Suggest-a-Quest

[crustyrustyaphid]

Alright peoples Khalid said this should be done so I put on my cowboy boots and said "Let's run with it!" Now what we have here is a very great opportunity to see the quest you've wanted actually implemented into this mod. Post who gives it,how it's gotten,the story behind it,the end results and if possible Dialogue.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

Thanks crustyrustyaphid.

OK, folks, so let's hear some suggestions.

For an idea on what's being looked for, let me reproduce ingolfis's post in the thread for random suggestions.

ingolifs said:

Another thing, Is it at all possible to have quests change as you gain ranks? It seems to be a bit silly to me to have 'fetch me stuff' quests from bishops and consuls when you're the podesta. I'd think of quests at that stage as more favours that they have to ask of you.

While i'm on the topic of quests, is it also possible to have the specific quests caused by world events, instead of causing them? For example with the raider quest, would it be possible to spawn a raiding party randomly, and when that happens, the counts are able to give you a 'bring raiders to justice' quest? Or perhaps with the imperial magnate quests, whenever a imperial mission party spawns on the map, you get consuls from several towns asking you to 'convince' him to come to their town, and which one you decide to drag him to, affects your standing with all the other towns. I know this sort of thing is possible, because AW has managed that 'defeat the host of mordor' quest, which occurs after the party spawns. I just don't know how hard it is though.

Finally, I think people are growing tired of the standard count quests. Oftentimes, they don't reflect anything meaningful, and they're not fun to complete. I'd like if they were replaced by some more open type quests like those you see in AW's mods. Things where you are required to go out and defeat some parties, and the number of them you defeat influences how much reward you get. Or just more general quests like 'get me some horses' rather than 'get me 7 sumpter horses' where the number and quality (cost to buy) influences your reward. I'm not sure how easy all this would be, and i feel a bit guilty about posting suggestions that would require a lot of work, but better out than in, I suppose.

and my follow-up:

admin said:

I agree with practically everything you say.

There's nothing preventing more elaborate quests & advancing them up the line in "quality".

The original idea was precisely to open up these quests gradually.

- low level players do only the count's grunt-work quests. Consuls, bailiffs & bishops tell him to take a hike. (why should they trust some lowly soldier with these delicate quests?)

- once you reach a certain threshold level, bishops, bailiffs & consuls quests open up and your political influence begins. (You can still do count stuff, but why? that's only sheer rank stuff, and they're pretty boring by now.)

- When you get office, you then take on particular obligations. (mayfields, court days, etc.). Becoming bishop or bailiff would mean different obligations (not yet modelled).

I suppose the question here is whether bishop, consul & bailiff quests should should change because you're count, or count's quests change because you're bishop. I suppose they could. But we're talking an astronomical increase in the number of quests, which may hit up against our creativity barrier..

Your suggestion about linking quests up is also planned. (e.g. particular revolts to conditions of city rule/episcopal rule; a particular noble faction revolts if you do x, etc.)

As for multiple-endedness, there's a bit of it there. You have multiple (OK, two) ways to "complete" imperial & papal legate quests. You can choose who to help/hurt in city revolts. You can choose where to commandeer your pilgrims. etc.

So, there's nothing I disagree with you. It can and should be done. The issue is coming up with them and writing them. My creativity is rather limited.

If you can think of something precise, doable and someone is willing to write the dialogs for, there's is no reason for not doing it.

Heck, why not use your post to open up a "Propose New Quests Here" thread? We could just have posters sketch out the who/what/consqeuences of the quest in some detail and (ideally) write up a draft of the dialogues.

Don't need modding experience. If you're testing, you already have some idea of who's there and what the parameters are to be affected (burghers/nobles/etc.), so it shouldn't be hard. I'd be willing to convert it into mod script.

So that's the spirit of things. If you haven't seen the mod yet, there is info on the protagonists and set-up in the main threads.

