The Exporter

[Seriphina 1,223]

TLDR: Leave deed sometimes for a thing to do every day, maybe get rewarded.

 

So the idea is kind of a quest giver who exports goods that gives us a reason to go out in the world and use skills outside of our deeds, or on deed, but you still have to leave the deed to gain/complete the task.

 

Up to 3 tokens (new special currency, character bound) can be earned daily, but only once on a server (so you can travel to do two more on other servers). A weekly task may also be considered with greater difficulty but worth more tokens.

 

Found in starter towns, this quest giver NPC will ask for certain items daily, similar to missions, but in a consistent place with lesser rewards and more easily achievable than missions. Some of these items will require creation, others will require you go out in the world to explore/gather. Each will be worded or requested in a way to lend some lore and depth to the world. They will not all be easy, as some will require going out in the world and doing things. To turn in the items, they are mailed to the quest giver through a new mailbox interaction, dropped off at the quest giver, or completed when a specific number of actions are performed (such as with current missions).

 

Getting a task from the quest giver will begin a countdown of 23 hours. That is how long you have to complete the task. After the 23 hours have expired you can speak to the quest giver for a new task. Completing tasks on additional servers will not impact the 23 hour timer, but those quests will expire at the same timestamp. The task you're given will be randomized so you may be given the same task or something different.

Sample requests:

 

Spoiler

 

The Freedom Isles scholars are seeking to expand the historic kingdom records and are looking for small settlement tokens to research. Can you send me one to give them?

 

Our King has to impress some visiting nobles from a nearby kingdom and needs 5 nutmeg for the cooks to use in their famous dessert. Mind sending a few to him?

 

The chef lost the recipe for unfermented rum and can't find a replacement. Do you have a copy I can pass along? (You can obtain this recipe by killing humanoid creatures such as trolls and goblins.)

 

The Queen has asked for a new book for her to record her plans for an upcoming celebration. Do you have a book with at least 15 pages for me to pass along to the Queen?

 

I've decided to ask my girl to marry me, but I don't feel right proposing without a nice ring. Would you bring me a gold ring and a gem? I have a jeweler buddy who said they can
make something really classy for the occasion.

 

My kids trampled my neighbor's lavender hedge and I'm worried he will be upset. Would you mind sending me 5 lavender sprouts so I can plant a new one before he notices?

 

One of my villagers is trying to live a lower stress life and has decided to start meditating regularly. I hate to see him doing that on the cold ground. Will you find me a
meditation rug for him?

 

I forgot my lunch in the larder. Would you mind making me something to eat? I really like Lemon Herb Battered Chicken.

 

I heard some ducks down by the water. Would you mind foraging in that area and see if you can find any eggs? I'd love to have my own flock of ducks!

 

 

Example items for requests:
 

Spoiler

5 fresh sassafras
1 small settlement token (from archaeology cache)
1 fruit tree report
A learned recipe inscribed from cookbook
A recipe, non-rare, dropped from creatures
10 feathers
Cooked food item (recipe known to all)

Rewards ideas:  
 

Spoiler

 

deed enchanting bonus x2 for 24 hours
electrum rune of Fo
packet of wildflower seeds (includes new flower color/types, work like all others, randomized single bouquet)
chocolate morsel (fully consumed like potion, refills CCFP and nutrition, similar to 2021 V-day gift with single charge)

a deed teleport token (one time summon soul, can summon yourself to any deed on the highway system on current server, not tradeable)

 

 

With the exploration update coming soon (TM) I'm sure this could be expanded further to entice people to step away from the rakes and shovels, lay down the sickles and hatchets, and go find reasons to be social and see the bigger world.

 

This is in no way intended to compete with the marks system that rewards loyalty. In fact it makes sense to make a requirement to be premium in order to earn tokens.

That said, dailies and quests like this are basically industry standard for MMORPG type games and are expected by players who discover this game. It doesn't diminish the sandbox of the game, but it does help guide players that aren't accustomed to creating their own goals.

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Seriphina

[Perihelion 27]

Upvote!

[DaletheGood 1,073]

F#ckin Brilliant! That's the best idea I've heard in a long time. Nice job Seri Big +1 from me!

[Tomatoes 276]

im stunned into silence - +1

 

[Archaed 2,280]

Ew, dailies. 

