Tradeskill "epic" quest

Finally did this quest this weekend.. and omg it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't think I've had so much fun in-game in months. Listening to everyone help each other out - and then getting that help - and then helping others.. wow Domino - it was just wonderful.
I had so much fun with it that my partner Drakael leveled his weaponsmith from 68 to 80 in two days just so he could do it also. Started Saturday afternoon and finished it by Sunday night. And he had nearly as much fun as I did - although the vultaks were nasty to him a few time. /grins
The crafting community was amazing with people staying up really late last night so that he could finish. Our thanks in particular to Eddwynd, Ralic and Naitani who all stayed up longer than they wanted to just to make him the final items he needed. My thanks also to everyone who gave hints and encouragement and logged alts to help us finish this quest.
Domino - you did an amazing job with this quest series.

MrWolfie wrote:

Wyrmsteel weapons sucked, even in T5. We made a ton of them, tested them, realized the normal (fabled) weapons were better and never went back.

If a tradeskill combined with adventuring area or whatever you want to call it produced good equipment, you will most definitely see them being made. People will go through great pains to obtain the best equipment they can. This was proven by the massive influx of crafters grinding up solely for either the BCG or Wurmslayer HQs (before the advent of the commission system).

Enjoying the quest, & looking forward to finding the elusive woodworker on CB tonight to finish it up.
One thing I noticed on my jeweler was that when I ran back to the entrance of the library to snag some more weighty tomes before looking for the crafting stations, the genies became immune to the book effects! Luckily I was able to jump across a corner of the open space, balance on the railing, & thus get to the side walkway leading to the stairs up - whew! It added a bit of extra fun, but I'm not sure this was intended.

I love the shine effect on the Armourer cloak!

Kudail, my guild's Armourer, had his cloak on when we were grouping in Nek Castle last night...he turned around and the sheen flowed over from one side to the next. It's gorgeous!

So, not as plain as I originally thot, then again my only reference were the screen shots Niami has in her write up.

I haven't truly started the epic yet on all 8 of my crafters. I have three 80's, one of which has already done the faction for Bathezid and is just cooling his heels until I get the two 79s, the 77, the 76 up to 80. Going to do the Bathezid factions for them since I've done the New Lands quests already just to get that ts xp.

What sucks, a bit, tho is that my WS is my adventuring toon. L77 Warden, he already has 30k faction with BW...gotta grind. Glad I still have a skill potion for him.

My Carpy's 60, so she's got a ways to go.

Oh, and for those who say that few will do this down the line...I say you're wrong. I know that on Unrest there are many very friendly crafters who'll help out, myself included.

Ok so to expand on my earlier question; apparently I have no idea how to craft and/or am doing it terribly wrong, because heat resistance and chance of success doesn't help me at all with my method I made a quick video of myself making a street lamp, can someone show me what I'm missing out on? How much would 1.4% increase to Chance cut down on time, 1-5 seconds? And an increase to skills really helps when you can't fail anyway you know... I was really saddened by the cloak that was linked in guild I mean look at the epic weapon for Dirge:

LamentationMytthical.JPG

Even the earring combined doesn't reach the level of that thing, by being equipped it applies a 48% haste to the entire RAID. Since everyone else is happy, but my style does not benefit from this; can I have a epic crafter cloak adornment?

• +100 to out of combat mana regen.
• Reduces materials used by half.
• Doubles the beneficial aspect of all reaction arts.
• Reduces the required progress by half.
  
• Durability degrades at half normal rate.
• This cloak is a permanent portable workbench.

That should get the inspect window to about equal the size of the epic weapons.

Yay I single handedly shut down a forum post! And who says us players have no power eh eh!?

You the man Nanran; they were all like chit, chat, chatter until you came along! Then nuthin for like 2 days! Freepost!!!

Adeyia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

The first person to do so earns the special 10th cloak, the one with the wrap arround sleeves, the buckles in the back and the special padded guild hall of the addicted master crafter.

Nanran wrote:

Well, let me give you what my experience is, as a Carpenter with the Cloak (and Earring, and Woodelf Eye for the Troll Guy, for a total of 5.4%). With all these + to success chances (or the bonus to my skills, or both?), I get more Critical Successes, seldom if ever any Critical Failures (I actually don't think I've had *any* since), and I complete my combines far faster than before. I see a steady stream of -17/+166 (or +174 or +216) when using all 3 +progress arts. I almost always complete Rush Order writs with 5 minutes spare (minus the times I run out of raws or sandpaper mid-writ, I'm so bad about that), and sometimes even 5 and a half, and a couple times after a crazy stream of crits, 6 minutes. (!! I still boggle at this !!) Before this, my normal time was, on average, 3.5 (with rare occurrences of 4) minutes left on the writ timer.

