Thread: Roleplaying Enchancement: Make your own Quest

Overview: A tool/panel to create your own Quest using the existing game resources. This can be a very powerful tool that allows you to enhance your own, fellowship or kinship roleplaying experience.

Details: A RP Quest is easily made with this tool making most of the game framework and its mechanism. Create a name, write your own story in the description as a background to this quest. Set objectives and rewards from existing items, locations and mobs. Rewards being cosmetic clothes, jewellery, weapons of no coin value, no stat value and no damage value - only description and trivialious value.
The RP Quest will not give any coin, experience points, titles, or any item of gameplay value (such as coin, stats or damage) for obvious reasons. RP Quest can also be shared among your Fellowship or Raid.
RP Quest ring should be coloured Blue or Red to avoid any confusion with actual Turbine quest and only usable/activated when in /rp state.

Panel Options:
*Kill x existing mobs or a named mob (either quest or shard*)
*Collect x object(s). (Customised mob drop objects using existing items, and easily rename and change details, e.g. Goblin Clubs. Or heirloom with your own customised teal/orange item. Resource object can be considered as mob drop such as ash branch, barrow iron deposit but you would still need appropriate access such as prospector/forester)
*Scout or hold particular location.
*Escort a designation member of your fellowship (Use 'escort item' which whoever is holding this quest item requires escort)
*Talk to NPCs
*Have alternative ending options fulfilling the criteria. E.g. Two opposing characters fighting for the leadership of the kinship, both coincidently was slain by an Orc raid, 3rd character gets the reward.

Additional conditional options such as timer, no rez, no death, no reinforcement, speed buffs, and unique or generic reward. (Death or rezzing would result in failure of the quest, rather than inability to rez. The no Reinforcement condition means if one dies and attempts to return to battle from rez point, the quest will fail. Speed buff, any usage of hunter, warden speed buff or horses, or porting would automatically make you fail the quest for racing purposes. Unique reward means only one designated person will get the reward, generic means anyone as a souvenir)

*The Quest will not activate mobs or named mobs outside their designed spot placed by Turbine. Nor will the quest force any shard mob to appear, you will have to wait til it appears).


Example:
Quest Name: The Hunt for White Stag
Description: White Stag hold a place in the mythology, it was stated that the creature has a perennial ability to evade capture; and that the pursuit of the animal represents one's spiritual quest.
Objective: Kill the Antlered King in Misty Mountains or Horned Wood-Lord in Lorien. Drops a quest item; Antlers.
Reward: Teal item "Magnificent Antlers", with no value or apparent use.

With this kind of flexibility, the possibilities are endless as demonstrated by a few ideas;
*Take your revenge of your parents' death by killing a named Orc or Half Orc or Brigand and retrieve your father's weapon (customised cosmetic sword or bow or whatever with no damage value)
*Search for a Dwarven heirloom to bring glory and honour to your kinship in one of the moria treasure chests (existing such as boss chest, or even those scattered chests/cocoon etc).
* Follow in the footsteps of Arwen and Aragorn by creating your own lovestory quest that eventually ends up with a customised wedding ring with your choice of an icon, slottable in finger slot. (or necklace!)
* Lead a band of hardened soldiers into Annuminas (where Valtair is) or other enemy strongholds, and hold the place for specified time, ensuring you survive the respawns (viewed as waves) without any rezzes or reinforcements.
* Recreate some quests to run some old contents again, give yourself another reason to kill Samburg or the Red Maid.
*Create a large Campaign quest line such as Landroval's Axes of the Dwarves event.
* Award your kinship, such as medals for kinship's first downing of Watcher, or LT of DG.

For non-roleplayers there are plenty of stuff to do with this tool. You can create a treasure hunt quest, a race around specific locations with the reward being the proof, plenty of kinship events ideas.

Issues: Bugs may be problematic but since it is harmless and only despair would be your ruined roleplaying experience. May take a quite bit of coding and resources. The positive thing is that none of the RP items or stuff would affect any mobs, or gameplay mechanism or balance.