 

No, this game doesn't need dailies 

[Seriphina 1,223]

5 minutes ago, Archaed said:

Ew, dailies. 

 

No, this game doesn't need dailies 

We already technically have them in the way cooldowns are designed on certain tasks/items such as pottery planters. This just makes them more rewarding and varied

Edited February 26, 2022 by Seriphina

[Archaed 2,280]

I understand the connection you're attempting to make, but no, they are not dailies. 

 

Missions do what you already suggest anyways, you're just suggesting different missions 

[Seriphina 1,223]

3 minutes ago, Archaed said:

I understand the connection you're attempting to make, but no, they are not dailies. 

 

Missions do what you already suggest anyways, you're just suggesting different missions 

Missions kinda do? But many missions are ridiculously difficult or time consuming, especially on larger servers, to where many don't even bother with them. Furthermore there are people who refuse to participate in missions due to the religious aspect that is built into it. This allows people to maintain their beliefs and not miss out on a fairly significant portion of the game.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Seriphina

[elentari 2,660]

2 hours ago, Seriphina said:

Missions kinda do? But many missions are ridiculously difficult or time consuming, especially on larger servers, to where many don't even bother with them.

Very true. 

The mission design in Wurm was always on the assumption it would be a collective effort. Years of game experience has shown that about 10% of the population is actually interested in missions. When we get those "sacrifice 325 decent large mauls" missions, who do you think is gonna do them? Not many bother with weapon smithing. It's a sucky skill. Or traitor missions on Xanadu or Indy where travelling is a nightmare? 

 

The idea behind missions was at its core that you had enough players on a server spread everywhere so everyone could help out. It failed to take into account a) motivation and b ) actual difficulty / reward. 

 

Missions atm only give SB which is debatably useful for some, let's face it, mostly hardcore grinders do them and journal goal grinders. Casuals won't be interested in them since its unlikely they'll have the time to burn the SB they currently have. As for karma? Well it's nice to have some karma but once you get past 10 k....what are you realistically gonna do with it on Freedom? 

 

Compare that with Op's suggestions and at list his offer more variety and motivation and rewards than bland karma you probably will never use outside of pvp and SB you might not even have the time to burn. 

[Coach 196]

I appreciate the effort of making the request questions.

 

These kind of daily quests appeared in the endgame period of some MMO(industry standard MMORPG?). Everyday login in and login out just to do the daily quests to gain a small amount of exp to level up the character. Did u guys have these experiences? Also these daily quests looks like a heavy single player mode which against the online part of this game. 

In contrast, the missions in this game looks like everyone can have a little contribution to the mission. The vibes are different. 

People share the location of mission in the freedom chat. Put down excessive the mission items near the location for other people. Organize a small event in the same server for the cut down tree mission(people made a deadline and just wait at the location for other people to complete together). People were trading the mission items. These are what i have experienced in this game, very online mode. 

[Seriphina 1,223]

1 hour ago, Coach said:

People share the location of mission in the freedom chat. Put down excessive the mission items near the location for other people. Organize a small event in the same server for the cut down tree mission(people made a deadline and just wait at the location for other people to complete together). People were trading the mission items. These are what i have experienced in this game, very online mode. 

Have you ever done the tree mission? It's not a mission that's done as a team. It's chopping down a single tree. Though I get what you're trying to say here, that camaraderie is achieved in the unique hunts and slayings, but not in missions, especially for the pathetic rewards given.

[Coach 196]

2 hours ago, Seriphina said:

It's not a mission that's done as a team. It's chopping down a single tree. Though I get what you're trying to say here, that camaraderie is achieved in the unique hunts and slayings, but not in missions

 

An organizer announced he would chop down the single tree after 45mins, people around that mission area decided to come or not, then all the people who stood around the tree got the mission done. Of course u can chop the tree by urself only without noticing people. The mission just simply offer an opportunity for people to communicate. Its really up to the people in the server. 

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Coach

[MordosKull 822]

I like the effort to provide more reason to leave the deed and the regular grind, but I'm personally not into the feel of spam missions such as seen in so many other RPGs and MMORPGs. To me, that almost gives a more generic and common feel that I personally wouldn't like seeing in Wurm. The video game market's do-a-mission-get-a-reward template is so over used and boring now to me after so many years.

