Thanking Stones lore and design, a critique

[Phosphine]

Just a few comments on the thanking stones quest.

I thought the concept was interesting but did not follow ac lore, nor was it designed like other AC quests. For instance, the watery grotto just outside of yanshi was NEVER an old mosswort habitation. That area is a rice paddy. The drudges and mossies live south of the drudge roadblock. There are caves south and east of the roadblock -- really due south of the South Yanshi Outpost -- that would have been a better place to put the dungeon. This was too close to Yanshi and too easy to find. The Vesayan dungeons were the same way, all very close to Kryst. Given the level of the monsters, the dugeons should have been out near the Idol Spawning Grounds.

Another design element that didn't make any sense to me was the burun 'keymaster'. He was the only burun in the place that apparently drops a key, but in this case a string of them. The more typical way of getting a trophy item is to keep killing the burun until *a* trophy drops. A group waits until everyone has one. Examples are Refulgent Bracelet, Quiddity Ingot keys, and Fenmalain. Having the items on pedastals was similarly un-ACish, but I could accept that. I had to look this one up on Maggie the Jackcat's site. I felt like I was playing a different game, very wierd.

Last, the NPC did not remember you. Most AC quests, the flagging NPC remembers you, like the olthoi pincer dealer. Swamp Lord Blearg says the same thing over and over. I would have enjoyed the quest more if it followed more like Thorsten's Armor. Very unACish.

Well thats my $0.02.

[Silifi Of Death]

1. Wattery Grotto could be a new Mosswart habitation. You don't know where it came from, or how fast it happened. How do you know the mosswarts didn't make a new habitation in the middle of the night before the patch (no one went there before patch) and then the Burun invaded it before patch went up? Makes perfect sense to me. Having new dungeons pop up is nothing new. How else do you think they would add a new quest?

2. Too easy to find... ok, I can see that. But who cares? The Burun are trying to kill us, and the (green) Mossies want our help. The Shadows also want to kill us, and from what I can guess, the dark Mossies work for/with the Shadows. All of them have a reason to be close by to human settlements, or they have no reason to be by human settlements, and it was just a coincidence.

3. Does it make sense that everyone in a building would have a key? No. Only a couple people would have a key, mainly the leaders, or some appointed keymaster. So that's why only one Burun is holding the key. For game reasons that's just more convienant for getting a group through without having to spend hours in the dungeon. No one wants to go on a quest that gets you little reward (noobie armor/weapons and iron peas) and too much time spent.

4. Why do you care if the items are on pedastles? That makes more sense considering the Mosswarts consider them holy relics, rather than having them looted from the corpse of a boss. And I really don't see why you associate a slightly different quest (even though there are other quests that work the same) as being in a different game. Thorsten's armor is from a pedastle too, isn't it?

5. Mosswarts are not too bright, you know. And they aren't human, which makes a huge difference. Could you tell the difference between multiple mosswarts that come to talk to you every week? Probably not. Example in real life, most people can't tell the difference between two animals either. Of course the animals would know that they look different, but you can't see the differences because you aren't used to them. Even with people, you might not recognize someone when you don't really get to know them and you're talking to over 300 people a week.

[Phosphine]

lol you must be new to the game . . . . yes, there *coulddabes* but the quest design did not follow the lore of Yanshi, which is were my characters lived from when SC opened til TE blew it up. You missed the point. Your arguements aren't even logical.

[Protes]

Mossy Cave (14.1S, 46.0E) is just outside Yanshi while the Watery Grotto (23.8S, 47.2E) is deep within the Blackmire Swamp. All of the dungeons associated to the quest were new. I checked an old dungeon listing to make sure and couldn't find names and/or coords to match Mossy Cave and Watery Grotto. I looked at CoD's patch page for Aug '04 event (From the Darkness Born) and these 2 dungeons are listed under New Dungeons not Updated Dungeons so I don't know why you are saying either of these was never a Mosswart dungeon, maybe you have it confused with some other dungeon.


The placement of the dungeons near Kryst for now may appear to be out of balance but the Vesayen Isles is the last area in game that hasn't been updated. I kind of think of The Moars and Bleeargh's Gratitude (Thanking Stones) quests as a start on the updates to the Veseyan Isles, and I'm sure at some point they'll update the entire Isles; much like Singularity Caul, Marae Lassel, and Aerlinthe have been.

Umbral Hall and Dark Mosswart Hall have a level 30+ restriction and if you refer to Vendor Buy-Sell Rates table from March '04 LTTP, Kryst is a Low Level town intended for levels 20-40 range. I think once the Vesayen Isles are officially updated those dungeons will fit with rest of the surrounding content.

[Silifi Of Death]

lol you must be new to the game . . . . yes, there *coulddabes* but the quest design did not follow the lore of Yanshi, which is were my characters lived from when SC opened til TE blew it up. You missed the point. Your arguements aren't even logical.

I know the lore as much as anyone. Yanshi got blown up 2 years ago. Lore doesn't just stay the same at all times, it changes, so it doesn't matter what the lore was 2 years ago, because NOW the lore has changed.

My points are plenty logical, if you want to start an argument I recommend you at the very least point out the flaws in my logic before you insult me.