Tracking an Old Goat

Being a fan of Tolkiens works, I have played this game since release.
I enjoy reading quest descriptions and never leave an area until every quest is done and every landmark is visited.
I have not yet completed every deed there is in the game, but I've done a fair share of them.
As a completionist I have only managed to play my main to lvl 73 at present (jan 7th) and didn't do this quest line until today.
And ofc I failed the quest in the sense that I'm stuck at 6/7 for reasons already covered by Hurin and others.
I understand to a degree the argument that this deed was made to punish those who don't read their quests but in this case you hit a dedicated player and it really hurts that I can't do the quest and finish the deed.

I wish that I had read this thread before attempting the quest but I seldom read the forums for fear of spoilers.

The quest dialogue truly is misleading, so the argument of 'learn to read' goes out the window, and back to the condescending individual's face. I actually read every bit of quest text to get clues and background on it, aside from getting the story in full. Given that the quest 'A Dark and Lonely Forest' is one of the seven quests in the deed, and is a departure from Andreg, one is put into a false sense of progression of the deed, since this quest leads you to the Rohirrim scout camp. Who's to say the last quest in my deed log wasn't in fact at the scout camp? I had already scouted the region as best I could, so of course I would assume that the final quest in the deed would be completed where I was sent to next. Alas, this was not to be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Varnir

I understand to a degree the argument that this deed was made to punish those who don't read their quests. . .

---

To be fair, I don't think that was the intent of the deed. Rather, Berephon stated that he put the deed in to be helpful because many folks in Beta were annoyed that they couldn't ever be sure when they had found all the quests Andreg offers (since they appear so randomly as you traverse the landscape across a rather arbitrary, predetermined, and invisible pathway). The deed was intended to serve as a checklist for all the quests that Andreg offers and thus address a minor complaint on the part of the testers.

The unforeseen/unintended consequence of this attempt to fix one issue/annoyance was the introduction of a far more annoying issue: People stuck with an incomplete deed due to confusing questline design and insufficient instructions/warnings/information provided to the average player.

The problem is that the deed was conceived and implemented with far too much prior knowledge assumed on the part of the player. It was introduced as a quick fix to help out people who already knew that Andreg was hitting invisible quest hotspots and it was intended to help those who were trying to find each and every one of them. It, and all the language/warnings in the questline assumes the player knows exactly how all these things work and merely wants to find them all. Which is why it appears to never have occurred to Berephon or anyone else that the warning text was insufficient (as it obviously is to us, now), and that the deed would actually cause more issues than it solved. As Berephon even said, he regrets adding the deed.

Yes, Berephon's initial reaction was unfortunate in that he essentially told us that we just need to "learn to read" as well. But it is sometimes difficult to see one's own decisions and work from the perspective of someone without so much intimate knowledge of how the game and its systems all work. Berephon has always seemed like a very nice and conscientious person whenever (else) he has posted, so I just have to assume he was posting quickly and hadn't yet had time to think this issue through and see it from the perspective of the average player rather than the perspective of the developer or beta testers with prior knowledge of how the quest line and deed should work.

I still hold out hope that a fix will be forthcoming as soon as Berephon (or someone else) has time and can get the green light from management.

--H

[QUOTE=Hurin;5917794]To be fair, I don't think that was the intent of the deed.

Does make a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for clearing that out.

I've done this quest chain a couple of times with other characters with no problem, but just taken my LM through and although I collected the quest from the Gravenwood campsite, for some reason I started it from the Rohirrim Scout Camp (I had gone back to reforge and came into the wood from a different direction).

I picked up the oozing corruption quest from Andreg, then accidentally scouted the route without meaning to and completed the 'Dark and Lonely Forest' quest without realising that Andreg would disappear from then on (yes no doubt because I didn't read the red warning properly, but as I'd already done it on other toons I didn't know this would happen.....didn't think it mattered what order you did the Old Goat quests in, but apparently it does).

I usually do read my quests and I enjoy doing that so I know what is going on, but this one slipped by without me doing so - I guess I've learnt my lesson there huh?

So anyway, I've heard that you can try and do the quests with another player who picks them up so I'll wait and see if that's true, but the quest to speak to Saeradan is not able to be cancelled by the looks of it.

For those who haven't done this yet - when you pick up the quest from the Gravenwood camp site, take it from there and make your way through the wood doing the quests that Andreg gives you, don't start the chain from the other side of the wood - and read your quest chain carefully to make sure you're not going to cancel the rest of your quests by accident. I think it is only the 'Dark and Lonely Forest' quest where you kill the dusk hound boss, Drugrir that does this, but I may be wrong.

Happy questing :)

^
You can't get the Andreg quests from another player, assuming you mean 'quest sharing', since I already tried this. As far as the hound quest, I actually had killed the dusk hound boss, in addition to the normal hound mobs, yet I was given no quest in relation to these while I still had Andreg around. After getting the deed inadvertantly locked, I researched what quest I was missing, and sure enough, it was the quest to defeat those hounds. It doesn't matter how many times I would have read the 'warning', how many hounds I killed, or how many times I scoured the woods, the quest itself was never given to me. So, I would venture to guess that yes, the quests in the deed may actually be intended to be done in a certain order. If not, then the quest itself was actually missing for me, and therefore unattainable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aztec_Soul

^
You can't get the Andreg quests from another player, assuming you mean 'quest sharing', since I already tried this. As far as the hound quest, I actually had killed the dusk hound boss, in addition to the normal hound mobs, yet I was given no quest in relation to these while I still had Andreg around. After getting the deed inadvertantly locked, I researched what quest I was missing, and sure enough, it was the quest to defeat those hounds. It doesn't matter how many times I would have read the 'warning', how many hounds I killed, or how many times I scoured the woods, the quest itself was never given to me. So, I would venture to guess that yes, the quests in the deed may actually be intended to be done in a certain order. If not, then the quest itself was actually missing for me, and therefore unattainable.

---

I was thinking that you could get another player to summon Andreg and maybe you could hand the quest in to Andreg then. I got the ooze quest off him before he disappeared and completed it but he's not around for me to hand it in to. I'll post back when my kinnie is at that stage and we find out if it works.

Re the quests appearing - I'm not sure if it's random or if it depends where you are in the wood. I'd killed quite a few hounds and craban today and Andreg didn't get a quest ring appearing for either - last time I was nearer to the Gravenwood campsite when that happened so perhaps you have to be fighting around there. Last time I did this on another toon I also had a hard time finding the scouting point - it was the last thing I did because of this - in fact I'd killed the boss hound 2 or 3 times and the quest didn't update - that seems to be more to do with where you go in the wood rather than killing the hound as after I'd killed it the last time I ran around and eventually the quest updated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Freya21

I was thinking that you could get another player to summon Andreg and maybe you could hand the quest in to Andreg then. I got the ooze quest off him before he disappeared and completed it but he's not around for me to hand it in to. I'll post back when my kinnie is at that stage and we find out if it works.

---

Others have already done/tried this.

If you have clicked "continue" with Andreg for "A Dark and Lonely Forest" (the one with the insufficient/unclear warning in red text), Andreg disappears. However, some report that you can still use someone else's Andreg until you actually turn in a quest to Saeradan at the Rohirrim camp (though I don't know if that's the same quest, or "Eyes in the Forest"). But it's likely that if you made it to the camp and turned things into Saeradan, you'r hosed.

Quote:

---

Re the quests appearing - I'm not sure if it's random or if it depends where you are in the wood.

---

It's not random, they appear at certain hotspots along the invisible, predetermined (and very narrow) path.

--H

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Freya21

So anyway, I've heard that you can try and do the quests with another player who picks them up so I'll wait and see if that's true, but the quest to speak to Saeradan is not able to be cancelled by the looks of it.

