Completing Quests back in the day with resources

[tekniq]

Edit Title - withOUT resources.

If you actually read some of the dialogue with NPC's for quests, most of 'hints' they give for the items they need are so vague, so back when this glorious game started, how long did it take for people to complete quests and more importantly hard quests?

Some examples are epics, VP key...I could see people spending months if not a year just to find the pieces. Like the first people to discover and kill PS...that must've took forever considering how rare they are. Or picking up artifacts at a random location in swamp or OT.

Anyone have real experience when EQ, Kunark, Velious started because by the time I played, ZAM was my resource.

[tristantio]

Well, still unsolved quests on live 15 years later, so some take a very long time (in 2008 or so a 9 year old quest was solved when they revamped the tradeskill recipe lists - some quest from Kunark I believe)

[tekniq]

I heard GBS is part of an unsolved quest...wonder what item that would give.

[Leeyuuduu]

By the time epics and VP rolled around I think ZAM was already established

I started from March 18th 1999 and many people couldn't even get out of their starting towns, much less comprehend how to do the harder quests. Some quests were also bugged and NPCs would eat your items, so a lot of people didn't even bother until later on, when information for doing the quests was usually passed down in guilds.

[tristantio]

Remember the rumors about reviving General Leo? ...wait, wrong game...

[Daldaen]

I heard GBS is part of an unsolved quest...wonder what item that would give.

It was part of an interns test quest that was never pushed live.

Prathun posted about that one several months ago I think.

[Nubben]

To this day I've always wondered how The Oblong Bottle (http://wiki.project1999.com/The_Oblong_Bottle) was first found. It's a part of the rogue Burning Rapier quest. The item is a ground spawn on the bottom of the Ocean of Tears.

I just found an old Safehouse post (http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9044) where the guy that found it explains how he did so. Pretty cool stuff.

Basically, you talk to Bryan McGee in High Hold and ask about the Oblong Bottle, since that one is in brackets. The bottle is magical, and never runs out of liquor.

He also mentions some guy in FP had it by the docks, or something like that. You ask what oblong bottle? to different people at the docks. The bard responds with a song, and will sing it for you for a price of 300pp.

The song mentions how the owner hosted a ocean party, they sailed to Butcherblock, then turned around to come back. As the ship was threading the needle, his friends dared him to drink until he can drink no more, and as he did, they counted. At the count of 10, he passed out, and fell overboard with the bottle, never to be seen again.

So, I road the boat to BB. On the way back ,when the ship started passing through the rocks (threading the needle), I started counting 1, 1000, 2, 1000, etc. At 10, I jumped over board, and found the bottle.

[Leeyuuduu]

As the ship was threading the needle, his friends dared him to drink until he can drink no more, and as he did, they counted. At the count of 10, he passed out, and fell overboard with the bottle, never to be seen again.

So, I road the boat to BB. On the way back ,when the ship started passing through the rocks (threading the needle), I started counting 1, 1000, 2, 1000, etc. At 10, I jumped over board, and found the bottle.

As a native English speaker and professional translator, my reaction to the "threading the needle" bit would merely be "DAFUQ?" That man deserves a medal.
I loved my burning rapier and the graphic proc on it.

[fastboy21]

Fully documented that there were many broken/unsolved quests in game from era.

[Lyrith]

I remember when the game came out I couldn't even figure out how to scribe spells. And my laptop at the time that had a separate external CD-Rom to install the game with Dial-Up internet could barely run the game and I didn't know the gibberish above my character was actually text and my name.

So long story short, the first people to do quests... Kind of blew my mind.

[Yonkec]

Didn't a dev recently give a hint about some unsolved quest that has been in game since 1999? He even confirmed that it still works by doing the whole thing himself.

[Sarajo]

Didn't a dev recently give a hint about some unsolved quest that has been in game since 1999? He even confirmed that it still works by doing the whole thing himself.

And that's where one would think that, after 15 years of people coming and going, and the fact that there was this huge population of devs out there with proprietary knowledge, you'd think one would have 'solved' one of those quests after leaving and becoming a normal player (or even on their secret EQ account that they didn't tell the other devs about)

I also wonder if there is some big database somewhere of "What quests still haven't been solved", or if this is all just anecdotal spaghetti knowledge.

[Fael]

The ice comet staff of wheel quest was pretty cool. When it got implemented, wizards were running all over the place trying to follow the hints.

Dolic

[Tankdan]

Well, still unsolved quests on live 15 years later

Not true.

Those quests were just apprentice developer quests that didn't even work. The 10 year EQ video that said there were still unfinished quests was kind of misleading.

[Tankdan]

Didn't a dev recently give a hint about some unsolved quest that has been in game since 1999? He even confirmed that it still works by doing the whole thing himself.


They actually confirmed there are no unfinished quests when some enthusiasts tried to go after one. They datamined the quests or items to see who actually created the quests and they were basically "practice" quests for the dev that didn't really work, so they made a thread about it, and the EQ team said non exist. This was prob a year ago when I checked out EQ Live again.

[Kika Maslyaka]

look up PoSky island progression quest - one would have to be in a state of insanity to figure that one out for the first time.

http://mysite.verizon.net/drexxell/eq/amionewiththewall.html

[zanderklocke]

Remember the rumors about reviving General Leo? ...wait, wrong game...

Favorite game.

[Clark]

I can't even believe folks figured stuff out without quest guides back then.

[myriverse]

I sure as heck did not figure stuff out without guides back then.

[Saerdna]

I heard tell of the Pally sword from the Planes that happened entirely by accident. They were talking in local while prepping for a raid and the plane talked back.

[Supaskillz]

This is one thing that makes the game awesome. Some of the quests were basically riddles and all of them had to be discovered by talking to random npcs many of whom had nothing interesting to say.

That burning rapier story is amazing.

[Yonkec]

July 17, 2008

Dexe_Biggerstaff asks, "How many original (IE: From classic EverQuest) quests have yet to be solved or discovered? Qeynos seems like it still holds many secrets, and most notably, is there a use for the locked firepots and glowing black stone?"
[EQ]Merloc: There are definately some quests in original EverQuest that haven't been discovered, I can't comment on any specifically though... I will look into the Glowing Black Stone and see if it's incorrectly flagged as a quest item and correct the flag if it's incorrect.
[EQ]Merloc: Just a follow up, "A Glowing Black Stone" seems to be flagged correctly.


“Looks like the Glowing Black Stone is the item required to complete the quest described as "APPQuestJohnC"
The "APP" prefix means it was created by a design apprentice who was tinkering with the tools and learning the game. This isn't a quest that can actually be completed. Years later, when QUEST flags were applied to items APPQuestJohnC was picked up in the query and the GBS was flagged as a quest item. I don't know who JohnC is. The quest was created on 2/26/2000 so this predates me by over 2 years.'

Hope this helps solve the mystery!
-Prathun”




Drachnor: Have you all ever thought about looking at all the quest chains that exist in the older game and the new game as it is. And seeing what quests were never completed by the players? Have a monthly spotlight where you give us a hint like So and so in that place over there has something strange to say about Keyword. Its been said in multiple places that there are many many quests that were never finished by the players. If that is so, it would be nice to see if those that were not broke due to zone changes could be slipped to us a bit so that some old Nostalgia could come about. Bring some needed interest in those old zones. ?

Jcaraker: Any quest of consequence that can reasonably can be completed has already been completed. Any quest in the DB that hasn't been completed is far more likely placeholder data, or apprentice test data, or incomplete than a fully realized quest.

February 13, 2014


AKA The current devs have absolutely no fucking clue what is going on with the really old content and don't care to fix it or play the game and give us hints.