Pure adventuring (no waypoints) question

gorgothus

As the title states, has anybody made dungeon/adventures without points/waypoints/glowy trails?

Just curious as I'm wondering how the player base would react to a dungeon that didn't lead you from one point to the next. A non linear style, made you decide what your next step was, kinda like the old pen n paper games.

You could give context via npc's, and have event that happen when certain dialogue/items/areas are used, but other wise let the player control how fast he makes it to the end if at all.

Personally I find myself not following the trails or trying to keep my eyes off the minimap if possible.
I made a map and used the standard waypoints etc only to keep within the usual in game mechanics. One of my friend played it and he's a strict follow the glowy type, and the other just follows his gut feeling.

What's your thoughts?

angrysprite

My Blacklake Luskan quest does this. No pixie dust and no glowdomes.

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Every single rating is 4 or 5 stars, save two 1 stars (too much story, not enough combat) and two 2 stars (I couldn't figure out the puzzle). Every. Other. Rating. Is 4 or 5 stars. I think players really appreciate it. However, if your quest does actually focus on combat - then you should at least create the glow-dome if not the actual pixie dust trail.

gorgothus

Great to hear, thanks much. When I get home from work, I'll look up your foundry.

angrysprite

gorgothus wrote: »

Great to hear, thanks much. When I get home from work, I'll look up your foundry.

Thanks. And to clarify: I mean I think players really appreciate not having the quest path or glow-domes, provided your quest does actually have a little bit of story and some exploration required. Most hack-n-slash quests don't. But to help you better understand, I really recommend you at least read the reviews I've received (whether you actually play my quest or not) - because a lot of them are actually revealing about what players are liking to find.

One hack-n-slash is the same as every other hack-n-slash. But stories and puzzles are always refreshing and different. And these are the reviews I'm seeing on it. So that is where I'll focus my own continuing efforts: in the story/puzzle genre. I don;t get a LOT of plays (only a 120 or something right now) - but what is important to me is almost every single review and rating is positive and almost always 4 or 5 stars. That feels a lot better than having 10,000 plays.

Just speaking for myself, of course. There' nothing wrong with the other styles of quests.

nemesis788450

you can always turn the trail off...

angrysprite

nemesis788450 wrote: »

you can always turn the trail off...

True. But I prefer to not even allow you to turn it ON. Muahahahah

gorgothus

I'll play it through first , then see what the other players felt. I might go and revise mine , I just think it would suit it better. Sad thing is I was hovering over the submit button to cryptic to read the pop up, my mouse has too many mmo miles on it (getting a new one today) and the right and left click sometimes fire off.

So yah, next thing you know I get a another pop up regarding about are you sure? So I quickly hit the...**** if I didn't come over the yes vs. the no (is it me or are they reversed, no is usually on the right hand side) any way good ol mouse submits it for me....I was so pissed. Though it was done, I still had many things I wanted to polish.

Anyway , the withdrawal button as you can guess I hit in hopes of it yanking it from Cryptic's desk, only removed it from being published

Lesson learned, don't procrastinate on replacing the mouse, cause in essence it's as vital as a steering wheel to a car...

angrysprite

LOL... no worries.

The good news is even after you publish, you can continue to edit and save. Then just publish again. The existing published version will be replaced with the updated published version.

yospeck

I'll never put trails in any of my foundry quests, makes life way too easy.

kamaliicious

Depends, often it's reasonable that an npc tells you where something is, in which case the sparkly trail makes sense.

"I need my muffins, but goblins stole them and ran off to their cave in the hills." That would be a case where the sparkly trail would be rational, as the npc knows where this cave is and so can tell the player.

keylord02

Not to push my own luck, but I've been rather fortunate with my reviewers all telling me that they enjoyed the exploration-focused nature of my dungeon, so I know there's definitely an audience for this stuff!

But even if I get negative reviews about it later on, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Not every Foundry adventure is going to mesh well with everyone!

angrysprite

keylord02 wrote: »

Not to push my own luck, but I've been rather fortunate with my reviewers all telling me that they enjoyed the exploration-focused nature of my dungeon, so I know there's definitely an audience for this stuff!

But even if I get negative reviews about it later on, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Not every Foundry adventure is going to mesh well with everyone!

There is *definitely* an audience for this. We need to make a thread or web site that features only the "Non-hack-n-slash, thinking-cap exploritorium" type quests so that audience can find them. As for me? I like them, but they can be so hard to find in the catalog I just give up looking for them. LOL

gorgothus

angrysprite wrote: »

LOL... no worries.

The good news is even after you publish, you can continue to edit and save. Then just publish again. The existing published version will be replaced with the updated published version.

The republishing a better version I'm not worried about, it's the accidental submission to cryptic I did that I can't reverse /doublefacepalm

Some really good replies, thanks again everybody. Now I can't wait to get home and put it the way I originally wanted.

gorgothus

angrysprite wrote: »

There is *definitely* an audience for this. We need to make a thread or web site that features only the "Non-hack-n-slash, thinking-cap exploritorium" type quests so that audience can find them. As for me? I like them, but they can be so hard to find in the catalog I just give up looking for them. LOL

I totally agree! Soon as I get time, gonna head to the basement and find that box my brother had of all the first addition AD&D dungeons, I'd like to translate a few and put them in the adventure/explore type.

keylord02

angrysprite wrote: »

There is *definitely* an audience for this. We need to make a thread or web site that features only the "Non-hack-n-slash, thinking-cap exploritorium" type quests so that audience can find them. As for me? I like them, but they can be so hard to find in the catalog I just give up looking for them. LOL

I was just thinking the same thing, actually! I like doing review trades with other players to see what CAN be done with the Foundry, but I did get a bit worn out after I did quest after quest with stacked encounters, wave combats, and conversations where all 3 options led to a battle.

That's not a knock on these quests, mind you, they were still fantastic in other ways! And honestly, that just meant they were like the Cryptic quests but with more interesting plots xD

angrysprite

keylord02 wrote: »

I was just thinking the same thing, actually! I like doing review trades with other players to see what CAN be done with the Foundry, but I did get a bit worn out after I did quest after quest with stacked encounters, wave combats, and conversations where all 3 options led to a battle.

That's not a knock on these quests, mind you, they were still fantastic in other ways! And honestly, that just meant they were like the Cryptic quests but with more interesting plots xD

Indeed.
It sounds like you like the same stuff I like. Consider this an offer to "trade" reviews.
I'd create some kind of "Old School Story/Puzzle/Delving" directory if I could dedicate the time to it. I wonder if creating a Tumblr blog dedicated to it would work? That way you can have multiple blog authors/quest reviewers participating. But then it's just a blog, which isn;t really a "directory".

I am so not good at cataloging.

Of course, if it were easy then Cryptic would have got the in-game version right. LOL

keylord02

It's hard to tell what fits the bill from people's descriptions, so now that I know your's does, I'll be sure to check it out once I get home from work!

zahinder

My first mission is a mix. Much of the time, no trail, except for fairly obvious 'yeah, walk over here' stuff.

I think it's good to skip the trail if that actually is part of the 'point' of the story. In my case, the map is pretty open and the player is free to wander a bit, choose what to examine.

But if you're doing it to just confuse and make it 'harder,' then you may want to let the player decide that for themselves.

Of course, the trail often doesn't work right, particularly on custom maps... and you might use that to your advantage, having the trail lead you through the worst meat grinder elements of the map.

ovaltine74

Make the quest the way you like it. This is suppose to be fun. If you think a quest like that would be something fun to make, then I say go for it. The more fun you are having, the better the quest will be. It will show in the finished product.