 

I do agree that the current god missions that come up definitely need some tweaking and are often cause for a laugh or eye-roll, but at least they don't overload us with missions, sub-missions, mini-missions, etc.

 

A little additional lore could also help with the introduction/justification of some new mechanics, but I also really appreciate not being overloaded with lore that is also so nauseatingly abundant in so many other games. I don't need to know yet a whole new intricate storyline, family bloodline, world-ending conflict that only I can stop, etc, that some writer dreamt up. Hopefully the exploration update gives some great extra game content without making Wurm boringly like SO MANY other games out there.

 

More creatures, items, physics effects, and fixes would be great - but not guided play overload in the form of tons of quests/missions.

 

Just my 2 irons.

Edited February 26, 2022 by MordosKull

[belacane 238]

9 hours ago, Seriphina said:

Missions kinda do? But many missions are ridiculously difficult or time consuming, especially on larger servers, to where many don't even bother with them. Furthermore there are people who refuse to participate in missions due to the religious aspect that is built into it. This allows people to maintain their beliefs and not miss out on a fairly significant portion of the game.

 

I agree with this Seraphina. These are markedly different from the current missions. I like it!

[Saishirdi 20]

Upvote!

[kordethbludscythe 762]

+1

[Radircs 76]

Well I have no problems with daylies like other people. Current mission system is kind of hard to use. The goal was never the mission but to generat movment for Valrei. But Valrei is to abstract as a Reward.

This missions have to be huge in item variation and not be the same. if the item variation is big enoug and ther is a QL requirment then you still have at least a trade interaction for yourself. The rward shuld be small enough to not feel like "forced" to do it but interssting enough to consider.

I think the over all idea is needed (or a mission rework) but maybe a bit more tweaked to fit in the multiplayer expiriance.

[Taltos 175]

+1

[Finnn 3,303]

daily quests D :

hm

 

personal and group activities in wurm are lacking, there's the journal goals, most are make stuff you don't want or need for mostly titles or uncontrollable "intended" loss of reward(it's instant instead of claim mechanic; I'll stop here, gets darker..)

[DaletheGood 1,073]

Bumpity Bump

[puncher 324]

Yes..make it so..

[Zakiah 66]

These missions are single-player focused.  So are the journal goals.  So are the overwhelming majority of the current Valrei missions.  Only the missions that specifically require a set number of different people to perform a task could be considered multi-player missions.  For the rest, what encourages or requires cooperation aside from the fact that the rewards simply don't justify completing them on your own?  One could argue that scattering mobs or objects around the server doesn't encourage cooperation but instead encourages exploration.

If someone wants to do these "daily tasks" in addition to all of the other "daily tasks" we impose on ourselves, why should they be prevented from doing so?  They would be optional and the rewards minor.  They would potentially provide incentive to leave the deed.  And they would potentially encourage the use of skills we might not always focus on or even completely ignore.  They could even introduce a new player to some other aspects of the game that he or she may not know about.


The biggest drawback is that it can take upwards of an hour or more of travel for many of us to reach the starter towns, especially if we don't have fast mounts.  That's a lot of travel from point A to point B with no reason to stop in between.

If getting people back to the starter towns wasn't a specific goal of the idea, then perhaps the village bulletin board could be used to distribute the tasks and wagoners could be added to the list of ways to hand in the finished goods?  Otherwise this might see extremely limited usage.


If nothing else, this shows that the current Valrei missions are lacking nowadays and would benefit from an overhaul.
 

[Seriphina 1,223]

Channeling my inner cat and pushing this a little closer to the edge of the table...

[elentari 2,660]

You have my upvote ! The current mission system is to be frank, quite boring as hell and just a grind fest to spam items or occasionally leave deed to kill some critters but so few people engage with it that we need more activities. 

 

 

[garforl 156]

Very interesting concept. I love the detail. Always felt it is time Wurm embraced NPCs to a greater extent. Support from me. Even have a quest involving fetching a ring. Iconic lol.

 

Would love to see this expanded upon in the future as well. Deed perks, island influence / reputation stat, expanding on starter deeds as a whole (won't a GM just go crazy on them with ideas please? Haven's Landing needs a death pit.)