Althea's Ashes scam...

Was there a recent change in the AA quest? It was my understanding that buying the ashes from someone would not allow you to finish the quest and that this was a scam. Yesterday, I saw 4 different people trying to sell the ashes. I've been playing a month and have only seen one person trying to do this.... until yesterday.

If this is still a scam, I'd gladly report it, but I wasn't sure since there were so many doing this.

p.s. Yes, I've already done the quest, so I'm not looking to buy any.

I believe the sudden interest to sell ashes may be do to a glitch where if you are working in a party, not npc's, who are all trying to complete this mission, whoever actually DOES grab the ashes may get multiple copies. (This has also been reported in the Question and Answer thread as receiving multiple "cures" for Relena.)

A guildmate of mine got two sets of ashes, while I just maintained my empty urn. We both still received credit for completeing the quest.

Unless the quest can not be completed by just presenting ashes to the Duke, then yes, I would call this a scam on those not wanting to make the effort to finish it themselves.

If it is still doable this way, then its not a scam, but it very well may be taking advantage of an exploitable glitch. In either case, I doubt it is how the devs would like to see the game continue to be played.

It's a scam. If you don't go get the ashes the quest won't update. Duke won't know you've finished it. That's how the quest system works. If you pay attention you'll notice that quest items never actually leave you're inventory. Your character recieves a checkset when you've compelted the first half...telling the NPC that gave you the quest you've completed it. It has nothing to do with what's actually in your inventory. Actually I'm pretty sure you can trash the ashes before you ever get back to duke and still recieve the EXP.....though I warn against doing this unless you really wanna find out if you can.

That's what I thought. I'll make sure I get a screenshot of the next person I see trying to sell... and warn the trade channel.

Personally, I enjoyed doing the quest. It was very hard, but we felt like we got something accomplished when it was done. Oh well, there's cheaters everywhere I guess.

if you like tactical battles Altheas Ashes was the best one I've come across thus far..I'm at Surmia now.

I reran Surmia last night to help my husband's alt get through it. I forgot how long it was... When you get to the bonus on Nolani you'll love it. I've run it about 5 times helping guildies and I never get tired of it even though I know exactly how to get through it.

My problem lately is, my upper level guildies are helping me get through some missions. It's great to have a guide, but I miss the figuring it out for myself part. We did Borliss last night as well, and I felt like I was just along for the ride.

ya. I'm far more into the "figure it out on your own" style of play. I found the bonus with the Flame Keepers. I play the game mostly with another friend. We're both Rangers he's R/Mo adn I'm R/W. It can get tough in alot of places as just a party of two....but that makes it alot more fun. You'd cry at my death count

I've been fortunate when it comes to Missions like Surmia in that we've been able to find party members that either haven't done the mission before or want to let you figure it out and just go along for the ride.

I think the problem here is an inconsistancy in receiving the reward for Althea's Ashes.

In my experience, most quests remove quest items from you inventory when you receive your reward.

For instance, the Kilnn's bonus quest in North Wall Mission (mission #1) removes all 4 pieces of Kilnn's armor when you talk to Kilnn. Infact, I had multiples of some pieces, 6 pieces total (2 from a previous run thru mission), and all 6 items were removed when I got my reward.

Other examples include 'Vanguard Equipment' and 'Rastin's Ritual'. (There are several more quests with items that are removed from inventory at completion)

However, when I completed Althea's Ashes, the Quest Item remained in my inventory. If the item were removed after completing/receiving reward, then it wouldn't be available to sell.

Of course, they could still try to sell it before completing the quest... but that should cause them to not be able to complete the quest.

-chojin

You're absolutely correct Algen. This quest is the first one in the game that really makes you work as a team and use the gray matter. Is everyone hitting the same target, no silly running around etc....

But the funny thing.....when you get to the Crystal Desert, they all forget the lessons of Althea's. These areas and beyond do not tolerate silly play.

agree with this, its a really tactical quest that i did enjoy.

Yes,you can buy the ashes from somone and turn them in for the reward.You have to do the prerequisite quest of "Dukes Daughter" though before you can turn in ashes(but its another 2,000 exp quest too).I just did this,someone gave me the ashes free and i did "Dukes Daughter",then got "Altheas Ashes" quest and just talked to him again,turned them in and got another 2,000.So it is NOT a scam

This is not a scam. Please read into what you are typing before you post. Bogus info = bad. I just did this myself to be sure.

it used to be a scam...when I did the quest you couldn't purchase the ashes...

One of our guildmates ended up having 2 ashes and another guildmate still needed to complete it so we tried it once for curiosity sake and it did not work, which I was kinda glad because that would be "cheating" (in my book) and I think that quest is quite fun. Keep in mind though, that was a number of updates back. Maybe the quest mechanics changed and I don't know why Anet would intentionally make it possible to just get ashes from another player and complete the quest. I would like to think it's a bug and that Anet will fix it soon.

Worked for me!

You can sell the ashes just fine.

Not true, actually. I did Althea's Ashes with my W/Mo, got to the final group of Charr on top of the temple when the power went out and killed my system (despite my UPS... ).

I was pretty miffed, since that quest is pretty long and I didn't much relish the idea of having to do it over again. I got some ashes from a guy in town next day, walked to the duke, and got the 2000xp.

Also, people get double ashes because they'll finish the quest, then join someone who's already done it. They'll still get extra ashes. That's happened to me several times.

Creston

phoneix, that happened to me, i was doing the althea's ashes quest with someone and once he grab the ashes, i got it too. In fact, i got 12 ashes. plus, i give those ashes for free (mostly to my guild-mates or people who need it)

Just to confirm what others have already said, this is what my experience has been with it recently.

My last character to finish the Ashes quest the way it was meant to be played was in a group of 4 people (humans, not NPCs). I noticed right away that when I collected the Ashes I had exactly 4 piles, instead of just one. I completed the quest by handing the Ashes to the Duke and was left with 3 Piles. Already I have been seeing lots of spam trying to sell Ashes and people were on both sides of the fences saying "It works" / "It doesn't work". I decided to find out for myself, thus I put my Ashes in storage. I then loaded one of my other characters, one who had finished Duke's Daughter but had not yet finished Ashes. I went over to my storage and grabbed the 3 Piles of Ashes and put them in my inventory. Instantly I had a Quest Update. I went over to the Duke and sure enough, got the quest reward for Althea's Ashes. Also I was now left with 2 piles of Ashes. So at the time I tried this, it is perfectly possible to do... I'm not about to go selling my 'extra' Ashes though as I believe it is simply wrong.

In short it seems:
1. You get a number of Ashes as equal to the number of party members (human) doing the quest.
2. Upon completing it the Duke only takes one pile.
3. You can use the other piles on other characters that have finished Duke's Daughter to quickly finish Althea's Ashes.

I'll be they fix this pretty quick. As a side note I have since deleted that character (Anakin Landrunner) and created a new one (Brother Skywalker) - although I didn't do this simply because I had performed that exploit. I wanted to change secondaries.

people miss out on the greatest quest ever when they do it :| this quest is probably the most difficult one, (saying you are in the avg level when you are doing it).

you get ashes for how many times you click on the altar.

i got 16 :O