Is there a maximum number of maps a quest can have?

ovaltine74

I thought I read somewhere that it was five, but I might be wrong. I am at five right now and am wondering if I need to just finish up this map, make the quest a two part quest and publish. I know I am going to need at least five more maps to complete the story.

chinspinner

No, mine has seven

crok2

I've read it is was supposed to be 8 but that people had 10 and were still going.

ovaltine74

Alright, i guess I will keep going then. Kinda hope it is unlimited. Because it is a story quest people could just skip through much of the dialog and finish it far earlier than I want. Best to just release it as one giant quest to get the duration I want it to be.

almostcool

Word of caution: Hardly any people are going to be willing to play/test a giant quest. However, you do say it is a story quest so perhaps you just want that specific audience.

meedacthunist

It's 15 maps.

nokturnel

Yea I definitely suggest breaking your quest down into 15-30 minute chapters if it's going to be an epic journey. Very few people like to play quests longer than that because they don't have the time for it.

Though if you don't have the time to break it down into chapters or you just really want it to be 1 giant quest that takes a long time to complete, go for it, just don't get angry when very few people want to review/play it.

ovaltine74

nokturnel wrote: »

Yea I definitely suggest breaking your quest down into 15-30 minute chapters if it's going to be an epic journey. Very few people like to play quests longer than that because they don't have the time for it.

Though if you don't have the time to break it down into chapters or you just really want it to be 1 giant quest that takes a long time to complete, go for it, just don't get angry when very few people want to review/play it.

I completely agree that the kind of quest I am making will not be for everybody. I am hopeful that many will enjoy the effort I put into it and like the story. I expect to get some TLDR reviews; but I have a story to tell, and it requires a long narrative to tell it.

I have considered releasing it in chapters while I am creating it though. Stop at five maps. Duplicate the quest. release chapter 1 and continue on expanding the rest of the quest while people can play the first part of it. That will also give me some feedback so that I can do some editing of the first part as reviews come in and improve it based on those critiques.

hippyshake

nokturnel wrote: »

Yea I definitely suggest breaking your quest down into 15-30 minute chapters if it's going to be an epic journey. Very few people like to play quests longer than that because they don't have the time for it.

As someone with a very busy life, I agree with this, but it also brings up the relevant question: Is it possible to copy and paste maps into another quest?

yospeck

Dont break it down, make it as long as you want to.

If your adventure is fun then it doesn't matter how long it is, make it long and boring and you'll get 1 starred to high heaven.

hippyshake wrote: »

As someone with a very busy life, I agree with this, but it also brings up the relevant question: Is it possible to copy and paste maps into another quest?

You can duplicate a quest and then cut our the irrelevant other maps other than the one you want, but there's no direct copy and paste (so you couldn't take a map from two different quests and put them into a third).

And just to confirm the above, it looks like 15 is your map limit (though you can make more in a quest, but can't publish until you drop it down back to 15.

meedacthunist

ovaltine74 wrote: »

I have considered releasing it in chapters while I am creating it though. Stop at five maps. Duplicate the quest. release chapter 1 and continue on expanding the rest of the quest while people can play the first part of it. That will also give me some feedback so that I can do some editing of the first part as reviews come in and improve it based on those critiques.

You can also separate your quest between few maps and label it's overworld location (this one which needs to be always specified even if not used) as "continue with <your quest name>". It will show only if player had to stop with your quest and return to it via city gate from Protector's Enclave. This way you can have long quest possible to play in few sessions.

You have 15 maps to use per quest. Provided you don't need to duplicate too many maps (no running forward and backward to your questgiver) it should be enough.

kamaliicious

hippyshake wrote: »

As someone with a very busy life, I agree with this, but it also brings up the relevant question: Is it possible to copy and paste maps into another quest?

Duplicate the quest, then delete the maps you don't need.

ovaltine74

kamaliicious wrote: »

Duplicate the quest, then delete the maps you don't need.

