A Ranger's Tale

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by demoria7, May 13, 2014.

  1. demoria7 Elder

    I just wanted to say thank you EQ. This was one of the best quest I have done in a long time. The dragon flying and landing was not too bad for an old game...... the story was cool. It was a lot of fun. A bit too easy but I really liked the story.
  2. Feradach Augur

    I like it too. The morale of the story? Paladins are buttheads and rangers die. That's just what they do.
    Elricvonclief and Axxius like this.
  3. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    The story is cool, pretty much sums up rangers and paladins.

    Having run through it a few times now, I wish there was a way to speed up the script, I spend half the mission now waiting on the script to update so I can proceed.

    180 coins now still got to run this one lots more. :(

    Neriak one is good too, thats my fav mission to run good story and doesn't take long either. :)
  4. Ratbo Peep Augur

    Just ran it for the 1st time yesterday - just to see it.
    Liked it a lot. Don't plan to repeat it soon, but thought it was very well done.
    -Rat
  5. Elegist Elder

    When running it multiple times, a few things can help: say "no" to popup texts when asked if you want to see them, to reduce screen clutter. And on most steps, you can simply perform the next action in your quest window without waiting for the dialogues to play out. The actors should skip to their proper places when you do so. One of the exceptions to this is when you talk to Bryan and have him reforge the bow. You'll need to wait for that scene to finish before heading out into the village and getting your task to update.

    Let me know if you see any issues when trying to speed up the quest. And I'm glad it was enjoyable!
  6. Riou EQResource


    Half the time we do it the Dragon bugs out and warps to the large portion of the zone (east of the gypsies or so) on the final fight part, so we have to spend like a minute or 2 to run to it then it takes 10 minutes for it to path to the lore spot by the ranger to be able to finish it off :p, total time on this alone is > rest of the quest combined :(
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  7. Elegist Elder

    Strange. If you can PM the repro steps, I'll look into it.
    Cazmac and Gyurika Godofwar like this.
  8. Edrick Augur

    The open endedness of the way you could solve quests was really cool. I wouldn't mind seeing that more in game.

    But really, the fastest way to complete the mission is to be a jerk at every step except the druids. Steal from the gypsies. Kill the spider lady. Kill Bathazar to steal his key.

    So the moral of the story is to be a jerk to get things done. Ellyria, I don't think Everquest is teaching me good values because of this quest.
  9. Elegist Elder

    But do you feel better when you're nice to everyone? Do you do things the kinder way even if it takes you longer and gives no more tangible reward in the end? I know when I'm playing a game, even though I'm dealing with NPCs, I sometimes still feel bad if I'm a jerk to them. So, I wondered how people would react -- some choosing to be kind, others choosing just to get things done the fastest way possible.
  10. Rorce Augur


    Please tell me the results are being logged and we can view which route people chose after the mission is taken down!
  11. Edrick Augur

    The first time, I went the nice guy route. After that, I went the halfling route.

    By the way, Elegist (I typed the wrong dev earlier, you both start with El!,) I wasn't serious about the game teaching me to be a jerk to get things done - its just funny how it worked out that way in the quest.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  12. hakmer Augur

    was helping a necro do this quest .. he irritated me so when we got to balthezar i politely told him to drop invis and go "hail" balthazar. Then i laughed at the ensuing comments he had for me. I figure that was a good way to teach a necro in a group to not play like he is soloing.
    Cazmac likes this.
  13. Rauven Augur


    This depends on the character I'm playing. Remember not all characters in EQ are do-gooders. A Teir'dal Shadowknight is about as nasty and vile as you can get. I find it really cool when a game offers a means of playing the nice guy, scoundrel, or even something worse. It lets you really play the character role you're meant to play. Even non-RPers like to be engaged in quests of that nature.
  14. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    i have an evil streak.

    All druids have to die, especially halflings and wood elves with treants.
    Qeynos guards have to die for not standing up for themselves more and for not getting rid of the dragon wearing my underwear on its head.
    Spider and lions die....just because...oh and the dogs which insist on attacking me when I wander around uninvs end up dead as well. They started it!

    I've stolen from gypsies, killed the spider lady and killed aviaks but the above is my prefered method of doing this quest.

    I tend to zone in hail Sir Morgan, hail Fen, run over to the house and wait for Sir Morgan and the Squire to stop bickering and Fen to warp to me, hail him again to get the update, run around killing everything and collecting both parts of the bow, the silk, the feathers and the branches.

