[WIP] Quest Worlds development status

[RumbleBBU]

I have now committed the initial stage of 'quest worlds'. As of yet, there is only one alternate world, Shandalar.

Please report any oddities.

Development status:
This is strictly 'stage 1'. Currently you can just travel between Shandalar and the main quest environment to play different opponents and challenges. Since the challenges are world-specific, they will be reseted (i.e., removed) when you travel to a different world. You will be given a warning, though, if you have any uncompleted challenges so you can go back and complete them before you travel to the different world.

The next step (stage 2 or stages 2 and 3) will be world selection at quest startup and format enforcing according to the world. The format will change when you travel to a different world. That probably won't make the next beta - hopefully the current world travelling functionality will be smooth before then.
By the way, thanks for your feedback in the Developer Plans thread, I'm using them as a reference when implementing the format enforcing part.

Notes:

- I think it would be best if challenge numbering/ids were unique across the different worlds. Otherwise, doing a non-repeatable challenge in one world could lock a different challenge in another world. Adding code to prevent this would be slightly problematic, so it's IMO better to simply use unique numbering for all quests in all worlds. I've now renumbered the Shandalar challenges to be unique.
- The commit of the actual code made today's snapshot while my renumbering of Shandalar quests narrowly missed it.
- The Shandalar duels and challenges currently have no icons. I chose not to commit them to the SVN due to copyright worries. What would be the best way distribute them, if at all? A dropbox link in a post? (Actually, they are already an attachment in an earlier post I made to the Forge Decks area.)

[friarsol]

- I think it would be best if challenge numbering/ids were unique across the different worlds. Otherwise, doing a non-repeatable challenge in one world could lock a different challenge in another world. Adding code to prevent this would be slightly problematic, so it's IMO better to simply use unique numbering for all quests in all worlds. I've now renumbered the Shandalar challenges to be unique.

Are challenge IDs integers or strings? If they were strings, we could just prepend all of them with the name of the world, and then we wouldn't have to worry about. If they are integers we could take the uniqueness of the ID + Name of World for uniqueness. (If no World is provided, then base Quest is assumed).

[Chris H.]

I have now committed the initial stage of 'quest worlds'. As of yet, there is only one alternate world, Shandalar.

 
Ah, great. Thank you. Looks interesting.

The commit of the actual code made today's snapshot while my renumbering of Shandalar quests narrowly missed it.

 
Opps, sorry about that. I will update my local copy and will then quickly release another snapshot build.

[RumbleBBU]

Progress report...

Since the deadline for the next beta will be slightly later than in the original estimates, I've now committed 'Stage 2' of Quest Worlds code. The main differences between Stage 1 and this are:

1) Quest world formats, if defined, are now enforced and always take precedence over user-defined formats while the user is in a format-enforcing world.

2) When starting a new quest, the player chooses a quest world. The 'Main world' is the default. 'Shandalar' is currently the only alternative. If the starting world enforces a format, the format selection controls will be disabled, and the quest world format will be used for the starting pool and the persisting format.
(As a side effect in the current implementation, if the player later travels to a world that does not enforce a format, his persisting format will still be the quest world format and he can't unlock any more sets. The 'prized' format and the unlock button should perhaps be unaffected by the quest world format since the world format will be enforced anyway as long as the player stays in that world. I will change that soon.)
EDIT: I have changed the functionality so that you can now define a custom format for prized cards and select set unlocking even if you start the game in a format-enforcing world. Of course, these settings will have no effect until you travel to a different world that does not enforce a format.

Todo / ideas for further development:
- Once the quest worlds code is functional in a beta (that would be 1.3.4), I will write and post documentation on how to use quest worlds and create new ones. I will probably also update the Quest documentation on the more recent features, while I'm at it.
- At some stage, I will change the challenge identifier to include world information, as suggested by Sol, so it will be easier to keep track of 'locked' (done non-repeatable) challenges.
- There should be a more logical way to order the worlds in the world selection menu on the starting page. Currently they are in the alphabetical order, meaning that whatever is the first in the alphabetical order is the default. The 'Main world' should always be the default. Currently it is but that is simply because the only other world is 'Shandalar'. If someone adds, e.g., an 'Alara' world, that would be displayed as the default. Should I add code to make the 'Main world' always the default? Or should I order the combo box list so that the 'Main world' will always be #1? (Urgh, that could mean I might have to restore the otherwise-useless indices that I removed just a revision or two ago.)
- There probably should also be startup option to disable 'Travel' if someone wants lock the whole quest into a single world.
- And of course, most importantly, we need lots of new worlds and opponent decks! (I've already posted to the general area regarding this...)

[moomarc]

- There should be a more logical way to order the worlds in the world selection menu on the starting page. Currently they are in the alphabetical order, meaning that whatever is the first in the alphabetical order is the default. The 'Main world' should always be the default. Currently it is but that is simply because the only other world is 'Shandalar'. If someone adds, e.g., an 'Alara' world, that would be displayed as the default. Should I add code to make the 'Main world' always the default? Or should I order the combo box list so that the 'Main world' will always be #1? (Urgh, that could mean I might have to restore the otherwise-useless indices that I removed just a revision or two ago.)

Can you not just encapsulate the name of Main World in square brackets? [Main World] should show up before any reasonable name. Then if the name is displayed anywhere you can surely just replace "[" and "]" with "".

[RumbleBBU]

Hmm...that is a possibility. Although the hack to remove [] in the display code is not much less work than reinstating indices (which might also have some other uses). I'll think about that.

[silly freak]

So make some sort of Comparator that handles the special case and otherwise preserves alphabetical order. The toString can remain the same, and everything is shown as intended