[junocommando]

I've got a couple of ideas, but I'm not sure of their feasibility.
1) How about a quest given to the town gangs, I currently forget their name, to steal the opposing gangs flag dealie. You know, the important thing that people were talking about making the inventory. It would obviously be a huge blow to morale for them, as well as giving bragging rights to your gang.
2) Defense of the country. Your outline mentions attacks by Saracens, and one mission could have you defending a border fort, from undefeatable hordes. The more you kill before you get knocked unconscious, the less parties of Saracens are spawned behind the fort to rampage all over Lombard. If you stop them at the fort, massive prestige gain, if not, you lose some, but can at least get it back if you kill all the parties.
3) Have you made it possible to join the marquises? At least as a early player, it would be interesting to become a bandit and swear fealty. Then you go around raiding caravans, and get quests to opposing caravans and get him the cash, and get better respect and more troops available from him. Seems the same as the early game, and it could be. But as you develop, you could maintain your ties with him and only publically renounce your ties with him, allowing you to get office. Once you get enough power, you could turn it over to the growing power of the marquis. Something about betrayal is just something else, and this would be a good example.
4)For the church missions, I imagine missions to kill heretics in the different townships, capture certain men for repentance. As well, I could see them sending you on a almsgiving's missions to collect however much money, with non-monentary rewards. You could try to have dialogue options to ask for money, but I imagine they would turn a blind eye, to more creative ways of getting the money.

[ingolifs]

1. You're talking about the various contrada of the city? San Marco, etc? The flag you mention is called a Gonfalon (gonfanon?) and it belonged to the city itself, not to the various factions in the city. So one city is supposed to capture the gonfalon from another city, not from a different faction in the same city.

Yeah, I agree we should be able to do that. Along with capturing the enemy count, you could also steal their gonfalon and bring it back to your bishop for a prize or something.

2. Yeah. Such quests should be given out by abbots from those abbeys. Kill the heretics, kill the saracens, kill the magyars.

3. I actually quite like this idea. The marquises may be badasses, but you could go be evil and help them beat up farmers and such. The tradeoff is, that once you become too powerful and deadly (as all players do eventually), you'll get chased down by the nearby podestas, and if you get captured, you'd have to resign from being a Marquise's goon. Also, you'd be treated pretty badly by the marquis himself anyway.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

junocommando said:

1) How about a quest given to the town gangs, I currently forget their name, to steal the opposing gangs flag dealie. You know, the important thing that people were talking about making the inventory. It would obviously be a huge blow to morale for them, as well as giving bragging rights to your gang.

I like this one. But for cities.

Scene: Consul of town A requests it from you. Informs you an enemy "carroccio" is travelling from enemy town B to enemy town C for some moral-boosting or celebratory reason or something

(carroccio = ox-cart bearing the sacred gonfalon of city B, very typical & precious to Lombard cities; we don't have ox-carts, but we have gonfalons & gonfalon-bearers (gonfaloniere), so it'll do)

Your mission: intercept the carroccio and capture the gonfalon (i.e. gonfaloniere) of city B. Bring it/him to city A. It will embarass city B terribly and they'll have to ransom it if they want it back.

Write up the dialogs and we're home. This is easy to include.

2) Defense of the country. Your outline mentions attacks by Saracens, and one mission could have you defending a border fort, from undefeatable hordes. The more you kill before you get knocked unconscious, the less parties of Saracens are spawned behind the fort to rampage all over Lombard. If you stop them at the fort, massive prestige gain, if not, you lose some, but can at least get it back if you kill all the parties.

A hard one since there are no "borders" really. Saracens landed raiding parties by sea on the Tyrhennean coasts. These were not invasion forces, but just fortune-seeking adventurers. So there isn't likely to be huge amounts of them at any point, but just the occasional party.

So defending border castles against them doesn't quite fit. However, it can be linked up to an abbey-defending idea that's already been mentioned.

OR, revamp this idea to holding a fort in an Alpine valley to block a a German invasion force. This happened quite often and it is something the Lombard communes did quite frequently at the request of the Pope.

