Tasks / Adventures

action9000 · **on:** June 19, 2008, 04:32:06 PM

Hey!

If you have any ideas for tasks that the players can take on, feel free to post them here!

What is a Task?

A Task is a quest, basically. A task is given to the player, either from a non-player character (NPC), from finding something that triggers the start of a task. Basically, it's an assignment that the player may (nor may not, if they choose) do that will reward them in some way when it's completed.

Some tasks are relatively simple. Some will be more complex and some are designed to be impossible to complete alone and calling upon your dino friends is necessary to accomplish it.

If you have any ideas for tasks, please throw them up here and we'll consider them for the game! If we end up using your idea in the game, your name will appear in the credits.

Kor · **Reply #1 on:** June 19, 2008, 05:01:29 PM

I did a few idea in another post. Instead of digging around to find it to repast here I"ll attempt to recap.

One idea is to use some episodes from the tv series for ideas and maybe some scenes from the movies & also other scenes from other movies & maybe tv series that are similar in genre and would fit.

One is that Mr Threehorn can tell (since it's not within his personality to ask) that since Tria likes pretty stones to bring her some. "Tria likes pretty stones, take her some!" Since in an episode, I think it's Shiny Stone Canyon, At the beginning Tria is shown to have a very large pile of various kinds of pretty stones. Maybe points could be based on how far it is from her nest, or on the location the stone is from, a far or dangerous place like Shiny Stone Canyon, which is next to Smoking Mountains, may give more points then a stone laying near a river or in a shallow river.

Another one from an idea from an episode is a quest or task like the gang and Bullies do in the Great Egg Adventure episode, where some Fast biter eggs need to be moved farther from the valley, maybe from point 1 to point 2.

Maybe a pointer type of thing to one's quest destination like they have in Oblivion would be nice, since folks like me would not get totally lost, like I do with no pointer or quest indicator on the map.

Lillefot · **Reply #2 on:** June 19, 2008, 05:05:09 PM

This might be orginal...

One of the easier, start off task could be to collect some treestars for a NPC.
The amount of Stars could varry, and the task could show up several times for different NPC's.
That's something that I could see before me in a LBT RPG game!

Malte279 · **Reply #3 on:** June 19, 2008, 05:23:04 PM

How about this task for a swimmer character: For a reason yet to be determined an special algae is needed. The strange thing about this algae is that it will grow only in rapidly flowing water (e.g. right above a waterfall or the like) There could be a stretch of rapid water through which the swimmer could swim. It would be impossible for the swimmer to stop and the water would carry him or her very swiftly. He or she can just influence the direction and must be very carefully to float close enough by one of those algea to snatch it.

Kor · **Reply #4 on:** June 19, 2008, 06:01:15 PM

Specific tasks for certain types is a good idea, swimmer, flyer ect.

Lillefot · **Reply #5 on:** June 19, 2008, 06:08:12 PM

Indeed!
Maybe tasks that require extra strenght could be for Threehorns?
As for, if in co-op, all kin have to use all of their abilities togehter to solve a task?

action9000 · **Reply #6 on:** June 19, 2008, 06:20:52 PM

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As for, if in co-op, all kin have to use all of their abilities togehter to solve a task?

I'd love to do stuff like this! We'll need to come up with some clever situations to throw a group into so that everyones' abilities are utilized.

I suppose, that being said, we need to agree on abilities that each character will have!

Lillefot · **Reply #7 on:** June 19, 2008, 06:35:47 PM

Quote from: action9000,Jun 19 2008 on 05:20 PM

I suppose, that being said, we need to agree on abilities that each character will have!

Yeah, you gonna make an own topic for that?

As for more tasks,
Should NPC's (I assume those are the ones that you most commonly recieve tasks from) have options?
Like, you move your character towards Grandpa Longneck, and choose "Interact" and you can choose from different options such as:

"What's going on?"

"You know... where/how/when/which, (questions you can ask to get clues on certain things/tasks etc.)

"Got any work/job/can I do something for you?/what's wrong?/want me to help you out?/maybe I can help you

"I know/I have/It's done/Is this it?/(if you've completed certain tasks, you can interact with a NPC to confirm that you've completed it, if not, they can shake their head or something and give yoyu some advice, if you're done correct, you complete the task and get reward?)

