Private Detective

[bingles]

Drakkos provided this info on the quest for us:

The quest is set in a hotel — a murder has been committed — murder most foul! It's your job to find out who the murderer is. The hotel is a suite of eight or so rooms, each of which has numerous hiding places. The murderer is one of seven NPCs. The murder victim is the eighth NPC. NPCs are randomly set up so that one is the victim and one is the murderer.

The murderer is furnished with a murder weapon (randomly), and each NPC is setup with a series of occupations — each occupation is associated with a given murder weapon. Captain Beefy, head of the city guard, perhaps trained as a butcher before becoming a soldier — he'd be familiar with swords (from his soldiering), and meat cleavers (from his butcher days). Again, all of these occupations are set up randomly.

This immediately narrows down the suspects to those who are familiar with the murder weapon — examining the corpse reveals the weapon used, as well as a number of other clues (generated randomly). These clues are scattered about the hotel rooms, in various hiding places. Each NPC has a randomly generated whereabouts list — the murderer will be the only one who was in all the rooms containing clues after the murder was committed. As an extra constraint, the murderer will have been seen by another NPC every hour after the murder.

The quest works by questioning NPCs — asking them where they were, who they saw, and who they know. Through thorough questioning, you can build up a profile of the movements of each NPC. From this and the list of murder weapons, you can work out which NPC was in which rooms after the murder, and then you accuse them — if you were right, you get the reward. If you were wrong, you get nothing.

[w455up]

Do you know what the reward is?

[AEG]

Some more info on this quest would be nice.. What questions you can ask, what things you should look for, hidden things etc. etc.

Ta, bye

[AEG]

Noticed that you need high ot.pe for this quest.. What bonus are we talking about here?

[guest]

So this quest is like cludo

mine is 200 and i see 4 of the 6 major clues.

think the bonus is about 250

[Random]

Very, very difficult this one.

I noticed that with clue searching, syntax is very important. Try singulars and plurals and all that. Also, the search message is different if you search a clue-hiding location.

You need to establish the time of death as well, which you can learn from the receptionist (ask about the murder) and from the other NPC's ('When did you last see <the victim>?'). Sofar I tried 4 times, and each time I had the right suspect in my shortlist, but did something wrong.

If you wait until the end, a detective will show up and explain how to come to the conclusion. That is very helpful as well!

[Random]

A few more hints.

Possible questions to ask:

Can you account for your whereabouts during the morning/afternoon/evening?

What can you tell me about <NPC>? (to get their background info, important to find out if they favour the murder weapon used).

Did you see anybody in the <room>?

As to occupations: sometimes you have to think outside the box a bit. Some occupations will be extremely obvious (if somebody collects knives, they'll probably favour that as a murder weapon) but others are less so (an assassin will probably be familiar with all probable murder weapons).

The corpse seems to be giving 5 clues each time, so you'll have to retrieve those 5 clues. But there are bogus clues as well, so make sure you've checked the corpse properly.

[frodoslover]

I keep trying to ask people questions but they won't answer. any advice?

[Random]

First of all, use 'say' and speak the right language.

Secondly, you can ask them four questions in one session. As soon as you have asked the fourth question, they will not want to talk to you for a little while, so fire all four questions at once. If you keep the same order of questioning for your suspects, and you're not moving too fast, you can continuously question everybody.

Thirdly: have fun! It can be done.

Oh, and the rewards are xp and a little money.

[nemo]

Hmmm, any more info on this one - like a more specific location? I've just went into the only hotel listed on my map, and not only were there only 2 guest rooms (or are all the other rooms, and balconies and halls supposed to be included in that count) but there were also no NPC's and no corpse??

[Kanz]

you have to say "murder" to the receptionist to spawn the whole scene

[asshat]

another retarded genua quest, surprise, surprise

Anyway i have found all 6 pieces of evidence around the place, i asked who they liked, who liked the victim, where they were evening noon and morning, i asked whts your job and what do you do, i asked what people what other people do, i also asked about the victim, i thought i had it figured out then when i accused troi beacause he was the only onein the privy after the murder and thats were i found the murder weapon AND he was an assassin so he had experience with pretty much all weapons, so i accused him and he laughed at me, which hurt so i cried

Once i accuse them i use my credibilty so you have to wait till the next day to re-do the /whole/ thing, i cried again, isthis a case that i got the murderer wrong or would it be that i didnt find enough evidence to convict him?
Also how do you figure out who and at what time the body was discovered?
i tried asking the suspects but they dont answer, im a nuts detective

[juggins]

Ok this needs a lot of OT.Pe (say guild max plus 5 ?)and time, and a logical approach.
You need to start the whole scene off by saying murder to the receptionist in the Hotel on Genua Avenue. This alone spawns the NPC's and the clues.
You then need to ask the receptionist 'what time was the murder commited' to find the time of day and the time you have to do the quest.
Then you need to ask the NPC's when they are alone various questions .
Can you account for your whereabouts this .....(at the time of the murder)
Did you see anyone in the ....(Murder room)
Did you love (murder victim)
What's your job

You need to cut and paste the info somewhere or note it down.
Then you need to search in the places mentioned by the NPC's for clues. In the rooms are draws,cupboards,chairs,plants,desks,tables etc, and you need to spend time searching in every room and searching every object. Obviously this uses gp, so take your time.

If all goes well, you'll have a list of 5 ? items found in various rooms ,and the murderer is the person who was in those rooms.
Its taken a long time and so far three goes . If you accuse someone once and they say 'you cant prove that' or you haven't got enough evidence for that silly person' you need to keep asking questions or searching. Be aware that the npc's move around and if there are two or more in the same room they ignore the questions and ask who is the question directed at.
I got a tm for ot.pe for asking the questions. and for searching around.
If you accuse someone twice and its wrong , you blow it.

[Teller]

Thanks, thats a very good explanation, I'll put it up on the site now.

Waht is the tag line ? (in which you.....)

[Random]

in which you deduced dastardly doings from disparate dubious developments