Wishful Thinking: Quest Collector
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Amatera on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 15 Comments Tags: 3.3, Achievements, azeroth, cataclysm, completed, expansion, loremaster, nagrand, quest log
Amatera on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 15 Comments Tags: 3.3, Achievements, azeroth, cataclysm, completed, expansion, loremaster, nagrand, quest log
Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft. No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff.
Well, readers. I don't know about you, but I've been working on that old Loremaster title for some time now. It was easy enough to complete all of the Northrend zones, perhaps because they were freshest in my mind. But the old world? Not a chance! On my main, Amatera, I must've leveled through those areas at least three or four years ago. And if you're like me, then you know the real pain isn't necessarily doing all the quests you missed, but finding them in the first place.
Why, just the other day, I decided to pick up the torch again and make some progress on the achievement. I flew over to Tarren Mill and found a whole bank of quests that I had never actually finished. I'm talk at least six or seven missions that I apparently didn't touch on this character. Of course, I thought I'd done them, but that might just because when leveling up one of my numerous alts, I made sure to clear out the area before moving on. Time had fogged up my memory, and in all likelihood, I pushed Amatera forward to new zones where there were better experience-gaining opportunities to be had and never looked back.
Oh, and then there's Nagrand. The only zone in Outland that I've yet to get the questing achievement for. I've heard it's a little harder to finish on the Horde side, and that I'm not the only one who's had trouble with it in the past, but at the same time there are people that have obviously done what, for me, seems currently impossible. In other words, I must be missing something. One possible candidate is this quest: I'm Saved! But the problem is that the NPC needed to complete it spawns seemingly at random. I've spent long spans of time at Nesingwary's camp waiting for her to show up and she never does.
Do you know what makes it even worse, though? I need two more quests to get the Nagrand achievement. And I have absolutely zero clue as to what the second might be.
This is why I'm putting out the call to Blizzard: where's my completed quest log? It seems like such a simple feature to implement that you might wonder why it wasn't included with the game when it launched. I'd love a way to easily check an online database against a list of my finished quests to figure out which ones I'm missing. Sure, there's always flying from hub to hub and picking up tasks from NPCs with punctuation over their heads, but others aren't that easy to find, like those that might require a random drop from a group of enemies.
And it goes beyond achievement tracking, too. I can't count the number of times someone has asked me if I've completed a specific quest and I've had to go all the way back to the quest-giver to see if there was still an exclamation point there.
It's a real shame, because they've made some significant improvements to the quest log over the years, and they're set to do it again with 3.3. The only two reasons I can think of for not implementing a completed quest tracker is because there is either some technical issue preventing them from doing so, or it's simply something they don't deem important enough to spend time developing. I'd like to rule out the former, because it seems that the game already knows what missions you have and haven't done. After all, achievements like the Loremaster ones can keep track of them numerically. They'll tell you how many you've finished, just not which ones.
Currently, the only solution is to download an add-on that can do it for you, but they tend to only be able to log quests you've completed since installing them, and not any of the ones before that.
I feel like I'm about to give up on my Loremaster title, but there is one shining hope on the horizon. I speak of: account-wide achievements. When Cataclysm hits, I already know I'm going to roll a Goblin alt, and I can make sure that I do everything right from the very beginning. Not to mention, of course, that the quests themselves will likely change with the expansion, meaning that Loremaster achievements will likely be reset, or moved to Feats of Strength and replaced with new ones for the old world anyway.
But this is one of those simple conveniences I still can't believe hasn't made its way into the game just yet. What say you, readers? Wouldn't it make your life a whole lot easier?
Well, readers. I don't know about you, but I've been working on that old Loremaster title for some time now. It was easy enough to complete all of the Northrend zones, perhaps because they were freshest in my mind. But the old world? Not a chance! On my main, Amatera, I must've leveled through those areas at least three or four years ago. And if you're like me, then you know the real pain isn't necessarily doing all the quests you missed, but finding them in the first place.
