Enviroment; Factor or Coincidence?
Well, as we all know, when it comes to questing, sometimes there are
enviromental factors that pulls you to "quest solving", an example would be a death tree in the middle of nowhere or a room shaped as a freaking pentagram, although sometimes this may just be
situational coincidences (I do not believe in coincidence) we cant discard
anything after it has been
proven possible (e.g. a key in a dead tree).
As I've mentioned repetedely in this thread if something is
possible once it is
possible always, so, using the above example, if it's possible to get a key out of a tree, that means every tree is a quest-prospect,
insane thinking for insane posibilities.
Now as the above example is simply too vague, in this part of the thread we're gonna focus on something a little more especific.
IDs.
That's right, IDs.
But how can IDs help us out in questing you say? well it's pretty simple.
IDs work certain way, for example, we cant see the difference between:
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psc7c3d5c2.png
A dead tree with a key. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psa95e0472.png
. . .and a normal dead tree.
. . .or. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps680b5a53.png
A pushable switch. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psa2a5cb47.png
. . . and an unpushable one.
Since IDs are all about looks, images, shapes or whatever, does that mean we're shit outta luck?, well, ALMOST, here is what ID CAN
actually tell us.
The difference between:
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps23374aa7.png
A simply closed door. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2897d148.png
. . . and a closed & LOCKED door.
Who gives a shit you might ask, well,
details like this ones are to be taken into account, for example, there are cases in which there is a locked door BEHIND another locked door, this is an obvious sign of the certain place to be
inaccesible or simply decorative, like the Kazordoon fortress example above, but there are certain places (specially places that we can now safely see with Xeno's spy (thanks @
DarkstaR)) that show an unlucked door behind a locked one which may be
ALSO decorative but gives us a
hint!
Except for a few exceptions; a key is mostly used for only
1 door, in which case, doors behind that closed door must need either
another key or to be open, if the bot shows us there's an
open door between a closed one (and taking into account that places with SEVERAL locked doors DO exist) we can only but conclude that THAT place is in fact; accesible, if not why would CIP bother differencing them?
What good is that? well, at least with this info we can know that certain particular places
ARE INFACT accesible, you will be sure you arent losing your time with something that's there JUST to look pretty, which an abysmal difference when RPing.
But enough digressing, lets get to the real interesting stuff.
Thanks to IDs we can see the difference between:
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psb63d801f.png
Normal random chests. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps262871aa.png
. . . & quest chests.
So now that we think we can distinguish between accesible and non-accesible places, but we are not sure and everything else has failed, we can check if any container inside that locked place is in fact quest-giving or not.
Ofc there are exceptions to the rule, like the coffin in Draconia where key number 4 is hidden or this:
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6c8c0fee.png
Which just contains a scarf but could aswell contain a key.
Let me use this pic as an example:
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps04dd80b1.png
This is inside Hellgate, what concerns to the dead body, it has no volume so it most be quest related (Idk if this is a known quest).
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psbf459962.png
Again, hellgate, those doors have the same ID, both are closed, but that's not all. . .
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9966c933.png
. . . all the containers on the first and second floor of that building
have volume, "
but wait! they may contain something anyway!" well. . . taking into consideration that the inside of that place
IS in fact locked by 2 different doors and it's structure doesnt have at least
1 quest container, I'd say it's simply a distraction, since the skeleton behind the quest door DOES NOT have volume and thus~ contains a quest-related item, so what does this tell me? Nothing concrete, really, but. . . it does help setting your priorities, something like: Forget about the house, focus on getting to the skeleton.
Again, this is just my opinion.
(Note that doors IDs arent all the same, they are considered by the estructure sorrounding them)
Having all this in mind, I think it's pretty clear that in other to
FIND you gotta
OBSERVE, but not just the obvious shit that's infront of you, also little details like, for example:
Again, and I cant stress this enough, all this is
improvisation and deliriums of mine, I'm just throwing out ideas as I get em. See it like Junior High Algebra, it's useless, its only purpose is to
excersise the mind.
Keep posted for more upates,
Atheist.