Chittering Clawbug Derell Licht Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 I landed a boat on a peninsula, some time back, and got a message about marshy things coming up to meet me (I don't recall exact words). I wasn't at *all* ready for such an encounter, so I quit combat, survived one round, jumped on our boat and high-tailed it out of there, trailing "Yikes"s behind us as we fled!! Then, later on, I got the related quest, and eventually went back by land to deal with this. Now, when I walk out on the peninsula, I again get the message about something coming to deal with me, but no matter how long I circle around on that peninsula, nothing ever appears... Did I break that quest by fleeing the first time?? That's a pretty key quest, I think... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Swivelable Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Ah, the "Do not explore till you talk to the locals" Curse rears it's guano head again. It's like you gotta check in with your probation officer before you go anywhere. I never liked wandering with those constaints either. Other than that, I have no idea where you are - is tha east of the Giant spire? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Taliesin Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Just east of the Giant's Spire is a little island with Water Zombies hiding off the shore. I think that's it. My save game is actually right before they ambush you (I died last time), but I don't recall getting a quest about it. Who do I need to talk to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall In Half Now Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 The zombies are not part of any quest. It's a different place, near the swamp spiders, and a small peninsula, not an island. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 It sounds like the swamp monster and its friendly slimes that the nephils in Highground want you to remove. If it's that then you only lost the one quest. I think it's a job board quest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Zummi Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Quote: Originally written by Derell Licht: Then, later on, I got the related quest, and eventually went back by land to deal with this. As Randomizer said..it's just a job board quest..think of it as a lesser version of a sidequest..plus..the reward isn't all that good.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Derell Licht Posted March 14, 2008 Author Share Posted March 14, 2008 Okay, I think I understand... Swamp Monster *is* a job board quest, and (as several people said) probably not that important. I was confusing it with the Vhorr quest, which sounds more important. hmmm... I wonder if I already met that creature?? I'll have to go talk to Vhorr again... Thanks for the comments!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Zummi Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Vhorr's quest is killing the Soultaker.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Euphoria Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Regardless of the fact that this may be a minor quest...this is a pervasive problem with A5. I think a commercial game should not have such major, repeated flaws. Jeff needs to address this issue, in a timely manner, with a patch. I must say, needing to read spoliers, and constantly worry that by exploring I am screwing up quests is impacting my enjoyment of the game. Even with reading all the warnings I still find that at times I forget something, and mess up a quest. I save often, and usually I don't need to replay much. Even with all that, I had to redo then entire demo, as I did mess something up. And another time needed to hack the scripts to fix another issue as I had played too much to stomach a replay. For $25 none of us should have these issues. Either quests events should only be triggered once you have the quest, or the game should remember what you have done, and you can get the quest finished retroactively. Either way is possible to code, and Jeff and his Spiderweb team should do this. Edit: Another solution...have all quests auto assigned when you enter a new area. Or, start the game with all quests assigned. Whatever works. Whatever they will do to actually solve the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgeoning Battle Gamma JP Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Quote: Originally written by Azuma:Vhorr's quest is killing the Soultaker.. I thought I had spoken with everyone in the Azur Gallery. Where do I meet Vhorr? Do I have to have done something special to get this quest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unflappable Drayk Zummi Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Vhorr is in the semi-Honeycomb in the Azure Gallery..you need to talk to Korramor first to get the quest to talk with Elder Vhorr.. @Euphoria's request.. I dig it..I think that job boards quest items should instead be dropped by enemies and not go into the special inventory..and when job boards specific target is killed..the game records it..and let's you get the reward..only part where I disagree with Euphoria is the "all quests at the beginning" part..that'll be RunEscape-ish.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Euphoria Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 "@Euphoria's request.. I dig it..I think that job boards quest items should instead be dropped by enemies and not go into the special inventory..and when job boards specific target is killed..the game records it..and let's you get the reward..only part where I disagree with Euphoria is the "all quests at the beginning" part..that'll be RunEscape-ish.." I only suggest that as a solution if they cannot find a better way, or turn out to be too lazy. I agree with you, it would be...a bit stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 If you want Jeff to do something, contact him directly, through the 'contact us' link at the bottom of the screen. He only rarely visits these boards, and makes no particular effort to read everything when he does. He's very interested in customer feedback; but that is not the purpose of these forums. If lots of people have this complaint, I'm sure he'll do something about it. But it doesn't bother everyone, because not being able to get retroactive rewards