Quests of the Avatar

I hear you.

But if we push for a game where the average Steam user is happy and not whining about, I know I wouldn't touch the game with a 3m pole.

 

Awesome points, and I agree with them 100%.

I have played Lotro a lot, and it has been dumbed down to a point where the next step is "automove to quest-point".

I still have fond memories of SWG, where you didn't even knew you had a quest, or quest item until you converse with some random dude at random place. And then you have to find the place, with only fragments of knowledge at your hands. It meant something to be a Sherlock and do those things. I have same feelings with this game, even though it's still in alpha stage.

 

I tried LOTRO, and the moment that I knew it definitely was not for me was during a beginner quest where I took some herbal tea (or some such concoction) to a seriously ill friend. He was too sick to drink it, but on returning to the tea giver I wasn't given the choice between telling the truth or a white lie - that decision was made for me.

 

I added five quests from Resolute.

 

Thanks, was looking for something like this. Relic is the one I couldn't find.

 

Some likes the "hard way" on doing quests, most people however likes the "easy and fast way". While I hope SotA will promote the best way I also see as unavoidable that the info will be published on the web. And it's OK, we are playing a game and everyone is here to enjoy it the best they can.

 

As I see it, there are choices to do this.

• You don't even go to website and adventure on your own.
• You can just look at areas to see if there are any quests.
• You can see the list of what kind of quests there are and who gives them.
• You can go to quest information and check the whole stuff with keywords.

Usually all the quests I have met are quite easy to follow, but at some point you could use a push to find a certain item or keyword. And the hardest part is to find a quest giver within all the content-empty NPC towns. I know this will change when game hits live, or even beta stage.

Heh,I just red your post again and saw that you actually said the same thing using a lot less words than I did.

 

Of course...and thats your freedom that is not to anyone here to evaluate.

Yet...SotA was made because people have good memories of Mr. Garriot and his products. Having new players join without that knowlege will result in bad memories seen from the average steam user. And thats not good imho. Thats exactly why Beolthains site is needed and important!

 

And tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a quest list site that tells you everything, when the quest is about choosing between upholding Truth and dismissing Love (lawful evil - administer Justice without Compassion), or showing Courage but neglecting Truth (chaotic good - dishonestly lying to your peers to valiantly defend a poor peasant's stomped rights), or following Love but giving up Courage (true neutral - having your Honor tank because you let your enemy live).

These moral dilemmas is what (I hope) SotA will be about.

And while I agree with everyone that @Beolthian work is magnificient and deserves every praise, I also hope there won't be the very need for a bunch of DHL or kill-X-mobs type quests, thus not even lists of them.

We already have a glimpse of this with the Morgan/Myra "quest". If your goal is just put tickmarks on a list of things the NPCs ask you to do, you will complete the quest. However, if you understand what this whole world and legacy is about, you would definitely flip the bird to Morgan.

If the whole point of a game scripted by Hickman and Garriott is to read a fascinating and compelling story, why you would ruin the most important point of this production by not wanting to learn that

Spoiler: Don't click, seriously

Samael might as well be an undead with something to do in this world for Thanatos - and what he has to do with Anapa?

and instead wanting to read it on an external site?

 

Mr. Anderson? Is that a Matrix reference???

Anyway...yes...your right. But...your a unit...1...a person, a player. We are on the same page. Your sight on things and on what you like is pretty "retro" and thats ok.

But the new players that join, their money is as much worth as yours, and they (as I understand) have a completly different view on the subject after 10 years of ElderScorlls Online, World of PurpleEpics and others. They deserve as much fun as you do, or I do, no matter when they join or why they join. The "steam" thing will attract a few people that will feel...odd...and demand stuff they know is a standard elsewhere.

Hickman and Garriot are names you understood as great from your childhood. Honestly, here in europe...exept a few 40+ olders like I am that remember DragonLance...sorry, that name doesnt ring much. If you go farther into the east into russia and asia (that became a HUGH market during the last 20 years) nobody will know much about it. Yet the game is accessible there over steam...and again...their money is worth as much as yours. The world doesnt end at your frontier you know.

And for the quests with Moral dilemas...thats up to each player to decide.

I need to write "in my humble oppinion"

 

My point is that, with this kind of budget (abysmally low to compete with any other major player in the overcrowded MMO arena), you can't simply follow the leaders and sheepishly propose just "more of the same". Because you'd be doomed to fail, and there are countless proofs and examples of how just doing the same old same old with shinier graphics is exclusively an exercise in applied futility. And we don't even have shinier graphics!!!

So, considering this hard fact, it's refreshing to be retro, meaning that the only way out of the beaten path is to give players something different, something not mainstream, something that - ironically - may dig into far roots ALSO to entice a new breed of gamers into using their brains and not letting the UI think in their stead.

And package a stable, fast, fun product whose fun factor lies EXACTLY in what others, with far deeper pockets, wouldn't (dare to) do.

The fact that this new way of approaching adventures, requiring attention to detail, moral dilemmas, reading a lot and understanding even more may resemble what ancient games did is largely irrelevant. For new generations, for the eastern part of the globe, for whoever ignores the history of videogames, the added value is not memories of times they never lived, but EXACTLY a refreshing (for them!) way of playing a difficult and challenging videogame.

Even if "they" may never know what Hickman wrote or Garriott programmed. That's not a requirement. The requirement is that they wouldn't expect bobbing question marks because THAT is a "very 2006" way of doing games, and THIS is the cool new wave (actually, 30 years old, but hush, don't tell anyone! ).

After all, we're all still reading Tolkien and playing chess and listening to Mozart. Not because any of us knew the authors, mind you, and we can't say we were there when the Dies Irae was written like some of us may say we were there when Dragons of Autumn Twilight was written (I was 12 at the time!). That's just an added bonus, but not a requirement.

And wrt a quest site, of course it will help tremendously, and of course it's entirely optional to read/use it! And I'm very glad that Beol is putting together this wonderful resource.

I'm not trying to tell you that's bad to browse that site.

What I'm telling you, Ludwig, is that when you're ready, you won't have to.

 

Am I missing something? For some reason the Highvale scene never transitioned. It just permanently stays as Battle of Highvale...

 

The first time I went there few days ago it was Battle of highvale and after an hour of searching the empty space I got out and then went back and it was Highvale, an area full of bandits and elves. If you have to get the key and amulet from dying knight, and open the gate before it changes to Highvale?

Someone smarter than me could answer what is the trigger.

 

I guess that, since you're allowed to re-play the other two starting scenes, after choosing your own, the first time you enter one of the remaining starting scenes, they'd be the initial version, and (unless you do NOT play through them as if you char just left Isle of Storms) will become the regular version from the second visit onward.

 

The weird part is, I am/was already following the Path of Courage. The scene had transitioned to Highvale once already. Very bizarre...

 

Might just be that you completed the scene before they implement the new "individual player" progression scene.

 

Updated the few Resolute quests that wan't finished and added the sweetheart quest suggested by Wombly.

This is amazing guys, thank you! I would have been stuck at the Ardoris / Hidden Vale regions if it weren't you. I read about Darkstarr's post about the last wipe and the state of the game after that. Hundreds of quests... My fingertips are bleeding already.

 

I updated Blood River quests and followed the questline to Vertas but then I got stuck.

I added a submit a quest -page so everyone could send a quest, or just a quest giver, to be added to the website.

And I finally finished the Battle of the Solace Bridge. There has always been a clitch when I tried to give the letter to Stanley. Now I received the same letter from Blood River and gave it to Stanley. Maybe I can follow Ardoris quests a bit further...