Benefits;
*Adds an incredible flexible layer to roleplaying with such customisable tool that only your imagination would be the limit.
*Unlimited possiblities of making the game more enjoyable and more use of the entire game world.
*Another purchasable option via Turbine Store for Premium and VIP players. Bound to bring in more revenues.
*Customisable Items that can be used for roleplaying purposes.
*Uses existing graphics without need to create new stuff, particular graphics can be limited Such as no comestic exclusive gear graphics from raid sets or barter. Though no limits on jewellery (no graphics) and no limit on weapons since they have no damage value.

The Goal of this is to be able to create your own quest without the need to add any resources to the game. Simply using all existing items, locations and mobs without changing anything that exist in game already. The mobs name would not be changed, scripts will not change either. Objects customised by the quest would not affect any existing items or gameplay, except filling up your bags/banks/vault

For clarification; The quests are for your own purposes and therefore visible only to yourself once created, unless you wish to share among it your friends, or fellowship or even kinship. They are not exactly public available to anyone. There might be some sort of Wiki in Lorebook where one can share his/her own quest idea for others, as well instructions to carboncopy a quest with modifications or not.

So what do you think? Thumbs Up? Worth the effort? /Signed? Any additions?

Thumbs up.
Would be fun.
I'm all for creativity.

Wow... That's impressive. I absolutely love this idea. Very creative and just... amazing. I would love to do this.

Just one problem:
I'm not sure Turbine would be willing to put the resources forth to make this happen. It seems like it'd be a lot of work, and with the whole moving into Enedwaith rumor, Rohan doesn't seem too far off, which means lots of time designated to programing that and making it work, and less time on fluff. Plus, the whole influx of new players in the fall... I can't see this happening in the near future.

I hope I'm proven wrong though

Originally Posted by mychemguy200

Wow... That's impressive. I absolutely love this idea. Very creative and just... amazing. I would love to do this.

Just one problem:
I'm not sure Turbine would be willing to put the resources forth to make this happen. It seems like it'd be a lot of work, and with the whole moving into Enedwaith rumor, Rohan doesn't seem too far off, which means lots of time designated to programing that and making it work, and less time on fluff. Plus, the whole influx of new players in the fall... I can't see this happening in the near future.

I hope I'm proven wrong though

^ this. While I like the idea, not sure they'd do it. Alternatively, they could make some quests with alternate endings? Like give the player multiple choices to make during the course of the quest that would influence the outcome. Depending on what they selected as they go they could end up with different results/rewards.

You'd get the RP feel still with it.

Originally Posted by mychemguy200

Wow... That's impressive. I absolutely love this idea. Very creative and just... amazing. I would love to do this.

Just one problem:
I'm not sure Turbine would be willing to put the resources forth to make this happen. It seems like it'd be a lot of work, and with the whole moving into Enedwaith rumor, Rohan doesn't seem too far off, which means lots of time designated to programing that and making it work, and less time on fluff. Plus, the whole influx of new players in the fall... I can't see this happening in the near future.

I hope I'm proven wrong though

Thank you, Yes the schedule between now and fall for Free2Play and Enedwaith land would make Turbine busy.
So I am not expecting the idea to have a priority, however Free2Play and premium purchase is exact the perfect reason why Turbine should seriously consider investing resource into this idea and should be on the table once Free2Play is launched.
Each player would purchase the option to access the Make your own Quest panel from Turbine Store with points (once off, say 1-2k points well $5 worth or something).
This means more revenue which would justify the resources being invested.

Originally Posted by twilight07

^ this. While I like the idea, not sure they'd do it. Alternatively, they could make some quests with alternate endings? Like give the player multiple choices to make during the course of the quest that would influence the outcome. Depending on what they selected as they go they could end up with different results/rewards.

You'd get the RP feel still with it.

Thanks, I believe Turbine already is doing the alternative endings, as we witnessed with Lorien Poaching quest line, and the Shire Ranger's decision to go or stay in Volume 3 Book 1.
But yes, an option should be included that you could make your own Quest have alternative endings if you want to make it that way. Thanks for the idea, will add it to the original post.

I do not want 'Make your own Quest" have any influence on the outcome of the entire gameplay, as it shouldn't include rewards that can be used such as XP, IXP, actual weapons with damage value, armour etc. It is just a tool to help you and your fellowship immerse more into Middle Earth with your own customised (although useless) cosmetic weapons, armour and objects. I am advocating that this Make your own Quest proposal is just fluff and won't influence any outcomes.

