Thursday 31 December 2015

Project: Quest Tracker (Name Subject To Change) is coming soon!

Project: Quest Tracker (Name Subject To Change) is something of an experiment/task I've set myself for this coming year (2016).
The idea was inspired by the many games I have played off and on over the years, most of which tend to be MMO's. I have no idea how original this idea is so if you know of any incidents where this has been/is being attempted elsewhere let me know I'd love to see how it went/is getting along.
Anyways back to the idea itself...
I've noticed I have a bit of a habit (and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this) of not bothering to read quest text if there is too much. For those who do not know or are confused, when gaming you usually have to complete quests and these quests are usually broken down into 4 parts:
1. Quest title/Name
2. Quest text - The story, background information, reason, etc for doing the quest
3. Conditions for completion/Goal/Whatever else it wants you to do
4. Reward (currency, xp and/or whatever else)

So I took the time to work with some friends to try and pin point the amount of quest text an average player would be willing to read... This didn't go so well... Turns out a lot of people are lazier than we thought <insert sad face here>.
It might have been best of me to give up there... but I couldn't... After counting the words in various quests from an array of games along with the help of some random players answering what must have seemed like bizarre questions we eventually settled on the number 500...
Why 500 you ask? Well minus the few odd exceptions there were virtually no quests that exceeded 500 words (well ok there were like 3).

So the task I have set myself is simple... Each week write an installment of about 500 words and post them here to eventually create a bigger story.
The thought being to keep the chunks of story almost bite sized.
Having said that last part I don't know if my intentions with this are entirely clear but hopefully after a few posts it will become clearer... I hope...

The plan from here: From today(Friday 1/1/2016) til Sunday I plan to post an installment a day.
After that I want to step back and take the week to decide if my plan needs any alterations before I resume with a weekly installment every weekend.

Well that about wraps that up so please stop by and check it out as it unfolds ^_^