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Epic Office Quest Changes for CM Patch 1.60


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The largest quest of the game, Epic Office Quest, involves finding 89 NPCs, representing Ascaron employees. There're no markers, one has to consult the Wiki constantly, and the only way to keep track is to manually count "Contact" entries in the "Tasks" portion of the logbook. Very annoying, overall. In addition, two of the NPCs drop valuable items without clear indication, one can easily miss those.

The changes introduced are:

1. Once the task is received from Heiko tom Felde, every developer location receives a blue quest marker, so it's now much easier to track and find them. As a side effect "Contact" entries for the devs met no longer display in the "Tasks" portion of the logbook.

2. The "Power of NIF" lightsaber and  the "Benny's Promise" ring are received at the very end of the quest, along with all other rewards.

 

I now request the interested fellow players to test this change. The files in the attachment should be extracted to the "game_directory"\scripts\server folder. Backup the originals first, as always.

scripts.rar

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While I thank you for all your hard work, I wonder if you aren't going a little bit too far? Where is the element of intrigue, the questing by having to search for things? If they are just marked on the map so you don't have to bother hunting for them, are we wanting the game to end up like so many others, made so brainlessly easy that even Care Bears can manage it? No need to think, just follow the markers on the map!

I have seen this happening with other games I play, the games have been "improved" by making it so that players are led around by the hand with no need to think, just follow the markers and do as you are told. Games that were once challenging and are now just about Hello Kitty standard. Please be careful that you don't "improve" this game to the point that it is no longer worth playing!

 

Edited by podgie_bear
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1 hour ago, podgie_bear said:

Games that were once challenging and are now just about Hello Kitty standard

Ahh, yes, Blizzard Entertaiment and Ubisoft, right? I am of opinion, that those simplification trends are followed out of greed, not out of misguided desire to make games better, though.

 

1 hour ago, podgie_bear said:

made so brainlessly easy that even Care Bears can manage it?

I would have agreed, if we were discussing some riddle, or, if a convoluted labyrinth had to be traversed. I would've never made it easier.

What we have in this particular situation is different -  there's no logic applied, what's required is, for the lack of a proper term, "iron arse". One has to have enough fortitude for constant Wiki map cross-reference and battling the slow and unresponsive "Tasks" section scrolling. A challenge for one's mind, yes, but of a different nature.

 

The hilarious thing is, that it's not even a modification, but a quest script bugfix - developer NPCs were supposed to have markers. It's that the scripter has erroneously assigned incorrect parameters to the procedure in question.

 

1 hour ago, podgie_bear said:

Please be careful that you don't "improve" this game to the point that it is no longer worth playing!

Indeed, I hope not to.

Edited by dimitrius154
  • Like! 1
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7 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

I would have agreed, if we were discussing some riddle, or, if a convoluted labyrinth had to be traversed. I would've never made it easier.

What we have in this particular situation is different -  there's no logic applied, what's required is, for the lack of a proper term, "iron arse". One has to have enough fortitude for constant Wiki map cross-reference and battling the slow and unresponsive "Tasks" section scrolling. A challenge for one's mind, yes, but of a different nature.The hilarious thing is, that it's not even a modification, but a quest script bugfix - developer NPCs were supposed to have markers. It's that the scripter has erroneously assigned incorrect parameters to the procedure in question.

Indeed, I hope not to.

Aah but not everyone uses the wiki to lead them to everyone. Some of us actually search for them ourselves and think of just using the wiki as a form of cheating, or at least as the lazy way of doing things. Maybe we are just old school in out approach, in the same way as we only played on the hardcore servers back in the day and still play our characters as hardcore today. We don't all want to have everything laid out for us and still want to play a game where we have to think for ourselves.

 

Maybe you might want to consider making this option switchable in the same way that Christmas Island had to be 'turned on' because I certainly don't want it all plastered on the map for me and I know several other players who have similar feelings. We may be a minority, I don't know. Maybe we will just have to not install this if you say that it is a "take it or leave it" proposition. 

Edited by podgie_bear
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Well, it's easy to remove, if you don't like the thing:

"game_directory"\scripts\server\questscripts.txt. Find the following fragment:

quest.setScript( 2255, "OnTaskFulfilled", function(args)
local talkquests = {
2256,2258,2260,2262,2264,2266,2268,2270,2271,2274,
2391,2393,2395,2397,2399,2401,2408,2412,2414,2416,
2426,2428,2430,2432,2436,2438,2440,2442,2444,2446,
2448,2450,2452,2454,2456,2458,2552,2554,2556,2558,
2560,2562,2564,2566,2568,2570,2571,2574,2576,2578,
2582,2584,2586,2924,2925,2926,2927,2928,2929,2930,
2931,2942,2943,2944,2945,2946,2947,2948,2949,2950,
2951,2952,2953,2955,2956,2957,2958,2959,2960,2962,
3163,3301,3303,3305,3307,3309,3311,3313,3385,
}
for I,qid in ipairs(talkquests) do
solveQuest(qid)
end
end)

and remove it. Also, use this post's attachment, as quest.txt

quest.rar

Edited by dimitrius154
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From my memories of the game the different NPC's did have quest markers on them on the map. However, it's been a while since I played the game so I can't recall if it was the CM patch team who have already changed how they behave or if it was part of the original game. I definitely recall a lot of circles on the map telling me where to go though.