I even think the mechanism currently will allow it, and it require no extra resource graphic-wise. Because they would be using the existing graphics for the weapons and clothes (lower end, not armour). The difference between this and cosmetic weapons is you actually SLOT a cosmetic customised weapon however it won't deal any damage, or do anything (pretty much like fishing rod with out fishing ability). While people are asking to be able to change the skins of their combat-able weapons and I am not asking for that.


Take this as an example; the Landroval Event; Axes of the Dwarves. It is a large campaign, invested a lot of time by Gobblemoss. I would presume this tool would help Gobblemoss big time, because he would be able to write a lot of quests with the backstory, run up to the event, share all the quest line with the Dwarven Kinships involved, getting Raid together, march/ride from Thorin Hall to Ettenmoor passing location objectives on the way (Shire, Brandwyine Bridge, Bree, Weathertop, Last Bridge, Rivendell, GV), also next quest's Objective being destroying 100 Goblins in Goblin Camp in moors, hold it for x minutes defending from counter attacks of Creeps and respawned goblins. Once succeed with that, he can get the Dwarves to move on to the next quest which is to go to Delving of Fror, kill the Rogmul there, and get it to drop a customised Dwarven Key to the legendary Tomb or something.

It helps turning your creativity into a well organised event that everyone can follow and know what to do next, improving your roleplaying experience or other event experience without the need for extensive preparations, pre-event lectures or print out sheets.

I like this idea!

/sign

A friend have raised a serious point that the quest tool can be used for abusive purposes.
True there is no way to prevent nasty, abusive quests being made, however I feel that the exposure would be far less than any chat channel abuse.
The only way to share your own quest is either share it in game, which means you know who to report immediately and the person would be picked up by GM.
Quests that are to be published in wiki/lorebook would be moderated and require approval based on merits (quality, no 100x aragorn/arwen love quest style) thus reducing further exposure and eliminate chances of absuve quests being published.
If people keep to themselves sharing abusive quests among themselves, I suppose it is 'harmless' to the rest of the server and GM would handle this situation just like abusive tells.

On the other hand some quest made could be lorebreaking. I would argue that it would make no difference as people could be lore-breaking already by pretending they are Aragorn's son in their biography.

/signed

When I was in a rp-kinship, this tool would certainly easy things up for the events.

Although I doubt it would happen, I really like this idea. It would greatly increase the playability of the game, especially at level cap.

I like the idea, one thing that I think should be considered is reputation.

Off the top of my head I can think of two ways to implement repuatation, The first is that player quests can reward reputation to a racial faction of their orgin - Dwarf players reward thorin's hall rep, Elves reward rivendell rep, Hobbits have the option for either mathom house or bree, likewise Men can choose between bree and the Eglain.

OR, create an entirely new faction "world rep" which can only be increased by doing created quests.


Your description of the actual implementation is a little vague. Im not sure if you mean that I would create a quest for some "fictional NPC" or if the quest would be for my actual character. I would prefer the latter, allow one quest per character at any given time. Then other players would be able to pick up my quest from my character directly (through the inspect function) or at a centralized bulletin board/arbiter system.

One more thing, Depending on how/if rep is included i think it would be beneficial to give rep rewards to the quest creator. Say for every 100 times my quest is completed i gain 1000 reputation points toward whichever faction the quest is associated with. Point being this gives the player a benefit for keeping a quest around long enough for people to complete it, instead of deleting and making a new one every few days or weeks, give it some time to be completed by people who dont get to it right away and it could be worth your while. Also a rating system for players to rate quests they have completed could help to increase the number of times people pick up and do your quests. So if you make a good quest you get more rep, if you make a boring quest people will be able to see that before you even pick it up.

Giving anything "useful" such as rep causes people to use it to cheat. That's why the OP said everything given should be fluff. Rep isn't fluff. That said, *maybe* you could have a new rep category "Rep with Role Players Anonymous"?

Anyhow, I don't think the idea was specifically to have you be the quest giver, but that you create it and put whatever requirements there are. Anyone could "download" or in other ways get the quest off websites or forums or wherever. The quest might point to a specific person for an objective, but you wouldn't personally be giving out the quest in-game.

who would vet these quests on sticking with lore?

while this works for city of heroes a wide open sandbox type game...i dont see it being able to work here.