The Heat Resistance is, IMO, useless, yes. But one other thing to keep in mind...
...regardless of what we consider this or call the quest, neither the Cloak nor the Earring are 'epic'. If they were, they'd have at least a 'Fabled' tag, instead of a 'Mastercrafted' one.

Now, your suggestions are indeed awesome! I'd love some further tweaks to this, or ... a further quest to make this an actual, truly 'Epic' version of the Earring/Cloak.

Anyway, all this babble doesn't exactly to answer any questions, it's just to give my experiences.

Nanran wrote:

Probably because everybody thought: "That is so never going to happen, but hey let's not criticise him, you never know ."

Anyway, I do not think you can compare a quest every level 80 crafter can enjoy, to a mythical weapon reserverd for a few 24/7 raiders that represent a fraction of a percent of level 80 players.

I've been working on my tradeskill epic quest since GU42 came out but I didn't have the faction I needed to start it, and by the time I got that I knew I wouldn't be getting any server discoveries, so I decided to take my time and enjoy it instead of hurrying through.

There have been lots of people in the crafting chat channel offering help with the final step, however, I decided that it would be nicer to actually get all the items from people I actually know and have acquaintances or friendships with - I felt like the final epic would mean more in the end.

I meant to take a screenshot of all the items before turning them in, and I forgot to, for which I'm still kicking myself. But they were:

• Alchemist: Justin, a charming paladin from Safe Haven whose 5-room home was the first (and last!) 5-room home that I decorated back in the days when crafting still required subcombines. My god what an effort that was! I swore never to do another one, and didn't, until subcombines were removed. Even without subcombines it's a big effort, before subcombines were removed it was at least a week of solid work. But, he did love his house.
• Armorer: Paeb, a long-term crafter who's been in the crafting channel since the days of subcombines. Long ago she gave me two crude cobalt bars which she had flubbed thanks, if I recall correctly, to baby hitting keyboard. I believe I got a server discovery on crude cobalt furniture out of at least one of them.
• Carpenter: me, obviously.
• Jeweler: Moredd, who back since the days of Desert of Flames furniture used to lurk in the crafting channel and make jokes about my dervish lashing board supply service.
• Provisioner: Disha, who I didn't realize wasn't 80 yet when I asked if she could make my item, and who then put in a huge effort and got to 80 within a week so she could do so.
• Sage: Felishanna, a long time acquaintance also. She's an avid and fanatical roleplayer and she and I have stood up for roleplay and casual players in many a debate. She was also incredibly helpful when RoK released and I was trying to complete my crafting faction quest with Danak on Adeste, helping me find the way safely for the first time.
• Tailor: thanks to an alt of Niami Denmother, another wonderful person I've known since we met at a fan faire for the Desert of Flames release. We used to grumble about Beghn together.
• Weaponsmith: Aayrn, probably the most recent comer to the list of acquaintances. I met him as one of my alts, when she was looking for some weapons upgrades, and he's now supplied several tiers' worth. While harvesting ebon for her ebon weapons she sent him all her fulginate since he had several crafting alts who were in need, and continued to send him fulginate as she levelled up through that tier. In return he saved up some cobalts just for her T6 weapons and refused to take any payment for them.
• Woodworker: Paddyo, another long-time resident of the crafting channel I've seen around for many a year. At one point we used to both live in the Baubbleshire and used to bump into each other frequently in the crafting instance, though I think he's since moved to roomier accomodation.

Disha's piece was the final piece I needed and mine was the final piece she needed, so we made the run out to Rivervale and then to Bathezid's Watch together.

Two pretty cloaks and two pretty titles, obtained on Valentine's Day no less!


All in all I had a ton of fun, and my earring and cloak mean all the more because every single piece was made by a crafter I've known for at least half a year, in many cases for years. My only regret is that I didn't need to get more pieces made because there are so many other crafters I'd like to have asked to make bits for it!

Just stopping by to give some positive feedback.

