Designing tables for storing various requirements and stats for multiplayer game

Question

Original Question:

Hello,

I am creating very simple hobby project - browser based multiplayer game. I am stuck at designing tables for storing information abou

Answer 1

just some little points for your consideration :

1) Always Try to make your "get quest" requirements simple.. and "Finish quest" requirements complicated..

Part1 can be done by "trying to make your quests in a Hierarchical order":
example :

QuestA : (Kill Raven the demon) (quest req: Lvl1)
QuestA.1 : Save "unkown" in the forest to obtain some info.. (quest req : QuestA)
QuestA.2 : Craft the sword of Crystal ... etc.. (quest req : QuestA.1 == Done)
QuestA.3 : ... etc.. (quest req : QuestA.2 == Done)
QuestA.4 : ... etc.. (quest req : QuestA.3 == Done)
etc...
QuestB (Find the lost tomb) (quest req : ( QuestA.statues == Done) )
QuestC (Go To the demons Hypermarket) ( Quest req: ( QuestA.statues == Done && player.level== 10)
etc....

Doing this would save you lots of data fields/table joints.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
if you use the above system, u can add an extra Reward field to ur quest table called "enableQuests" and add the name of the quests that needs to be enabled..
Logically.. you'd have an "enabled" field assigned to each quest..

2) A minor solution for Your crafting problem, create crafting recipes, Items that contains To-be-Crafted-item crafting requirements stored in them.. so when a player tries to craft an item.. he needs to buy a recipe 1st.. then try crafting.. a simple example of such item Desc would be:
ItemName: "Legendary Sword of the dead"
Craftevel req. : 75
Items required:
Item_1 : Blade of the dead
Item_2 : A cursed seal
item_3 : Holy Gemstone of the dead
etc...

and when he presses the "craft" Action, you can parse it and compare against his inventory/craft box...

so Your Crafting DB will have only 1 field (or 2 if u want to add a crafting LvL req. , though it will already be included in the recipe.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
Such items, can be stored in xml format in the table .. which would make it much easier to parse...

3) A similar XML System can be applied to Your quest system.. to implement quest-ending requirements..