Experimenting for new recipes.

[calidorn2]

I have a few questions on this.

1) Exactly how many recipes have been found through pure experimenting.

2) How many of these recipes have never been mentioned in some NPC dialogue or quest text/note at all.

3) If there are such recipes, (and although I know of no examples I am led to believe there is/have been) and these recipes are still unsolved, what is the point ?

4) How long must an unsolved recipe be in the game before SoE drop hints about it ? ie Aid Grimmel quest where noone could get it so they added text. ( I see no new text in the quest writeup but I saw something here about new text added )

I guess really that I can see the fun in discovering a completely new recipe ( and the frustration too). But some recipes have taken ages to solve even with text ie: nightmare JC helm and the whole emblem thing.

Some recipes such as ceramic rod of storms having increased cold damage make me wonder why there is not an increased fire damage one too. I know there are only so many planes and each one seems to have a unique pottery item, but I cannot help wondering if there is a fire one.

Things like being able to craft brown gravy in a non PoP container make me wonder if it is not a pre PoP recipe. Maybe noone solved it so they put it in a book for PoP recipes. Maybe not. Maybe the whole container thing is a booboo. Maybe brown gravy is usable in other pre PoP not text given recipes. Maybe not. It is just inconsistencies that make me wonder.

PoP seems to have been very friendly to tailoring and smithing recipe wise although the drop rate sucks of course past first tier. Yet other crafts like JC and Pottery only have one per zone if that. Then things like brewing and fishing just got royally shafted for usefull recipes. Brewing got tempers and a few quest recipes. Nothing real special as everything is soo rare as to be insane. Fletching only got one bow before elementals and no arrows. Elemental drops being so rare as to be a joke so really they got one bow any average fletcher could reasonably expect to make.

None of this is a whine so please do not move to primal screams.I just want to push for a little thought as to why it is like this. Any ideas anyone ?
Is it simply how it is. Have Soe simply included whatever recipes they had ready at the time. Are we likely to see the other tradeskills recieve more recipes at a later date ? Is there many more unsolved recipes ? If so how long before SoE drop hints ? I am thinking if they are not solved yet and are 1st - 3rd tier PoP recipes then they are too obtuse and without hints of some sort they will not be solved. For Aid Grimmel we knew there was a recipe out there even if only that it was likely to use the regrua claws.

Is there anything out there item wise that has no known use but looks real suspicious ? I can think of the gnomish needle and cookpot from CT and the scaler unless some use has been found for it. I know there are millions of items out there but feel free to list anything you think is a real possibility. I do not mean war stones, small sparkling gems, random drop items or anything at all you dont know the use for.

So all in all if anyone has any thoughts or even actual examples offhand of such recipes (never hinted at) I would be interested in knowing.

Opinions, item suggestions, possible combine suggestions, things you have thought for one reason or another should combine but don't seem to work or any permutations on existing recipes that seem feasible are welcome.

[Sanna]

Things like being able to craft brown gravy in a non PoP container make me wonder if it is not a pre PoP recipe. Maybe noone solved it so they put it in a book for PoP recipes. Maybe not. Maybe the whole container thing is a booboo. Maybe brown gravy is usable in other pre PoP not text given recipes. Maybe not. It is just inconsistencies that make me wonder.

my thought on the brown gravy thing is that there is nothing particularly 'pop-special' about it to justify requiring it to be made in a pok container. Soe/verant wanted that to be a subcombine in a recipe, and since it was sufficiently mundane, it can sufficiently be made in a sufficiently mundane container.


your point about the rod of storms and why not one for fire is a good one, and reminds me....

someone in serverwide.eqtraders was noting today that there are so very many holes in the fabric of the story of the game. I would love to know what goes on over at the EQ-writing center, if they are even aware of the inconsistancies ( kaysha's incredible write up on BD armors and the holes and shortcomings comes to mind -- http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6806 -- ), and how they come up with all this in the first place. Sometimes they seem very cute and ingenutive (whatever that word is), and sometimes, the creator-people just seem..... forgetful. Or overloaded, and things fall out of their mind.

as far as 'pure experimenting' goes... it takes a Dark Cloud II type of player to just take totally random items and go, 'i wonder if this makes anything....' and with the sheer sheer number of items in game, you'd have to be a serious masochist or whatever to undertake THAT kind of endeavor. The time/money spent, the mass of red DNC messages... frankly, the thought of it makes me glad that i'm coming in beHIND all the experimenters. ^_^ I'm not being paid enough otherwise, lol.

