When we made our roadmap public, I sure as hell did read all the feedback on the forums, as I was eager to see on what our community thinks about all the great features that we planned to improve Grepolis.
Actually, that was pretty funny because when you develop the concepts for these features, you will automatically have an assumption on the community’s opinions and feelings. To be honest, I was wrong about most of the features. But luckily I was right about the Island Quests. The feedback was rather positive and many didn’t really know what to expect and how the Island Quests would turn out.
I guess it makes sense to point out that this is the reason for this blog post. I would like to explain the Island Quests and what we want to achieve with this new feature.
So, before I go on, I want to explain the issues with the game that led me to think of this new feature. Prior to becoming a game designer for the Grepolis team, there was a time when I didn’t know the game. When I got to know it and made my first steps, you can guess that I tried to analyze the game as early as possible. I played on a speed 1 world and I came to the conclusion that during times of waiting there were too few things to do to influence my progress. In short, there was too little decision making involved.
And as a human being, I love making decisions that are meaningful!
The idea for the Island Quests was born.
Now, the Island Quests will tackle several issues at once:
- It will speed up the gameplay in the first days
- You will have more interesting things to do while waiting for your buildings to complete
- You may even fight (NPCs) in times of peace (to satisfy your thirst for blood)
- There are more interesting rewards that you can acquire, which will open up new strategies
Well, quests in general aren’t particularly new in games, but we still wanted something that suits Grepolis and has a special notion to the game. If we come to imagine that each player represents a ruler with his own empire it will make sense to develop quests that underline this circumstance. Usually, things won’t go as expected when you lead an empire, and thus the Island Quests represent those random occurrences. Also, you will decide whether to take the dread or the nice path when tackling an Island Quest.
Island Quests spawn once every set amount of hours, whereas the timeframe depends on your progress in the game. You will see Island Quests more frequently in the beginning of the game compared to a later stage when you already have dozens of towns. This is because players with many towns already have a lot of other stuff to do. But don’t worry, the rewards will scale in power so you won’t miss anything from having Island Quests more seldom.
If an Island Quest emerges, you will see something like this on your island:
This is an Island Quest marker indicating that an Island Quest has spawned on this island. Each quest has its own marker, so you will know beforehand what type of quest there is. You will also have an overview on where Island Quests emerged by opening the city list. If you click on such a marker, you will see the actual quest window:
Let’s analyze the anatomy of this screen:
- You got the title, a storyline description, and a quest-specific image at the top.
- Below the image, there are two buttons.
- One will center your map to focus the quest.
- The other one will let you pick another random quest instead (in case you don’t like the spawned quest) for 50 gold.
- The two boxes at the bottom represent your possible reactions on the given situation.
- The icons within the buttons will indicate the kind of challenge that needs to be done.
- There are also tooltips on the buttons to get detailed information about the challenge.
- Also, each decision will provide it’s own reward. In this case, gentrifying the slums will give your city a recruit time boost, whereas leveling the slums will force your farm villages to not lose any mood for the next few hours (even if you loot them). There’s also a number on each reward, displaying the level of that reward (more on this later).
Now, since I really love enforcing the loyalty of my farm villages, I will decide to level the slums and build a new aqueduct. The quest-view will slightly change:
Since I’ve made my decision, I won’t be able to go back. I can now either take the given challenge or ignore the quest for a while. If I would ignore an island quest for too long (24 hours to be exact), it will vanish leaving space for a new Island Quest to spawn.
It’s time to smash in the heads of the poor people that want to defend their slums. We really need to do that in order to get our desired reward. 😉
In order to achieve this, I click the button “challenge”:
As you can see, we get a challenge-specific overlay that lets us interact with the Island Quest. The defenders of the slums are weak slingers and defeating them will not be an issue for my bloodthirsty army. Killing NPCs from an island quest is similar to attacking a farm village. Also, whenever you kill some of the defending units, your quest progress will go up. As soon as we killed all 35 slingers, the quest progress is at 100% and we are free to collect the reward, which will also cause the Island Quest to disappear.
The number of units to be defeated depends on the number of points of all your towns on the island where this Island Quest has been activated. I’ve already mentioned a “level” for rewards. The more points your towns accumulate, the higher the level of the quests get. Most of the rewards become more powerful by having a higher level, but keep in mind that the challenge will scale as well. In this case, a weak player would only have to face 5 or 10 slingers.
