Tracking an Old Goat

[customshopstrat]

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

Was this necessary? There are obvious faults with this quest/deed. Just cause you got lucky there is no need to post comments like this.

[Korrigan]

Was this necessary? There are obvious faults with this quest/deed. Just cause you got lucky there is no need to post comments like this.

Maybe you should address the developer's answer in this thread too then...

The deed is specifically there to list the quests needed to complete it. It was added because people in Beta were complaining about not knowing whether they found all the discoverables (which are completely optional and do not affect the division quest deed) or not. I am beginning to regret adding it.

There are only three discoverables, and the quest clearly indicates you cannot complete the discoverables after completing the main quest. This is no different than Annuminas. It also clearly indicates what route to follow (basically bee-line to the quest guide, which crosses the discoverable hotspots for all quests).

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.

[vole]

Why isn't this issue on the "known Problems" list?

Obviously a large number of players have had problems with this quest series. Even if Turbine isn't accepting it as a problem they intend to fix, highlighting the issue there will save some people from getting tripped up.

[sabeare]

I made a ticket and got this formal answer:

We have investigated the issue you have reported and found that the functionality is working as intended. If you have concerns about the issue you reported, you may submit feedback by visiting http://www.turbine.com/support and clicking on your country’s flag.

I have read quest warning but came to close to the scout camp, so the shining ring of the last quest appeared at andreg. Once you have that ring you cannot cancel and continue with the other quests, the last ring overules the other ones.

[fortunate]

Wrong. I only praised that people reading quests are somehow rewarded. If you read my original post again, I didn't belittle those who don't. Just has those who don't raid won't get raid rewards, those who don't read carefully won't get the associated rewards, nothing more, nothing less. And his "don't post here anymore we don't need you" part is definitely rude and inappropriate.

If it's possible, then some people did it right, and others didn't. Just like when you wipe on a raid. Those who did it right got rewarded, the others didn't. Sounds quite fair to me. I had no problems getting all the quests by following the hints given in the initial quest and the deed.
This sounds pretty similar to me than the people who asked for the "Undying" deed to be removed because they didn't manage to achieve it. And yeah, that was asked too. "If I can't do it, nobody should" is not really a valid argument, sorry.

Maybe, maybe not. Some people are colourblind and get help from special texts. English is not my native language and i dont get the hints all the time. I guess the solution would be to make special servers for every single language and devide the playerbase even more. Or the other solution would be to not make the highly suggestive questtexts so that everybody with even an IQ of 70 could read and complete it. Because afterall if you payed for it you should be able to finish it. At least if you cant see it you wont be bothered by the fact. Its like holding a cookie in front of a dog and never giving it to him, but he still can smell it.

I would like it either gone from my log or possible to work around the problem by following others and doing the quests at a later time. There will be no difference between you and me apart from 1 click on a button and the timeframe i completed the quests. Why would you consider this unfair towards you? reading the quests granted you the deed grats, no reason to refuse others the same opportunity.

[BrianDavion]

Why isn't this issue on the "known Problems" list?

Obviously a large number of players have had problems with this quest series. Even if Turbine isn't accepting it as a problem they intend to fix, highlighting the issue there will save some people from getting tripped up.

because you don't put things that are working as intended on the known issues list. they're well.. not an issue, they're working as intended

[Gronthal]

Add me to the list of players that screwed up this deed. Please give a better warning and a chance to fix this in game.

[Coledar]

I agree with most of the people in the thread about the ambiguous wording of the warning text. I assumed that the other quests would come from another NPC somewhere else. I did Annuminas when it was new (not when it was revamped for the F2P folks), so I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing this particular piece of tech in action. In an area with 100s of other quests given out by static quest givers, I thought it was strange that they wanted me to drag around a ranger. Add me to the disappointed group. I've been a subscribed paying customer since Beta and have never felt so close to walking away from this game, especially when the official word is "read the quest" (which is insulting).

The ball is in your court Turbine. I stood by you with F2P and the store, through all the revamps for F2P players instead of new content. I honestly can't say anything else. This is exactly the same feeling as Mirkwood's prologue deed, but at least there the Dev-response wasn't condescending.

I don't ever post on the forums because I don't feel strongly about most issues. This is a make-or-break issue with me though. If deeds are suddenly irreversible and permanent, then this game is significantly different than the one I started playing back in '07.

[Koomaster]

Wanted to chime in and say I finished the quest without issue; all the rangers quests popped up for me as I followed the general path he told me he was supposed to take. Toward the end, we reached his checkpoint and when I talked to him I saw the RED TEXT that told me all quests with him would be cancelled. As I hadn't finished two of them yet, I clicked the 'x' on the top right corner to close the window to put off finishing the quest.

In some ways I see why people are complaining, but really once you see that red text, you should know something is up. And if you have made it to ~70 without knowing how to close down a quest window, not sure what to tell you. I found everything straight forward and the deed was easy to understand when it popped up. I even added it to my tracker to make sure I was finishing all those quests.

