Quest Creator
The visual Quest Creator is Citadel's flagship feature — a full-depth editor for DayZ Expansion quests that replaces hand-editing JSON with a point-and-click interface.
If your server runs the ExpansionAI and ExpansionQuests mods, the Quest Creator lets you design complete questlines in minutes: drop NPCs on the map, configure every objective type, set rewards, chain prerequisites, and preview the whole flow before it hits disk.
Why it matters
DayZ Expansion's quest system is powerful but painful to author by hand. Each quest is a JSON file with nested objects, ID references, and optional fields scattered across documentation you have to piece together yourself. A single typo in an objective ID or a reward class name silently breaks the quest at runtime — often without a helpful error.
Citadel's Quest Creator is the only tool of its kind. It understands the full Expansion schema, validates every field as you type, and keeps quest IDs and NPC references in sync automatically. Save a quest and the JSON on disk is guaranteed to be well-formed.
The 10 supported objective types
Every Expansion objective type is supported, each with a purpose-built editor:
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Target | Talk to an NPC at a specific location |
| Travel | Reach a map position within a radius |
| Delivery | Deliver an item from NPC A to NPC B |
| Collect | Gather N of a given item class |
| Treasure Hunt | Dig at a specific location to find loot |
| Escort | Protect an NPC while they travel a path |
| ActionObject | Interact with a world object (e.g. press E on a generator) |
| AIPatrol | Defeat a patrol of AI at a waypoint |
| AICamp | Clear an AI camp at a location |
| AIVIP | Eliminate a specific high-value AI target |
Each objective has its own form panel with relevant fields only — no cluttered "one form to edit them all" mess. Objective ordering, prerequisite chains, and optional branches are all drag-and-drop.
Core features
NPC placement on the live map
The right pane of the Quest Creator is the full satellite map of your selected terrain (Chernarus+, Livonia, or any custom map with tiles installed). Click anywhere to place a quest-giver NPC — the coordinates are captured automatically and injected into the quest's metadata. Drag existing NPCs to reposition them. Right-click to delete.
NPC definitions live in the ExpansionQuests mod's QuestNPCs directory. The Quest Creator reads existing NPCs on load, writes new ones when you add them, and keeps IDs consistent across quest files.
Reward configuration
Every quest supports multiple reward types:
- Items — Any item class from your server's
types.xml, with configurable quantity and health - Money — Expansion currency in the amount and type your server uses
- Humanity — Positive or negative humanity adjustments
- Reputation — ExpansionAI faction reputation changes
Rewards are previewed in a readable summary at the bottom of the editor — no more guessing what the player actually receives.
Prerequisites & questline chains
Any quest can require the completion of one or more prior quests before becoming available. The Quest Creator shows a visual graph of your questline dependencies so you can spot orphaned quests, accidental cycles, or quests that can never be reached.
This is the foundation for campaign-style storylines — a welcome quest unlocks the first side quest, which unlocks three branches, which converge on a boss quest, and so on.
Live preview
Before saving, a Preview panel shows the quest as it will appear to players: title, description, objective list in player-facing language, rewards, and any prerequisite checks. Catch typos and logic errors before they hit production.
How to access it
- Open Citadel and select your server
- Ensure the ExpansionAI and ExpansionQuests mods are installed and loaded
- In the left sidebar, under Mod Configs, click Quest Creator
- The editor loads with your existing quests (if any) in the left panel
If the Quest Creator reports that required mod files are missing, the message will tell you exactly which file is missing and where it should live — fix that first, then refresh.
Best practices
- Start with a welcome quest — a trivial "Talk to the trader" Target objective gives new players something to do and exercises the quest system end-to-end
- Name NPCs descriptively —
Trader_Svetloyarsk_Weaponsis much easier to reference later thanNPC_1 - Version-control your quests — the generated JSON files in
QuestData/commit nicely to git, and questline changes are reviewable as diffs - Test prerequisites on a test server — branching questlines have complex state; spin up a local instance and walk through every path before going to production
Related features
- Trader Editor — for setting up the trader NPCs that your quests reference
- Expansion Settings — 32+ Expansion config files including ExpansionQuests globals and ExpansionAI faction setup
- Interactive Map — the same map the Quest Creator uses, also available for safe zones, events, and trader zones
The Quest Creator is included in every Citadel subscription. There are no add-on costs, seat limits, or quest count limits.