The MMO Notebook

Posts Tagged ‘quests’

Continuing on with quests in the Combe area, I began with one named Old Bauman’s Farm. This took me back into the Chetwood to retrieve a chain that used to belong to his beloved dog. I found the Blackwold camp in question and the first Blackwold that I killed dropped the chain. No fuss, no muss. The quest reward was some food items.

The same Blackwold that dropped the chain also had a receipt on him that I returned to Constable Sageford. This receipt seemed to implicate a local towns-person with the Blackwolds.

To be certain, I was sent to obtain another strongbox from the Blackwold stronghold.  Sure enough, the second strongbox showed that the local locksmith had created the box. I go talk to the locksmith and he tells me that he was forced against his will by a Blackwold named Applewood to make the boxes. The constable sent me to the northern area of the Chetwood to kill Applewood and retrieve the master key. After finding and killing Applewood in the Blackwold stronghold, I was rewarded with decent bracelet.

The next quest string I  embarked on was started with one named Cutleaf’s Good Intentions. I am to infiltrate the ranks of the Blackwolds by talking to Ellie Cutleaf, who seems to be a double agent. Before I could do that, however, she wanted me to go kill a den mother wolf before it can begin breeding more wolves for the Blackwolds. The den mother was located in a stall next to a house up on a hill in the northeast portion of the Chetwood. My reward for killing her was an axe, which finally gave me a second weapon to use with my dual wield skill. This greatly increased my melee damage.

Ellie then sends me to a man named Leecher Cartwell to get some poison to be used in finishing off the rest of the wolves. Leecher didn’t have any of the poison ready, so he sent me out in search of the necessary ingredients required to make it. All the ingredients were not far away. The berries were found in a valley filled with bears. The beehives were behind a house just south of Leecher’s house. The roots can be found near the wolf den located just inside the Chetwood. By the way, Leecher’s house can be a pain to find if you have never looked for it before. Here is a view from his porch. The big building on the right is the Combe and Wattle Inn.

Poison in hand, Ellie sends me to the Blackwold Headquarters to poison the meat that the wolves eat. I am also to kill the leader of this band of Blackwolds. His name is Jagger Jack. The headquarters, which I have visited several times before while on other quests, is located in northeast Chetwood. I entered the stronghold and worked my way deeper into it. I found the dead sheep that I was to poison while on the way to Jagger’s camp. With that done, I went in search of Jagger Jack.

Jagger is located just to the north of the dead sheep. He is guarded by several Blackwolds that have wolf pets at their command. I worked my way through those and found Jagger Jack in the middle of an evil looking camp in the valley below. He is well guarded but I did not have any trouble it taking him or his cronies down. I ran back to Ellie and completed the quest. This resulted in a huge upgrade to my boots. 30 more armor to be exact. Not a bad end to my evening.

–Wolfen

The one thing you can say about the town of Combe is that it gives you plenty of things to do. I picked up a good number of quests upon my arrival, so I checked my gear and headed out to claim my fame and fortune.

The first quest I embarked upon was called Message to Taylor Green. Taylor can be found in the lumberyard located to the east of Combe. Several more quests are available at the lumberyard and I grabbed them all.

Taylor gives me the Den of Wolves quests, which required me to go into the nearby forest and kill 8 wolves. The wolves were nearby and I quickly dispatched the required number of beasts. Also at the lumberyard is a guy named Posco Burro. He wanted me to go find his uncle who had gone to have a word or two with the evil Blackwolds located in the Chetwood forest. I found his uncle along a forest road and he then sent me on a quest to find his missing handkerchief. Other quests that sent me into the Chetwood were Morning the Dead, which had me looking for a stolen fishing pole, Reconnecting Ties to find a missing boy, Beneath the Hanging tree to find some buried treasure, and a few others to boot.

I completed these quests fairly quickly. I would imagine that was because I had done them before, even though it had been a long time since I had last played. Almost all of the quests required me to go into various Blackwood encampments throughout the forest, kill everyone I found, and loot the required item.  The fishing pole was at one camp and the Blackwold lock-box (for the quest Unpaid Debts) at another.