[Healblade]

3 recipes come to mind immediately:

(1) Skull Ale
(2) Butter
(3) Hero Sandwiches

These are all recipes that were discovered via experimentation.

(1) Skull Ale... I really don't know the entire story behind this recipe. However, the name "skull ale" had been on the brewing recipes page since before I knew EQTraders existed. There was speculation that the Cyclops Skull from an undead cyclops in South Karana, but nobody could figure out the recipe.

Eventually someone came across the correct combination of ingredients and discovered a great brewing recipe that would take you to 202 skill. This was shortly changed so that it was trivial at 151 skill.

(2) Butter... an interesting recipe. When it was discovered, it was done so by complete accident. There was no hint as to the existance of butter in-game at that time, and it was created by combining only 1 milk (instead of 2), rennet, and dairy spoon in an attempt to make mature cheese.

Experimentation with butter was rampant once word spread. Unfortunately, it was only after PoP that its use was found.

(3) Hero Sandwiches... this recipe was spoken about in game. The NPC that spoke of it even said that it would require 3 types of Hero Parts. While there were several different interpretations people had, the recipe for Hero Sandwiches was eventually found.

What makes this recipe even more interesting are its subcombines. Smoked Hero Parts and Spiced Hero Parts were really not hinted at except with the "3 different types of Hero Parts". With the ton of experiementation, they were dicovered, leading to the discovery of the Hero Sandwiches recipe.


To answer your questions:

1) Lots, including tons of alchemy and various others.

2) Some of them, I mentioned a few above.

3) For example, a prisoner in the Plane of Justice gives hints as to some "PoP arrows", although we don't know if the recipe really exists or not. The point? To give people a chance to discover things on their own and make "breaking news" on the tradeskill front possible?

4) There is no set time. Skull Ale was unknown for a LOOOOOOOOONG time, and they never gave any hint. Tradeskills are not an exact science, and SoE can do whatever they want :?

For your other questions:

-- Everquest is a dynamic game, there will be more recipes and changes for a quite a time to come.

-- If there are recipes that have been in game since Beta and not yet known of... Why should SoE give any hint to them? Personally, I think being told would ruin some of the mystery and magic of the game.

-- Yes, Scalers, please find a use for them! I still say that they should have made scalers used in dairy spoons instead of the scaler mold.

-- There has been talk of an "Ice Cream" recipe in-game... I don't know much past that, but it might be a fun thing to pursue.

[Farnyr]

I think we've all had visions of granduer, imagining ourselves going "OMG OMG!" and then linking a brand new(Useful) item we just discovered. Unfortuantely, the chances are slim to none, and even then, most people forget who figured out the recipie in the first place.

As for the scalers, I heard a *rumor* that fresh fish+scaler+tackle box= fish scales. Would make sense, but who knows, never tried.

I forget if someone said this already(after 20 years, the mind starts to go...), but your best chance at discovering a brand new/unknown recipies is right after an expansion comes out. Other than that, the chances are about as good as a level 1 zerging Rallos Zek.

[Malathos]

Other than that, the chances are about as good as a level 1 zerging Rallos Zek.

I wouldn't have put it quite that bad.

There's still a couple of other curiosities wandering around like -
http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5223

and

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5766

[Thorvari]

In Shadeweaver Thicket, there is a quest with Tiamon Aroo that involves "spirit anchors", and he gives out the recipe for Tailored Shaded Hopperhide armor. This armor takes a no-rent Xakra Kel piece of armor and mates it with a matching piece of Tattered Hopperhide armor for additional stats. There is also a Shaded series of tailored armor that drops in the higher level zones.

The mystery is that in the tunnels of Shadeweaver near Pal caverns, there drops no-rent "Xakra Dat" armor that a use has never been found for. This seems like it would be used to make armor similar to the armor made from Xakra Kel. There is also Holpa Mak Gor armor that drops in the tunnels that has "Rank Two Anchor, Stone Studded Leather XXXX" as its item lore, making it seem like this might be the match piece.

