A Questing Poll

[Jaethor]

Greetings mortals. I speak on behalf of the Gods and their God characters once more, this time investigating quests. Do not choose multiple ones that are linked (Do not choose that you both automate questing and do not automate questing). Please feel free to discuss the thread topic. Your poll answers will not earn you punishment, though your answers may if you start cursing or admitting that you're actually a very well-written bot.

The point of this poll is to gauge how the average player is faring. There are many different kinds of players ranging from people new to muds to people who have been playing muds since they could type. We, the gods, do not want to make everyone's experience worse or better because of one or two persons.

* Do not use your alts to vote multiple times.

Explanation of Poll Answers

Automate Questing: I do mean that you have aliases that move you, complete a quest, move you somewhere else, complete another quest, etc. Using an alias to bash the treasure chest is not automating in my opinion. Completing quests en masse is.

Income coming from Bashing vs Questing: Unless you are searching the corpse, the income comes from questing. Completing quests inside of a bashing area or handing in corpses to someone is considered questing.

Gold Earning: I was only able to put two options and 25 gold seemed like a good cut off. if you would like to post the amount you earn, please do so.

Quest hogging: Please choose this only if you actively try to quest and cannot, not from hearsay.

Quest Earning (opinion): There was no room for too little. If you feel it is too little, please post.

[Chyren]

I'll reply to the options I picked in descending order.

1) I automate questing. I am not ashamed to admit this in the slightest. On one of my chars there is a set of 15 or so macros that would run the entire set of village quests before the change to the random respawns. Do I think there needed to be a change to the respawn locations? Not at all. Slow down the resets, if anything.

2) My main source of gold comes from questing. This one is a no brainer so long as you're speaking of solo questing and bashing. If you do a full run-through of quests, it might take 5-10 minutes and net you upwards of 12 gold before any Merchantry benefits. Doing the hag/syltovia/theatre/basilisk and etc takes quite a bit longer and the gold may not even be worth it.

3) In a given day, I can earn 25+ gold. Again, very easy. When I was actively playing Silas during his first few weeks of playtime, I managed to get over 100 gold quite a bit. This was the result of questing and always being on them. Do I think this is still doable with the respawn changes and not being able to always automate it? Yes, but it might be a bit longer.

4) Everyone has an equal chance at questing. I've often had at least Silas and Chyren ages ago be called quest-hogs. This is a terrible way to look at a situation. If I am standing at the crossroads and locate items every few minutes to check on times, I will sure as hell go get them when I notice their presence. -Everyone- has the ability to do this, and some even have faster movement. If you want to stop a supposed quest-hog, beat them at their own game. Be diligent, be aware.

5) I did not pick an answer. It is hard to quantify how much gold is too much, or to what person. To someone that is trying to build a mansion or a boat, they need that large output of gold. To someone that tries to donate every day to a city and a guild, they may not need as much, but they'll need quite a bit to keep up with it.

It is -easy- to get gold. Too easy to some, sure, but I don't think it's a problem in the game. That will be for another post.

[Loren]

I'm going to respond to these as of my habits a few months ago. I quit questing altogether when I lost my access to Zmud

1) I don't automate questing. I have a large number of movement aliases between landmarks. (such as the cc, the great oak, and various villages), and I have a macro for locating the items, but not an automatic run through of any quests.

2) My main source of gold comes from questing - This does flip back and forth, but as a general rule, my mining pays for itself, and questing on the side pays for anything else.

3) 25+ gold, very easily. 100 gold was do-able, without automated questing.

4) While there are times during the day that it is impossible to get a single quest in, at other times, the lands are completely empty, and you can quest all you want, its a matter of timing.

5) I put just enough, because, no matter what your goal is, it is possible to attain that much gold through questing. While I can see either "too much" or "just enough" being justifiable, in my opinion, "too little" is the only wrong answer to this question.

[David]

1.) I don't automate questing ie bot running. I manually type in take pitchfork etc etc....only one I don't is the Jacamo/Feldan quest. At the same token I've always felt that handing in these smaller quest items bare to much on village politics, but I am sure that's not the point here.

2.) Main source of gold comes from bashing....when I want to and gather a group I can easily get the group of three 3000c within a good thirty minutes.

3.) 25+ very easily.....mixed with bashing/questing/villages it's quite simple to achieve this, but I don't view that as a problem as I am sure even though we all say we can doesn't mean we do.

4.) People usually just spam the dumb little broomstick/net/fork/lanterns till they eventually get burned out or just stop caring/quit. This is why I think a heavier burden should be placed on bashing being more helpful to village politics then the little quests.


Even though it isn't mentioned in the poll, I'd rather a poll be made about conflict pushed through like this by the Divine....thanks for this though. Only reason is because all of what I previously stated and voted on sometimes feels great and all, but there is a large void missing that makes one ask "Why questing is worth it at all?"

EDIT: It's just hard log on and not notice how everyone usually "camps" around their respected cities with a few out questing or bashing. Take right now for example, the Ysallyrans and a couple of Elysians went out for a bash....now out of the10 people on everyone is in a city.

