All-inclusive Blood quest

[Pen N Popper]

Storyline quest suggestion:

I will outline a massive player quest here.

The impetus for this is Leanthar's mentioning that there are greater than 750(!) active players.  Wow!  How can all of us possibly be involved in the central Blood storyline?  The forums are bursting with enthusiasm to join quests (which has been causing the server to burst at times as well).  The GMs are doing their best, but there are only so many hours in the day.  Solution?  A new cumulative quest system.

This will take scripting and some new areas.  I will purposefully attempt to make this suggestion as simple as possible in terms of scripting, though not having crafted much in the toolset it may be unrealistic.

Here's the basic idea:  Blood's forces are swarming over place X (Stone?).  The king has requested that a volunteers be gathered to assess and combat Blood's forces.  These small groups are given a mission and are then portaled behind enemy lines do accomplish their goal.  Some groups will be portaled to the frontline for combat, to guard a narrow pass, or assassinate an important lieutenant.  Others will be dropped in to scout forces, recon a series of tunnels, use their mining skills to collapse a passage or dig one.

The groups:
+ Each group is to be from three to six players.  The level ranges for the groups will be 1-6, 7-11, 12-18, 19-40.  One player in the group may fall outside that range into the one above or below.  (eg. A 7-11 group may take one 4th level -or- one 16th level.)
+ Each player may partake in only two missions, but not the same one twice.  Choose carefully!
+ PCs returning from battle may, and are expected to, share information with their fellow defenders.  Later groups will, if done properly, be better prepared than earlier groups.
+ Various missions will take varying skills; form your groups carefully!

The mechanics:
+ Players enter barracks in Hlint and speak with guardsman to chooses a mission.  They are given a journal entry for the mission.  The portal in the room will take him to the mission site if he is in a party that meets the above criteria.  The entire party is portaled when the first enters.  The journal entry is marked as complete at this point.
+ In each mission, there is a single goal to be accomplished.  For simplicity, I am suggesting a usable device be placed where the goal is.  Each player that uses the device gets a token in their inventory representing success against Blood.  
+ To return from the mission, players have two choices:  1) Return to their start location and re-portal home, and 2) die.  Slain players may -not- return.  Doing so through their bindstone is considered an exploit.  
+ Should DTs be in effect on these missions?  (So this is where the Soul Mother has been keeping herself busy.)
+ Dying after the token for success has been received is acceptable and still counts as a mission accomplished.
+ Upon returning home, the token (perhaps looks like a parchment report?) is placed into the chest by the guardsman.  A running tally is kept:  Number of PCs going vs. number of reports received.  (This score can be used by the GM team to set the tone of the Blood quest.  Are we winning or losing?)
+ Perhaps each mission gives a different token/report.  If too many of one type are being taken, Blood would shift some forces there thus making them more difficult to accomplish.

The missions:
+ Each level group should have either separate missions, or scaled missions.  I am not familiar with spawn scaling but have seen some very impressive spawns based upon level here in Layonara.
+ My recent death on the bugbear quest is about the right level of difficulty.  A well prepared group will succeed with difficulty, a poorly planned group will be slaughtered.
+ Incorporating aspects from the various classes would be good.  Missions for pure rogue/ranger, druid/ranger, magician, and fighter would be good too.
+ I am envisioning that each mission is expected to take the group under two hours to accomplish.  Longer perhaps if there is RP in the group, less if they slam through with detailed beta.
+ Tweaking the missions over time is acceptable.
+ Keeping the areas as simple as possible for the builder's benefit is acceptable.  (eg. A single level of tunnels, a hilly field, mountain pass, etc.)
+ Remember!  Each player must touch the token device for maximum success.  Slaughtering your way in for an assassination where 4 of 6 of the party dies, is not as effective as two parties of 3 sneaking in and back.

Example missions.
#1: Dig a tunnel. Battle some baddies then "mine" a bunch of stone to simulate opening or closing a tunnel system.  Token device behind all the stone.
#2: Stealth into a camp and assassinate a lieutenant.  Token device is his chair.  (Need to dispel invis for that adventure.)
#3: Hold a mountain pass from attack.  Players appear in pass and choose their defense:  archers placed on ridge, or four half-giants blocking the middle, or a slew of traps out front.  When ready they use a telescope which triggers the spawn(s).  All hell breaks loose.  In addition to baddies, the spawn also places the token device.
#4: Burn a camp.  Pure battle.  Spawn on ridge with camp below in valley.  Assess situation and crush them.  Provide clever opportunities for trap layers, etc.
#5: Recon a pass or gather intel from a house.  Rediculously difficult battle; purpose is to get in and out unseen.  If you're spotted, *poof* buh bye!

[Pen N Popper]

Expected length of two hours might be too long since the areas will be small.  Perhaps 30min +/- for RP?  I don't have a good feel for that.

Also, if limited to 30min they could be GM run.  Basic premise is:  Get in and out.  You have 30min to do the job before Blood sends reinforcments.  At the end of 30min, the GM starts spawning in the reinforcements. The goal here would be to allow the maximum number of players to have GM face time.  

Didn't mention XP here.  Could be turned off or could be party based upon the number of tokens returned.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I am in love with this idea; it would be perfect for my character, the entire concept behind whom is an effect on the world in some manner - That's what he's shooting for.

Plus, it would give so, so much more to do than my proverbial "picking berries and making magical coolaid."

[jrizz]

Nice ideas! I would love to see this happen.

[Pen N Popper]

Bumping because I still like this a lot.

[Leanthar]

This is indeed a neat idea...but it will take a LOT of work, and I mean a lot. On top of that we would need to portal people to another server (like the quest server) to deal with the heavy lag...this is not easy either because I do not have extra servers/hardware available 24/7/365 due to money issues. Lots of good stuff, I just can't do it unless people want to donate another 4000ish for a server dedicated to quests like this--then I would certainly consider it.

[Pen N Popper]

My goal in describing this was to do so in as simplistic a way as possible in order to minimize scripting and other required resources.  My thinking was that this would be a very small quest.  It would be short duration, low party size, and in some cases even low combat.  The areas that you get portaled to could be on East.

I certainly don't want to trivialize the work that would be required.  Do want to make clear that my descriptions were purposefully attempted to be kept simple.

Fun to think about, though.  :-)

[miltonyorkcastle]

It's an awesome idea.  I'm afraid it's a little late in the game to get it implemented for this story arc, though, which is really too bad.  However, I would love to help make this sort of thing happen for the future story arc of in NWN2 Layo.  Hold onto your ideas Pen, because there may yet be a time and place for them here, I think.

[LordCove]

Seems to me as thought this idea is kinda in the running now. Got three ( yes, three!! ) Blood quests running next sunday. At first, I thought I would just have to keep an eye out in the Forums and read what happened. Now, Im gonna be in it. How cool!