Quest chain category

[Sy_Accursed]

I think it might be a nice addition to atleast have a quest chain field in quest guides for appropriate quests, but also perhaps the possiblity of searching quests by chain and maybe even a page summarising the various chains.

 

Eg you'd have "Elf Chain"

Plague City > Biohazard > Underground Pass > Regicide > Roving Elves > Mournings End part 1 > Mournings end part 2 > Within the Light

 

Note that the chain would exclude quests not strictly related to it's story arc; eg roving elves is needed for the gnome line but its not part of the story arc of the gnomes. Or priest in peril being needed for like every myreque quest, but its not strictly linked just happens to open up that area.

Just to give people a bit of guidance as to where the on-going plot arcs/story groups are

 

Just a random thought.

 

Personally I'd guess having a quest chain page would be less work since then on quest guides the chain field can just link to the appropriate anchor, since it'd be tricky to automate the chain being filled in like "progression" segment does, which saves having to edit several quest guides every time the chain expands.

[essiw]

I think there was already a suggestion about a quest-tree a long time ago, it is about the same thing you suggested but then in a tree form instead of a chain form :)

[Jaffy1]

@Wisse, you were correct. The old thread with tree diagram can be found here.

 

Eg you'd have "Elf Chain"

Plague City > Biohazard > Underground Pass > Regicide > Roving Elves > Mournings End part 1 > Mournings end part 2 > Within the Light

 

An issue would be that lower level quests eventually unlock a series of quests that may not all have something to do with each other.

 

I'm not sure how useful such a page would be, to be honest.

[Sy_Accursed]

This isn't about showing quest requirement chains, simple about showing the on-going story arcs and the quests that actually fill in that story; which makes it different from the tree idea and mutes your first point.

 

The use would be given guidance about where and what the long stories are so new users can actually see what quests make up the gnome or elf or myreque quest chains as it is not immediately obvious; I mean if your new to the game your gonna have no idea what the elf series comprises of because there's no obvious links between them in the names etc.

 

There'd be a lot of quests that don't fit into such a chain category, such as the low level ones you mention that crop up as a requirement for a lot of stuff but aren't linked in terms of a story arc.

 

The arcs would be:

elf

penguin

gnome

monkey

myreque

mahjratt

desert (a fairly loose one atm but they are all going somewhere)

White knights

sea slugs

summer

void knights/pests

Elemental workshop

Pirates

Fremmenik (they are begining to come together into a loose story)

 

And that'd cover it I think

[Jaffy1]

Other than being a bit vague, as said before, I don't really see the use for a page like this.

I doubt newer players would be like "Hey, I want to do the elven quest chain" - and even if they would be, there may be additional quest requirements to parts of the chain than the specific quests that would belong to a chain.

 

If a user would be curious as to what may follow they can see it the way it is currently displayed.

[essiw]

The only use I see for this would be if you would write the storyline of all those arcs.

[Jaffy1]

The only use I see for this would be if you would write the storyline of all those arcs.

 

Which then would make it a spoiler guide, which would defeat the purpose for those interested in the storylines when they do quests, and would be rather redundant seeing how the stories are also described in quest guides.

[Sy_Accursed]

Which is why i suggested it primarily as a category on the quest page itself, just so that people can see the story grouping it belongs too and perhaps search by it. A brief summary page would merely be an added extra that may be possible, but not vital.

[Jaffy1]

Like I stated in this post, I am unsure what the use would be. If players would be curious as to what follows, they can simply look at the quest guide for the advancement.

[Sy_Accursed]

For users who want to see clearly which story arc the quest ties too, which quest advancement doesn't exclusively show; or be able to quickly see a list of quests that follow that story so they can see where its going and future reqs etc.

[Kimberly]

For users who want to see clearly which story arc the quest ties too, which quest advancement doesn't exclusively show; or be able to quickly see a list of quests that follow that story so they can see where its going and future reqs etc.

 

Quests involved in arcs, or required for other quests have links in the advancement section though...I can't think of a story-related quest that doesn't have this.

[Sy_Accursed]

But that doesn't tell you anything about where the story goes or does not go short of checking each link yourself to trace where the specific story arc goes (especially for ones with several links, but not all story related); which isn't easy when you do not know the quest title. Or if ur coming to it with a recommendation to do the elf series, how do you know what on earth tht series has in it?

[Kimberly]

Using the search feature of the site for terms like "elf storyline" or "dwarf storyline" bring up the results for those themed quests pretty quickly, so I can't really say I agree with your point. :/

[Sy_Accursed]

No it doesn't

 

elf storyline search:

http://www.google.com/cse?q=elf+storyline&cx=012172442310630617423%3Arvve24r-70w#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=elf%20storyline&gsc.page=1

 

8 results:

 

2 tip.it times articles

Music guide

MA Guide

Slayer guide

Gods Guide

A news archive post about void quest

Regicide quest guide

 

Not really giving a comprehensive answer to the elf story line, though It would if there was a quest chain category that clearly marked the all as the elf storyline so search would find them via tht tagging.

 

Dwarf fairs vaguely better, 2 quests guides in the first page but only because they both have Dwarf in the quest name.

But most are same as elf or worse.

 

Like penguin gets no results, sea slug gets the quest xp guide but no specific quest guides, void knight picks up 1, white knight gets nothing linked etc.

[Kimberly]

The quests are in the top results, though, is what I'm saying.

 

Honestly there's just not a lot of benefit in it. There are more quests without a storyline than with, yet having prereqs for other quests, that all those dangling threads would render such a map meaningless.