    Do the hand in and hails, Wait on Bryan to stop babbling with the other 2.

    Sit at the update spot for the dragon. Mark the dragon so I can see where it is without having to look up, move to the next update spot while waiting for the dragon to kill everyone

    Sit and wait for the 3 idiots to catch up to trigger the next part to follow the dragon again.

    Wait for the dragon to spawn the broodlings

    Wait for the dragon to spawn the whelps

    Wait for the dragon to land and spawn the whelps.

    Wait for the idiot ranger to die, finish killing the dragon, hail Fen (calling him an idiot doesn't work) and drop the task.
    Feradach likes this.
  15. Filatal Augur

    I ran it a few times, and yea, I go the jerk route. Which oddly, in most RPG type games, I usually try to be the good guy ( I can't tell you how many times I replayed Planescape to go the evil route, and would always screw up and pick a nice guy response somewhere along the way ). The only complaint is have is apparently to get the reward you have to NOT tell Fen to fire on the dragon. Honestly, I haven't yet noticed when it tells you CAN tell him to fire ( though there is so much dialogue, I may have missed it at some point ). Just seems odd you get a reward for basically inaction.
  16. Elegist Elder

    If you tell Fen to fire, it prevents the dragon from using his breath attack, so it makes the fight a bit easier. So, if you do the fight the harder way, you get the reward.

    It's interesting to me how many people pick their classes and roleplay them according to good or evil alignment. Do you try to make choices that you think your character would make? Or is your character's moral compass more of an afterthought, something that is created as an extension of your play style? It's certainly valid to play as good or evil characters, and that's also one reason I wanted people to be able to tackle the quest in different ways. I'm just curious as to what motivates different people to take the courses of action that they take.

    Thanks for the interesting responses!
    Cazmac likes this.
  17. Bart Journeyman

    I chose my characters for such a reason, all of my toons are Human Agnostic and Barb Tribunal, I like to think the Humans could talk the Barbs into what ever needed to be done and have the majority vote. So basically evil or good means nothing to me, it is all about doing what needs to be done.
  18. Ratbo Peep Augur

    In the case of this quest - I made the choices a "good Ranger" would make - more than not.
    Killing Druids at the the request of some Bandit Leader didn't seem like a good idea at all. Even before the Squire could say anything, I was sizing up their camp for a quick pull strategy to take him down.
    The Gypsies? I didn't particularly want to kill them. But, I also knew that they had something that was not theirs - and I wasn't about to waste time buying it back with favor. So I opened the barrels. Those foolish enough to attack got punted. The one that refused to stay punted and go away quietly? We'll all miss her. :)
    As for the treants? I didn't know about the beetle option, but I wasn't going to kill Druids to get what I wanted.
    The trees didn't have particularly endearing names either. The only trick was to single pull the trees and leave the Druids alone to grow some new ones. I gifted them some job security. :)
    Hunting some Aviaks for plumage and Spiders for silk - well that's what Rangers do best anyway.
    -Rat
    Moral of my tale: You attack or summon the guy in the group holding the big blades? You get what you get.
  19. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    Evil is fun. Anything other than the noble hero good guy choice, which I think is overdone (and unrealistic). After a while, saving the princess/kingdom, and the common expectation of altruism in RPGs becomes boring. Quests in EQ where you have to be evil are a lot more memorable (burning houses in that DE Kithicor quest comes to mind, and Iksar/DE lore in general). In other games, Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood questline is probably one of the best examples. Quests where you can be somewhere in the middle of good and evil are interesting as well (being sneaky, socially manipulative, etc).

    What makes this quest in particular fun is that you have different choices.
  20. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I am a Erudite wizzy and we are far better than those tree hugging druids!

    When I picked the wizzy her race was the one with the most int, her god on the other hand is quellious and based off my decision of who I wanted her to be, it was the description which fitted me best. The class itself was more to do with my love of mythology and basically having shelves and shelves or wizard and dragon ornaments (151 last count).

    I play as my mood takes me. :) Sometimes I am walking death and destruction and anything getting in my way will be a splat on the landscape, other times I kill the bare minimum and I'm a goodie goodie.

    I do like the idea of having different options to complete a mission based on your morals. The only problem with that occurs when you have a mixed group of good and evil, DoN progression was a pain at times if you had a mixed group. :)

    I like the choices I can make, I much prefer this to the HAs where the RNG decides which route I must take. It is more interesting to run through quests and missions multi times if there is more than 1 outcome or ways to complete it.
    feiddan likes this.