Originally Posted by Riamus

Giving anything "useful" such as rep causes people to use it to cheat. That's why the OP said everything given should be fluff. Rep isn't fluff. That said, *maybe* you could have a new rep category "Rep with Role Players Anonymous"?

Anyhow, I don't think the idea was specifically to have you be the quest giver, but that you create it and put whatever requirements there are. Anyone could "download" or in other ways get the quest off websites or forums or wherever. The quest might point to a specific person for an objective, but you wouldn't personally be giving out the quest in-game.

how could they be used to cheat? and is there really anything of value in rep? i mean obviously you couldnt use custom quests to get rep with important areas like moria and higher - but that could potentially be a good way to build rep with the factions you dont spend much time with early in the game.

Because they are separate from the game, no one but the person choosing to use the quest needs to care about whether or not it's Lore. If a player wants to have a quest that isn't at all Lore-based and no one else sees it, what's the difference between that and a RP player who role plays something that isn't Lore? The quests wouldn't be in-game unless someone chooses to load it themselves. Any repository for player-made RP quests would likely include descriptions and ratings and comments that will help anyone wanting a good Lore-based quest to find one without getting non-Lore quests. So that isn't really an issue with the suggestion. This wouldn't affect anyone except the person who goes out of their way to get and use a player-made quest (or who makes their own). It's a good idea, but it just isn't likely to happen.

Originally Posted by Riamus

Because they are separate from the game, no one but the person choosing to use the quest needs to care about whether or not it's Lore. If a player wants to have a quest that isn't at all Lore-based and no one else sees it, what's the difference between that and a RP player who role plays something that isn't Lore? The quests wouldn't be in-game unless someone chooses to load it themselves. Any repository for player-made RP quests would likely include descriptions and ratings and comments that will help anyone wanting a good Lore-based quest to find one without getting non-Lore quests. So that isn't really an issue with the suggestion. This wouldn't affect anyone except the person who goes out of their way to get and use a player-made quest (or who makes their own). It's a good idea, but it just isn't likely to happen.

the difference is simple.

this is not an original ip

this is a licensed ip

can you honestly say that players would not make quests that violate that ip in some way that upsets SZC and jeapordizes this game?

i know thats a worst case scenario...but its something you need to think about.

Because the quests only affect the player in question, it shouldn't matter. Even Marvel didn't do very well with regards to the lawsuit for CoH and they had a more valid reason for the lawsuit. No one is complaining about RP'ers role playing something that breaks Lore, are they? It isn't any different. Whether you completely role play it or if you put some of the mechanics into a quest for the player so they only have to role play it partially and the game does the rest won't change whether or not it gets role played.

Originally Posted by duvelmoortgat

For clarification; The quests are for your own purposes and therefore visible only to yourself once created, unless you wish to share among it your friends, or fellowship or even kinship. They are not exactly public available to anyone. There might be some sort of Wiki in Lorebook where one can share his/her own quest idea for others, as well instructions to carboncopy a quest with modifications or not.

I think you guys are missing this. The quests are for personal use only. You can't just randomly pick one up unless the creator gives it to you. All it does is help the creator better enhance their own RP. They aren't for points or rep, just for good old fun.

I'll use the example that the OP used (I think):
Your character's parents are killed by a named orc and all your life, you've wanted to kill him and reclaim your fathers sword. Right now, in game, there isn't a way to do this. You'd either kill the named orc for somebody else or you just wouldn't. With RP quests, now you can. you can create a dialogue or backstory as to how you found him, and finally kill the jerk. And when you turn your RP quest in, you get a comsemtic weapon called "Your Father's Sword" or something like that, which you can flourish and shout out "My parent's are avenged!"

Need help? Maybe this named orc is super powerful. Or maybe he's got hundreds of orcs at his disposal that he likes to swarm you with. You can share the RP quest with a friend or two (or eleven). The catch would be (OP correct me if I'm wrong) only your character would recieve the cosmetic sword. The others would simply accompany for the immersion that they helped you achieve a life goal in this quest for vengance.

I don't think the OP meant at all for you to sell these quests to others and recieve rep points from them. That would be like saying, "I want all of you guys to go out and kill my parents' murderer at different times, without me, and then all of you can brandish the old sword that he made once that right now I am wearing... at the same time!" That'd just be silly. I thinks that this would likely be a one-time thing, for one group of people.

