Active Quest Window
I'm working on modifying the active quest window so that it will track multiple quests instead of just one. Obviously this means that the text associated with each quest will have to be truncated a little bit if its too long. I plan on making it so that clicking the quest name will open the full detail window so you can get to all of the info easily.
However, my question is this. Are any of you making use of the button page that allows you to navigate through recently updated quests? I'd love to take out a lot of this old code and old processing to recoup some resources and make the code simpler, but I'm not sure who would be making use of this. I know the default UI isn't using it. Let me know what you think. |
I never felt that feature provided much benefit in the quick window (Active Quest). If I needed that kind of visability of the quest process, I always hit J and go from there where I have a much better picture of what I am looking at.
Now, that said, the benefit of moving between recently updated quests is beneficial and the keys that I use for it should still work if you remove the navigation code right? Like pressing the period key on the keyboard takes you to the last quest updated (I think). Having some keys and/or a sort method in the Journal window for Recently Updated would help with moving around in a group of truly active quests in the Journal environment. Even if this was a top five or updated today (or this week and so on), it would give greater visiblity to the groups of quests that are being worked on. I would like to maximize my time while in a zone to get updates on quests that are in that zone, but as it turns out, the filter method for This Zone only helps with things that specificaly update that flag or originate in the zone and don't move out of it (i.e. Not Multiple Zone quests). It would be nice to somehow create some tagging that links up quests in your journal, achievements in the new system and collections with a current zone methodology. If I zoned into LFay and I could open a window or get a popup that said these are some of the things you can do while your here. You still need the Black Mushroom for collection... These quests are incomplete and have updates in this zone... You can skillup on foresting here to reach ### These achievements can be completed while you're here These friends are also in zone with you To me, this keeps the non-raiding game player motivated to go into a zone with a mission, but leave with possibly a completely different set of possibilities that keep him/her playing in a multi-thread objective. |
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With the new window I'm working on, I actually like something that Aion is doing, but for all I know they may have taken the idea from another game, but regardless, it's good.
Whenever you do something to update a quest that's not in your list of "active" quests, that quest is added temporarily at the bottom. This allows you to permanently sticky it to the active list if you choose. I'm thinking about implementing the same thing. We already have something similar the way the quest journal "flashes" the quest info for a quest that is updated. All I'd be doing is showing that info at the bottom of the list instead of hiding the entire list. |
Yes the way Aion's mini quest window/list works rocks. If you could bring that idea to EQ2 that would be awesome!
To answer your question I do use the arrows to scroll through the quests, but I wouldn't miss it if you took out that code. I use it because it is there and it saves me from searching for it. If you do it the way your talking about there wouldn't be any need for that code.. |
I use Profit and use both buttons (last quest updated drop-down and the privious/next quest buttons
Edited to add: I am a quest-a-holic, and just compelted the 3500 quests completed on my quest toon, so I may use it differently than many people |
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I do think that when Rothgar adds this, he should also make it so you can quickly filter quests for the zone your in, so say you go into Lavastorm, click a button, and boom, all quests being tracked are exclusively for Lavastorm. Other features like track all quests types, level ranges, etc. should be added as well. Maybe even a search function that finds all the quests that require "a ravaged centipede" or what have you. Also a button in the normal quest journal that adds quests tracked to the active quest helper. But this is a no brainer feature that is likely to be installed by Rothgar. |
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But with a new window that shows multiple quests and automatically displays any other quest that gets updated, you may not need this functionality. Allowing me to take it out would clean up a lot of stuff under the hood. So I'm just trying to find out if I really need to support both. A lot of people tend to resist change, so I'm nervous about moving to a new design and having people want their old window back. |
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I also don't see how it would play nice at all with a system that lets you track multiple quests. What would you tab back and forth between when you're the one specifying which quests show up? The easy answer to that in my mind is... nothing. So I still say take it out. Folks may complain a bit in the beginning, but they'll adapt. And folks always complain anyway ;). {Detour} I've got a question for ya Rothgar.... Whenever someone gets invited to group (or to a lesser degree, raid) I notice a ~2-3s lag spike (could even call it a 'lockup'). My guess is this is to all the data for the new player being added. The question is: is the quest data part of what is bogging things down (since you can 'see' groupmembers current quests). The followup is, if that is a major part of that 'lag spike' could we get an option to disable that? I might look at someone else's quests once in a blue moon, so being able to only load that data when I want to instead of every time would be nice. In general, it seems to me that more server-side options to prevent data from being sent (data we would choose not to have sent) would also be a boon for the server load, since it's sending less data. {/Detour} |
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Ugh, I wish I had all the time I wanted to test everything that I want to test, etc., hehe. |
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Do it!