Yeah, that was what I was suggesting. I may do that just because of some of the advice here. If part one of the quest is well received and people like it, I may combine all the parts into one large quest. So since that decision is made. Part one will be ready sometime this weekend. Currently working on the last map in part one then.

kamaliicious

There is also an "annoy players" limit to maps. Since you can't have a merchant, you either need to loop back through a live game map (and hope nwo doesn't drop the quest from players) periodically, or address the issue of filling up the players inventory with loot. People are going to be annoyed if they have to drop loot because they have no space.

hippyshake

yospeck wrote: »

You can duplicate a quest and then cut our the irrelevant other maps other than the one you want, but there's no direct copy and paste (so you couldn't take a map from two different quests and put them into a third).

Ah...handy, that. Thanks.

ovaltine74

kamaliicious wrote: »

There is also an "annoy players" limit to maps. Since you can't have a merchant, you either need to loop back through a live game map (and hope nwo doesn't drop the quest from players) periodically, or address the issue of filling up the players inventory with loot. People are going to be annoyed if they have to drop loot because they have no space.

Another thing to consider. Very good reason for shortening it up in smaller chunks. If the quest is played correctly (Reading all the dialog) it should take more than fifteen minutes to get through the quest. I intentionally made the encounters a little easy so someone could get through the story, but if I am going to break this thing up I need to go back and beef up security.

Thanks for pointing out the loot issue, I hadn't considered it.

tilt42

You should definitely split up your quest, no matter how you feel about it. 15 maps is way, way, WAY too long. Do you know what happens if someone logs out, disconnected or crashes while playing your quest? He's likely to get sent back to a public map, forcing him to restart from the beginning. That is fine if the quest is 15 minutes long. That's NOT fine if it's 2-3 hours. I did this with The Lanaar Legacy, and it has lead to some frustration among players who disconnected from the game for one reason or another.

Good design means splitting it up into bite-sized chunks. To put it in blunt terms: Bad designers add. Good designers cut.

ovaltine74

tilt42 wrote: »

You should definitely split up your quest, no matter how you feel about it. 15 maps is way, way, WAY too long. Do you know what happens if someone logs out, disconnected or crashes while playing your quest? He's likely to get sent back to a public map, forcing him to restart from the beginning. That is fine if the quest is 15 minutes long. That's NOT fine if it's 2-3 hours. I did this with The Lanaar Legacy, and it has lead to some frustration among players who disconnected from the game for one reason or another.

Good design means splitting it up into bite-sized chunks. To put it in blunt terms: Bad designers add. Good designers cut.

I agree with you. I think it is a good quest and story even in small chunks. I have done quite a few interesting things in it so far. I don't think people will be disappointed.

yospeck

You should definitely split up your quest, no matter how you feel about it. 15 maps is way, way, WAY too long. Do you know what happens if someone logs out, disconnected or crashes while playing your quest? He's likely to get sent back to a public map, forcing him to restart from the beginning. That is fine if the quest is 15 minutes long. That's NOT fine if it's 2-3 hours. I did this with The Lanaar Legacy, and it has lead to some frustration among players who disconnected from the game for one reason or another.

Good design means splitting it up into bite-sized chunks. To put it in blunt terms: Bad designers add. Good designers cut.

If it's a solo I agree, if it's a group quest then the chances of everyone losing connection at the same time is slim to none and so you should be able to auto jump back into the quest with the group. In the event that it DOES happen... well that's just one of those things.

I liked WoW dungeon instances, I liked spending hours with friends going through them and uncovering the cool areas, neat stories and interesting boss fights. I didn't play them for loot, that was just an added bonus, I played them for the content.

So with that, I DO think there's a market for a long quest.

zahinder

On a related note, anyone know if we will ever get to add mission slots?

I'm inclined to make sure my missions are in 20-30 minute episodes, but on the other hand I don't want to then blow through all my slots and be stuck.

ovaltine74

zahinder wrote: »

On a related note, anyone know if we will ever get to add mission slots?

I'm inclined to make sure my missions are in 20-30 minute episodes, but on the other hand I don't want to then blow through all my slots and be stuck.

In STO you can buy foundry slots, same company, so yeah. They will charge you for them though. I was actually surprised they gave us ten slots for free. I would have thought it would only be one or two and then you would have to buy more.