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  #1  
Unread 10-09-2009, 12:20 PM
SOE-Rothgar SOE-Rothgar is offline
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Default Active Quest Window

I'm working on modifying the active quest window so that it will track multiple quests instead of just one. Obviously this means that the text associated with each quest will have to be truncated a little bit if its too long. I plan on making it so that clicking the quest name will open the full detail window so you can get to all of the info easily.

However, my question is this. Are any of you making use of the button page that allows you to navigate through recently updated quests? I'd love to take out a lot of this old code and old processing to recoup some resources and make the code simpler, but I'm not sure who would be making use of this.

I know the default UI isn't using it. Let me know what you think.
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Unread 10-09-2009, 12:47 PM
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I never felt that feature provided much benefit in the quick window (Active Quest). If I needed that kind of visability of the quest process, I always hit J and go from there where I have a much better picture of what I am looking at.

Now, that said, the benefit of moving between recently updated quests is beneficial and the keys that I use for it should still work if you remove the navigation code right? Like pressing the period key on the keyboard takes you to the last quest updated (I think). Having some keys and/or a sort method in the Journal window for Recently Updated would help with moving around in a group of truly active quests in the Journal environment.

Even if this was a top five or updated today (or this week and so on), it would give greater visiblity to the groups of quests that are being worked on.

I would like to maximize my time while in a zone to get updates on quests that are in that zone, but as it turns out, the filter method for This Zone only helps with things that specificaly update that flag or originate in the zone and don't move out of it (i.e. Not Multiple Zone quests). It would be nice to somehow create some tagging that links up quests in your journal, achievements in the new system and collections with a current zone methodology.

If I zoned into LFay and I could open a window or get a popup that said these are some of the things you can do while your here.
You still need the Black Mushroom for collection...
These quests are incomplete and have updates in this zone...
You can skillup on foresting here to reach ###
These achievements can be completed while you're here
These friends are also in zone with you

To me, this keeps the non-raiding game player motivated to go into a zone with a mission, but leave with possibly a completely different set of possibilities that keep him/her playing in a multi-thread objective.
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  #3  
Unread 10-09-2009, 04:45 PM
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Originally Posted by SOE-Rothgar View Post
I'm working on modifying the active quest window so that it will track multiple quests instead of just one. Obviously this means that the text associated with each quest will have to be truncated a little bit if its too long. I plan on making it so that clicking the quest name will open the full detail window so you can get to all of the info easily.

However, my question is this. Are any of you making use of the button page that allows you to navigate through recently updated quests? I'd love to take out a lot of this old code and old processing to recoup some resources and make the code simpler, but I'm not sure who would be making use of this.

I know the default UI isn't using it. Let me know what you think.
I support removing it. Never used it, never saw it as very useful.
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Unread 10-09-2009, 05:52 PM
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However, my question is this. Are any of you making use of the button page that allows you to navigate through recently updated quests?
I used to use only the shortcut keys for that function but then people asked me to actually implement the buttons and dropdown. So I guess at least some people make use of it, but probably not too many. After I implemented it I sometimes used the dropdown, never the buttons.
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  #5  
Unread 10-09-2009, 06:00 PM
SOE-Rothgar SOE-Rothgar is offline
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With the new window I'm working on, I actually like something that Aion is doing, but for all I know they may have taken the idea from another game, but regardless, it's good.

Whenever you do something to update a quest that's not in your list of "active" quests, that quest is added temporarily at the bottom. This allows you to permanently sticky it to the active list if you choose. I'm thinking about implementing the same thing. We already have something similar the way the quest journal "flashes" the quest info for a quest that is updated. All I'd be doing is showing that info at the bottom of the list instead of hiding the entire list.
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Unread 10-10-2009, 04:20 PM
Landiin Landiin is offline
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Yes the way Aion's mini quest window/list works rocks. If you could bring that idea to EQ2 that would be awesome!

