Quest issues, NPC dialogue / frustrations are still there

Now I can be dumb, but I'm still pretty smart. I possess a fair amount of common sense, but my alpha frustrations are coming back again. I'm not at home or would post a screen of something that made me want to punch my monitor last night.

I go back to siranto's place to talk to that guy on the first floor...pintos, pontoon, pinhead...whoever that guy is that points you to that 'most famous inn' in Ardoris.

I then ask him where the inn is...he says basically says I have no idea. FFS!!!! you gave me the quest, you told me it's the most famous inn in ardoris, you don't know where it is?! Jesus christ, i thought I was a recluse! So, it's like those who say to "just ask directions" well, it's broken and doesn't work.

I haven't even bothered to think how I'm going to get the password for the other hall i have to get into. If this were ultima, there'd be a piece of paper in siranto's hall with the password on it...haven't looked, but not sure that would be worth it.

This is the kind of irritating stuff that I think will have people leaving. Questing feels almost impossible in some cases and I'm not sure if it's me, or if the quest is just broken.

Furthermore, while I like the idea, I feel it's falling flat on its face of having to talk to every NPC for a quest? Why would some random guard have a quest? Said quest most likely would be to do his laundry. Can't guards just have the generic "guard' nameplate and be left at that? Also, there needs to be more 3 man patrols walking around cities along with dogs / cats...they feel dead and lifeless.

I didn't play much over the alpha. I know it's not to play but to test, but even that will cause me burnout so I stayed away as much as I could. When I did play, I kept running into the same walls. I'm doing everything I can to try to keep up about this, the daily patches help, but this NPC dialogue / questing / journal system is really frustrating. I don't need my hand held, but I do need the proper info from the game. I feel like it's all missing.

 

In the old Ultimas, towns each had a unique und simple but still interesting layout. They were not too big so it was easy to find people and certain places. Let's take Ultima 7 for example. The layout of Trinsic was simple and it was still interesting to explore the city. Trinsic wasn't too big so after a walk through the streets one knew where the important places were. So it was easy to navigate the city and find certain NPCs.
Also the amount of NPCs in the old Ultimas was much smaller. There were way less NPCs living in the whole world. This made it easy to find certain NPCs who also looked unique each.

SotA does have a big problem with quests as the cities are way too big, they lack a unique, interesting and simple layout. Also there are way too many NPCs living in the cities of whom 95% are irrelevant. Also they each look the same. It is very hard navigating the cities and finding certain NPCs.

SotA should have used a different approach for NPC cities and quest areas. They should have been MUCH smaller with WAY less NPCs. I think the decision to also have player housing and have hundreds and thousands of players possible in the cities lead to them making huge cities with strange layouts made for player housing. Because the cities were made so big they also had to create so many NPCs to have the cities look alive. And now we face the problem that for those who are in the game wanting to do the quests or wanting to play the game in SP or offline mode, it is a pain navigating the cities and finding certain NPCs.

 

The quests/NPCs are broken

The quest is just broken... Probably just not finished, NPCs for sure are not at all done. I think you need a hug man.

 

Pintar isn't a random guard. He is the adviser to Lord Siranto and Foreign Minister for the Shogunate. Everyone in Ardoris should be able to give you directions if you say "Where is X". If you ask him where the tavern is, he should tell you. He may need a few more keywords/phrases to respond to such as inn or Peladjar Inn. If so, submit that in the R32 feedback subforum so the directions topic can be fixed.

The inn is right in the middle of the town square next to the Poet's Circle.

There are maps you can buy in game to find your way around.

sotamap.com is also fantastic. It has town maps as well as the overworld, and search functions.

 

I'm a lord marshal plebe. I have all of the maps and Ardoris was in my pack...I don't recall, is there an option to have the maps in english and not runes?

 

I don't believe there are any options to display with maps with English text. You could request the feature.

 

I have spent more time playing "guess the keyword" than I have spent playing.
It's like some 80's throwback to the old text adventure games where you need to type different things over and over until you hit the word the developer wants.

