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Forums » Gameplay » Puzzle Missions: Is there hope?

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lord-yo Level 9 Vigilante Posts: 46	Check out the mission http://pmog.com/missions/the_hid... I'm not sure exactly what abysmal did to build this mission, but it is a brilliant mission tactic: You can't reach the lightpost stop via the "next" button, but only via the correct URL. If I'm correct, you can build similar missions as follows: 1. Lay a first mission stop at some start lightpost 2. Lay the second stop at the same lightpost, bringing the game into an endless loop 3. Lay the third mission stop at a different lightpost, which is the URL you need to find. 4. Rinse & repeat for all next clues abysmal, first of all congratulations and kudos for this ingenious mechanism! Can you shed any light on what you did to achieve this? by lord-yo 9 months ago \| Permalink
lord-yo Level 9 Vigilante Posts: 46	I tested my hypothesis, and it wasn't correct: You can't use the same lightpost twice. But what you can do is this: 1. Lay a lightpost at URL#1 2. Build a tinyurl pointing to URL#1 3. Add this tinyurl in your mission generator as a new lightpost 4. Lay the real next lightpost at a hidden location 5. Rinse & repeat. That way, the tinyurl points back to the first stop, and an endless loop gets built. Result: You can only reach the next stop if you know the correct URL, and the mission will not be finished if you don't. by lord-yo 9 months ago \| Permalink
abysmal Level 6 Seer Posts: 3	I was thinking things over, and using these kind of methods, a lot of interesting things may be attempted. One that I might try out would be experimenting with a branching mission. I know that all the lightposts are in a row, but even in a normal mission, I believe you can basically reach the websites out of order manually. The point would be (with all these disassociated): Site Start tinyURL to 1 Branch A tinyURL to A Branch B tinyURL to B End Site Site Start has the clues for both branch A and B. Both branches each has a clue for the end site. I'm not sure how well this works out, but it at least seems feasible. by abysmal 9 months ago \| Permalink
snocrsh Level 20 Pathmaker Posts: 166	abysmal wins all my internets. by snocrsh 9 months ago \| Permalink
siva-guren Level 12 Seer Posts: 65	yeah i made something like that, except i used javascript redirects instead of tinyurl by siva-guren 9 months ago \| Permalink
snocrsh Level 20 Pathmaker Posts: 166	It's a nice kludge in the game mechanics, and I think it goes to show how easy it would be to give lightposts this functionality, but in pondering the idea of designing a branching mission, it just seems very unfortunate that it would take TWICE as many lightposts to accomplish. by snocrsh 9 months ago \| Permalink
doctorg Level 7 Seer Posts: 21	are there any branching missions out there? I'm all of 30 minutes into this whole pmoging thing, and I'm a prof: I'd like to get my students doing this, so I can mine them when they go to crap websites for their research... (...amongst other things) by doctorg 9 months ago \| Permalink
merci Trustee Level 16 Benefactor Posts: 269	ha very nice guys. we're working on some features to help out... :D by merci 9 months ago \| Permalink
balaern Level 10 Bedouin Posts: 31	I feel like a lousy gamer -- I'm stumped on the midi file! >_< by balaern 9 months ago \| Permalink
the-nearest-exit Level 7 Pathmaker Posts: 32	doctorg, as a student who's had to struggle with Professors extremely picky about acceptable research sources, I find the idea of mining unsuspecting students for exploring all their options absolutely shocking. I salute you, and the genius of this form of determent. by the-nearest-exit 9 months ago \| Permalink
mav Level 8 Vigilante Posts: 2	Love the branching idea, abysmal (I was wondering if there was a sly way to do this ;). I'm off to plot a Choose Your Own Adventure! by mav 9 months ago \| Permalink
abysmal Level 6 Seer Posts: 3	For your viewing pleasure, another mission in the same vein as the first, but with a few more clever tricks (cycles, branching). It's very possible to do interesting things with these methods, but let me tell you, it's a total pain to set up. http://pmog.com/missions/the_los... by abysmal 9 months ago \| Permalink
doctorg Level 7 Seer Posts: 21	the-nearest-exit: thank you. my idea of mining students though is not to deter them from 'exploring all their options': rather, I want them to realise & recognise that sometimes, websites are full of crappy info. AND to PLEASE stop using them. Since they rarely read my comments on their essays (or listen to my increasingly hysterical classroom performances) maybe an explosion or two will do the trick... (Revenge is Mine!) by doctorg 9 months ago \| Permalink
doctorg Level 7 Seer Posts: 21	I just made a tiny mission, and I managed to include just once a loop as described by Lord-yo above. I'd intended for it to be a mix of puzzles (admittedly, not overly clever ones) and straight-forward mission clicking, but I managed only one loop. Anyway, it lives here: http://pmog.com/missions/awww_si... by doctorg 9 months ago \| Permalink
gopal Level 7 Bedouin Posts: 16	Here is my attempt unfortunately one light post won't take. It would not take a portal either a '.us' but not secure I have no idea what happened. Anyways, if you want to attempt the mission - at the city where the infestation takes place the clue is: the mayor and Smeagol attended the same high school ***. There is also a portal kludge to bypass that part entirely. I am bummed was very hard to make and one bad page gums it up. Anyways, it is doable either through the bypass or with the clue above if anyone wants to try it. http://pmog.com/missions/agent_x... by gopal 9 months ago \| Permalink
steampunker Level 20 Vigilante Posts: 153	Wouldn't it also work if someone posted a clue/question on a page with a seach box, and then when the user typed in the word it would take him to the page with the proceeding mission? I know this keeps a person in the same directory, but its a new idea. by steampunker 9 months ago \| Permalink
steampunker Level 20 Vigilante Posts: 153	I'm not a big fan of bumping, but I thought this was an interesting enough topic, with a lot of cool links to missions... okay, so actually I needed some help. I made the mission (goto www.steampunker.com ) but I don't know how to finalize it so there's the "Complete the mission" button. Also, because I can't put duplicate (or in this case triplicate b/c of the tinyURL) addresses in there, I can't seal the mission in a loop at the end of it (when you hit the google page). Any advice? And is it me or does it take forever to level?! by steampunker 9 months ago \| Permalink
aces88 Level 8 Seer Posts: 14	Good missions, one and all. I've done a couple puzzle missions so far: http://pmog.com/missions/hidden_... http://pmog.com/missions/explori... Only one person has solved the second one so far. Each one has its own "trick" and it might be tough to do additional missions like them once the trick is known. Also, it's really hard to stash a crate as a mission prize when anyone can see that event on the events page and loot the crate without solving the mission. Any chance that the events page will go away eventually? Or that we could choose to make our own events private, that is, not showing up on that page? by aces88 9 months ago \| Permalink
black-halo $black-halo says: \m/$ Level 9 Pathmaker Posts: 15	With the long weekend coming up I will be trying to sort out a puzzle mission like this as well. Great 'hack' of PMOG. by black-halo 9 months ago \| Permalink
gopal Level 7 Bedouin Posts: 16	Try this one. A Google puzzle with redirection. http://pmog.com/missions/mars_at... One minor snafu. At the toy store, if the portal is gone click their logo to get to the lightpost. sigh wish you could edit a lightpost link. For some reason, the Google link added some noise to that URL :(. by gopal 9 months ago \| Permalink
soitbegins Level 4 Vigilante Posts: 9	@steampunker: You can get around the 'duplicates' restriction by using more than one link-shortening site. Some others I like are http://metamark.net/ and http://shortlinks.co.uk/.> by soitbegins 9 months ago \| Permalink
typhon Level 11 Pathmaker Posts: 124	I've tried to pull together some of the best recent puzzle missions in the following meta-mission: http://pmog.com/missions/best_re... by typhon 9 months ago \| Permalink
steampunker Level 20 Vigilante Posts: 153	I finished it finally, and am pretty excited about it. It's all thanks to abysmal, who's so cool he didn't even start this thread. http://pmog.com/missions/three_j... There are some secret choices. Two choices for the first question. Three choices for the second question. Read those mission boxes, though! by steampunker 9 months ago \| Permalink
arjanl Level 7 Seer Posts: 4	This is the kind of mission I was looking for. Want more! by arjanl 9 months ago \| Permalink
gopal Level 7 Bedouin Posts: 16	Here is an html CYOA from 1994, CyberMUD. All that's missing are the lightposts and portals. http://www.mit.edu:8001/afs/athe... by gopal 9 months ago \| Permalink