Black Box Mechanimation bugged - cant complete

[Agaxiq]

Black Box Mechanimation is the quest where you would insert Black Boxes into the Inactive Clockwork in the pit in Steamfont. Previously, the Black Boxes were tradable, and you could always loot them from the corpses of the Collection Prognosticators. Now, unless you are on the Little Black Box quest, you can't loot them anymore, like it was a language quest. "There are no items that you can loot" ...and Finbert Lintzig used to give you a few Black Boxes as well.  Now he doesn't. Looks like they went really out of their way to make sure we couldn't finish this quest <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> agressiv

[Lilj]

Agaxax@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>Black Box Mechanimation is the quest where you would insert Black Boxes into the Inactive Clockwork in the pit in Steamfont. Previously, the Black Boxes were tradable, and you could always loot them from the corpses of the Collection Prognosticators. Now, unless you are on the Little Black Box quest, you can't loot them anymore, like it was a language quest. "There are no items that you can loot" ...and Finbert Lintzig used to give you a few Black Boxes as well.  Now he doesn't. Looks like they went really out of their way to make sure we couldn't finish this quest <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> agressiv </blockquote>I don't know if I am reading you wrong, but it seems to me you are saying you can loot the box, if you are on the quest and then you say you can't finish it. If they drop and you can loot them, if you are on the quest, what is the problem?

[ravenz]

Basicaly what he/ she is saying is that you can get the black boxes prior to the stage of the quest, You obtain 5 or 6 black boxes and give them to the NPC who then asks for some more components and makes the black boxes workable so that you can then power up the deactive clockwork. However after you have got the initial 5 - 6 boxes you can not loot anymore.. And the npc will not give you them. I have petitioned this and responce was the normal-- passed onto the quality dept who if they can reproduce the bug will then look into a fix ... Basically check the patch notes they may fix it after ROK <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> PS - I did try reboot , deleted quest , obtained quest again same bug. If broken at this time and bah to it for now <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Agaxiq]

Yeah.  I guess the summary would be - you can't loot the black boxes while you are on this quest, and there is no other way to obtain them - yet you need them for the quest itself. It was working fine before, its a pain to obtain them anyways since those guys don't always drop them - much like the orc cooks in Zek - which is why when the boxes were tradable it was much easier.  Now its just a timesink. agressiv

[Vollux]

<p>I can cofirm this bug also happened to two friends last night.  We tried deleting the quest and rehailing the NPC for a box- no go.  I think this may have been a bug in the quest before but we always just went and looted a box to stick in the busted up clockwork.  Now you can't just go loot another black box after the NPC fails to give you one.  </p>

[Lilj]

<cite>ravenz wrote:</cite><blockquote>Basicaly what he/ she is saying is that you can get the black boxes prior to the stage of the quest, You obtain 5 or 6 black boxes and give them to the NPC who then asks for some more components and makes the black boxes workable so that you can then power up the deactive clockwork. However after you have got the initial 5 - 6 boxes you can not loot anymore.. And the npc will not give you them. I have petitioned this and responce was the normal-- passed onto the quality dept who if they can reproduce the bug will then look into a fix ... Basically check the patch notes they may fix it after ROK <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> PS - I did try reboot , deleted quest , obtained quest again same bug. If broken at this time and bah to it for now <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>Ah, I see and thanks for the summery. That's bad, I hope a fix will come soon for this *crosses her fingers and toes*

[Seffrid]

Same here. I looted the black boxes ok, no worries over the rarity of the drops that was fine. Handed them in and got an advance in the quest journal to say I had been given the boxes and should install them at the crater, but they're not in my inventory and the only option on offer at the crater is to do nothing.

[Lordlars]

 yep  now 8/18  and quest is still bugged.   After turn in of Boxes to NPC, quest updates but the 3 boxes the NPC supposedly gives back to you are not actually put into inventory, so can't activate the Inoperative Clockwork.

[Typhonian]

Definitely bugged and I've reported it as well.

[Belaythien]

A GM on my server confirmed that it is bugged. Our raid had to wait 15-20 minutes because the GM worked on the petition of our main tank right at that time <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Somehow he helped fix the problem and told everybody who had the same problem to write a petition.

[ScaleBalancer]

same here, i have been trying to finish this quest on and off for over a month, i have deleted and re-received it several times, the inoperative Clockwork does not offer the "put in black boxes'' option any more,   i hope they fix this soon.

[Calare]

I am unable to complete this quest either (obviously) just making another confirmation post.  It's August 28.Calare Nebra70 TemplarEverfrostParagon

[Murzin]

<p>still bugged, abandoning and re zonning without quest and getting dont help...</p><p>i really need some good legs <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Zichius]

<p>Still bugged, can't complete on 2 toons.</p><p>Black boxes disappeared after LU, so i do not have the pieces to fit in Optricon.</p><p>Click only shows do nothing option.</p><p>Deleting quest and retaking from NPC bring me back to EXACTLY the same point i was ... OMG.</p><p>So NO WAY to get other black boxes......</p><p>Crapp eheh</p>

[Silvarae]

send an in game request and a GM will come to you and update your quest to the point you need to turn it in. doing a bug report doesnt seem to do the trick, just do the petition. mine only take a day after putting in petition to see a GM.

