Follow Quest text from the NPC carefully!

[Vohl]

I don't recall a single quest where NPCs asking for currency requested something other than gold. Everyone used to use gold on the live servers; many insisted the quests worked much as they've been implemented on 1999. Eventually, a lot of the player base learned differently.

I have to wonder if the strictness of quests (hand in the wrong item and the NPC eats it) was part of "The Vision". Quests in various other MMO and adventure games, including many that pre-dated EQ, would simply detect that you had whatever item or flags were needed to complete a quest. In EQ, though, you hold your breath as you present every required item.