Edwin in Soltown

Since they're not really bugs per se, I didn't want to put these in that forum, but please let me know if this would be more appropriate under the thread there. I wish there were a specific Quests & NPCs forum that wasn't specifically just for bug reports.

In addition to the needed salt and wax, Edwin's quest also gives you a loom shuttle, a tanning knife, tailoring scissors, and a rawhide mallet. Free stuff is always cool (as long as it's not unplaceable, untradable, and undestroyable), but after playing for 3 months I still don't know what the rawhide mallet is for. Plus, new characters already receive a complete set of (unplaceable, untradable) crafting tools, so these gifts from Edwin are duplicates. I'd much rather we got the tools from apprentice quests like this one, but IMNSHO it should be one or the other, not both.

Edwin also tells people that it's easiest to get cotton and hides off the bears in the East Perennial Trail. As an OOC player, I understand why you want to direct people there, and I can see why Edwin, if he's coming from Ardoris, might believe that. But in truth the new player is much more likely to get killed while hunting for bears in East Perennial than they would be getting the cotton and wolf hides from Solace Bridge and its outskirts. It just feels wrong for him to be giving the new player information about scene difficulty that is inaccurate.

Also, Annika's stations are right outside the house where Edwin is, and Edwin clearly states that this is Annika's shop, and he's come from elsewhere to help her temporarily. So it's rather odd that he gets the upstairs bedroom to himself (despite there being two beds) while Annika herself gets shuffled off to sleep in the guardhouse at the other end of the village.

 

At one time, when the game first went into persistence and before, you didn’t get the tools when you made a character.many people had them as pledge rewards, but anyone starting out without a pledge, didn’t have tools. They had to get them in other ways. The quest was the ne way to do that. But this was the only zone that had the quest, until later. Also only a couple of tools are given out, not the whole spectrum. In the end they decided to give then to everyone.

When the quest was put n there weren’t any Outskirts. The Outskirts came much, much later in the development cycle. The only place nearby was Perrrenial Trail. I guess they could remake the quest, but aren’t likely to do so.

 

Yeah, I don't think it's likely either and this particular issue (referring them to Perennial Trail) has mitigating factors. But I'd rather call every potential problem out and let them decide which are worth modifying than let something slip by simply because no one bothered to point it out and they were juggling too much to notice it. Especially things like this -- there are a LOT of problems I've seen that clearly look like echoes from previous years that are no longer consistent with the current state of the game, and those things will jump out a lot more clearly to someone with a fresh perspective than to a dev or even a player who's been around longer. Like not noticing how much someone has physically changed when you see them every day.

The tools, though... that's quickly become one of my pet peeves. I really think it's hurting the game, especially the ability for people to make a living as crafters and new players' motivation to roleplay. Not only does it weigh new characters down when they have limited encumbrance and those without older alts will have limited bank slots, but it actively encourages people to god-mode. Why should you buy anything from a crafter when the game is telling you upfront that you can not only be an adventurer AND a farmer or tailor or blacksmith, but that you can and SHOULD be an adventurer AND a farmer AND a tailor AND a blacksmith AND everything else? You don't need to work with people who've practiced a specialty because you can do everything yourself? If people want to be crafters, let them pick a profession and apprentice to an NPC, or buy the tools themselves and give it a try on their own. People don't need EVERYTHING handed to them upfront. I mean, I'm sitting here practicing skills I don't even want because wearing the tools down is the only way to get them to stop cluttering my bank (short of destroying them outright, and I'm too poor to bring myself to destroy something I can get a use out of).

(For what it's worth, I also think it's a mistake for new characters to have almost every adventuring tree already unlocked and with points in skills people would never want, instead of letting them choose what their character is like.)