I'm back..well I never really left..I just got smacked around by real life a bit. Regardless I've finished one of the quest chains in my notes from when this thread was last updated. Pardon the threadomancy but I don't see the point of a new thread when this one will do.

As a side note...I broke the character limit with this one. So please wait for the second post to go through before replying.

It makes sense, to me at least, that some quest chains should be started by the post office/courier service, but not actually use it as a hub. Especially if that quest chain has an exceptional reward and is meant to take an exceptionally large amount of time or have an incredibly high difficulty.

What constitutes an exceptional reward in a pokémon MMO though? The first thing that comes to mind is starters, consistently good for their generations, hard to obtain at best, and having more than one is a well known mark of dedicated and/or strong trainers. Even considering the re-balance that's going on the shear cool factor of having a few on your team is worth it to many. Having a chance at even random starters would make an exceptional reward for a dedicated trainer who has gone through the ranks of a PO and earned the privilege to do such a job.

This chain is a good example of that, it should probably be the last quest chain available through a PO (excluding player quests of course), reputation should likely have to be earned with the PO, and maybe even a number of player quests completed through a PO requirement would be a good idea.



'To the plantation'

"You're lucky (player), you've been noticed as one of the best of us and got lucky enough to be selected to work with the plantation for a while. Emerald Plantation is in one of the deepest parts of {something something jungle}. You'd never find your way there without this map, which I might add is an office secret. Also, the jungle is too dense to fly in or out of, you're going to be stuck there for a while. I would heavily stock up on supplies if I were you."

"Initially you'll be going out with this shipment of antidotes, full heals, max potions, revives, and in case of emergency full restores. However while you're working for the plantation the shipment is for the more permanent staff there, not to bail out an over-eager courier. Don't expect their help even though you'll be working closely with them for a while."

"On the other hand the area around the plantation is a treasure trove of natural cures, rare plants, and even rarer pokémon. The pokémon that live in that area of jungle though are as powerful as they are rare. Always be on your guard, take nothing for granted, and watch your partners backs. They're all that's keeping you from becoming part of that jungle, if you catch my drift."

"If you want some free advice (player), here it is. You'll definitely need the ability to cut down obstacles in your path out in the jungle, strength to move boulders out of your path is a good idea, the ability to navigate the river could also be considered a necessity, and a way to navigate rapids and waterfalls would certainly be a plus. A fire type would be damn handy out there if only for the multitude of grass and bug types that are to be expected in the jungle, and if navigating the river frequently something to deal with the water types found there in would be a good idea. OH! And if you have a pokémon that knows the move thief it might be a good idea to take it along to take the berries from the jungle pokémon before they use them."

"Keep your eyes open, do what they need you to do, and take advantage of the opportunity while it lasts. Good luck (player), don't die out there."


A simple, if not long, introduction to the quest chain that lets the player know exactly what they're getting into. The lack of ability to fly in or out of the plantation both explains the need for couriers to get supplies in and out, and accentuates the remoteness of the location. This quest can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. Personally I'd opt for hellishly complicated with a heavy dose of screw-you added for good measure. The scale of the effort should match the scale of the reward after all. A fallen tree on the marked path forcing the player to go through several patches of grass no matter which way they go and a maze of one sort or another would be a good start. A mob of uncatchable grovyle (aka several back to back battles) would be a good follow-up and a hint of what can be had at the end of this quest line.

And of course the map shouldn't have everything marked on it from the get-go, that would just be too easy.

This section of jungle should be an 'instanced' area that is only accessible with a 'key', in this case the map. For those unfamiliar with the term an instanced area is unique to the player  or group that is in it and can change depending on the completed quests in the area. No PvP should be possible in this area, nor should there be any actual trainers, the wild pokémon and obstacles on top of the size of the area should be bad enough.


One thing I'd do if I were designing the area is that every few quests part of the main path is un-blocked by the camp workers, making it easier to get in and out, but that's me. Upon (finally) reaching the campsite and making their delivery they should be put to work by the camps inhabitants. The camp will function as quest hub for the duration of their stay.


