Tracking an Old Goat

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tostgrim

it reminds me of a team leader i worked with a few years back on an application for one of the company's customers. As usual when creating a user interface there are a number of ways to skin a cat... The dev team had come up with three viable options and the team leader had chosen one of them that he prefered. When i suggested that we let the client decide which option they wanted his response was "i'm not letting the f*****g customers decide how my application is going to look."

i think i see echos of that here... "i'm not letting the players decide how they play my game."

you need to take a step back turbine and introduce this in a more structured and heralded way... Especially when you tie it to deeds. Your dev team might be having a snigger but you've p****d a lot of players off.

---

+ rep

12345

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alex_Knight

...The Annuminas quests aren't tied to a deed...

---

I think to many people, the deed isn't even a problem. It is the sheer stupidity of Turbine taking the trouble to design, create, implement and test a bunch of quests, only to make some bass ackward decision to make the npc quest giver unforgiving, so a single miss will permanently lock out said content. Oh, and while trying to make some kind of point about 'reading quests" when numerous people here already stated that they've read every word.

I honestly can't believe the official dev response to this horribly poorly designed quest line boils down to "LOL, READ THE QUESTS NEXT TIME, U MAD BRO?"

I read every word, and I did complete the deed, but then again I'm extra cautious. Even so, I almost missed out. I do think it is a misleading quest line and have sympathy for those that didn't complete it.

1. The quest says to scout *the path* to the camp, which is east of you. Taking it literally, I followed the only path I had, which is the path on the map. Call it a road if you like but it looks like a dirt path through the woods to me. The road goes NNE then SSE, not straight across. It wasn't until I wandered into the woods to complete one of the quests that I got more. Suggestion: Tell players explicitly to cut across, or suggest that hostile scouts are watching the road. Don't tell people to scout the path if you don't want them on the path!

2. I totally missed the existence of the deed. I had several icons pop up at once, and the exploration deed icon replaced the goat deed icon, so clicking on the only deed icon on my screen showed the exploration deed, not the goat deed. No suggestion here -- if the quest is fixed the deed won't be an issue.

3. The 'continue' dialog is a trap. Sorry, but you can do better. I knew from past experience that I could 'cheat' and close the window without clicking a button, but you shouldn't rely on that. In essence you are telling the player 'congratulations, you have now missed out!' and given them no obvious choice but to say OK. Suggestion: Have it be a finish now/finish later dialog.

4. More importantly, the way that text is worded, you know you would miss out if you still had incomplete quests, but you don't realize that there are more quests out there that aren't yet available and never will be. Even with two buttons, people would still think they've done them all. Suggestion: When he reaches his destination, have two texts for the quest completion: one if all the quests are completed ("thanks, we did it"), a different one if not ("we are here. more remains, but it's ok, you have done enough"). Or: once you turn in the whistle, have the remaining quests available from that npc at the camp. Or: have the quest direct players to landmarks like the tree of tribute and the tree of mustering, have the quests pop up there.


In short, I like the idea of quests popping up as you progress, but you have to give people some idea of how well they are doing on the progress. This implementation needs work.

My issue with the traps quest, is that it did not spawn a gold ring.

2 person party.

I get stuck in trap,

No gold ring that either of us saw, I was stuck in the strupid trap for 60 seconds, could not blood rage out of it either.

We ran around the area for a couple minutes more before we gave up.

That is a bug, that is the fault of the developer who added the quest.

We had 2 NPCs, and neither of us saw anything.

That is a failure of quest design.

You should be able to pick up the quests from any other persons NPC, of course that would also require Turbine to fix whatever bug prevented ours from spawning.

And the previous poster is 100% right, you think you finished every one of them, there is no indication that you have or you have not. When you finish the OR quests in Annuminas and you finish every one of them, you still get the red text.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whheydt

Finally...a rewarding experience for those of us who like to actually pay attention to the game, read the quest text, and savor the plot lines....

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

---

No no no no no, I never saw a warning not once, and yes, I am one of those that reads every detail given by Turbine, otherwise what would be the point in them creating the text. So this is unfair Turbine, no warning, and now a deed that can never be completed. Looks like one more poor thing from Isengard, makes me really look forward to instances in December ('Insert Sarcasm Here'). Not to mention the buggy Draigoch, and a now bugged Barad Guldur, get your grip together Turbine, you are doing poorly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LadyDena

And the dev's condescending and flippant response in this thread also indicated they think the problem is entirely with the players.

---

It did not seem condescending to me. He was giving the reason for the deed being there in the first place: to let you know when you've done all the quests. In Annuminas there was no such deed and a lot of players were frustrated that there was no way to know if you've done all the quests or not.

The snag is that you hit the red warning point where you can't go back and do the quests (unlike Annuminas), and this conflicts with other deeds that want you to complete almost all of the quests in a zone. This point was not addressed by the dev. Of course that's annoying to players who assume every dev is able to answer all quests.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lohi

It did not seem condescending to me.

