DM_Kev
26-11-2004, 19:00
Consider this to be an official release on the role of parties and the functions of quests in Untold Tales II.
UTT2 is all about party play. It will be harder to solo almost all areas, with a few exceptions. A number of low level quests will be simple enough to solo - but generally, it ends there. Soloing will not be against the rules, but it won't be encouraged. Because of the even stronger emphasis on party play, we will be releasing hints and tips on how to make the most of your party.
1. The party leader - Nobody has paid much attention to this in the past, but we see it as a means of enhancing roleplay. If a party has a leader, issuing instructions to the party and setting up plans, a role has been created, bringing more life into the party. In UTT2 we will encourage and recommed that the party leader is the one who 'does the talking' for quest dialouges and carries the quest items.
2. Class coverage - Do you urgently require a certain class to help your party? Does your party have too much or too little of a certain class? Is the party too big or too small. (Parties over 6 members strong can incur performance issues)
3. Loot and treasure sharing - How will you efficiently share the spoils of your adventures? You could assign a party member to carry all loot until you are all in a safe place. Any members interested in an item could roll dice to determine who wins the item. These are approved methods.
4. Perform your role/s - Once in a party, you have the opportunity to make use of your primary skills. Rogues can flag traps for party members and sneak attack enemies whilst the fighters keep them at bay. Mages can buff party members and lay down heavy firepower from range. Clerics can raise fallen members and druids can heal.
Quests in UTT2
A common suggestion made during the life of UTT1 has been stopping quests from being endlessly repeated reset after reset and by levels of character unsuitable for them. In UTT2, this issue has been resolved.
First of all, every quest has a minimum/maximum permitted character level for attempting them. If you are too low a level, or too high a level, the npc will say an appropriate line to suggest this.
All faction areas use a ranking system using tokens, which are awarded to a character on completion of a quest. These tokens are tiny and next to weightless. They cannot be dropped. There are several copies of these tokens, with each one giving you access to higher difficulty quests and better supplies in stores. Also, the higher level token you carry, the more NPCs will interact with you, as they identify you as somebody of importance.
Do not fear - you won't sudenly have piles of tokens in your bags - on the completion of a quest, your current token will be removed and replaced with a higher level one.
Tokens will prevent mass repeat questing each reset. Once you do a quest and recieve your token, that quest will not be available to you ever again. The only way you can participate in the quest again, is if another member of your party (perferably next reset) starts the quest. But you will not be able to directly access the full rewards of the quest again during your characters time in the UTT2 gameworld.
This way, we have allowed characters to experience a quest a few times, but not endlessly each reset. As for neutral area quests, the level restrictions control this well. The quests in the Bree land areas for example are not available to characters of level 6+.
We could have just allowed tokens to be awarded to all party members, but there is a great room for abuse here; if they were awarded to all members, parties could just be formed to gain access to rewards on the completion of quests.
Some of this does raise an issue - what happens to the quest status if the party leader (we expect the party leader to be the one doing the talking, etc for a quest) has to logout. Our advice is: If you know you are short for time, do not undertake the quest - Make sure your party leader is someone who expects to have plenty of time, if you can. If they have to leave unexpectedly, I guess that's just too bad :)
This is going to be one of many topics i'll be starting, aimed at giving you all lots of juicy info on UTT2, what you might expect and the best ways of getting the most out of the game.
UTT2 is all about party play. It will be harder to solo almost all areas, with a few exceptions. A number of low level quests will be simple enough to solo - but generally, it ends there. Soloing will not be against the rules, but it won't be encouraged. Because of the even stronger emphasis on party play, we will be releasing hints and tips on how to make the most of your party.
1. The party leader - Nobody has paid much attention to this in the past, but we see it as a means of enhancing roleplay. If a party has a leader, issuing instructions to the party and setting up plans, a role has been created, bringing more life into the party. In UTT2 we will encourage and recommed that the party leader is the one who 'does the talking' for quest dialouges and carries the quest items.
2. Class coverage - Do you urgently require a certain class to help your party? Does your party have too much or too little of a certain class? Is the party too big or too small. (Parties over 6 members strong can incur performance issues)
3. Loot and treasure sharing - How will you efficiently share the spoils of your adventures? You could assign a party member to carry all loot until you are all in a safe place. Any members interested in an item could roll dice to determine who wins the item. These are approved methods.
4. Perform your role/s - Once in a party, you have the opportunity to make use of your primary skills. Rogues can flag traps for party members and sneak attack enemies whilst the fighters keep them at bay. Mages can buff party members and lay down heavy firepower from range. Clerics can raise fallen members and druids can heal.
Quests in UTT2
A common suggestion made during the life of UTT1 has been stopping quests from being endlessly repeated reset after reset and by levels of character unsuitable for them. In UTT2, this issue has been resolved.
First of all, every quest has a minimum/maximum permitted character level for attempting them. If you are too low a level, or too high a level, the npc will say an appropriate line to suggest this.
All faction areas use a ranking system using tokens, which are awarded to a character on completion of a quest. These tokens are tiny and next to weightless. They cannot be dropped. There are several copies of these tokens, with each one giving you access to higher difficulty quests and better supplies in stores. Also, the higher level token you carry, the more NPCs will interact with you, as they identify you as somebody of importance.
Do not fear - you won't sudenly have piles of tokens in your bags - on the completion of a quest, your current token will be removed and replaced with a higher level one.
Tokens will prevent mass repeat questing each reset. Once you do a quest and recieve your token, that quest will not be available to you ever again. The only way you can participate in the quest again, is if another member of your party (perferably next reset) starts the quest. But you will not be able to directly access the full rewards of the quest again during your characters time in the UTT2 gameworld.
This way, we have allowed characters to experience a quest a few times, but not endlessly each reset. As for neutral area quests, the level restrictions control this well. The quests in the Bree land areas for example are not available to characters of level 6+.
We could have just allowed tokens to be awarded to all party members, but there is a great room for abuse here; if they were awarded to all members, parties could just be formed to gain access to rewards on the completion of quests.
Some of this does raise an issue - what happens to the quest status if the party leader (we expect the party leader to be the one doing the talking, etc for a quest) has to logout. Our advice is: If you know you are short for time, do not undertake the quest - Make sure your party leader is someone who expects to have plenty of time, if you can. If they have to leave unexpectedly, I guess that's just too bad :)
This is going to be one of many topics i'll be starting, aimed at giving you all lots of juicy info on UTT2, what you might expect and the best ways of getting the most out of the game.