[Sy_Accursed]

The quests are in the top results, though, is what I'm saying.

 

Honestly there's just not a lot of benefit in it. There are more quests without a storyline than with, yet having prereqs for other quests, that all those dangling threads would render such a map meaningless.

 

But they aren't, one or two appear for some; but nowhere near the entire series.

 

And I have no idea wtf ur on about a map with dangling threads.

[Kimberly]

You want them chained--mapped--and there simply isn't a storyline to go with each quest.

[Sy_Accursed]

No I don't want anything mapped.

Just a category to marker quests that ARE in story arcs, not really anything to do with mapping.

For the primary purpose of making them findable based on series.

 

And I fail to see why many quests not having an arc is relevant; I never said they ALL needed it or they all need to be forced into some made-up story arc. And It's not like theres not other categories that only apply to a few items (like retreat in the bestiary virtually nothing other than unicorns actually retreats)

 

All you need is a basic category on the quest page to denote it some how

eg

Story arc: Elves

or

Elf Storyline

 

And for quests with no arc, its just not included, simple.

 

As then it'd come up in searches and could be linked to a quest database search based on the exact term that would throw up the list of those quests.

[Jaffy1]

What would even be the point if most quests are ignored anyway?

As said before, I don't see the merit.

[Sy_Accursed]

What would even be the point if most quests are ignored anyway?

As said before, I don't see the merit.

 

I don't measure merit by how many items it does or does not effect but by the benefits it offers to user experience and finding content. Just because it caters to a minority doesn't make it pointless, I mean wheelchair ramps don't effect most people, are they pointless?

The merit is it would make quests searchable by storyline so a user wanting to do storyline x can search storyline x and actually get the relevant quest guides shown to them and thus offers better user-friendlyness for users who do not know which quests go to which series the same way older players do.

 

But obv at the end of the day crew's call and all, just an idea I think will improve user-experience in a small way and requires very little effort to implement with no obvious detrimental side effects.

[Jaffy1]

The merit is it would make quests searchable by storyline so a user wanting to do storyline x can search storyline x and actually get the relevant quest guides shown to them and thus offers better user-friendlyness for users who do not know which quests go to which series the same way older players do.

 

The problem with that is that users would have complete additional and unrelated quests to complete such chains anyway, and the next link to a specific chain is generally already mentioned on the quest guide under Advancement... As in, Underground Pass mentions Regicide, which mentions Roving Elves, which mentions Mourning's End 1, which mentions Mourning's End 2, which mentions Within The Light.

 

So we already cater to this minority.

[Sy_Accursed]

The merit is it would make quests searchable by storyline so a user wanting to do storyline x can search storyline x and actually get the relevant quest guides shown to them and thus offers better user-friendlyness for users who do not know which quests go to which series the same way older players do.

 

The problem with that is that users would have complete additional and unrelated quests to complete such chains anyway, and the next link to a specific chain is generally already mentioned on the quest guide under Advancement... As in, Underground Pass mentions Regicide, which mentions Roving Elves, which mentions Mourning's End 1, which mentions Mourning's End 2, which mentions Within The Light.

 

So we already cater to this minority.

 

You're still missing one key element of my point:

You are a new player.

Someone suggests you do say the penguin story arc.

None of the quests have penguin in the titles so they are not easily found on site search; if it finds them at all.

So how do you find the info? Go to another site?

 

Same applies for most arcs: the names alone don't generally point to the story arc unless you have prior knowledge.

The simple addition of a note of the story arc would mean search can find the story arc by that name, it's just putting the words on the page as simple as that makes all the difference to searchability.

If the elf story line quests all even said "elf" let alone "elf storyline" just somewhere on the page they become infinitely more searchable under that guise.

 

Yes there are other requirements that users would have to look at, but this isn't about walkthrough for the series and all their requirements, its pure and simple about noting that the quest is part of an arc.

Heck you can even slip it into tip's tricks and notes and it'd still make them more searchable.

 

It's about searchability, not lifting info from advancement/requirements to make up some pretty superfluous chart of this is the chain of the story (but it reqs extras)

[Jaffy1]

As said before, I seriously doubt a new player deciding to to only a specific "storyline of quests" especially considering they require additional quests. Therefore providing a chain with only the quests with a specific storyline will not only be rather futile, but also still is provided with the Advancement.

 

It would make sense for any player to know one of the quest names, which is all that is required really.

[Sy_Accursed]

Fair enough but I still don't see what's soooo wrong with adding like 5 words to a few quest guides so that a search can pick them up when a specific quest story arc is searched for.

It adds to the usability, even if for only a minority, and has no impact on the guides, server space, load times or anything.

 

I mean how is it a bad thing to make it so that if a user searches for a specific story line (which in itself is not unlikely) all the relevant quest guides appear near the top of results as they have the appropriate keywords in by simply listing somewhere on the guide they are part of that arc?

 

And I still disagree it does not make sense for someone to know at least 1 of the quest names. Its arrogantly presumptuous to assume they must know at least 1 title if they are interested in the story arc. And its perfectly feasible for someone to want to quickly see a quest series eg what if someone said to a keen new slayer: "You should do the elf series to unlock dark beasts" they don't know any quest names, but they have the series name and want to look it up.

 

Or in a real life example: Recommending books its easy to recommend a book series and people won't know specific titles to instantly find them, especially on a series like His Dark Materials where that title does not actually feature in the individual book titles. Same principle still applies to this, there's no guaranteeing factor that they MUST know one of the titles if they are interested.