So the quest should come from a Papal emissary (in Ravenna, or a visiting emissary, or from a Consul (if Guelf) or Bishop on behalf of the Pope). He should ask you to hold an Alpine fort (you can use Castle Garda or Isola Comacina, or we can "spawn" a special fort for the purpose). The duty is to prevent various waves of the Imperial army from crossing the mountains into Italy.

In the dialogues, the emissary should say the Pope & Emperor are having a little disagreement, and the Emperor is sending a huge army down to the Papal States to, e.g. (a) "press a point" by intimidation, (b) displace Papal garrisons in some town or other (e.g. Perugia, Spoleto).

The player should demur and worry about treason (the Emperor is his overlord after all). The Papal emissary should appeal to Italian patriotism and make it seem it is not really treasonous to attack the Emperor's army if it is in defense of the Church. Or some doublespeak about how you're not really attacking the Emperor, you're just holding the pass with orders to block anyone; so if the imperial army tries to get through by force, it is the Emperor's army that is choosing to attack you, not you attacking them.

The actual process and the actual consequences may need to be redrafted for feasibility. But a good suggestion.

3) Have you made it possible to join the marquises? At least as a early player, it would be interesting to become a bandit and swear fealty. Then you go around raiding caravans, and get quests to opposing caravans and get him the cash, and get better respect and more troops available from him. Seems the same as the early game, and it could be. But as you develop, you could maintain your ties with him and only publically renounce your ties with him, allowing you to get office. Once you get enough power, you could turn it over to the growing power of the marquis. Something about betrayal is just something else, and this would be a good example.

Hm. Not sure about this one. The player's relations with the marquises are not good ones. They insult each other at every occasion. You CAN set yourself up as your very own marquis , but that's already possible. (capture Bardi or Monselice and make a nuisance of yourself)

4)For the church missions, I imagine missions to kill heretics in the different townships, capture certain men for repentance. As well, I could see them sending you on a almsgiving's missions to collect however much money, with non-monentary rewards. You could try to have dialogue options to ask for money, but I imagine they would turn a blind eye, to more creative ways of getting the money.

I'll have to think about this.

[junocommando]

Here's an early transcript...
Bishop: Oh, yes, you, yes, come in, come in. I have send for you with a grave matter. It seems that secret negotiations have failed miserably between our leige and that insufferable Emperor.

Player Character: But he is our Emperor by God's right!

Bishop: No, the Pope is God on Earth, and he wouldn't have picked him. It's not important anyways. It seems that the Emperor took special offence to some of the Pope's comments, and it seems as if a massive army is marching on Lombard to depose Him. It's completely bewildering!

Player Character: What do you want me to do about? Perhaps his liege could practice a little tact.

Bishop: It is the Emperor's fault. He is an uncouth warmongerer. Our scouts say that their tracks indicate they are heading for the pass of Isola Comacina. I want you to take any troops you can, and defend the fort there for as long as you can!

Player Character: Fight the Emperor? But that's treason.

Bishop: He means to harm the Pope! He will probably install garrisons in every town, and I doubt he will let your transgressions against him stand. Will you stand aside and let Italy fall under the boot of foreign invaders?

Player Character: But...

Bishop: But nothing! Are you a coward, or a brave son/daughter of Italy. Stand firm, and may God help you.

[johnathanandrews]

I figured that the Venetians need a few quests to dish out, though they are a neutral faction. They seem to be the predominate slavers in the region, so here are 4 suggested slaver quests. I'm not sure what to call the servant of the Doge, but I see that there are already a number of NPCs that don't do a whole lot in his court.

Venetian Quests:

Quest 1:
The Doge of Venice or (even better) one of his minions should request galley slaves as a possible quest.

Dialogue: (Playername), the Doge and his esteemed court are in need of some fine slaves to man the oars of his galley. The Doge is planning on making a journey next month, so I will need the slaves within the next five days to adequately ...discipline the slaves and make fine oarsmen out of them. I'll pay 25 denars for each slave, but if you should bring me a Norman slave, I'll gladly pay double for the scum.

Player: How many do you need?