"Talk" (just talk with the NPC, might put some funny lines, or lines such as: "Been to the watering hole yet? I've heard there's a troubled swimmer there..."

"Leave" (stop talking and continue exploring!")

Sorry if the post is messy!
Think anything like this could be an option? Or are we getting to much water over our heads?

General Grievous · **Reply #8 on:** June 19, 2008, 06:44:55 PM

Quote from: Malte279,Jun 19 2008 on 04:23 PM

How about this task for a swimmer character: For a reason yet to be determined an special algae is needed. The strange thing about this algae is that it will grow only in rapidly flowing water (e.g. right above a waterfall or the like) There could be a stretch of rapid water through which the swimmer could swim. It would be impossible for the swimmer to stop and the water would carry him or her very swiftly. He or she can just influence the direction and must be very carefully to float close enough by one of those algea to snatch it.

Sounds like a good idea. We will need a tutorial that could be worth a point or two just to start you off. The tutorial should cover stuff such as how to move, interact, and other basic stuff. It should also explain how to use special abilitied depending on which type of character you are using.

Lillefot · **Reply #9 on:** June 19, 2008, 07:07:12 PM

Maybe more difficult tasks would require better ablities?
If so, should there be ways to "level up and develop" your abilities?
There might be a place where you can do certain training, maybe push logs, slam trees etc to bulid up strenght so you eventually can move that rock covering an entrance or something like that?
"Doc's/Mr.Treehorns workout...:" lol...

action9000 · **Reply #10 on:** June 19, 2008, 07:50:11 PM

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Think anything like this could be an option? Or are we getting to much water over our heads?

This was kind of what I was thinking to do for a system for getting tasks from NPCs. I don't think that's too out of line!

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We will need a tutorial that could be worth a point or two just to start you off. The tutorial should cover stuff such as how to move, interact, and other basic stuff. It should also explain how to use special abilitied depending on which type of character you are using.

I really want the tutorial to be optional. Nothing's worse than starting a game with a new character for fun and being forced to go through the boring tutorial again.

Sure, we can try to set up a tutorial!

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If so, should there be ways to "level up and develop" your abilities?

Absolutely!

Not every ability needs to be levelled up though:
Some are given to a character as soon as you start a new game. Some, once you learn the skill it doesn't need to be improved anymore: either you have it or you don't.

Other skills, like "Swim speed" or something, sure, I'm sure we can have lots of skills that can be levelled up and developed!

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Maybe more difficult tasks would require better ablities?

I totally agree with this. "Stealth" may be have to levelled up to a certain point before you can complete a certain task, for example.
Maybe longnecks could find a special place in the world to do their "Longneck test" to gain certain skills.

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There might be a place where you can do certain training, maybe push logs, slam trees etc to bulid up strenght so you eventually can move that rock covering an entrance or something like that?
"Doc's/Mr.Treehorns workout...:" lol...

LOL We could certainly do this. I'd rather have this as a task that you can only do once though, instead of being able to go back to it all the time. Last thing we need are a bunch of low-level characters with insane amounts of strength doing random things.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #11 on:** June 19, 2008, 08:53:35 PM

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I really want the tutorial to be optional. Nothing's worse than starting a game with a new character for fun and being forced to go through the boring tutorial again.
Sure, we can try to set up a tutorial!

One of Runescape's most horrible flaws!

Have an option that asks you if you have already taken the tutorial or not.

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LOL We could certainly do this. I'd rather have this as a task that you can only do once though, instead of being able to go back to it all the time. Last thing we need are a bunch of low-level characters with insane amounts of strength doing random things.

Maybe there should be a skill upgrade available every time you advance a level. You would have to choose which skill to upgrade because there would only be one upgrade per level or something.

Also, perhaps certain adult characters could be instructors for various skills. Topsy could teach something (I'm not sure what), Ducky's mom could be the swimming instructor, Petrie's mom could be the flying instructor for fliers only and maybe she could teach something else to non-fliers.

action9000 · **Reply #12 on:** June 19, 2008, 09:34:54 PM

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Maybe there should be a skill upgrade available every time you advance a level. You would have to choose which skill to upgrade because there would only be one upgrade per level or something.

Also, perhaps certain adult characters could be instructors for various skills. Topsy could teach something (I'm not sure what), Ducky's mom could be the swimming instructor, Petrie's mom could be the flying instructor for fliers only and maybe she could teach something else to non-fliers.