Hence also eliminating the possibility that random people would be offended. Like Riamus said, if the person who created the quest (and maybe his friends) are the only people who can see it, then nobody gets offended. And if there is something remotely offensive in it and the creator wishes to share it, then it should be his responsibility to warn his fellows and let them either accept or decline. These quests won't be broadcasted across the web or something for everyone to see and criticize.

That's at least what I thought. Correct me if I'm wrong duvelmoortgat.

Originally Posted by Riamus

Because the quests only affect the player in question, it shouldn't matter. Even Marvel didn't do very well with regards to the lawsuit for CoH and they had a more valid reason for the lawsuit. No one is complaining about RP'ers role playing something that breaks Lore, are they? It isn't any different. Whether you completely role play it or if you put some of the mechanics into a quest for the player so they only have to role play it partially and the game does the rest won't change whether or not it gets role played.

thats a totally different situation...it was about copyright infringement.

why do you think EA lost their license to make lotr games?

they did stuff SZC didnt like.

Originally Posted by mychemguy200

I think you guys are missing this. The quests are for personal use only. You can't just randomly pick one up unless the creator gives it to you. All it does is help the creator better enhance their own RP. They aren't for points or rep, just for good old fun.

I'll use the example that the OP used (I think):
Your character's parents are killed by a named orc and all your life, you've wanted to kill him and reclaim your fathers sword. Right now, in game, there isn't a way to do this. You'd either kill the named orc for somebody else or you just wouldn't. With RP quests, now you can. you can create a dialogue or backstory as to how you found him, and finally kill the jerk. And when you turn your RP quest in, you get a comsemtic weapon called "Your Father's Sword" or something like that, which you can flourish and shout out "My parent's are avenged!"

Need help? Maybe this named orc is super powerful. Or maybe he's got hundreds of orcs at his disposal that he likes to swarm you with. You can share the RP quest with a friend or two (or eleven). The catch would be (OP correct me if I'm wrong) only your character would recieve the cosmetic sword. The others would simply accompany for the immersion that they helped you achieve a life goal in this quest for vengance.

I don't think the OP meant at all for you to sell these quests to others and recieve rep points from them. That would be like saying, "I want all of you guys to go out and kill my parents' murderer at different times, without me, and then all of you can brandish the old sword that he made once that right now I am wearing... at the same time!" That'd just be silly. I thinks that this would likely be a one-time thing, for one group of people.

Hence also eliminating the possibility that random people would be offended. Like Riamus said, if the person who created the quest (and maybe his friends) are the only people who can see it, then nobody gets offended. And if there is something remotely offensive in it and the creator wishes to share it, then it should be his responsibility to warn his fellows and let them either accept or decline. These quests won't be broadcasted across the web or something for everyone to see and criticize.

That's at least what I thought. Correct me if I'm wrong duvelmoortgat.

You are completely spot on Although you managed to point out another option that I missed; the ability the reward to be awarded only to the quest maker or designated person the quest is made for, OR generic reward given to all participated (like a souvenir).

About the website reference, I am sure some people may want to share some excellent quests they have made, so a wiki would be set up, however the catch is that they would have to make the quest themselves. Such for example you love my Stag Hunt quest, and you want to use it for yourself or your fellowship as well, you can read up wiki and copy my backstory, my description, my name, my rewards so on in your quest-maker panel or make modification. That is more of external thing, rather than ingame, just a forecast of what would happen if the idea would go live. Another forecast would be that it would increase the activity of roleplayers, perhaps having them blogging and making screenshots of their roleplaying experience on their mylotro account.


Reputation points, as one pointed out that this is entirely fluff and I would prefer to keep it that way (it gives better argument to get it implemented). Asking for useful rewards would possibly upset the balance of gameplay and therefore make the idea less likely to be implemented.

Originally Posted by Ateowe

I like the idea, one thing that I think should be considered is reputation.

Off the top of my head I can think of two ways to implement repuatation, The first is that player quests can reward reputation to a racial faction of their orgin - Dwarf players reward thorin's hall rep, Elves reward rivendell rep, Hobbits have the option for either mathom house or bree, likewise Men can choose between bree and the Eglain.

OR, create an entirely new faction "world rep" which can only be increased by doing created quests.

