This came up during a session on Project99.
We talk a lot about how hard quests used to be. The obscure lore you would need to know, the dozens and dozens of steps you had to take, the weeks and months it took to complete, and even trying to figure out which friggin' words to put in the friggin' brackets. It's something most of us want to see again, and one of the few things the majority of us can agree on. We want hard quests again.
So, I'm sitting there in Highkeep chatting away with a rogue. On a whim, I inspect him, and what does he have on him? The dag gum Burning Rapier. Anyone remember that quest? Having to collect all that friggin' alcohol from around the world? Well, we're sitting there chatting away, and I ask him why he did that quest. May seem like a weird question, but given the ridiculous amount of stagnation and inflation on the P99 server, one could get a vastly superior weapon with little to no plat. Instead, this guy took the time and dedication to complete this very involved quest. Why? Because he wanted to, because he missed it. Still took him weeks to get it all done even with all the information at his fingerprints.
But man, can you imagine how long it took the first guy to do? Can you imagine how much running around he had to do, and how many questions he asked? What about the first guy to complete an epic quest? Hell, even today you still get random questions about the silly low level slave quest in Crushbone - even THAT one is harder than a lot of quests in modern MMO's.
What I propose is that, if the quests in Pantheon do indeed mirror the complexity of the quests in EQ, those who complete them first should be recognized. I want to walk down an avenue in a city of Terminus that's lined with the statues of player avatars, those who took the time and had the dedication to be the first to complete their classes epic quest. I don't want to see only statues of NPC's that come from an obscure lore created in a conference room. I want to see statues of you and I.
Cuz, come on - that first guy to complete the Burning Rapier quest deserves a friggin' statue.
While the idea is a lovely sentiment, I would hate to see statues of those people who learn about this and then use the labor of others, to get a "cool statue of myself" that we then have to stare at forever, knowing they might not have worked as hard as everyone else around them to actually get this achievement. You know they're out there. *squints and looks around* Out there, lurking, waiting to have themselves immortalized just because.
I do think having some fun, in-lore, in-game nods to beneficially contributing players would also be neat. Maybe a drink or recipe named after some helpful community crafters, a library with a small wing dedicated to some of the lore-hunters. That kind of fun thing.
