Arena:Random Quests

Random quests, also known as 'side quests', are small non main quest story related quests the player can choose to complete to earn gold and experience points in Arena. Random quests are completely randomized, the names of the quest givers, tasks and destination being different. The and times will vary and the quest task can be one of several types. Each quest is added to the journal, but from versions 1.0 to 1.06, (and possibly even on 1.07 according to some reports) the log size is severely limited. When the journal contains 16 entries, which seems to equal to about 2,000 bytes, the oldest message is removed before adding a new one, so it may be a good idea to print, write down or take a screenshot of the log from time to time to help keep track of active quests. As the game doesn't show which quests have or haven't (yet) been completed, it can help by marking the completed quests in some manner.

OverviewEdit

Random quests are found in 2 separate locations, settlement inns and the local palace and have 7 kinds of objectives, which will be explained further later on. The objectives can be delivery, retrieval, escort, rescue, capture, slaying creature and obtaining an artifact. To locate inn quests' locations, ideally you should approach npcs walking around and click on them to talk. Select 'Rumors' and then choose the 'Work' subtopic. Should they have heard of a work related rumor, they will inform the player by giving a general description of the quest giver and direction. If stood close enough to the location, they will also refer to the inn by name and give a more detailed description of the quest giver such as their name, disposition and status in life. Note that stationary npcs cannot give the player directions to jobs.

After getting the location, you should enter the inn, locate the bartender and again click on them to interact. As an alternative you can can enter all inns by checking the map and recognizing particular buildings and going to them one by one. This might be needed should you be in a settlement after 6 pm when npcs are gone home for the night. If an NPC on the streets or bartender informs the player they haven't heard anything, the player should either camp until after 12 am, go to a different settlement or ask the bartender for work if they asked an npc first, or ask an npc if they asked the bartender. Note that you need to leave the inn, then come back in again to allow the new quests to be activated for the new day. The chance that palace quests are available is related to the player's level. This has the unfortunate effect of decreasing the chances of inn quests being available. Quest availability also happens to be mutually exclusive, meaning that when a palace quest is available, inn quests are not for that day and vice versa.

However you located the inn, you should receive a message after interacting with the bartender. This mentions an off-screen person coming closer to the player, then describes what kind of person the quest giver is and part of their background. Click to continue dialogue and the quest giver will give a detailed description of what their name is, what they want and give a bit of background as to why they want someone to complete a quest for them. You can then decide to accept or decline.

Accepting will result in a positive reaction from the quest giver, alongside either an item in case of a delivery job or a person following you, oddly in the form of a quest 'item' in your equipment, in the case of an escort quest. As mentioned above, the quest's objectives will be added to the journal. Declining the quest results in a negative reaction from the quest giver and the quest being forfeited. After accepting the quest you have until 12 am 2 days later to complete it. Travel to the destination and talk to the main service to complete the quest. Should you run out of time by camping for too long or traveling to another settlement, a message will appear which mentions the player tossing the item away, having your satchel opened and an item stolen, or, in the case of an escort, the escortee walking away.

After the successful completion of a quest, money and XP are rewarded. Both money and XP gains are based on the player's level. Money being roughly based on the difficulty of the quest, while XP's calculation is a very straightforward multiplication. The experience reward equals to (50 XP X pc level) for inn quests and for palace quests it equals to (500 XP X pc level). So as an example at level 5 you will receive 250 XP for an inn quest and 2500 XP for a palace quest.

Inn questsEdit

These are generally the easiest and fastest quests to do as they have short travel distances, no risk except during night and a generous deadline.

• Delivery

The quest giver gives an item and you need to deliver it to either another inn, an equipment store, a temple or the local Mages Guild. They will take the item.

• Retrieval

Very similar to deliveries except the player is required to pick up the requested item from another location, then return to the quest giver

• Escort

Basically the same as delivery except you will see a portrait which matches the face options in character generation at the start of the game. Escort them to their destination and talk to the service provider as usual. Despite the quest giver stating they need protection this will not be needed during day time. Escortees are not able to be damaged at all as they are just in your equipment as an 'item'.

