What if...
What if a new quest dont depends on guides, information or shortcuts and relies more on the player skills?
Lets say you introduce a new quest with X reward item at the end, but in order to get the price you have to get trough some rooms.
In one of them there's an NPC you have to fight, and you enter that room alone, like the Zorby cave or the house where you trade the matches for the pencil (i think). No help at all. This NPC is very hard, lets say 10.0 instead of 3.0, and he is a decent sparrer. If you die you are instantly teleported to the previous room, and you need to restart the fight.
That way it doesn't matter if the information on how to complete the quest goes around in posts and guides, you still need to take your time to complete it, and if you are a lesser fighter this ends up being a very good training.
Another room can be a randomized crate-moving puzzle, so regardless if you know what you need to do there will be not any guide to help you. You need to use your brain and patience.
Another room could be a bug catching challenge with a timer: catch 10 cockroaches in less than 2 minutes and you can go on, otherwise you have to do it again.
I know this can be a lot of work on programing, and IA for a decent fighting character can be a nightmare but you can find alternatives I guess.
This will bring new forms of whining: 'It's too hard!', 'It's unfair for weaker players!'. But you just can answer 'hey, its supposed to be hard and especially for weaker players, so you can get your skills sharpened :) '
But anyway, it's just an idea.

My content tends to provide players with enough information(or relies on information already in the game world) to connect the dots. I don't enjoy cryptic gameplay or trial and error, and if I wouldn't enjoy it I won't develop it.

I watched many people play the content for the Railroads when it was released, and none of them had guides. So at least, that is my goal when approaching new content.

I never used a guide. I would much rather take my time and explore. I did check for guides afterwords just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Yer, as long as a quest isn't at a point of blindly guessing and the player is given adequate yet however subtle hints, no guides should need be used provided the player's out to have fun.

Jeez, this thread is still alive? i suppose i'll say now that i've collected every loot item in the game and i have a grand total of about 12 bricks.

I would have 9 if I didn't sell mine :P

I have about 15 bricks... and im getting some new loots lately ;) broken lantern for instance?

The Old Lantern have his own NPC to buy it, i guess wich one might it be a.a