about winter quest

[yanzea]

hello
first of all we should all thank the staff team for doing the wonderful winter event, which is really an excellent event.
but this awesome event has made me very upset, i failed the quest. i was very laggy and died many many times and time ran out.

i really can't understand why there must be a time restriction that the quest item shall decay. how if someone else is fighting on the boss and there are several other ppl waiting outside?

its a game and we should all enjoy it, and i do love the shard very much, but the strict limitation has prevented some ppl like me who live in poor countries with bad internet connection from struggling and winning in the end. i tried so hard, but i failed. i feel very bad for this.

[+Nyx]

While I sympathize with your plight of having a poor internet connection, it is not something that is reasonable for us to make exceptions for. If we did, then everybody would be making these claims any time they failed a quest and expecting to have a do-over. The quest was designed with such excellent rewards precisely because it is difficult and with a chance of failure, we would not have been allowed to give out rewards that nice if the quest was designed differently.

Also, you cannot very easily 'accidentally' turn in the books to then receive the timed item - you have to walk up to her from the east and that is the ONLY way she will trigger. There are invisible items preventing you approaching her from any other direction and simply walking past her toward to res station does not trigger her, either. For the boss room entry, you have to walk up the stairs onto the platform in order to even be in range, and then you have to say 'ready' to be moved in.

I'm sorry that you had a hard time with it and didn't manage it, but it was your choice to attempt the quest knowing that your lag is bad on our shard and that it could fail. Next time, if there's nowhere nearby you can go to and get a better internet connection in order to run the quest, then I'd suggest being a bit more careful and taking your time on the other steps, making sure to thoroughly read the wiki page so you are armed with as much knowledge ahead of time as possible and then making a go of it. In the mean time, though, there are several other quests you can enjoy and a few events coming up in the next couple weeks that should provide additional entertainment for you

[yanzea]

thank u +N. Your reply is very kind and reasonable.
I fully understand that the quest has to be difficult to make the rewards "deserve it". And yes I agree the time limitation on defeating the boss is necessary as a part of the difficulty but my question is, why the quest item magical marshmallow has be to temporary? Why must it be used within 30 mins to open the gate to the boss? It was my fault that I didn't realize that once I turn in the completed quest book I would be granted a temporary item and had to finish it in 30 minutes, but once i received the item from the NPC I realized I couldn't go ahead in such lagginess, however I have to keep on since otherwise I would lose the key anyway. If the key doesn't decay or at least not in such a short period of time, I could have just kept it and waited until my connection becomes good and then go for the boss.

[yanzea]

or, when turning in the quest book there shall be a warning that you will be granted a temporary quest item which u will never get another one if u fail. then player may choose to receive and continue, or wait when they are well prepared.

[yanzea]

the worst part is, even i knew i couldn't do it, i had to move on or i didn't have a chance to keep the marshmallow. i tried very hard, died many many times, couldn't even get myself re-equipped after death due to the severe lag, and eventually the boss disappeared with the 1/10 hp left, i failed. this is really frustrating. i don't care or afraid of the death, but with all my best effort, i didn't make it.
if there is any warning or choice to make, i could have saved myself, and the quest once a year.
i feel really sad

[+Requiem]

I understand your frustration at not being able to complete this quest. However claiming that there was no warning is incorrect.

In this post: http://uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=59235#p59235

It directs you to read the wiki +Nyx made specifically for this quest.

http://www.uoex.net/wiki/Winter_Events

In this wiki, it says:

Notes
YOU CAN FAIL THIS QUEST.

- You must fight the bosses (Jack Frost, Oogie Boogie, and The Grinch) alone. The items that grant you access to a boss' room are temporary and only last 30 minutes from the time you turn the quest in. Once you have entered the boss' room, you have 30 minutes to kill him or you will be ported out. NO second chances will be given if you do not complete the boss within the allotted time frame. We will not make exceptions for dropped connections (except in cases of verified server crash), death, or inability to do enough damage.

- Since the bosses are fought alone, and the summoning item lasts only 30 minutes, it is a good idea to check the line for that boss before you turn in your quest book and receive the temporary summoning item! It is also a good idea to ensure that you have enough time to play without distraction before turning in the quest book to receive the boss tokens.

Along with a lot more information regarding the quest. We can not force anyone to read the information provided, but it is usually very beneficial to do so. And had you done so, you would have seen this right there.

You can also plug it into translate.google.com if you would like it in a different language.

[yanzea]

yes its my fault. im too stupid for the game.
i would suggest:
1. give in game choice gump for players to step back from receiving a temporary quest item that would decay and never able to obtain again.
2. be very careful in designing a quest that would fail and "never" can be done again. This would cause one's character or account "useless" that every game designer should avoid. You can even let the quest be insanely tough that nobody can succeed to finish but you should not design a quest that only has one opportunity to try, since everybody should be given a chance to try, learn, fail and finally succeed. This is the correct way of designing that makes players try their best to fight for the final victory.
what i can do now is crying after my failure once.

[yanzea]

as alternative, you may design the quest like 100 steps, and if one fails at the 99th step he/she has to start all over again. i would say that's a difficult one but still there is chance, and there is hope. but now, i have no hope

[Melkor]

There is hope, there is always next year. Try your best to let this go and enjoy the rest of the winter event.

[moonsongtx]

I second the idea of giving a choice on accepting the quest or not for the boss. Not sure how possible it is to put in though. I accidentally walked close to the quest giver and wasn't ready yet.... no idea how I did since you guys put in some great blocks. LOL It's what I get for playing half asleep I think. Having said that though, I'm having a blast with the quests (and dying so many times... it's awesome!)

[+Nyx]

I just wanted to mention that there are reasons why we don't simply make some types of updates to quests on the fly.