The Beneath the Hanging Tree quest sent me over to the river to dig for treasure buried there. Turns out all the trees had been cut down and only the stumps remained, which made it impossible to know which tree the Hanging Tree was. So I was sent to someone who has a ledger that would lead me the exact spot, but the guy has lost it and I must retrieve it.

I found the ledger inside a Blackwold Lock-box that was located in a heavily guarded camp. The camp with the lock-box had about 5 Blackwolds in it and there was also a level 8 elite named Captain Dogwood. He roams around the general area and walks right through the camp every now and then. I suggest picking him off before you tackle the camp so that things go smoothly. He didn’t give me any trouble. The ledger gave me the location of the Hanging tree’s stump and I quickly dug up the treasure and returned it to its owner.

Reconnecting Ties had me looking for the missing boy named Covell Woodwright. It seems as though he ran off to join with the Blackwoods and has no intention of returning to his mother. He attacked me when I spoke to him and then ran off into the Blackwold camp before I could kill him (the quest is scripted that way). His mother didn’t like the news.

With the above quests and several more besides, I was able to get quite a bit accomplished and had some fun. Several of the quest rewards resulted in nice armor upgrades and I also reached level 12 by the time I stopped for the night. I was disappointed, once again, to find that all the battles posed no challenge. I never came close to dying. I hope the trend does not continue.

–Wolfen

Anyone who has played a human in Lord of the Rings Online will be intimately familiar with what I recount here. Be that as it may, I must start somewhere, so I now begin to tell the tale of my human hunter named Wolfbow.

Once you complete the starter instance, which takes place in a small town named Archet, you are placed in the “real” game world. Archet is not the same town you started in. It was terribly burned during the invasion, and as you would expect, the world has greatly changed around you.

Archet after the burn

The first few quests I picked up were: Burying the Dead, A Threat from Spiders, Disease Among the Boars, and a quest started after I had previously killed the Marsh-Fly Queen. The quests are pretty straight forward. I had to find the bodies of three men and bury them, kill 10 diseased boars, and kill some spiders over at Quigley’s farm.

The spider quest led  me to finding the famous dwarf Bali just before he died. It ended with me killing a big spider named Iornaith in the spider infested tunnels beneath Quigley’s farm. These quests netted me around 90 copper per quest, better shoulderpads, and a better helm to wear.

Burying the Dead

Finishing these quests earned me level 10 and some nice new skills to go along with it:

Spider Caves

Bali the Dwarf is dead

The next couple of quests sent me to the town of Combe, one of which was  to find a ranger named Toradan, who wants me to help find the missing ranger Amdir. With these quests, my stay at the little town of Archet it at an end.

My 17″ Macbook Pro finally arrived and I now have it setup the way I like it.  It has been a long wait, but I can now get back to gaming.  I decided to start with Lord of the Rings Online.  Since LOTRO requires the Windows operating system, I had to setup a dual boot configuration on the Macbook Pro.  I decided to install Windows XP, even though it won’t use all 4GB of RAM that is available to the machine.  The game runs great on high settings at 1920×1200, even though the 9600GT 512MB video card isn’t all that great of a card these days.

I have a level 37 Champion on the Windfola server, but I decided to start fresh, so I rolled up a human Guardian that I named Strongg.  I wanted to try out a class in the game that I had not played yet and Guardian was one of them.  Humans start in the Archet area, so my game introduction had me escaping from a cell and then helping a Ranger named Amdir to rescue some kidnapped hobbits.

Once the introduction is complete, I found myself in the town of Archet, eager to find some quests and get to work.  I didn’t have far to go.  Amdir was wounded in the battle, so I had to help him with defense of the town.  The first few are you typical newbie quests that have you go out and kill wolves and boars so that the town’s sheep are kept safe.  Once those are done, I was sent to a hunter’s lodge where some things needed to be done.  Seeing this lodge brought pangs of nostalgia to my heart because the lodge reminded me of my beloved Everquest’s Surefall Glade and the lodge that can be found there.