Your description of the actual implementation is a little vague. Im not sure if you mean that I would create a quest for some "fictional NPC" or if the quest would be for my actual character. I would prefer the latter, allow one quest per character at any given time. Then other players would be able to pick up my quest from my character directly (through the inspect function) or at a centralized bulletin board/arbiter system.

Thanks, Reputation could be considered however it would have to be a new one, Roleplaying reputation or something. However I hardly see the point in it really apart from recognising some great roleplayers, and that in itself may give more trouble than it is worth. (Quality vs quantity argument etc).

the Quest would be for your actual character, no fictional NPC. Once you made the quest, and activate it, you may head to the NPC that you have designated as quest giver to give your Quest, (such as Elrond or whatever, has to be existing NPC). Other people who also activated the same quest you made and shared can get the quest from the NPC as well. Central abriter should not automatically give out quest activator or quest itself, only instruction and conditions to make the quest, (for moderating purposes)

Thanks for the support and keep them coming, spread the word! it is the only way we can make this idea more of a reality, especially with purchasable option in Free2Play to justify the investment of Dev resources.

Originally Posted by duvelmoortgat

Reputation points, as one pointed out that this is entirely fluff and I would prefer to keep it that way (it gives better argument to get it implemented). Asking for useful rewards would possibly upset the balance of gameplay and therefore make the idea less likely to be implemented.



Thanks, Reputation could be considered however it would have to be a new one, Roleplaying reputation or something. However I hardly see the point in it really apart from recognising some great roleplayers, and that in itself may give more trouble than it is worth. (Quality vs quantity argument etc).

the Quest would be for your actual character, no fictional NPC. Once you made the quest, and activate it, you may head to the NPC that you have designated as quest giver to give your Quest, (such as Elrond or whatever, has to be existing NPC). Other people who also activated the same quest you made and shared can get the quest from the NPC as well. Central abriter should not automatically give out quest activator or quest itself, only instruction and conditions to make the quest, (for moderating purposes)

Thanks for the support and keep them coming, spread the word! it is the only way we can make this idea more of a reality, especially with purchasable option in Free2Play to justify the investment of Dev resources.

I dont really get the appeal of creating a quest primarily for yourself. Not from a gameplay standpoint, not from an RP standpoint. I think this idea is a great way to "establish your character" as an actual inhabitant of middle earth, who needs things done.

Nor do I understand why it would have to be an Existing NPC, this would be an incredible amount of work and you might even have to worry about how players use a character like elrond. Is it lore? is it in line with his character? will anyone notice or care? No. How hard would it be to Implement a system where each player has to designate an NPC to give the quest. Its much safer and simpler to Make a Central NPC "Arbiter" who gives all player created quests (and where they are turned in to)

Place an Arbiter in each of the Racial Hubs, if I need something done I can visit this arbiter and input the details of my request, and possibly select a reward. From there I can share my (re)quest with people I meet along my travels, or players can select it from a list off player created quests at the arbiter NPC.

Also I disagree that "making it all fluff" will make it more likely to be incorporated. the less valuable this system is, the less likely people will want it, and if less people want it, it doesnt get done. This Could be a great way to augment the Rep-earning done at lower levels for low-level (SoA) factions that dont get alot of attention anymore (or ever)

Originally Posted by Ateowe

I dont really get the appeal of creating a quest primarily for yourself. Not from a gameplay standpoint, not from an RP standpoint. I think this idea is a great way to "establish your character" as an actual inhabitant of middle earth, who needs things done.

Nor do I understand why it would have to be an Existing NPC, this would be an incredible amount of work and you might even have to worry about how players use a character like elrond. Is it lore? is it in line with his character? will anyone notice or care? No. How hard would it be to Implement a system where each player has to designate an NPC to give the quest. Its much safer and simpler to Make a Central NPC "Arbiter" who gives all player created quests (and where they are turned in to)

Place an Arbiter in each of the Racial Hubs, if I need something done I can visit this arbiter and input the details of my request, and possibly select a reward. From there I can share my (re)quest with people I meet along my travels, or players can select it from a list off player created quests at the arbiter NPC.

