fair enough

but from this day forward let it be known if it's fishy, take responsibility and check first. gaining a whole level of nuts will now be the new standard of kinda fishy.

From this day forward?
Seems like we should all have had the same common sense 3 days ago that we have now..
Especially a supposed leader of the community.

Although it is never really excused, this behavior might be tolerated - even expected - in the player base, however it should not be tolerated in the GM population.

IMHO: Let Tantalar keep playing if he complies with the information mandate; may Bristlebane rest in peace.

Look the people who are bashing the quest as exploit... have you ever done the quest? First of all it's the most annoying thing to do, handing in 1 water, 1 nut to npc, stacking up the tonics then handing in 1 tonic x 4 to npc etc..

Sounds easy right? Well try doing it for 99238923892 times clicking and clicking some more and clicking some more etc... It's almost as bad as EE or Jboots camping. It's not a SMART way to level at all, there's a bizillion more efficient way to get better xp for the amount of time spent.

Now i did the tonic hand in in my mid 20's for 3~4 lvl gains. Consider this, I did not start with the server opening (i.e i was part of the 2nd generation of players, and did not benefit from whatever you deem to call legit buggy exploit XP that allowed 5% of the population to hit 50 in a manner of weeks). The point is when you start from fresh, and your broke as a homeless guy trying to buy your spells (do marginal gear upgrade), you cannot afford to tonic grind. In fact it would be the most retarded way lvl up. The main reason i did it was it still gives really good faction on 4 different faction (which i'm now allied with).

Now from a practical point, I don't see how someone can level from 1 to 50. Never mind the fact they would go insane from all the clicking, I don't think it's feasible to do tonics beyond 29 or 30. The awesome XP you guys keep preaching about dries up really quick post 20, and slows to a crawl after 29~30.

I haven't calculated the cost but unless the person was filthy rich and dumb enough to grind that way the cost would be obscene here. For that kind of money it would be better to hire a bunch of 50's to PL you from 1 to 50 (and you'd still gain xp just as fast if not faster because of the 9293289428932 clicking you'd need to do).


So for the GM's, yes in hindsight I should have reported the oddity (the nut stacking), but considering i never intended to do any more then a few levels, i didn't even think twice about it. For the non twink toons, it's really not an exploit when we gotta pay our dues money wise, time wise. Not like the npc gives back the tonic where we can keep doing it for free... and yes faction DOES matter..

To the self righteous haters of anyone that has even looked at a kiola nut. Chill out, seriously, not like you guys never did anything even remotely sketchy (and i maintain tonic is totally legit), if you ever actually did the quest you'd soon realize unless you are suffering from OCD, you'd never stick it out to do more then a few lvls.

To the retards that abused the quest beyond lvl 30 even to 50. Seriously, jump off a window please... Talk about wasting plat and time like a scrub big time. It's because of the retarded few that this whole thing is being blown WAY out of proportion.

I hope we all can learn from this and just move on, it'd be a shame to categorize everyone who touched a kiola nut as a filthy cheater (in the same league as 3rd party add on users, and dupers. Should focus more on fixing game bugs and policing douchebags then trying to go on a witch hunt for tonic abusers :confused:

PS: Those were my 2 cents, can flame me all you want now.

Lucky for you the quest is still there and gives faction.

Using quests to level = idiotic...

Way to gain your skill points!

At this point its just IB posturing against all common sense that this was a terrible atrocity to in some way legitimize themselves. Don't waste your time.

unfortunate but true
 

Unfortunately it seems, as time goes by, that this this true.

Waste money? Wait...plat has value at 50? Coulda fooled me, since I got 3k sitting in the bank with nothing to spend it on.

Shit I spent 1k easilly training up research skill.

It should be obvious to anyone from the smartest Erudite to the stupidest Ogre that this was an exploit. Using turn ins to level that quickly cannot be working as intended and anyone with half a brain should know this whether they are new to EQ or not. They should say to themselves "Hmmm I just gained 10 levels in 10 minutes, I wonder if this is legit?" and if they don't they deserve to be whacked hard with the banstick.

That excuse is tantamount to telling the judge it was ok to steal the car because the owner left the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition.