So I'm trying to do the 10th anniversary quests in Everquest. I'm finding the bristlebane party quest quite tricky, but there's a helpful calculation on allakhazam that tells you where he's supposed to be.

So I go to the butcherblock mountains (which is an awful zone), and I wait in the place he's supposed to be, but he's not there. I check the calculations. I run around the zone. I do another quest. I look puzzled. I get annoyed.

It's at this point I realise I've gone to a party no-one else is going to and I can't even find the party. But I'm doing it in an ancient videogame. On my own. On the internet.

The secret is to type /up to see how long the servers have been up, and count the number of hours. He starts at the top of the quest list and goes to the next one down every hour, so if you find it once, you're set until the servers go down again. You can also try asking in general chat if anyone has seen it.

The secret to finding a social life, I'm afraid I can't help you with.

Oh yea, I read about that trick. Only mysteriously he's jumped back four hours for no reason.

Note: real reason is to make me feel like a loser.