[Pyrok]

For the most part I quest just enough to get by, I'm not overly fond of having gobs of money (which presents all sorts of issues) if im in possession of 20 gold i'm shocked, as that seems like a lot of money to me while that isn't even pocket change to most people

My income depends entirely on what is still available after larger or more swift groups/people sweep through the quests. More often than not i'm finding myself coming up with mildly novel ways of amassing what I consider wealth. my expenses are minimal since I'm a rogue, and not overly active in any aspect.
For the most part i'm slightly burnt out by questing and bashing. I tend to socialize more now.

[Oskar]

1) I used to have a large questing Alias that would go around collecting all the pitchforks and items of that nature and turn them in to a village I wished. Now that the divine have changed those items I get most of my coin from quest/bashing areas like the jungle.

2) It is very easy to make 25 gold in a irl day by myself it does take a couple of hours though and I need to be constantly killing/turning items in.

3) Though I would like to bring out that I do not wear armour when hunting, that is where I get my money. Take the heretic mansion for starts when I was younger I wore my armour in there. I would walk away after repairs about 1-2 gold coins I understand repairs needed to change, but I think the heretics need to spit out just a tad more coins. The younger generations of players will have a hard time gathering the necessary gold to survive off of the island.

4) I would love to see more areas where you need to kill something and turn it in for the gold. Those areas help limit auto-mated questing as well as allow gold to be gotten.

[Jaethor]

I feel as if I should respond and perhaps keep the discussion going to some degree.

First, let me say that the answers to these poll questions are very interesting to me and I'm sure to the other gods. I should have probably made the gold limit higher than 25+, but it is good to hear explanations of this answer in particular.

Just a side note: While I understand that you may want a poll about conflict, there have been many many posts about conflict you could post on instead.

I did not expect most people to say that there was too much gold to earn from questing. It is an interesting question to me nonetheless.

Here are a few questions I'd be interested in hearing your responses to (Hindsight is a terrible thing):

- How do you feel about the change to certain quests where they now reset to random areas?

- There was to be one question on the poll that we did not have room for: Do you prefer simple quests or quests you must think about. An example is Village quests versus Albert's riddles.

- How much would you say is the cutoff for living comfortably? You must take into consideration food, armour and weapon repairs if they apply, donations, possible gold if you are saving up for something (keep it realistic) and other factors I am not able to think of right now.

- Do you donate? If so, how much?

[Oskar]

- How do you feel about the change to certain quests where they now reset to random areas?

I feel this was needed it became far to easy to make a ridiculous amount of gold, just by doing these quests. Then the botting of them had gotten out of hand, if I wanted to I could have just watched the screen and have a timer that every 5-10 mins run the quests. So on so forth.


- Do you prefer simple quests or quests you must think about. An example is Village quests versus Albert's riddles.

I think a nice mix is always welcome in Muds, some people like to push themselves to have to think to solve something, while others come here just to relax and have fun. Everyone is different. Me personally I like to hunt so killing something and turning it in is simple but, I like it.

- How much would you say is the cutoff for living comfortably?
Well I would say it's different for every guild set, me personally I have to save for Krylliain. I must have it and enough for a full set at 20 gold a piece is well over 1000 gold coins. So I need to be saving, but for food, clothing, and potions. I would say 4 gold every day should keep you depending on prices of things. However if one relies on armour to go hunting, the cost is much much higher.


- Do you donate? If so, how much?
I used to be a very active contributor to my city, but I got annoyed with the stagnation of it we seem to be doing nothing. So I lost my caring for it but, when I was donating it was 10 gold every day. I did this for about a month or two.

[David]

Q.) How do you feel about the change to certain quests where they now reset to random areas?

A.)I loved the change, I wish all of them respawned randomly instead of just a select few as it at least adds a bit more complexity to an already simple task.

Q.) There was to be one question on the poll that we did not have room for: Do you prefer simple quests or quests you must think about. An example is Village quests versus Albert's riddles.

A.) I tend to agree with what Oskar said on this issue, a good mix is always healthy so it attacks all different characters preferences. I tend to not care for either, instead would rather bash evil heretics for the betterment of a village.

Q.) How much would you say is the cutoff for living comfortably?

A.) I don't think there are limitations on this, the number would be different from each person you speak to. I think I am always comfortable knowing I have at least 50000c in my ledger. This is of course for varying reasons depending on if a good donation is needed or to help novices/citizens out.

-Another side note, I don't think there is exactly too much gold being earned at questing for everyone, just those that are motivated are able to keep a steady income going. If a person is motivated, then the coin will come easy compared to the person that waits around for a group bash.-

Q.) Do you donate? If so, how much?

A.) I donate roughly 1000-2000c a month/day (rl) depending on how I feel the city is doing at the time of my donation.

[Pyrok]

1)
The quest items being sent to random locations when they reappear was initially a little irritating for alot of people (and gods) as they'd show up in areas no one could get to. Like the wagon wheel appearing in the heavens for days on end.
The only irritating thing is when an item shows up in a city you're enemied to. Shortening the reset time for those items would be nice as people tend to... I don't want to say hoard them but tend to forget they have them until they go to the bulletin board or log out.