Artifact QuestsEdit

For more information on artifacts themselves, see the Artifacts page.

Artifact quests all start at inns like inn quests do but the nature of them is different enough to require their own section. This category of quest is fairly rare but asking about general rumors may result in an npc revealing that they either talked to or heard about a person who knows the location of an map which leads to an arcane artifact. The chance to receive an artifact quest increases by 2% for each character level up to the maximum 20%, and there is just a 50% chance an NPC will talk about the rumors at all. Unlike inn quests, there isn't a guarantee to find an active artifact quest by visiting all the inns. Although it is also not true that asking about latest rumors activates the artifact quest, it is possible to run into a quest by accident. Once you find an inn offering an artifact quest, you will have to pay a some hundreds in gold for the information. After coming to a financial agreement with the person offering information, they will direct you to a dungeon somewhere outside the province. The world map will then show a dungeon you need to travel to. The player is required to travel through the dungeon, find a map to another dungeon, then find the artifact. The artifact and its map are always located in an closed but unlocked found on the 4th and last floor of that dungeon. This also applies to the artifact itself.

Palace QuestsEdit

There is a 5% chance per level for a ruler to have quests available for you. If not, try another settlement, or try later. Palace quests are only available between 6 AM and 6 PM on each day they are generated. Meaning that if you arrive at the palace gate after 5:59, you cannot go on the quest and again have to wait until the next day. If you are level 10 or more, you should be able to do most of these quests. Failing a palace quest has severe consequences, read glitches and oversights for more information

• Delivery

Similarly to the delivery quests started at inns, you will receive an item which you need to deliver. The location for the delivery is always in another settlement and the item must be given to a representative of a faction (please link 'faction' to "arena:factions") friendly to the ruler who gave you the quest. Another noticeable difference is the change to be attacked by an opposing faction if you try to camp. Even in an inn, this attack is likely to occur unless you stand on top of a bed or other elevated surface. The reward is substantial, compared to the later mentioned capture criminal quest.

• Retrieval

Again, it is similar to the inn quest counterpart. You need to travel to another settlement, retrieve an item from a representative and bring it back to the ruler. As with the palace delivery quests, there is a change to be attacked by a faction hostile to the ruler. Camping brings the same risks and once more, you should camp on an elevated surface to avoid being attacked. A decent reward is given after successful completion

• Escort

Like the inn quest, an npc, a relative or otherwise heir of the ruler, will accompany you as an 'item' in your equipment, you are required to escort them to their destination. As with the palace delivery and retrieval quests, this will be in other settlement. Exactly the same in regards to the aforementioned delivery and retrieval quests, you can be attacked by a rival faction over the duration of the quest. Camping on elevated surfaces is once again advised. Afterwards you will be some hundreds of gold pieces richer.

• Capture a criminal

This type of quest involves capturing an outlaw. The ruler of a city will request you to retrieve a apprehend an infamous person of a certain class from a certain dungeon named similarly to them. Once you get close to their location, you will receive a message stating this. When you find the criminal, attack them and they will surrender after some damage is inflicted on them. You now have to escort them back to the palace where you received the quest. Upon your arrival, you will receive your meager reward, about 30-50 gold per level, depending on the settlement size. These quests can be very dangerous, as the criminals share their respective dungeon with a random monster, which can range from a Minotaur to even a Lich, regardless of your level. The creature is neither required to be killed or even encountered but may on occasion happen to be between you and the criminal. Camping is made easier on the floor you need to capture the criminal, as encounters are drastically reduced

• Slay a creature

This type of quest requires the player to go to the dungeon and kill a high-leveled monster. The dungeons in this type of quest can, like the criminal quest, have multiple floors. The player receives a message when the monster is near, done so in the same way as with a criminal. Like with criminal capture quests, the dungeon bears a name similar to the creature which needs to be killed. After the creature has been killed, the player must return to the palace. This must be done within the allotted time, even when the monster had been killed prior to the deadline. Camping, like for criminal captures, is easier as the encounter rate of enemies is lower.

