6 high level quests?

[paulemperor]

From the release notes-This high level adventure pack includes 6 hand-crafted adventures, 39 wilderness quests, the Yugoloth public area and one raid! I looked in the compendium and it lists 4 quests and the raid. Anyone know what the other 2 questa are?

[Angelus_dead]

I looked in the compendium and it lists 4 quests and the raid. Anyone know what the other 2 questa are?

Probably the skipped quests are Weapons Shipment and Wrath of the Flame. They're out there in Shavarath, and have humanoid questgivers instead of Yugoloths like the others. Wrath is OK I guess, but Weapons Shipment was still working very badly the last time I checked.

[rivnen]

what I want to know is why we only get 6 quests to 4 levels. The fact that it took a year of development aside. (and all the other stuff either should have been added in slower with other content/more or frankly, not at all.)

[Grosbeak07]

You also have to remember there are multiple endings to at least 4 of the quests (sort of like Litany of the Dead), plus people are still going to have to rune vale quests for Greensteel blanks and of course the Shroud, which I know a lot of people despite running it 20,30, 60 times still haven't gotten any xp out of it, same goes for VoD and Hound.

I don't think you will have any trouble getting those last 4 levels.

[NXPlasmid]

what I want to know is why we only get 6 quests to 4 levels. The fact that it took a year of development aside. (and all the other stuff either should have been added in slower with other content/more or frankly, not at all.)

You just got back to the forums I guess... this thought has been hashed, rehashed, rerehashed and refried. Go read the millions of threads complaining about this first before starting another one please. I am not ecstatic about the number of quests either but do we have to have another rant about it?...

[rivnen]

You just got back to the forums I guess... this thought has been hashed, rehashed, rerehashed and refried. Go read the millions of threads complaining about this first before starting another one please. I am not ecstatic about the number of quests either but do we have to have another rant about it?...

... I didn't start a new thread I Hijacked one

In all honesty 16 quests with 1 ending each is far preferable to 4 quests with 4 endings each.
More quests for XP, quests are actually different, more favor , not to mention by the time you have done all of the alternate endings to 1 quest, you now know the core of that quest at least well enough for the zerging to begin-probably the day after the mod goes live.

[Eelpout]

... I didn't start a new thread I Hijacked one

In all honesty 16 quests with 1 ending each is far preferable to 4 quests with 4 endings each.
More quests for XP, quests are actually different, more favor , not to mention by the time you have done all of the alternate endings to 1 quest, you now know the core of that quest at least well enough for the zerging to begin-probably the day after the mod goes live.

YEAH!! I get tired of these slack-@ss devs too. Most everybody knows that it takes 5 minutes to do the landscape, 5 minutes to create the monsters, 5 minutes to set up the loot table/chests. That is 15 minutes for a quest. We should have closer to 50 quests going live with this!! I mean it isn't like we are getting 4 new levels, new enhancements, a new class, new spells, a whole new pay/game structure. Get off your butts Devs!!

[Zippo]

... I didn't start a new thread I Hijacked one

In all honesty 16 quests with 1 ending each is far preferable to 4 quests with 4 endings each.
More quests for XP, quests are actually different, more favor , not to mention by the time you have done all of the alternate endings to 1 quest, you now know the core of that quest at least well enough for the zerging to begin-probably the day after the mod goes live.

Good god you complain more then my ex-wife and she complains a lot.

You don't like the choices go back to school, learn yourself in game software coding, and go to work for Turbine so you can make the bestest quests out there exactly the way you want em.

[Leyoni]

YEAH!! I get tired of these slack-@ss devs too. Most everybody knows that it takes 5 minutes to do the landscape, 5 minutes to create the monsters, 5 minutes to set up the loot table/chests. That is 15 minutes for a quest. We should have closer to 50 quests going live with this!! I mean it isn't like we are getting 4 new levels, new enhancements, a new class, new spells, a whole new pay/game structure. Get off your butts Devs!!

It sort of depends on the tools. But, one quest per developer per quarter (3 months) isn't that much of an expectation. At this stage it really comes down to this:

A) Which 1 of 8 or 10 premises do you use to kick off the quest (save my baby/hubby/heirloom, find the man/woman/monster that did me wrong, stop the plot to kill/kidnap/blackmail me/my hubby/boss/friend, thwart the efforts of the rival gang/suitor/politician/businessperson, etc.)?

B) What difficulty level will the quest be?

C) Where will it be located and will there be an associated outdoor area?

D) Will it be part of a quest chain or a stand-alone event?

E) Will it generate some special loot or use existing loot tables?

F) Which faction will it generate favor for?

After that it is just a matter of connecting tiles to represent the dungeon and rendering those as 3D. Here is where tools comes in. Most areas look like they were developed using the same set of tools so the assumption is that there is a dungeon builder tool kit already being used.