Servant of the Doge: I'll need about 20 men, but you don't have to bring them all at once. I'll give you a bonus if you complete this task quickly and discreetly.

The player should be able to give slaves as he aquires them, and can be paid either at once, or at the end of the quest.

Venetian Slave Quest 2:
A special request from the servant of the Doge for women prisoners.

Dialogue: (Servant of the Doge): Ah, good (playername), I am please to see you today. The Doge and his court are in need of several female slaves for entertainment purposes. We can't get good quality female slaves from our local slaver at the moment, so we ask that you would bring me six female slaves by next week.

Player: And if I return with the merchandise, what shall be my payment?

Servant of the Doge: If you can complete the task this week, I will give you the sum of 250 dinars. If you fail to bring me six, I will not give you the dust off the Doge's floor.

Venetian Slaver Quest 3:
A quest to hunt down rebel slaves in the area.
Note: A special "rebel slaves" band comprised of peasants, ect. must spawn for this quest to work.

Servant of the Doge: Buongiorno, (playername)! Perchance you visit me once again in a hunt for spare coin? Have no fear, for I have a task for a man such as yourself. Some slave rabble has escaped from a villa outside of Venice. Our troops have other matters with which to attend, so this task falls to your band of men. Slay the rebels or capture them; it is of no concern to this court. Make an example of this scum, and you shall be rewarded.

Player: And how much gold coin shall this duty be worth to the Doge and this esteemed court? It shall take a fair sum to encourage my band to dispose of such refuse.

Servant of the Doge: Good (playername), have I not always offered a fair payment for your services? Perform this deed, and you will be given 300 dinars.

Venetian Slaver Quest 4:
A quest to enslave a specific class or troop.
Note: NO special spawns are required.

Servant of the Doge: (Playername), the firey wrath of the Doge burns hot today. The wreched (guelfs/ghibilines/saracens/ect) have raided goods from a good friend of the Doge, slaughtering his men and making mockery of the strength and stamina of all of Venice! As the army has other matters with which to attend, the Doge himself would like to commision you to a special task. Swear to secrecy that you will not speak of this matter, and I shall tell you more.

Player: I swear by the throne of God, by the water of the sea, and by the might of Venice.

Servant of the Doge: Well said. The wreched (faction name) must be punished, but the punishment must be done without starting a war. Capture 15 (faction name)s, and bring them to me.

Player: What if I cannot find the band responsible for this crime?

Servant of the Doge: It is said that all (faction name)s are thieves at heart. Do not worry if you cannot find the band that is responsible for this atrocity. Simply bring to me these 15 new slaves, and you will be abundantly rewarded with praise and coin. You have a week to complete this task, and will be paid 500 dinars when your merchandise is offered to me.

[johnathanandrews]

Here are a few Count-related quests that I think have potential.

Count Quests:

Deliver the Message
Similar to the standard message delivery, but this time you will be pursued by an enemy.
This requires a special spawn of Ghibs/Guelfs to appear near your starting town with the mission of hunting your party down. They should be fairly speedy (speed at 8.0?)

You'd have to deliver this message to complete it, and would naturally gain reputation with the count. To complete this task, you'd either need to be able to outrun the enemy pursuit, or fight them off.

Dialogue:
Count: (Playername), I have an urgent task for you. I have a message that must be brought to Count (friendly count), and must not be intercepted. There are those who wish to keep this message out of Count (friendly count)'s hands. The honorable (friendly count) will reward you. Godspeed, (playername).

You should get at least 300 dinars for completion of this quest. This could either be used as a replacement from the current message delivery quest, or in conjunction with it.

The Spy
This quest requires you to sneak inside an enemy town, go to the tavern, and talk with a spy within the town. You would then need to deliver a report (item) from the spy to the count in order to complete your quest.

Perhaps, if not too complicated, the spy could be in the townhouse within the enemy town.

Dialogue:

Count: Ah, (playername), I have not heard from a little sparrow of mine in (enemy town) for some time. He has information that is vital to our cause. Go to his residence (or the tavern) after you have sneaked past the guards and return his report to me. If he is alive, offer him 300 dinars for his services.