[littleman17]

That is all well and good Silva, but that is besides the point. We /should not/ have to petition every time we want to complete this quest on a toon. They should just go ahead and fix the darn thing, or remove the no trade tag from the boxes and make them show up on the mobs even if you are not on the first quest in the series.

[Wilin]

I had the same problem. I activated and engaged the final clockwork and went LD during the fight. When I eventually came back, I had died and could no longer activate the clockwork or get any new boxes.

[Cadaveria]

I /bug'd and /petition'd this issue, and the only response I got from a GM was that it was a known issue. Seems that this has been going on for over a month now. RoK better be mindblowing, because things have kind of been on a downward spiral since GU37.Devs (or anyone for that matter), please look into these issues and correct them. I can't imagine this is a complicated issue to resolve...

[Thoronve]

Today (Sept 22) still broken.... Got to the point where you need to insert the boxes into the inactive clockwork (although it is named an INOPERATIVE clockwork - could this be the bug?) been sitting with open petition for 30 mins now, and decided to use /browser in-game... glad i came here. Now I'll go and do other things instead.... BTW Sorry for poor formatting, but /browser does NOT allow you to reply to a post (no cursor), but there is an option of 'quick reply' at the bottom of the page - which is what I'm using and hope this submits ok... -Thoronve-

[Flufflebuns]

Yup, still broken.  I did not go linkdead.  There wasn't a patch between parts of the quest.  I simply went to the guy to turn in black boxes, he told me to install them in the broken clockwork.  I (and my groupmate) went straight there and we weren't able to fix it.  That's when we noticed that the black boxes had apparently disappeared from our inventory when we talked to the gnome.It's too bad.  I will level before this is repaired, and it will be a gray quest. 

[Elwin]

<cite>Flufflebuns@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yup, still broken.  I did not go linkdead.  There wasn't a patch between parts of the quest.  I simply went to the guy to turn in black boxes, he told me to install them in the broken clockwork.  I (and my groupmate) went straight there and we weren't able to fix it.  That's when we noticed that the black boxes had apparently disappeared from our inventory when we talked to the gnome.It's too bad.  I will level before this is repaired, and it will be a gray quest. </blockquote><p>Same and it's driving me nuts. Deleted it.. started again.. tried to get more black boxes... failed.</p><p>Please fix it SOE... <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> </p>

[Elessara]

<p>October 6th ... still bugged.</p><p>Ele~</p>

[Jrral]

Suggestion: report it with /bug instead of /petition. /bug goes straight to the QA team, it doesn't go through the GMs. That eliminates the chance of it getting miscategorized, misfiled or otherwise lost.

[feldon30]

Group of 5 here just wasted an hour on this quest and now we can't complete. Did an official bug report and indicated issue has existed since Aug 2007 and reported on EQ2 forum.

[Jaradcel]

Still bugged. I /petitioned it and the only response was "We're looking into it" Which is ridiculous as not 40 minutes before I had to petition, another guy had a GM warp in and give him the 3 boxes to advance the quest. *sighs*

[Elwin]

<p>I guess its still bugged... I've leveled past worrying about it now.</p><p>FIX IT SOE! </p>

[Xelphneigh]

Oct 22, still bugged, at least for me.. Asked in chat and someone said they did it 3 weeks ago.. I call BS unless they had a GM help them but on a pvp server you can't just sit around waiting for a GM, lol.  *Sigh*

[KaiZas]

Ofcourse, hasn't been that long, but 25th of October and still bugged :p

[Mighty Melvor]

<p>Isn't this quest required to get to about a dozen other quests (quest-line) in Gnomeland Security?  If so, I'm shocked that this isn't resolved yet.</p><p>Shame on you SOE!</p>

[Hoserbaba]

October 26th, still bugged. Even the ingame /petition bugged on me <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Jrral]

<cite>Hoserbaba wrote:</cite><blockquote>October 26th, still bugged. Even the ingame /petition bugged on me <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Did you /bug it? You can /petition to get the boxes, but if you don't /bug the problem the people who need to know about it to get it fixed won't be being told about it.

[Flufflebuns]

It's been broken since August. Of course it's been bug reported. I've reported it a few times myself. It was probably reported hundreds of other times by those that don't even visit the forums. Also, bug reporting doesn't result in a GM coming to update the quest for you. It greyed out on me ages ago, so I deleted it.

[Jrral]

<cite>Flufflebuns@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also, bug reporting doesn't result in a GM coming to update the quest for you. It greyed out on me ages ago, so I deleted it.</blockquote>Exactly. /petition goes to the GMs, who can probably give you the boxes. /bug goes to the QA people who can confirm that the problem exists and get it in the queue to be fixed permanently. If the problem's reported via /petition only, it likely <i>won't</i> make it over to QA which means it'll never get scheduled to get fixed. The people in this thread who've said how they reported it have only mentioned doing it via /petition.