I think the only thing Turbine should really do is just remove the deed completely from player's deed logs if they fail to complete it once those quests get locked out.

[duamarth]

Add me to the list of players who have completed all of the non-bugged quest/deeds in every RoI region but are 2/7 for the Tracking an Old Goat deed (and read all the quest descriptions, completed all the available quests, tried to find new ones, etc.). I still don't fully get why I haven't completed the deed, though, and I don't want to read 21 pages of this thread to get it. Add this to the list of RoI bugs...what a fail xpac.

I am waiting for Turbine to announce that we have all, actually, been in RoI open beta this entire time. Surprise!

[Tostgrim]

Seems a bit of a heavy handed way to 'make sure we read the quests thoroughly' and especially tough on those for whome English is not their first language.

That said one of our Czech players read and understood (her English is superbe though) - while a lot of us native-speakers missed it

I don't like it particularly but I guess I sort of get the reasoning. Hopefully they'll relent and enable the rest of the quests to be picked up - even if it's a waaayyyy down the line.

[fortunate]

i have just done it with my second toon and it seems the drop from a signature dusk-hound named Drugrir which starts the quest evil things overides all quests you have from andreg. I had to cancel it before i could hand in the other deed quests.

edit:
if you kill drugrir again after canceling it you still get the quest evil things

[matalan]

I agree with the majority of posters.

Nice 'idea' to have a roaming NPC, but not implemented well. And then attaching a deed and virtue to it... well.

I know the text states that if you hand in such and such it will end the questline, but even so, people are getting stuck. It happened to me, couldn't get the last quest to start no matter how much I tried and in the end I thought, well I can skip just one quest it won't hurt my XP that much...

...it was only AFTER handing it in that I checked what new deeds I had discovered - may sound stupid but new deeds are popping up all the time and I don't religiously check them to see if they are set up like this one.

Anyway, lets summarise with this - I rarely post in the forum, but I am posting because this NEEDS TO BE FIXED. I know that many people in my kin are in agreement with this, and we have to WARN members how this questline works. That's not right. For every person in this thread complaining there must be at least 10 more players who don't use the forums thinking the same thing.

Can a bluename please at least confirm if this is going to be looked at by Turbine devs? Thanks

[BonkilEU]

I feel so bad about missing this, I guess it must have been late when I did it.

I think I had a couple of quests in my quest log on screen but might have turned them off to get rid of screen clutter.

Annyway totally missed it all and now like most I'm left with a everlasting open deed.

I noticed rather late that there was something going on as i was flicking through my deed list and was wondering where these two quest were until i saw it here on the forums.

I hope Turbine will do something nice for us and make it an open instance to be done through the reflection pool or something, but not holding my breath for it.

Other wise I will stalk Sapience at his next trip to europe until I get the deed completed =p

I dont care about the trait +1 as I'm maxed already annyway.

For those that need the trait done go and look for some quests or deeds you missed in the rest of Eriador or Moria/lorien and Mirkwood.

[Peluna]

because you don't put things that are working as intended on the known issues list. they're well.. not an issue, they're working as intended

I don't think this is working as intended if you look at its results.
No developer wants to make players unhappy and build a questline that makes so many people really upset.
The way this quests are designed makes it very easy to fail even if you read every single word and act very carefully.
Maybe they did not realize how serious many players take their book of deeds.

And I guess Berephon wouldn't say:

I am beginning to regret adding it.

if everything works exactly the way he wanted.

[Korrigan]

The way this quests are designed makes it very easy to fail even if you read every single word and act very carefully.

How do you explain that so many did them just fine then?

[LadyDena]

How do you explain that so many did them just fine then?

If people were to always take this approach, namely to look at the sunshines without caring for the other issues, then Radiance would never have been done away with, because there were plenty of people not only liked it 'just fine', in fact they fanatically defended it as a good idea. The legendary item's design and relic grinds were also 'just fine' because there were plenty of people who didn't mind it. There would also be no need for any changes to the various classes because a lot of people played the classes "just fine" too.

So obviously the question is never about whether or not many people dealt with certain things just fine, but instead whether certain things are causing enough trouble to people to warrant being looked at. Sometimes enablers and apologists think they are doing the game a favor by defending it no matter what, when in fact they harm it by encouraging it not to improve, by holding it somehow to lower standard, and in the process lessening it. In the future, Turbine can choose to design quests that are forgiving or not, and I for one have no doubt which way is better for this game, for Turbine's financial interest, and to the general playing public as a whole.

[Aprus1]

PS: the "financial interest" threatening is always funny to read

Stop trolling.

Fact is that things are done in game to create value that will keep people wanting to contribute to Turbine's overall revenue. A bug that would cause players to quit will always get far more attention than one that wouldn't.

[LadyDena]

You are comparing apples and oranges here.
You are comparing mechanics that affect the whole game to a single quest line that is really not mandatory neither for the general gameplay nor for the story line.

