Replaying the Main Quest

NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


Last weekend, I was playing Shroud, and somebody had used LFG to get a party together to help get through Grannus Colossus. I pitched in, and while helping, it occurred to me that there has been a lot done since I played through the main quest. I did it the first time before Release, and again a month or two after Release, using the quest reset. I already had another character; back when there were threats of crafting specializations being limited to one or two, I created two additional characters to train as crafters. That never happened, so I didn't really do anything with them. I played each of them through the starter scene, and then ditched the outskirts, since I didn't really intend to level them as adventurers, and could gather Producer XP much more efficiently with my main. Of course, characters on an account no longer share XP, so that left them both pretty much stuck as brand new characters that weren't going anywhere.

So! I took one of them (Petra Malkova) and went back to Solace Outskirts. I thought I'd take some notes here as I went, and see what's different. Unfortunately, I can't start at the very beginning, as I'd already gone through the Battle of Solace Bridge. I considered starting a third character, but the battle bit is so short, I didn't think it would be a big difference.

This isn't intended to be a walkthrough or player guide. I'm mostly interested in lore stuff, especially since I just went off on a few rants on that subject elsewhere last night.

 

you can, each character gets one quest reset. it's in the gear before you resume. after that, talk to arabella and she'll give you tasks to go to the battles, though i think you can just go.

 

The Battle of Solace Bridge: Completed

As noted in the post above and the post below this one, I was able to reset my other alt, and therefore redo the Battle scene. This scene was actually a lot fresher in my memory, as I had to go through it (twice) when I created the two alts. The first two times I did it on my main, it was the old original scene. The new one is much better, not only in that it looks much better and has much more going on, but your role is a little more active than the old version.

I did notice something I hadn't when I made my alts. Just before Edvard, there's an old ruin which I apparently missed before. (I wasn't really trying to do the story then, I was just rushing through it to get out of the scene, so I wasn't really paying attention.) There was a skeleton inside, and a large pedestal with a book on it, and another book in front of it. Exciting!

The book on the pedestal was the "abridged" Dirae Prophecy. The other one was a book about a mommy squirrel or something. I've already forgotten. (It was a duck, apparently I picked up the book.)


Solace Outskirts: Completed (Mostly)

First thing: I may have to eat some of my recent words. It does seem they've expanded the lore a bit. I don't recall any mentions of the Obsidians being behind the rising dead and their attacks on Solace Bridge. My recollection was that it was a mystery, and then later revealed to be a lich. So right off, this is a bit more interesting than it was. Kinsey mentions it after defeating the Maybe-Valdis. Arabella also brings it up once you reach Soltown. Overall, I'm finding this version much easier to follow than it was previously.

Spoiler: Kinsey Talks About Ebon Dawn

I liked the popup when I learned my "first" emote. I don't recall that from before. (Maybe it was in the old Isle of Storms intro?) But getting a clear description of what emotes were and how to use them is a nice touch.

I found Kinsey's quests irritating as hell, though. You pretty much run back and forth between the same areas, but you can't get multiple quests at once. And, being a new character, I AM PAINFULLY SLOW. I don't know how you heavy armor wearers do this all the time. Regardless, having to run allll they way down to the bandit guy's shack, then alllll the way back to Kinsey, then back down the same path to the farm,then back to Kinsey, then to the alchemist, then back to Kinsey, then to the village, then Kinsey... that got really old really fast.

The creepo kids are talking about "her." I presume that is Mistress Valdis? I don't recall that from before, just that they were being creepy. I hope that gets addressed. And Bloody Bones, too. Their book says he's got something to do with Valdis, but my memory is that the Valdis story pretty much gets dropped right after the outskirts. (Or is it part of that catacombs weirdo undead storyline? It's been a while. I guess I'll find out.)

Also regarding Maybe-Valdis: I'm guessing that the resurrected soldier/Ritual Master is/was Valdis? He/she (I don't actually recall if it was a male or female soldier) says something along the lines of "we'll meet again" when killed, and the book you get about Valdis mentions resurrecting herself as fallen soldiers. I'm guessing that's what's going on here? Would be nice if that were a bit clearer.

A bit more closure on the Langstons/Hartley quest would be nice, too. Unless I missed it. It's sort of a their-word-against-his deal, but it doesn't ever appear to be revealed who is being truthful. I opted to give the painting to the Langstons. It'd be nice if you could go back and rub Hartley's nose in it, or vice versa. And at least get a hint as to who was being truthful.

 

I didn't know that! I thought it was once per account.

Dang, though. Do I want to do all those stupid Kinsey errands again? Even with Dash up to 40 now, that's still pretty rough...

Hm.... I do have that other character. I could reset that one, go through the Battle again, then jump back to Petra and continue.

 

Soltown: Started

Again, a bit surprised here. As noted before, Arabella now brings up the Obsidians, and that the Cabalists are sort of Post-Obsidians trying to restore the Obsidian Order. My recollection from previously was that none of that was ever mentioned anywhere in the game. I think I only knew that info from watching the live streams.

Also surprised that there seem to be more quests available in Soltown. (Or maybe I missed them before? I know at least the first time, I was pretty thorough, but that was like, 25 releases ago.) One guy wants me to fetch a key from his farm, another wants an heirloom.

And I even found a note in the tavern about things going missing in the cemetery! I'm guessing that's a lead to follow which brings you to the catacombs quests. I wish the devs would periodically go back and fill out other scenes like this. I was in Wyrmsands a while ago. "Hey, here's this cool abandoned village! I wonder what's here? Oh. Nothing at all. Again (sigh.)"

Anyway. Leaving it there for now, I've been up all night. More later today.

 

Oh yeah, one other quick note:

Spoiler: I really hate that this is still a thing.

This is so painful to read. Not because it's ugly (as @Vladamir Begemot would be quick to point out) but multiple people talking at once. At least make each additional speaker's text another color. AND FOR GUARDIAN'S SAKE PUT IN SOME DAMN LINE BREAKS! This is an even more egregious example than normal, as the two speakers have virtually identical names. So hard to read. And, I've already had at least one instance of clicking a keyword, and then having to scroll back because the speaker says more than what fits into the dialog box. C'mon, people. Line breaks. You don't need Bethesda money to use line breaks.

 

I always figured that the -- was a line break, perhaps the code can't be ... like normal? idk I'm not a coder.

 

I don't think so. I think it is meant to be an em dash (a long dash) which is used to indicate an interruption. (It has a couple of uses, actually, but interruptions are one of them.) Most word processors (though, apparently not this forum software) will make an em dash when you type two hyphens. My guess is that either the font they chose doesn't have an em dash, or whoever created the dialog typed two hyphens out of habit, and Unity doesn't know to translate that as an em dash.

Regardless, I should be clearer- I mean not just a line break, but an actual blank line between the text of different speakers.

 

Hm. Apparently, the "Maybe-Valdis/Ritual Master" is a bug. It was renamed Mistress Valdis as part of the updates, but then seems to ave become bugged and reverted back somehow. I was half remembering that it was actually named Valdis, so that explains why.

 

There’s this: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ge-outskirts-the-complete-quest-guide.160964/

If you didn’t know about it. Just something I wrote.

Also, of note you aren’t doing anything that is related to the main quest. All of the areas you have written about so far are just side quests, just FYI.

The actual main quest starts with the Bonesteel Dagger from The Battle of Blood River, Gawains Amulet of Testimony from The Battle of Highvale and Letter from Stanley to Guard Captain Cugel, Ardoris.

Those are the 3 main quest items that start the main quest.

The 3 outskirts areas do however lead you eventually to the areas to continue the main quest however.

 

You can do multiple quests at once; most of them don't require you to speak to Kinsey before starting them. She just gives directions for folks who can't figure out what to do next. To the best of my memory, the only ones you actually have to get from her first is the Alchemist's medicine and the final packet to Stanley. Even Sigourney and the Ritual Master/Valdiss will work fine if you do them before talking to Kinsey.

 

Yes, speaking to Kinsey is the only way to get the (optional) Ask Alchemist for Medicine quest.

Also if I recall correctly, if you finish the main quest for the outskirts (when you receive the banner is when you know you have completed the main quest for an outskirts area), if you didn’t get that quest from her, you won’t be able to get that quest. Again, that’s just an optional side quest.

 

For me, it was made abundantly clear who actually loved the girl. If you stand next to Hartley, he speaks several things, including how much he did love her, and he would never sell that painting. And then there's her grave, right next to the tree by his house....

 

And: talking to Hartley, he tells how the Langstons treated their own daughter ...

 

A she. And you will encounter her again in other quests
And if you do the Quest about the forgetful ghost (interesting story!), you will get another view on Valdis and what she did ...
If I remember right, those quests about Bloody Bones, Valdis, (also appearing of Bloodbone Skeletons) and most other Outskirts Quests were written by Puuk.
He really did great work, also with the Frostgeist Quests in Highvale Outskirts - interesting concept ...

 

I was aware of it, but I'm trying to do it without too much "help." Going for a bit of a new-user experience. Not to say I'm "forbidding" anybody helping, or pointing out things I missed, just that I'm trying to see a lot of it as I come across it.

Sure, the outskirts aren't part of the main story specifically. But a large part of what I'm after is seeing what the story aspect of the game is now like, three-ish years since I last went through it. It's not as much about powering through quickly to get the Shroud as it is seeing how filled out the lore aspect is. It wouldn't be fair to skip a ton of content and then complain about the lack of content. I got on this idea after a few rants I posted yesterday about how lacking the lore is in this game in many areas. It later occurred to me that much has changed since I did a lot of the quests, and since I've spent most of the last three years in scenes that didn't have any lore going on, I might be lacking some perspective on the issue. Which doesn't mean I'm wrong- it'd be much better if a lot of the "empty" (from a story standpoint) scenes were more tied into the rest of the world, especially since these are where people end up spending all their time after doing the actual story parts.

Huh. It never occurred to me to try. Guess that's on me, then.

I think that's the conclusion we're meant to have as well. I guess what I found lacking was the ability to confront the parents over it, or to follow up with Hartley if you decide to give the parents the painting.

That's sort of what I thought. Again, it was a long time ago, but I don't think Valdis was a thing when I did the outskirts scene. And the Bloodbone stuff came way later than my run through of the story, so even if Valdis was in the outskirts when I first did it, I didn't recall the connection when I did the Bloodbone stuff later. I did encounter one of the ghosts, but got no quest or anything. I did a little digging, it appears you need to actually type the responses in some of these to get the quest. I was pretty sure the creepo kids had a quest involving Bloody Bones, too, but I couldn't get it to trigger. I think I'm going to head back tonight, complete those, and the Soltown side quests, then head over to another questline. Probably Highvale. When I first started the game way back, I was dropped into the Truth line, so I think I may do that one last. If I recall correctly, it's also the one with the least polish over the years, so that'll be interesting.

I'm not going to do every side quest in the game in this thread, but I'm going to hit the larger ones, most or all of the outskirts stuff, and the ones that at least indirectly tie in to the main story (like the Valdis stuff.)

 

I did some of the Soltown quests. Couple notes:

• I liked that Bentley has one of those Kobold stills in his house. I don't know when they made those, but I know it was well after I did these quests, so that was a nice touch.
• I also liked the campsite in East Perennial Trail with the note about the guy who wishes he could draw better snakes. I wish more scenes had touches like that which reward exploration. How awesome would the Rise be if it was packed with scraps of lore and little easter eggs about the who/why/how of that giant dungeon which seems to serve no actual purpose?
  
• Returning to Solace Bridge, Edvard mentions not knowing why the undead are coming in through the Eastreach Gap. I could swear Kinsey mentioned the nearby cultists were raising the dead to attack the camp, but I didn't screengrab it at the time. I'm guessing she means the undead attacking the camp are unrelated to the ones that attacked Solace Bridge? I liked that they were introducing the Ebon Dawn as behind the attacks, as they (being the main antagonists at this point) seemed pretty under-represented in the main story. But now it sounds like the whole undead invasion is still because of the lich dude. Maybe he is now tied to the Ebon Dawn as well? I hope they wove these storylines together better. (No spoilers on this one, please, I'd like to see how it plays out. I'm just mentioning my thoughts on it here.)
• I tried to turn in Bentley for bootlegging, but wasn't able to. I am reminded of one of the weak points of SotA quests. We have this virtue system, but the large majority of the quests are written for you to be the hero, and raise your virtue scores. I mean, just asking somebody's name raises your Love score. Only a few quests make it clear there are "bad" choices, and a very few (if I recall correctly) allow bad choices, but don't make them obvious. End result, is that it's very hard to complete everything you need to do to get the Shroud and end up with a black one, as just the act of going through it all raises up your score. I know @Puuk liked to put "bad" choices in. I miss that guy. (He even hinted that the Skull Clipper quest in Aerie had a secret "extra bad" ending that nobody had uncovered yet.)

 

Something you may not know is that some quests can only be started by manually typing help in the dialogue box. Just FYI.

 

Yeah, I've since figured that one out, searching out what triggers the Bloody Bones quest.

 

Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves, although not quite the virtue one you mentioned. For me, it's the introduction of threads where common sense would tell us there's more to be done -- like following up on the bootlegging, or the loan that Porto mentions, or the kidnappers in the East Perennial swamp, or even, heck, finding Zorabeth to give her Horatio's letter -- but there's actually nothing to be done. They're just loose threads that it's impossible to tie up. There might be some of them that I just haven't discovered the wrap-up to -- maybe Zorabeth is in some scene I've never visited, and one day I'll be rewarded for carrying around that letter for ages. But most of them are just disappointments, and it means whenever I run into a bit of lore, I have to try to figure out whether it's really part of a quest or just another dropped thread. :-(

My impression was that Edvard didn't know about the Ebon Dawn because he was hanging around Solace Bridge, while Kinsey only found out about the cultists after reaching the outskirts. Personally -- since I haven't finished the Path of Love yet -- I'm still wondering how the undead are pouring out of the Eastreach Gap if that's where all the groups are, and if they are coming from ERG, why does the Path want me to go to the Necropolis instead? (No, I'm not looking for the answers there, still avoiding spoilers. Just noticing that from the perspective of someone experiencing it for the first time, the Eastreach/Necropolis discrepancy feels like a continuity error.)