To answer your question I do use the arrows to scroll through the quests, but I wouldn't miss it if you took out that code. I use it because it is there and it saves me from searching for it. If you do it the way your talking about there wouldn't be any need for that code..
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  #7  
Unread 10-11-2009, 06:30 PM
gjsi gjsi is offline
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I use Profit and use both buttons (last quest updated drop-down and the privious/next quest buttons

Edited to add: I am a quest-a-holic, and just compelted the 3500 quests completed on my quest toon, so I may use it differently than many people

Last edited by gjsi : 10-11-2009 at 06:32 PM.
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Unread 10-11-2009, 07:09 PM
lordebon lordebon is offline
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Originally Posted by gjsi View Post
I use Profit and use both buttons (last quest updated drop-down and the privious/next quest buttons

Edited to add: I am a quest-a-holic, and just compelted the 3500 quests completed on my quest toon, so I may use it differently than many people
Here's a question for you though: If you could track multiple quests at once, would you still want / need to have those buttons?
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Unread 10-11-2009, 09:10 PM
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Originally Posted by lordebon View Post
Here's a question for you though: If you could track multiple quests at once, would you still want / need to have those buttons?
Probably not.

I do think that when Rothgar adds this, he should also make it so you can quickly filter quests for the zone your in, so say you go into Lavastorm, click a button, and boom, all quests being tracked are exclusively for Lavastorm. Other features like track all quests types, level ranges, etc. should be added as well. Maybe even a search function that finds all the quests that require "a ravaged centipede" or what have you.

Also a button in the normal quest journal that adds quests tracked to the active quest helper. But this is a no brainer feature that is likely to be installed by Rothgar.
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  #10  
Unread 10-12-2009, 12:28 PM
SOE-Rothgar SOE-Rothgar is offline
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Originally Posted by lordebon View Post
Here's a question for you though: If you could track multiple quests at once, would you still want / need to have those buttons?
Yeah, this is the real question. With the old quest window only showing you 1 quest at a time, the need to easily navigate other quests makes a lot of sense.

But with a new window that shows multiple quests and automatically displays any other quest that gets updated, you may not need this functionality. Allowing me to take it out would clean up a lot of stuff under the hood. So I'm just trying to find out if I really need to support both.

A lot of people tend to resist change, so I'm nervous about moving to a new design and having people want their old window back.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 12:39 PM
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A lot of people tend to resist change, so I'm nervous about moving to a new design and having people want their old window back.
People also tend to adapt if given no choice.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 01:31 PM
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Originally Posted by SOE-Rothgar View Post
Yeah, this is the real question. With the old quest window only showing you 1 quest at a time, the need to easily navigate other quests makes a lot of sense.

But with a new window that shows multiple quests and automatically displays any other quest that gets updated, you may not need this functionality. Allowing me to take it out would clean up a lot of stuff under the hood. So I'm just trying to find out if I really need to support both.

A lot of people tend to resist change, so I'm nervous about moving to a new design and having people want their old window back.
Yeah... my question was kind of a leading one, on purpose. The point being exactly yours: if we can track multiple quests at once we don't really need to swap back and forth.

I also don't see how it would play nice at all with a system that lets you track multiple quests. What would you tab back and forth between when you're the one specifying which quests show up? The easy answer to that in my mind is... nothing.

So I still say take it out. Folks may complain a bit in the beginning, but they'll adapt. And folks always complain anyway .

{Detour}
I've got a question for ya Rothgar.... Whenever someone gets invited to group (or to a lesser degree, raid) I notice a ~2-3s lag spike (could even call it a 'lockup'). My guess is this is to all the data for the new player being added. The question is: is the quest data part of what is bogging things down (since you can 'see' groupmembers current quests). The followup is, if that is a major part of that 'lag spike' could we get an option to disable that? I might look at someone else's quests once in a blue moon, so being able to only load that data when I want to instead of every time would be nice.

In general, it seems to me that more server-side options to prevent data from being sent (data we would choose not to have sent) would also be a boon for the server load, since it's sending less data.
{/Detour}
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Unread 10-12-2009, 02:42 PM
Landiin Landiin is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SOE-Rothgar View Post
Yeah, this is the real question. With the old quest window only showing you 1 quest at a time, the need to easily navigate other quests makes a lot of sense.