(After entering the town)
Player: Excuse me friend. I am looking for a sparrow that has lost his perch as of late. Do you know where I can find such a bird?

Ghib/Guelf Spy: It may be that I know of such a creature. However, sparrows are such delicate creatures whose wings are easily broken by the careless. How do I know you are a friend of sparrows? What assurances can you offer me?

Player has 2 options here, just for flair.
Player, Option 1: I offer you my word.
Player, Option 2: How's 300 dinar sound?

Spy response 1: Words so easily are said, yet rarely are meant. Return when you can prove your worth.
Spy response 2: Very well, here is all you need to know of the sparrow. (Gives report).

The quest should reward you at least 750 dinars since it is not an easy thing to sneak into the enemy town, and the quest cost you 300 dinars of your own money.

VIP Delivery
This isn't your standard delivery quest. This is a quest to deliver a high-profile prisoner (Guelf/Ghib noble) to the head city of each league (Pavia, and I forget the other one).

The prisoner would go in your prisoner slot, rather than be escorted by another party. To make things interesting, you might consider putting in a script to talk with the NPC (present), where he offers you several hundred dinars if you deliver him to the Count of the opposing faction in their lead city. This would, of course, hurt your relations with your current faction greatly.

Dialoge:
Count: God through his Grace has blessed us mightily, (playername)! We have captured a high-profile prisoner several days ago. I need you to deliver him to the head of our league in (city name). The Count in that city will reward you for your deed.

(After arriving in the league's main city)
Player: I have brought you a gift from Count (original count's name).

Count: You have done us a great service, and your service shall not be without a reward. Take these 500 dinars as a gift from the league.

The Exchange
In this quest, you are to capture and exchange 5 enemy knights for a high-profile POW. You have to:

1) Capture 5 enemy knights.
2) Travel to the enemy city.
3) Request an audience with the enemy Count.
4) Exchange 5 knights for the prisoner.
5) Escort the prisoner to the original city.

Dialogue:
Count: There is a matter that I would like you to complete for me, (playername). One of our finest nobles was ambushed and captured by the (opposing faction)s. He is being held in a cell within (city name). The count responsible for his capture is demanding the release of 5 knights in exchange for our noble. I fear that we have no (opposing faction) knights at this time.

Player: At your service, magnanimous Count. I see you need me to capture 5 knights for you?

Count: Yes, and make the exchange with our enemy. He will be expecting you. Ask his guards for an audience within his chambers and return to me when you have rescued our noble.

Player: As you request, so shall it be.

Count: Hurry, (playername). I fear our good noble will not last longer than a week in captivity.

(When you have arrived at the city and are before the Count)
Enemy Count: You must have come about the prisoner? Speak, before you join him in his cell.

Player: I have come under truce to exchange 5 knights for our noble who you currently hold.

Enemy Count: Very well. Guards! Bring the prisoner, and then take this (your faction) scum out of my sight.

(The noble then joins your party and is an NPC just like Marnido and Borcharillo. If you talk to him, he'd say something like "let's hurry and get back to the city.")

(When you arrive back in the city)
Count: Well done, (playername). Here is your reward for this great service. May God bless you for what you have done.

This should be a HUGE reward, since there are a good number of steps in it. A lot of faction and gold (1500 dinars) should be given upon completion of this quest.

[nasrudin]

admin said:

(carroccio = ox-cart bearing the sacred gonfalon of city B, very typical & precious to Lombard cities; we don't have ox-carts, but we have gonfalons & gonfalon-bearers (gonfaloniere), so it'll do)

Holy War v.4 mod has a horse w/ cart you may want to take a look at (I'll post a screen cap. tonight or tomorrow...).

[crustyrustyaphid]

Rebelious Consorterie Quest:

This quest could be offered by the Bishop, Consul or perhaps your Contrada Captain.

Quest Giver:A Lord of the city has gone to far and reports say he is trying to get the aid of the [Opposing League] to help him take control of the city. We have given him a two day warning to give himself up but he has holed himself in his tower. Will you aid us in stopping him?