Why, just the other day, I decided to pick up the torch again and make some progress on the achievement. I flew over to Tarren Mill and found a whole bank of quests that I had never actually finished. I'm talk at least six or seven missions that I apparently didn't touch on this character. Of course, I thought I'd done them, but that might just because when leveling up one of my numerous alts, I made sure to clear out the area before moving on. Time had fogged up my memory, and in all likelihood, I pushed Amatera forward to new zones where there were better experience-gaining opportunities to be had and never looked back.
Oh, and then there's Nagrand. The only zone in Outland that I've yet to get the questing achievement for. I've heard it's a little harder to finish on the Horde side, and that I'm not the only one who's had trouble with it in the past, but at the same time there are people that have obviously done what, for me, seems currently impossible. In other words, I must be missing something. One possible candidate is this quest: I'm Saved! But the problem is that the NPC needed to complete it spawns seemingly at random. I've spent long spans of time at Nesingwary's camp waiting for her to show up and she never does.Do you know what makes it even worse, though? I need two more quests to get the Nagrand achievement. And I have absolutely zero clue as to what the second might be.
This is why I'm putting out the call to Blizzard: where's my completed quest log? It seems like such a simple feature to implement that you might wonder why it wasn't included with the game when it launched. I'd love a way to easily check an online database against a list of my finished quests to figure out which ones I'm missing. Sure, there's always flying from hub to hub and picking up tasks from NPCs with punctuation over their heads, but others aren't that easy to find, like those that might require a random drop from a group of enemies.
And it goes beyond achievement tracking, too. I can't count the number of times someone has asked me if I've completed a specific quest and I've had to go all the way back to the quest-giver to see if there was still an exclamation point there.
It's a real shame, because they've made some significant improvements to the quest log over the years, and they're set to do it again with 3.3. The only two reasons I can think of for not implementing a completed quest tracker is because there is either some technical issue preventing them from doing so, or it's simply something they don't deem important enough to spend time developing. I'd like to rule out the former, because it seems that the game already knows what missions you have and haven't done. After all, achievements like the Loremaster ones can keep track of them numerically. They'll tell you how many you've finished, just not which ones.
Currently, the only solution is to download an add-on that can do it for you, but they tend to only be able to log quests you've completed since installing them, and not any of the ones before that.
I feel like I'm about to give up on my Loremaster title, but there is one shining hope on the horizon. I speak of: account-wide achievements. When Cataclysm hits, I already know I'm going to roll a Goblin alt, and I can make sure that I do everything right from the very beginning. Not to mention, of course, that the quests themselves will likely change with the expansion, meaning that Loremaster achievements will likely be reset, or moved to Feats of Strength and replaced with new ones for the old world anyway.
But this is one of those simple conveniences I still can't believe hasn't made its way into the game just yet. What say you, readers? Wouldn't it make your life a whole lot easier?
Reader Comments (15)
Sounds like a good idea and really useful with the whole phasing concept itll allow you to know if you can help your friend with that wicked hard group quest ya know but it does sound like a good idea
@Cobalthero
That's a fantastic point. Phasing has already posed a problem with some questlines in Icecrown. I remember trying to do them with some guildmates, but once we got to the specified area, it turned out we were at different stages.
A completed quest log could've saved us the trouble.
I have two quests left to do in Nagrand as well, and I have no clue what those two are. >_<
I got Loremaster a few weeks ago and i agree with you 100%. The sheer volume of quests i had to do was actually only abt half the real work involved. Once i had broken into abt the last hundred quests for Kalimdor it seemed like i had to go to wowhead and research every single one. The ones that actually put me over the top started as a UBRS chain in the badlands that i was was doing just because it was still in my log from the eastern kingdoms. i felt like i just lucked into it when i finally got the achvmnt.
shor of a list you could check aginst i just wished they had broken it down zone-by-one like BC and LK are just that little bit of knowing WHERE your quests are would go a long way.