One major problem with trying to solve this is that the Xakra Dat armor is a rare drop from a uncommon mob. The only mobs that drop it are on half of a day/night cycle, in a zone where you can't tell what game time it is, only have 10-12 wandering spawns, and have 3 different placeholders. On top of that, they are no-rent, so once you get a piece to drop it is hard to keep around for experimentation, and Vendors wont buy it so it doesn't stay around that way.

Xakra Dat armor drops from Shak Dratha with Capitilized names (Shak Dratha, not shak dratha) that wander the tunnels near Paludal Caverns. It does not drop from static mobs. Holpa Mak Gor armor drops from Gor Taku static mobs from the higher level end of the cave system. These mobs have slightly larger models than the static spawns at the Pal caverns end of the cave system.


I have collected a decent collection of Holpa Mak Gor armor and Claw Needles, but have not been able to get any Xakra Dat armor to drop, or if it did, it was one of the few pieces that I don't have the corresponding Holpa Mak armor for.

[Froni Thunderpaws]

Some of the brewing recipes that took a long time for discovery were detailed in Brodder's Diaries, but a lot of experimentation was needed to uncover them. Chocolate covered cherries and cinnamon pixiesticks were discovered by experimentation although Miranda does mention that the chocolate cherries are her favorite candy. The essences for the new robes were discovered before the expansion, and I think the essences for the spiritstones were found ahead of the patch with those details. Lots of experimentation went into at least the dwarven cultural armor to find at least the chain recipes and I think that smithing often finds the "other recipes" through some patterned investigations. If you read the CT tradeskill combines it looks like a lot of experimentation was done for them too. Sometimes (and often more recently) the details are spelled out, but a lot of times it is only little hints in game to a recipe and some of them are pure discovery.

This discovery part is one of my favorite parts of the game, and I wish it had a larger part to play.

[NightGod]

I can't believe noone mentioned the single most famous "play around till ya get it right" experiment of all...Wu Armor.

No patch message, no book, not even a hint that it existed, just someone determined/bored enough to keep trying combines until it worked.

And I've forgotten his name, which of course goes to show how fleeting fame is when it comes to tradeskills :P

[Cantatus]

A lot of the oils (egg and fish) were discovered by experimentation, but that was just combining and egg or fish with a flask of water. The most recent recipe found from experimentation was Bristlebane's Party Platter.

Personally, I'd love for them to add more recipes that are a mystery, but the problem they seem to have is that they make them too mysterious. Like they could've laid down the framework of the Tailoring/Smithing Nightmare armor and then dropped the hint that other planes might have similar recipes. Unfortunately they usually drop a name or put a recipe in a book that is way off instead. :?

[jugador]

"The most recent recipe found from experimentation was Bristlebane's Party Platter. "

The Party Platter was not found via experimentation, it was spoiled through a "test player" with New Aid Grimel text. It wasn't up long before the tester took the info down, but it was long enough for a few people to catch it and crank out the final product.

[Gorgin]

The Bristlebane's Party Platter was found only due to in-game text change on test, until the text was changed the recipe didn't work. I'd tried the exact recipe for the platter 5-6 times and always got DNC and had given up on the quest, when someone released the new quest text from Test I tried it again and out popped a Platter, so while there was alot of experimentation for the BPP it ultimately was the result of a NPC's text since the recipe was broken during experimentation.

[Velaraa]

If you wanna do some experimentation and be a hero (seriously), why don't you make some Kurn's Jerky Delight? (Kunark era unsolved baking recipe used in a quest)

[Thorvari]

The recipe for Kurn's Jerky delight is known, it's just that the Salt Minnow used as one of the ingrediants no longer is fishable in Cabilis, so someone would have to have one sitting around in their bank to do the combine.

This thread was talking about discovering unknown recipes.

[Araon]

I am surprised no one has posted regarding one of the more infamous undiscovered recipes I can think of, Lewena's favourite drink (most recent thread below):

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5745

[Gorgin]

Noone's even sure Lewena really HAS a favorite drink or that it's a quest though I think it'd be neat if she does/it is.