Aid Grimel Quest - rough notes

[Demorgoth]

Here's my Seer text:

[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] You say, 'what guided meditation'
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] The portal into the Plane of Fire has been altered. Miak needs you to find the correct way to channel the portal.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] Giwin would like you to find him in Drunder so he can present you to Rallos Zek.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] Now that Grummus has been destroyed, the entrance to the Crypt of Bertoxxulous should open before your might.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] The information obtained from Mithaniel is written in a language that you cannot comprehend.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] You have obtained the Talisman of Thunderous Foyer from Askr, he seeks further assistance in the Bastion of Thunder.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] Mithaniel has been bested. An aura surrounds the mystical symbols that have appeared on your arm.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:55 2002] Mavuin is grateful to you for taking his case before the Tribunal. The information provided to you, that Mithaniel Marr and Karana carry information you should seek could be quite useful.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:56 2002] Terris Thule's grasp over Thelin has been released.
[Sat Dec 07 03:32:56 2002] Bertoxxulous has been slain, the curse from Milyk now lifted.

For the Smithing quest, I get: ....such a limited knowledge of the planes...

edit:

OK, I was wrong. After this, I went back and spoke to the people in the sick house. The bottom 2 flags changed to:

Saved from a world of eternal nightmares, Thelin is forever in your debt.
Saved from certain doom, Milyk and Adier are forever in your debt.

Going back to Aid Grimel, I was then able to receive the filthy BP.

So, confirmed that smithing quest is obtained by killing Bertox AND completing the text in the sick house in PoTranq.

[CaiserSoze]

Hmmmmm.....just had a thought - has anyone yet had a failure in these combines? Unless I'm having a brainfart, I've seen nothing but 'not trivial at ....' reports, but don't remember seeing a multiple attempt reported yet..... could possibly be that the minimum skill level, flags, and gathering components are *all* you need for the quest, and that the actual combines, or at least the final combines, are no-fail...

[Khoren Stonefall]

Failures.

I failed the bar of pure enchanted velium combine, and two of the constitutional combines.

I assume you can't fail the combines that involve your signet itself, and you probably can't fail the BP combines (and if you can, it's probably returned), but I'll bet you can fail the Urn (it has no special components--just a bunch of tradeskill stuff) and, as I said, I can verify you can fail the bar. A fairly expensive little trinket it is, too.

[Kronepsis]

Nice!

Updated up to here.

[Khoren Stonefall]

Sacred Water Drops

My information was correct about the tents in Valor. We got our first drop off a megaman model mob, one of the Sergeants. I was told by my friend that they got one off a regular human model, but they couldn't remember if it was named or not.

Sacred Water
NO DROP
This is a refreshing drink.
WT: 0.4, Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

One so far. Working on it as we speak.

EDIT: Took 2.5 hours to get 3 from that camp, and when all was said and done all three came from the Sergeants/Captain with Megaman model (you know the one!). I also learned these sacred waters are for the alternate HOH Entrance quest, so if you want to know more about where to get them, I'd look in those threads.

So! Verified!

Combine in Sacred Urn:
3x Sacred Water
Wooden Signet

And you end up with:

Filled Sacred Urn
MAGIC ITEM, LORE ITEM, NO DROP
WT: 0.1, Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

Gonna go hand it in in a few minutes =)

[Khoren Stonefall]

Step Four, Complete.

Handed in the urn.

Aid Grimel says, 'Outstanding work Khoren! I can feel the purity of the water radiating through the clay. Are ye skilled with the needle as well as an accomplished potter?'

And he gives you:

Metal Signet
Slot: EAR
AC: 8
STR: +8, STA: +8, WIS: +8, INT: +8, HP: +35, Mana: +35
SV FIRE: +3, SV DISEASE: +3, SV COLD: +3, SV MAGIC +3, SV POISON: +3
WT: 1.5, Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

And it has the fishbone earring icon.

The trigger text for the 5th step is:

You say, 'I am skilled with the needle.'

And, as we already knew, my flags are insufficient to do this next step.

I have Terris, Saryrn, Bertox, Mith Marr, TZ, and VZ. I do not have Agnarr, or RZ, or anything beyond.

Looks like the reward is starting to pick up. Surely the 5th step will replace my lizardbone earring. And I sure hope there's two more steps beyond that!

[Kronepsis]

Done up to here

That signet is starting to look really REALLY nice.

[Ashur]

Nice job Khoren!

There is Baking at least ahead of us... hoping for Fletching as well. Hope the 5th Signet is worth wearing!

For the Tailoring part you will need access to drops from the Elemental Plane of Fire.

I'm stuck on pottery skillups at the moment. Having all the skills maxed ahead of time must help quite a bit.

Good luck!

[Role Meggido]

New champion

This is offically going to be the most involved and intense trade skill quest.

Move over shawl 8.

