Why EQ2 Lore Sucks #2: Adventure quests require harvesting skill.

Illuminator · 11-01-2009, 06:26 AM

Remember years ago when the devs nerfed mastercrafted gear because they didn’t want us to “dig our gear out of the ground”? Let’s look at the ways since then that they have regardless forced us to dig our quest gear out of the ground.

I remember doing the Claymore questline on an alt some years ago, and I got to this part in Sanctum where I had to copy down something written in a book. Could I tear out a page? No. Could I write it down with a quill pen on a stray piece of paper? No. Get this: I had to kill droags to write down the information on their wings, and the only thing I could write with was rocks from inside the Sanctum. Now it might just be me, but I don’t see too many books in Norrath that use droag wings instead of paper. Like the rest of you, I was being played for a fucking fool. I had to abort my deep tedious Sanctum grind with orange mobs and no tank because my level 65 arcane expert managed to slay dragons and giants without knowing how to break a rock.

Remember the Troubador epic? Forget fired, somebody should have gotten shot point blank for that. Get this: You had to HARVEST 10 Xegonite clusters to summon some asshole. I wasted an entire Saturday and half a Sunday clicking on rocks in TT. I was furious. And then when the 10 clusters disappeared from my inventory I was livid.

It happened again with the Warlock epic. You had to harvest 6 mantrap roots and 10 smoldering material. Have you ever tried doing this in a T8 zone with sparse nodes?

And then the opening quest for the Flowing Black Robe HQ has this faggoty dialog:

Quote:

Toggery Von Gearbender says to you, “That would be fantastic! Okay, so what I need is a fresh sample of Ebon ore from here in Lavastorm Mountains.”
You say to Toggery Von Gearbender, “I can go see about buying you one if you like.”
Toggery Von Gearbender says to you, “Are you dense or something? I said FRESH sample. I need it to be freshly harvested and it MUST be from within the Lavastorm Mountains to work for the research I am doing.”
You say to Toggery Von Gearbender, “You think the top researchers of Norrath got everything handed to them on a platinum platter? I think not! Get out there and do some back breaking manual labor for once!”

Jesus Christ I’m just stupefied. You mean to imply that mastercrafted ebon armor is no good because the ebon is from the broker and NOT FRESH ENOUGH?? If the quest forces me to harvest it instead of obtaining it by other means when I am well out of the presence of the NPC for possibly over an hour, then we must logically assume it is canon that this is indeed the case. Yes that is a ludicrous statement, and yes it illustrates how little I think of the quest writers.

But here comes the dev slap in the face when you return with the ebon:

Quote:

Toggery Von Gearbender says to you, “Oh good you are back! Did you get my Fulginate sample?”
You say to Toggery Von Gearbender, “Wait what?! You said you wanted Ebon.”
Toggery Von Gearbender says to you, “I said no such thing! Are you insane or something? You know hearing things is one of the first signs of insanity. Shhh! Deloris, I don’t need to know about your ingrown toenail.”

I won’t tell you how long it took me to grind up harvesting and actually find an ebon in the shithole that is Lavastorm, because I’m ashamed of it. I would probably feel about as dirty as this if someone paid me ten million dollars to suck Barack Obama’s communist dick.

If an NPC requires you to “dig a fresh rock” rather than provide one otherwise then that stupid son of a bitch should trigger flashing red lights that tells you s/he is full of shit and is DESIGNED TO WASTE YOUR TIME. There is no game experience from this; the dev are essentially telling you that you are a cash cow and they do not respect you. So why are you going to respect them? I want some generic diamonds but I don’t want you to buy them from DeBeers even if you’re rich, instead I demand you FLY TO SOUTH AFRICA WITH A FUCKING SHOVEL. Ask yourself: are Blizzard devs this lazy in their presentation of plausibility?

Harvesting is a crafter skill, right up there with tinkering and transmuting and scribing and whatever the fuck else. It is not an adventuring skill. Requiring harvesting to complete an adventuring quest is like requiring crafting to complete it, only the devs didn’t give us the proper rational shortcut around it like consignment or the free market. This is why players and even other devs learn to bot EQ2. Players either complain about bullshit like this as they should, or they automate it and walk away.

I’m also amazed how the devs rushed to trivialize swimming when there is nothing in the game that requires 400/400 swimming, whereas you can still piss away a whole evening grinding up harvesting through all the misses and erratically alternating nodes.

Aeralik once said that Captain Fifty Statues (Vhalen?) originally wanted players to harvest like 100 or 400 rares or something in their epic quests. Little comments like that let you know who your enemies are in this game.

Pink Poodle · 11-01-2009, 05:16 PM

You know now that you mention it, a swimming quest could be kickass. i.e. you have to swim quickly enough in time or something.

Deson · 11-01-2009, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuminator

Remember years ago when the devs nerfed mastercrafted gear because they didn’t want us to “dig our gear out of the ground”? Let’s look at the ways since then that they have regardless forced us to dig our quest gear out of the ground.

I remember doing the Claymore questline on an alt some years ago, and I got to this part in Sanctum where I had to copy down something written in a book. Could I tear out a page? No. Could I write it down with a quill pen on a stray piece of paper? No. Get this: I had to kill droags to write down the information on their wings, and the only thing I could write with was rocks from inside the Sanctum. Now it might just be me, but I don’t see too many books in Norrath that use droag wings instead of paper. Like the rest of you, I was being played for a fucking fool. I had to abort my deep tedious Sanctum grind with orange mobs and no tank because my level 65 arcane expert managed to slay dragons and giants without knowing how to break a rock.

Remember the Troubador epic? Forget fired, somebody should have gotten shot point blank for that. Get this: You had to HARVEST 10 Xegonite clusters to summon some asshole. I wasted an entire Saturday and half a Sunday clicking on rocks in TT. I was furious. And then when the 10 clusters disappeared from my inventory I was livid.

It happened again with the Warlock epic. You had to harvest 6 mantrap roots and 10 smoldering material. Have you ever tried doing this in a T8 zone with sparse nodes?

And then the opening quest for the Flowing Black Robe HQ has this faggoty dialog:

Jesus Christ I’m just stupefied. You mean to imply that mastercrafted ebon armor is no good because the ebon is from the broker and NOT FRESH ENOUGH?? If the quest forces me to harvest it instead of obtaining it by other means when I am well out of the presence of the NPC for possibly over an hour, then we must logically assume it is canon that this is indeed the case. Yes that is a ludicrous statement, and yes it illustrates how little I think of the quest writers.

But here comes the dev slap in the face when you return with the ebon:

I won’t tell you how long it took me to grind up harvesting and actually find an ebon in the shithole that is Lavastorm, because I’m ashamed of it. I would probably feel about as dirty as this if someone paid me ten million dollars to suck Barack Obama’s communist dick.

If an NPC requires you to “dig a fresh rock” rather than provide one otherwise then that stupid son of a bitch should trigger flashing red lights that tells you s/he is full of shit and is DESIGNED TO WASTE YOUR TIME. There is no game experience from this; the dev are essentially telling you that you are a cash cow and they do not respect you. So why are you going to respect them? I want some generic diamonds but I don’t want you to buy them from DeBeers even if you’re rich, instead I demand you FLY TO SOUTH AFRICA WITH A FUCKING SHOVEL. Ask yourself: are Blizzard devs this lazy in their presentation of plausibility?

Harvesting is a crafter skill, right up there with tinkering and transmuting and scribing and whatever the fuck else. It is not an adventuring skill. Requiring harvesting to complete an adventuring quest is like requiring crafting to complete it, only the devs didn’t give us the proper rational shortcut around it like consignment or the free market. This is why players and even other devs learn to bot EQ2. Players either complain about bullshit like this as they should, or they automate it and walk away.

I’m also amazed how the devs rushed to trivialize swimming when there is nothing in the game that requires 400/400 swimming, whereas you can still piss away a whole evening grinding up harvesting through all the misses and erratically alternating nodes.

Aeralik once said that Captain Fifty Statues (Vhalen?) originally wanted players to harvest like 100 or 400 rares or something in their epic quests. Little comments like that let you know who your enemies are in this game.

The only thing I can disagree with is your ignoring how much shame 10 million dollars can erase.

Edit: Forgot,harvesting is neither crafting nor adventuring. I've no issue with the usage in quests but the examples listed are all bad design.

Grymmstone · 11-02-2009, 12:59 PM

Personally, if they want to put harvest quest components in game... they should:

1.) Make the harvested node be for a 1-9 zone where you harvest rares nodes about every fifth strike.

-or-

2.) Make the "rare harvested item" appear on each harvest like many of the harvest quests that Domino put in game.

Stubbswick · 11-02-2009, 01:45 PM

I got one character up to 400 harvesting in everything. Then I vowed never to do it again. Ever.

Then I keep running into these quests.

Sturges · 11-03-2009, 08:39 PM

the warlock harvesting was actually quite easy if you can find some good spots... i got it done 3 separate times and the longest it took was 3 hours.

but it does suck that you need your skills at t8 level

Kriptini · 11-06-2009, 03:35 AM

Give us back the "E-Z Skill Up" spots. I.E., the school of kolandil in North Qeynos. It used to be the case where every time you clicked "fish," you would catch nothing and your skill would go up by one.

mafoe · 11-06-2009, 02:27 PM

Time sinks are bad.

Sneaks · 11-06-2009, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuminator

Harvesting is a crafter skill, right up there with tinkering and transmuting and scribing and whatever the fuck else. It is not an adventuring skill. Requiring harvesting to complete an adventuring quest is like requiring crafting to complete it, only the devs didn’t give us the proper rational shortcut around it like consignment or the free market.

I must have missed where this quest was designated as an adventuring quest. I assume you mean anyone with a feather over their head? If we apply your rational, I guess crafting writs would also be considered adventuring quests since you can't consign them or buy the finished goods off the market to complete them. How dare SOE make me craft my own shit?! /boggle

The quest is crystal clear. Go dig up a fucking rare rock. Who said there would be adventure on the horizon?

Got a problem with harvesting? Don't do the fucking quest! The questline doesn't prevent you from getting anything of real value other than a fluff appearance cloak, so get over it.

Kaladryn · 11-11-2009, 08:29 PM

I know nobody's forced to do the quests, but I think Illuminator's point is that it's lame that many of the quests in game are

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuminator

DESIGNED TO WASTE YOUR TIME.

And if you're a lore junky and want to immerse yourself in this game, it really sucks when quests are designed this way. The tedious, pointless tasks make one become disconnected from any story being developed.

I feel the same way about the Lore and Legend quests. If I have to study a body part, then why do I have to kill a number of them before I get the part I need? For example, if I need a "Gnoll Eye," shouldn't there be two on every gnoll I kill? (Granted, some might be damaged from the fight, but make it a little more realistic - also, it's a fantasy game, I know, but there needs to be some degree of logic).

Insert some sense into some of the more ridiculous quests, and I'll remove my complaints.