So I tried to gather information about the public research in The Anchorage but it is all quite vage. It seems, the 4 researchers are not giving out any research quests. Obviously they are finished doing research? I have read, once they are rank IV it is over??? Only Wilhelm gives a quest. I don't get it. so every new player is screwed now because they are basically done and you only get this one quest at a time? What kind of game mechanic is that? First comes, first serves? Yesterday I finished RoS tradeskill line and went to the researchers in Fordel Midst etc.but all of them also showed that no research is going on. I just don't get this whole public researching and obviously both Fandom and Fanbyte lack comprehensive information and what you get from Reddit and this forum are puzzle pieces that are stretched over several years which I try to put together.
If that's the actual case (I hope not [haven't really done much of any of that myself personally yet], but I wouldn't doubt it), it is symptomatic of the "elite" mentality this game can have at times. "Oh, you weren't here for this cool event and missed out on this amazingly cool house/appearance/whatever item? You're a newb or an old fart coming back to the game just now? Ha-ha! Sucks to be you, dunnit? " They have mitigated that somewhat (not nearly enough, imho) with the Loyalty Merchants, having things show up again in holidays and/or World Events (but not predictably, which is really exasperating), and bringing some stuff back on the Marketplace. :-/ Yeah...frustrating. Uwk
The public researchers were based on the idea of server comradery and working together to accomplish a shared goal. Just like your personal tradeskill assistant, each researcher would automatically finish their work in a preset amount of time. Each mission accomplished by players would give a slight speed boost. Naturally, people began racing to finish as many as possible in order to unlock the rewards as fast as possible. This also led to some competition between servers, though every server finished within the same week usually. A more subtle (but still deliberate) intention was to slow down the access of these items. While most of the items on the researchers were house items or crafting supplements, each researcher also had adventuring goods, like potions better than the Advanced Alchemist books. During RoS, the researchers even had items required for raid progression. This forces a content stretch, artificially increasing the amount of time each expansion takes to complete, something they desperately try every year (especially for top-tier raiders). Public researchers were introduced in the Anchorage game update (mid-expansion for CD). They were also a key part of the BoL, RoS, and RoR tradeskill lines (VoV did not have any researchers). While these research events have long since concluded, the repeatable quests remain so that any late-comers can still earn the currency needed to use these merchants. If it is any consolation, you have not missed any unique items (all researched items are still available on their respective merchants) nor any unique quests. The server-wide teamwork aspect was also a bit underwhelming, as most of the research was done by the top-tier raiders (who wanted the good stuff quickly) or the top-tier crafters (who were going to do these anyway).
Feh. X-P Good to know, though, that the merchants are still around! Imho, that needs to be done for more past events, if they don't want to let us get those associated old rewards on the Loyalty Merchants. :-/ Uwk
Thanks for this elaborate explanation. Now I see clearer what the public research is or has been about. While the researched stuff is available for me to buy, it still feels underwhelming now. I mean you do those tradeskill quest lines, they tell you about researching and then there is no researching going on. At that point, they could just unlock the stuff for normal purchase without the different currencies involved. I mean, I also received items that add to the public research progress. But those are useless then, too. Public research feels like a seasonal event that is over but never has been removed from the game. Weak game design overall - but I have experienced anyhow that the game design got worse in the past years. I have been gone for ages (I played on Nagafen PVP at the peak of Kingdom of Sky and a little after - when level cap was 90, the griphon tradeskill mounts were already in the game). I came back a few months ago, created a new toon, focussed on crafting and try to re-learn the game and understand all the new mechanics (from mercenaries, mount gear, researching, salvaging to Overseer quests which are locked for me since I am no member). And the content progressively got worse. Tinkering has become a joke (basically it is Adorning 2.0 now), stupid things like shadow prospecting, recipe books with limited uses, a totally complicated naming of recipe books and without googling you would never know where to find them... and the tradeskill quests got worse, too. And I have mainly focussed on crafting and harvesting so far and not even delved into the other quests a lot.
