Author Topic: Boo Kidnapping - Reward  (Read 42515 times)

Offline Nerik

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Boo Kidnapping - Reward
« on: October 10, 2004, 03:01:31 PM »
How about instead of Minsc gaining the 'summon Boolet' ability, Boo becomes something like a familiar (i.e. Minsc can release him from his info screen, or maybe his quick item icon, and he can reveal the map like a familiar).
 
Of course, Boo would be kind of vulnerable, but you could give him a Min1hp item, and script him to flee back into Minsc's inventory if he takes damage :)
 
Charles

Offline cliffette

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Re: Suggestion: alternative reward for Boo kidnapping quest
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2004, 01:26:32 AM »
But- no squeak!

It's a cute idea though. :)

Offline Pirengle

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Re: Suggestion: alternative reward for Boo kidnapping quest
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2004, 01:47:25 AM »
You could have Boo squeak when he's clicked for options like a familiar.
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Offline cliffette

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Re: Suggestion: alternative reward for Boo kidnapping quest
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2004, 02:13:17 AM »
(Psst... It was an excuse not to do any extra work.)

The dialog options would be limited though.

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Re: Suggestion: alternative reward for Boo kidnapping quest
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2004, 12:17:13 PM »
Yeah I like the idea of making boo be a useable item like the spider figure better then sending 10000000s of clones to their doom.

Offline SimDing0™

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Boo's Quest
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2005, 03:21:06 AM »
Cool quest. Semi-jokeish, but in an acceptable way.

Typo: "50 gold is alot for a young woman to be carrying"

There seems to be an awful lot of ~What-~ = ~What is the meaning of this?~ Looks a bit odd to me. ~What-- what is the meaning of this?~ would be better, I suspect.

Why does Eleanya end and initiate dialogue again between each of her riddles?

The Cowled Wizards teleporting in at the end seems somewhat random. Is there a particular reason/story behind that?

Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2005, 05:04:47 AM »
 
  wasn't magic being used?
  (not that it's 'consistent' for them to pay attention to NPCs, which is what threw me at first...)
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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2005, 05:44:09 AM »
They don't mention use of magic, but rather, they thank you for ridding the district of Eleanya and give you a licence for it. Such a reward seems very odd for the Cowled Wizards, and I generally find it a strange ending that the quest wraps up and then that extra little encounter is tacked on.

Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2005, 05:53:48 AM »
 well, they don't mention magic when they show up to slay the party either.
 but i too found it too much, reward-wise, after already resolving the boo issue (even if not for maximum return)...
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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2005, 05:57:07 AM »
Yeh, actually, licence + Jade Hound + loads of gems = extreme. :)

Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2005, 06:05:08 AM »
  not even having to fight for any of it...  cliffette might consequently be thought of as a softie, if she wasn't already an unabashed anomen-fan... :P
  forgot about the jade hound.  yep, definitely on the monty haul tip.
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Offline jester

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2005, 06:19:17 AM »
I never got a jade hound, but I always refused the license and now you can turn it down and still slaughter the CWs on the streets. The granting of a license makes sense though as it means almost nothing to the authorities, but can be seen as a great reward to the player who wants it. I think you get the gems you talk her out of wearing for the evening IIRC.
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Offline Caswallon

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2005, 09:49:33 AM »
Eleanya says at some point that she practices her magic in Athkatla as there are no other wizards about to interfere, and the Cowled ones would know better than to meddle with a de'Lyl girl - so she's using magic without a licence and bragging about it, and they can't do anything. With that background, I think the licence idea is quite nice.
It might be explained a bit better, though. If you're feeling stingy, you also could just give a discount on the licence. :)

One thing I noticed (just played the quest for the first time yesterday - yeah): Corneil in the Government building (the guy who usually grants the licence) doesn't have anything to say on the matter - you still can buy a licence for the usual 5.000 gp from him.
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Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2005, 05:18:01 PM »
Corneil in the Government building (the guy who usually grants the licence) doesn't have anything to say on the matter . . .

  yep, even without boo's quest (TOPIC PLUNGE!), corneil has far too little to say (or be asked/told) for The Representative of the CWs...
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Offline the bigg

