Dear Administrators,

I think it's great that you've noted the honour quests, and implemented the epic quests. What I do not think is great is the fact that so many of these quests are broken/prone to breaking. This is something that I noticed when I started playing. I think it's unfortunate, particularly when Lusternia's quests are so touted (and rightfully so) among its features that so little attention is paid to their maintenance.

I am sure that it is easy to ignore bugs related to quests, chalking them up to, "Oh, it's not a bug, they're just doing the quest wrong," or "Oh, it'll self-correct." But this is not always the case. I write this on the heels of having just tried to do two quests which are bugged, the bugs of which have been reported, weeks or months ago, marked as fixed, rebugged, and seemingly ignored.

To me, such things are as important to the game as the fine balance of combat-related things, and I wish that more attention could be paid. I can think of five honour quests, or parts of honour quests which are known to be broken right now, and have heard various mutterings about others which I've not personally attempted lately.

Quests in Lusternia -are- one of its great features, but attempting to complete them amidst a minefield of malfunction makes people feel like not bothering.

Love,
Talan

The problem is you can't make a really complete bug report because we don't know how it's supposed to work, because figuring that out is part of the quest. That's even more true because sometimes the quest isn't figuring out what to do, but what are the right commands to make it happen (which is one of the reasons I don't do quests). On the player's side, it's impossible to be sure what is a bug and what is "you haven't figured it out yet", and on the admin's side, it's impossible to tell if the bug report is a real bug or to get enough information about how to reproduce it because the person making the report doesn't have the necessary information, by design. It's an insolvable gap; all we can do is narrow it by, on the player's side, making reports that are painfully exhaustive and not feeling discouraged from doing so when they don't pan out, and on the admin's side, from trying to reward it when people make those truly thorough reports by not dismissing them.

"piece2195" inside of "queen3082" ; the diamond piece of the Crown of the Dwarven Lords.

It is precisely where it should be.

I absolutely agree with you that quests are important (actually, they're my favourite part of Lusternia), and I think it's a complete shame if there's a broken quest. A lot of times however, it really can be chalked up to player error - even if players don't think they're wrong, there's a fair chance they are on quests that aren't often done. The best you can hope for is that you've given a complete and thorough bug report, and we can find what's causing the problem. Sometimes the solution can be really obscure - maybe an item's resetting where it should, but the mob involved isn't. Or maybe the mob involved is, but a variable involved is off or there's a strange exception for certain people. Some (like the allegedly disappearing Maeve bug) we can spend weeks trying to track down, but to no avail! It can be a real pain sometimes.

Good news: We've checked, double checked and triple checked the queen/crown piece bit, and we're certain she's reachable, and has the piece.

Thank you for fixing this. While it was, finally, precisely where you said it should be... for the last several days, it hasn't been. Viynain and Nienla can attest to this, as they've also spent several hours each repeatedly killing these queens to no avail.


I'm not sure what's accomplished with the tone of disbelief. It's not like we're trying to send admin on a wild goose chase.

This is something that I've encountered before. The first step to fixing bugs is admitting there is a problem. Not directed at Eventru in particular, who, as far as I can tell is regularly quite helpful about smoothing out quest issues...but in general, I can think of several situations where things have worked incorrectly, then they are reported, then they begin working correctly, but the feedback is, "What? It was working fine the whole time!" I don't think anything is accomplished by this except a disinclination to report things at all.

/rant

I as well.

Every time there were only 4 queens to be found, when I went and did it.

It wasn't intended to discredit the claims! I absolutely believe you've gone in and Maeve hasn't been there. Unfortunately, we've never found the bug, we've never been able to replicate it. It's a prime example of how the bug system works, unfortunately - you say there's something wrong, I can't see it, find it or find a reason it might behave that way. It's not your fault, I'd like to think it's not my fault, it's just something that is going to be bugged, investigated and then resolved as vague/cannot be reproduced or set aside until we find enough information as to why it's behaving like that.

Just a funny quote that came to mind that may or may not be relevant: "Even well-thought-out code can sometimes lead to unforseen consequences."

hee, I remember doing the moon bubble and getting stuck on one part talking to a mob then suddenly they effectively told me what to say. <3 divine intervention... sometimes

I <3 that quest (the moon bubble one). Except the end. The end can go die in a fire.

The beginning is pretty fun (although it's annoying the first time you notice that missing hurts), the middle is reasonably fun, though repetitive, and the end is horrible to the point that I quit it. Much too time-consuming. Can't the end bit at least be made easier to type?

This is actually one of the reasons why quests can be hellish to fix. Not just the bug-report-cryptography, but we don't necessarily know how it's supposed to work either. I hate fixing quests bugs because I have to put aside a couple of hours to do each one.

Bugs are just frustrating in general.

It wasn't a quest, but during the tainted Maeve event I went to the hole you enter in the trees, and it wasn't there. Instead, the hole was ( i kid you not ) a slice of pie. Blueberry if I remember correctly. I checked, double checked. Made sure I hadn't gone crazy and forgotten where I was, but no. The hole was a pie. At some point, the hole ceased being a slice of pie, and the admin responded that they didn't see what I was talking about.

I've been mistaken before, but I know I checked and rechecked because it's just not something you don't notice. It was freaking pie.

My point is bugs can be really, really hard to track down, and sometimes they pop up when they shouldn't. Not too long ago Gero found a pokeball and someone else found the wolf from little red riding hood. Apparently they got loose from the havens and tossed around Lustenia (you guys have strange hobbies). So I think when it comes to bugs like things not appearing as they should or when they should, you just have to be really, painfully patient.

I had a novice once show up with a bunch of items that only admin should have. He was created with these items and was sort of freaking out about it. So yeah, bugs can be super odd and almost impossible to correctly explain sometimes. I barely understood what was going on, never mind this new player.

Couple of hours! Understatement!

Sometimes it feels like it'd just be easier to rewrite it.

Obviously you need cheat sheets.

Wow, I didn't know my will could influence reality. Awesome!

Virtual reality, at least. Virtual will can only affect virtual reality. And then there's the virtual butterfly effect...

That a butterfly in Serenwilde can flap its wings and cause a tornado in Crumkindivia?

I thought it was how a Faeling can Changeself into an Igasho.

I want that bug.