I'd like to do a combination of both. This will give us the opportunity to have hidden skills around the game, as well as expand the variety of gameplay.

Kor · **Reply #13 on:** June 19, 2008, 10:25:55 PM

Maybe like something x points you get per level you can spend on skills, or something like that. Not it goes up as you use it since you could have, in games like Oblivion or Morrowind, a character who is a master of mystic magic or stealth since they practiced that skill a lot.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #14 on:** June 20, 2008, 02:44:03 AM

Maybe there could be some kind of natural disaster or emergency which requires you to lead others (preferably NPCs) to safety like in LBT3.

Or maybe a mission to stop egg stealers.

Malte279 · **Reply #15 on:** June 20, 2008, 03:35:58 AM

I don't know if this would be too difficult, but perhaps the level system could take into consideration what a character has done all the time when determining which abilities would improve. For example a swimmer who has been climbing rocks and trees all the time is not likely to get a bonus on swimming for that one (the same goes for any other species and activity of course).

Yesternight I came up with a few more tasks in a chat with Tim. Both tasks would be about finding a particular spot in the Great Valley where Captain Flint burried his stone of cold fire... (we might have to reconsider the Captain Flint part, but I'm sure we can think of something the characters would be looking for:lol). The simple version of the task would be "the spot where the shadow of peak X falls when the bright circle stands right behind it".
The more complex version (requiring two characters) would be a spot from where you can see two pairs of particular trees / rocks in a straight line. To make it more difficult one cannot actually see those trees / rocks from the spot. So the characters have to move from those rocks / trees in a totally straight line and where their tracks meet is THE spot.

action9000 · **Reply #16 on:** June 20, 2008, 03:42:56 AM

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but perhaps the level system could take into consideration what a character has done all the time when determining which abilities would improve. For example a swimmer who has been climbing rocks and trees all the time is not likely to get a bonus on swimming for that one (the same goes for any other species and activity of course).

The Dungeon Siege series of games did just this: If you used bows and arrows, your dexterity increased. If you used magic, your intelligence increased, etc.

It wouldn't be impossible to program, I'm just not completely sure I'm a fan of that system. I'm really torn on that system...I'm biased towards saying "no" at this point but I can see why it would be appealing.

basically...if you're a swimmer who doesn't swim much, you don't get much better at swimming.

It would significantly complicate programming. It wouldn't be impossible but it would add quite a bit to development time. From a realism point of view, it's a good system. From a social gaming/entertainment point of view, I just don't want force players to "exercise" their characters to gain skills. Maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way. Other opinions?

Certainly another idea up for debate, I'm just not a big fan of that system myself. If there's enough support, we can definitely incorporate it.

Kor · **Reply #17 on:** June 20, 2008, 10:09:06 AM

One problem is if one can get better by doing a thing over and over you could have a first level character who is a master at 1 or more skills since when they are online that is all they do over and over.

If there is a way to abuse a system some players will do that to get a more powerful character then others have. I've noticed that when I use to play pen and paper rpg's. There are power gamers everywhere, more then some folks suspect & some may be power gamers themselves without knowing it. To me that spoils an rp.

I'm more use to gurps, which has no levels. You get points that you can put into skills or save up to put into skills or stats, it has no levels nor classes.

Malte279 · **Reply #18 on:** June 20, 2008, 12:11:03 PM

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One problem is if one can get better by doing a thing over and over you could have a first level character who is a master at 1 or more skills since when they are online that is all they do over and over.

Don't forget that it would also take experience points to gain higher abilities. Such points would be acquired by fulfilling tasks which are not likely to require one ability only.
Some games make it impossible to improve ability X from a certain level on without improving ability Y along. Maybe something like that could be done in this game too?

Sky · **Reply #19 on:** June 21, 2008, 03:45:56 AM

I played Maplestory a long time ago. In the beginning, they give tasks on how the controls work. Maybe when you start a game an instructor appears and tells you to move to that spot. And then you have to go to a spot where you can only reach when you jump. And so on until you know the basic controls.

Just an idea.

But there is one thing I can't figure out. The game will have a level system right?
Will there be any "fighting" tasks like defeating a sharptooth?
Just being curios.