Quest Mechanic

[Veritas 117]

I am making a Single-Player RPG campaign and I have 3 heroes. Each hero has 6 inventory slots for useful items blah blah blah.

I also have a lot of quest items and I don't want them taking up valuable inventory space, so I'm trying to decide the best way to do this. I was thinking about a couple different options.

1: A quest item is acquired and a floating text says "Acquired blah blah item" and I just save it in a boolean variable as having the item.

2: A quest item is acquired and it is stored in a separate "bag" that is specifically used for quest items. I'm leaning toward this option but I have a few concerns.
> Should I allow quest items to be dropped? This could cause problems.
> What if I acquire more than 6 quest items at a time. Should I have the player finish a quest before being able to pick up another quest item?
> Should I have the quest items instead be dummy abilities that are disabled at the beginning of a map and then enabled when acquired so I can have up to 11? (Or is it 12?)

All thoughts and ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Keep in mind that I do everything in GUI since I don't have JASS figured out yet. I know about awesome inventory systems, but in my experience they can get a bit over complicated and for some reason vJASS ones won't work for campaigns.

 

[Ardenian]

I would prefer number 2.

Number 1 can result in
'Do I already have that item ? Wait, lemme just type in the command for checking...
Oh damn, spelling wrong, again .... What, a second time ? Damnit..
Oh no, my hero died in the meantime'

For number 2, the simplest solution, as the map is single player, could be to create a dummy inventory ( like dummy markets, when you 'open a particular branch', like Potions, a dummy unit is selected selling the potions.
As for quests, you could give each quest item an ability slot and then add a dummy ability for it.
Passive quest items, like a letter, could you use a PAS icon, active ones, like
'Eat pixie to lure troll' could be BTN and castable.

If you have more than 11, 12 quest items you could also create pages, like in a book, using dummy abilities ( if you cast ability 'Next Page', then the enxt dummy is selected)

That's what I myself would prefer, what do you think about it ?

 

[Veritas 117]

That's brilliant. That is exactly what I'll do. Thanks!!

 

[Ardenian]

You are welcome!

I wonder what else could be possible,
I cannot think of any other than the two ones you listed.

 

[Veritas 117]

I thought about a Multiboard too but that seems annoying.

 

[Ardenian]

Oh, hell, yes, multiboards are like the most annoying things in wc3 modding ever.

 

[cleavinghammer]

If the quest items have no effect other than taking up space, maybe you could out something like an overhead buff to show a hero obtained it, and make sure to update the quest log with a greyed-out "item obtained" and add "now that you have the item, return to quest giver".

 

[Veritas 117]

If the quest items have no effect other than taking up space, maybe you could out something like an overhead buff to show a hero obtained it, and make sure to update the quest log with a greyed-out "item obtained" and add "now that you have the item, return to quest giver".

That is what I had planned on. Thanks!

What are some good abilities that don't do anything that I can use for the " quest items"? I think I need to base them off of different abilities so they don't try to stack on top of each other. I also don't want them to have any buffs or special effects.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe have a generic ability that stays as long as an item hasn't been given, whenever used it pings all questgivers still waiting for their item to be returned (I think Channel is made for that kind of stuff). That way you don't need one ability per item.

 

[Ardenian]

Another idea came to my mind. Since it is a single player, you could also print the quest items somewhere on the screen, like a custom interface ( if that's possbile with default cam)

 

[Veritas 117]

Maybe have a generic ability that stays as long as an item hasn't been given, whenever used it pings all questgivers still waiting for their item to be returned (I think Channel is made for that kind of stuff). That way you don't need one ability per item.

That's an interesting idea. I guess if I used channel I could just make it ping the specific quest-giver on the map when it is used too. That way I could still show all the items but I wouldn't have to find a bunch of different passives.

Another idea came to my mind. Since it is a single player, you could also print the quest items somewhere on the screen, like a custom interface ( if that's possbile with default cam)

That's true, but I think I would want to stay away from cluttering the screen with stuff like that.

 

[Ardenian]

Yes, that might be a problem, not if you have like three or five, but if you have more it is indeed a problem.