Development Cycle Archive

This is my first attempt at the new revamped Hermit Quest, I managed to finally get the Courage badge after a day of annoying travelling from one spot to another hoping the random spawn of the boar would appear. I've attempted the other Badges but got totally disillusioned with the pointless task of trying to find the random spawns of pirates and bounty hunters. I'm probably going against what other players have put as feedback here but I just don't find the random and pure luck nature of the quests fun. If other players have enjoyed it I'm glad their gained something from it, but personally and other friends have agreed the reward just ain't worth the hours spent randomnly chasing around spawn points. If it wasn't for the fact that most players have had to refer to the Hermit quest guide on SWG forums I suspect many players would have simply given up. I have to believe there is a better way of conducting a Quest such as this, which isn't based on random spawns, but on undertaking individual tasks that are tailored to the player class, so you feel after undertaking the tasks the reward is worth it and feels an achievement and most importantlyis FUN !!! to do. Maybe a little more time could have been spent on addressing this issue, instead your left with a lot of fed up players whose patience gives out looking around, happily I've got other things to do on SWG I enjoy, just not the Hermit Quests.

I love these quests. I have the "old school" intellect badge and spent over 100 hours on the old alturism quest only to find it bugged 4 times. Now the new quests I was able to get alturism and honor in one night. I would love to see a quest like this for every planet. These are really fun.

22 Professions Mastered Jedi Padawan Rebel Colonel
Killing In The Name Of

Found the Boar yesterday on Bloodfin quite by accident on my way to Mos Espa. He was in a ditch and hard to see. Tusken raiders were also there killing the boars as they spawned.

Still have not found the BH or the Farmer.

FYI for the earlier poster.. this was done using my Jedi and I had no problems with the squill cave.

I did these on Test Center with some friends right before it went live. On the whole it was a lot of fun. The overal quests and rewards were very worth it. On the specific quests themselves:

Hermit: This one was challenging, and a bit of surprise since the Squill cave never used to be this tough. That said, it was fun too. With the crazy respawn, it felt more like being overwhelmed in a giant nest than sitting there for 5 hours trying to kill one thing. It was a nice change of pace.

Altruism: A very neat and well implemented quest. The only problem, as mentioned up above, is issues with getting in line to do the quest. This is the sort of thing that would be better done instanced. We didn't have that problem on Test Center when we did it, so it was pretty neat.

Honor: Wonderful, wonderful quest. I want that house O.o The only major problem I saw, which I will agree with the above posters, is that you can actualy open the door the pirates are locked in and walk part way through. It would be better if the door was locked shut, and you might want to direct player's attention more to the intercom, its very easy to miss that step.

Intellect: Another neat quest. I really can't complain any about it, and the fact that it is in a city, I honestly agree with. I do think it should stay for multiple answerings before it despawns though. I'd hate to be working on it, actually trying to figure it out, only to have someone run up, answer it, then me have to spend 30 minutes tracking it back down again.

Courage: The worst of the quests by far. This one is a simple "find the specific yellow dot in this area normally filled with nasty spawns, and kill it." There really isn't a whole lot to it. It takes forever to track it down, but doesn't feel very rewarding to accomplish. All the others do. A neater implementation would have been to have, when it spawns, an unkillable NPC being attacked by the boar. You then run in and save the NPC, and are awarded the mark of courage. It would just add a little more feeling of accomplishment.

On the whole though, an excellent job, and the type of quests I think more players would like to see. Each one was unique in its own way, and some quite entertaining. Plus, the reward was worth it too.

________________________________

'Tess
- Utess Pero: Master Entertainer, Master Dancer, Master Musician, ID
- Andria Pasretti: Master Artisan, Master Merchant, Teras Kasi Master
- Tatiyana Karkuf: Master Medic, Master Combat Medic, Master Doctor

The reward you get when you complete each of the four badges is amazing.

Colonel Atteke Runningmoon
Alliance Crimson Pheonix Ace
Jedi Elder

My comments on the Hero of Tatooine Quest are as follows -

1. Hermit - The Squill spawn rate in the cave is extremely high. However, I think that it should not be lowered as it does encourage teamwork since a fair number of people go to the cave with friends rather than alone.