2)
I love quests that I have to think about, as it isn't limited as to who's got better gear/skills/equipment/healing powers.
An alternative for Mordikhan would be nice, as dragons are typically intelligent and prone to difficult riddles.

3)
My cutoff for living comfortably is set at about 150 coins, as this would keep me moderately well fed. The rest, such as clothes and miscellaneous sundries I gather coins for as needed. No sense budgeting for something that isn't going to run out/decay for some time. (Which gives me an idea)

4)
Non-applicable.

[Ilshara]

1) I do both some automated and manual questing. I do admit, before the random respawn update, I automated everything. Now, I use triggers to pick a net up if there is a net in the room, or a broom, etc. I run from Syltovia, get the drum, turn them both in on an alias. I chose automated for the sake of this poll because mostly, I manually walk to each net or broom and manually walk to each NPC taking said items, but I automatically pick them up and turn them in upon entering the room of the NPCs.

2) My main source of gold comes from questing, as many have answered. I do get quite a bit from bashing, but unless all you do is bash and never turn anything in... it's quite hard to exceed the gold output of questing.

3) In a given day, I can earn 25+ gold. Very easy, unless my mind is distracted or I don't feel the need to quest. Depending on the day and who is about... one can get upwards of 75-100 gold in a given time frame.

4) Everyone has an equal chance at questing. Like Chyren said, if you want to beat a quest hog... be diligent and on top of things. Sure, it's frustrating sometimes, but truth be told... if you -really- wanted to quest that badly... you would.

5) I didn't pick an answer to this set, it's just too relative. If I need a lot of arnica, potions, ores, and food... sure it may not seem like enough. But some days, all I do is donate to the city. At those times, it's right.


- How do you feel about the change to certain quests where they now reset to random areas?
I like it, you have to know the area to get what you want. I never saw the point of things being in the exact same spot each and every time.

- There was to be one question on the poll that we did not have room for: Do you prefer simple quests or quests you must think about. An example is Village quests versus Albert's riddles.
I love a string of quests that one has to do in order to complete a goal or get a reward, much like the Compass quest. I see the value in more simple quests, as well as a series of quests with varying complexity and length. It's all about choices and options.

- How much would you say is the cutoff for living comfortably? You must take into consideration food, armour and weapon repairs if they apply, donations, possible gold if you are saving up for something (keep it realistic) and other factors I am not able to think of right now.
Well, depends on who you are, really. A warrior who bashes several hours out of the day, using many potions and armor reparations needs more than a merchant who solely picks herbs, needing only a few bites of food and the occasional herb (porcupines, etc.). Things like saving up have to be taken into account, of course, but if I make 20-25 gold a day at least, I'm doing pretty good.

- Do you donate? If so, how much?
I don't donate regularly as of late, mostly because my activity schedule lately has left something to be wanted, but when I donate it's generally in increments of 10 or 20.

[xyoa]

1. Like Ilshara I do both automated and manual. I have alias' to pick up the items that don't move around and then hand them in. Since the change I manually go looking for the items that do move and have a set of alias' to hand them in to different villages.

2. Lately my main source of gold comes from bashing, which I do completely manually (aside from the obvious triggers to swing and assess and such)

3. I could easily make 25+ gold in a RL day. But I have to say it is a little hard being a Shadow Warrior. You don't have the Templar's healing/armor repairing abilities, nor the Legions damage. all you really have is shadows if you get into trouble

4. I used to think it was a little unfair that people like Diesus and Adela with perfectly honed questing systems hogged the quests every-single-time. While there are people like me that like to actually interact a little instead of having everything done for you. Now I simply try not to let it bother me and make as much gold as I can.

5. How much gold is too much exactly? some need more than others depending on your city and guild. Of course there has to be some challenge there, if making gold was as easy as pie what would be the point?

[xyoa]

Continuing from my last post...

- How do you feel about the change to certain quests where they now reset to random areas?
I was a little annoyed at first because I had JUST finished off my questing system for the village quests. But then I realised it's a good thing, makes questing a little more challenging and a little more fair.

- There was to be one question on the poll that we did not have room for: Do you prefer simple quests or quests you must think about. An example is Village quests versus Albert's riddles.
Honestly? I play akanbar to relax and take a break. I think enough trough out the day. so I actually prefer simple quests, but the occasional riddle of sorts can be interesting and fun.

- How much would you say is the cutoff for living comfortably? You must take into consideration food, armour and weapon repairs if they apply, donations, possible gold if you are saving up for something (keep it realistic) and other factors I am not able to think of right now.
I have to agree with Ilshara, it varies from guild to guild. Lately I've been losing gold faster than I've been making it, thanks to armor repairs, potion refills and not to mention the total lack of arnica that's sent the prices sky high. So I've stopped wearing my armor for locations that I don't really need it, like rooms in the mansion with less than 10 heretics, the hag etc.

- Do you donate? If so, how much?
I don't donate, I used to, a lot. But now I think my efforts will be better spent helping individuals, novices and such, instead of trying to help the whole city. When I do donate, which is rarely, it's usually about 5-20 gold.