Really liked the epic artisan quest. Was a nice change from the common adventurer quests to do things in a "different" way. The idea that you needed the help of other crafters to finish the quest was great too and in my oppinion really improved the tradeskiller community.

Thanks Domino and I really would like more stuff like that.

I just wanted to pitch in on a positive note. I've done the tradeskill epic twice now. On the first one, I ended up making three new friends during the commission crafting part. I worked with various people who had already completed their epic - not one of them complained that I was wasting their time. Not one asked for "plat" or any other compensation.

I can't quite understand why tradeskillers seem to have come to the conclusion that every other tradeskiller out there is a complete jerk. There are a few, of course, but most of us are nice.

I liked that both high level adventureres and pure crafters have a challenge. If I had a complaint, it is only that it is too fast - if you already have Bathezid's Watch faction you can finish it in a single evening if you are playing at peak times. That seems a bit easy for an epic, but I can see from the amount of complaining that any more difficulty would have really upset people.

Good job - fun quest line and amazingly slick.

Faymar wrote:

Heh. The complaints of a few very vocal Gloomy Gus's do echo, don't they?

Just to echo what many people have said: this is a great quest line. It was hard getting my level 28 warlock around and a bit tedious getting the faction up. For my level 80 warden who already had faction getting the recipe was straightforward. I haven't actually finished the quest yet but I have met a couple of nice people who crafted for me. So yes, nice quest and even better, nice people. Oh, and I also used the commission system for the first time. Everybody I had crafted for before had trusted me with the rares! So, if anyone sees me (Apsenniel the Provisioner) or Portia the Alchemist around on Splitpaw and needs "the recipe", please introduce yourself!
Great innovation and I hope that you are working on another one - mustn't let the grass grow!

Thanks very much for the Epic TS quest, Domino. You and the Art Dept and the coders and everyone else who had a hand in bringing it to us did a great job and deserve a big "THANK YOU" !!! I completed it on the weekend and got my title, my cloak and my earring. There were some spots that required a little planning to get through and it added some spice to the running around that had to be done. I really enjoyed the camaraderie that this quest generated. It was reminiscent of when the classes used to have some interdependency. While I don't advocate the return to the endless grind of ink making and subcombines, etc, I still enjoy the times when I know that my tradeskill art is of use to others and this quest definitely brought that feeling back. Good on ya, Luv !!!! And, please, keep that thinking cap on and hope to see more good stuff soon.

Absolutely awesome quest. I had so much fun doing it....much more fun than my adventure epic was. I wouldn't have changed a thing about it. The drafling tower was so cool. I loved that the bixies were red cons no matter what your level. I have a prov, carpenter and woodworker so they all did the same quest in Nektropos Castle. Luckily that is one of my very favorite dungeons That too was much fun to complete.
I was so thrilled with the way people got together to help each other. We actually had tradeskill raids on my server. My guildies were laughing and asking if we were going to attack the TS machines lol. I guess I tend to think that most people are jerks but it turned out just the opposite. Everyone was so nice, not charging lots of plat to help others. We mostly traded doing pieces for each other. But even people who already finished the quest were still helping out.
I already had the faction from adventuring with the prov and ww, but I had to do the whole quest line for my 35 carpenter. It was well worth the work involved and not that much more difficult than doing it on my higher level toons. I would like to tell any low level adventurers that this quest is definitely doable by anyone, with careful attention.
Thanks so much for the quest itself and what I think are wonderful rewards. This is definitely one of my favorite quests in the whole game (and I've done them all)

My tailor just finished the epic and paid far more attention to the dialog than my sage did last week. It was fun to finally feed Neeta and to find out the reasons for all the strange jewelry ingredients.

Isn't it something that the TS epic turns out to be the best quest line in the game, bringing more people together over a period of weeks than any raid has ever done. It was (and is - since I'm still helping others with their pudding) fun!
Now that you've spoiled us, more please.

Has anyone read anything about plans to be able to display the master crafter title AND nobility title such as Lord etc. at the same time?

I can currently either be

Master Weaponsmith Shallabal

or

Lord Shallabal

but not Master Weaponsmith Lord Shallabal

(Now while I certainly would deserve being called Lord Master Weaponsmith Shallabal I guess the Lord title should be coming right before the name not before the master crafter title )

Cheers

Sha

Why do the quests reward only aaxp but no adv xp? Do they reward tradeskill xp? Would be a little bit silly as you have to be 80 already to start...