is just realistic. Why should someone pay you to do something for them, if you've already done it for free? If you want to make sure to get paid for everything possible, the realistic thing to do is to do nothing until you've collected every contract going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Euphoria Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 I didn't realize that realism is a key element of a Fantasy RPG game with monsters, magic, and a made up world. I must be drunk or something. IMO, your argument is a poor excuse to attempt to smooth over poorly written quest code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Taliesin Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 I don't see why people are so averse to simply checking out their local job board before exploring. I've never had any problems with it myself. And at least one job is retroactive - getting the Black Wight's head for Shanker. There may be others, I don't know for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Quote: Originally written by Euphoria:I didn't realize that realism is a key element of a Fantasy RPG game with monsters, magic, and a made up world. I must be drunk or something. IMO, your argument is a poor excuse to attempt to smooth over poorly written quest code. It would actually be less effort to omit the checks for whether the quest has been taken before giving quest items. Whether you like it or not, being able to miss out on quest rewards by solving quests before taking them is clearly a deliberate feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Soul of Wit Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 I'll "bump" this to agree with Thuryl. I can make a strong argument that the "exploration penalty" argued in this thread--actually increases replay value. I don't want to find every single sidequest the first time through. If I do then I expect to be obsessive about it and/or to make a lot of saves. To work for it. Any good RPG combines realism and fantasy. Without some significant elements of realism, the game trends towards an abstract exercise--no different than a pure strategy game. Please don't even suggest laziness. A5 is shareware--not commercial--but it involves considerable effort to release and to maintain after release. Throw in Mac and Win support and you have quite a challenge. You don't have to be a coder/scripter to figure that out. I support the idea of running a potential bug up the flagpole to see if other posters salute. The key word there is "potential". One man's bug is another man's intentional feature is another man's unintentional (but, hey, I like it) feature. Feel you have a legitimate bug? Again, another poster repeats: spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Edit: read "bump" as "mild rant" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 There are some places where what appears to be a bug is a deliberate decision by Jeff to make the game a certain way. Bodies and loot that are hard or impossible to see because of the 3 dimensional perspective is the best example. Geneforge 4 had a quest that had to be reported before the evacuation of Southforge Citadel if you wanted credit and the reward. So having quests where you need to get them before doing them is a likely feature and not a bug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Articulate Vlish Euphoria Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 Quote "Please don't even suggest laziness. A5 is shareware--not commercial--but it involves considerable effort to release and to maintain after release. Throw in Mac and Win support and you have quite a challenge. You don't have to be a coder/scripter to figure that out." Don't tell me that a game you must pay to play is shareware. Yes, there is a free demo section. Want to actually get into the game, pony up $25. How is that a non-commercial game? Stop the holier than thou attitude, accept reality, and admit that for a commercial game this is bug riddled. Even if many of the quests are designed to be missed if you don't do things in the correct order, many of the other issues with quests are clearly not by design. Example, see the new posting about the Lyssic quest bug where the guy kills the last 2 at the same time. Or for that matter, the Spy quest, where I did get the quest, but then triggered both ambushes before "finishing" part one of the quest. Part 2 hangs. Also, from a pure point of view...how exactly is one to know which things are quest related, and not quest related prior to exploring? From that arguments standpoint, one should never explore, and never kill anything because it might cut off a potential quest in the future. And, if you don't know where the job boards are (also, many quests are not found on job boards at all) it means that to even discover a quest, you may possibly ruin a quest in the search for the quests. Another issue is that some quests are so far ahead of the quest object (monster, item, etc...) that any natural order of progression is completely ruined. If this happens to be by design, then I say, it is poor design. Can't handle that opinion? Deal with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Spidweb Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 This is degenerating into a flame war about whether I am a Bad Man. I will address the original poster's issue, make a few comments, and consider this thread done. I have checked the code. The swamp monster only ever appears after you have gotten the job board quest, so there is no penalty for exploring this area before going into town. The encounter does not later reset if you flee from it. Perhaps a questionable decision, but not technically a bug. I will reconsider it for the next patch. However, there is another encounter to the south that says a monster has been walking the area, and it appears even after the monster has been met. This is odd, but not a terrible error. I think it is the cause of the confusion here. Also, there is an encounter nearby where swampy monsters appear from the water, which might also have been mistaken with the job board mission. I'm sorry for the confusion, but there is, for once, no problems with not going to the job board early here. - Jeff Vogel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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