What is the Quest Calculator?
The Quest Calculator is, very simply, an improved (in my opinion) translation of a users Quest Flags than Megamud
provides. The original idea for the Quest Calculator came from Evian Springs, a Mudop with Muddweller.com
We were doing 5th quests for about 8 users and I noticed that it was taking him a long time to check the flags for
each user. I asked him what the problem was and he told me that Megamud did not have the flags for the 5th
quests programmed into it and he had to look them up on a sheet for each user.
I had him send me a sample of what he got from MajorMud, and then I designed V1.0 simply to translate the 5th
Quest Flags for him. This was sometime in March of 2006. Over the course of the next two months, I modified the
software to translate all of the flags since Megamud does not translate some of the flags properly. In May 2006 I
released V2.0 of the Quest Calculator. It would take a users stats and quest flags and tell you where a user was on
every quest, could they do a particular quest yet (or ever), and send a reply back to the user telling them where
they were on any quest they had not completed.
Later versions included adding the users inventory to make sure the user had the items required to proceed with
the next step in the quest and more enhanced responses to the users.
At this time I had no Mudop access to any boards, so testing involved me writing the code, then sending a beta
version to Evian via Email so he could test it, and get back to me with problems. Talk about a crappy way to design
software!
In May of 2006 I switched from Visual Basic 5 Professional Edition to Visual Studio 2005 and created the
Quest-ware.net website. Program development went on hold for awhile while I learned the new programming
environment/language and learned about the .NET Framework and developed the Quest-ware website.
In late May of 2006 I released V2.50 which included the Limited Item Locator. Click here for the history of the
Limited Item Locator.
In June 2006, V2.60 was released. It separated the Quest Calculator and the Limited Item Locator into 2 separate
programs.
In August of 2006 I left Muddweller.com and began playing at EntMud and EntConn. Mike, the Sysop at EntConn
had heard of my software and offered me Mudop access on both of his boards so that I could continue the
development of these programs. This allowed me to develop the software much quicker since I could now do my
own beta testing. Due in no small part to the help and trust given to me by the Sysop at EntConn (and some of his
other MudOps, Drizzt, Kalak) I was able to redesign the entire package and include some new ideas. Most of these
changes were made to the Limited Item Locator.
From June to December 2006, both programs were completely re-worked code wise to reduce memory, speed
execution, and address some logic issues. The programs were combined back into one program as well.
In December 2006 I put out 2 releases of the software. This new help system was one of the big changes along
with the improvements mentioned above.
In February 2007 V2.7.4.0 was released. Added additional skins to the interface and added feature to track the
number of days a limited item sits in its location.
The Quest Calculator is, very simply, an improved (in my opinion) translation of a users Quest Flags than Megamud
provides. The original idea for the Quest Calculator came from Evian Springs, a Mudop with Muddweller.com
We were doing 5th quests for about 8 users and I noticed that it was taking him a long time to check the flags for
each user. I asked him what the problem was and he told me that Megamud did not have the flags for the 5th
quests programmed into it and he had to look them up on a sheet for each user.
I had him send me a sample of what he got from MajorMud, and then I designed V1.0 simply to translate the 5th
Quest Flags for him. This was sometime in March of 2006. Over the course of the next two months, I modified the
software to translate all of the flags since Megamud does not translate some of the flags properly. In May 2006 I
released V2.0 of the Quest Calculator. It would take a users stats and quest flags and tell you where a user was on
every quest, could they do a particular quest yet (or ever), and send a reply back to the user telling them where
they were on any quest they had not completed.
Later versions included adding the users inventory to make sure the user had the items required to proceed with
the next step in the quest and more enhanced responses to the users.
At this time I had no Mudop access to any boards, so testing involved me writing the code, then sending a beta
version to Evian via Email so he could test it, and get back to me with problems. Talk about a crappy way to design
software!
In May of 2006 I switched from Visual Basic 5 Professional Edition to Visual Studio 2005 and created the
Quest-ware.net website. Program development went on hold for awhile while I learned the new programming
environment/language and learned about the .NET Framework and developed the Quest-ware website.
In late May of 2006 I released V2.50 which included the Limited Item Locator. Click here for the history of the
Limited Item Locator.
In June 2006, V2.60 was released. It separated the Quest Calculator and the Limited Item Locator into 2 separate
programs.
In August of 2006 I left Muddweller.com and began playing at EntMud and EntConn. Mike, the Sysop at EntConn
had heard of my software and offered me Mudop access on both of his boards so that I could continue the
development of these programs. This allowed me to develop the software much quicker since I could now do my
own beta testing. Due in no small part to the help and trust given to me by the Sysop at EntConn (and some of his
other MudOps, Drizzt, Kalak) I was able to redesign the entire package and include some new ideas. Most of these
changes were made to the Limited Item Locator.
From June to December 2006, both programs were completely re-worked code wise to reduce memory, speed
execution, and address some logic issues. The programs were combined back into one program as well.
In December 2006 I put out 2 releases of the software. This new help system was one of the big changes along
with the improvements mentioned above.
In February 2007 V2.7.4.0 was released. Added additional skins to the interface and added feature to track the
number of days a limited item sits in its location.
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