We have a lot of interesting rewards that can be collected by doing Island Quests and also a variety of challenges. In future, we will expand the Island Quests by adding more stories and probably even new rewards and types of challenges.
I hope you are now a little more curious to play around with the Island Quests yourself. In that case, why don’t you visit the beta server and get a glimpse before everyone else? Feel free to drop your opinion on this feature in the comments below.
Hey, this sounds like a very neat idea.
Just one quick question: these quest are optional, not mandatory, right?
Sure, you could just ignore them. But unsurprisingly, you wouldn’t get any rewards then. 😉
When you opt to store one of the Island quest rewards…where do you go to use it inevitably?
In your inventory (top left of the screen) 😉
what kinds of rewards do island quests give apart from the ones mentioned in the explanation?
All rewards from the Island Quests are handled as effects and include:
– Wood / Stone / Silver / Favor boost
– Forced loyalty (mentioned above)
– Defense / Attack boost
– Unit generation effects
– Recruit time / building time boost
– Troop movement speed boost
the rewards look awesome, but i have a few more questions:
will the defense / attack boost also work for mythical units? and can i save the rewards in my inventory?
Yes and yes. 😉
This sounds great! Really exited about these.
Sound like a good addition to the game to me.
Sounds great ,,and your right there is not enough to do while waiting for buildings etc etc cant wait bring it on
When Changelog will be released on beta?
Maybe, i didn’t saw it in the text but:
When do we have this epic update?
🙂
Pretty soon! You won’t have to wait for a long time. 🙂
Awesome ! But i quited so , maybe. Play back to look this new item + i had another idea that would be awesoMe , a system that you can have a kind battle system so you can see them fighting. Like example gladiators from fb that wwould be fun and you dont get bored from it 😛
Hey Envoy,
Does this feature come with v2.39?
And from what point of the game are this quests accessable? Already at 175 points?
There is no official release date so far. Please regularly check out your local forum for official statement from your community manager 🙂
Island quests are available for all players, even the ones with only 175 points.
When the second videocast is ready?
We are currently working on it but we are facing some delays due to illnesses. I would say it will be ready somewhen in May 🙂
if the heroes com out kan you get heroes rewarded with island quests
You will not get heroes from island quests, but a currency that can be used in order to purchase heroes. 🙂
This currency will be added to the island quests as soon as we release heroes. 🙂
and when are the heroes releasing
There is no release date yet, but we are pretty focused on implementing that feature. 🙂
It’s already looking pretty good.
thanks good to now
Hmmm…
About the heroes… will they die like regular troops? Will they come back? If the answer is yes, when and how?
And a new ship?
And a new militar unit? Peltaste unit? Hmmm?
There are currently no plans of adding new regular units. However, heroes are a bit different to common units. But rest assured: They never die, they can only become wounded for some time upon being defeated.
We will release more information on the heroes before we will roll out the update containing the implementation of the heroes. 🙂
I love the Island Quest idea. Hopefully the cost/reward will be balanced out. You know the guys with the spreadsheets will be analyzing it.
And congrats on a game that lets you use gold to help you grow but without going over the top to unbalance the game. However the Heroes idea scares me as many games use this as a money pit. And usually in a way that forces players to spend or be at a severe disadvantage. I have nothing against spending a few dollars here or there as you devs need to eat….but, hope you see my point.
Well, the quests will be a nice addition to the game i think. The heroes we’ll see. 🙂 But, until now, you’re doing a great job. Let’s hope that all teams around the world taking care of game servers do the same quality job. :)))
Anything more, email me. 😉
Take care.
Which world is public beta anyways?
http://beta.grepolis.com/ 🙂
Hey, really nice ideas! Thank you soo much! But I have a suggestion..please change the towns looking on the map =) it will be really nice
This is good. 20 Cities is not keeping my attention very well 😛
Changelog 2.39 was relesead on beta.grepolis… Good job and Congrulations for this new feature.
nice id love to have heroes would be fun
island quests are in a diffrent language not in english
The english translations are not fully ready yet, sorry for that.
do the choices we make during island quests have any long term effects (either negative or positive)?
so far i only have quests on one island at a time. seems other members in my alliance are the same. is it possible to have quests going on at more than one island at the same time or are we limited to quests on one island at a time?
The path you chose to solve an island quest doesn’t have any effect right now, but it will in a future update.
Islands Quests can spawn on multiple islands at the same time 😉
“The path you chose to solve an island quest doesn’t have any effect right now, but it will in a future update.”