---

Yeah, I heard that too, but I found that to be untrue. I took a friend through the forest on my thrid character through, and she never got a chance to pick up the quests, I couldn'y share them with her, and she never saw a quest indicator over Andreg's head. If you screw up, you're done.

For the record...

The dusk hound signature is in no way related to, tied to, or a apart of the Old goat deed or quests in any way. Maybe you're supposed to happen upon him atht ened of the over-quest, sure, but he's not a part of it, or required for it. He's jsut a named creature, that then gives you a quest-starter object. Nothing more.

My first character actually didn't know about him until much, much later on when she came back to the area. Finsihed the old goat deed though.

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed. You get the first quests, summon your dude like it tels you to, then follow the road. The Road. All bar one quest show up simply walking aloing the road. the other you get if you follow the road down the right hand fork, then walk in a roughly straight line to the camp when it terminates. It's really simple, and very straight forward.

I just got this done yesterday, i completed one quest and saw the new deed pop up. I love completing deeds so I read through what was required. I did see the red text (for me it was sufficient as red rarely appears except for solo instance quests from what I can remember), but I thought to myself what if I didn't see it. Then I started to wonder if there were other times I didn't see it. I finished the deed but I can completely sympathize with people who are concerned and upset over this. Why not just have 2 available turn ins. One that is static and never disappears and andreg or wtv his name was.

Will Andregs flute be the next cash shop item?

On that note, is this the only deed that can put people in this predicament?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

For the record...

The dusk hound signature is in no way related to, tied to, or a apart of the Old goat deed or quests in any way. Maybe you're supposed to happen upon him atht ened of the over-quest, sure, but he's not a part of it, or required for it. He's jsut a named creature, that then gives you a quest-starter object. Nothing more.

My first character actually didn't know about him until much, much later on when she came back to the area. Finsihed the old goat deed though.

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed. You get the first quests, summon your dude like it tels you to, then follow the road. The Road. All bar one quest show up simply walking aloing the road. the other you get if you follow the road down the right hand fork, then walk in a roughly straight line to the camp when it terminates. It's really simple, and very straight forward.

---

If the hotspots were adequate, we wouldn't have 43 pages of people saying that they weren't. And since when does anyone actually follow the road? I know I don't, especially when I have ore tracking, wood tracking, or treasure tracking active: I run all over the place. If the warning text were clear, and you could cancel the continuation of the quest that gets rid of Andreg with a CANCEL button, that would be much better also.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed. You get the first quests, summon your dude like it tels you to, then follow the road. The Road. All bar one quest show up simply walking aloing the road. the other you get if you follow the road down the right hand fork, then walk in a roughly straight line to the camp when it terminates. It's really simple, and very straight forward.

---

I love that whole: "Follow the road! Except where you don't! It's so simple!" Anyways, regarding the "road". . . I might as well just copy and paste my response to you from the last time you popped in. . .

I'm there, now. Looking again. And I can't tell if you're just honestly mistaken or merely suffering from an imperfect memory. . . but there is no "ROAD" for the entire path. I'm there as I write this, standing where Cruel Traps is bestowed, and there is no road in sight. Nor is there one visible for Hunting the Pack. Nor is there one visible when you finally reach the final destination (that angry elite). All three places for which I could track down the coordinates, no road. There are roads in the region, but they do not form any path that takes you on a convenient tour of the quest pick-up areas. And even those roads tend to disappear into the underbrush only to re-emerge at random. And, guess what, I checked out the "north face of the southern hills" and not only is there no road at all there, but it's far, far away from any of the quests. So, there goes the theory about just following the quest bestowal dialog. . .

Further, even were your description of this fanciful road accurate, at no point are we directed to stay on any road. Not by the quest text. Not by the bestowal dialog. And as others have pointed out, not even by the developer who basically just says "make a bee-line for the Rohirrim camp". . . and the roads available don't do that. So, ummmm, you were saying?