'Securing the camp'

"So you ran into the Grovyle did you? Now you see why we only request that only very strong trainers deliver our supplies."

"The pokémon in this jungle act rather differently than your average pokémon. They work in groups, not just hunting in packs like canine-like pokémon do, but accosting trainers in groups as well. The Grovyle are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We need to secure the camp against them, but securing anything from a Grovyle is difficult at best, let alone against a pack of them."

"You'll likely be attacked several times by them while you're helping out the scientists stationed here. Driving back 5 consecutive groups before coming back to camp should make the point that the humans here aren't to be trifled with."


'Collecting Samples'

"The Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and Venusaur in this area weave a peculiar white vine with green leaves into their leaves and around their bulbs. The Grovyle have also been observed wearing some of it as bracelets, the more bracelets a Grovyle has the higher its standing in its immediate group seems to be. Adornment behavior is extremely peculiar in wild pokémon to say the least. We haven't been able to find the source of this vine as of yet, but need samples of it to determine if it has any purpose or peculiar properties."

"The Grovyles bracelets seem to be dried out for the most part, but the 'saurs vines are usually quite fresh. Find and battle enough 'saurs to get at least 6 samples of this vine. I know you're not a botanist but try to document your interaction with the 'saurs and collection of the vines as best you can with this digital camera."


'Rare Nuts'

"The local Turtwig and Bulbasaur lines seem to have some sort of tribal organization, beyond anything we've ever seen in populations of wild pokémon. We've even observed them trading food and known medicinal herbs and berries for a strange sort of nut we can't identify. Here's an image of one such trade, enhanced so that we can see the details of the nut in question. It seems ordinary enough, despite being an unknown species. We have never seen either line eating these nuts, and are puzzled as to why they use them as barter."

"Procuring samples of these nuts will be difficult, like many things in this dense jungle we haven't found the source of these either. The best way to go about this may actually be to trade with either the Bulbasaur or the Turtwig. As young members of their tribes they may be more inclined to trade with a human that observes their method of trading. To trade with a Bulbasaur or Turtwig go down to one of the sandy parts of the riverside, draw a circle in the sand, and place a natural medicinal item inside it. If you wait long enough a pokémon should come to trade with you. I would suggest trading for whatever they offer to garner some goodwill with them and learn the values of different items in their barter system."


Some fun bits that could be added these quests. Sometimes after fighting a grovyle mob you may find a fresh sample of the white vine, and sometimes the bulbasaur will trade for them as part of the rare nuts quest. Also the mechanics of the rare nuts quest never have to go away, even after the quest is complete, so you can trade with the bulbasaur and the turtwig to your hearts content. They may even have some rare items like elemental stones or rare berries if you offer the right things in the right amounts. This means that 'collecting samples' can be completed without ever battling a 'saur. This could be important later. And yes the camera (I wouldn't even list it as an item) is a Chekhov's gun that will show up again and again throughout the quests.

Another pair of quests sheds even more light on the culture of the grass starters.


'Preserving the greenhouse'

"Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. We've been having problems with raids on our greenhouse, samples we've been growing to research and foodstuffs we grow on site have been going missing for some time now. We've never been able to find tracks of whatever was raiding us, nor were we able to catch it on video, until now. And it makes sense that we couldn't find tracks, a serperior doesn't make any."

"If you hide out in the upper level of the greenhouse during nighttime you should be able to ambush it. That'll help both the scientists and the cooks, two groups I don't think anyone wants to annoy in a place like this."


'Meganium, and their place between the tribes.'

"The few times we've observed a Meganium in these jungles it has always been in the company of other species or at one of the beaches bartering. Your insights into the barter system however seem to make Meganiums behavior more confusing, not less. The one individual we've seen from a distance seems to draw a circle around itself, or accepts circles seemingly without any trade."

"We would like to examine this behavior further, try to trade with Meganium and find out what they offer."


Serperior will show up, and will try to raid the greenhouse. But will leave as soon as it spots you. A simple dialogue box of 'Serperior moves carefully away from you. But something seems odd about it, so you take a few pictures to see if anyone knows what's going on.' Taking these photos to a scientist will reveal that Serperior is one female, and two very, very gravid. Tell this to the site administrator and they'll decide to set out what they can for her as a goodwill gesture.

