Say yes to Gnoll genocide!

[Trench_Raider]

Ok, so this afternoon I moved my lvl 8 Dark Elf Shadow Knight to the Qeynos area to play with my wife and some real world freind who have characters there. Obvsiouly, I'm none too popular with the locals right now. How long will I have to slaughter gnolls in BB before I can enter Qeynos? Also, can I turn in gnoll fangs to the quest NPC while invisible? Finally, will the human SK guild train me in the sewers. I know the one in Freeport would, but the Qeynos guild does not share my god.

Thanks.

TR

[Tewaz]

I am unsure about the invisibility. I know that you can turn them in with share wolf form (if you can find a druid near Qeynos).

[username17]

The invisible trick works if someone else casts invis on you.
You go invis, give the items, get someone else to cast invis and hit give.
That will let you turn items in while indiff. Doesn't work that well if the NPC is KoS to you because as soon as you give him an item it drops invis.

FD and sneak works too.

[Unfun]

My dark elf necro is well liked by the sewers evils so I think you would be able to train/merchant/bank there without a problem. I can't answer you're other question but I'd imagine somewhere in the hundreds of gnoll kills.

[Tewaz]

username17's trick works, but you have to be non-kos for it to work ie dubious atleast.

[baalzy]

You may be able to invis up to a mob, initiate trade and hit hide before it agros. Not sure if hide can be used while in the middle of a trade though.

Would also hinge on your hide not failing.

It would probably be easier to have your Wife & friend move to the freeport area, where they should be able to find a bank/merchants/trainers nearby regardless of their own race/class/deity combination.

[username17]

Ultimately I think bard invis is best for this because it's constantly ticking on.
Easier with the whole trade and reapply invis thing.

[Doors]

Don't forget to look into the muffin quest in qeynos for easy rep. Kill gnolls until you can walk around in there without getting killed, save fangs the entire time. Will be awesome exp when you can finally turn them in.

[bakkily]

its going to take you a long time, last night i spent only about 4 hours killing orcs on my iksar in the throne room of cb, and i went from kos to threatenly, figure another 4 hours and ill be able to walk into kelethin

so its gonna take a while, but spending lvl 8-20 killing gnolls will get you to walk into the city, but the qeynos area up there is worth it for lvling up to 30, cuz at lvl 15 if tired of black burrow, theres a camp in ek you can do up to 20, and in sk plenty of gnolls walking around, northern antonica is a great solo or duo/trio place to lvl up, always plenty to see, and enough to kill/do

cool that you have a blog of your adventures! ive thought about doing a blog, but figured its alot of time to make one and update it

thats whats cool about eq is the adventure that you have, other games you just try to quest through all zones asap to be leet, some do that here, but they still try to have fun while doing it

[Trench_Raider]

cool that you have a blog of your adventures!

Thanks.
I need to update it since I started playing on P1999 a couple of weeks ago.

TR

[Fourthmeal]

Slaughter the bun-eating gnolls! Teach them the ways of Crunchy, Spicy, Melty, and Grilled.

[Trench_Raider]

Thanks for the tips and insight, all. I went into BB last night and racked up 118 gnoll kills. (yes, I'm keeping track) with no visible change in status. This is clearly going to be a long hard road. I never did any faction work back when I played EQ live, so this is going to be an interesting exercise.

TR

[moklianne]

Factionwork is one of the most frustrating things about classic EQ. Its also one of the most rewarding feelings to be able to walk around towns and not be attacked. Well worth it.

[Trench_Raider]

Just a quick update....

I have now killed 156 gnolls. Now most Qeynos guards register "glairs at you threateningly" rather than "scowls at you ready to attack."
That's some progress at least!

Oh, and I have almost 30 fangs to turn in. But that's still a good ways off!

TR

[Fourthmeal]

Kill them gnolls. Genocide them gnolls.

[Fobbon]

When you eventually go to turn in fangs, make sure you con on your way in. The warrior guild is on a different faction than the guards (and it'd be worth sneaking in through the secret entrance in the sewers to see if you're kos currently or if you can turn in fangs).

[beeshma_nameless]

Factionwork is one of the most frustrating things about classic EQ. Its also one of the most rewarding feelings to be able to walk around towns and not be attacked. Well worth it.