• Rescue

This type of quest requires the player to go to a dungeon and rescue a person closely related to the ruler, including heirs. As with the aforementioned capture criminal and slay monster quests, the dungeons can have either 1 or 2 floors and feature a strong monster, in this quest's case, in the same area as the person who needs to be rescued. It is not required but still advisable to slay the monster to make the rescue easier. The player must click on the imprisoned person to have them be escorted back to the ruler's palace. Should the monster be immune to the player's weapons, it can be outmaneuvered if lucky and a skillful. This might take several tries and may require the use of potions or spells to keep your health up. As with capturing criminals and slaying monster quests, camping has been made easier as you are less likely to encounter enemies.

HintsEdit

Inn quests

• As the maximum of quests given on any given day cannot exceed 4, settlements with 4 inns are perfect for grinding XP in the early stages of the game. Riverview in Hammerfell is one such an example of a settlement.

• Artifact quests

• You may not have more than one artifact at a time (although there is an exploit that allows you to do so). Therefore, if you have an artifact in your inventory, you will not get another artifact quest until the one you have disappears.
• The artifact is randomly chosen from the pool of sixteen, minus the ones you have using the exploit or ones unavailable to your class. The chances of one particular artifact being chosen is 6.25%.
• If you choose not to pursue a particular artifact, you will not be offered it again for a long time.
• If an NPC says that they've heard nothing interesting going on lately, or something similar to that, they probably will not give you an artifact quest, no matter how many times you ask them for rumors.
• Once you've located an NPC willing to talk about rumors, asking them for rumors repeatedly (usually within twenty tries) will yield an artifact quest.
• When searching for artifacts, it is usually best to ask around in the Imperial City. This is because NPCs can only provide quests for artifacts located outside their own province. Since no artifacts are located in the Imperial Province, NPCs in the Imperial City can initiate quests for artifacts from any province. * If searching for a particular artifact, it is usually best to find out which provinces that artifact can appear in, then go and ask for general rumors in another province that will never contain the desired artifact.

Palace quests

• Heal until at full health and bring some potions and good weapons (preferable made with mithril or higher quality if available) to deal with any monsters that stand in your way.
• Some floating creatures such as ghosts and homunculi may block an entrance to the room they are found in and prevent the player to enter. Having a spell, weapon or item of passwall can be an a near essential asset in your equipment.

BugsEdit

• Going to a Mages' Guild, equipment store or temple with two or more quests active for that location will cause the text confirming delivery, retrieval or escort to skip. Any items and/or escorted npcs are still removed from or added to the player's equipment and the monetary reward is still provided, so it is without any ill effects.
• If the destination for an escort quest is the Mages Guild, pick the North-Eastern most door, otherwise the service provider doesn't acknowledge the escorted quest npc as being with the player, therefore not allowing the player to complete the quest in that location. Leave the Mages Guild and re-enter from the North-Eastern door to continue.
• The player may encounter excessively hard monsters if they attempt quests for rulers at lower levels and the enemy faction is The Thieves' Guild, Blades or a random noble.
• Failing a palace quest will result in the ruler changing name and gendered appearance, as in, a male ruler becomes a female ruler and vice versa. The ruler will also not give you any more quests, apparently ever. Even after waiting several in-game days, going to another province and then coming back or talking to them twice, will still leave the player without the possibility of receiving quests from this ruler. What actually happens is the entire replacement of the palace, so general layout, placement of guards npcs.

TriviaEdit

• Rulers do not remember you having completed quests for them and they may ask you to rescue tens, if not hundreds of their relatives if quests are repeatedly done for them.