Keighn wrote:
Thou doest needs morest writers as the original text in places is just oh so confusing at times or not thorough enough. Catherine did VOT? I'll check. I'd really have though she'd have better writing skills considering some of her rants and love of Ultima.
Please remember that when VoT was made, we didn't even have the /book function, and there was a fairly hefty text limit on /look or signs. I think I also managed to never send Egg the NPC files for VoT which is why there's so much missing. Fun fact: VoT was the first map where you could use the /hook function
I'll do a quick trawl through maps, with the specific level + co-ords & a guess at what was supposed to be there. Of course, no need to put any / all of these in:
Duogon Tower
Level 15 X:8 Y:93 - Shadowlord - part of a metaquest to find gems. Barrier goes down, pickup gem etc. Fun fact - you used to be able to port in and collect the gem fragment, prolly one of the rarest items ingame
Mountain Pass
Level 64 X:69 Y:35 - Headmistress - Daemon or Hellspawn, not overly dangerous
Level 65 X:90 Y:26 - Troll King
Level 66 X:50 Y:54 - Red Dragon or Drake, not overly dangerous
Tangled Forest
Level 124 X:67 Y:28 - Undead Lord - was supposed to be a story about good Undead / bad undead + item return haven't checked if ingame. EDIT - remembered! Egg put this mini-quest in ages ago, probably one of the least done quests. Talk to Aelfric about stolen loot, go to bandit camp + kill to get it. So, totally already in.
Level 126 X:5 Y:89 - Summoned Beastie - shadowcat?
Level 126 X:68 Y:67 - Skeleton Mage - again, quest I never did
Level 127 X:94 Y:2 - Balron
Level 127 X:59 Y:90 - Fire dragon
Level 128 X:23 Y:32 - Hydra
Level 128 X:55 Y:89 - Balron - supposed to be Unique Gem behind it [meta quest I never did, there's one under Desert Tower & couple others]
Level 128 X:65 Y:40 -
Shadowlord Already there.
Cassandra's Tower
Level 136 X:103 Y:9 - Some kind of Ogre (weak, starter dungeon)
Level 136 X:128 Y:7 - Some kind of Undead (I think - optional)
Level 137 X:33 Y:42 - Some kind of Troll (weak, starter dungeon)
Valley of the Trolls
From memory - there's supposed to be two / three main quest lines in VoT.
Firstly, the expedition from the University, that tracks the hidden temples, ends up on the plateau with the phoenix, which is entered through its eye. Focused mainly on the hidden locations [sun & moon temples / caves] it's supposed to be tough to work out. The moon clock was supposed to be a puzzle, but we didn't have LUA! Generally this quest requires the player to find the
hidden locations that require a grappling hook. If you never grappled through mountains to find entrances, you'd never find this quest. From memory, the McGuffin was supposed to be a Phoenix Egg, and there were supposed to be x2 barriers that required quest items (from the temples) to pass through - but LUA / hooks etc were only just in then, and I never got around to working out the hows. From memory you were supposed to step on a trigger at level 185 X:32 Y:46 for the Moon item and level 185 X:60 Y:29 for the Sun temple. i.e. there was supposed to be a flavor text + item (Moon / Sun blessings) dumped in your inv. when you stood on those tiles with the quest open, that then allowed you to walk through the barriers right at the end.
There's also a few (4-5) camps from the expedition, which finding those was supposed to be the triggers for the University Expedition quest.
Secondly, there's supposed to be the story of a mad wizard finding ancient golem factories (notes from various army personnel) and planning to use them to invade Sosaria. Has lots of note books scattered around of him using the various humanoid monster kin - story is you're supposed to be chasing him / her, but s/he's always one step ahead. Ends up behind the destroyed Castle, has a captive. Basically, if you play through the map straight (i.e. follow the linear paths / caves) you'll end up at this point.
Level 182 X:52 Y:86 - Troll King
Level 183 X:17 Y:11 - Ice Dragon - Moon altar supposed to give Y co-ords to hidden teleporter (the eye) / missing flavor text
Level 183 X:49 Y:11 - Fire Dragon - Sun altar supposed to give X co-ords to hidden teleporter (the eye) / missing flavor text
Level 183 X:16 Y:87 - Phoenix (yep, final boss is supposed to be a phoenix, but no need to make it aggro - fits the story it's being imprisoned. I seem to remember you're supposed to be recovering artifacts / expedition notes, so a Phoenix Egg is probably the quest item that was intended so long ago)
Level 183 X:4 Y:75 - Wizard NPC boss whose been leaving all those notes (with attendant NPC captive)
Level 184 X:23 Y:45 - Undead NPC char who got stuck - intended to be part of Wizard's quest
Level 184 X:57 Y:6 - Wizard's Familiar? Shadowcat? - Part of Wizard's Quest
Level 184 X:66 Y:4 - Friendly NPC captive, tells you to stop Wizard from using golem factories - part of Wizard's quest
Level 184 X:44 Y:84 - Probably a lich - scroll behind it was intended as a stage in the Expedition quest - I think it was the goal (scroll = ancient text)
Level 184 X:56 Y:64 - Silver Serpent - book was intended as a stage in the Expedition quest -
location of temples. Location text is fine, just missing a boss. Plus, we didn't have silver serpents then, although if you look at the mini-map, you'll spot something.
Level 185 X:29 Y:89 - Boss Clay Golem - possible kill quest for Wizard's quest [from captive NPC]
Level 186 X:24 Y:17 - Boss Iron Golem -possible kill quest for Wizard's quest [from captive NPC]
Note - there quite a lot of places in Forest / VoT that I have
no idea how to access. In particular the Silver Serpent book area. !?!?!
To sum VoT up:
Quest line 1 -- from the University, find the expedition. Find the various abandoned camps throughout the levels to complete. Locations are in order: Level 182 X:49 Y:18, Level 184 X:49 Y:68 and Level 183 X:22 Y:25.
I might have missed one. Pretty sure I haven't, but camp #2 might suggest camp #3 doesn't exist. Camp #3 could probably do with a bit more explanation. (i.e. "Two of us escaped the golems and..."). Difficulty - medium
Quest line 2 -- find the Wizard's hide out / plans, talk to the captive NPC in the stocks, kill the two boss golems (clay, iron) and then kill him. Difficulty - medium / hard
Quest line 3 -- find the liches' clue, find the serpent's clue, get the blessing of the Sun (level 185 X:60 Y:29) & Moon (level 185 X:32 Y:46) then go through barriers at level 183 X:13 Y:93 and X:4 Y:90, talk to the Phoenix, get egg. Difficulty - hard. (Also - ideally in the two clock puzzles, stepping on the wrong bits should teleport you to the start, but that's a small nit pick. There's also a Moon & Sun mini temple, no idea what could go in there. Probably a pass to the main temple of each?)
Got those from a quick trawl through memory + MapEd (with only the maps!). Note to self - instead of keeping it in memory, should have emailed Egg this 5+ years ago.