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How to view completed quest steps?

Discussion in 'Census: EverQuest II' started by Benj, Jul 12, 2020.

  1. Benj

    Benj New Member

    My guild is trying to track members' progress through the quest Binding to the Dark. Currently, they are doing this by periodically asking people which shards they have already obtained and writing that down in a spreadsheet. I hoped to automate this process by pulling quest data from Census. However, I found that the data only contained remaining quest steps, with no mention of the steps the character had already completed. For example, here is the data for my own character, Benj, and a screenshot of what the quest looks like in-game.

    Code:
    <quest crc="2310147712" stage_num="0" stage="I should locate and obtain more items of shadow magical nature...">
    <requiredItem_list>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." quota="1"/>
    </requiredItem_list>
</quest>
    binding-to-the-dark.PNG
    As you can see, the XML contains no mention of which shards have and have not been completed. The in-game journal states which shards have been obtained, but not which shards are still needed. From this, I can produce messages such as "Benj has obtained 3/10 shards" or "Benj still needs 7 shards", but I cannot produce the shard names as the guild leaders have requested.

    Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is this even possible?
     
    Benj, Jul 12, 2020
    #1
  2. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    As it is, the character quest/collection data under /character_misc/ is monumentally huge. In order to keep the servers from crashing, we suggested the current quest data schema which leaves out completed steps and a lot of other information which can be inferred by querying the /quest/ collection.

    So why not just query the Quest data and compare it? Well...

    When Census started carrying Quest data, a mechanism was put in so that devs could block new expansion content from leaking into the wild. However with Kunark Ascending, the game designers put Epic Weapon 2 quests under the Kunark directory instead of the KA directory. When this data started appearing in Census, I alerted Kander. He flipped out, got the data removed, and a stronger block was put to prevent quest data from being released. The next 2 expansions we had to beg and plead for many many months before it was released. Chaos Descending and Blood of Luclin quest data have NEVER been released and I don't expect them to ever be released.

    So I wrote a crazy crawler script which anonymously peeks into tens of thousands of character's quest journals and figures out which quests people are working on, which steps they have, in which order, and then with a lot of work by your fellow players, we reconstruct it into skeleton Quest Data which is then deployed on EQ2U.

    So the answer to your question -- can I get real quest data for level 110+ quests somewhere? The answer is... not really. If you'd like, I can give you a dump of the quest data we've assembled.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
    Feldon, Jul 13, 2020
    #2
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  3. Benj

    Benj New Member

    Thanks for the information, and for the offer, but I'm guessing this is one of the quests you don't have, since it still renders as a question mark on my character's EQ2U page. (Other quests that I've needed were unknown when I needed them, and have since been added to your collection.) Unfortunately, even the quest data you've assembled won't be much help, since I can't distinguish between the various shards found in the game's actual data. Each and every shard says "Locate and obtain an item of shadow magical nature..." with no other identifying information. For now, it seems like our spreadsheet is the best way to track this particular quest.
     
    Benj, Jul 15, 2020
    #3
  4. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    Ok so it's quest CRC 2310147712. Unfortunately yeah we won't be able to determine which ones are done and which ones aren't because all the step names are identical. I can construct it as a quest on EQ2U, but the stages won't complete correctly. I really wish they wouldn't do quests with multiple identically named stages.
    • Lucid Shard of Anger
    • Lucid Shard of Dawn
    • Lucid Shard of Energy
    • Lucid Shard of Flora
    • Lucid Shard of Status
    • Lucid Shard of Haze
    • Lucid Shard of Summoning
    • Lucid Shard of Time
    • Lucid Shard of Contempt
    • Lucid Shard of Mind
     
    Feldon, Jul 15, 2020
    #4
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  5. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    Feldon, Jul 15, 2020
    #5
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  6. Benj

    Benj New Member

    For what it may be worth to you, here's the XML for someone who has obtained all 10 Lucid Shards and has progressed to step 2 of the quest. This is the final step.

    Code:
    <quest crc="2310147712" stage_num="1" stage="I find myself in need of some sort of magical device that can fuse the lucid shards together. Perhaps some sort of tradeskill society could be of assistance.">
    <requiredItem_list>
        <requiredItem no_maximum="0" progress="0" progress_text="I find myself in need of some sort of magical device that can fuse the lucid shards together" quota="1"/>
    </requiredItem_list>
</quest>
     
    Benj, Jul 21, 2020
    #6
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