One of the farmers outside of Archet had a boar problem that he wanted me to help him with.  A boar named Old Bloodtusk needed to be killed.  I remembered this boar from the time that LOTRO first went live.  There was a line of people waiting to kill this boar and each time he appeared it was a general free-for-all contest.  This time, however, there was not another player in sight and he was waiting for me when I arrived.

After running several other quests, none of which were very challenging, I came to the last quest in the “game introduction” line.  Brigands were attacking Archet and I had to help Amdir defend it.  The town was in flames when I arrived and it was filled with battle.  I worked my way through the town, finally arriving at the final showdown, which culminated in a fight with Eogan, a servant of Angmar who was responsible for all the problems in the area.  I dispatched him with ease and ended the quest line.

So the very last quest found in Spirit’s Rest told me to get my furry butt over to Dahknarg.  It proved to be a much larger town than Spirit’s Rest, with many more quest givers.  Class trainers can be found here as well.

The quest had me report to a guard named Mikah who is found just outside the gate.  I tell him about the alliance between the Broken Fang and Bloodhowler gnoll clans and I receive 20 copper and 150 experience.  I then get the quests Cull the Pack and Lobo head.  This required me to go just a short way beyond the gate and slay lobo’s and procure a pristine lobo head.  These were easily done and I was rewarded with just a few coppers and a few hundred experience.

Nighthunter Marudak, who stands next to Mikah, gives a couple quests, including Forrah’s Patrol, which has me patrol a few different patrol points and kill any gnolls I find.  This is a virtually an exact copy of the quest I had in Kojan except that the hidden attackers are gnolls instead of orcs.  I just run along the path until a hidden gnoll pops into existence and starts pounding on me.  Rinse and repeat for the four patrol points and you’ll get 244 experience.

I run a few more quests and then I am eventually directed to the NW gate to find Nighthunter Valas.  He gives me the Bloodhowler Raiders quest and Okhnom’s Supplies quest. Okhnom’s quest is significant later on because it will eventually take me to another quest hub much further out onto the continent.  The Bloodhowler camp is a ways out of town and up on a high hill.  The camp has several tents and a bunch of angry gnolls.  Luckily, they are easy to pull solo if you are careful.  I killed the required amount and received 30 copper, 781 exprience, and a pair of Ghostclaw Gloves for my trouble.

Back at the south gate, Varin gives a few quests.  They are Bloodhowler Threat (kill 8 Denwatchers), Bloodhowler Defenses (explore their defenses), and lastly The Foreman (kill 2 taskmasters and the bloodfang Foreman).  All of these take place at the same gnoll camp that is up on a hill.  Again, if you are careful, these can be pulled singly from the perimeter.  The Foreman is a little ways inside the camp but just be careful and you can get to him solo.  The Foreman quest gave 70 copper and 1177 experience.  I should note that I did these quests while between the levels of 6 and 7.

Near Valin is Nighthunter Dakken.  He gives a couple quests, including Stop The Flow.  This one wanted me to find and kill the Bloodhowler Runner who runs between the gnoll camps delivering information.  He runs along the paths and as you spend time in the area it will be impossible to miss him.

Nighthunter Jerl then gives a few quests, including Bloodhowler Attack, which needed me delve into a cave full of gnolls and kill some Gatekeepers.  Another one wanted me to remove some contents from barrels within the cave.  Yet another needed me to rescue a vulmane captive being held in the cave.

The cave is up on a hill a good ways east of Dahknarg.  The Gatekeeper is found just inside the first wooden stake wall you come across.  The captive vulmane can be found by taking the first right-hand turn once inside the cave.  You’ll have to fight a few gnolls to get to him.  Just past the captive is a dead-end where a named gnoll spawns.  He is called Angimor the Watchful.  He drops armor pieces, including a very nice set of trousers for my druid.

I was adventuring solo, so I didn’t go too deep into the cave, but it sure did remind me of the Blackburrow dungeon from Everquest.

–Wolfen

So I moved to the Xeth server to join a guild with some online friends.  As mentioned earlier, I decided to start another druid, but this time I chose the race of Vulmane.  This will show me how a starting area on the Thestra continent varies from Kojan.