Now populate with level and area appropriate monsters, place bosses and assign trap and chest locations.

All in all, not a particularly difficult set of activities and easily achieved in a 30-60 day period. Allow an extra 30 days for meetings and coordination (especially for quest chains).

So, we have 6 or 12 (depending on how you read the release notes) new adventures (I thought I saw 6 high and 6 low level), new outdoor areas and a raid. If there are 2-3 developers then we're pretty much on target given the length of time between mod 8 and now. If there are more then we are probably behind.

Even given the delay due to legal issues....

For old-time PnP DMs who designed dungeons each week for their group moving at a pace of 4-6 new dungeons per develper per year is not expecting too much.

Wild, random, thought -- what slows this down? Top level control over design and story arc. What if each developer were given a Stormreach faction and told to develop a story arc there, with supporting dungeons. Then we could have two things going simultaneously -- side stories with no necessary connection to the overarching story line and the main story concerning defense of Stormreach.

Anyway, just rambling because we are all bored waiting for this update and have nothing else to do right now.

[Eelpout]

It sort of depends on the tools. But, one quest per developer per quarter (3 months) isn't that much of an expectation. At this stage it really comes down to this:

A) Which 1 of 8 or 10 premises do you use to kick off the quest (save my baby/hubby/heirloom, find the man/woman/monster that did me wrong, stop the plot to kill/kidnap/blackmail me/my hubby/boss/friend, thwart the efforts of the rival gang/suitor/politician/businessperson, etc.)?

B) What difficulty level will the quest be?

C) Where will it be located and will there be an associated outdoor area?

D) Will it be part of a quest chain or a stand-alone event?

E) Will it generate some special loot or use existing loot tables?

F) Which faction will it generate favor for?

After that it is just a matter of connecting tiles to represent the dungeon and rendering those as 3D. Here is where tools comes in. Most areas look like they were developed using the same set of tools so the assumption is that there is a dungeon builder tool kit already being used.

Now populate with level and area appropriate monsters, place bosses and assign trap and chest locations.

All in all, not a particularly difficult set of activities and easily achieved in a 30-60 day period. Allow an extra 30 days for meetings and coordination (especially for quest chains).

So, we have 6 or 12 (depending on how you read the release notes) new adventures (I thought I saw 6 high and 6 low level), new outdoor areas and a raid. If there are 2-3 developers then we're pretty much on target given the length of time between mod 8 and now. If there are more then we are probably behind.

Even given the delay due to legal issues....

For old-time PnP DMs who designed dungeons each week for their group moving at a pace of 4-6 new dungeons per develper per year is not expecting too much.

Wild, random, thought -- what slows this down? Top level control over design and story arc. What if each developer were given a Stormreach faction and told to develop a story arc there, with supporting dungeons. Then we could have two things going simultaneously -- side stories with no necessary connection to the overarching story line and the main story concerning defense of Stormreach.

Anyway, just rambling because we are all bored waiting for this update and have nothing else to do right now.

There are 6 high level quests, 6 low level quests, a new outdoor area, and a high level raid. With the delay's in the mod, sure it would have been nice to see more quest content, but the way it sounds the next update is already well underway and hopefully it won't be more than 3 months until the next release.

And no, I will not share my kool-aid with you all!!

[rivnen]

There are 6 high level quests, 6 low level quests, a new outdoor area, and a high level raid. With the delay's in the mod, sure it would have been nice to see more quest content, but the way it sounds the next update is already well underway and hopefully it won't be more than 3 months until the next release.

And no, I will not share my kool-aid with you all!!

You really think we will have ANY new content in 3 months? Let alone anywhere near the amount that we use to get?
You must be new...

[Angelus_dead]

You really think we will have ANY new content in 3 months? Let alone anywhere near the amount that we use to get?
You must be new...

Even if you don't trust the devs, at this point in time they have a strong financial incentive to bring out another adventure pack almost immediately, so as to create the impression that VIP subscriptions are a smart bargain. If they're smart they'll have something in the works already.

[Vormaerin]

One of the major rationales behind this change was to increase cash flow and incentivize the release of new content. There is now a direct link between new content (both adventuring and "fluff" ) and Turbine revenue. So yes, I do expect that they'll be releasing new content at a faster rate than they were in the year leading up to mod 8.

Turbine has clearly shelled out a lot of money to put themselves in this position of relaunching the game and restructuring the revenue stream. You can argue for incompetence (though I find it hard to assert the people who make a game I like so much are incompetent), but you certainly can't sustain an argument of intent.

They clearly intend to release new content. They certainly didn't just pay Atari all that money to extend the license until 2016 to coast on the existing content.