It will be fine!!
One question – currently rewerds not balanced between chains (wise and reprehansible). Will it repair in the future?
I got twice “Building acceleration” and both times in wise chain.
And two “Troops fastening” in aggressive chain.
Since we will release more and more island quests over the course of time, your problem will automatically level out. 😉
We will also rebalance the rewards if we see the need for this.
When comes the full screen city overview?
I think that is the most important thing.
To become a great game
It’s planned, but not in development yet. I’m sorry, but there is no set date for the full screen city overview.
Hey guys,
Great work on this new feature. It’s a good way to make Grepolis even more realistic than it already is. I tried it on the Public Beta already, and i’m really excited about it.
Grz,
AJHunter
I saw that Changelog 2.39 will be release in Germany, on worlds Elysium and Olympia in The 2nd of May. When this changelog will be release in France, in England, in United States or in Romania?
It will be released within the next days 😉
Hey guys. This is a suggestion that I recently thought up that could be pretty simple, but end up steamrolling into a series or just a single video displayed to all new players (or those who choose to watch it). Grepolis is often thought of as needing sounds and animation (good job on all the added sounds), and I propose a “Grepolis Strategy Introduction in 20 Minutes” video that would solve many of these problems, add humor to the game, keep the crazy new player base that Grepolis is receiving, better equipped to play, ect. An example and the inspiration of this idea came from this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX_is9LzFSY, that does a funny and decent review of calculus in 20 minutes. Take the time to watch it and it’s truly funny, but anyone who has learned calculus will see the education value in it too.
No player wants to read guides when first starting the game, they want to play the game! But this simple, fast paced video, could incorporate the player in a fun and helpful strategy guide, introducing them to concepts that would normally take weeks or even months to learn, all in 20 minutes. The player could then go in a further experiment of coarse, but having an introduction idea is great to expand on new players faster, something the Grepolis builders are making good strides on.
the one thing that concerns me with the island quest so far is thate 30% increase in defense /attacking
This feature will make it almost impossible to attack or defend a city without the additional 30% bonus if the other player has it???
I think a more realistic 10% would have been a better choice….
Is this only for the German worlds or will this become available on on international worlds ?
Island quests will be rolled out on all worlds and all markets.
Will the 30 percent increase in defense/attack be in addition to or stackable with the bonus from the gods?
Yup!
Marcel so you mean that if I get a 30% increase attack and heroic power my attack will be 40% (30 from the increased attack and 10 from heroic power) stronger? Please confirm.
And as a second question, what happens if I use two increase attacks bonuses from quest? Do they stack up? Does it means that my attack will be 60% stronger? Please confirm as well.
Thanks
#1: Those effects will stack.
#2: You cannot stack the same effect. You will have to wait until the first attack bonus runs out until you can use the second one on the same city.
Right, I see, thank you very much. I guess if I have the Myrmidon attack I can add a 10% bonus as well.
I haven’t got a island quest yet. all my frinds have and it says at my level of points i should get one every -2 hours. What am i doing wrong. I reloged and refreshed
There was a bug regarding the island quests. It was fixed this morning. If you still keep being without Island Quests, please contact the support.
It works now. Thanks
Today I have gotten 0 island quests today and it has been way over 2 hours
i was getting quests for a day but now i’m not getting quests any more
We are having problems with some of the rewards given, like the extra 50% Gods favor. Is it a knowned bug or something new?
thanks
Please contact the support team if you experience any kind of isssues in the game. Thank you 🙂
Just wanted to say U guys r working very hard to improve the game
God bless u guys 😀
I played the quests. Are you suppose to get the same quest multiple times on the same date? I already did the latest one that has shown up…
Quests are randomly given to you. So, there is a small percentage of chances that you get the same quest on the same day.
I’ve been playing just a short time(5-6 weeks) and hit a spot where the time spent was getting boring. These quests picked up the pace and are great as a thinking tool. My comment is It’d be great if there was a way to look back on my completed quests and contemplate my decisions. I’m wondering about future problems I might have from them. Great new feature though. Love it.
And oh yeah, when I click on collect reward I’m not aware of what they even are and cant seem to figure out after the fact where they are. Kinda a question and hint I guess.
Put your mouse over the reward and detailed information will appear in a tooltip.
These island quests are great. Exciting game beyond 5 minutes farming and waiting to build.
Could you signal somehow when will a quest vanish, how much time is remaining from the 24 hour to decide? For example when quest appeared at sleep time and the player have not enough resources or troops and must delay the quest.
