After yesterday's post about needing 70 quests for LGO, the community members and I were discussing storylines and possible themes we could use to make writing quests more entertaining for the general population.  The theme we've decided upon is "The Worst Quest Ever..."

Basically, all the quests in LGO will be pulled from the list of the worst things we can imagine doing, and then divided up between the "good side" and "bad side", with the good side having quests that take advantage of them, while the bad side has quests that take advantage of other NPC's.

Some example quests include:

* "My dog and I took a walk and I forgot my plastic bag at home, can you go around town and scoop up the poo?"

* "I've lost my chicken and would like you to find him.  He was last seen trying to cross the road back into town."

* "Last night at dinner I somehow left my purse on the table and I'm afraid it was thrown out with the trash...can you go dig through the trash behind the pub and find my purse."

* "Every day those geeks come into the school yard and think they're so much better than everyone else.  Go beat up X geeks and take their lunch money as proof." 

Or the quest chain...

* "I've gotten pregnant and don't know how to tell my boyfriend he's not the father.  Can you do it for me?"

followed by:

"Oh really...go kill the father..."

Which ends in:

"Sorry dear, your boyfriend left you."

As stated yesterday, you can find the Quest Posting Format here.  Make sure to use that format when submitting quests to the Quest Forum. Ok, let's see what you can come up with!

Discuss this news item Here! 

With the separation of LGO and Chronicles of the Five Kingdoms I've re-organized the forums and made it easier for people to see what types of assets I'm looking for, for Programming an MMORPG in C#, and where to put them.

As usual I'm still looking for any Concept Art people may wish to submit for classes, weapons, armor, environment objects, city overviews, etc...  While I may or may not end up using your artwork, the website's getting hit by a couple hundred people a day right now so it's still a good opportunity to have your artwork put before others.

I'm also going to be looking for 3D modelers soon.  As our collection of concept art grows more rapidly we'll need 3D environment modelers and Character modelers to turn the concept art into reality.  

Finally, I've created a special place for people to post quest ideas on the forums.  I know Meg and Aaron are currently in the process of coming up with a stub story for LGO, but even without that, quest ideas are welcome - just make them general enough they could fit in any world.  I've created a full description of the format required for quest submissions Here.  If you have a quest idea, make sure to follow the format used in the previous thread and then create a post Here.

Per the table posted in the Game Mechanics thread there will be a total of 70 quests for Level-Grind Online, divided up between 4 classes and 4 zones (1 for each faction, and 2 'contested'). The quests break down as follows:

29 Regional Quests Per Faction (x2 = 58)
3 Class Quests Per Class (x4 = 12)

If you need help coming up with ideas for your quests, Cameron posted a nice thread with different quest types Here, which you can use for inspiration. 

Regional Quests
Each faction will have a starter zone which has monsters and quests in the range of levels from 1-6, and then a secondary zone which has monsters and quests in the range of levels from 6 through 10. The two secondary zones are adjacent, requiring a person from one faction to cross both contested or "neutral" zones, depending on server settings, in order to get into the opposing faction's land.

Per the chart in the Game Mechanics table the quests will be broken down as follows for each of the two factions:
Level 1 Quests (Zone 1): 1
Level 2 Quests (Zone 1): 2
Level 3 Quests (Zone 1): 2
Level 4 Quests ( Zone 1): 3
Level 5 Quests ( Zone 1): 3
Level 6 Quests ( Zones 1 and/or 2): 4
Level 7 Quests ( Zone 2): 4
Level 8 Quests ( Zone 2): 5
Level 9 Quests ( Zone 2): 5

Quests may be solitary or chained together with other quests. These can be other quests you provide, or continuations of a quest that someone else has already posted. All quests should be posted in the format listed in the above thread.

Class Quests
Each class will have three class quests, available at levels 3, 6, and 9. All three of the quests are obtained in one of the two contested zones but requires travel into the other. Which zone the quests starts in is unimportant but can be dictated by the nature of the quest or geography. Each class quest should somehow emphasize the skills of the class. All quests should be posted in the format listed in the above thread.

Discuss this news item Here!

After re-focusing our efforts to allow easier customization for Programming an MMORPG in C# with XNA we decided to ditch our previously defined classes, or rather, re-use them in Chronicles of the Five Kingdoms, and so we needed to come up with new ones instead.  We decided to go with the standard four archetypes of Warrior, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue.

Below is Tang's concept of the LGO Rogue.  Feel free to join the forums and post your feedback Here.

Meg Maloney, our Lead Story Writer is looking for some additional team members.  There's lots to be written still in terms of history, lore, quests, and NPC dialog.  She posted this on the forums but I wanted to post it here as well. 

-------------------------------

I'm currently looking for dedicated writers interested in joining our team. If you would like to lend your talent to our project, please read the requirements below and submit your application as directed.

Step one: Briefly familiarize yourself with the 3 possible backstories located in the Backstory & Lore forum. (Entitled "Russ' Backstory, Aaron's Backstory, and Meg's Backstory, respectively).

Step two: Develop a piece which includes some ORIGINAL lore for 1 place of interest within in the game world, 1 person of interest who influences the game world, and 1 item of interest located somewhere inside the game world. They do not all need to be related to one another (for example you may write about a small frontier town, a Cleric of note, and an item of power held by the Sorcerers) nor do they need to be epic in nature (feel free to write about a locally famous inventor) but they do need to exhibit your talent and familiarity with the world being developed. By "original" I mean developed entirely by you - please do not write about places, items or people already described in any of the backstories.

Step three: Submit your piece (maximum of 1500 words-- but we're looking for quality over quantity) in the stickied Submissions thread located in the Backstory & Lore forum. Do not reply to the Help Wanted thread with your submission. Do not create a new thread for your submission.

Step three: please remain active on the forums and/or IRC for one week following your submission. We need to be assured that you will be available and willing to develop adequate time to the project. We're not expecting 40 hours a week, but an average of 2-3 hours per day will probably be necessary (it's fine if you only want to do weekends). Any availability between the hours of 11am - 11pm EST is preferred -- since this is generally when I am active and able to work with you.

Credit will be given for any contributions used, and your contact information will be made available both here on the website as well as within Jeromy's book, Programming an MMORPG in C# with XNA, as a form of free advertising for your talent.

I realize this may sound like a lot, especially for a volunteer project. I'm doing this for free because I truly love to write, and I'm getting great experience and enjoyment from this project. If you think you will too, please consider coming aboard!

Here's some artwork from Tang Chan showing early ideas for two of our classes. The first is our Cleric, a ranged offensive and healing class who uses spoken language to invoke divine wrath.

The second is our Sorceress. She uses the blood of ancients to tattoo glyphs of the divine language onto her person and then uses them as a twisted version of the Cleric's spells. She's a melee caster that uses debuffs and DoT spells to bring the pain.

We are looking for concept artists to work on visuals for Level-Grind Online. Any artist who contributes concept art for the book and demo will have their names, portfolio, and contact information provided inside the book as a form of advertisement for their services.

In specific, I am looking for concept art of the various classes, races, locales, temples, crypts, dungeons, armor, weapons, buildings, cities, and other places of interest contained within the world being built as a companion to the accompanying book.

So if you're a creative artist looking to provide artwork for a wide circulation, and are interested in being involved in the development of a community project, please use the Contact Form above or come to the Forums and post your information.