Curse

jkyarr · Aug 21, 2007, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Each contestant/party/guild enters "Scavenger Hunt Mode" where Merchant-like NPCs, Collectors, Xunlai Agents, and chests, and Trading screens are locked down and cannot be activated or used for the duration of the hunt.

you pick which kind of hunt you want to participate in (FFA, Party vs Party, or GvG) the length of the hunt (i.e. 5, 10 or 25 items on the scavenger list), form groups as needed and then click the "enter hunt" button to queue up for a hunt. The game then scans your inventory and compiles a randomly generated list of items you have to scavenge from anywhere on the map, excluding any items found in your inventory (or collective inventories) from the list.

The list appears in each players quest log and can be examined before leaving their current outpost/district.

A countdown insues during which time all contesting parties must remain in their current district and outpost to insure that all contestants begin the hunt at the same moment. Anyone changing zones or leaving town will drop out of the race during this countdown.

The hunt begins. Hunters can map travel freely and have to go kill cetain foes for particular drops on their lists. Parties and Guilds that are on the hunt together can leave their party (split up) as they determine necessary, but must regroup in town before they can submit a claim to Prize-giving NPC. If a contestant must leave the party or guild before the hunt is completed he must both abandon the quest entry in the log and exit "Scavenger Hunt mode" in order to resign. Abandoning the quest in the log will kick you from the team, but your storage/inventory/trading/selling capabilities will not be restored until "Scavenger Hunt Mode" is exited.

Upon completion of the list the contestant/party/guild must return (as the originally constituted group) to an NPC located in each major city and click on that NPC to submit their winning attempt. Once the NPC is clicked no members of the party may leave town, change districts, or leave the party while their inventories are compared against their scavenger list. Any winning submissions display a splash on each contestant's screen similar to when mission objectives are completed, thus announcing to all involved that the contest is complete (and who won). Contestants still in the field when a winner is declared are given 30 seconds after the winner is announced and then returned to the outpost that they last left. When the Outpost is loaded the defunct quest is abandoned in the log and a dialogue pops up where the player can exit "Scavenger Hunt Mode" by confirming or stay in that mode by cancelling.

Different kinds of hunts should be devised based on item rarity, so that quick and dirty hunts can be distinguished from green item hunts and contestants can readily choose which kind of hunt they wish to do. Hunts have no time limit. A title track could be developed and points awarded per contest won.

The only downside I see from this design is that you'd be stuck "in the hunt" and couldn't really do "regular" gameplay until the hunt completed. Some hunts, like green items hunts could stretch across multiple days depending on the length of the list. Being able to exit hunting mode and re-enter during such drawn out contests could be useful.

Death Penalty could also be changed in Hunt Mode resulting in a random item being removed from your inventory as an added incentive to stay alive.

Any comments on this idea?

Graphik Desine · Aug 22, 2007, 02:02 AM // 02:02

i think it is a nice thing to do, kinda funny, definitely something to do if there isn't anything else better to do, definitely brings a different strategy to the table instead of the regular go and kill things or people and pick up and leave, but rather, not kill people but still compete while doing many other things :P

but some people got like armors and several (expensive) weapon sets, minipets, or other goodies in their inventory that they always carry around.

i assume this is a new inventory created only for the hunt that things would be eliminated if you die?

i would be devastated if i lost something permanently because i died in a hunt mode--or die and disconnect and not get it back

i read it again, i think you meant item removed from "itinerary"---? should be called something else, not an inventory, or people'll get confused :P

jkyarr · Aug 22, 2007, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Good thought about the inventory... I suppose the key there would be to limit which items could be lost due to Death Penalty to the items that are on the scavenger hunt list. That eliminates anything that you started with in your inventory since those items are filtered so they don't appear in the hunt list.

Mind you, if you chose to participate in a "green weapons" hunt, then that could still mean you lose a random green that you looted as part of the contest, which would make your hunt even longer...

And there is one loophole in the design which could be interpreted as cheating or just another way to scavenge... stand in town and ask for certain items and then get the person who is willing to give it to you to join your party and leave town with you. Then have them drop the item on the ground.

One possible way to stop such a practice would be to dissallow party changes during a hunt, but that has its own set of problems.