True, but Sony seem to have had the uncanny knack of making faction useless with an expansion.

PoP took a giant piss on any faction work till then, in general.

Of course later with another expansion which "revamped" Freeport (with giant steaming turds littering the new freeport) they took a big crap on the whole Knights Vs Militia lore heh.

But again, even in classic Qeynos faction was not that key (unless you are cool like a Qeynos monk and started in Qeynos, then BB teaches you stuff Ecomm--> Oasis route never did) - I mean even erudites left Erudin ASAP lol -- if the blind newbies could get out in the first place, what with the unnecessary hop from barge to boat Erudin circus (corpses littering the ocean floor for the mis-hops too heh)

[bakkily]

just have fun i say

[stormlord]

The problem with factioning in classic is that when you need it, it's almost never convenient. But for most players it's not a problem if you're not evil or you don't get too ambitious by running across the continent. Like for me, I've never had to worry about it. But this was sometimes true in newer expansions too. For example, in SOF you had to get faction with the local region to buy from the merchant. I remember doing that for Hills of Shade. Just killing over and over to get the faction we needed as a guild. That was not fun.

I did feel good when I finally got ally, but a game should not have so much grind. If the newer expansions were supposed to be superior to the older ones than why did they have so much grinding in them yet lacked most of the substance in the older ones? By that I'm referring to the one-size-fits-all feeling to everything. Everyone lived in PoK. Everyone was getting the same types of gear (groups were getting cores in SOF). Same deal in SOD and I think UF. There were some unique items, but they quickly got replaced by the cored stuff. And it's lame how certain slots had certain effects (damage bonus, spell haste, haste, etc). And even then most of the gear only differed by HP/AC/MANA amount and a few modifier differences. Everything felt homogenous compared to the earlier days in EQ. Sure, there're no corpse runs issues and quests have task windows now, but it's barely noticeable and i've played EQ for a long time. EQ1 is too mediocre.

When you cut away the mess and confusion the problem isn't factions, it's the grinding, hour after hour. Grinding needs to be replaced with content that's involving and makes you feel like you're making a difference. Not a fake difference, but a real difference that comes from actual content. I'm not asking for more "You have gained faction with X." or "You have gained skill in X(X)!" I'm asking for content.

There should be multiple progressions going on to keep us occupied. All that I can remember from that grinding in Hills of Shade was a pathetic augment. If I had felt like it was worth doing it could have given me another reason to get faction. There needed to be more things like that. Multiple paths. Multiple things that can work alongside each other. If you're doing an activity just for one thing then it gets boring quick. The same problem applies to groups. People don't group up if a named only drops something that a single person can use. If named drop items that were more broadly useful then people are more likely to help each other. Similarly, if the game has more things going on then it's more likely to keep people interested.

So I think factioning should happen in hte background, ideally. Yes, you need it for something, but if there're enough things (content <-> progression) involved in your pursuits then you'll have your mind on lots of different things and not on one single thing. Lack of progressionS is the central problem. And the camping. The camping is another big problem but this post is already too big and misplaced so I'll stop.

[Trench_Raider]

Well, the gnoll genocide ended tonight. The final solution to the gnoll problem has been realised.

After 363 gnoll kills, I had not moved from the gate guards conning "threatening" to me. So it was time to take drastic action. I started asking lvl 39+ druids for a bit of help an after a bit one agreed to come to qeynos and help. The call was answered by a fellow named "Alkor".

Using "shared wolf form" I turned in the 87 gnoll fangs I had accumulated while slaughtering all those gnolls. The end result is that I'm now "indifferent" to most folks in Qeynos now. As an aside, turning in all those fangs also got me from just having dinged to nine to half way through ten.

Now after I take a break from playing I'm going to sneak around Qeynos and check out who still hates me, if I can train, use the bank, etc.

Let me close by giving a heart-felt "thank you" to Alkor for taking the time out to help me out and to apologize to all the lowbie in BB who have not been able to kill the green gnolls because of my constantly hunting them for the last two days!

TR

[Trademaster]

There's more gnolls in that worthless hole in the ground, Don't give up now. Get back down there, get a group and go after the elites. Get Qeynos to love you.