The Mana World Forums

Ah... okay. No working on the Graveyard.
Well, in that case, I'm going to post here a quest plot that I've written. It's only a plot, but if someone wants to work on it...

Actually, I'm on Windows, and it's on Ubuntu, but I can outline it here:
(Please note that in the actual file it is written like a story, and better)

Possible spoiler ahead...
























Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there lived a powerful mage. He was the Royal Wizard of that land, and one day he was summoned to be informed of grave news. The Princess was terribly ill, and the best Physicians in the land had been unable to save her. The king told the Wizard that, should he save the Princess's life, he may have her hand in marriage.
Now, the Wizard had never met the princess before, but as soon as he looked upon her pale and fevered face, he knew that he would love her until he died. Therefore, he spent many sleepless nights casting spells and muttering words and other mysterious things.
Alas, there was nothing he could do, and the Princess slipped closer and closer to death. Then, after a week of trying to cure her, he heard that a great witch from distant Argaes was visiting the city, and he straight away went to see her, and told her of his plight.
The witch told him that, if he wished above all else to save her, there was one spell he could try.*
He assured her he did, and so thanked her and hurried back to the palace, where he cast the spell on the dying princess.
Immediately he felt himself beginning to drain. His skin paled and wrinkled as his body twisted and shrunk. Fearing the spell had gone terribly wrong, he used all the power he could muster to through the Death off him. It leapt upon the nearest living thing, as Death cannot disappear altogether, and she died instantly.
Not only was the Princess gone, but she had died with two Deaths: Hers and the Wizard's. He was doomed to live forever in a deformed, undead state. You see, for the very same reason that he had to take the Princess's Death to save her, she took his to save him. The king was not angry at the Wizard, for he understood that the man had done everything he could to save the Princess, and quietly he said he could go home.
However, the people were not so calm as the king. They stayed away from him, and ignored him until he had passed, when they set about muttering. One day they burnt his house down, with him inside it, and he was burnt all over - but he could not die.
So he left that place. He walked into the sea, and sank to the bottom, where he lay for months. Then he realised that the fault of all this lay on the witch who had told him the spell. He had realised almost as soon as the Princess was dead that he had been supposed to die, and he believed that should the witch have told him what was going to happen, he would gladly have died to save the Princess.
So now he walked across the bottom of the sea, and after nearly a year he arrived on the shores of Argaes. The Graveyard there was ancient, but still in use. He cast the caretaker from his cottage out into the thunderstorm that had arrived with him. Then he thought again, and brought the old man inside. He told him that if he should take this small, rolled up scroll, and merely touch it upon the skin of a certain witch - he told the man her name - then he should be allowed to live, and what is more get a pile of gold for himself. The scroll which the Wizard gave him would, once touched upon the witch's skin, would take her Death from her. The Wizard would use her Death to die and join his Princess, and it would be she who was doomed to live forever.
This the old man did. He was scared, and somewhat tempted by the reward. He knew the witch in question, and he travelled to her home and asked to see her. She invited him in, and they had a nice tea with chocolate cake from the local bakery.
Then the old man leaned forward and touched the scroll to her, without her noticing. Even so, she screamed a scream of agony and fell backward to the floor, writhing. In terror, the man fled.
He did not return to the Wizard, who, in fury, set about reanimating the corpses around him. He would find the Witch, and, well, if she could not die, he would certainly torture her as worst he could until she told him where the old caretaker had gone.

~needs a bit of work, but there it is...
Enchilado

P.s

I know how you do the quest as well, but I won't say so here, in case someone wants to use this.

With your usage of paragraph breaks, that is unreadable. I refuse to read poorly formatted long texts.

Enchilado summary:

King's daughter is dying. He calls on a wizard to fix the princess.

The wizard cannot save her, but a witch tells him a spell that will work.

He uses the spell and starts to decay. He casts a spell to "get the death off of him", but the princess dies.

Wizard is now immortal because the princess died her death as well as his.

Wizard goes to the cemetery and tells the caretaker to touch the witch with an enchanted scroll (for $$)

The caretaker does this and the witch writhes in pain

The caretaker is afraid and runs off without returning to the wizard with the scroll (that I guess has HER death in it)

Wizard gets pissy and reanimates corpses. Vows to find the caretaker and the witch.

