Jump to content

Photo

Most frustrating parts of designing a Quest


  • Please log in to reply
60 replies to this topic

#1 Schwa

Schwa

    Enjoy the Moment more. This strengthens Imagination.

  • Members
  • Real Name:Hunter S.
  • Location:Redmond Subspace (I had a Potion)

Posted 17 June 2007 - 12:43 AM

Here it is: I'm starting a collection right here, in this thread, of everybody's absolute most despised and hair-ripping experiences in Quest production via ZC. What do you find are the most frustrating, annoying, despicable and/or sleep-depriving things of designing your prized Quest?

I'll start. For me, I think the thing that really gets me is when I'm testing my new Dungeon at last and I find a staircase I placed that I forgot to set a destination to... so I have to go baaaaack to ZQuest, chaaaaange the warp setting, oooooopen the game again, teeeeeest it out... and it works, and three screens later, there it is AGAIN... Warp without a pointer... so I go baaaaack to ZQuest, chaaaaange the warp pointer, ooooopen the game... WTF!? Now Link appears in the top-left corner of the screen and can't move!? We all know this is because I forgot to set the Warp Destination on the other screen, but c'mon! I've been doing this for what, 4 years or more, and I make a n00blinger mistake like that!? Aggravates me! So I go baaaaack to Zquest, chaaaaaange the Warp Position, baaaaaack to the game...

I bet a lot of you can relate to that. Right? Am I right or what? So let's hear it, folks. Most frustrating experiences with making a Quest. Who'd like to share?

#2 Mitchfork

Mitchfork

    no fun. not ever.

  • Contributors
  • Real Name:Mitch
  • Location:Alabama

Posted 17 June 2007 - 12:47 AM

Oh, It'd have to be between that and forgetting something similar, like setting a guy for a message string, or realizing that you set up the perm. trigger wrong and your quest is unplayable. I've also had problems with stuff like forgetting to set a level number... so many things that can go wrong. icon_confused.gif

#3 Exate

Exate

    Deified

  • Members

Posted 17 June 2007 - 02:05 AM

When I did build...
- Multi-warps
- Custom bosses (Screen-cycling required warps on every screen, and they had to be precise)
- Dungeon design (weak point)
- Graphics (takes forever)
- Screen design (boring, takes forever)

Concluded: Boring, frustrating.

#4 Peteo

Peteo

    Back in Business!

  • Members
  • Real Name:Pete
  • Location:Finland

Posted 17 June 2007 - 02:12 AM

Most frustrating parts of designing a Quest?

Well usually I'd say the obvious things:
-Graphics (making your own custom graphics is soo slooow)
-Crashes and corruptions (when you lose even an hour of your work, it crushes the motivation)

But with Lost Isle I have to say the most frustrating thing has been all the Beta crap and the inability of the developers to get anything stable out for ages. I hate working in a buggy and unstable environment, and it kills me to see the betas aren't getting any more stable or bugfree. >_<

So yeah, my major pet peeve is the state of ZC.

#5 Evile

Evile

    Dolphinslayer

  • Members

Posted 17 June 2007 - 02:43 AM

-Making dungeons. (I almost hate making dungeons.)
-Trying to outdo everyone else with graphics (basically impossible for me.)
-How it takes so long to complete a quest.

I think thats about it.

#6 Sharon Daniel

Sharon Daniel

    .

  • Banned

Posted 17 June 2007 - 03:02 AM

Pretty much what Peteo said. Especially the beta crap.

#7 Revfan9

Revfan9

    Hero of Time

  • Banned
  • Real Name:Dr. Pajamas
  • Location:In front of a screen

Posted 17 June 2007 - 04:05 AM

Keeping ZQ open for more than 3 seconds before I get bored would be my greatest challenge.

#8 Old Inactive Member

Old Inactive Member

    I'm back sorta.

  • Members

Posted 17 June 2007 - 04:16 AM

How about a string set up on a screen then you rember you frogot the guy

so back in to Zquest fix the problame then back into the player


#9 Feenicks

Feenicks

    still the harpy guy

  • Members
  • Real Name:Robert
  • Location:dn ǝpᴉs ʇɥƃᴉɹ

Posted 17 June 2007 - 09:46 AM

Trees. Putting the tops on them, that is.

Also, making custom maps.

#10 ShadowTiger

ShadowTiger

    The Doctor Is In

  • Members

Posted 17 June 2007 - 09:46 AM

Same here with Revfan. I take a look at all the crap I have to do, and it just rises like a veritable mountainous wall before me.

If I was starting with an actual blank quest template, you'd be amazed what I can accomplish in a weekend. If things are already present though, ... eh.

#11 Sharon Daniel

Sharon Daniel

    .

  • Banned

Posted 17 June 2007 - 10:01 AM

I usually have boredom issues too, but recently I've been fortunate enough to have found the drive to keep working. However, building a tileset is seemingly endless work. icon_sweat.gif That's the reason I chose to use PTUX as a base for my current tileset. Most of the dungeon tiles are good to go, so I'm only making the o'rworld tileset and improving the dungeons. It's still taking forever...

#12 Lemmy Koopa

Lemmy Koopa

    We are the champions

  • Members
  • Location:Ohio

Posted 17 June 2007 - 11:58 AM

My attention on my work dims down alot of times. I gone back to work on one of my quests though.

I hate scripting because I'm not familiar with Zscript language and setup.
Zasm is out of question because I don't know s*** about NES assembly that well.

Designing dungeons can be a pain because trying to make it look good takes a lot of time.

#13 Alestance

Alestance

    Saint Alestance - Eliminator of the ZGP format

  • Members
  • Real Name:Lonk
  • Location:Pennsylvania

Posted 17 June 2007 - 12:24 PM

I don't have a problem making quests. The most annoying part about quest building is setting my expectations too high and doom myself for failure.

That and quest crashes/ back-up confusion.

I had the whole town of Rauru done(16 screens) and I accidentally copied an old back-up over the new save. So... I haven't had the motivation to move on since then. It takes some time, but I normally get back in the saddle in 2 or 3 days, and then I make changes to what I did before, Move things around and stuff. Thats when I realize I did it better than last time.

Anyhoo, building games is not as aggetating as the stupid mistakes I make outside the game platform/

#14 Silence429

Silence429

    Recipient of Ways

  • Members
  • Real Name:Brian
  • Location:Tampa Bay Area

Posted 17 June 2007 - 01:39 PM

The most frustrating part for me is my slow progress. I've been working on this one quest since October 2005, and I'm not even halfway done. But oh well, I'm still determined to finish it, and I'm still making progress.

#15 Schwa

Schwa

    Enjoy the Moment more. This strengthens Imagination.

  • Members
  • Real Name:Hunter S.
  • Location:Redmond Subspace (I had a Potion)

Posted 17 June 2007 - 01:45 PM

These are some good ones.

Custom bosses can get pretty tedious-- the screens or the graphics aren't even the hard part, but setting up like 50 different combos for the same floor is evil. I have this boss that, when you hurt it, a pinecone explodes and the needles flurry over the whole floor. I had to make about 16^2 combos to get that to work. Was it worth it? Yes, I say.

That's the thing about ZC. There are all these frustrating parts of quest designing, but the more frustrating something is to design, the more worth it it most likely is. There are exceptions, but there always are exceptions no matter what you're dealing with, especially in computers. O.o

Anyone else care to add to the list? ^^


0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users