So, umm... who won the contest?
So, umm... who won the contest?
Hey James. What's new?
Of course I did.Originally Posted by James24
...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.
This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.
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.
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.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.
This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.
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.
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.
This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.
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.
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.
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.
This post contains the official Gleeok seal of approval. Look for these and other posts in an area near you.
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?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote