Are quests the way to go?

[Nyarlathotep23]

<p>  Im trying to do some of the quests out in Antonica and I have to be honest that Im a little frustrated.  If I didnt know better it would seem like someone designed the quests to be as out of the way from each other as they possibly could.  Dont get me wrong, Im enjoying the sights of Antonica, just not every single time.  Im currently doing A Tour of Antonica and Im seriously thinking of dropping it, among others.  It has me go from one end, to the other, just to go to the other end again, and Im seeing this as a trend.  </p><p>   Furthermore, there seem to be a lot of quests that require you to kill a lot of mobs that just simply arent that numerous or only spawn at certain times of the day only to find out that the majority of them spawn in groups that are  double or triple ups.  Can I expect to see this through the rest of the game?</p>

[Lornick]

Quests aren't really terribly well scaled in the risk vs reward department.  Some quests are a major headache for the minor exp and money rewarded while others are quite easy and give high value items.  Generally, the "main" questlines are worth the time and the more obscure ones aren't.

[TheSpin]

<p>My 63 dwarf brigand was created Jun 3rd, this year.  Note he's a dwarf (good race) and a brigand (evil race).  He also has 92 aa points.</p><p>Quests are most certainly the way to go if you want to solo.  It takes a little time to figure out which quests are really worthwhile.</p><p>If you want to quest and don't know where to go you can look at <a href="http://www.eq2i.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2i.com</a> </p><p>Antonicca is a little difficult to quest in for a first time player because the quests are a little scattered.  It is the only starting area without a good chain of quests to progress through.</p><p>If I can make level 63 in a month and a half, get 92 aa, and betray from a swashbuckler to a brigand, I must be doing something right when it comes to what I spend my time doing online.  I have somewhere between 400 and 500 quests completed on this character that gave aa exp.</p>

[Ansek]

I think the key thing with quests is to find out which type you like doing and learn to recognise them when running around. For example, personally I hate the "escort" kind of quest, where an NPC walks from A to B and you need to keep them alive by killing off whatever mobs attack them. On the other hand, I quite like mindless slaughter so I do tend to enjoy the "book completion" quests. These are started by a drop, a ground spawn or by buying an incomplete book from a mage in South Qeynos / North Freeport. I love these cos you get a little bit of story fed to you each time you complete a level - the <i>Witness Statements From the Trial of Kane Bayle</i> one was completely enthralling. How they work is you read a page, kill x of y, get another page and read it, kill a of b... rinse and repeat. All the mobs tend to be in one small zone and while the quests do get a bit repetitive, you can polish off two or three quests at the same time. Rewards, in the form of cold, hard cash or phat lewtz are pitiful, but in the sense of hearing an enjoyable story that fills in a little of the background lore then the reward is more than enough for the little work involved. I enjoy them for the story alone, I have to say. You're not going to get rich doing these quests, but I find them a quite relaxing way to grind out a couple of AAs with combat experience turned off. Antonica is a bit badly designed for questing, in my opinion: there's far too much running around thinking "What now?" compared to Commonlands and Greater Faydark - with Darklight Woods being an absolute corker of a questing zone. Have a look at the questing timelines on EQ2i tho, I found then a great help for finding quest 'hubs'.

[rumblepants]

It depends how much you value the reward. In all cases the reward I look for personally is the achievement XP (if the quest nets me any, if not I drop the quest) and I will almost always finish the quest to get it. However if you don't value that as much and the other rewards are simply just not worth it then there really is no reason to frustrate your gameplay to do that. Eq2i.com is a good site to check up on the reward and see if its worth doing. I have to admit there have been 1 or 2 quests though that are rididculously tedious (Ashland Spikes in Nektulos is one that's giving me nightmares) that I've deleted them.

[Zergosch]

hi, first of all, it´s EverQuest <- *G* yes some quest can drive you mad for low valued item ;/ but me personly, i like the idea of quest where mobs you need not as often there as you do need. i also like the style that mobs can despawn at certain times for a good reason. but well, there so many quest out there, you dont need to made them all (at least if you not look at questcount´s ^ ^) so long s.t. Zergosch

[StoneySilen]

I agree the original zone quests had A LOT of these types of quests where they ran you here then there and back.  It is very annoying and is common in both Freeport/Qeynos.  If you don't want this then I would suggest Kelethin.  They learned from their mistakes and did not do nearly as many in Kelethin.  In fact when they redid Qeynos/Freeport they took out a bunch of them but there still are a bunch left.  Kelethin is much better in this regard.

[EtoilePirate]

A lot of it depends on the zone where you are.  The newer zones are much better about clustering quest givers and giving you solid progressive series.  Freeport's been revamped that way and the Commonlands are better now than they used to be, though they're still very spread out.  Steamfont's probably the best I've seen for progression. So yeah, everything's going to be all over the place.  Quests are definitely the way to go, but you don't have to do 100% of them.  There's enough content in this game that you could level a whole bunch of alts without repeating anything except the newbie experience (and even then, there are four different starting cities now).  So run around Antonica, pick up all the quests, and then do the convenient ones.  Eventually you'll be starting to grey out Antonica and raring to head off somewhere else anyway, so don't bother with the rest if you don't want to.  If you do hit 70 and find yourself still short on AA, you can always go back and mentor for some you missed. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  (But the AA thing is SO MUCH EASIER with new characters than with ones that were max-level when AAs were introduced.)

[Drokmed]

Commonlands same nonsense. Even with a horse, I'm getting tired of running across two maps per quest. Turned combat xp back on, letting some of them go gray. Time to move on.

[Nyarlathotep23]

  Thanks for the replies.  Looks like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel then.  Im already starting to see quite a few quests go grey even when I dont kill much other than what I have to to complete a quest.  Guess I will start being a little more picky about the quests that I do.

[Araxes]

Antonica is in serious need of a quest series revamp.  I haven't created a Qeynosian character in <i>years</i>, literally, for that very reason.  I cannot <b>stand </b>the inane way the quests are set up.  You're much better off doing the Kelethin quest lines, or, if you have it in you, creating an evil character and doing either Darklight Woods or Commonlands content.  The quest lines in Commonlands are very linearly structured, and much more interesting than making pies for halfings or he;ping drunken dwarves, as far as I'm concerned.  Darklight Woods is undoubtledly the most polished of any of the starting zones, and in a relatively small area you can go from level 1-20 in short order.  The quest lines are interesting, relevant, and very well laid out in terms of map travel / proximity.  Following that, if you have to be a goodie, then start in Kelethin.  Much more interesting than Antonica. 

[ke'la]

<cite>Araxes wrote:</cite><blockquote>Antonica is in serious need of a quest series revamp.  I haven't created a Qeynosian character in <i>years</i>, literally, for that very reason.  I cannot <b>stand </b>the inane way the quests are set up.  You're much better off doing the Kelethin quest lines, or, if you have it in you, creating an evil character and doing either Darklight Woods or Commonlands content.  The quest lines in Commonlands are very linearly structured, and much more interesting than making pies for halfings or he;ping drunken dwarves, as far as I'm concerned.  Darklight Woods is undoubtledly the most polished of any of the starting zones, and in a relatively small area you can go from level 1-20 in short order.  The quest lines are interesting, relevant, and very well laid out in terms of map travel / proximity.  Following that, if you have to be a goodie, then start in Kelethin.  Much more interesting than Antonica.  </blockquote> In terms of the best starting experiance for new players from1-20 to date Neriak/Darklight Woods is the best. The quests are relvent to the area you are in, you never have to go too far to find the mobs your looking for, and they do a good job of breadcrumbing you from one Quest Giver camp to the next. After that is Kelethin, only problem here is that the zone is more cut up with barriors between the Mobs of differant lvls, I think its to keep new players away from the Mobs that will instantly kill them, but I think people know to avoid those bright Red Mobs. It also does a good job of breadcrumbing you around the zone and also has the advantage of having a good portion of the rest of the trip to 70 experiance right off of it and it also bread crumbs you to the next areas such as Butcherblock mountains and then Steamfont(the best EoF zone for quests IMO). Cominlands has had a quest revamp and has the advantage of having a Quest hub from the begining(Crossroads) on the otherhand Antonica was never really designed with a quest hub so it has you running all over the place and at the same time I think it's still stuck in the early days of design, when the game was FAR from solo friendly, as such it still needs a quest revamp(look for it sometime after RoK Launches). Also if the progression of imporvments to the new player experiance in Kelethin and Neriak are anything to go by I would say the new player experiance in Turnebulas Deep(the starting zone in the Expaintion comming in Nov(RoK)) will be the best yet.

[TheSpin]

<cite>Ansek wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the key thing with quests is to find out which type you like doing and learn to recognise them when running around. For example, personally I hate the "escort" kind of quest, where an NPC walks from A to B and you need to keep them alive by killing off whatever mobs attack them. </blockquote> This just caught me as especially odd...there are pretty much 0 escort quests in EQ2.  Lots in WoW though.

[Groz]

Nyar, Somebody above mentioned eq2i.com as a great source for solo questing.  I cannot recommend this site enough.  Take a look at the <a href="http://www.eq2i.com/articles/Category:Solo_Timelines" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">solo quest timeline</a> and doing these quests as you solo.  It is a very efficient way to level and to get AA.

[Nerull]

<p>Keep in mind Antonica dates back to release of EQ2 and hasn't had all that much updated about it.  Comparing it to the new zones where quests echo off each other and seem to be streamlined is legitimate but apples and oranges. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Most of the quests are solo in Antonica but you'll find that a group of 3 is the best way to blast through everything.  If possible, make one of these 3 a movement increaser class such as ranger, bard, mystic, druid.</p><p> Along with the new Share Quest capability you'll be able to adapt to the mix of solo and heroic mobs throughout the zone.  This is a key difference between new zones and old in that older zones are mixed vegatables where new zones you tend to know when you are passing into a heroic section.  Not always, but mostly.</p>

[Ansek]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ansek wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the key thing with quests is to find out which type you like doing and learn to recognise them when running around. For example, personally I hate the "escort" kind of quest, where an NPC walks from A to B and you need to keep them alive by killing off whatever mobs attack them. </blockquote> This just caught me as especially odd...there are pretty much 0 escort quests in EQ2.  Lots in WoW though.</blockquote> *Shrug* I wouldnt know, if I see something that looks like it might be an escort quest then I run away screaming. I always assumed the numerous 'trapped' merchants and whatnot littered around the place, probably half a dozen or so to my knowledge, were escorts - certainly the 'oh noes I'm surrounded by gnolls, help me to safety' spiel they give on hailing seems to suggest it. "You mean all this time we could have been friends?" I never did them in WoW either - well, save one in Stonetalon Mountains, and then only cos it was famously bugged and a guildee wanted a screenshot for a story she was writing (RP server, y'see) Blame Joan of Arc in Age of Empires (Think if was AoE, a game of that genre anyway.) for my allergy to escorts. But my point still stands - pick and choose the quests you like for a happier gaming experience.

[TheSpin]

I believe you might be talking about the distressed merchants...they are a bit of a relic from the past....you get close to them and mobs spawn around you.  If you kill the mobs the merchant will either buy your stuff or sell you wares...it's one of the few ways to get catalogue quests in certain zones.

[Ansek]

I completely didnt know that. Intrigued now, shall kill some gnolls and investigate further! Thanks for the heads up.

[Nime]

Having only low level characters in Antonica at the moment, I understand your frustration. The only thing that's worked for me so far is to disable combat xp every so often and keep battling monsters that are blue/green to accumulate gold and items to trade on the broker for better skills and equipment. It made it easier for me to solo those quests strewn about Antonica. Also, it always helps to group when the soloing doesn't pan out.