ZAM Quest Cleanup: Agnarr

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Bobbybick, Jun 2, 2017.

  1. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    Hey Agnarr.

    I need the help of the community for a bit of ZAM tidying up. There are a lot of really old quests that haven't seen love in a number of years. Considering how popular TLP servers have been lately I'm trying to make sure the early era expansion quests are a bit more tidy and easier to read so that returning players have an easier time finding all the information they need to complete them efficiently.

    To that end I'm looking for suggestions from anyone in the community on any ZAM quest page that you feel is overall lacking or could use a bit of spring cleaning, particular from the Classic->PoP Era. Feel free to post them either in here or on the quest page itself by creating a ZAM account.

    To get an idea of what this cleanup would look like you can refer to the new Velious Armor questlines which have all been consolidated for each class (so instead of 8 quests per zone per class its just 1 big quest per zone). Or the new Enchanter Epic walkthrough.

    Also shameless promotion that Alla Premium is now $9 a year (I don't get any of this), so if you enjoy the service I highly recommend supporting it so the lights stay on.

    Anyway, I hope this doesn't violate anything RadarX.
    Machentoo, snailish and Felicite like this.
  2. Dulu Augur

    What we need is an Agnarr specific Wiki, like Project 1999 Wiki.

    https://wiki.project1999.com/

    Using ZAM when we have live, and other TLP's running concurrently is just going to get confusing.

    I'd 100% help with a Agnarr wiki project, if someone else can lead/start it.
  3. snailish Augur

    What Bobbybick, Gidono and a bunch of other active volunteer admns have been working hard at (while still doing live server updates) is reflag many things that were never era-flagged at Allakhazam over the years. Basically, right now is the best it has ever been for progression server info and it is improving.

    Allakhazam wasn't set up thinking ahead to progression and era-limited things (so nothing but quests was flagged as original era for example which means any item missing an era flag showed up the same as your banded armor). However, one of the great strengths of the site is the historic postings on stuff from users over the years. For example, I recently did the first few stages of the Cabilis necromancer skullcap quest and the posts that helped me the most were often quite old. When that happens, I like to quote the old post and say things like "This still works this way on Live, Phinny, etc.".

    Server specific wiki can accomplish a lot if people feed the info. Progression has been evolving every round (I wouldn't want to be following a Sleeper/Combine wiki for much). I actually prefer the Allakhazam "We are the most up to date snapshot of the game users have provided the community with and if there is something different about this item/quest/NPC for progression we'll reflect the current status of progression". Or in short... the way it last was known to be on live and progression. --but as Bobbybick said in the original post there is a whole lot of stuff it isn't certain that progression is running it the way it was last reported on live (or as live content).

    Note that I am not saying Allakhazam is the best at anything. Fanra's and EQresource do an amazing job of modern content and overall game knowledge. EQtraders is legendary for a reason, Samanna's and so on but this thread was an appeal for the progression community to help make Allakhazam better at old content specifically to benefit progression players.
  4. Machentoo Augur


    Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I think if you added a checklist for each of the epic 1.0 quests with just the minimum steps necessary to complete the epic, it would improve those quite a bit. Something of a tl;dr version, at the top. It's great that you have all the dialogue etc, but sorting through what is really necessary and what is optional can be tedious with all that detail.
  5. ThenaEQ Augur

    bobby ur awesome
  6. Your_Ad_Here Augur

    AhhH! And I wanted to not do this again as I spent so much working on Luclin quests.

    But I will go over what newbie quests I can, Bobbybick, cause you asked so nicely. <3
    snailish and Bobbybick like this.
  7. Gremin Augur

    Fix your advanced search so that when you hit back it doesn't erase your initial search options pls.
  8. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    Done. Special mention to Almar over at AlmarsGuides as well as the p99 Wiki for providing a nice groundwork for me to go off of instead of having to start all of these from scratch.

    Most have been rewritten or reformatted to reduce total number of steps where possible, as well as updating to reflect Live/TLP era changes to the quest(s) were applicable (RIP Undead Bard and SolB Zordakalicious Ragefire). Also I never really appreciated just how many steps the druid and ranger epics shared, sheesh.
    snailish and Machentoo like this.
  9. Machentoo Augur


    Great work. Almar's was specifically what I was thinking of.
    snailish likes this.
  10. Rhodz Augur

    Man you do great work thanks, use it all the time.
    Think a lot of us have gotten used to info being odd on TLPs, not sure how one keeps things updated given how DBG runs this.
    Big thumbs up
    snailish likes this.
  11. Rauven Augur

    Zam is just a vehicle for Malware. The owners contracted with shady ad companies and now the admins are powerless to do anything about it. I've heard of two instances in the last week of a Zeus Malware installing itself into chrome. And countless instances of spam ads redirecting pages.

    Use a Wiki instead. Or someone could make a new site and copy and paste the needed info there.
  12. Gidono https://everquest.allakhazam.com

    Rauven, since they switched over to the new ad company I haven't heard of any reports of malware. The reports I was able to confirm were from people who had a old versions of Malwarebytes installed and it was incorrectly flagging ads as malware. If you have any proof of the site installing any malware or redirecting pages within the last week, let me know so I can report it. Until then all this talk about malware is just rumors with no proof and is trying to damage the credibility of the site.

