The Quest Guide

One of the biggest discussion topics in the forums seems to be the Quest Guide. For those not familiar with this new feature coming in Book 7, there are some new tools that basically make it easier for you to find where quest objectives are.

First, an icon appears in your quest tracker to let you know the quest is nearby enough to be tracked.





Then, that same icon appears in your radar to point you to where the quest is.


















When you're close enough to the quest objective, the name of the area you're in starts glowing.




















Finally, on your world map there is also a feature that puts an icon over the quest objective of any quest you want to track.

















This has stirred up a lot of hostility, particularly amongst the lore people (that has a negative connotation to it, but it's the only thing I could think of) and the hardcore players. This obviously makes quests easier to accomplish. The argument is that quests were easy enough to find anyway. The descriptions and histories were plenty enough to be able to pin down where a quest was. Sites that have the dynamic maps and quest guides were already being used copiously anyway, why make something in the game? Obviously, the other side is that some people were indeed frustrated by their inability to find certain quests, and enough of them requested that something be done that Turbine responded. We have to remember that this game (and Turbine in general) is run off of a subscription model, and they have to cater to their constituents' wants and needs.

However, I think the one thing that we are forgetting about is the fact that you can turn the Quest Guide off. If you like the challenge of finding the quests with just the description and history, fine. Go to the UI Options and uncheck these boxes.








And go to your world map and uncheck this.





This obviously doesn't effect anyone else, and you'll be happy, as well as everyone else who either wants to or doesn't want to use it. Personally, I'm going to leave it off unless I have a quest I really can't find, and even then I might just pull up one of those sites I mentioned earlier. The point is, all the uproar and blarging about how this is the worst mistake ever is all unfounded (in my opinion at least).

A side note: I in fact know some people that are so into the realism of this game that they turn off the ring icons above the heads, they turn them off in their radar, and the only thing they go by is the history (not even the description) and the sometimes the floating names.