Hello,

I’m writing this mostly for those new to Excel who would not know how to take best advantage of the checklist or those that don’t have MS Excel, so it starts pretty basic though there may be some insights at the end for others.

First - It is best to not print the Ulitmate Quest Checklist out but use it directly from your computer.  If you are one of those people who do not have Excel you can try OpenOffice (openoffice.org) which is freeware.  Openoffice is made by SUN Microsystems, a reputable company, so it is not a half-bad program.  I tested the spreadsheet on it and it worked just fine after saving it in openoffice format.

Second - Save the file to disk.  If your using openoffice open it then Go to file/save as.. Name it and save it as an .xsc file wherever you think is most convienent.  Go ahead and close the open window to make sure your not editing the temporary file.

Third - Now open the file from wherever you saved it to.  Depending on the resolution of your monitor you should see “THE ULTIMATE EVERQUEST II QUEST CHECKLIST / QUESTS” in Bold red on a Black background and below it 4 grey boxes with arrows or triangles pointing down.  Just above this is a small grey bar with A , lots of space, B, lots of space, C, etc.. Each grey box corresponds to one of these letters.  So the “C” box is the third box.  If you look on the bottom right of the window there should be as side-scroll bar.  Scrolling right you will see more information and at the end, column G, room for personal notes.  At the bottom left of the window, just to the left of the side-scroll bar should be some tabs which might be hidden depending on your screen resolution.  You can use the arrows to the left of the tabs to see the other tabs.  Right now there are 3 tabs: Quests, collections, and city tasks.

Fourth - Now we start doing useful things.  The A drop-down box sorts by zone and is quite useful.  It defaults to “all” but you can change it to different zones to filter out much of the clutter.   “B” drop-down isn’t nearly as useful but it and “E” can be used to quickly sort a pre-filtered list alphabetically.   So sort with the others first, then use one of these to view an alphabetized list.  Unfortunatly, OpenOffice autoselects the entire window everytime you use the dropdown window, which is a pain, but the program is free and works so– oh, well.

Fifth - Time to get really useful.  As the  top of the Window instructs, put an “x” or “X” in the “C” column, the grey column, then press enter or the down arrow.  You will see the Yellow number in the top right auto update every time you enter an “x.”

Sixth - Ok, here is the meat of this entire post.  All the rest was just preparation.  You are not limited to these options.  For example, Lets say there is a quest you are working on right now.  Instead of an “x” put a ”0″ (or whatever, just no (mathmatical or logical signs: /*-+!@#$%^&* etc.) in the box.  Now make sure all the drop-down boxes are set to “all” and then go to the “C” drop-down box and select  whatever letter/number you used.  Now you have a way to quickly view the quests you are working on without thumbing through your quest journal.  At the bottom, immediatly after selecting your filter, it will say how many are shown which is pretty handy.

Seventh - Other sorting options to make this list even more useful.  I have been using a period “.” in the grey column for all quests that my previous gaming decisions have made unavailable, be it by level, alignment, or class.  Thus, at 9th level, with a couple clicks of the mouse, I can quickly determine that after completing 80 quests, I’ve negated over 225 quests if I include all of my “b,” for betrayal, quests.  I also put a 1 in all the quests that I intend to do.  So I can quickly choose “C” drop-down and select “1″ and I have an instant to-do list, which is currently 133 quests long and does not include my 45 quests in progress.

With all that said, the best way to label everything is from the beginning.  Go to the “D” drop-down and select “lvl 01″ after making sure all the other drop-downs are set to “all.” Then go down the list, selecting “lvl 02″ when your done and so on.., If you have no immediate plans to do a quest, leave it blank for everything else put in a specific letter.  Completed quests get an “x,” of course, but be sure to label the in-progress quests, the will-do-soon quests, and the will-never-do quests too, to best utilize this spreadsheet.   Make separate copies of this file for separate characters and your pretty much set.

One more thing, Dont forget the “Personal Notes” section which is off the screen.  You can put important information here such as what zone the quest is FOR, what zones the mobs are in, what is the real best level to accept this quest, or any other helpful information that will help to complete the quest.

Hope people found this helpful.  The bottom half isn’t so obvious so I thought it should be said.

Ishnar


edit - Added this post from Grymmstone on updating the list.  Thanks deleted many edited messages

With Excell 2003, Name the updated list the same as the old list when you open old spreadsheet, then new spreadsheet the program will ask if you want to merge data from both files.