Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Content and general development discussion, including quest scripts and server code. TMW Classic is a project comprising the Legacy tmwAthena server & the designated improved engine server based on evolHercules.


Forum rules

This forum houses many years of development, tracing back to some of the earliest posts that exist on the board.

Its current use is for the continued development of the server and game it has always served: TMW Classic.

Post Reply
User avatar
bishop
Peon
Peon
Posts: 3
Joined: 27 Feb 2009, 09:00
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by bishop »

Hey All,

I'm Scott from the SFU group that's been tinkering with making a quest manager. Our professor advised us to write a protocol for communicating quest-log information between the client and server so that we have an reference document which is independent of the different servers and clients.

It's a short document and we were hoping some of the devs might have time to glance over it and give us some feedback before we present it to our class. Anyone got time?

cheers,
Bishop
Attachments
Quest Log Protocol.zip
(3.36 KiB) Downloaded 92 times
User avatar
AnonDuck
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 645
Joined: 02 Jan 2009, 04:19
Location: Catland

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by AnonDuck »

Even after installing openoffice I cannot view this document. Plaintext or HTML is the preferred format and will likely get you quicker responses.
Head of the TMW Illuminati
User avatar
Cotillion
Novice
Novice
Posts: 180
Joined: 31 Oct 2008, 02:56

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by Cotillion »

MadCamel wrote:Even after installing openoffice I cannot view this document. Plaintext or HTML is the preferred format and will likely get you quicker responses.
User avatar
octalot
Novice
Novice
Posts: 214
Joined: 23 Sep 2008, 19:15

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by octalot »

It would be easier to understand with an example. In this case showing all the events and messages for Sandra's collect-5-items quest seems a good one.

Section 4.3 - having a server full of players who've apparently completed their quests, how does the admin clean up?

What if a developer wanted to:
add per-quest progress bars for the collect-X-items quests?
make quests sortable by difficulty?
make quests sortable by location?
add a better display of subquests?

I'd suggest you find a World Of Warcraft player who'll let you watch them play, and look at the quest system in that. Not to implement all of it, but to consider which parts of it you would want, and which design decisions would enable you to eventually expand to that.
Retired from TMW; incomplete projects looking for a dev:
Cave foliage (plants up the walls): http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5659
Cave wetwalls (water down the walls): http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5816
User avatar
AnonDuck
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 645
Joined: 02 Jan 2009, 04:19
Location: Catland

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by AnonDuck »

Some suggestions -

The way things are currently done, most static data is stored on the client side and retrieved via the update system. This is how I would distribute the quest information including: Quest ID, Description, # of steps to complete, and anything else. This could be done in a single file ie quests.xml and integrated in to the client.

This way, the server would only have to keep track of the quest ID and completion status. It could communicate these two values to the client on connect and whenever a quest progresses.

The client could then cross-reference the ID and completion status in it's quests.xml and display more information to the user.
Head of the TMW Illuminati
User avatar
bishop
Peon
Peon
Posts: 3
Joined: 27 Feb 2009, 09:00
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by bishop »

Thanks everyone for your responses. I've revised the protocol on the assumption that quest information will instead be stored client-side and only the quest completion status will be stored on the server and referenced by a quest ID.
The new version of the protocol (v0.1) is attached, this time as just a text file.
Attachments
quest protocol.txt
(3.73 KiB) Downloaded 91 times
User avatar
AnonDuck
TMW Adviser
TMW Adviser
Posts: 645
Joined: 02 Jan 2009, 04:19
Location: Catland

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by AnonDuck »

Better :) I would suggest dropping the part where the server can send a string to the client for quest completion status, and instead using the quest completion status variable.

This pares it down so all the server has to keep track of is ID, and completion status. The server should always have to do as little work as possible to get the job done securely!

Quests are ran by scripts, the scripts can go QuestCompletionStatus(id, 3) for example, and the client would know that 3 means "Killed Mouboo, cooked steak, fed old man steak". In practice, you will probably want to use bitmasks with this variable (A concept from C), this will allow you to more easily store nonlinear information in it, and even happens to be supported by the scripting language used for NPCs...

Hope this helps.

Do you intend on actually implementing the quest status system?
Head of the TMW Illuminati
User avatar
Jaxad0127
Manasource
Manasource
Posts: 4209
Joined: 01 Nov 2007, 17:35
Location: Internet

Re: Need feedback on protocol for quest logs

Post by Jaxad0127 »

It would be nice if the server could send multiple quests status' in a single packet. eAthena does this with variable length packets and the number being sent can be determined from the packet length.
Image
Post Reply