How on NORRATH did anyone figure out these epic quests?

[jerok88]

I'm curious if anyone knows how the player base discovered these epic quests. Seemingly no clue on what to find, where to go, who to turn in items to.

Anybody know of any stories or forums that are archived that I can read as they discovered the epic quests back in 2000-2001?

[Peekae]

I'm not sure if this was epic era but i know at one point there was an info leak and people pretty much got to look at everything contained in EQ quests etc.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

I remember the various sites for each class -- like the enchanter site, whose name I have forgotten -- people just were posting in the forums what they could figure out or guess at. And there was a lot of headscratching, but then a step would be figured out. And, some people kept discoveries secret, too. All I will tell you is, these quests were not "solved" in a couple days. Some were easy to solve, others were hard.

Different world, ya know? These days, so as not to frustrate teenagers, devs leak quest solutions, or just make then mindlessly easy. The people in marketing said this would be great for the industry, draw in more people, make it more "user friendly," etc. Yeah. Online games are a thriving business. No.

No game will ever be as difficult as eq again. No businessman would allow it. And no modern day kid would enjoy it. <shrug> idiocracy.

[Nogdar]

Yup. Sad truth.

[Stoggieman]

I have not done most of the epics... Would be fun to start from the beginning and try to figure it out... Yes I know it would be frustrating... But could be pretty damn fun too..

[kotton05]

Wasnt there some sort of datamining involved?

Also I agree Stoggieman, would of been lots of fun, now we have all the resources to know what to do years later and its still fun.

[Ele]

EqClerics still has the hundreds of pages long threads of people trying to crowd source the cleric epic and their successes in getting quest givers to respond, turns into fail, and stories of having to do the whole thing over again.

When they first dropped, it really was a rush to go around Norrath hailing anything and everything, talking to guildmasters, trainers, random new npcs. People would post information up in support of quest lines, false information was spread, rumors were had, other people kept their progress secret in terms of specifics. It was a pretty amazing thing.

[Bigcountry23]

There were pages of notes on "new" NPCs after the epics came out on Alla's.

[SirAlvarex]

Epics were also rarer amongst the populous back then because of it. I wish I had hard numbers (like only 5% of 50+ warriors getting their epic pre-Velious), but I hardly ever remember running accross Epic Wielding toons in Gfay (Tunare's EC Market).

Some of them like the Mage epic had to of been nearly impossible though. Rare spawns with rare drops, and all you're given is a general idea of what you're looking for.

[Safon]

I remember seeing only two classes with their epics during live and being awestruck at them and their badass particle weapons (quit before Velious)

[fishingme]

I don't ever recall seeing an epic go for MQ on ayonae ro

[ArumTP]

Spelldat files and zone patches. People would always look at these files on patch day. Dig around in the zones that got patched and go from there. People would also log onto the test server, to see what was going on there.

[Striiker]

I recall that the SoulFire quest (part of the Paladin Epic) was broken. There were a few message boards for Paladins where they were sharing all that they had figured out to that point. Eventually Verant (prior to SOE taking over) admitted to the fact that it was broken. At that time only Aradune Mithara (Brad McQuaid's character) wielded a flaming sword. It was pretty cool to see him in game now and then..
Before the SoulFire quest was even know about, I can recall that there was rampant speculation that the flaming sword would drop off Nagafen in SolB (before anyone was actually able to kill him).

[koros]

Try less than .1% of warriors had their epics pre-Velious. It wasn't solved until i think early November. I think it was the last epic solved. The sticking point was queen was killed SO rarely back then that the handful of times she was killed server wide during the epic hunt didn't yield any blades (it was like a 40% drop rate)