Pointless wanderings

I don’t necessarily have an issue with quests and tasks that are intentionally designed to take time.  There are, of course, exceptions.  For example, I found that the Vex Thal key camp quest in EQ1 to be a whole new catagory of asinineosity (I love making up words).  But still, if a quest is at least entertaining and has some valid reason for being a timesink beyond the “trying to extend content in an uncreative way” method, it doesn’t really bother me overly much.

I’m not sure why exactly, but I embarked on a quest last night that irritated me to no end.

I’ve made no bones about the fact that I balance adventuring and leveling with tradeskilling.  I do most of my adventuring on the weekends and spend my game time during the week mostly doing tradeskills.  It works out for me because questing and hunting night after night just bores the hell out of me.

Last night, I got to looking through my quest journal and found a quest that I had completely forgotten about.  Months ago, I had taken a quest from the Ironforge Exchange to go to the Enchanted Lands and Zek to harvest wood.  I had previously done the first quest in the series that involved harvesting nodes in Thundering Steppes but hadn’t continued the line as Fuzz was too low to go to Zek and EL.

This quest was now, obviously, gray.  I ran off and performed the harvesting and then went to turn it in.  He told me to make a couple of things with the wood, so I knocked that out real quick and turned it in.  He immediately offered me another quest that involved crafting 12 spells.  Repetitive, but no more so than doing writs, so I knocked that out real quick.  When I went to turn them in, he told me to go deliver them.

Fine. 

No problem.

One set had to go to The Feerott.  No issues there.  The second set went to Everfrost.  A little dodging of the raid shark and those were delivered.  The final set went to Lavastorm.

This is a zone that I have spent next to no time in.  I ran through it once on Rao to get the disco and one of my friends took me through to Solesek’s Eye or Sol A or whatever it is called in EQ2, but I have just never been able to make myself spend much time in this zone.  It reminds me too much of Mustafar in SWG and the release of Mustafar in SWG coincided with the NGE.  Aside from that stigma, I just find it hard to stay overly long in a zone that is darkly tinted red.  It hurts my eyes.

That just means that on those rare occasions that I enter Lavastorm, it seems like a very strange zone to me and the landscape is very unfamiliar.

From the zone in area, I could see my turn in NPC.  From past experience, I knew that nothing on the beach would be aggressive…

EXCEPT THAT ^^^ HEROIC!!!  Where the HELL did he come from?

Quick death, quick rez, and I got a little more creative reaching my NPC.

I went back to the Ironforge Exchange and got my reward and started the next quest.  I was to find some NPC in The Sinking Sands.

I was actually quite happy when this quest started because I have seen this particular NPC many times over the last few months and have ALWAYS wondered what she was for.

I chat it up with her, she complains, I get a recipe for a tent, and I am instructed to make it.  So, I have to head back to Qeynos, dive into my supplies in my shared bank, and run off and craft a tent.  I take it back to her and she complains some more.  I’m told to go find a cure for whatever is wrong with her.

I find an NPC under one of the tents who will sell me a book of exotic cures for 5 gold.  I buy it and get a quest update.

Here is where things went from mildly amusing to “we’re just going to waste your time because we know you are dumb enough to do any mindless thing we put in front of you.”

At this point, I looked up the quest because I was curious how long this particular step was going to take.

Apparently, I have to make 4 or 5 cures.  I have to make them 1 at a time.  I have to make one, go back to the Sinking Sands, hand it to her, watch it fail, and then head back to town and make the second one and repeat the entire process.

This takes “stupid” to a whole new level.  There is absolutely NO reason whatsoever for this kind of sloppy and idiotic quest design.  Putting in 5 possible cures is fine.  Requiring that all 5 be crafted is fine.  Making the quest only update after making the trip back and forth is making the quest annoying for the sole purpose of making it annoying.  It ranks up there with that damn skittish beetle quest.  It is piss-poor design with the only reasoning being to take up as much time as possible for the minimal amount of gain.

Of course, wasting time seems to be my hallmark at the moment.

I’ve been spending a lot of time studying lately.  I decided some weeks ago to start pursuing IT certifications again.  I figure that the worst case scenario is that I drop a ton of money down for these tests and maybe get a nod of acknowledgement from my company.  Best case is that I get a raise, have new positions within the company open up to me, or find a better job somewhere else.

I decided to start with the soon-to-be-defunct MCSE.  This was before I realized that Microsoft was doing away with this cert soon and reinventing it as the MCITP.

The first certification exam I decided to work on was the much-hated Windows Vista.  99% of the people on the planet HATE Vista, but Microsoft is pulling XP support later this summer so it didn’t make much sense to work on an XP certification.  A desktop OS test is required for both exams, so I decided to hold my nose and start studying up on Vista.

In studying up, I have learned a couple of things.  The first is that Vista actually does have some really neat features and functions.  The second is that it has some of the most ridiculous additions, craptastic features, and more deadwood than the Texas State Constitution.  (The Texas State Constitution, by the way, still has an amendment on the books enabling the governor to call up the militia in the even of an Indian uprising.)

Still, the book I’m currently reading is well-written and borderline entertaining… at least, as entertaining as a computer book can be.

That is, until, I reached chapter 8.

Around chapter 8, the much vaunted and highly praised Microsoft Press Training Kit for Windows Vista certification makes a transition from a training manual to a sales pitch for the Xbox 360.  Once the book begins discussing the multimedia features of the OS, the authors can’t seem to go a single sentence without mentioning the 360.  I think the 360 is mentioned more frequently than Vista is.

The whole thing has a growing air of “pathetic” the more I read.  There are some features of Vista that are so incredibly bad that the authors hardly even mention them as if they know they are trying to make a steaming pile of dung look like a vacation spot.  (Edit: With regards to this last statement, I am referring to some of the added features of Vista.  On the whole, the more I read, the more I think that Vista is actually a good OS.  I just think that several of the added features were poorly designed and implemented.)

Oh well.  Just a few more chapters to wade through and then I can install the OS on a workstation, delve into playing with it for myself, take some practice exams, and do my final study phase.  My goal is to take the exam a week from this coming Saturday.  Once I get through it, I can put the book on the shelf and move on to something else.

I just hope that the training kits for Server 2008 don’t try to peddle Microsoft Authorized Shower Curtains or something.  I think I’ve had just about enough of pointless features for this year.