The Vulmane starting area is called Spirit’s Rest and it definitely has the feel of a wilderness outpost.  The surrounding land is beautiful to look at and I instantly preferred this area over the Kojani style.

The first questgiver I see is Swiftfang Kover.  He gives a couple quests that have me kill some whelps located right outside the camp and to steal food from the Broken Fang gnoll camps.  They each gave a few copper and experience points.  There is also a general goods vendor that gives a quest called Young Bear Pelts.  The title says it all.  I killed a few bears and brought back the pelts for a few copper and experience.

Ghostclaw Grimaw has a couple quests as well.  He is too old to harvest the spirit blossom herbs anymore, so he sends me out to harvest some for him.  Once that is completed he sends me to see my spellcaster trainer who is located inside a tent.  She tells me the basics of being a spellcaster and gives me my level 2 spell Piercing Roots I.

I am then sent off to a cave northwest of camp to assist the Spiritragers found within.  Spiritrager Volsar tells me the history of the Vulmane and gives me The Essence of Souls quest.  I had to kill some Seething Souls and collect a Seething Essence.  I thought the essence would be found on the corpses of the souls, but it turned out that I had to click on a wooden stake leaning out from a wooden wall to get it.  Doing this gave 40 copper and 78 experience points.

Spiritrager Jalgresh wants me to do the Hunt The Soul Eater quest.  The Soul Eater is a big crab found in various spots within the cave.  This quest gives 10 copper 78 experience and Ghostclaw Boots.

The last quest in the cave is given by Spiritrager Jurkar, which is Soul Suffering.  This required me to kill Splintering Souls, which are little balls of light that are found throughout the cave.  I got 40 copper and 78 expererience for doing it.

Back at the camp, Nighthunter Karnor gives the Broken Fang Alpha quest.  After killing an Alpha Gnoll the quest gave 80 copper and 158 experience.  It also had a selectable reward and I chose the Ghostclaw Greatstaff.

There were many other quests in the area that I completed, but I won’t go into detail on them here.  They were all easy to do solo and gave various quest rewards.  One quest of importance, however, came from a piece of parchment that dropped off of the Alpha gnoll.  It is named Bloodhowler Plans and I have to take the parchment to a Vulmane in the next town I am to visit – Dahknarg.  This is another quest hub for the low level adventurer.  I will detail some of the happenings there in another post.

I personally prefer the Vulmane starting area over the Kojani area.  I like the look and feel much more.  It could be because it is more of a wooded, country-type area instead of the open, island area of Kojan.  I also liked the quests better and I think the quest rewards were much better, especially for quests giving armor.

–Wolfen

The Riftseeker at Lotus Hold gives out many quests. They are designed to make you travel around using the Riftway system so that you can get experience with using it. I decided to try it out by starting the A Need For Heroes: Blighted Lands quest. Once I arrive in the Blighted Lands, I am to speak to Guard Eba.

Guard Eba has many quests to give the newly arrived adventurer. Next to him is Guard Na Cho who also has many quests available. The first quests had to deal with eliminating Ulvari Devourers which are nothing more than gremlins, and thin out an infestation of what turned out to be flying eyeballs. These creatures were just steps away from where you get the quests, so they were easy to complete.

The Ulvari Corruption: Ulvari Devourers quest resulted in me receiving 1 silver, 60 copper, and 3983 experience points.  The Eye of the Ulvari gave 1 silver, 50 copper, and 3618 experience.  The Eyes of Ulvari surround a colorful rock formation and are very easy to pull solo.  The same goes for the gremlins.  I also completed the Ulvari Pearls quest that had me find a pearl that the gremlins drop.  It gave me 75 copper and 1921 experience and this quest is repeatable.

The next set of quests had to do with the Loamsworm Brotherhood.  There is a stronghold of these brigands located just past the Ulvari area.  They built their fortress inside some mountain walls.

There are several different kinds of these brigands and I had to go kill several of each as well as bring back some gems that they drop.  It’s actually a neat area with fast spawns that can keep the solo player busy.  A group could burn through it in minutes.  I completed the quests Loamsworn Necklaces, Prophetic Action, The Rest of the Bunch, and Alluvian Gems.  They all gave around a silver each along with 3618 experience points each.