    I run a browser with no ad protection on the site all the time logged out and I have yet to get a hit on any malware or been redirected to any pages.
    Your_Ad_Here and snailish like this.
  13. Rauven Augur


    Dude, I'm going to take the word of people I've known for literal decades over yours. Your site is loaded with Malware. And telling us to click links to get proof is ridiculous.

    Tell your superiors to get rid of the ads, period or shove off.

    As of now ZAM is just a vehicle for Ransomware and Malware. Its not the helpful site it once was. And everyone should know this.

    ZAM's credibility is gone. And you're apart of it.
  14. Basak Augur

    There is an issue with some of the ads. However not to the degree that seems to be indicated. I only encounter these bad ads once every 2-3 weeks.



    I don't have these issues that you seem to indicate. As I replied to above I only have a problem ad once ever few weeks, most of the time I visit Zam I have no issues, and it is my go-to site for most of my EQ needs.
    snailish likes this.
  15. Gidono https://everquest.allakhazam.com

    I have yet to talk to any of your friends about this, literally no one has PM'd me about it since the switch to the new ad company. Were they looking at other sites when this happened? What antimalware programs were they running at the time? What browser? I mean just the basic information would be nice to have other than "hey your site has malware". Right clicking on a ad isn't going to take you to the site in the ad, you can right click to copy the link address of the image so we know which server it's coming from.

    These ad companies run thousands of ads through thousands of servers. Telling them there might be some malware without giving them at least a screenshot of the ad or a log from a antimalware program is like saying "hey, I saw something out in space". Ok where? "Somewhere". What did it look like? "I don't know". Ok....
    snailish likes this.
  16. Rauven Augur


    Because I've told them to avoid it. Why would I even trust you? You don't have a stake, you're a 'volunteer'. I don't know you. I don't even know if you have any sort of official status. For all I know you stuck a fancy title on your sig. I could do the same thing if I wanted.

    But I've been getting the word out. Not just in these forums but in discords, other forums, and in game channels. If you truly do represent ZAM as some sort of PR entity, you've got some damage control to do.

    But if that protects even one person from getting a keylogger or ransomware. Its worth it. ZAM made a bad decision with going with the ad agency they did and must live with the consequences for it. That isn't going to change, so save your breath.
  17. Gidono https://everquest.allakhazam.com

    Rauven, I am Gidono from Allakhazam, all you got to do is PM on the site and I'll tell you this is my EQ forum profile.

    I see you've been working hard telling people not to use the site but haven't lifted a finger to help us pin point the ad issues that you say we have. The reason I have a stake in this site is because I have put thousands of hours into the site on my own free time with no money from ZAM. Well I take that back, they sent me a gift card one time. I am the one who talked ZAM's GM into getting resources to the site and finding a developer to work on the item collector and finding even more resources to work on things back behind the scenes. So you can see how much of a stake I have in this site. I do this because first of all I love doing it and I love Everquest and I think giving information to the players helps the community overall and gives life to the game. There isn't some grand conspiracy going on behind the scenes, no site in their right mind wants anything to do with malware in their ads. It's bad for business. Trust me, ZAM wants all of their ads clean however they need people to report the bad ads, there is even a link underneath every ad to report them.

    I think telling people not to visit the site and telling them there is malware on the site and won't do anything to help fix the issue, spits in the faces of all of us who work hard on the site and provide a better community in Everquest. You aren't going to find a site that has near the amount of information that Allakhazam has. Literally an army of admins have worked on that site over the span of 17 years. If you think another site can pop up and provide the amount of information allakhazam has, you're crazy.
    Your_Ad_Here and snailish like this.
  18. Ticino Journeyman

    Rauven, What server do you play upon and what is your name?

    If you're so adamant about people not using this site, then stop posting about it. You are basically giving it advertisement for people to go check it out to see if what you say is true.
  19. snailish Augur

    For a time I was one of the most-active volunteers at Allakhazam. It was a ton of work to even try and keep up (this was just before Broken Mirror launch). We accomplished a few things:

    -proved that people still used the site so that Zam started putting some resources back onto it including reaching out and contacting me
    -got the routine of regular updates rolling again. We even did a half-baked job of updating for TBM
    -got permission to expand the volunteer base (Cyliena had originally talked Zam into 5ish, only 3ish of which were active. None of whom were really programming type people). This was key as I was able to go back to Gidono (and a few other background contributing types) and get him in as an admn. he had offered to help when I was being told "no more volunteers"

    This worked out really well as my real-life changed and putting 30+ hours a week into a website for a game I wasn't even playing at the time was becoming a problem (I do contribute a wee bit whenever I actively am playing still). Gidono has built an active team that is accomplishing far more in the last year than anything we have seen since the paid-staff heyday of the site. Example: convincing them to pay someone to do some development on the site. Backflagging era tags on so much stuff, progression wiki, EoK stuff and so on.

    Can I vouch for Gidono? Well, not as a real person that I know. But Gidono's actions for the EQ community speak for themselves. He/she is a champion of the EQ community. Maybe Zam is an evil distributor of malware... though that is contrary to the purpose of their main site (versus the legacy bit that the EQ site is). Help Gidono prove it so he/she can act upon it. I believe Gidono would report back to the community here if Zam was pushing malware and unwilling to act upon it. I trust Gidono.
  20. Your_Ad_Here Augur

    I keep getting a lot of 505 Gateway timeouts when I try and post stuff on Zam.

    Once I hit F5, the page takes a while to load, and my info is there. I use Chrome on both my main pc and laptop. Dunno if that's the problem or not.