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Each developer NPC has two quest instances addressing it:

The first one, the "Talk" instance is responsible for those "!" markers above their heads and their random dialogue, if you meet them before starting the "Epic Office Quest". It also places blue markers at their locations, once you approach them. The markers appear to stay, if you don't talk to them.

The second one, the "Reach" instance is responsible for their dialogue and teleportation, once you find them after starting the "Epic Office Quest". Due to how it is structured, the "Nobody" instance at the end of the chain, and a certain badly made procedure, markers were not assigned.

 

The corrected version of the procedure is the one, I've posted for Podgie_bear. Since the original CM Patch quest scripts specialist Marcuswob would surely not have made the mistakes I've seen, I assume that the erroneous procedure was written by the original game devs. They've rushed the game development, very significantly.

Well, at least Mr. Kayser's part, the game world didn't suffer from it. Well, almost, that is - Thylysium dock area did.

Edited by dimitrius154
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35 minutes ago, Flix said:

Marcus did make changes to this quest in the past.

I never stated, that he didn't, merely that I was sure, he would not have made the errors I've seen, like the following procedure:

quest.setScript( 2255, "OnPrecondsFulfilled", function(args)
local talkquests = {
2257,2259,2261,2263,2265,2267,2269,2272,2273,2275,
2392,2394,2396,2398,2400,2402,2409,2413,2415,2417,
2427,2429,2431,2433,2437,2439,2441,2443,2445,2447,
2449,2451,2453,2455,2457,2459,2553,2555,2557,2559,
2561,2563,2565,2567,2569,2572,2573,2575,2577,2579,
2583,2585,2587,2913,2914,2915,2916,2917,2918,2919,
2920,2921,2922,2964,2965,2966,2967,2968,2969,2970,
2971,2972,2973,2974,2975,2976,2977,2978,2979,2980,
3162,3302,3304,3306,3308,3310,3312,3314,3384
}
for I,qid in ipairs(talkquests) do
solveQuest(qid)
end
end)

"Talk" instances instead of "Reach" instances. Also, using the "OnPrecondsFulfilled", instead of "OnTaskFulfilled". This excerpt is from the questscripts.txt from the 1.60 materials you've posted back in September-October.

 

Turns out, I was wrong. The procedure is non-existent in vanilla questcsripts.txt. Interesting, so what I've made is actually a CM Patch stated functionality fix.

Edited by dimitrius154
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5 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

Turns out, I was wrong. The procedure is non-existent in vanilla questcsripts.txt. Interesting, so what I've made is actually a CM Patch stated functionality fix.

This is what I suspected. 

What is actual vanilla behavior?  Are we sure it's not best?  All respect to Marcus, but maybe his changes were not needed at all, and so fixing them may not be needed either?  Just thinking out loud here...

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27 minutes ago, Flix said:

What is actual vanilla behavior?  Are we sure it's not best? 

Quest markers appear on developer positions, if you pass in their location sector before initiating the quest, disappear, if you talk to them, or initiate the quest.

No markers appear for "Reach" subquests, because the "Epic Office Quest" is marked as finished the moment you receive the task from Felde.

 

So you still cannot ignore the developers entirely and you still have to search for them manually. Marmoset's labour.

 

Podgie_bear, you don't have to use the quest.txt from the archive attachment after all, the one from the head post will suffice.

Edited by dimitrius154
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
25 minutes ago, ben007 said:

I only got the hammer and the Ellen's ring.

 

"game_directory"\scripts\server\quest.txt, entry starts with "quest.createQuest(2652,". Could you, please, post the "rewards" part? 

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13 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

"game_directory"\scripts\server\quest.txt, entry starts with "quest.createQuest(2652,". Could you, please, post the "rewards" part? 

I am new to the scripts, what are you wanting me to do?

Edited by ben007
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18 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

To open the quest.txt file, find the quest entry and post the "rewards" section of the entry in this thread.

Reward_exp=1

reward_gold=1

reward_drop=1

reward_attr=0

reward_skill=0

also 

rewards=

57,0

653,0

656,0

656,0

57,0

57,0

650,0

647,0

2453,0

2468,0

Edited by ben007
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Given the fact, that it should be

rewards = {
{57,0},
{653,0},
{656,0},
{656,0},
{57,0},
{57,0},
{650,0},
{647,0},
{2453,0},
{2468,0},
{1674,0},
{2467,0},
},

 

I have to wonder at whether the patch was installed correctly...

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1 minute ago, dimitrius154 said:

Given the fact, that it should be

rewards = {
{57,0},
{653,0},
{656,0},
{656,0},
{57,0},
{57,0},
{650,0},
{647,0},
{2453,0},
{2468,0},
{1674,0},
{2467,0},
},

 

I have to wonder at whether the patch was installed correctly...

This is mine.

rewards = {
{57,0},
{653,0},
{656,0},
{656,0},
{57,0},
{57,0},
{650,0},
{647,0},
{2453,0},
{2468,0},
},

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