That's from a much longer response here. You know, where you came in to call everyone here "beyond stupid" only to demonstrate that you actually had no real understanding of the issue and were just assuming everyone was being "unintelligent" when in fact it was you who was misunderstanding the nature of the issue? Ah, good times.

--H

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cryles

I did see the red text (for me it was sufficient as red rarely appears except for solo instance quests from what I can remember). . .

---

If you mean that the red text was "sufficient" to allow you to guess correctly, well. . . okay. But, depending on how your trek through the Gravenwood occurs, it's simply not sufficient to actually explain what is going on for those with no prior knowledge about how the questline works. There is nothing about the red warning text that actually links Andreg's dismissal (and the cancelling of underway quests) with the Tracking the Old Goat deed. Of course, if you happened to see the ring above Andreg at various points, and picked up enough of those quests, you might put two and two together and note that all the quests he gave you matched the names on the deed. But, of course, what happens if you only happened across one or two quest "hot spots" and therefore only had one or two quests from the deed in your quest log? At that point, you're faced with a deed with a couple completed quests and no reason to believe that the rest of the quests won't be provided later by others (perhaps at the camp to which Andreg is directing you).

No, I didn't tie it to cancelling quests actually. But if you turn in the last quest before handing in the others..you lose them. I never even thought of cancelling them. As I mentioned in my first post though, I opened the deed log after handing in my first quest to Andreg and it told me what I needed (since the first quest was already marked handed in and I had 1 or 2 others ongoing)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed..

---

I have to agree with the people before me who said yet again that these hotspots *are* narrow indeed. I've completed this deed twice so far on my chars; on my second one I got caught into the orc-traps FOUR times in various spots -- all around the place -- before Andreg finally gave me the quest to disable them. Ditto, for the slayer quests...

There *is* a problem with this deed. Some people manage to complete it without any apparent effort on the first go -- good for them! But for many, many, many others it's a problem still.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed. You get the first quests, summon your dude like it tels you to, then follow the road. The Road. All bar one quest show up simply walking aloing the road. the other you get if you follow the road down the right hand fork, then walk in a roughly straight line to the camp when it terminates. It's really simple, and very straight forward.

---

That's all very well, but I'm an explorer. I diverted from the road several times to mine ore and collect branches, so I didn't get all the quests before I reached the camp. After I read the warning, I completed all the quests in progress. The second time the warning popped up, I had completed all the quests in progress, so I believed it was safe to continue.

I wish people would stop saying the quest is simple and straightforward, and that those of us who failed to complete the deed must have rushed through the content and failed to read the text.

I wish I was as clever as you. At least I'm not so arrogant as to assume that if I didn't have any problems, then anyone who did have problems must be stupid.

I must have gotten lucky last night.

Wasn't quite sure how to use the whistle (yeah WH I didn't read it too closely at the start!).

I got to the camp, talked to S. and T. went a bit back up the path and blew the whistle. Then I just went with it. A. kept popping quest rings, so I kept taking them. Finally finished what I thought were all but I couldn't figure out how to get this guy to stop following. Then we found the hound boss and after the final screen popped.

They really should have it finish at the camp (which is what I though hitting <continue> did).

Luckily I had finished the Old Goat, but wouldn't mind having A. tag along again sometime.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

Also, would people stop saying the path hotspots are narrow? They Aren't. I've done it with four characters now, and I really don't see the problem with the deed. You get the first quests, summon your dude like it tels you to, then follow the road. The Road. All bar one quest show up simply walking aloing the road. the other you get if you follow the road down the right hand fork, then walk in a roughly straight line to the camp when it terminates. It's really simple, and very straight forward.