For example, the top suggestion seems to be to add a confirmation gump. That sounds all nice and tidy and simple when you say it, but it really isn't. In order to do that, it would involve a redesign of the NPC, because gumps with confirmation checks take multiple steps and multiple reference points on the NPC's code. NPCs are already plagued with issues of getting hung up/locked up when they've got too many things going on or too many players nearby. When we add gump functionality to that, it has its own set of problems (Those of you who ran the doctor who quest I'm sure can remember that it often took a few tries to trigger River Song's dialogue. This is because there were many gumps on her, and each one had to reference another separate section of code that it has to take the time to find and trigger the right one). Doing this would drastically increase the likelihood that the NPC - which I know is working 100% correctly right now - would suddenly break in any number of weird ways and possibly malfunction. With a quest that a player can fail, we simply cannot have the NPC be unstable in anyway. There cannot be any reasonable risk that the NPC will cause a player to fail the quest. Doing an edit like this while the quest is open and running would be monumentally risky to everyone else who tries to run the quest for the remainder of the month. It would also drastically increase the chance that we'd receive many pages with problems or complaints regarding the NPC not behaving properly, and then I have to spend time investigating them all (since they might be accurate) - and in many cases then have to wait for +C to investigate it further than I am capable, and let me know those details. It is time that I don't have to spare in the month of December, and neither does +C. This is the type of change that has to happen when the quest is not open and I have plenty of time to test and re-test it to be absolutely sure it's doing everything properly.

Then, there's also the bit I mentioned before, that there is only so much that is reasonable for us to spend time changing, and at some point we have to stop changing things. I don't think the gump itself is unreasonable, however I know that once it was added, the next time this quest was run, there would still be these same complaints and the same claims and requests/demands/etc for more changes to make it even easier to succeed. That gives me pause, and makes me want to take time to think on such changes, since perhaps I'd rather make other changes to the quest which would eliminate this issue but still keep the quest difficult with a chance of failure. That's something that I'd need to really be sure I wanted to do, since this is the 4th year this quest has run the same way and while there's usually complaints from those who fail, largely it's a well-loved quest with very excellent rewards.

Because of all that, I don't make changes to the basic integrity and design of a quest on a whim, and usually not while it's actively open to players. Choosing not to do so causes a lot of folks to give suggestions such as we've seen in this thread, but it also means I don't have to worry that the quest is breaking and forcing people to fail while I'm not at the desk. The poo would hit the fan a lot more, from a lot more people, if that were to happen.

[Styx]

Not being funny or anything but moaning about gumps and what not because you are simply not ready to attempt the boss leads me to question why you are doing the pre-quests anyway. Especially given the fact there are text warnings literally everywhere about the quest being failable & closed till the following year in the event of failing.

be very careful in designing a quest that would fail and "never" can be done again. This would cause one's character or account "useless" that every game designer should avoid. You can even let the quest be insanely tough that nobody can succeed to finish but you should not design a quest that only has one opportunity to try, since everybody should be given a chance to try, learn, fail and finally succeed. This is the correct way of designing that makes players try their best to fight for the final victory.

It's repeatable annually, and also offers out some of the best gear I've ever seen attached to a quest line on this server. I think it's been implemented perfectly. You can adhear to the learn, fail, and succeed logic you suggested, it just takes a year cooldown. Which isn't much when you look at the calibre of the rewards.

[Annachie]

I must admit to accidentally completing the first book myself. Luckily I was, barely, in a position where I could take on jack Frost.
My own fault. I didn't realize that turning in the quest book would immediately trigger the 30 minute timer. I should have though.

Tell you what, I'll remember next time


Now the Reindeer, at 197 dex that is hard.

Much easier when you cheat though, like I did tailing Lazarro's Lady through the area

[yanzea]

thank you all for participating in the discussion. No matter whether we can make a change now or never, its good that we can share different opinions on an event that we all are involved, at least i think so.
And i understand that it will be difficult to edit the event when its going on, and that's not what i have been expecting for from the very beginning.
Nevertheless, you will NOT be able to do "this" event again next year, since there will always be a new event and new rewards next year and the ones after. Those who have won this year, they will all be entitled to win or at least choose another reward next year. And me, will always be the looser, when i failed once.

[+Nyx]

thank you all for participating in the discussion. No matter whether we can make a change now or never, its good that we can share different opinions on an event that we all are involved, at least i think so.
And i understand that it will be difficult to edit the event when its going on, and that's not what i have been expecting for from the very beginning.
Nevertheless, you will NOT be able to do "this" event again next year, since there will always be a new event and new rewards next year and the ones after. Those who have won this year, they will all be entitled to win or at least choose another reward next year. And me, will always be the looser, when i failed once.

Yanzea, you really need to stop making blanket statements that are 100% false.

Failing the quest does not mean you are forever unable to do it again.
Failing it does not mean that the game is ruined or unplayable.
Failing the quest this year does not mean that next year you can't obtain one of these same rewards. The quest has run for four years now (in this exact same manner), and the ring has been the same since the very first run. I later added the Jewel of Winter, which has remained the same since implemented. After that I added the Santa Hat, which did change this year - but I made a GLOBAL change, meaning anyone who obtained one last year doesn't need to obtain it again to get the new stats.

You did ask for it to be changed, you've made several statements regarding what I should do to change it for folks like you who didn't read the wiki beforehand. What you have been asking for - repeatedly in game and here on the forums - is essentially special treatment. You want a do-over. We've very politely told you no numerous times now and continuing to push about it and page about it is just starting to seem like trolling. I've gone out of my way to talk to you about your concerns even though you have been making overdramatic and completely incorrect statements like these. At this point, it just needs to be let go. You're aware there are other quests you can run for the winter event, and I think you should put your effort into participating in those and having fun, rather than dwelling on something that is over with.