Then your given the choice to help them and if you do they say to come back in two days and a Soldier Appears in the building and asks you.

Soldier:Are you ready to attack that wicked Lord sir?

Your then given the entire day to say yes and when you do you enter the battlefield from the Contrada battle(The one with the Lord's Tower) and you fight but with your men against the enemy but they kill your men instead of knocking them out.

don't know if it's possible or not.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

Wow. Excellent stuff guys!

I can't comment on it all now 'cause I got an article deadline over the next couple of days. But keep it coming!!

[ingolifs]

First things first, I think we should modify the old quests somewhat, partly because everyone's played them before, and partly because they weren't very flexible anyway.

Here's a short description of my 'Count adapted quests' which are the standard vanilla ones made better and more logical.

1. Message delivery.
Just like how it is in Vanilla, except your reward is based on how far away the destination is, and how quickly you get there. If you take longer than 3 days, you fail the quest.

2. Supply Weapons/armour/horses.
Like the original, but you recieve a reward proportional to the number of items you give, and their quality. Each one would have some sort of quality minimum (i.e. no felt hats or butter knives) and a quantity minimum (i'm raising a small company of crossbowmen and i need at least 5 crossbows.) There would have to be certain 'categories' into which the item had to fit. For example, Warhorses (hunter, charger, warhorse), Riding horses (saddle, steppe, courser), Light armour (leather jackets, padded cloths, gambesons, etc), and so on.

3. Bring me troops.
The count asks some troops of you, and your reward is based on the number you give him, and the quality of these troops. Minimum quality has to be above militia level (otherwise he might as well get them from the tavern himself.) Perhaps he could ask of certain types of troops. (i.e. Cavalry:knights and men-at-arms. Infantry: infantry and sargeants, archers: skirmisher, crossbowman, sharpshooter)

4. Prisoner quests. I can't really think of specific reasons why a count would want to have low level prisoners captured. Perhaps he'd only ask for knights, and give a fair reward for them. Again, reward based on how many captured knights you bring him.

5. Raider quests.
These are fine the way they are, but i'd like it if they spawned before you got your quest, and you had to get the quest from the town that spawned the raiders.

[saber]

wow really nice suggestions.

Many of the old quests are good, but they just need some modification.

Say the fetch me/quest.

You meet a count, and he says:

Welcome (player)
I have been expecting you. I have a important mission for you. You see, the Empreror has called all his subjects to arms against the filthy Guelfs. As count i must attend to the moblization ground. However i need to show myself in a prestigious manor. Fetch me a horse which i've bought in Bologna.

You go there where you meet the NPC seller, BUT he tells you:
I'm sorry lord D'este has already bought the horse for double the price.

You return to the count, tell him this
(D'este has bought it before you)
Count:
That bloody D'este! Must he have everything. This is the last time he does that. Prepare yourself, i want you to retrieve the horse from D'estes' servant. Be prepared you might have to fight your way to the horse.

You can either kill or capture the man, while receiving the horse as booty(if that is possible, if not, just kill him ;D).

[adriano]

Would there be any way to convert cities to certain factions?
Example you could have missions which would require you to convert it to Ghibelline or Guelf depending on your faction and level. Also these missions would vary depending on you rank, using politics, religion or force. Invasion 1066, i think is one of the other mods that found a way of attacking villages, you could perhaps tweak this to make it more complex and appropirate for the time.
(maybe only have this possibility when you are the podesta' or bishop of a town, and then you can start to worry about intercity feuds!)

[Khalid ibn Walid]

adriano

Transferring a city's allegiance is a really tall order and will take a lot of coding work. As you've noticed, in this mod, there are so many city-specific officers, events & things that changing allegiance will require a major overhaul. It's not so hard with simpler mods.

Still, it is envisaged for the long run. It won't be as easy as just attack, conquest & flip, but will require an inner-city revolution which you can help along by policy & intrigue (note: that a flipping revolution may also be inadvertent, directed against you, because of your mismanagement.)