---

Thats BS. Im on my 8th and 9th char there now and of all those 9 chars two (2) have picked up all quests w/o problem. With one char it took me two (2) weeks of trying on and off before I got the last quest even thou I knew where to go. I know the bleeding area by heart now, to bad that doesnt matter when it comes to picking up all quests. Be happy that you got lucky but dont come here with that #### about it being straight forward och wide hotspots. 43 pages says it isnt so.

Oh and I wasn't clear before but I was wandering aimlessly around and definitely NOT sticking to the road. Probably why I got all the quest rings to pop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harla

For the record...

The dusk hound signature is in no way related to, tied to, or a apart of the Old goat deed or quests in any way. Maybe you're supposed to happen upon him atht ened of the over-quest, sure, but he's not a part of it, or required for it. He's jsut a named creature, that then gives you a quest-starter object. Nothing more.

---

Not exactly true. The spot where "he" spawns is the EXACT (and yes, very SMALL) spot that updates a location for the deed and is required for one of the quests. So since you have to hit that spot, you have to kill him.

I did this quest line and deed on my main -- a hunter -- the first time. I pulled Drugrarir (or whatever it's name is) from a distance, as hunters are wont to do. I ran around the general area looking for the location. I killed him several times, and from standing in different locations, since he kept respawning and chasing after me while I was trying to find the exact spot. Very frustrating, compounded by the fact that looking at your quest tracking helpers on the map makes it appear the spot is up on a hill behind him -- a hill that is inaccessible from any direction (guess how I know that?). I finally stepped on the right spot and got the update to the quest (sorry, forgotten which one it is) and the deed. I had been no more than two or three steps from that exact spot multiple times, so it is SMALL.

I was partially trying to avoid him because I noted that he had dropped quest starter item, and I didn't want to be killing him all the time and having other people come by, not see him, and consequently not get the quest starter item. Shame on me for caring about other people's play experience?

I can see that if your play style is to run up and hit a mob where they stand, you'd get the update immediately. But I just delineated why that didn't happen for me. If your contention that the hound has no connection was true, you could avoid him altogether and still have the quest complete. But you can't.

I don't assume that MY experience is exactly what anyone, much less everyone, will have. What makes your experience the only one possible?

well after some time away from lotro..whem i come back and get playing and i see the list of deeds i saw that i haven't complete this ####y deed...after many minutes of research in web i finally found this post and see i cant complete this deed cuz i had not complete some quests some months ago? Now i cant complete this deed because of it? i think is just non sense and i dont understand why turbine didn't solved it already since i'm paying for play and not to have "impossible" deeds on my char..

Other thing i want to ask if some1 can tell me how can i finish deed "quests in gravenwood" cuz i have made all of the book's and i think all others and im on 16-24 quests...i cant get it out where i can find the other 8 quests in Gravenwood to complete this deed too..cuz without it i cant complete the other one too of quests in dunland..So can any tell me where can i get the 8 quests missing?
ths for reading...

I don't know if it's fixed or not, but the last time I did the Gravenwood, the two scouts from the Rohirrim Scout Camp were broken and I didn't get any vector quests to them. Since I had already done the area on my main and I knew these two scouts existed, I rode out to them and got the quests off them. It was a pain but doable.

Yet another example, however, of how lame the quests and their design were for this area. So much fail you just have to laugh to keep from crying. See my thread about quest-starting items not dropping until entire slayer deeds were done for more of the madness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by greendarner

Not exactly true. The spot where "he" spawns is the EXACT (and yes, very SMALL) spot that updates a location for the deed and is required for one of the quests. So since you have to hit that spot, you have to kill him.

---

Not true at all. I did this quest line the other day (not the first char I've taken through this quest line, if that matters) and completed the deed without having to aggro the signature mob at all.

All of this info is floating around in this thread, the lotro wiki and other lotro related sites. I'm sure there's more than one way to get this deed done, but this way has worked for me twice. I originally posted it in the quests and deeds forum, but I'll put the link here as well.


http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ns-spoilers%29