Likewise trading with Meganium won't necessarily go as planned. Trying to trade with Meganium will cause a short over-world cut-scene where Meganium seems confused at your trade and you'll get an option to send out one of your pokémon to talk with it. If the pokémon you send out doesn't meat the requirements for the quest you'll get a short cut-scene that suggests you should send out a different pokémon and an option to do so. The 'trick' to completing this quest is to send out a member of your party at 75% or less HP, or for them to have a status condition. This will trigger a short scene of Meganium using Heal Pulse or Aromatherapy on your teammate as needed then 'charging' you an appropriate amount of 'rare nuts' (you were using rare nuts to barter with right?), 5 for heal pulse, 10 for aromatherapy. The point is that the Meganium are healers for the other tribes, so can travel freely between them.



This would be the place to insert more quests dealing with the structures of the starter tribes, odd plant life (maybe berries that can't be gotten or easily gotten anywhere else?), barter quests for interesting things like unknown useful plants or even pokémon crafted tools, other rare grass and jungle pokémon, maybe even put a Moss Covered Rock to evolve eevee into leafeon somewhere in the area. OOH! Hidden cavern behind the waterfall, that's a classic. As this post is passing massive and getting into ridiculous I'm going to cut to the good bit in the next post.

Oooh, I think your ideas will blend quite nicely with what I've got here and what Declan has got in the works for the postal quests genbor. The post offices would become not only a place for trading between players, but a quest hub and a twist on the auction house with the PC jobs board.

Some limiting factors I'd suggest off the top of my head are a timeout on the PC jobs, so a job could be listed for say 48 hours but you only have 4-6 to complete it once you accept it, or a limit on how many PC jobs you can be on at a time, or maybe both, to keep a single player from sniping all the jobs and thus all the rewards. You might want to cross-post the NPC guild and PC jobs board ideas to the main ideas and suggestions board to get some more feedback from the community. *strikes nice guy pose*

I especially like the idea of having a harder bunch of NPC quests for each office, and to make it even better if like you said you could only be linked to one office and get their harder quests, one could have the more eccentric rewards be unique to each office and potentially thematically linked to it. For example the combee hives quest reward could only be accessible from the office in the city with the bug type gym...

I now have far too many interesting idea seeds based on that train of thought...I'll be back in a while with another chain, maybe for another thread, maybe for this one. Ok this one ran away with me...it's kinda massive, read at your own peril...or come back to it when you have plenty of time...

The big thing I tried to do here was basically two quest chains that influenced each other such that doing them together makes them easier. The first has a built in bypass, the third is a multi-pronged trade with an interesting mini-story and mechanic in it, read that one if you're actually looking for gold, the fourth gives a useful area that's hard to get to, and the fifth and sixth are an intertwined finale that gives a useful area that's just as hard to get to

One thing I thought of while thinking up some type themed quests...much to my chagrin...is that postal quests would be a great place to insert random jokes of varying levels of funny, as these are the quests people do when not looking for big stories and epic stuff.

Enter this abomination of a quest chain. And horrible, horrible series of jokes. I apologize in advance.

This is a double quest chain, both parts come back together before the end and both the last quests have hard to get to areas in them that the knowledge of is part of the reward.

Sheep for Wood?

"I can't believe it, someone is actually trading a Sudowoodo. I've been looking for one for far too long now. But where am I going to get a Mareep? I have a collection of rare stones that I'd also be willing to give up one of as a reward for promptness." (Obtain a Mareep to trade for Sudowoodo, additional reward of a weather enhancing rock, or may find someone to trade a weather enhancing rock for the Mareep.)

If you obtain your own mareep then the next quest is added to your quests rotation, the post office worker will point you at this questgiver which will trade a damp rock for a Mareep as part of the previous quest if you ask.

Operation Sky and Storm!