It could be a countdown in the quest details window.
Or the border of the quest icon should be a countdown bar, the yellow color changing to black like a clock, and when it became completely black the quest vanish.
Thanks.
If I dislike a quest, and do not want to pay 50 gold to replace it, will the quest eventually disappear and be swapped with another quest?
It will disappear if you ignore it for 24 hours. Ignoring means not contributing to the Island Quests goal. 😉
Is “Land expansion” a hidden island quest award, or is that from something else?
It’s from the “First 7 Day Login” Feature. Each player can get it once per game world.
Ah, thanks!
I should have paid more attention to those daily awards! I skimmed over the 3rd day award since I assumed it was just the granting of a low amount of resources. So I just accepted the award while on a random city. Luckily, it’s still a city that the Land Expansion award would be useful on. =)
Thanks for the clarification. Before, I thought I was special by unlcoking a random chance quest award, similar to a ultra-rare item find in Diablo. =-P
what will happen if you cast improved defenses on one city and send out the defense units from that city to support other cities
will the defense of the units stay improved only or will it come back to normal?
Only units within the improved city will have enhanced defense values.
I had a funny glitch with one of the quests. I had to kill 12 slingers. the slingers was killed but the quest kept saying i had to kill them. I kept attacking and attacking (without killing as there was no slinger in the “farm village” yet i got loot..)
I emptied the farm village 😀 😀 😀
last attack it yielded only 22 resources
luckily when i logged on again the server noticed i had killed the slingers and i received the reward.
also i was told someone was using the forced loyalty reward and when he did the 6 hour loot he did not get all resourcess. but the leftovers like i had when i had emptied my farm village.
is this a bug or is this a little perk when using the forced loyalty that you can not go beyond what you normally have as max when demanding/looting a farm village (which makes the reward useless if you are used to loot/demand on a 5minute schedule all day).. orrr.. is it that the villages are shared and with forced loyalty you can empty it depriving other players from the normally available resources. if that last is the case the reward is a new weapon in the war as you can pull the villages into economical warfare.
as far as i could see the farm village of the quest produces resources like a normal city (e.g. every couple minutes n resources). it looked like level 7 timber camp, quarry and the silver mine a level lower (the resource distribution was not equal). yet the villages on the island i can demand from yield more resources per 5 minutes when demanding than the village was producing so i guess that the quest-village was a level 1 farm village and the farm villages i normally demand from are level 3 to 5 therefore producing more resources.
i hope the farm-villages actually are shared and that you can use the reward to get so much resources out of it you wont leave a match stick, peppble or penny for the enemy cities on the island. that would really make the reward valuable
Okay, so I rocked a quest and got the +30% attack for 7 hours token. I want to attack a city 9 hours away. Do I use the token now, then attack, or do I attack, then wait until I’m within 7 hours of the attack landing, then use the token?
You have to use the item right before you send away your units. All units that are sent away while the effect is active will have improved combat values. They will keep those improvements until they arrived at the target city, no matter how far that it.
umm, what happened to the quests? a retooling? i saw them for a few days, now it’s been almost 2 days, no new quests on any of the 4 islands i have cities on.
There is a bug and only some players are affected. We are currently investigating this issue.
We are sorry for the inconvenience!
Hi,
I got some missions (3-5 a day) the first three days we had them. (we got missions four days ago on the server I’m playing)
But today….I haven’t seen a single one the whole day. My fellow players still gets several a day…
What goes wrong ?
Cheers
There is a bug and only some players are affected. We are currently investigating this issue.
We are sorry for the inconvenience!
I filed a support ticket and received 2 island quests that day, and nothing more since. I hope this issue is fixed soon.
how come you guys never mentioned that there will be awards available, also my awards aren’t updating from level 2 to level 3
Awards are not a new features of the game and are also not specific to the island quests. If you experienced any issue with the game, please report them through your local forum or support (http://support.innogames.de). The DevBlog is not the right place to report bugs and to get assistance. Thank you for your understanding 🙂
I cant see Island quests anymore. Was it a limited time thing??
No, there was a bug, but it should be fixed already. If it’s not fixed for you, please contact customer support. 🙂
id like to be able to send my troops that are supporting one ally city to support another ally direct, its annoying that once a city im supporting is now safe that instead of just rerouting them to someone who could be 15min away i have to drag them all the way back to my city which could be several hours away just to send them back out!