But with a new window that shows multiple quests and automatically displays any other quest that gets updated, you may not need this functionality. Allowing me to take it out would clean up a lot of stuff under the hood. So I'm just trying to find out if I really need to support both.
If you make it like Aion's where any quest updates get flashed in the helper window and you are able to pin it, then there isn't any need for that code.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SOE-Rothgar View Post
{Detour}
I've got a question for ya Rothgar.... Whenever someone gets invited to group (or to a lesser degree, raid) I notice a ~2-3s lag spike (could even call it a 'lockup'). My guess is this is to all the data for the new player being added. The question is: is the quest data part of what is bogging things down (since you can 'see' groupmembers current quests). The followup is, if that is a major part of that 'lag spike' could we get an option to disable that? I might look at someone else's quests once in a blue moon, so being able to only load that data when I want to instead of every time would be nice.

In general, it seems to me that more server-side options to prevent data from being sent (data we would choose not to have sent) would also be a boon for the server load, since it's sending less data.
{/Detour}
I've never noticed this spike, Does it do it on default also or is the UI script executing causing it?
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Unread 10-12-2009, 03:16 PM
SOE-Rothgar SOE-Rothgar is offline
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Originally Posted by lordebon View Post
{Detour}
I've got a question for ya Rothgar.... Whenever someone gets invited to group (or to a lesser degree, raid) I notice a ~2-3s lag spike (could even call it a 'lockup'). My guess is this is to all the data for the new player being added. The question is: is the quest data part of what is bogging things down (since you can 'see' groupmembers current quests). The followup is, if that is a major part of that 'lag spike' could we get an option to disable that? I might look at someone else's quests once in a blue moon, so being able to only load that data when I want to instead of every time would be nice.

In general, it seems to me that more server-side options to prevent data from being sent (data we would choose not to have sent) would also be a boon for the server load, since it's sending less data.
{/Detour}
This used to be a big problem but we made some changes that eliminated a lot of data that was sent down when you join a group. I haven't seen the problem when I play since then. So I'm not sure if you're experiencing a different kind of lag or not.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 03:40 PM
lordebon lordebon is offline
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This used to be a big problem but we made some changes that eliminated a lot of data that was sent down when you join a group. I haven't seen the problem when I play since then. So I'm not sure if you're experiencing a different kind of lag or not.
I need to test whether it does it on default or whether it's just script execution, but it is better than it was when the GU (or was it the GU before it?) went in. If it's script execution, I'll probably end up cutting a lot of scripting out of my player window of choice. Given what you've said it may very well just be lag due to that.

Ugh, I wish I had all the time I wanted to test everything that I want to test, etc., hehe.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 04:47 PM
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Ugh, I wish I had all the time I wanted to test everything that I want to test, etc., hehe.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 06:03 PM
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Do it!

*Drum's stamp of approval*

Also, yeah I think removing those old buttons would be fine since we could then track the ones we want to anyhow!

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Unread 10-12-2009, 09:12 PM
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Do it!

*Drum's stamp of approval*

Also, yeah I think removing those old buttons would be fine since we could then track the ones we want to anyhow!

I've started ripping out some of that old code and man, I can clean up LOTS of stuff. Since there's no concept of a single "active" quest anymore I can take out lots of messaging where we attempt to pick a new active quest whenever you complete or delete the current active quest. Things are much cleaner now that every quest has its own concept of being active or not. If a quest is flagged as active, it'll show in the new active quest window.

We also cache your update history and send this data back and forth whenever it changes. I also believe we serialize this info on your character, so I can get more savings by taking this stuff out.
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Unread 10-12-2009, 09:30 PM
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I've started ripping out some of that old code and man, I can clean up LOTS of stuff. Since there's no concept of a single "active" quest anymore I can take out lots of messaging where we attempt to pick a new active quest whenever you complete or delete the current active quest. Things are much cleaner now that every quest has its own concept of being active or not. If a quest is flagged as active, it'll show in the new active quest window.

We also cache your update history and send this data back and forth whenever it changes. I also believe we serialize this info on your character, so I can get more savings by taking this stuff out.
All the more reason to DO EET

That "pick a new active quest" code always seemed kinda kludgy in action, never seemed to pick a quest I'd actually want to look at next. (Instead it would sometimes go to the zone before in the list or something like that). I won't miss it, hehe =)
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Unread 10-13-2009, 01:45 AM
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All the more reason to DO EET

That "pick a new active quest" code always seemed kinda kludgy in action, never seemed to pick a quest I'd actually want to look at next. (Instead it would sometimes go to the zone before in the list or something like that). I won't miss it, hehe =)
It actually would show the quests that had recent quest updates. It was kind of horrible sometimes.
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Unread 10-13-2009, 03:00 AM
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A couple of things that may be cool
1) With the active quests enabled lets say, you can expand a quest to show detail of what would be needed or minimize the quest using + or - nodes.
2) When an active quest is completed it still shows up, but automatically minimized, and then greyed out (or not highlighted, if that makes sense).
3) Of course, you would like to be able to click on a link in the active quest window to either go to your Journal or to a browser via eq2i to see a walkthrough...

