I know you're working on adding more quests. However people will just do the additional quests and then that'll be the end of it, or they'll do the same repeatable quest over and over even though it makes no sense to be able to repeat it on such a short time scale.

What I think might keep it interesting is if there's a way to make the quests a bit more dynamic. Of course having a bunch of DMs on running events constantly would help, but here's a reasonable substitute.

Using the child lost in the woods as an example:

Currently it's something everyone can do once, and it's always the same so once you've done it on one character you already know exactly where to search.

Instead have it be something that occurs once in awhile. Some random time, about a day on average after the last time it was solved, have a child get lost somewhere at random, one of a dozen or so possible locations, and then reward the group that finds the kid and escorts them back to town first. No one else can find the kid after they are located, they aren't there anymore, and once they give up and go back to town they learn someone beat them too it. The group that found the child gets a successful completion in their journal everyone else gets a someone else did it first entry. Later on the quest becomes available again and they can try to be the fastest hero.

I think this would really add to the immersion. PCs are sitting in the bar and some NPC comes in saying his wife was just captured by goblins and he's looking for an adventurer to go rescue her. It's like a random event without a DM needing to be there all the time.

In addition to the usual quest stuff for it you'd need to script spawning the quest giver. Then when it's completed a script updating everyone else who's online to change their journals as well. Make the quest giver quest dialogue option be dependent on the quest availability and have him despawn shortly after it's complete. And finally there would need to be a new quest management script fired on new client entering that removes all these type of quests from their journal if they aren't currently an active quest.

If done I recommend making a framework to handle a bunch of quests of this type. So there's one on client enter script that removes all inactive quests from journals, and probably a script to initiate random quests at random times by calling the quest specific initiation script. The initiation script, the quest global variable name and the quest journal tag would be organized in a 2da. From there everything can be handled from the quest specific scripts. I may write a demo module for this idea if anyone's interested.

I know this is very possible with the new spawn system we have, though it would obviously take some script work to get it done. I like the idea and it would be worth a look into it once we get some other things done.

I notice you mentioned making a sample module. Are you familiar with scripting, or are you just talking about using already-made scripts to do it

I'm familiar with scripting. I've got a demo module mostly written, but I won't be able to test it for multi-player functionality for awhile. I'm current in Germany with only my laptop, at home I can run a server on my desktop and I have two full sets of NWN2 CD keys so I can test with two clients. Of course there I also have a wife who significantly reduces my free time.

Interesting.

Interested.

I'm sure we'll do something along this line after the server overhaul is complete. There's nothing hard about it considering the scripts that we already have can be used to do this. We'd probably avoid using the journal though and instead, utilize the UI for the quest system. Writing journal entries and checking them for bugs is a very long process. That's the primary reason why it took us so long to implement the quests that are on the server now.

Yep, was pretty easy. Making even two rather simple quests took me significantly longer than making a quest tracking and initiation framework. But anyway, other than I can't test it for multiplayer right now it's playable.

I'd want to add a dozen more quests, have the NPCs actually walk into and out of the inn instead of just materialize out of nowhere, and put in a poker game or something for the adventurer to do before I'd want to upload it to the vault.

I'd probably have to add at least one tree to minimize the hate mail from druid lovers.

If anyone wants a four area two quest module where the quests appear randomly and change slightly each time, just send a PM. I hope you like completely flat featureless landscapes.

I'll send a PM once the worst of the currently planned script update is stable. I can't afford to be diverted in too many directions until we have all the necessities finalized.