*Drum's stamp of approval* Also, yeah I think removing those old buttons would be fine since we could then track the ones we want to anyhow! :cool: |
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We also cache your update history and send this data back and forth whenever it changes. I also believe we serialize this info on your character, so I can get more savings by taking this stuff out. |
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That "pick a new active quest" code always seemed kinda kludgy in action, never seemed to pick a quest I'd actually want to look at next. (Instead it would sometimes go to the zone before in the list or something like that). I won't miss it, hehe =) |
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A couple of things that may be cool
1) With the active quests enabled lets say, you can expand a quest to show detail of what would be needed or minimize the quest using + or - nodes. 2) When an active quest is completed it still shows up, but automatically minimized, and then greyed out (or not highlighted, if that makes sense). 3) Of course, you would like to be able to click on a link in the active quest window to either go to your Journal or to a browser via eq2i to see a walkthrough...:) Glad you are working on this Rothgar - glad to see all the cool updates in the game and with the UI. |
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#2 I disagree with. When it's done, I don't want it there anymore. If I want to look at it, I can always open up the quest window and look in "completed." #3 I think is best left up to custom UIs, so it's more of an "lets have easy access to the quest name for this kind of thing" than anything else in my mind. |
Sounds good to me, and yes, I will adapt.
Couple of things: I use Fluffy's quest site to track my quests, but since I use ProfitUI, I have not installed his quest helper addon, because I like the ProfitUI quest helper. So, my reqest, see about adding Fluffy's addon into the default, keep the compelted quest in the quest helper temporarly (as suggested above), or make sure the quest name is logged to a chat window when it is completed, so I can figure out which quest just completed and mark it off in Fluffy's. Thanks |
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2) My current plan is to automatically remove a quest from the active list when its completed. You should never be able to get a completed quest in that list. Keep in mind that completed means you just turned it in and got the reward, not that you need to go back and hail to get the reward. If you still need to go back and hail, the quest is technically not completed yet and will remain in the list. 3) Yes, clicking the the name of the quest will open the journal to that quest. |
Looks great Rothgar. I'd say stick with that, and any "improvements" can always be made down the line with more overall feedback from in-game testing :D
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I 'll add my 2cts:
I even created an add-on for ProfitUI to use this functionality before gm9 implemented it by himself. I really like it; esp. the list of the latest updated quests. But, I would still like your new system even more as long as the "history" would include at least 3 quests. If that is the case I think that you would not need the old system any more. ;) |
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2) Ahh I did not know you were going to auto-remove quests after completion. So disregard this point of mine. 3) Sounds good, and its implemented currently this way. I know there is a third party add-on to connect to a browser, so thats where I was going with that point. Let me ask a few dumb questions if I may. Assume that you have a limit of five quests in the active quest window. Currently all five are displayed with the five last updates. You get a new active update, what happens? I can see a couple of possibilities - 1) scroll the earliest active quest off the screen. 2) scroll the latest active quest off the screen. 3) can you give the possibility of 'pinning' a quest to make sure that it never scrolls off? 4) can you give a way to sort the active quests by update time? Thus the latest updates are at the top of list? 5) Will there be a way to 'highlight' the latest update (i.e. change the font size and richness to bold 12 point, for example?) Thanks for your time. |
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But from my understand the game at no point will decide to make you start tracking a quest and stop tracking an old quest (unless you complete a quest of course, at which point it stops tracking it since there are no more steps). |
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When you get a new quest or update a quest it will que that quest in the active quest window by flashing the quest name in the active quest window, if the limit is met or not and If not already pinned there. At this time you have a chance to pin the quest to the active quest window. You can also go into the main journal and pin and unpin any quest from there. The entire system is really jazzy! |
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Rothgar mentioned that he would have to truncate the quest text in the new window, and clicking or double click the name of the quest would open the quest journal as it does right now. Would it also be possible to show the full text in a mouse over? also be able to turn this feture on and off? I know i would like but my girl friend would hate something like this. If the mouse over would not work then perhaps single click to see text and double click to see open journal? |
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At times I would certainly like to see an update in the active quest helper without having to manually enable the quest, especially since I cannot track 50+ quests if my journal is full. However, I would like to see a filter as well. I may think that L&L quests never need to be tracked, but others want to track L&L's - I am sure you get the idea. |
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The only problem I see is that sometimes killing one mob updates more then one quest. So just flashing one name will not work for EQ2. The only way to solve that in EQ2, I can think of is to have (an optional) list of latest updated quests (just names) at the top or bottom of the window, that can be used to add quests to the Active Quest Window. (Could also be only visible on mouse over).
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I don't see how multi updates will cause any issues. Just que all the quests that got updated.
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An example: You fight a group of three mobs. The 1st mob updates two quests, flashing their names while you are still fighting and the 3rd mob updates an other quest. It is very likely, that you won't have time to add these quests while you are still fighting. So now you have a chance to add the 3rd quest (as the fight is now over), but if you do not have a list of the last updated quests you will have to open your quest book and search for these two quests, that might even be listed in different categories. That is why I ask for some data element that lists the last updated quests. It does not need be to visible all the time, but there should be an easy way to access it with the mouse and the keyboard. Also some a shortcut / command to add the last updated quest to the active quest window and a command that lists the last updated quests might be really helpful. |
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Again this is just all speculation and I am going off of the way some other games have implemented this kind of mechanics. You really have to see it in action to understand how simple it is. It isn't like it flashes the quest 1 or 2 times and goes away.. I'd say most use a slow 5 count before the quest is removed if not pinned. So you will have more then enough time to pin/unpin quest if needed. |
A filter for sorting by last updated (via the Journal window) would be a nice addition either way I think :)
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The drop-down arrow in the upper right corner of the current profit window shows the last few updated quests, so if we are losing that, there has to be something to replace it, because that is something I do use all the time to figure out what updated.
It is not on a timer, so it does not go away (unless you log out or something like that) |
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