511 characters per quest
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 2nd 2009 at 5:00PM
One of the most interesting things we heard from Jeff Kaplan last week (besides that he agrees the Green Hills quest sucks; won't do that one again) was that quest designers are given only 511 characters (not words) to put their quest text in.It's surprising to think that they've created all the backstory, throughout Azeroth, in just 511 characters at a time. But even Kaplan said the limit is a good thing: it means Blizzard has to show story to the player rather than tell it.
Still, doesn't seem easy to
Crap. Out of room -- that's 511 characters. Of course, they can fudge things a bit by having those "story quests" where characters can use multiple pages to build up their background, and the 511-character limit doesn't apply to all of the dialogue -- some of the later quests have pages and pages of dialogue as the quest goes on. But squeezing enough information to keep a player interested in just 511 characters is quite a feat.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Quests
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ilnara Apr 2nd 2009 5:06PM
TL:DR
;)
Zinger314 Apr 2nd 2009 5:07PM
511 is 2^8 - 1. [for the sign]
Kaplan is just a lazy programmer.
Ilnara Apr 2nd 2009 5:09PM
His comments about Green Hills were HIGH-Larious tho. :)
Braundo Apr 2nd 2009 5:17PM
I don't think you quite understand how signed numbers work. Not to mention that 2^8 is 256; a signed 8-bit number would have a maximum value of 127.
My guess would be that they're using terminated strings, and the missing character is reserved for the null terminator.
Kyane Apr 2nd 2009 6:20PM
2^9 is 512.
As Braundo said, the last spot is going to be reserved for the null terminator.
Lemons Apr 2nd 2009 7:53PM
*cough* nerds *cough*
Fruition Apr 4th 2009 2:39AM
Oh, there's definitely a need for a sign, though! It's how you know if it's a negative quest or a positive one!
Eliah Hecht Apr 2nd 2009 5:23PM
Hey, people are writing novels on Twitter…511 characters is a luxury ;)
Sleutel Apr 2nd 2009 6:38PM
"But squeezing enough information to keep a player interested in just 511 characters is quite a feat."
Let's be honest--at some point while we're leveling, most of us move to a system of automatically accepting every quest we come across. What actually captures our interest, unless we're RPing the character, is almost certainly the rewards, whether in the form of gold, XP, rep, or items.
Belicia Apr 2nd 2009 7:22PM
I had this attitude until BC. The interesting-level of the quests really picked up for me during BC (although WotLK >>>>> BC by far in terms of quest interest).
nyctef Apr 2nd 2009 7:00PM
Generally I'll whirl through on my main, but when levelling alts I'll take a bit more time to try and do more quests and read the quest text for each.
Karilyn Apr 2nd 2009 7:21PM
Not true. While some quests are a less interesting than others, I greatly enjoy the story that they tell, and always take the time to read them. There are truly some golden quest texts.
And before you say anything, nope, I'm quite anything but a casual.
*assassinates Stereotypes*
Sleutel Apr 2nd 2009 7:26PM
Let me clarify: I'm not saying we're not reading the quests, but rather that it isn't generally the quest text that guides us to accept as much as the proffered rewards.
Kakistocracy Apr 2nd 2009 7:36PM
I started out reading the text, got a bit bored with TBC text, read every quest text for the quests I did in Wrath with my first character to 80, and didn't give them a second glance with my next two.
Lemons Apr 14th 2009 5:48AM
@Karilyn
Yes...and one day those quests will be compiled into a single tome called "The Book of Quests". It will be studied by our progeny and English majors will do their thesis on one of its sacred passages.
Shanks Apr 2nd 2009 6:40PM
I don't think Jeff meant that "all the backstory, throughout Azeroth" was created with this limit in place from day 1. Other than the observation that plenty of lore was established by the RTS series, the bulleted list in your original article on his panel claims that he considers the TL; DR issue to be one of his mistakes, with the 511-character limit being how it was solved. I take this to mean that the rule wasn't in place until recently in WoW's life, implemented either in The Burning Crusade or, more likely, Wrath. I highly doubt the quests team went back and re-wrote all of the quest text to shrink it down to the new standard.
slartibart Apr 2nd 2009 8:17PM
Pretty sure this is an initial class constraint that was implemented with wow alpha.
What his comment was referring to was less the quest length, and more of keeping his designers on the ball; reminding them they're writing a video game, not a novel.
And that they should write with the point of a video game story first in their mind.
Shanks Apr 2nd 2009 8:43PM
While you may be correct (I admit I didn't count the characters in any quest text windows at all before posting), WoWInsider's paraphrase states "WoW made plenty of mistakes..." (sixth paragraph after the jump) and follows in the next paragraph with "The second mistake is a phrase from the forums: TLDR"
Why would Kaplan call the issue a mistake "WoW made" if the rule has been in place since alpha? Wouldn't breaking such a long-standing rule be a mistake made by a quest designer?
But even if I am wrong about this, my initial beef with the quote from this article still stands: "all the backstory, throughout Azeroth" includes the RTS titles, which could not have been covered by this rule because it applies only to quest text. I merely meant to point out some hyperbole.
slartibart Apr 2nd 2009 9:41PM
Either way, I think we can both agree with Kaplan, the 'green hills of stranglethorn' sucks :)
Elmo Apr 2nd 2009 6:55PM
I sometimes read Q-logs when on a flypath but when on the ground I just accept read the short explaination and if I don't know what to do or where to find it I go to WoWhead...
Though the Q logs often contain nice stories (especially in Northrend) I just dont have the patience to read it all.