Plot item remover

[deeske]

Its a problem that i have on one of my characters and something that other players will have too i guess.
As im alone on the server a lot I redo some quests. Problem is that I end up with the same token. Some tokens are reward on the end but I got on this quest that gives you one that you need to get somewhere (not wanting to post spoilers). Due to a server reset and death i now got 2 of those and i cant get rid of them.

Perhaps it could be a good idea to sell an plot item remover item (target on activate) that destroys the targetted item. This is very simple to script.
This could be sold in the entrance area or so for a reasonable price. Like this you can get rid of non droppable plot items without the need to bug/find a DM.

[ghost81]

Unfortunately it would be open to abuse - as people could destroy faction tokens to regain access to some quests for the xp and gold.

One thing that should be coming through with updates is that faction based quests - where one token leads to another quest giver being available should be preventing people from repeating the quests for themselves.

I know the quest you're on about though and it can be a bad one, as its possible not to complete (due to death or resets as you say) and be lumbered with multiple tokens.

[deeske]

I know it very tempting for abuse. But the quests have a lvl limit so aggressive abuse of it is stopped that way I think. And the item could check for certain tokens that cant be destroyed.

[int19h]

Just out of curiosity, why is it so that some quests have a level cap, while others have tokens? Wouldn't it make more sense to just make all of them token-based (or level-based - though this is probably not a good idea).

[ghost81]

I have been lookin at making them token based rather than level based, although it is a long process. I'll start by checking that the existing token based quest preclude obtaining an earlier quest in the string if a later token is owned - this was always the plan - but doesn't work with all quest strings. Even just checking one areas quests in this way will take quite a bit of time - and that's with most needed elements in place. It may turn our to be better timewise to battle on with what we have for now, but take the token basd approach from the outset of UTT3.

I'd imagine we might still want some of the starter area quests to be level bases - unless we can launch witha lot more quests. One way I'd like to do this is to rather than just have Bree Village as the starting area have the whole Bree Lands, with all 5 villages and surrounding environs. As this would allow for a much larger number of quests, and mean epeating quests could be avoided.

[DM_Aiwendil]

[Edit: I'll leave this to ghost, sorry - posted at the same time again!]

[int19h]

By the way, things might be somewhat easier if you use local variables on PCs to store quest progress rather than tokens. They can be numeric to store what step of the quest the player is (and then every script check would be just a simple numeric comparison), and they do not take any space in inventory.

[DM_Aiwendil]

I've already raised the idea of doing it this way for UTT3 (or using the database, whichever, I like local vars, but possible memory issues? NWN2 is already going to be memory intensive with areas so we might be looking to minimise memory use as much as possible, who knows). For UTT2 I'm not sure of the value of "converting" all quests to one way or the other. Instead it might be better just fix anything that's broken and then look at something more exciting. Anyway though, yes, this is a possibility, one that I like better than tokens. Although, having said that, I do like the idea of the incrementing tokens like Rivendell, where each quest gives you more "authority/rank" - each should be named slightly differently so you can see your progression (already planned by ghost I believe)

[ghost81]

INdeed, and the tokens you get in Lothlorien already look slightly different, have a different name and a different description. Yes I think we will be movig to local variable and databases come UTT3/NWN2 but it's unlikely that a complete overhaul of every single quest conversation to change the system on UTT2 would be considered a worthy use of time at this stage.