[MUD-Dev] Player generated quests

[wcoles at reflectionsinteractive.com]

Just throwing this out (partially as an extension to the previous
discussion about fed-ex quests). Although I'm sure it's not a new
idea. Giving players the ability to provide quests for each other
and provide experience gains for completion.

A few bullet points:

  Where:  Provider = Player offering the quest
	  Receiver = Player performing the quest

  1 - Experience is based on the 'quest level'.

  2 - The quest level is determined by the provider.

  3 - Experience given is taken from the providers own experience
  pool.

  4 - The quest is completed when the provider decides it is.

  5 - A provider may not 'drop' a level when providing a quest.

  6 - A receiver cannot take on a quest that will raise them more
  than one level.

Of course, there are many problems such a feature brings up. The
most obvious exploit to me being having lots of people offer your
new character many quests and immediately 'completing' them. I can
also see many people 'nearly there [next level]' and finding someone
who'll sell them the experience they need. Though I think these can
be prevented with more thought.

It would introduce a new problem 'quest griefing' where someone
accepts a quest and either the provider never marks it as
'completed' or the receiver never completes it. Giving either of
them the ability to cancel then allows the provider to have the
receiver complete the quest and then cancel it (once they have what
they want).

Rules 5 and 6 are to prevent 'experience' transference, ie. to
prevent someone using a level 46 warrior to raise a level 1 wizard
to level 46. As well as prevent player quests from raising
characters too quickly.

The idea is based on the fact that, as a players level increases,
the amount of experience they require to reach the next level
increases also. In turn this provides them with a greater
'experience buffer' from which to offer higher level 'player
quests'.

I'm using 'levels' here as common ground, I know some people think a
game without experience levels would be better.

I was also going to add a seventh rule:

  7 - A player cannot provide a quest to characters of greater or
  equal level.

But that seems unfair, why shouldn't players be able to give higher
level players quests?

The point isn't to replace 'hosted' quests, but to allow players to
interact with each other in more ways.

Certainly not a complete proposal but, as I said, just throwing it
out there!

Thanks,
Wayney
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