Normally I am on Freeport Server. Which I swear to this day, was a former copy of the Test Server. When I first started there,(4 yrs ago), there were Guide Quest NPCs, Permanently posted through the lands. Great Little Items like a Fairy Lanterns, Glowing Bottles and Decorative Axes, were available to my characters, every day, every night...24/7. Holidays were especially nice, because no matter when I finally got to play, they were there and I got my special Holiday items from the Guide Quest NPCs. These Guide Quest NPCs are still (thankfully) , still on the Test Server. Then the next Major Expansion came and things changed from EQ2X to the way things are now. They removed the Guide Quest NPCs too(. In the years since, I can honestly say I was lucky enough to get to participate in 3 TOTAL, Guide Events. One Holiday one, the rest were for the Holiday Robes, Outside New Halas. Now I play on 3 different servers, all different hours. I have only been fortunate enough to get one character's Holiday Guide Quest Item, from Frostfell. Very, very sad. There are many who have never SEEN a Guide and been playing several years. Don't get me wrong...I love it when Guides are available and pop in, in person; to give us these wonderfully special quests. But they are Far too Few and far between. I have 2 characters, that in 3 yrs, haven't the Guide Quest Holiday items from ANY Holiday event. If nothing else. PLEASE Put back the Guide Quest NPCs, even if it's just for the Holiday Items. I spoke to a Guide Recently, who didn't even know of the NPCs I spoke of. I miss getting these items, even if it's just for Holidays. But year after year, SO very many people, miss out...just because they weren't on for the rare 15 minutes, the Guides are available of any random server. Last Guide Posted on Oasis, was in November, 2012. Nothing is Posted for Tinkerfest, for any server, and it's almost over! Please, please....put the Guide Quest NPCs back, and make them available on all servers.
Hi Samplesize! Thank you for your post. It's always nice to know that folks are keeping a keen eye out for the Guides. If you click on threads for each server that you've mentioned, you'll find that we post updates in the same thread rather than create new threads for a new post. This way, it's easier for everyone to keep track of what rumors are happening for their specific servers. For example, if you click on the Freeport News thread, Penthesalea posted just yesterday with some distressing news of a halfling in need of assistance on the 12th. As for Oasis, the Fun and Games are happening all the time, with Kyndal's latest tidbit of gossip coming in from those lands just this past Wednesday. I do hope that this helps you enjoy more events in the future.
Please don't forget about us on the splitpaw server I just found out about these and been playing since 2005 so I really would love a visit too splitpaw
While I love our guide group on Freeport, we seem to get the exact same quests over and over again, What about the Glow as brightly quest? I've only been able to participate once since our npc's disappeared and the guides took over. I too mis being able to ON MY TIME TABLE be able to do these quests. I am very seldom on when our guides are on. I started a char on Nagafen just for the heck of it and found the guide npc for glow as brightly right by the bridge where he used to be on freeport and it just made me sad that we no longer have this option. We also DON"T have the LON museum like other servers do
Although having static NPC's had certain advantages. understand they were only there because guides weren't allowed on those servers. They were a kindness the devs did to the two servers (Bazaar and Freeport) who couldn't have guides. They didn't get all quests, only a very few of them. I MUCH prefer the guide program as it's meant to be and would never want to go back to the way it was. Those quests exist to be run by guides, not the static NPCs. Be sure and check out your server's guide thread. I find it nearly impossible to monitor level 1-9 chat (where they usually announce) and stumbling upon them out in the world has a low chance of success! As to the no LON museum, that is weird. I can't imagine why we'd not get that!
While I love the idea of actual guides, I have not had good luck with them. I would love static NPCs even if they were only available at certain times/days. The first time I tried a guide quest, it started off well; the guide had a feather and everything, and a quest showed up in my journal. I completed the quest up to the last step, which was to return to the quest-giver, and when I returned, the quest-giver was gone so I couldn't complete it. This was about forty minutes after the quest start. ( The actual quest didn't take too long, but I had some trouble finding the quest starter because it was in an area I was unfamiliar with.) The second time I tried a quest, I found the guide easily, although there was no feather. The only area I knew for sure had the items I needed to collect was quite a ways across the zone, so although I was able to turn in and complete the quest, I didn't enjoy it much because I was too worried about getting back before the guide disappeared. The third time I tried a quest, it was in a zone I hadn't been in before, and I wasn't sure what to do. I waited until other characters were gone (to not break immersion for them) and asked the guide for help, but all I got back were in-character repeats of the instructions I couldn't understand. After about 10 minutes (some time was delays while waiting for other characters to move away) I gave up and haven't bothered to do a guide event since. I will probably try again in the future but only in zones I am familiar with. Most of the guide quests are during working hours for me, so I have to make special arrangements to join them, and it's very frustrating to do so and then be unable to complete them.
The Glow as brightly quest, was run last month. I am so sorry you missed it. I would bet someone will run it again this month. I hope you will catch it then.
as much as I love our guides, and enjoy bantering with them, I think I agree about the Holiday guide quests. at least when it comes to having static NPC's, but maybe they could be on a random spawn timer? Then there is still the excitement of finding them, but it's not always something you can count on. I have only been able to catch our guides with the tinkerfest quests on one toon of 12 The only reference on the forums to these quests being given for Oasis has been that someone would be there SOMETIME over an entire weekend. I have a guild to run and can't spend all day waiting for a possible guide in an area I have nothing else to do in. There was one time I was notified of a guide there, but as I was in an instance with a group, could not get there in time .
Those NPC's were turned off once there was a Guide presence, as that was their only reason to exist on that one server. While we'd love to be able to be on 24/7, it's just not possible. (I know my boss would be a bit peeved if I was on EQII while at work). Speaking of the Tinkerfest things however, there have been Guides on running various of the Tinkerfest ones several times over the past couple of weeks. Not every day, but on several days there have been multiple times they have been run.
And since I forgot to mention it, while we can't be on all the time, we do respond to requests when we are available. So you might try actually replying in your server's Guide thread saying "Hey, I'd really like to be able to do xxxx, but I'm only on between y and z times on every other Sunday". While we can't guarantee it, since your time may be one of those where none of us are awake, or at home, when possible we'll try to do something for those who ask during that time. I has seen it happen many times on Freeport, and the same holds true for the other servers. Oh, and you kinda need to be specific. Saying, for example, "the Tinkerfest one" doesn't help since we have about 5 or 6.