The leftover bits I'd always despised (and still do! Join me! ) were/are the stupid Shadow critters they'd brought in to introduce the Channeler to the world. The Powers expected everyone to apparently buy themselves a level 85 Channeler right off the box, kill the groups, get the pelt, then go right over to Kunark (!!!!!) to dodge aggro critters in their 80s as well, all for the privilege of listening to some high level NPCs natter at each other, while trying to dodge imminent Certain Death, especially if you were dumb enough to get this quest (even accidentally) in your "youth" or "teens" with that character, rather than the apparently expected level 85. Bad enough that you couldn't get immunity from those schmucks for your entire account, server, whatever; nope, everyone who wants to not have to bother with the stupid Shadow Beasts has got to get through this one massively long quest. I don't know for sure how many minutes/hours/etc. it does take; it just feels entirely too long for the only real "reward" to get is peace and quiet in the "teenager" [Tier 2] zones. :-/ And now, of course, since that World Event is no longer on, Channelers don't have to worry about even seeing the Shadow critters at all... from the very beginning. X-P Uwk
fer dem unlearned/OCC Uwk!that is one of thE most concise despription of the current .. State of, no, World of Affairs in Norrath i have EVER seen!Which of course hinges off, and related to, the P2w mentality(i went upstairs, got that credit card, spent more than YOU! so i must somehow be better than YOU!); especially with the "vaulting" (read: Artificial Scarcity[in a digital environment, no less]) done with so much else-wise. Further, the seemingly endless currencies specific ONLY to THAT expansion, absolutely useless elsewhere. {is it any wonder so many are no longer involved as they once were?}
The only thing I wish for the Anchorage zone at this point would be for the repeatable quest to either be instantly redo-able, or for the currency given out to be at least tripled so players who want the Mischief furniture don't have to grind so much. Furniture itself is not something that a player should ever have to worry about having enough currency to buy what they need, especially from outdated content. BoL and RoS recently had the daily mission currencies multiplied to make thing much faster to catch up on all the buyables, and even a repeatable currency in Cobalt Scar was just increased from 1(2) coins per quest to 2(4). It's better than what it was.
Yeah, I don't understand the huge "push-push, shove-shove, get this [new expansion]/[World Event]/etc. finished RIGHT NOW, this year, or else you'll never be able to do anything in it/with it/etc. ever again!" mentality. :-/ I can understand, I guess, having a "get to 10th level on [TLE server] in a month, and get a free Leaper mount, account-wide! " idea, since I had to buy a number of XP potions off the Marketplace to finish in the time allotment, given that earning XP on a TLE server is about as fun as waiting for sap to rise in February so you can make maple syrup eventually. :-/ That was a clever temporary cash-grab on their part, but once I'd gotten that ride, I never bothered with that server (or any other TLE; I'm not terribly sentimental about EQ2 Past) ever again, and.....moved? re-created? I think we got free server transfers when that one died -- my toon that was there over to AB. Uwk
I want to say you can still grind the Anchorage Chits, I think the quest resets, every 45 minutes I think. I've done it quite a few times to build some taverns on both AB and MD.
I will look into increasing the currency on the Anchorage repeatables. I can't make any promises on how much the increase will be, but we will discuss it.
I could've sworn I got 20 chits for being a member, when I was doing the repeatable quests there. I know that's much more than the BoL repeatables.
Yes. 10 base, 20 for member, but there's a lot of spendy building block stuff, so the amounts don't go as far as you'd think they would for "just' furniture (and the non-block furniture is all heirloom, or almost all) Next patch will double it.
Also just make the currency tradeable. I have loads of adventuring friends that have loads of those that will never spend them.
I believe a fair amount of the building blocks are tradeable, but the items made from the recipes that you can buy aren't, they're heirloom.
exactly.... remove the heirloom/no-trade on all sold items or change the currency. Heck or just make it so the deco recipes no longer are charged. I still don't understand the idea behind charged recipes other than it keeps the database cleaner. Deco items though... just silly IMO.
Tradeable sounds good until you find out that people are charging 1 million plat on the broker PER TILE.
Look at the bright side; they can't charge 1 BILLION per on the Broker any more... :-/ Uwk who loves the idea of a 50 mil plat cap, but hates the 30 day limit nonsense; can't find anything on the Broker any more for any price (not that I'd spend, say, 750 million plat per for Etherwood Lumber, for instance) :-/
