Edit: Please see the end of this post for an update.

My first night back in Vanguard after not playing for eight months turned out to be a very frustrating evening.  I logged in, fully expecting to have a good time, and re-learn all the basics about the game that I had forgotten.  I ended up logging out after several wasted hours and experiencing no fun at all.

To get back into the swing of things, I decided to get started on the many quests in my quest journal.  The quest that I picked is called:  URT: The Undead Envoy.  This is a United Races of Telon quest that has several stages to complete and has a nice equipment reward at the end.  I picked it up at Arlinora’s Retreat from Elkisa Harok.  The idea of the quest is that they want to start diplomatic relations with the undead of Telon and they think that the best way to do this is to build their own undead envoy.  The thing is, they don’t know how to build one.  So, Elkisa gives me the quest “Background Knowledge,” so that they can learn how to do it.

Things started out well enough.  She gave me an Invisible to Undead potion and told me to run over to a nearby graveyard.  I am to use the potion, sneak past the undead that walk there, and steal a journal from the local necromancer who resides in the graveyard.  The location sits atop a nearby hill and it is full of undead skeletons.  There are three small buildings in the middle of the graveyard.  My first assumption is that the journal would be found inside one of the buildings.  It turns out that I was correct.

I popped the potion and ran over to the nearest building.  I opened the door and found myself face to face with a big, named skeleton.  Luckily, the potion was working and it did not attack.  No journal was to be seen.  I ran to the next building and found two skeletons and the necromancer himself inside.  Still no journal.  Third time turned out to be the charm.  The journal was sitting on the floor of the third and last building.  No skeletons were inside.  I snapped it up and ran back to town to turn it in.  Everything was going great.

Here is where my night turned sour.  Elkisa takes the journal, reads it, and then gives me my next task, which is the “Harvesting the Parts” quest.  I need to go back to the graveyard and kill skeletons for their body parts.  I also need to find some zombies and get their body parts.  Two body parts in particular ruined my night.  They are zombie skins and broken hand bones.  I killed what seemed a million skeletons and zombies and yet all I had was five skins and two hand bones.  I kept at it, hoping the next kill would give me what I was looking for.  After more than an hour, I was frustrated and pissed off.  I finally asked in OOC who I needed to blow in order to get these things to drop.  The answer I got ticked me off even more.

It turns out that the quest is screwed up.  If I want to have more of these items drop, I must first put what I have in the bank.  What?  The nearest bank is Veskal’s Exchange, which isn’t exactly close by.  In desperation I decided to try it, so I put the items in the bank and started killing again.  Two hand bones dropped immediately and then stopped dropping.  Five skins dropped right way and then stopped dropping.  In the end, it turns out that only two hand bones and five skins will drop if you have any of these items in your bags.  Now, the quest requires 15 skins and 10 bones.  If I want to get that many, I must run back and forth to the bank time and time again.  This is amazingly ridiculous.  This quest has been in the game since forever and it is in this condition.  Totally unacceptable.

I ended my night with an unfinished quest and frustrated beyond belief.  Nice job, Vanguard team, nice job.

Edit: In fairness, I want to pass along a note I received from an SOE community manager about the issues I encountered with this quest:

Hi there! I’m a Community Relations Rep at SOE and I just stumbled across your blog post here about your frustrations with Vanguard. I wanted to let you know that this quest issue has been reported to the team, and we hope you’ll still come back to Vanguard and enjoy adventuring in Telon. Have a great day!

That is great news!  I am sure that others who try this quest will be very happy.  Thank you!