"Every rocker knows that the source of your amps changes your sound, and for the best sound you've got to have poké-power! Havin' a super cool mini generator to rock along on my shoulder would also make my performance tight as can be! Find me an Emolga and I'll throw in this poké-battery that charges when hit by an electric type attack for your trouble!" (Simple trade, interesting reward, I havn't used the battery before so don't know its in depth mechanics.)

Ore for Wheat for Brick? (best of this bunch)

"I've gotten lucky again (trainer). But I have to request someone I know for this one, I don't want to stall my training, but this item and pokémon are too valuable to me to take a chance on with someone I don't know. Meet me in the basement of {some deep trecerous mountain} to get the item and the details."

When you go see him, he'll give you a TM94 Rock Smash as a key item (can't be used) and a key item pokéball containing his Rhyperior. He'll tell you about a trainer that will trade the TM for her tropius, if you can best her in battle with his Rhyperior. He's faced her twice before, the first time was a very close win, and the second was an extremely decisive loss. He'll send you along with a note (if you read it it says 'I want our next battle to be as amazing as you, so I sent (trainer) in my steed so I could continue training for it, he has my Rhyperior with him to battle you per our agreement. One on one, if (he/she) wins then you make the trade, if (he/she) looses then I'll just have to find another way then won't I?') Win, and move on to the next part of the trade, lose and you'll have to go catch a Tropius for him.

Continue on and trade the Tropius for a Roggenrola, but not just any Roggenrola. This Roggenrola has been partnered with not just one person, but part of a triple battle team. (which you can come back and battle later if you want to, they will have Tropius on their team, naturally.)

When you go back to the quest giver with Roggenrola, he will tell you that a Roggenrola or Boldore will only evolve if it has worked with many trainers. So a Roggenrola that was part of a triple battle team will certainly evolve into a Gigalith.

This next quest only shows up after doing the last two, and takes you back to the bottom of that forsaken mountain...this had better be worth it. (it will be)

We Will, We Will..

"The best rock comes from the purest source, and for the purest source you need all electric that won't ground out on you. Emolga's great for power metal, but what I really need for the purest of rock is an Eelektross! I hear that Tynamo perfer deep caverns with undergound pools and rivers, but don't know where to go looking for them. Find one and you'll be hansomly rewarded. I'll also give you something else to light your day!" (Additional reward: Absorb Bulb)

The Tynamo in question are way in the back of a stupid deep cavern past the questgiver from the last quest, if you get lost down there he'll give you directions out of gratitude for your help. That's one rare pokémon spot you'll find useful, considering Eelektross has no weaknesses due to levitate, even better if that cavern will evolve Magneon and Nosepass.

While on this quest the guy in the cave will give you another. If you don't pick it up while on this quest it'll show up at the post office eventually.

Seafaring Gold

"Some say the strongest rocks are polished by the sea. I'm inclined to agree with them. Find a Relicanth for me, but not just any Relicanth, I need one that is Sturdy beond any other seagoing stone. Relicanth tend to perfer either deep sea trenches, or when they're not in the deepest parts of the ocean they swim in corsola reafs. I wish I could help you more, but I'm not a seafarer myself..maybe I should expand my horizons."

The answer to this quest isn't obvious, until you get the quest from the electric rocker, which will show up shortly after this one.

I've paid my dues.

"The soulful guitar solo, the epitome of the rockers art. Many can do it well, but the best are remembered throughout the ages. And like all things rock it must start with talent. But the best tools, and the best pokémon, can help. I need to speak with you in person and give you something to help you find my new partner in rock!"

When you go talk to him..

"Stupid map! What is the point of having a map to the ultimate rocking partner when you can't get through the blasted desert. Ground types really fry my day. So here, take the map to Pink Pirates Reaf and come back with a chinchou for my rockin' team, and you'll be handsomly rewarded."

The map does take you through a desert, and well hidden in it is the enternace to a sandy cove created protected from the crashing waves by a corsola reaf, complete with Relicanth.

The basic point behind it is to make a simple dynamic population mechanic. By removing individuals from the ecosystem (ie. capturing pokémon) their rarity increases because other individuals of the same species get wise to it being an area in which they are being hunted. This leaves territory and resources unclaimed allowing other pokémon not normally part of that areas ecosystem to move in.

