I’ve only been on the server for a few short days, and whilst I have had a blast I have also noticed a distinct lack of direction for players. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of conflict other than brief skirmishes when someone is making a shopping run at a warp, as everyone has their favored hideyhole far away from the prying eyes (and prying fingers) of would-be pirates.

To combat this seemingly endless cycle of  stagnation I propose that we add in quests, a plugin that looks relatively simple, but has almost infinite possibilities. By itself the plugin would allow for things like automated events, global scale treasure hunts, and even multi-part cooperative (or  even competitive) ‘jobs’ requiring players to collect resources, explore forgotten ruins deep beneath the earth, and evade other players gunning for their valuable cargo as they trek across the seas to deliver some much needed supplies to a suffering village.

The problem that arises is immersion, because who wants to only get quests from an armor stand with a lifeless head or an urgent request delivered by a sign in some lifeless backwater town. A solution arises with Citizens2. This plugin adds the ability to bring moving, fighting npcs which can act as your quest givers, brutal enemies, or if you prefer,  your helpless victims. It can take any playerskin/mob and have them fight with or against you, but it also allows for custom traits which can elevate them beyond just normal enemies. Give players a reason to group up by defeating a dread pirate and his terrifying undead hoard as he uses his foul magic to pick you off one by one. For the more maliciously-hearted you and your closest buddy can rain hellfire upon a peaceful villa as their terrifying fire golem gets dangerously close to your rather flammable vessel.

Now, it’s fun to imagine what epic quests we can embark on when there’s no guarantee that it would fit the style of (or even work on) the server. A few problems that could arise that would the pair of these plugins.

• The demand on the server would be too high

While Quests itself seems to be a rather slim plugin (like the ones I have used in the past), I’ve never worked with it before, and am unable to evaluate the the effect it may have upon the server. The real worry comes from Citizens2, as it by itself isn’t too taxing on setups, there is no way to know without testing if it would make PirateMC a super lag fest with Movecraft.

• The quests are only as good as your writers

While it is easy to write a very tantalizing summary of a quest, making something with any sort of depth requires tons of forethought and planning. Along with adding scripts in order to make custom monsters just how you like, and hours playtesting to work out the bugs in your ‘code’, it is very difficult to keep a players interest through text alone (although there are a few tricks you can pull to grab someones attention).

And finally

• The quests don’t fit the theme of PirateMC

It’s very possible that it’s against the greater vision of the server to have content that isn’t fully player created. While it is technically possible for anyone to write a quest and upload the .yml for review, there is no guarantee that anyone would have the time to read through, correct, and balance potential material. Also, I’m unaware of any way to make npcs interact with Movecraft (although I’m sure it’s possible by a competent programmer) thus making any sea based enemy locked to the size of the default water creatures. A potential fix for this would be allowing entities to ride on bridges, contradicting a previous poll.

Thanks for your time reading this, sorry for the wall of text. Please comment on anything you would like me to clarify or let me know any questions you have. I would like to make clear that I’m in no way implying that if it were implemented I would be in anyway involved, I just liked to include my personal wishes for the server and got a little carried away.

Edit: Reading through the other suggestion posts I realize that (at least at one point) there was an idea about having ‘factions’ based around continental location. Quests are an ideal way to implement this as you can use the existing leveling of ranks to bar peoples entry to do certain quests. Also you can get ‘loyalty’ by earning quest points. It’s also relatively easy to trigger ‘payback’ quests if you have lets say a pirate faction attack the far north faction through a bombing of a town. If the pirate(s) that did the quest succeeded when they get a reward can activate quests for the northern faction, to help rebuild the town and retaliate against the pirate’s own base.  Lots of ideas, but it’s all moot until we even know if the plugins are viable.