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #14 on: February 08, 2005, 05:35:42 PM »
One thing I noticed (just played the quest for the first time yesterday - yeah): Corneil in the Government building (the guy who usually grants the licence) doesn't have anything to say on the matter - you still can buy a licence for the usual 5.000 gp from him.
It's because, pretty much like the Italian state, they drink your blood much more than Bodh's guild ever could (read: ask for taxes and other unfair ways to make you poor and they rich). It appears the two CWs who gave you one for free had just drunk too much at the party they were having just before jumping in :)

But I can endure that to keep the other rewards (last but not least the +1 to Minsc's Stre score  :o :o)
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Offline Reverendratbastard

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #15 on: February 08, 2005, 06:34:21 PM »

But I can endure that to keep the other rewards (last but not least the +1 to Minsc's Stre score  :o :o)

  +2 levels, really (but don't get me started on how poorly the ie handles that whole bit - unless of course something can be done)
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Offline SixOfSpades

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #16 on: February 08, 2005, 07:21:39 PM »
Yeh, actually, licence + Jade Hound + loads of gems = extreme. :)
I agree (although, personally, I hold either the Ioun Stone or the Gem Bag to be the best loot). If I were writing this, I would remove the Jade Hound not only because of the Monty Haul factor, but also because I'd rather see a more in-character placement in the game. I like the fact that cliffette reintroduced a 'forgotten' item, but frankly, it'd make a lot more sense as part of a quest specific to Monks. Or Elves.

Offline Caswallon

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #17 on: February 08, 2005, 08:08:54 PM »
One thing I noticed (just played the quest for the first time yesterday - yeah): Corneil in the Government building (the guy who usually grants the licence) doesn't have anything to say on the matter - you still can buy a licence for the usual 5.000 gp from him.
It's because, pretty much like the Italian state, they drink your blood much more than Bodh's guild ever could (read: ask for taxes and other unfair ways to make you poor and they rich). It appears the two CWs who gave you one for free had just drunk too much at the party they were having just before jumping in :)

Well, what irritated me was not that he asked for the money, but that I couldn't even tell him that someone had already granted me the licence. Thing is - maybe not Corneil, but at least the Enforcing Department of the Cowled Wizards do respect that decision: I can cast in the city without them showing up. Maybe they should get a crash course in Italian bureaucracy. ;D
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Offline cliffette

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2005, 11:56:43 PM »
Welcome to the amazing post of lengthiness!

Erm, yeah, I went overboard with the rewards. I'm supposed to have extended the entire quest to include combat and a meeting with the originally planned Perth near the druid grove (possibly with a name change, seeing as a Perth already exists in the game) thus meaning more combat potential, but have been much too lazy (and also don't want to go into my crappy code again).

El's start/ending conversations between questions was implemented because the point scoring was not working without it. Don't know why. On half my tests, I wouldn't get the correct score, despite the code appearing correct to me when I worked through it. Starting and ending the conversations prevented incorrect scoring from happening.

Caswallon, the last version of UB that contained changes to the Minsc/Boo quest should have fixed that Corneil issue, unless I missed a dialogue option somewhere. Technically Corneil shouldn't even mention the license, though I am noting the calls for Corneil commentary on the issue, unless I take out the whole CW involvement.

As for the CW, well, I took hold of the creative reins and rode off into the sunset with them. I agree that the quest is really unbalanced and too linear at this stage and there will hopefully be some moment in the future where I actually have the free time and impetus to finish the thing. :)

Which leads me to the point that I am going on hiatus again for a month and a half possibly, most likely unreachable by email or any other means, and it's all going to happen again a month after that, which means that Boo's quest isn't going to change for a while. Unless someone wants to fix it for me, in which case, go for it. :) But I'll follow this thread when I can, so continue to make suggestions for how the quest could be better balanced.