[Khoren Stonefall]

Tradeskill Quests

I don't think most people will consider this quest worth doing tradeskills specifically to complete. Just about everyone I know who has the shawl moaned about every second they spent tradeskilling. I treat this more like a reward quest.

But I guess we'll only really know when we see the reward at the last stages.

[Lilosh2]

Personally, This quest boggles my mind. Let me explain.

I can see making a quest that requires UBAR planar drops for turnins. There is precedent for this.

I can see requiring decent tradeskill levels for a NICE item. Shawls have set the precedent.

But putting in a quest that requires you to have 250(Or slightly less) in all tradeskills strikes me as a bit.... un-neccessary.

How many people are going to have access to top tier planes, and 230-250+ in all tradeskills necessary? One or two per server, eventually?


It seems like they spent a fair amount of time on something that less then 1 in 10,000 players will ever see.


Dedicated people like Khoren and the 1750 club deserve a reward, I suppose. But it seems as though requiring someone to spend weeks/months to GM all skills, then requiring top-tier planar items and level 65 is just...... time that could have been spent elsewhere.


This is not a complaint, mind you, just an observation.


-Lilosh

[Kronepsis]

Remember though...

The Prayer Shawl also had you use combinations of tradeskills in some parts...like Shawl 7.

Right now the no drop parts have only been requiring 1 to 2 tradeskills at a time per part, and already the 4th part makes the 6th Coldain Shawl reek of rancid cheese, in comparison (if you ignore Shawls 1 and 2, which don't really use tradeskills...) ... and we STILL have the Tailoring one to wait for to show us something flashy. If they treat this like the Prayer Shawls, we're probably going to see something nasty to deal with that requires that 220 in 4 or 5 tradeskills REAL soon, that will hopefully give us something really, REALLY droolworthy.

[Khoren Stonefall]

Reward

Ya, I'm not sure how other people feel about this quest, but I remember the day I read about NTCM (a few weeks before PoP) I thought "I hope hope hope hope hope hope hope they put in a special recipe or a very special quest for people who go all the way to 1750." I have no doubt that if the reward is very droolworthy, there will be people who will take it upon themselves to do the trades when, in the absence of a quest, they wouldn't have. But more than anything, this looks the reward that almost seems like a logical extension of the implementation of NTCM. This seems like a quest made for tradeskillers, not a quest requiring tradeskills.

I think that if there's a valid criticism here, it's that this quest isn't just about tradeskills--it's also about OWNING PoP, which is not something that every 1750 tradeskiller will find feasible or desirable.

At the same time, I was a 1750 only fourteen days after PoP came out. Tradeskills don't erode over time, so every day the number of tradeskill points in all of EQ on active players goes up, and, anyway, there are a LOT of 250/200's who could skill up to do the Grimel quest just given a few weeks. I guess if the reward from this quest is really great, they'll have wanted to put not only an element of major risk into it (believe me, if I thought 1750 was bad, being able to be online to get every flag is a killer for my schedule), but also to slow down its entry into the game. If it was just a matter of being 1750 (or, say, 220 in everything, or whatever) and gathering some stuff I'd already have it, Sonami would already have it, and so, I'm sure, would a handful of other people.

For me, this quest is a dream come true, because although I'm not in the first guild in all EQ that's going to have to flags to do this, I am confident that we'll be able to do it in relatively good time, and first on our server. It rewards both of my EQ aspirations--tradeskill success and "regular" success.

If this is the "big tradeskill reward," then I hope for people who do not aspire to the rush rush rush of getting all the flags required, but who love to tradeskill, there is also something neat to acknowledge their accomplishment, too.

So, anyway, I guess I'm rambling. In short: There are MANY rewards to getting all those flags, but this looks like the one thing that rewards total tradeskill domination. I wouldn't hold the septuple grandmastery requirement against it--that's it's most important trait. A more legitimate beef would be that it doesn't reward tradeskilling on its own merits. It requires a lot more than some very passionate traders are able or interested in giving.

P.S. It looks like every stage requires 220, I think. That's actually pretty softcore compared to all 250s, given that there are already probably several 250/200's in PoP-ready guilds. And remember, for groups AA points come a LOT faster in PoP than they did before.

[Khoren Stonefall]

Flag info

Further insight. This was intimated above where Ashur said the tailoring part requires Fire drops, but I don't think it was verified:

We know stage four requires you to decipher the information, so there was really no compelling (or logical) reason to believe Agnarr would be the key for stage five, and I can verify he's not. Or maybe it was verified. I'm overdosed on cold medication.

Terris
Bertoxx
Saryrn
Mith Marr
Agnarr/Karana
Tallon Zek
Vallon Zek

Are insufficient for part five.

[Verdandi]

Just a small note that we are planning to get this quest up on the site, there's just a bit of delay as the DenMom is swamped with other stuff. We will be getting your writeup on the site asap (and update as necessary, of course!)