Currently, Magnagora's basic power quest (spectres -> soup -> spikes) is the most difficult of the four basic power quests. I'll outline them below:

Celest: dig sand on Isle, give sand to Jethri, put globes in hands, give globes to kinspeople, lead kinspeople to Tabernacles.
Serenwilde: get leaves from Miakoda, give leaves to pixies, lead pixies to Flame, lead pixies to Moonhart ( need 15? to get a seed for collegium)
Glomdoring: get net from Brennan, drop net to get shadows, drop shadows at Drums, get feathers, put feathers in Ravenwood (need 15? to get a seed for collegium).
Magnagora: kill spectres on Spectre Isle, hand in spectres for flasks(1 flask:3 spectres, max 15), give flasks to Tunika, give soup to beggars, exchange beggars for spikes, put spikes in monuments, give spikes to Kunthin.

Now, that's a fairly basic summary, which doesn't cover all the points. Here are a few of them in respect to Magnagora's:

• Magnagora's power quest is the only one which involves direct, required combat.
• This combat is against spectres, most of which are too difficult for most novices.
• Even if you can kill them, you would need to renounce innocence to do so.
• You need waterwalk, waterbreathe, or gold in order to get over on your own.
• The exchange rate is fairly annoying. You can get a maximum of 15 spikes, which is 45 spectres. That's less than 1 power per spectre.
• You only need one spike to fulfill the collegium quest.
• Spectres come in varying strengths. Girls are easiest, paladins are much much harder.
• Spectres can blackout, knockdown, chill, and knock off-eq.
• It takes a long time to kill them all, even if you don't need to take a break for healing between battles.
• I'm fairly certain we get more gold/experience than the other orgs for our power quest.

The above adds up to it being highly difficult for younger, newer players of Lusternia to complete our basic power quest solo. Generally, to complete the collegium quest, they require either a decent group or an older player to lead them.

My recommendation is that we split this quest into two separate parts.
Let Tunika make up fifteen soups, which he provides to anyone who greets him (similar to the communes' quests). From here on, you complete the quest normally (beggars -> spikes -> monuments -> Kunthin).
The first part of the quest - (spectres -> flasks -> Tunika) - remains separate. Fairly certain we need the flasks to empower a new Necromentate anyway, and you could still provide the flasks to Tunika for a gold/exp reward without getting soup.

This would make it much easier for younger citizens to complete the power quest.

As an aside, I love the RP behind the quest. Kudos to the person who made it!

Thoughts? Ideas? Changes?

In terms of the quest itself, it may be the hardest-- but it's also the most rewarding. There's a large gold reward (both from hunting the spectres, and from the quest itself), and the experience is great. It's very possible to get 78, 79, and 80 off of Spectre hunting with the quest, which you just cannot easily attain with the other power quests. Further, you seem to be downplaying the difference in difficulty between the spectre types. While paladins are very tough, they're also only concentrated in one area for the most part. You can also target spectres by their other name (boy, girl, man, woman, paladin), and it's possible for level 5s to hunt the boys and girls if they go into it properly prepared (which should be able to get them enough to do the Collegium quest if only one spike is needed... easily). You also do not need waterwalk, waterbreathe, or any of the similar defenses to get to the island... just go to the boat in Magnagora's harbour and give the skeletal captain some gold. They will, however, need a vial with some fire potion in it (obtainable at all times from Bob, even if nobody else has any available).

If the difficulty of the quest itself is reduced (even by splitting it into two independent parts that no longer require the other be done), I would hope that the rewards are similarly diminished as well.

Keep in mind that Glomdoring's quest gives 0 gold, period. Not for getting the web, not for using it, not for dropping the shadows or returning the feathers. At the same time, it's the easiest of the 4 power quests in terms of time spent from start to finish, so giving it a gold reward is probably a bit out of line. Magnagora's seems to lie on the other end of the spectrum.

It does seem as if there is a valid issue with the requirement of novices losing innocence to do the quest, but the rest of it still looks more like Risk vs. Reward to me.

PS: What's your definition of "A long time"? I seem to remember being able to wipe out the entire island, at 78, in 30-40 minutes. That's including all the named, even Emperors, as well. Less if someone else is there as well. In fact, I had more downtime after the fact waiting for endurance to recover since I wasn't trans resilience)

I don't think you should include dropped gold, or experience from killing spectres, as both of these are separate - you would get them if it was just a normal bashing ground.

I mentioned the gold needed to travel over. I'm also aware the same applies to Celest's quest.

The given gold? That's 50 per flask, meaning 750 gold for a full run. You only get gold from Tunika, so if you split the quest, the power part won't give any gold.

Time? You said it takes you 30-40 minutes, at level 78, to clear the island. You won't need all spectres, so let's say it takes you twenty-five to get all the spectres for the power quest. That's how long it takes you to get up to the stage that the other quests pretty much start at (Celest's being the exception). After this, you still need to go and hand it all in and find all the beggars, something which would take me another five to ten minutes. For a brand new novice, it takes a lot longer.