I dinged level 17 and logged out for the night.

I decided to head over to Lotus Hold, which is southeast of Nakai Dojo.  Nao Tak said I should go there and find a man named Bautali.  It seems they need some help over there.  On the way over, I found a Pegasus Trainer just west of Lotus Hold who will rent you a flying pegasus at the rate of 25 copper for five minutes.  I also found a Riftway right next to Lotus Hold.

I found Bautali inside the Hold and he had a bunch of quests to give.  Standing next to him is Hai Tang who also has many quests to hand out.  I picked a few from Bautali and got started on them.  I had to go kill a bunch of tigers, ostra’s, varana’s, and others.  The varana and ostra were easy to find, but just like back in the starting areas, the tigers were extremely rare.  I got so tired of running around looking for the tigers that I put that one on hold and worked on some other quests.

Located on the beach which is down the hill from Lotus Hold is a bunch of burned out houses that the orcs have taken over.  The quest Orc Assault: Martok Deadbringer wanted me to go kill a few of the Deadbringers, so down to the beach I went.  The beach is crawling with orcs, so it was easy to quickly find what I needed.  The quest netted me 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.

Back at Lotus Hold, I discovered that the stress and fear of constant orc attacks have caused some of the villagers to go crazy.  Some guy named Mung decided to take a group of them away from Lotus Hold to find some other place to live.  It seems that the crazed villagers took Tao’s Idol of Focus with them when they left and they didn’t ask permission to do so.  I was tasked with getting the idol back.

The crazed villagers are found up on a high hill that is a ways south of the Nakai Dojo.  They stand close to each other, so I had to use Nature’s Calm in order to pull a single.  The very first one I pulled had the idol.  Nice luck.  Returning the idol to Tao resulted in me receiving 1 silver, 40 copper, and 3220 experience points.

I then started a quest that tasked me with retrieving some treasure boxes that the orcs had stolen from Lotus Hold.  These boxes are located around the burned out houses down on the beach.  I had to clear the way of orcs in order to get to some of them, but I also found that I could sneak in behind the houses and get to some of the treasure boxes with minimal combat.  There is a wooden wall behind the houses that has gaps in it and I found a couple gaps that I could squeeze through.

I ran back to Lotus Hold and turned in the treasure box quest and the kill animals quests.  They all gave about a silver each and 3220 experience points each.  I dinged level 16 while doing these quests and here is a list of spells that my Druid received:

- Barbwood Talisman III: AC 60, HP 120, 17 damage shield

- Wild Growth I: 935 to 986 damage over 24 seconds

- Solar Flare II: 297 to 319 fire damage & 107 to 118 over 4 seconds

- Restore II: 503 point heal

- Summon Earth Elemental II: Summons a pet for 3 minutes

- Quelling Wind I:  Lowers hate by 3%

My Vanguard: Saga of Heroes adventuring continues with plenty of quests in the log. One of the quest lines is called The Final Tests of Jin. It led me to a man in the hills outside of Tanvu who wants to test me and see if I am ready to become a Lao’Jin Knight. He set me out to kill some neato looking yeti’s and bears. After completing those tasks he gave me a horn and told me to blow on it when I was ready to complete the last of his three tasks. That started some excitement.

I blew on the horn when I was in the Jin Master’s room and that was a mistake. A large creature popped into the small room and started beating me down. Since I am a squishy druid, I didn’t last long. I died, released my spirit, and returned to claim my body.

For the next try, I made sure that I was outside with plenty of room to run around. My root spell didn’t want to stick on him, so I had to run, cast a damage spell, get hit, run some more, heal, run, damage spell, etc. It was still touch and go and I won by the slimmest of margins. I would post a screenshot of it but the fight kept me so busy I didn’t have a chance to take one. So, for the first picture, I give you a shot of Vanguard’s version of a Bind Stone.

After completing the first three steps of the Final Tests of Jin, I was sent off to find four more people who will test my skills further to see if I am worthy of Lao’Jin. Their names are Taien, Kalen, Nyrasir, and a Water Serpent. If I complete their tasks, I will be given the Blessing of Faith. I found three of these people near a pool hidden away in a grotto. The Water Serpent was some distance away and down at the edge of the beach.

