New quest features/changes

[Chris H.]

I am investigating the new quest mode updates now that I finished that last keyword. The opponent notes are nice and I like the icon. On my Mac Luke Skywalker has one too many tabs between the deck name and the difficulty level and things do not line up with this one entry. Does it look the same under windows?

The Bazaar is an interesting feature. I guess that this might be considered a work in progress? The nursery and the treasury are interesting. I'm not sure which one to go for first. Nice icons. I see some more SVN updates and I guess that we will see a few of these disappear.

I like how we now have the AI decks as individual .dck files. This should make it easier for our user base to add in new AI decks. I realize how challenging it was for mere mortals to add in decks originally. And it was prone to error … this could turn off anyone who was not a masochist.

At some point do you think that you will be able to ditch the three files easy, medium and hard? If I add the " 1" or " 2" or " 3" to the end of each deck name could the code use this in assigning the deck to the three different difficulty settings?

This could help to further reduce the conflicts which can arise when a deck is deleted or name changed and the data change fails to make it into one of the three files.

I see that you have added several decks named "quest"{number}".dck" and I think that these might be associated with Quests button below the Play Game button. Is this a part of the new Fantasy setting?

[DennisBergkamp]

Chris,

Yeah the Bazaar is still a work very much in progress. Anyway, the idea is that you can buy upgrades here (a plant, a pet, more max life and a % boost in gold made). It's all pretty cheesy, but I like it

The quest{x}.dck files correspond to decks that you encounter while doing Quests (quests can be defined in quests.txt), some quests can be repeated, some can't. A lot of things that can't be customized yet in quests.txt can be done in QuestUtil.setupQuest. The rewards for a quest game are higher than a regular game, I'll add in some code that will only allow a play a quest every so many games.

[Chris H.]

Chris,

Yeah the Bazaar is still a work very much in progress. Anyway, the idea is that you can buy upgrades here (a plant, a pet, more max life and a % boost in gold made). It's all pretty cheesy, but I like it

The quest{x}.dck files correspond to decks that you encounter while doing Quests (quests can be defined in quests.txt), some quests can be repeated, some can't. A lot of things that can't be customized yet in quests.txt can be done in QuestUtil.setupQuest. The rewards for a quest game are higher than a regular game, I'll add in some code that will only allow a play a quest every so many games.

`
I like the bazaar even if it's cheesy. This can help give people the incentive to continue a quest over the long term. Something else to spend your earned credits on besides the card shop.

I have some ideas that you may want to consider adding to the bazaar. An eagle which gives you a flying blocker like the plant only the eagle can only block flying creatures. The plant can only block non-flying creatures.

And a Lady Luck option in the bazaar. This could allow you to buy a slight increase in the percentage chance to win a random rare.

[Rob Cashwalker]

Interesting.... This is the sort of stuff that will ultimately set Forge apart from all other Magic games.

[DennisBergkamp]

I like the Lady Luck idea, I'll add it, or something similar (maybe a lucky coin/charm, or a four-leaf clover?).

To answer your other questions (I must've missed them the first time). I didn't really get rid of any of the icons, however I did delete the images that correspond to the plant and pet tokens. So I put up a separate link in the 05/02 thread.

And yes, we might be able to get rid of the easy, medium and hard text files... but on the other hand, we have some opponent names that don't end on a number.

[Chris H.]

To answer your other questions (I must've missed them the first time). I didn't really get rid of any of the icons, however I did delete the images that correspond to the plant and pet tokens. So I put up a separate link in the 05/02 thread.

And yes, we might be able to get rid of the easy, medium and hard text files... but on the other hand, we have some opponent names that don't end on a number.

`
I wonder if there is anyone out there who could make us some replacement cards to take the place of the copyrighted art.

At some point this week I will go into the /res/quest/decks/ folder and I will make sure that all of the normal quest decks end in one of the three numbers. I will make sure to edit the three difficulty files to match the new deck names for those that are renamed.

At this point a little coding and we can remove the 3 difficulty files. That is probably the last hurdle in making things easier for the user base to pitch in and design a few decks.

[Beached As]

I like the bazaar idea also, quite addicting
I was thinking though, perhaps at higher difficulties you could give some tokens to the computer.
You could also have an enchantment in the bazaar granting a slow increase of +X +Y to your creatures or an artifact which does miscellaneous things like shuffling your library or looking at the top card of your library.

[DennisBergkamp]

I've thought of the +x/+y buffs, but I don't know, it might be too powerful (the items would have to be extremely expensive, or only become available after a large number of wins).

The giving creatures to the computer part, I've already implemented this (it will only happen in a"Quests" match though). After 25 wins, the Quests button at the button should be enabled. Try the White Dungeon for example, the computer should start with 25 life and have two Savannah Lion at the start. Or there's a quest that has the computer start with 3x Wall of Wood, and the human player starts with a Trusty Machete.

[Chris H.]

At some point this week I will go into the /res/quest/decks/ folder and I will make sure that all of the normal quest decks end in one of the three numbers. I will make sure to edit the three difficulty files to match the new deck names for those that are renamed.

At this point a little coding and we can remove the 3 difficulty files. That is probably the last hurdle in making things easier for the user base to pitch in and design a few decks.

`
OK, I had a minor problem but it looks like I have finished renaming the .dck files.

1) I changed the file name for some of the "original" mode quest decks. All of these .dck files now have file names that end in a " 1" or " 2" or " 3".

2) I opened each of the above .dck files in a text editor and made sure that the deck name include within these files matches the file name.

3) I opened the "easy.txt" and "medium.txt" and "hard.txt" files in a text editor and made sure that the decks names listed in these three files match the new file name.

4) I launched Forge and went into the quest mode deck editor and I did not receive any errors about missing/miss-named decks.

[Chris H.]

I really like this new and improved quest mode.

I noticed that the GUI Quest window is getting, well busy.

The Labels at the top of the widow were drifting off of center and towards the left. I looked at the code and figured out how to re-center these labels. I will merge this into the SVN later today.

I took a screen shot of the window after I re-centered the labels and I loaded this pic into my graphics editing program. I moved a few things around. I think it looks better. I have not yet added these changes into the code but I will leave you with this artist mock-up.

What do you all think:


`

[DennisBergkamp]

I like it!
However, I'm actually in the process of adding even more stuff to this (check latest SVN)

[slapshot5]

I think the old Quest Options screen had things defaulted. Currently, there is no default for Quest Length. There should be. (Or, disable the New Quest button).

I clicked the New Quest button about 12 times before I noticed the length had no default.

-slapshot5

[DennisBergkamp]

No, it never had a default... I think it's a good thing too, because people click New Quest accidentally, and their quest file gets overwritten.

[Chris H.]

I like it!
However, I'm actually in the process of adding even more stuff to this (check latest SVN)

`
I like the new stuff. I finished off the updates, but I see that I was a little slow. The rest of my work will come out with a future version.

[slapshot5]

No, it never had a default... I think it's a good thing too, because people click New Quest accidentally, and their quest file gets overwritten.

Gotcha. (Obviously, I don't use Quest much at all.) In this case, I think the New Quest button should be greyed out until a length is selected.

-slapshot5