2. Mark of Altruism - It took some time to find the Farmer but I did find him in the end.A problem with the cave would appear to be the fact that only one person can do the rescue mission at one time. I would suggest that the cave be converted to a Corvette-type mission where each group gets it's own "private" cave. This would solve the problem of people queueing up and accusations of "theft" of explosives and other such situations. Overall, I found this mission (other than the long search for the Farmer) to be enjoyable.

3. Mark of Courage - I found the required creature after a long search and I feel that the level of difficulty is about right. While the creature is a challenge, it is not so unduly difficult that an average character cannot complete the quest.

4.Marks of Intellect and Honour - Still looking for the NPCs.

5. General comment - While it is challenging to look for a hard-to-find NPC for 1 quest, when 4 quests in a series all involve long searches, it changes from being challenging and interesting to irritating and boring. I would suggest that perhaps one quest could continue to have a low spawn rate in order to make the entire series challenging while the other 3 could have higher spawn rates so that players do not get bored and irritated searching.

mark of honor was pretty interesting... i liked watching the stormtrooper take the pirate away, that was pretty entertaining for what it was.

the mark of altruism seems a bit screwy in implementation. i found the farmer today and went to the cave. some other players showed up and got the crate before i did and got the loot and freed the family but i was not able to get a crate, even though i was the one that met the farmer. perhaps the developers should flag the crate spawn in the database for the person/group who talked to the farmer. it does not seem fair, or very heroic for that matter, for people to be scouring the planet trying to complete this quest only to have it pulled out from under them by someone who didn't take the time to do it the way it was intended. i know that luck and being in the right place at the right time is also part of heroism, but come on, it's a game that people spend hours playing to achieve something only to have their time wasted and having to start over or screwing someone else out of it. not a fun thing to me.

TH-

(response needed, please)

On Ahazi, the BH for Mark of Intellect has not been confirmed since the lauch day of this publish...Going by the thread in the Game Guide, it is not the only server...

There is a growing group of us that did NOT get Intellect on day1, and have been UNABLE to since...we have had all the spawns covered from restart onward, without a confirmed sighting in 2 days now...

Can we get a reset on the BH spawn, or some word on when it may be repaired?

I'm in love with the Devs right now. FInally, after 9 months of waiting, I'm able to do these quests and that makes me a happy camper. That being said, there's a few things on Ahazi that needs to be looked at:

1. Mark of Intellect seems to become bugged rather easily. Day after publish, someone who had not talked to the hermit talked to the BH. Ever since then, there has been not one single confirmed spawn. 0vr0 and I had 7 people waiting at the 7 spawn locations for 5 hours yesterday, and nothing. CSRs told us repeatedly that nothing could be done. Is this true?

2. Mark of Honor seems able to be bugged rather easily. If you use dizzy/KD attack on the Pirate leader, after he gets up, he becomes white and whill not speak to you. At this point, he will not despawn.

Seeing as the Mark of Intellect is all I need to finish the quests, I'm a little bit ancy here.

Again, thanks much for the revamp, I had a lot of fun the last few days.

I AM RANDOR

Thank you for content that is not uber-elite!

HoweverI have searched for 8 hours and not found the bounty hunters or the pirates. I'm on Valcyn and no one I talked to has found them either. Going to the spawn points for the pirates that people on other servers have given me, I keep finding groups of rebel soldiers and I wonder if this is bugging it.

Yep, I am trying to do them all now.

It is a little frustrating to find the dynamic spawns. However, I was able to find the moisture farmer for the Mark of Altruism within a few hours of looking. And once I did, I was very pleased with myself. Then I went and solo'd the cave to save the family and I had a BLAST! It was a lot of fun because I am a master swordsman, I just whipped everything in that cave with my power hammer.

I am trying to do the Mark of Intellect now, but I haven't been able to find the bounty hunter. I've been looking for a couple days now. I am really looking forward to finishing all these quests though.