Considering that you can't pay cash to the person who drops you an item outside town because your trade abilities are locked down in Scavenger Hunt Mode, you'd have to find someone who would just give you the item. The way I see it is let scavengers do it if they can find someone who will help them.

=DNC=Trucker · Aug 22, 2007, 05:36 PM // 17:36

I love this idea! Some of the details sound goofy, but definately a cool little game to do. Perhaps all this trade/inv/party problems can go away if they code the ability to only update your quest if a monster 'drops' the item. You wouldn't even need to pick it up?

[sarcasm]I mean, its no where near as cool as standing on 9 rings all day, but hey...[/sarcasm]

TheRaven · Aug 22, 2007, 06:09 PM // 18:09

It has some wrinkles that need to be ironed out, but overall I like it. Probably too much work/coding needed to implement in GW, but sounds like a fun idea for GW2.

Need to thoroughly examine all the ways someone could cheat vs. the annoyance factor. Locking all trades and merchants could be a pain especially if the hunt drags on. Yet, if you allow trades, you could just meet up with a guildie after the hunt starts that has a lot of collectables on hand. Of course your guildie can still drop the items for you like jkyarr suggested.

I think it would be best to limit the hunt to collectable item drops only. This way you won't have to lock NPC trades since none of the traders have these items.

One rule that may present a problem: ...."but must regroup in town before they can submit a claim to Prize-giving NPC". What if I team up with 3 guildies and form a 4 man scavenger team. We're given 10 items to find and we split up to go get them. We find 7 items and are hunting for the last 3 when one of my teammates has to logoff and go eat dinner/loses power/Mom and Dad come home and kick him off computer/etc. We now can't regroup as a whole team. Are we stuck?

jkyarr · Aug 22, 2007, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaven

I think it would be best to limit the hunt to collectable item drops only. This way you won't have to lock NPC trades since none of the traders have these items.

I thought about this same thing too and I liked the idea of having more variety in which items could be put on the scavenger hunt list. Limiting it to collectable items only is an easy starting place, but I think that the more challenging hunts would have to go beyond that item type. Just my own opinion. A Green Weapon GvG Scavenger Hunt sounds like a more intriguing challenge than collecting Dessicated Hydra Claws and Stone Summit Badges, no?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaven

One rule that may present a problem: ...."but must regroup in town before they can submit a claim to Prize-giving NPC". What if I team up with 3 guildies and form a 4 man scavenger team. We're given 10 items to find and we split up to go get them. We find 7 items and are hunting for the last 3 when one of my teammates has to logoff and go eat dinner/loses power/Mom and Dad come home and kick him off computer/etc. We now can't regroup as a whole team. Are we stuck?

It just makes for good symetry to have all the contestants there that formed the team to begin with, but may not be all that practical. It does serve as a counter-balance to those who may opt to divide the list and hunt in smaller parties vs teams that opt to stay together and hunt 1 item at a time to insure a higher capture possibility. Those mechanics seem to balance on the advantages/disadvantages scales. But I can see potential for sabotage too, especially in PUGs. For example you form a group of 8 with 6 guildies, 1 stranger and yourself, run the guantlet and collect the list only to have the stranger in your group leave the party and prevent you from claiming the victory. Turns out he was connected with the Guild you competed against. Crappy deal for all. So then what? Yes people have to quit in the middle, so what do we do, rule-wise, or contest-wise to compensate?

BTW anybody who starts the Hunt and then has to leave could drop any of their list items on the ground to another party member before they had to log off.

Maybe the ability to democratically vote a party member out of the party (like what they need to implement to combat AB freeloaders) could work to prevent saboteurs. I describe how to properly withdraw from the hunt in the middle already. So obviously in such a case the party would be redefined to exclude the withdrawn participant at the time a winning submission is attempted. It could be the same for parties that democratically eliminate non-participative / dropped teammates. Minimum party membership rules could be inforced too. For example, if you start a Party vs Party Hunt with 8 on each team you have to have 6 players to continue the hunt or your entire team is eliminated from the competition. That would prevent a "firesale" of democratic votes from systematically reducing a team of 8 down to a team of 1.

yes the rules and requirements are a little funky, and could probably be simplified greatly. I just pulled in the elements of a scavenger hunt on the fly and put it together in writing as it came together in my head. I'm looking for feedback to refine the initial idea. These are great comments! Thanks!!