High hpoes for more efficient questing in Cataclysm!
Nagrand was difficult for me as well. Eventually, I had to get it by doing all the dungeon quests and hoping that they would lead me back to Nagrand and count towards the achievement.
Honestly, the most difficult was Kalimdor because I had already done so many of them so long ago that I wasn't truly missing a bunch of chain quests. Eastern Kingdoms was frustrating because I had to search for ONE quest because an NPC in Tarren Mill said to turn in to Varimathras. (Oops, I think I KILLED HIM when taking back Undercity!) [Note: Don't bother with a GM. They do not care.]
So, good luck to everyone who is shooting for the achievement! It's certainly one of the masochistic ones (like Insane In The Membrane), but seeing the title on your character feels oh so good. :)
Hm, I forgot to include that I completely agree with having an accessible completed quest log. Obviously, the game already does this, or else a player could do regular quests over and over (excluding the couple bugged ones in Outland, but who was counting them anyway?).
It bugs me that the old world regions aren't broken up into separate achievements. At least that would give me some sort of indication if I had many more quests left in one area or not. As it is, I have to fly all over the freakin' continent to find the damn things. If it was broken out by zone, at least I'd have a lot less territory to cover.
@Aliok
One bit of good news is that they seem to be placing a new NPC where Varimathras once was who will give out and accept the same quests that he used to. I can't remember if this is coming in 3.3 or in the expansion.
project fucking sucks now, what a blog every day? get videos and way to blow
This is something I've wanted for a long time! I'm working on Loremaster and its a PITA to try to track down things like the "Find OS/TN" and the drop quest items.
i think it would just compeltly confuse people to list every quest you EVER done certainly its a good idea to brake the vannila wow continent quest into diffrent acheivement to know what you are missing i persinaly have done 1.6k what a pain would it be to scroll 1.6k quest to find what i need and their many peopel who have even more blizz could do is put a guy in front of entrance to a continent who you can ask for a list people that you can do quest for the people you did all the quest for are either crossed of or checked out show the location and some quest the person offers. i recently had scroll though more then a 130 diffrent quest in howling fjord to find the one i didnt do for the achieve so i know its tuff but even grouepd scrolling though 1000nds of quest manualy is a big pane in the ass
@cocopuff
Ok, would you rather scroll through thousands of quests in a completed quest-log. Or would you rather run around ALL of the Old World to find those few you're missing?
I, personally, would take the quest log over running.
I'm still stuck at Icecrown with four quests left. It's not so much the phasing of the area that's the problem (although it certainly doesn't help), but it's that coupled with the fact that the end run quests are multi player, AND phased. assuming there aren't more quests needed after cataclysm hits, will it be possible to do Loremaster with the "hundreds of all new quests", or not? And how many will have the same problem as the end run Icecrown quests?
That being said, is a quest completed log the answer? Personally I don't think so. still, I'd like to have one because there are some quests (especially in Icecrown now), that the text on is worth saving. They already have achievements with points for no real reason other than to have them, so why not a quest log of similar nature?
First things first, Varimathas' replacement is coming in 3.3.
Second, the little gnome at Hemet's camp is quite a pain, I sat out there for 2 hours just watching TV to get that quest done. There are a few annoying quests out there, but all I can think of for easily missed is the drop quest from the Murkblood patrol, the trampoline quest for the goblin, and a drop quest from the air elementals around the middle of the map.
Nagrand is a bit annoying to get but there are actually 2 things that you could have missed because they are not in nagrand to pick up in the first place.
1. The quest chain that brings Thrall back to Nagrand in the end. It starts with Garrosh and has a quite a quest chain inside nagrand and also needs you to pick up a few quests in shattrath city at some point and return to nagrand.
2. When you do quests in Shadowmoon Valley one of the blood elf quest givers sends you back to nagrand and then Atrius has 3 more quests for you when you complete those he has yet another quest.