Also I disagree that "making it all fluff" will make it more likely to be incorporated. the less valuable this system is, the less likely people will want it, and if less people want it, it doesnt get done. This Could be a great way to augment the Rep-earning done at lower levels for low-level (SoA) factions that dont get alot of attention anymore (or ever)

Thank you for your opinion. I would agree in general with your disagreement on making it all fluff would make it more likely. However in this particular situation it would be be true.
The Dev/GM all along have the power over rewards, and one thing this RP Quest maker would be is giving the players a bit of that power. Hence why I stress the point strongly that it should be all fluff, because I do not want to set the precendent, I do not want to take any of GM/Dev's power in terms of awarding rewards. The Devs have set the rewards in terms of balance to other rewards in the game. Reputation among factions early in the game are pretty easy to get, several quests give it out, repeated quests from the Bree/Sarnur dungeons makes it more easier.

The Quests should be primarily for yourself or your friends/kinship, because of the scope of influence it wields. As other posters in this thread mentioned; it could be open to abuse (in terms of text or in your case rewards).

I think this idea is a great way to "establish your character" as an actual inhabitant of middle earth, who needs things done.

The entire point of LOTRO quests made by Devs, and the Epic quest line is to establish your character, as well all other players.
From RP standpoint, this tool is just to make the immersion more easier, help people RP more without referring to notes. Ability to make cosmetic fluff items.
From non-RP standpoint, you could be making treasure hunt with your kinship. Have middle-earth wide race on horseback.
The key is those kind of gameplay already exist in game, and the whole point of Quest maker is to enhance it, get it organised, and improve the immersion/experience as well allow to encourage creativity. You also could be creating your own biography in terms of RP Quest log with this tool.

Re. NPC. It doesn't matter because people are already doing it. Nothing is stopping me or my girlfriend to head out to Elrond, and ask him for permission to get married in rp style which some people already have done as they published it on lotro forum. Nothing is stopping you from declaring yourself brother of Legolas in your biography. Or Son of Gimli. As they say, it is your party. You can write anything in the Quest-maker, be very lore-breaking or *wince* bring in Harry Potter stuff, as you can already in your biography in game, or chat with friends and pretend Lore-Masters are wizards.
That is the exact reason why I think this RP Quest should be made only for yourself or friends. Because then the quests doesn't matter as it won't offend others, not even strictest Lore-police, as it is not official, not for anyone to pick up, as it is to be kept to themselves. Which is why Central Arbiter or making quest public with everyone isn't ideal, an uproar would be there for lore-breaking quests, and therefore require GM's moderating which I like to avoid. Sure you can share with people via quest share method cos that is still local/personal.

I don't think it will be hard to implement the system because the NPC are already there. A person only have to go by "Region, Race, Location, Name", e.g. Rivendell Elven, Last Homely Home, Elrond. In series of drop down boxes to find the person. If you can't find it, well a simple search function would do. If you don't know... then why do you want that NPC?
This system works for other options such as mob type; "Breeland, Orc-kind, Northern Breelands, Red Reaver".
The set up coding may be lengthy and quite a bit of effort, however if Turbine are resourceful effective, they probably already have a Quest-Maker tool for themselves, so all you need to do is make a lite-version. If not.... well they could make one for themselves as well hehe.

I envisioned the Quest maker to be quite similar to Scenario makers from several strategy games I have used such as Warcraft, Age of Empires, Empire Earth, so on. They have similiar to what I was asking for, although more complicated because of conditions and triggers. This version doesn't need triggers or conditions as it is already in game, and cannot alter the gameplay.

I think this would be super fun, and as an RPer, I see a lot of potential in it.

However, I doubt it will ever happen. Turbine doesn't even want to put ambient lighting into our control. They would never allow us to fiddle with the toolset.

doubt it will happen in this game.

Would be cool to have it.

There are games out there that give you these powers + more. I remember some vampire game (Vascarade, maybe thats what it was called) that allowed people to be a GM (game master) along the lines of DDO. They could create worlds, mobs, quests, stories, rewards... pretty much everything.

Oh, to make the rewards fair... IF it was implemented, would be to have people post stuff on wiki. Then people rate... after some many "thumbs ups" or some rating system, the quest could give more or less of a reward as tokens/skirm marks/turbine points/ whatever.

This idea is great! Although it may not be entirely practical, at least in terms of time/priorities on the side of Turbine, it has unlimited benefits! (Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but they'd definitely be numerous)

Creating our own quests, no matter how simple or rudimentary, would greatly increase the immersion and role-playing aspect of the game. In addition, it'd allow for more regulated player created story-lines and a feeling of accomplishment/productivity on the side of the players.