All the quests centered around the same theme. I had to go out and kill a certain number of this and a certain number of that. Too many of the quests I have completed so far have followed this formula. A little more imagination could have been used with these quests. But, considering the rush this game was in to get launched, I suppose the designers didn’t have much time for creativity.

Be that as it may, some of the tasks were interesting. The Water Serpent had its eggs stolen by some evil lizards and needed them returned to her. I had to work my way into a cave full of the lizards to liberate the eggs. It was easily done solo, I just needed to be patient and clear the way back into the cave (for the record, every quest I have complete up to this point was done solo).

Another quest involved eliminating some creatures known as Sanctorum. I had to slay some of them and also a creature that roamed around their area. It looked like the cave troll from the Lord of the Rings movies and it was accompanied by two pets. I only saw one pet when I pulled it, so when the second pet showed up I wasn’t prepared and they took me down, but not before I killed big momma. When I revived and went back, the dead creature was still there, so I looted the required item and moved on.

I completed all the tasks and turned in everything. The quest experience rewards were huge and it really made me feel like I was adequately rewarded for all my effort. I do wish that quest rewards would give out more armor pieces. Most of them give experience and cash. Very rarely will I get an armor item I can use. I have many armor slots still empty.

I also have two group quests that I came across the other night. With such a low population on the newbie areas, I’m not sure if I will get them done or not.

I end this post with a screenshot that shows the game map. I think this map needs serious work. It looks like a low quality JPG that was put in as a placeholder and was never fixed. Take a page from World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online and correct this please.

–Wolfen

A large portion of my second night playing Vanguard involved riding a flying reindeer. As part of the holiday festivities, players were given access to Randolph, the red-nosed reindeer. I tracked him down in the city of Tanvu and tested him out. I flew him around for a bit just for the fun of it, but the real reason I got him was because of the Riftways.

Riftways are portals to other areas of the game world. Vanguard’s massive size makes travel long and tedious, so they put in the riftways to help. In order to travel from one riftway to another, you must first unlock them by visiting each one. Normally, that would be a pain, since you would have to travel on foot to each one. Ol’ Randolph helps out by flying over the land and well away from any danger. Even so, it still took a very long time to get from one riftway to another. I can’t say it enough – Vanguard’s landmass is huge. Each riftway is marked on your map, so you don’t have to search for them. I grew weary of riding Randolph after about an hour and a half, so I flew back to Tanvu and let him go. Once in Tanvu, I checked my quest log and got back to work becoming a hero.

I had a few interesting quests. One led me to a house that I needed to search for a missing villager. I looked over both floors of the house but didn’t find any clue. Back upstairs I noticed some poles leaning against a wall. The poles led up to a window. I slowly scaled the poles and emerged onto the roof where I was quickly attacked by two foes. Taken by surprise, it was a touch and go fight for a few seconds, but I was victorious. I soon found the body I was looking for and completed the quest.

Another quest involved a task given to me by a Jin master. He wanted me to find four Essence of Jin and absorb them. This took me around the surrounding area, slaying creatures as I went. The Essence’s were floating “glowies” that were dispersed across the countryside. Most of them never moved, but one of them roamed the beaches and I had to track it down.

One quest that I really liked, even though it was rather easy, wanted to test how well I was following the path of Jin. To test my agility I had to find a mushroom located atop a high boulder. Once I found the boulder, I noticed that it was actually several boulders spaced slightly apart. I had to nimbly jump from one boulder to the next until I reached the mushroom. I tried eating the mushroom, but to no avail.

Other quests involved trading a man crab for fish, saving a Lao’Jin house from Ra’Jin attack, slaying X number of komodo dragons, and slaying X number of boars. On a side note, where is it written that every MMO must have their own version of boar that we must kill? It gave me Lord of the Rings Online flashbacks.

All the quests kept me busy throughout my first couple nights of play. Quest experience is big, so it is well worth doing them, even though the Jin theme begins to wear thin after awhile.

–Wolfen