upper corner of the four-screen desert) would make a good maze choke-point with just some slight layout modification (to fix walkability problems from wraparound).


Wouldn't it be fun to tack two mazes right next to each other? Maybe the whole desert is a maze, one you have to piece together from hints scattered in the dungeons.

Wouldn't it be fun to tack two mazes right next to each other? Maybe the whole desert is a maze, one you have to piece together from hints scattered in the dungeons.

Someone did that before! It was not fun and I quit playing it. No! )

The rules regarding the overworld say nothing about maze restriction. I explicitly asked about changing the mazes when we first discussed the rules. Your only response was in rejection of two adjacent maze paths. Therefore, your claim that my placement of mazes on the overworld disqualifies my entry is a judge ruling, which means it requires approval of the majority of the judging panel to be grounds for disqualification. Since no judging panel will be established before the general vote is complete, my quest cannot be disqualified on these grounds at this time.

On another note, I think it’s pretty bogus that you would drop these additional rules as proclamations on competitors who submitted early (in my case, a MONTH before the deadline) with three days left in the contest. So I stand by my original statement: any additional rules you would levy at this point in the contest are judge rules and need to be approved by majority vote.

If people hate the mazes on my overworld, I'll be eliminated by the popular vote. Don't dump me from competing before the contest even starts.

[Nightmare]

I just want to bring up one thing bugging me about this contest. I thought I'd elaborate on this more:

I have found almost all of the entires following more of a New Quest'ish type of power curve for enemies rather than levels sticking to mostly enemy groups that were presented on the NES. While this is very cool in a custom quest, for a Legend of Zelda quest this is kinda bad news and part of an NES limitation by memory and I think people have been abusing the heck out of this.

For everyone's information, I thought I'd post this to make it more clear (according to the 1st Quest groups):
Level 1, 2, 7: Blue and Red Goriya, Stalfos 1 and 2, Rope and Flashing Rope, Keese and Bat, Zol and Gel
Level 3, 5, 8: Blue and Red Darknut, Pols Voice, Gibdo, Keese, Zol and Gel
Level 4, 6, 9: Blue and Red Wizzrobe, Vire, Keese, Zol and Gel, Like-Like

While this isn't going to get anyone disqualified by any means, this is perturbing me a bit as a judge that people didn't seem to follow this at all. I know there is a line "Rules are made to be broken" (which I even posted in my quest), but there should be a little more respect given to this fact. The fact it's been thrown out of the window, and this is a real NES restriction, bothers me quite a lot.

Megamixing 9 isn't going to hurt much. The other levels, probably.

It also might be OK to switch colors, as long as the enemy groups are respected to some degree (as I did in my quest because my Level 9 was blue instead of white/red, so I put a Goriya level in the place of that).

Just thought I'd pass this on, since I'm probably going to have a pretty big say in judging from playing most of these.

-James

[Imzogelmo]

I admit, I have thrown that restriction out for the most part as well, but I have tried to have vaguely "themed" enemy groups per level. I didn't do anything crazy like put Wizzrobes and Darknuts together. I chose enemies on two criteria: difficulty and terrain. Basically, involving the controlling of when certain enemies get introduced, and keeping certain groups as the primary go-to enemy of the level. And, if that weren't confusing enough, I generally have one room in a dungeon that completely throws that out the window. It's part of the whole "keep them on their toes" mentality. I have sometimes used the old NES strategy of downgrading enemies by leaving and returning to the advantage of the player (at the cost of backtracking and taking more time, you increase your survivability--seems a fair tradeoff. If I don't want you to do that, I make it impossible or impractical).

My understanding is that it has to "look" NES-like, but if ZQ can do it, and no rules prevent it, then it is legal. Of course, authenticity is part of the grading, but pushing the limits just a bit beyond 4th quest is also one of the goals, yes?

On a different note, isn't one of the "rules" that level 9 must be the white/red color scheme?

[Nightmare]

I don't see why White/Red is one of the rules, as I've brought this up to Gleeok before. There is nothing on the NES cartridge restricting this for the hardest enemy group and is I think mostly there for tradition.

And to clarify: It's not a DQ, but enemy groups are a big part of the grading according to the people I've talked to or heard from so far.

I think it should be out. I know in my quest I used Lv. 1's color for a reason (if you play my quest you'd understand why, integral to the story)

-James

[Nightmare]

Updated:Through Travster's

The Iron Man Award (Most Difficult):
1. BigJoe
2. Nightmare
3. Chris Miller
4. Travster
5. DCSyxx

The Riddler Award (most puzzles):
1. Chris Miller
2. BigJoe
3. Nightmare
4. Travster
5. DCSyxx

The Smeargle Award (Most Creative):
1. Nightmare
2. BigJoe
3. Chris Miller
4. DCSyxx
5. Travster

The Tetris Award (Most Fun and Addictive Quest)
1. Nightmare
2. Chris Miller
3. BigJoe
4. Travster
5. DCSyxx

The NES award (Most Authentic):
1. DCSyxx
2. BigJoe
3. Chris Miller
4. Travster
5. Nightmare

DQ worthy (you've got work to do, didn't follow specs, quest may or may not be good, worst offenders first):
1. Pete and Wally
2. Shoelace
3. CJC

Cheers!

-James

[Nightmare]

Updated judging scores (excluding my own for bias reasons): (updated after BigJoe's revamp)

1. BigJoe: 90.0%
2. Chris Miller: 80.0%
3. CJC (if he fixes his maze paths): 51.0%
4. DCSyxx: 49.67%
5. Travster: 46.67%

[Imzogelmo]

I look forward to playing it, but I gotta put the finishing touches on mine first (time's almost out!) :)

[zcfan27330]

I know I took the level enemy theme and just definstreated it

[Gleeok]

@CJC : I know what it says:

"In maintaining consistency with the first four quests, the overworld must remain almost entirely identical to those quests. There may be subtle aesthetic differences (such as changing the entrance of a dungeon to the entrance of a cave) but aside [from] that must be the same."

I don't know why it's such a big issue. Personally, I don't really care one way or another; it's just that the rules need to be changed if they are allowed. (They were off-limits in the previous contests as well)