Glad you are working on this Rothgar - glad to see all the cool updates in the game and with the UI.
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Unread 10-13-2009, 08:29 AM
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A couple of things that may be cool
1) With the active quests enabled lets say, you can expand a quest to show detail of what would be needed or minimize the quest using + or - nodes.
2) When an active quest is completed it still shows up, but automatically minimized, and then greyed out (or not highlighted, if that makes sense).
3) Of course, you would like to be able to click on a link in the active quest window to either go to your Journal or to a browser via eq2i to see a walkthrough...

Glad you are working on this Rothgar - glad to see all the cool updates in the game and with the UI.
Hmm. If you're tracking it as active, it should show up in the window with the next step(s). If you're not tracking it and don't want to see it, I don't see why it should show up there at all. However, if the list gets too long (longer than the size of the window) there should be some 'collapsing;' for example, a quest with 30 steps would take up more than the whole window, so it would go a certain length and then have a scrollbar so you can scroll that one, or some other way of dealing with really long quests.

#2 I disagree with. When it's done, I don't want it there anymore. If I want to look at it, I can always open up the quest window and look in "completed."

#3 I think is best left up to custom UIs, so it's more of an "lets have easy access to the quest name for this kind of thing" than anything else in my mind.
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Unread 10-13-2009, 08:30 AM
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Sounds good to me, and yes, I will adapt.

Couple of things:

I use Fluffy's quest site to track my quests, but since I use ProfitUI, I have not installed his quest helper addon, because I like the ProfitUI quest helper.

So, my reqest, see about adding Fluffy's addon into the default, keep the compelted quest in the quest helper temporarly (as suggested above), or make sure the quest name is logged to a chat window when it is completed, so I can figure out which quest just completed and mark it off in Fluffy's.

Thanks
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Unread 10-13-2009, 09:47 AM
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So, my reqest, see about adding Fluffy's addon into the default, keep the compelted quest in the quest helper temporarly (as suggested above), or make sure the quest name is logged to a chat window when it is completed, so I can figure out which quest just completed and mark it off in Fluffy's.
There is an option you can turn on that tells you what quests you completed in your chat window. (It actually spits out the 'completed' text for pretty much each step, IIRC). But anyway, the quest you just completed always shows up as 'selected' in the completed section of the journal.
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Unread 10-13-2009, 12:45 PM
SOE-Rothgar SOE-Rothgar is offline
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Originally Posted by pwieland View Post
A couple of things that may be cool
1) With the active quests enabled lets say, you can expand a quest to show detail of what would be needed or minimize the quest using + or - nodes.
2) When an active quest is completed it still shows up, but automatically minimized, and then greyed out (or not highlighted, if that makes sense).
3) Of course, you would like to be able to click on a link in the active quest window to either go to your Journal or to a browser via eq2i to see a walkthrough...

Glad you are working on this Rothgar - glad to see all the cool updates in the game and with the UI.
1) Currently the new active quest window will show the quest name and what is required for the current stage of the quest. So for quests like "Kill 10 rats (1/10)" It'll be pretty simple. But if the current stage of the quest requires that you do 10 separate things that you can do in any order, it will get quite long. I'm not sure yet if I want to display all of them and have the rest scroll down or display the first "X" steps of the stage and require you to open the journal to see the rest. As soon as I get it all working I'll take a look at it and evaluate it then. I might consider an expand/collapse option that would toggle between showing the first 3 and showing all.

2) My current plan is to automatically remove a quest from the active list when its completed. You should never be able to get a completed quest in that list. Keep in mind that completed means you just turned it in and got the reward, not that you need to go back and hail to get the reward. If you still need to go back and hail, the quest is technically not completed yet and will remain in the list.

3) Yes, clicking the the name of the quest will open the journal to that quest.
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