Please, for the love of Norrath, replace the quest giver for Nebulous Newsies from volunteer guides randomly giving it out "whenever for however long" to an NPC quest giver whose spawns are on predictable times/dates, and is up for a set amount of time While guide events are fun--and I participate in many of them when I see them offered--tying a major quest with some of the best rewards in game (really nice bag and in excess of 5 million status) to volunteer guides randomly showing up and spamming general chat for a few minutes is doing a serious disservice to players. If you're not online when a guide decides to offer the quest--which is quite often not during prime time gaming hours--or if you're in a raid or dungeon group and stupidly paying attention to your group/raid rather than general chat spam, or if you have general chat turned off because it's largely populated by trolls insulting each other, arguing politics or telling Chuck Norris jokes, then you're out of luck. And please don't give me the "just follow the guide events forums" lecture, because during this recent double guild xp event the guides on my server (and probably some of the other servers as well) have NOT posted when they will be doing this, nor have they even responded to posts by players begging for it. As I understand, a guide did offer the quest on my server yesterday at around 10 am mountain time to hand it out, but that was not posted on the guide events forums and frankly a lot of us were at work and not in game when that happened. After speaking to a senior guide in EQ I was advised that the guide forums are "optional" and that most guides don't bother to use them, yet players are routinely told to go to those same forums for information about these events. If the guides themselves don't utilize them, then they are completely unreliable, so why even bother having them? All it does is increase player frustration over events like this. I understand that guides are volunteers and that they work very hard to help enhance the game for us all, and I truly do appreciate all that they do. But at the same time, things like this don't enhance the game, they make it time consuming and frustrating, engendering resentment and anger rather than good will. The best solution is to let the guides do what they do best, role play giving out fun little quests that engage players to do mini events for collection doo-dads and milk/cookies; but put the serious quests on NPC quest givers that players can find and plan around (more akin to City Festival NPCs).
If they took away the 5 Million status points that one quest rewards, nobody would care. If I had to guess, it was probably intentionally not offered during Double Guild Status XP.
eh watch the guide thread for your server. whe nthey are gonig be offering that quest move all your toons near where the guide pops up. then on the day chain log each toon to get the quest for all of your characters. that's what i did.
Let it stay with Guides. Guides need more reasons for people to take part in their activities, not less.
Because I am ENTITLED to get that quest and its rewards! It belongs to me BY RIGHT! Nope. Nope. Nope. It's a fun quest. You want to level your guild, do crafting writs. Or take the guild and everybody mentor down and do Shimmering Citadel or other old raid instances: SC delivered a ton of status per mob, and even mentored down it's still got some challenges.
Lucus, that would work if the Guides actually posted it on their forums. That's the problem, many of them don't, making the forums worse than useless, it makes them misleading. People get a false sense that if they follow the forums, as I did religiously until speaking to a senior guide and being told that most guides don't use them, that they are properly informed. Sig, your attitude is why many people shut off Gen chat and don't bother posting feedback on the forums. Civil discussion and suggestions are, at best, skimmed rather than fully read, and then responded to with childish snarky comments meant to belittle others and make you somehow appear superior. Not all players are in guilds that raid, nor do they play extensive hours where they can grind tradeskill or city writs endlessly for status, nor can they afford to be on at any time of the day or night in hopes that a guild will decide that this is the time. This is a quest that can be easily done solo or in small groups, it's fun, and doesn't require a vast investment of time. In other words, it's a quest that is ideal for the small, casual player to enjoy the game for a few hours and derive some benefit from it. And because this quest content has become "stale" it's not offered nearly as often as it initially was, so a missed opportunity is a big deal to these casual players. Or do they not have a right to enjoy the game too because they have jobs and families that limit their playtime and make them more scheduling dependent?
I love the newsies quest! All my Everfrost toons (~30) have picked it up with the exception of my two newest - they will pick it up today (New Halas, 5:00 PM PDT). The status is awesome, but the newsies bag is also worth doing the quest for... I like it when guides use broadcast rather than general chat to let folks know they are available, as broadcast gives an audible tone.
I can tell you from experience that if you post on the guide forums requesting a certain quest at a certain time, they do their best to accommodate you. Have you tried posting there? They are a great bunch of people, and I disagree wholeheartedly about taking it away from them.
Ya'll are talking about one of the most important aspects of the EverQuest franchise. In EQ1 the GM's would have these servr events that rewards people with mythicals and some of the best stuff in the entire game. GM's would become massive dragons or giants or even 1 inch tall brownies that hit for 1 million each hit. The GM events were some of my most fond memories in EQ1. The EQ2 GM's were not given the power of the GMs in EQ1. As a result we seen Guides start doing these quests, or at least a **** version of EQ1 GM quests. The rewards should be awesome! That said, I am firmly against altering any of those quests. In fact I recommend giving the Guides more incentive and tools to do it better! It does pain me to say that because I'm trying to level my alt guild and that 5 mil is sooooo sexy.
Stab, I remember those events well, and you're right, they made the game and are sorely missed now. And I would love to see guides doing more and having more autonomy to create and run major events like giant trolls or dragons or brownies laying waste to zones. I don't advocate reducing their abilities at all, I would love to see them doing more than handing out milk and cookies. But with regard to this quest--and it *is* now an established quest, not a spontaneous guide event--they've let it fall to the wayside to the detriment of many new or returning players.
Lets keep in mind that our "Guides of the Shattered Lands" are volunteers and do their Guide quests when they can. They don't always have time to post when a quest will be given out. They are very accommodating when a request is posted on the guide forums. They have a RL to deal with and do the best they can for their server. Lets not be dissing the Guides and taking quests away from what is one of the best sources of community involvement in the game.
I just picked it up last night on Permafrost. For 9 characters. I have all weekend to finish it for double status points. Too bad none of the 9 are high enough to get 'r done.
When anyone says someone can do/have their "little" whatever they are dissing or belittling them. It's not likely to change because if the powers that be wanted that quest available on a regular basis they would have already put in on an NPC. First you say take the serious quests from them because they shouldn't do them, then you say you'd love to have them be able to do serious quests. Pick one. And stop dissing our guides - they're completely volunteer, take time out of their own busy lives to give fun quests to others, and don't owe you a blessed thing.