---

Saying "read the quests and also magically know what our intentions are and exactly what 2 foot square to stand in to get the quests, or we're going to screw you over, ignore your tickets when you are stuck with a deed in your log that can never be completed, and continually tell you it's working as intended despite the fact that almost everyone in the entire player base got screwed by it" is not condescending?

Basically their stance so far has been "We don't care if it's poorly designed or not, that's the way it is, now shut up and leave us alone". Reminds me of the last anniversary "celebration" aka Disgustingly Unfun Grindfest 2011.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Berephon

I cannot emphasize more to READ THE QUESTS. If you don't, then you miss what the game is all about and miss any guidance and instruction. That's not going to change.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lohi

It did not seem condescending to me...

---

Condescending is a bit harsh IMHO, but the comment that stood out to me was

Quote:

---

That's not going to change

---

In response to players saying this quest didn't make sense. So, he made assumptions and then took a firm stand against errant assumptions which isn't good to do publicly. There is a hint of "I told you so" to all those that don't bother reading... but if that is what it is... it really does send a strong message to all those that DID bother to read his quest but also couldn't read his mind. This is a tough one for me, because I'm against the amount of hand holding and coddling that Turbine does in LoTRO, but at the same time, once they commit to that, its annoying when they break the mold and you miss it because they refused to do things like it in the past. All in all, I don't think the story, quests, or dev pride should take a hit by simply making this quest finish-able by going back to the camp and talking to the NPCs there already. Standing behind your principles and your product is great. Standing up to the user base over design flaws... not sure that is the mountain you should plant your flag on.

And, this didn't make the patch 1 notes, but several other issues didn't either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alex_Knight

I was also one of the people who were unable to complete this quest/ deed chain. And like most of the others I was sorely disappointed by this. My issue was like everyone else, where the information given was misleading.

A couple of points:

1.) Not having "In a Dark and Lonely Forest" pop up immedately after turning in Eyes in the Forest would have helped, as I wouldn't have clicked continue instead of closing the window. (As a note there: I was under the impression that it wouldn't take the whistle away until I turned the quest into Saerdan, not as soon as I clicked "Continue.")

2.) A lot of people compare this to the Orichalwe missions in Annuminas. There's a slightly false comparison here. Yes, you have quests that can go away permanently. Yes you have an NPC following you around. That's where the similarity ends. The Annuminas quests aren't tied to a deed. More importantly, the main quest Orichalwe gives out takes you all over Annuminas, not just to *one* specific location. In addition, his 'bonus' quests pop up when you enter the area of the city you are in, not a tiny hotspot. Sorry, missed one commonality. Both have their controversies as well, see "Monuments of Angmar." (I think was the quest line...)

I don't mind innovation and 'trying to do something different'. I liked the Orichalwe quests (even if I never did finish the quest line due to the aformentioned quest...) I liked the "carry your quest giver" chains such as the ledger in the Starkmoors or the Journal in Evendim. But I think this one has too many issues with it, least of which is the "tracker" deed.

---

I think this man said it best. I didn't know "continue" meant what it would do. Not completing quests? No problem, I can forget about that. But a half empty deed is just kicking me when I'm down. And likewise, the ledger in the Starkmoors I thought was innovative and fun.

I'm stuck at 5/7 on this deed, on my warden. I not only read the quest text, I saw the warnings. I kept Andreg a whole week extra, after doing the 4 quests he gave me. I ran him all over the Gravenwood, keeping him out like a pet while I mined nodes, in the hopes that he would give me the Orc Mischief and Cruel Traps quests. I even purposely stepped in the traps.

At the time I was doing this, there wasn't any info like this thread, so I thought "Maybe after I finish Andreg, a new NPC comes with Orc Mischief and Cruel Traps". So I don't have the whistle anymore.

He never gave the quests, and I will never be able to complete the deed. It's not just non-readers getting stuck.

The idea behind the quests/deed is every interesting and enjoyable. I thought it was cleaver to have the npc trailing behind you offering the quests as you go. However, the design is where this idea is flawed.

I read these posts and knew that the whistle would disappear so I was careful not to hit continue. I was working my way near a quest point using the ;loc command. I was near the point and opened the quest window to see if I had gotten it. I hadn't so I moved a bit, typed ;loc as I was hitting enter, the npc went into combat which put me into combat. I was taken out of the chat window and put into the quest window. By me hitting the enter key, it competed the quest.

Great idea but the implementation is a fail!

There should be an added window to this quest that basically says are you sure you want to complete this quest? This would prevent a lot of these interface errors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mjk47

There is one very simple change that will fix this. Rather than the final quest saying that you will lose any uncompleted quests, it just needs to say that you will no longer be able to complete the Tracking an Old Goat deed. This would direct you exactly where you need to be in order to check whether there are any more quests that you haven't discovered yet. it isn't rocket science.