The mechanical reason for doing this is to add a dynamic element to what pokémon are in an area to prevent the various areas from getting stagnant. Using the original example, even though normally there would be no Emolga on route 2, if the balance tilts far enough they could move in and now you have a rare pokémon in an area they previously weren't, and at a level they were previously uncatchable at. Encouraging people to go back through areas they've already been to in case there's something new there.

Of course it may get too complex to easily implement if combined with the time of day mechanic introduced in GSC, or something even more esoteric like a dynamic weather system...(an idea for another time...)

Thanks Yuki >^_^< I like to think they're good, but individually they're simple. The real gold is in the location itself, the Courier Service is something that makes a logical sense in a pokémon world, and a grand excuse to have not only a distributed quest turn-in location, but a singular place for all the basic fetch quests leaving more room in the world for more interesting things.

As an added bonus, these NPC's don't necessarily have to just be for these quests. Making NPC's you already have part of many quests cuts down on objects necessary, making load times for areas shorter. Never a bad thing.

The quests really all follow the same pattern though, acquire object X from an NPC or in the wild, insert a battle somewhere, trade object X for object Y, return to person that gave you object X, return to quest-giver.

Of course even a basic quest type like a delivery quest can have interesting variables. Some that come to mind are..

- The multi-pronged trade : used to good effect in the second example, that variation used all flying types to explain why different trainers were seeking different pokémon. However a more complicated variation could use multiple types, or even have one prong of the trade be for a rare item (maybe an elemental stone?)

-- The Bypass : Some multi-pronged quests may have bypasses built into them, one that comes to mind is someone is looking for an certain rare pokémon that you already have access to, say the aforementioned female combee, you could make a trade for it and go on through the parts of the quest as intended, or do it quicker if you've already got access to the Combee Hives honey farm and purchase one there.

- Training for trading : One could assume that the trainers involved know the levels of the pokémon their trading. If one were a few levels short of even a courier could be asked to train the pokémon to the required level. (5 levels is a fair bit of training, keeping below this point may be wise.)

- The commissioned capture : used in example 1 it makes for a good start for a chain, or a standalone quest. These could very well be repeatable if delivering the pokémon to say a lab to be given out as a starter, and could even be randomized each day..heck if these are the starts of chains you could randomize them so it's not so easy to get the big end of chain rewards..at least not right away.

- The missing pokémon : best used as a second or third part of a chain and best not to be repeatable, this would involve being given a quest item pokéball and searching for an already captured pokémon to be traded.

- Looking for item : Simple enough concept, sometimes you just need that little bit of a boost. Good items for this type of trade are evolutionary stones, or type increasing items (Blackglasses, Mystic Water, Nevermeltice, et.all)

As I think of more interesting variables (or they're suggested, good ideas are good ideas no matter their source) I'll add them to this post. And may very well add Courier quests in bulk to this thread as I come up with interesting themes or locations to play with.

Hit me if I start giving you team members too much work.    The Combee Hives alone could be a very odd tileset, akin to Castelia Gym with more organic bits to it.

This looks like an amazing project, akin to something I'd design myself given the time and actual programming skill. >.>

I've been an epic pokémon nerd ever since RBY and my specialties are lore and team design. I know far too much esoterica about the pokémon world in most of its incarnations, from the games to the manga and have more than once found myself absorbed in an anime marathon when I really should be busy.

As for team design...well...my foolish friend never should have challenged me to build a viable poison gym leader and test it against him...I don't care if you have a resistance when I'm slinging around STAB base power 130 attacks off of stat base 130 special attack and gaining 1/8 the damage back as HP. (Venoshock Gengar @Shell Bell with 2 layers of toxic spikes up)

As for me, I'm-a gonna' be spending the next several hours posting walls of text in the suggestions forum data-dumping every good idea I've ever had for a theoretical pokémon MMO, then go back to writing a pokémon system modification for cortex plus to be run when it's finished.

Yes, this is how I spend my time off. <.<