Meeting Summary
Quests
Discuss whether it's really necessary for faction questlines specifically to follow a story or just present some common themes across misc. quests. And if a misc. model can then be broken out in multiple claims to avoid devs burning out on tackling big questlines.
The quests for a given storyline shouldn't be completely random; they should fit into the general faction framework, if one is present. But they don't necessarily have to be part of a common story either. They should not clash with the character of the faction (for example, a Thieves' Guild quest shouldn't ask you to kill innocent people, because that's something the MW Thieves' Guild doesn't do). A questline can have leitmotifs (e.g., the Mystery of the Dwarves coming up every once in a while in the vanilla Mages Guild).
As exceptions prove the rule: if the questline breaks out of the faction framework, this must be a plot point. It would be good if alternative solutions exist that stay true to the faction ideal (for an example, see the Percius Mercius questline of the Vvardenfell Fighters Guild).
For a good middle ground, check out the Old Ebonheart Thieves' Guild or the Akamora Guild of Fighters. If a faction has a nemesis, it should have several quests about dealing with that nemesis. If a faction has a moral code, its quests should not violate that code without reason and explanation. Foreshadowing and consequences are generally good in a questline.
Discuss whether a cap to the number of quests in a release or questline may be necessary.
A cap should not be necessary. The Old Ebonheart model, with defined "Minimal Viable Product" quests that are absolutely necessary for release should be employed again. What this means for future content releases precisely needs to be discussed in detail when the issue arises.
Possibly discuss setting high/required priority to some quests over others for releases? I mean I feel this is a self-explanatory process, but does anyone have any objections or points to make about it?
Minimum viable product quests are to be set to critical.
Generally, we have been following this logic for a while:
- Bottleneck priority: NPCing claims, and MVP quest claims
- High priority: Optional claims for the release
- Medium priority: TR_Mainland backlog
- Low priority: Future releases
Discuss what might be holding people back from claiming story-focused questlines and how to go about ameliorating that.
From the discussion, it is clear that we need to spell out and write down a code of conduct that says “it's okay to change quests this much, and if you drop your claim, you accept that it can be changed this much and no hard feelings are permitted".
It is now clear that there are two very different kind of quest developers: these who want detailed questlines and those who want vague ideas to build their own things around. The detailing of questlines will hamper the second type and the lack of details will hamper the first.
As such, while we should keep to the general questline writeups we have now, we also need more quest/questline claims that are not incredibly detailed, only listing the characterization of NPCs, the general idea, and the main plot points.
Discuss if it might be appropriate to plan a release around just the backlog quests, or otherwise just how to handle them. Currently they get lost in the hype and need for more quests to fill out new releases.
It is not appropriate and, when tried with the mainland quest pack, did not really work out.
Quest workflow proposal
- Conceptualization: This can happen either in the asset browser (quest design assets) or on Discord. People discuss potential edits to the original concepts and arrive to an agreement at some point.
- Claim Design: Quest designs in the asset browser "graduate" to design claims. Ideas from Discord can bypass the asset stage and move straight to design claim.
- Implementation: After a second review by a lead / meeting, design claims are opened for claiming in their final locations (MVP+quest density discussions)
Glow in the Dahrk support
It seems to be official that we will be going for native GitD support. All interior and exterior window meshes should support this - a tutorial is available in the GitD download and will be copied and pasted on our website in due time.
We will discuss implementation with Melchior Dahrk, the mod author, at a later date, particularly as he currently includes meshes for TR (but not the PT mods) and sunbeam and no-sunbeam versions.
Dominions of Dust NPCing
Some general notes on NPCing: NPC claims ideally come before and are completed before Quest claims. No unfinished quest hook (e.g. NPC says “I sure wish someone would take care of my rat problem…” but then there’s no way to do so) should go in NPCing claims, and preferably no full quests in NPC claims (instead put these in the Asset Browser in separate file).
NPCs in NPCing claims are understood to be background actors and may be axed or changed as needed for quests. An NPC's usage in a quest and general personality/motives/etc should be put as a ;comment in the Background topic. (This goes for both NPCing and Quest claims).
After this, NPCing commenced and was moved to the #questers-campfire Discord channel.
Next Template Meeting
March 14th/15th for House Redoran.