Nice summary, John. Much more readable.

Wow! Neat. Sorry about the paragraphs. I usually write with Abiword and I format fine with that, but writing in an input box on a forum is a new method of writing for me. Anyway, I understand that this plot is probably not quite perfect for a small quest in a MMORPG, but in my opinion it's an interesting storyline. I didn't post anything about actually doing the quest here, because I figured that if the Devs accept it (and I have today and possibly tomorrow to work on some graphics and NPC dialogues, not that I know how to do the latter) it'd be better if people didn't come to the quest as soon as it was realised and *pow* *pow* *pow* finish it, because I was aiming for it as the Hallowe'en event, if the Devs haven't got one planned already, and it would hopefully require some time to work it all out in the week or so that the quest was running. And, of course, even if you finished it in one day, it wouldn't be the sort of quest you'd just look up on the internet and find out where to go to find the caretaker or the witch or who the witch was or... I'm goin' into to much detail here, methinks.

~so, if anyone managed to read it, please vote 1 - 10, with 1 as Brilliant! and 10 as Pull the Other One...
Enchilado

Before I rate, please note my bias as I have a competing storyline

I love the idea of such a character driven story. However, to me the cemetery should be the center of the story.

Your story, again, has a neat plot revolving around these characters, but the cemetery portion of it is more of an after-thought. Anything could have happened as a result of the wizards anger, it just so happens that he decided to raise the dead and thus an evil cemetery.

A second issue I have is that it doesn't seem to fit the 'mana and magic' portion of the backstory, or the proposals regarding afterlife.

I agree that there aren't enough 'backstory characters' yet, that you can come read about on the wiki and hear about from villagers, then ultimately meet in the game.

Cheers!

Thanks for the tips. You have a competing storyline - that's fine, because we can use them all. Mine, you're right, doesn't use the graveyard much... I could edit it, but as you have something already it would be better to think of something else for mine.
I also know and have written down: Who the witch is; where the caretaker is; what you have to do and how the story is finally finished... and so on.

~I need to do some graphics or code the NPC dialogues too, but I'll do Internet stuff while we've got it...
vox populi

Yours could be used later as the basis for a larger story line, involving several quests. Just needs some fleshing out and such.

Some random thoughts...

1) If you use the storyline with the accidental necromancy/graveyard "seal", will there be any kind of particle effect or otherwise in the area or just on the gate to signify the seal?

2) I assume the same map (superkoops?) is still planned. It seems to have a weapons and potions shop outside a graveyard? While I do not understand how/why these buildings exist, I do understand the functionality within the game. So...

I would like to suggest removing the labels from the building, perhaps insinuating that the buildings were not originally used as a potions/weapons shop, but the new inhabitants just happen to be taking advantage of the situation. If the zombies are going to roam around these buildings (outside the cemetery gates), I don't think the shopkeep should be brave enough to put up a sign. Maybe one building was the caretakers house, etc.

3) Given #2, maybe show some decay of the buildings (perhaps just one or two 'hole in the wall' tiles)

John P wrote:2) I assume the same map (superkoops?) is still planned. It seems to have a weapons and potions shop outside a graveyard? While I do not understand how/why these buildings exist, I do understand the functionality within the game. So...

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. This is the map we are going to use:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/znkowg2rrnt/swamp.zip

As you can see this map has no buildings. Can you please post a link to the map you are referring to?

As Crush’s deadline is coming closer I’ve decided that I am willing to take some time to help, if there’s anything I can help with, that is. And I guess scripting is what is needed most now.

Jaxad0127 took over the responsibility for the scripting part, but I am sure he can need your help. You should contact him and organize this between each other.

Status update:

The deadline has passed and my new job has started. But fortunately I finished everything I was responsible for. Now the release depends on Jaxad and the team of scripters he formed. They still have to finish and test the quests, add the monsters to the maps and prepare the eAthena data files.

thanks Crush and good luck

Regards

Crush wrote:Status update:

The deadline has passed and my new job has started. But fortunately I finished everything I was responsible for. Now the release depends on Jaxad and the team of scripters he formed. They still have to finish and test the quests, add the monsters to the maps and prepare the eAthena data files.

Good luck!