Questhelper

[Malendryn]

I know I saw a thread about this, but I can't find it for the life of me, but someone asked about being able to retrieve the history of what a Quest-NPC said to you so you can review it. Effectively a quest-transcript-log. I remember Amon responding that it'd be a problem with bandwidth and someone following up with they'd expect it'd be clientside not serverside, (and I agree).

My real question is, is there anything out there that is a quest helper of sorts? I know we have a few walkthroughs posted here and there, but nothing like for example, allakhazam or thotbott, or do we?

Cuz if we don't, I'm getting ideas...

[Shian]

No we don't. Yes, one would be nice.

[Malendryn]

Hmm, well I spent last night in my usual bored insomniatic way pondering that message and started thinking how could this be done. I dont have any idea how anyone else has done their helpers (like thottbott) short of pure bruteforce people entering data, and I sure as heck dont want to be doing that!

So I'm a programmer, see, and I started hacking a bit, with a flex app (both air and flex actually) and at least while in air I can access files on the local HD and wrote a logfile-watcher. I've got it as far as if you approach a quest NPC and select it and type '/loc' it will ask you what that NPC's name is and a few other things about it. this gets stored, and then all future conversations given by that npc get stored with that NPC.

I still need to think on how to 'globalize' this so that multiple people can share the datasets and build up something significant. and the nice thing about it being air_and_flex is that the same client can be used both as a builder (standalone app) and a webpage flash object for viewing quests.

Once I figure out a decent collaborator methodology this could potentially be a quick way to create a fairly intuitive quest database.

It's still just a notion and something 'fun to do' on the side but if there's a real interest in it I might just start plucking at it with a little sincerity, and it'd be yet-another good reason for this old beta-tester to rejoin istaria once again.

[StalePopcorn]

Some of the quests (not many) on the Wiki have had the quest dialogue added. It is typed in manually however, so isn't perfect. If you get a big list together in text/CSV/XML/whatever format, I could probably upload the whole set to the Wiki if that would be suitable?

[Dhalin]

I dont have any idea how anyone else has done their helpers (like thottbott) short of pure bruteforce people entering data, and I sure as heck dont want to be doing that!

In WoW's case, They don't hand-enter that data.

What they do, is circulate an add-on that reads a bunch of data on a bunch of peoples' computers. Said add-on is not malicious, and the user has to manually upload the data (check out WoW-Reader on Allakhazam for a very good idea of how this is done).

When you're running the addon, something like this happens:

1). You accept a quest. The Addon records everything in the quest dialogue, and starts a new entry for that quest. It records who/what gave you the quest, and what your current position (coordinates) was, when you accepted the quest. It also records what the objective of the quest was. Let's say the guy said "Go kill 10 Spiders and 8 Wolves".

2). You go to do the quest, you kill a Wolf. The addon records where you were standing when the wolf died, and what the wolf dropped (assuming you looted it, of course).

3). You kill a spider, the same thing happens.

4). When you kill all of them, you go back and turn the quest in. The add-on records what rewards were offered (items, XP, money...), where you were when you turned the quest in, and who/what you turned it into.

5). After you get done playing, you upload the data to their server, and the data is entered automatically into their DB.

6). Another user comes by later, and searches for the same quest; he sees the dialogue, the rewards, what is needed, and if he clicks on the mobs needed, the DB knows where the mobs are commonly defeated, etc.