Re-released Quest Editor (1.6)

[Muuss]

Made a small update.
- Fixed the popups
- Added a $ before itemcount and removed () after the EVENT_*
- Added wordwrap to the text editor

Redownload 1.7

http://eqemu.vilvert.fr/quest_editor-1.7.zip

[cavedude]

Excellent tool, makes the process of writing quests far less tedious Thanks man!

[Muuss]

Thanks
At least 2 of us are using it

[Muuss]

Updated to 1.8

lots of fixes, a few improvements, and a better text editor. Worth the update if you use it, imho.

http://eqemu.vilvert.fr/quest_editor-1.8.zip

[klinzhai]

It's better than nothing, but I'd like to suggest a few improvements (if you don't mind... I'm so rusty on my programming I'd probably break if I tried to write anything right now):

1) Create some way to follow quests through all the steps and go back and edit them by name. The best way I can think of is to create a 'c:\eqemu\quests\masterlist' directory that keeps a list of quests and their steps, so you can go look at a quest and all the steps.

2) When creating a quest (or quest step), make the job a little easier for perl dummies (like me) by having a top window (call it character part) where you list what the character does ('says "Hail" 'or 'gives item #28395') then have a second window, where you list what the NPC does ('says "Thank you, this will be remembered") then have a bottom window where you list rewards (spawn item 29385, 1200 experience points, faction, etc...) For the rewards, you might think of just having buttons like "Add Item", "Add Experience", "Add money" and "Add Faction" (note, the faction reward could be negative).

I'm just thinking of ways to help other people build quests so that we can get more of them out there. This editor is by far better than anything else I've seen out there and miles better than doing it by hand. I'm just thinking that if there was something that a complete computer doofus could use (well, maybe not complete... but you get the idea), I think we'd have a *lot* more people out there building quests and not only quests, but nice, long multi-part, epic-type quests.

[Muuss]

Thank you for your suggestions.

First one will never be released. It would block you to update quests from only 1 computer and only from questeditor. Anybody doing it by hand or without questeditor would mess everything.

Second one would certainly be a very nice improvment, but that's so much work for so few people... The best you can do i think is to use the popups (you saw that the editor is full of popups, right ?), most of them add comments after the commands, it makes the scripts pretty easy to read.

[klinzhai]

Ah, but you could always share out the quests directory and allow someone to connect to it externally (or simply have it create the quests). Or have a quest importer that would append the quest text into existing NPC quest files. That would actually make it really easy for anyone to add new quests without having to touch all of the NPC files.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Masterlist directory: contains a list of quests. Inside the files are the following:

<step1>
  <char>say::"Hail, Oogabooga"</char>
  <NPC>say::"What you want?  Oogabooga can make yooz a [pretty shield]."</NPC>
</step1>
<step2>
  <char>say::"pretty shield"</char>
  <NPC>say::"Yep.  Yooz bring me a body from a [big spider] and me make a shield for yooz."</NPC>
</step2>
<step3>
  <char>say::"big spider"</char>
  <NPC>say::"Yooz go to da desert on da odder side of da Innotool Swamp and der is a big spider der.  Yooz smash him gud and bring me da body and me make yooz a shield."</NPC>
</step3>
<step4>
  <char>give::Item#6759</char> (or whatever the numver for Terrorantula carapace is)
  <NPC>say::"Ooh, yooz barshed him gud!  Just a sekund, me make yooz a shield really quick!!  Here yooz go, see, dis a pretty shield!!"</NPC>
  <reward>createitem::Item#54768 (pretty shield); exp::2000; faction::Oogabooga/120</reward>
</step4>

So that's all in the master list. Call it "Oogabooga pretty shield" or whatever. Then when it imports the quest, it checks Oogabooga for the quests and if they're there, then it replaces those entries, if they're not, then it appends them on the end. You can always make a #rem statement to list the quests that are there. Example:

#rem Oogaboogaprettyshield,Oogaboogaprettysword,Oogaboo gaprettyboots,etc....

Then it knows what quests are there just by looking at the #rem line at the beginning.

Just thinking about how it could work for anyone. Then you just need to copy over the "Oogaboogaprettyshield.qst" file to anyone and they can import the quest into their quest list. It would require a little bit of rework on quests, but I think it would be worth it in the long run and it would be nice for the PEQ people, since they can always bring in quests to test, then remove them or update them quickly.

So basically you build the quest in the editor, it creates a quest file, then you import it into the actual NPC quest files.

[Cisyouc]

Wait, I'm not understanding, why have the XML when the Perl is just as easier and stronger? What about XS capabilities?

[klinzhai]

I was using xml because I know xml structure off the top of my head. It doesn't matter what format you use overall, the idea is the same and it would probably be easier to do if the quest master file was in Perl script.

It's all right Muuss.... I have a friend who is a really good programmer that will take care of this for me. He wants to play on my server and after I explained to him what I wanted he said "Sounds pretty basic, I should be able to do it", so I'm going to send him my specs and the basic perl format for quests in EQEmu.

[abaddon]

I know this topic is a bit old... but I just DL'd 1.8 will post my thoughts when I make em *grins*

[GeorgeS]

Actually I too prefer simple text rather than xml

GeorgeS