With all due respect I'm afraid it is not a single quest.

Forget for the moment that there are 6 quests and not 1 that is involved. The quest is also a deed. And just because something is not mandatory it does not mean it should be held to less standard (think I covered this already). Further more, this is NOT the first time Turbine walked down this path. That NPC in Annuminas has the exact same problem. You summon him with a whistle (I think), and as soon as you complete his main quest you see red text telling you that if you turn in the quest you won't be able to do anything else. Of course there is no way to tell how many other quests are, whether or not you have done them all, or even where thoseother quests are initiated. And for that npc, there are probably TEN or so quests in quest. This issue is certainly not limited to solely one npc and a single quest. For not wanting to miss the forest for the tree, not only should Turbine looked at whether they should go back and fix the issues with these NPCs, but they need a nice long look at whether this way of doing things is truly what they want for their product. I'm sure they understand that if they do this again they will get these exact same drama as seen here. It wastes customer support time for all the tickets I'm sure they had to deal with. You think it is trivial, I think Turbine already has enough issues for them to deal with without having to add more to it due to deliberate questionable design.

...And many people from the EU forums could tell you...

I hope you are not implying that if you are not A in Los Angeles, you can't be A in New York? Cause that would be a non sequitur.

[Chouxbun]

Happened to me. I saw the warning but as far as I knew I'd done them all, so thought there was no problem. It wasn't until a kinnie pm-ed me literally 10 seconds later, warning me not to hand the whistle in before I'd done all the others, that I realised.

I was a tad mad. At myself for just assuming I'd finished with him but also at Turbine for tucking quests and deeds away like this. And, as mentioned, that warning comes up whether you have completed stuff or not. It would be nice if it just appeared if you weren't actually finished.

[Tostgrim]

For quests is fine by me and 'doh!' if I miss it... but tying it to deeds is just plain wrong

[Korrigan]

Stop trolling.

Be careful with personal attacks. It's not your job to decide who trolls or not, use the "report" button if you have a doubt, that's what it's made for.

Fact is that things are done in game to create value that will keep people wanting to contribute to Turbine's overall revenue. A bug that would cause players to quit will always get far more attention than one that wouldn't.

What you call a bug is apparently working as intended according to the developer who designed it... But have no worries, I have no doubt this will be nerfed and dumbed down soon.

[Elrendos]

I guess I got suckered out of this too. The way I read it was that I had to finish each quest he gave at the present time before turning in the main one. Which I did. I didn't take it to mean that in some other random location would he offer more quests to complete the deed. Kind of stupid in my opinion. Hopefully they allow us to re-summon him and complete the other quests at a future date.

[TheREALify]

The deed is specifically there to list the quests needed to complete it. It was added because people in Beta were complaining about not knowing whether they found all the discoverables (which are completely optional and do not affect the division quest deed) or not. I am beginning to regret adding it.

There are only three discoverables, and the quest clearly indicates you cannot complete the discoverables after completing the main quest. This is no different than Annuminas. It also clearly indicates what route to follow (basically bee-line to the quest guide, which crosses the discoverable hotspots for all quests).

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.

Many here have indicated they did exactly as you asked yet the problem persists.

Here's what confuses me. What benefit is there in constructing a quest, or series of quests, in such a way that it can be broken by a player and rendered irredeemable? Why not construct quest arcs in such a way that players cannot break them - like most everything from SoA? This seems an especially poignant question given the current debate regarding the amount of content and inability of some players to reach the new level cap in the RoI expansion.

I used to tell my friends "Don't worry, there's nothing you can screw up in this game that can't be fixed." I can't tell them that anymore.

[TheCorbinator]

The more I think about it, the more I see that this 'deed' is a direct attack on hardcore players/people who 'blitz' quests. I mean the dev has clearly stated his position on the subject, and his tone and attitude both suggest he regards those who do not share his values or gameviews with distaste.

If the orginal intent was to create a 'quest tracker' deed, then why the virtue? Furthermore, why even make it a deed?

You could not have done an Andreg meta deed (complete quests 1/7) much like you did with the Falcon Clan?
You could not have given us a 'note' which listed the seven tasks?

No, you specifically made this a deed.
That in itself is peculiar, but the attachment of a virtue, I believe, speaks volumes; even moreso predicated on the statements the developer himself has made.

Whether or not Turbine fixes this, from this point, is quite frankly irrelevant. They will do as they please.
I, for one, shall keep a VERY close eye on any and all content being produced by the dev who posted here in the future, and either avoid it like the plague, or approach it with utmost caution; knowing full well that logical thought has sailed far away from Middle-Earth...

However, from my eyes, the intent of this deed is quite clear:

To punish those who do not 'read' quests.
To punish those who 'blitz' content.
To punish completionists.

And, as Turbine is wont to do, to junk punch those who love the game the most.
<shrugs>