I got sent to Ardoris as part of the Beginner quest. This is the quest-line that is "most polished".
I spoke to Cugel. He says go see the Lord, the Queen and the oracle. So... I go to the Palace of the Winds and get let in to see the Queen. Then I go to see the Lord. Nope, you can't come in here. You need a token.
I look up online (another thing I am doing more than playing). That says you can get hints from the oracle.
I go see the oracle. Gee... that was no help. Another round of "Fire lots of words at the chat window".
So, I go back to Cugel.
"Hey Cugel, you sent me there, how do I get in?"
"Only the worthy may enter."
"Am I worthy?"
"I think you are."
"How do I get in?"
"Only the worthy may enter."

So.... what we have is someone who's told me that the Lord and the Lady want to speak to me... but the Lord is refusing to let me in. And the guy that sent me there isn't going to tell me how to get in. It makes no sense.
After a couple of hours of bouncing around between the four locations (Lord, Lady, Oracle and Cugel)... oh... and a couple of the Inns in town looking for worthy warriors... so after bouncing around between six locations... as a beginning, polished, starter quest.... I'm going to go ahead and say that it's not particularly new-user friendly.

I'm definitely looking at giving it a rest.
I do really like the skill levelling. Unfortunately the questing is required to gain the XP for the skill levelling I like.
Gonna have to leave it for while and come back another time before I pull all my hair out or break a keyboard.

 

Trying to find the token/password can be frustrating. But there are people who will tell you in dialogue that the Spirit Talkers have been to the palaces, so surely they must know the tokens to get in...

 

lol... spoke to them. They told me that the password to enter the Queen's Palace is rose.
I've been to the Queen's palace.... I don't need the password to get there.
(I did try to use Rose at the Lord's Palace and the guard told me that I was just guessing.)

 

Not sure if this fits in this thread but I do not care for the questing in this game. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of features I like in this game, but thus far questing isn't one.

I dislike the going into semi-instanced mode to talk to NPCs and the conversations feel clunky at best. Clicking key words to root out the quest doesn't make me feel more apart of the story or scene like I think it is suppose to. I have gotten to the point where I just randomly click every underlined word until I see something wrote to my journal (sorry not big into story lines but I would like the xp!).

Anyway, I quit questing after day 2 of final wipe and haven't looked back, just farming mobs and collecting resources seems more fun to me than fumbling around with NPCs who you aren't even sure if they have a quest or not.

Questing should be fun, not frustrating, and I hope it gets better. Played UO for many years without quests and I liked it so I will survive either way.

 

You just destroyed the whole concept of this game with your comment

 

You're saying you prefer a pure sandbox game with no quests.

It sure sounds like you're not the target audience for quests in this game then.

 

Please enlighten me on how I destroyed the game, seems a little dramatic?

 

Actually, I really like this game, sorry one facet of it I find clunky and poorly designed. My opinion, I think can still have one here correct?

 

I don't think it was drama....
He gave a wink. He was being cheeky.
I think the quest system as it is now was pretty much what they were aiming for... and you shot it down.
It's amusing.
I don't think you're wrong either.

I agree there are many things to like about this game... but their avoidance of identifiable quest NPC's and "organic" quest giving... that's not really one of them.
I'm hoping it will organically evolve as the game development continues.

 

Not every facet of the game will appeal to all players. You can enjoy the game and not enjoy quests.

I'm saying if you prefer sandbox games like UO, then maybe you're not the target audience for quests.

SotA quests are aimed at people who do like reading text, paying attention to story, etc. If you want to skip on all the text and skip ahead quickly, then it wasn't aimed at you.

 

Yeah I edited my post to not be so curt. Still not sure how posting my opinion, about the state of questing shot it down.

I don't like it, sorry. Not sure how that is amusing though.

 

Lord Darkmoon has been repeating the same message for 3 years how questing is terrible and this is a poor implementation of the single player game he wants.

So he jumps on any apparent criticism of questing as validation of what he is upset about.

 

Correct, the questing features of this game are not for me. I will leave it there.

 

but i gotta ask though after reading it again...did i offend you by now knowing his role? comes off like i did.