---

Plus up to now you clicked on the NPC with a ring over him for the quests, he had no ring most people figured they were done and moved on. It was a good idea, but for some new as drag the NPC around for more quests there should have been a better explanation and warning. Maybe after 20 plus pages of unhappy customers Turbine will let people give it another go.

Please tell me that Turbine is going to fix this quest/deed.. in my case the ally simply never gave me "hunting the pack" even though I was on the right spot and everyone else in my fellowship got it. I did not know this until it was too late.. until I asked everyone what is "hunting the pack" .. they told me it was a quest to the deed. I submitted a ticket and no.. they did not care at all. Very disappointing. Of course I turned in the whistle since I had no other quests to turn in.. how could I know? This was before this thread was ever created, so nothing to refer to either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CGDrakken

Maybe after 20 plus pages of unhappy customers Turbine will let people give it another go.

---

You'd think so, but more likely, they'll just wait until it has 67 pages, never do anything substantial to fix it, and then find whatever nonsensical reason they can to close the thread.

Unlike some of the obvious diehards here cutting us down for missing 'Hunting the Pack', I do not always lock out the rest of the world while playing the game. I never saw the Deed in my log at the time, probably because I had 20-30 already in process. When I did notice the Deed, I had to then look it up and find out that I somehow missed one. Hard to know you missed something you never knew existed. So it will now stay in the deed log along with some stupid Summer Fling or something that I also cannot delete. Fortunately I am not a completionist, though I never like to miss out on free tp or LI tokens. Too bad the whistle wasn't like the GB and CD keys.

Ah ####! I didn't even notice this deed until I stumbled upon this thread. Now I'm pretty upset about the whole thing... I just assumed I had completed the parent quest when I had grabbed the ooze and scouted since he wasn't offering anymore quests. Very poor!

I didn't see the deed pop up in my log either because it probably got hidden behind the explore deed pop up. Sigh...

At least make it possible to grab the whistle from him again! :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lohi

It did not seem condescending to me.

---

Oh really? If a dev types in ALL CAPS screaming "READ THE QUEST" isn't condescending, do tell this community what is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Norwrei

Of course I turned in the whistle since I had no other quests to turn in.. how could I know?

---

Oh yes, people should have KNOWN because the plans for the hyperspace bypass have been on display in the planning office for the last nine months!

Simple solution would be to create a token available in the Lotro store to reset this entire deed and quest line. Option 2 would be to add a quest to reset this deed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dahbee

Simple solution would be to create a token available in the Lotro store to reset this entire deed and quest line. Option 2 would be to add a quest to reset this deed.

---

Actually thats a good idea. Letting them make a profit from their shoddy QA will ensure it gets fixed immediately!

1) program easy to fail quest ingame.
2) Offer fix in store.
3) Profit!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LadyDena

Oh really? If a dev types in ALL CAPS screaming "READ THE QUEST" isn't condescending, do tell this community what is.

---

It's called emphasis, don't see malice in places where there is none.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reniannen

It's called emphasis, don't see malice in places where there is none.

---

Malice? What are you talking about, who is talking about malice? Condescending <> Malice. Either typing in all caps to one's customers is good, or its bad. Most people and online community know that answer. But I'm sure the apologists will try to make excuses for that too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LadyDena

Malice? What are you talking about, who is talking about malice? Condescending <> Malice. Either typing in all caps to one's customers is good, or its bad. Most people and online community know that answer. But I'm sure the apologists will try to make excuses for that too.

---

I'm just saying there were no evil intentions behind him using caps. And language isn't that absolute, sorry.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ellis

I'm stuck at 5/7 on this deed, on my warden. I not only read the quest text, I saw the warnings. I kept Andreg a whole week extra, after doing the 4 quests he gave me. I ran him all over the Gravenwood, keeping him out like a pet while I mined nodes, in the hopes that he would give me the Orc Mischief and Cruel Traps quests. I even purposely stepped in the traps.

At the time I was doing this, there wasn't any info like this thread, so I thought "Maybe after I finish Andreg, a new NPC comes with Orc Mischief and Cruel Traps". So I don't have the whistle anymore.

He never gave the quests, and I will never be able to complete the deed. It's not just non-readers getting stuck.

---

Question, were you in a group?

I think there is a serious bug with the traps that does not let the quest activate for some reason.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by whheydt

Finally...a rewarding experience for those of us who like to actually pay attention to the game, read the quest text, and savor the plot lines....

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

---

um.. i've read all the quest desciptions and i still missed it you know?
maybe.. just maybe... that's because if you don't have the quest pop up there's no way of knowing that you missed one unless you actually check the deed and figure out that it is directly connected to that NPC whose name i forgot... yes i did check the deed when it popped and no i did not figure that this deed was directly connected to him
i was simply assuming that i'd be able to finish it along the way and not that ignoring it for the moment would bar any way of completing it; and also because i was assuming that the npc would have handed me all his quests by that time...not simply forget about 1 or 2 of them

even IF it was all down to reading the plot lines (which it isn't) your kind of justification for this is just bull#### sorry to say it