The general outline of changes was as follows (thanks to Juan, though he's probably long gone). Insert spoiler warning:

After Smethy magics you out of the pet shop, you're at the gates or something. Smethy directs you to Perth instead of Eleanya. You know that Perth is hanging out at Trademeet, so you trundle along and talk to the merchants there. You'll figure out that Perth is somewhere in the druid grove, so you'll fight through newly spawned trolls (with Minsc debilitated) to get to him. This means the reward is a little less unbalanced, though I am planning to take away the gem rewards in any case. You can fight/bribe Perth, who'll then direct you to Eleanya who will be spawned in as appropriate. I could turn her into a normal little girl again, so that you can feel suitably rotten for taking a cute pet away from a child or revel in it, Mr Burns-style. This would get rid of the CW problem.

Not to mention the introduction of the conflict between Jaheira's curse quest and Minsc's desperation to get Boo back, which is where Juan's ideas were really great. There's an entire component where you have to placate both parties and risk losing one of them if you don't deal with the situation well.

Thinking about the jade hound issue, maybe you could buy that off Perth and swap Boo for it when you get to the theoretical child Elly... unless you have the ghost child's teddy (from the cemetary quest), in which case you can give that to her instead, therefore keeping the hound and getting Boo back. Mwahahahahah, role-playing opportunities galore!!

Oooh, and then the ghost can come along and haunt Elly, which is a whole new miniquest in itself (though some will ask why the ghost didn't haunt you). :>

So good players get Boo back and not really much else, except a warm roleplaying glow. And some XP.
Neutral can go any way really. Keep the hound and lose Minsc and Boo, or whatever.
Evil ones will most likely get to keep both Boo and the hound. And XP. Who says there's no mod for the wicked?
« Last Edit: February 18, 2005, 12:05:20 AM by cliffette »

Qwinn

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #19 on: February 18, 2005, 01:14:43 AM »
Very interesting.  I've played through Boo's Quest several times now, and never found a Jade Hound.  Guess I'll have to try playing it through again!  I did a search and didn't find any hints anywhere about how to actually acquire it - care to throw a minor spoiler our way? ;)  (Fully expecting "no" as the answer, heh)

I thought getting a Wizard license was a pretty cool idea, actually.  I can see getting rid of the gems, that was a bit too much reward-wise, although I really did like the succession of riddles and how flattering her got the best result.  Maybe just a single gem, so as to validate that whole bit.  Then again, if the whole thing is going to be rewritten soon as cliffette has said, never mind :)

In version 13 Corneil has not offered me a license after I get one from the quest.  His conversational skills are pretty much non-existent once you get the license.

Overall, an excellent, funny and well-written quest, cliffette - very well done *cheers* :)

Qwinn

FluffigtDjur

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #20 on: February 18, 2005, 08:47:14 AM »
Actually Minsk getting better strength is good enough reward... and I somewhat regret I wasn't playing an evil party at the time I tested this rather brilliant quest... ooooh have I wanted to pull a stab, grab and run on that woman.  ;D

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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #21 on: February 18, 2005, 09:15:00 AM »
El's start/ending conversations between questions was implemented because the point scoring was not working without it. Don't know why. On half my tests, I wouldn't get the correct score, despite the code appearing correct to me when I worked through it. Starting and ending the conversations prevented incorrect scoring from happening.
Try SetGlobal instead of SG.

Offline Belanos

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #22 on: April 10, 2005, 06:46:52 PM »

 but i too found it too much, reward-wise, after already resolving the boo issue (even if not for maximum return)...

I thought it was a bit much too. I got Boo back by answering her questions, but the Cowled Wizards seemed to intimate that I had killed her. I think that ending would have been better if I actually did. Otherwise I thought it was a cool adventure, and well done as well.

Offline Grim Squeaker

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #23 on: April 12, 2005, 07:26:24 AM »
El's start/ending conversations between questions was implemented because the point scoring was not working without it. Don't know why. On half my tests, I wouldn't get the correct score, despite the code appearing correct to me when I worked through it. Starting and ending the conversations prevented incorrect scoring from happening.
Try SetGlobal instead of SG.

Surely IncrementGlobal is what needs to be used for point scoring.  Then again I haven't looked at how its coded.
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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Boo's Quest
« Reply #24 on: April 12, 2005, 07:50:15 AM »
Um, yeh. IncrementGlobal too. Just avoid anything that clogs the action list, which I'm fairly sure SG does. (And stuff like DestroyItem, if that's used.)

 

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