Keep in mind, there's no endurance/willpower downtime for the other quests except waiting for the stuff to repop.

Furthermore, you might be able to take boys and girls at level 5. True newbies can't. I've seen level 20+ die to women and men (women do 500 to me), and I've taken younger novices along who die because they want to take a girl or boy on themselves. Most of these won't know when they're frozen, or will have trouble typing out all the commands, not being used to aliases or macros yet.

I have 4030 max health. Boys and girls do about 300-350 damage to me. Don't know how much that would scale down to.

Furthermore, I see the basic power quests as aimed at novices and the like - not level 78 players. It should be completable by novices without the difficulties most of them seem to encounter.

Sorry if I missed a few points, Asmodea was raiding Nil. Will look over this again in a moment.

When I made a Mag alt to tinker with, I had plenty of people fetch Spectres for me, or offer to take me to the isle. One person just let me sap the exp without lifting a finger for the quest.

Celest's power quest puts 20 power in the pool (10 sands > 10 globes > leading 10 kinspeople, 2p/person), and this is if you manage to gather up and give jethri all ten sands before the sands reset. Since Jethri's nerf it takes awhile and one or two sands will usually reset. You get a crapload of karma but only 700 gold if you get it all right. It's worth good experience for newbies as well, but can't be compared to Spectres.

Like Xenthos said, it might be the hardest, but it also garners the best rewards!

Having recently been through all four sets of collegium quests as a novice, I have to say that I liked Magnagora's power quest. I couldn't kill spectres on my own and had to get an older citizen to help me, which encourages interaction between city and novices. Furthermore, I conversed with that person during the spectre hunt, which didn't happen with any other collegium power quests.

It's happily accepted that help is needed to complete the Planar collegium quests, so why not with the power? As a novice, it is engagement with the settlement that makes me want to stay. Any collegium quest which encourages or even requires interaction with older citizens is a bonus.

QFT!

How do the commune power quests work then?
Do we generate power from the quest or just from the trees that are planted from the nuts that fall? Also, do the trees genrate power or is it just the ones turned into totems? I'm a little slow when it comes to power stuff.

Does no one know about the ship?!?

lol is that a joke? the gold in the sentence you qouted is a referance to the gold it takes for the ship.

It's not like it's expensive. Kill a few rats.

Really? Isn't it like... what? 50 gold to get to the island?

I like the idea of splitting the quest in two parts.

Or atleast, just make it so that novices and newbies can GREET for the soup, even if older players can not.

If you split the quest in half, then you'll obviously get less xp, since the xp you gain is from all the various steps (each step giving its own xp)

Wouldn't that prevent older members from being able to do the quest?

edit: sorry, jumped the gun.

Are you saying make it so newbies can GREET and get the soup, and that older members have to get the spectres?

I have to agree with Conor; any interaction between old and new members is good and shouldn't be eradicated.

I third it. Is it really such a trial for older members of the city to take five or ten minutes of their lives and spend it walking a newbie around the Spectre Isle, explaining and talking and helping?

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It is the most rewarding by far, but that's not that issue that was brought up. The question: Is killing 3 spectres too much to ask for novices? I would have to say yes. Level 5s can not take spectre girls. Keep in mind this is probably the first afflicting mobs the novices will come up against, and they freeze and blackout(the blackout comes with a hefty chunk of damage). They should be alright to kill girls/boys at level 20 when they are done with newton though.

Is it too rough for newbie? Yes, but I don't think it's so bad that it should be changed.

Interaction is great... but what happens when you log on at 3am and there is nobody around to help you?

Interaction is nice, but not when the thing you are doing is important. Why should I, Joe Loner Noobie, be forced to interact with other players just to get my power allotment? What if I want to RP a self reliant loner? Does that mean that I can't effectivly have a charachter in Magnagora?

Suck it up. Mag's handled the quest for 3 years. I see no reason why it should be changed now. Pain and suffering breeds strength. Such is the Magnagoran doctrine!

Its also got a small noobie population.

There are lots of things in this game you need to interact with other people for. And honestly, I think that a bit of positive interaction will influence new players to stick around more often than the occasional one driven off because he had to ask for some help.

Just about everyone interacts with their org's Power ministry, even if it is just to ask for unblocking. And, from reading the semi-new topic about Magnagora's Power laws, CR1 can't draw anything but dross from the Megalith anyway?



QFT. I don't see how hard it is to simply CGT "Could someone please help me with the power quest?"

And on another note, does it have to be power from the city power quests to count? It would be nice if scholars/bards counted, because those are generally easier and it helps the city/commune culture. Granted, players should learn the power quests for their org, but agreed that sometimes there aren't any teachers around or something's going on and it's hard to get help at that time.