Acelon Report post Posted November 30, 2007 Posted in the New Tasks thread, and was told to make a seperate post. The quest log as of now is very un-userfriendly, and I would like that to change since we have a few new quests coming out soon. Ideally, I'd like it seperated into tabs with the quest's title in the tab. For example... [seridian Journey] [Winery Quest] [Master and Apprentice] We'll take Seridian Journey (Wraith quest) as an example.. When you click on the tab, this is where the quest info would be given. Rather than it being one big clump together, I'd also like it to be spaced nicely. For example: Wraith: Look for Tobias in Tirnwood Vale. He has a house there. Tobias: Meet with Kalana, she is the govenor of Corren in Desert Pines. Kalana: I want to see if you were paying attention.. visit Elandria's temple and touch the base of the tree. **You placed your hand on the base of the tree. This should be good enough for Kalana** Kalana: Find Nyeald, he is the mayor of portland. etc etc Does anyone have a suggest that would appear better? This would obviously require taking the info the server sends and formatting it into the client. I would also like to see the quest log have a seperate file per different username. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted December 2, 2007 Any idea how that would be implemented? How does the client know which quest is which? How can we add more quests without a client update? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted December 2, 2007 That's the thing, I'm not sure what's the best way to go about it. Is there a way for the client to detect the name of a quest that is set by the server? Or maybe it could just be sorted by NPC. Anything is better than what we currently have Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted December 2, 2007 WoW is better than EL, so let's make EL to be like WoW. Opps, wouldn't work, we don't have the resources for it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted December 2, 2007 Heh, you should know I've never played WoW I was referring to a similar quest log like the french EL server has that I brought to your attention a while ago. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sanga Report post Posted December 2, 2007 Any idea how that would be implemented? How does the client know which quest is which? How can we add more quests without a client update? Just throwing out an idea here: 1. Modify the messages that the server sends for quest-related messages, to preface them with an identifier for the quest (and the name of the NPC). For instance, for messages in involving the "Seridian Journey" quest, the message would something like "<marker>Seridian Journey<marker>Wraith<marker>message text" where "<marker>" is some arbitrary marker/separator character, like <TAB>, that won't appear in the normal text. 2. Modify the "questlog.c" file to read the entire file, setting up a separate buffer for each quest as it's encountered, and putting the text into the appropriate buffer based on that identifier string (have an "Unknown Quest" buffer to handle any messages in the file that don't have the identifier. Then, combine the various buffers into a single buffer for actually displaying the now-sorted-by-quest info (adding some extra lines to identify the various quests. Here's a rough example of what the final buffer would look like: ******************************* Tutorial Quest ***** ************************** Tutorial NPC: First, I want you to go collect some flowers... Tutorial NPC:: Now, go to the various inns... **************************** ***** Seridian Journey ***** **************************** Wraith: You should go on a journey of knowledge... Next NPC: Next, go to.... Next NPC: Ok, now go to ... This would be far from perfect (you'd still have to scroll around to find a particular quest), but at least it would be organized. A somewhat more sophisticated expansion on the idea: Convert the text into some sort of XML structure, and then use something like the Encyclopedia's interface - the first page would list all identified quests, and clicking on one would bring up the buffer for that particular quest. Not quite as slick as adding a new tab for each quest, but probably easier to do. The first idea (just sorting by quest) appears to be pretty easy to implement. Any comments? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted December 3, 2007 That would require modifying all the quest dialogues. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted December 3, 2007 What about just seperated by NPC that the quest started at? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sanga Report post Posted December 3, 2007 (edited) That would require modifying all the quest dialogues. The question is: how much actual work is involved in changing those dialogs? Depending on exactly how those strings are stored, it could be possible to handle all of the modifications with a few "sed" and/or "awk" commands. Or as bad as having to manually edit a whole slew of quest-related files. Since this is server-side, it's entirely up to you whether or not it actually constitutes "too much" work. Edited December 3, 2007 by Sanga Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sanga Report post Posted December 3, 2007 (edited) What about just seperated by NPC that the quest started at? Same problem - unless the server tells the client the name of the NPC who started the quest, the client has no way to tell what name to file it under. It would *still* require more info from the server than is currently provided. Edited December 3, 2007 by Sanga Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted December 3, 2007 It is more work than I am willing to do. The best RPGs I played didn't even have a quest log. I wrote down the stuff I had to remmeber the old fashioned way, pencil and paper. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bluap Report post Posted January 1, 2008 I don't know if it helps but I was looking around the quest log code today fixing a bug (display problems if you start without a quest log file). Anyway, I thought of a way to get the NPC name client side. When you click on the NPC to open the dialogue, the client can get the NPC name from the actor_under_mouse variable. This name can be stored and used when new quest text arrives. One simple way to use this would be to pre-fix each line in the quest log with the NPC's name. A more complex use would be to separate the quest log for each NPC into separate tabs/windows/views. Let me know if either would be useful. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted January 1, 2008 Actually, the NPC name is sent along with the portrait as well, in SEND_NPC_INFO. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bluap Report post Posted January 1, 2008 Actually, the NPC name is sent along with the portrait as well, in SEND_NPC_INFO. Even better Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted January 2, 2008 Anything would be an improvement Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bluap Report post Posted January 2, 2008 (edited) Anything would be an improvement I've done the simple change to tag each line with the npc name. If this is OK, I'll commit the change. edit: this change is backwards compatible with existing quest log entries. They just don't have the npc prefix. Edited January 2, 2008 by bluap Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted January 2, 2008 Just that simple change is a vast improvement Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robindell Report post Posted January 2, 2008 I do agree with Acelon that anything would be an improvement and as Entropy said "I wrote down the stuff", as a matter of fact I still write it down, and if that is the best was to do it then obviously the Quest log could either use some improvement or should be eliminated because pencil and paper are better, howver (and I am not up on the necessary changes necessary but can appreciate that resources are of course limited) something along the suggestion from bluap seems the most effective for the least possible cost. Just my ha'penny worth Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bluap Report post Posted January 2, 2008 Just that simple change is a vast improvement OK, it's in CVS. May be we can pick up more changes after the soon-to-be release. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Demagogue Report post Posted January 27, 2008 I defenitely agree with your suggestion in editing the quest log. I have a lot of trouble finding what I have to do because I have all this text jumbled up into my Quest Log. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Entropy Report post Posted January 28, 2008 Pen and paper maybe? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
amd Report post Posted February 8, 2008 Pen and paper maybe? There's also notebook feature in the client... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
amd Report post Posted February 11, 2008 Shouldn't the god quests also end up under Quest log? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kl4Uz Report post Posted May 6, 2008 I went with maekloev to the winery today and he started the wine quest. Afterwards he mentioned to me that what Latis said was not written down in the quest log. Is this intentional or a bug? In addition is there any chance/way that the questlog, or even simpler the progress, will be stored server side in the future? I tried to buy leather a few days ago and I noticed the NPC doesn't want to sell me any, even though I'm almost 100% positive that i made the quest two or three years ago and already bought from that NPC. With each client change, re-installation etc the questlog is lost, which means there is no way for me to check if my mind is playing tricks on me or this is actually a bug. Even a small ticklist (e.g. Wine Quest - done) would be great, though from what I read in this thread it might be a lot of work to implement. I know the quests are a lot of work and there are other important things on the to-do-list, however I do believe any improvement would be an investement in the future, where we might see more and more advanced quests coming up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