Completely and with no hesitation....

/signed!

BUMP!

I kinda notice lately with the Tasks that allows you to collect junk items, worldwide use of the quests and those 'community boards' could be interpreted as a step closer to this suggestion I proposed.

Eitherway, I hope this could come one day to fruition for more enjoyment of LOTRO for anyone; roleplayers, f2pers, kinships or solo storymakers and give true unique experience of Massive Multiple Online ROLEPLAYING Game.

Originally Posted by duvelmoortgat

BUMP!

I kinda notice lately with the Tasks that allows you to collect junk items, worldwide use of the quests and those 'community boards' could be interpreted as a step closer to this suggestion I proposed.

Eitherway, I hope this could come one day to fruition for more enjoyment of LOTRO for anyone; roleplayers, f2pers, kinships or solo storymakers and give true unique experience of Massive Multiple Online ROLEPLAYING Game.

i think you are reading too much in to this.

these were designed for the froobs....especially the more casual type to iad them in leveling.

that is all.

You don't really need special software to run a private quest, you know. I remember one my allegiance did in Asheron's Call.....

One of our player characters had gone missing for a day or two. Our allegiance monarch set us all searching for him ... but we couldn't find him anywhere in Dereth. (Because the character wasn't logged in.)

We got a clue that someone in Rithwic might know something. I zapped down to Rithwic and found the character. She didn't admit anything but I found out later she was one of our monarch's alts. She gave me some mysterious clues. I passed them on to all my allies who were logged in, and after some more searching we got a hint that the guy could be found at such-and-such coordinates.

So we ran across the landscape, fighting critters here and there, and we found our missing ally lying in a little hut near the source of the River Prosper, which ran north-south down most of the eastern half of Dereth. He was in shock and didn't recognize any of us. He was afraid to go with us, until I took off my helm and all my armour and knelt beside him, saying, "Look. I'm an old woman. I can't harm you; you don't need to fear me."

At that he got up and was willing to go with us, but he wandered about like ... well, like Lalia or any of those other silly NPCs who make it as difficult as possible for you to rescue them. We didn't see how we could get him across country ... but my husband and I had already learned that you could use the Prosper, which was shallow,* as a freeway down into civilized places. Almost none of the mobs ever came within aggro range of the center of the river.

So, carefully and gently, we led him down the middle of the Prosper, annihilating those few mobs that happened to wander within range. We got him down to Holtburg and into one of the houses there, where he lay down on the bed and logged out.

Mission accomplished. We had a blast. And all it took was collusion between our monarch and one of her alts, and the other player and one of his alts. And the plentiful use of /allegiance chat.

Try it.

_____
*A good thing, too, because AC had no swimming skill.

I agree with those who think it's a very cool idea which will probably never see the light of day.

Here is what I have been doing ingame now ... this suggestion would fit very well with what i do...

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...he-RP-friendly

Originally Posted by Darej

why do you think EA lost their license to make lotr games?

they did stuff SZC didnt like.

more likely the owner of new line Cinema, a company named Warner bros, decided that they'd be better of taking the lisence back and useing it for in house development.

such as this MMO published by a company they purchased

love the idea, in SWG MMO they had this, it wouldent be that hard for them to do, swg just made drops for things,, such as, you loot a relic called comm message, you put it in a quest and it turns into a quest holocron, a person plays it and a message pops up saying what ever you put in the message. very creative and very nice and simple to make. also, for rewards, you could put in money or items, but they had to come for your inven, also, in SWG you could name the items you craft so you could name a sword "your father's sword" and put it as a reward.

You can already make up your own quests if you like, and the Tasks system gives you incentive to take "vendor trash" as a turn-in, to feed to an alt. Here's how I would do it:

Craft an item, or series of items (like an armour set), and advertise in a level-appropriate hub. Most preferably with a Task board nearby that has turn-ins you want to collect for an alt that you could park there. Make up any story you like, and offer the quest-taker whatever the crafted item is in return for their fetching you X of whatever trash drop you're after for your alt.

Other player gets a nice crafted piece, RP's for it rather than hits the AH, and your alt gets to knock out 5 tasks a day, whether you're playing them or not.