Breathe New Life Into Wilderness Areas with Events.

[Claver]

Once all the explorer areas of a wilderness area have been found, a few slayer quest achieved, and a rare encounter or two completed there is little reason to return. There is no favor to be achieved and really no reason to reexplore a vast and beautiful landscape that Turbine no doubt spent many resources creating. It seems a waste that all that content is just an obstacle course to run on the way to a particular quest entrance.

I propose that Turbine periodically run events, similar to those in the market place during the devil assault, in different wilderness areas as an incentive for revisiting those areas. This will have the effect of making the game world “feel bigger”. It will seem like there is more new content with just a few simple twist on what is already familiar. I would think it wouldn’t require many resources from Turbine as compared to say creating new quests, spells or monsters.

First, events should only run for one week out of the month to keep them special. The event should be limited to a particular wilderness area but it could be reused again many months in the future.

Second, during the event week, offer a chance for pulling unique named loot that can only be obtained that week that is slightly more powerful than what would normally be available even from named spawns. The loot doesn’t have to be game breaking in power just different (think festivus cookies) to renew interest in visiting a particular area. This shouldn’t unbalance the game terribly since the event is only temporary and the chance for pulling named loot is still random.

Third, have a theme or quest during the particular event such as those listed below

[CREATE QUEST EVENTS]

Example: Sands of Menechtarun

Chapter I: Strange petroglyphs are appearing on cliffs and cave walls of Menechtarun. Your party is tasked to transcribe the strange symbols and return them to a sage for study. Upon entering the Sands of Menechtarun, 3 petroglyphs will be generated in a random location (different every time a party enters a new version of the instance). As a contingency in case one of the random petroglyphs are too difficult to find, a 4th optional petroglyph will be generated in a random location inside either Raid the Vulkoorim or Purge the Fallen Shrine (again, this will breathe new life into old quests). Find at least 3 petroglyphs then return to the sage for XP and an end reward (again, a chance of named loot would be a big plus).

Chapter II: Analysis of the petroglyphs reveals a mummy king predating the valley of false tombs is about to return. A black obelisk with glowing purple runes has erupted from the desert floor, and with it, wave after wave of undead. Fight your way through an endless horde of undead (10 times the normal spawns [and much tougher] extending all the way to the entrance of the zone). One of the descendant of the mummy king is buried in a random sarcophagi (different location every instance) inside The Chamber of Kourush. Locate the remains of the kings descendent, take his skeletal hand, it will open up a doorway into the obelisk of the mummy king. The undead outside are on a mission to stop you. They will be spilling into The Chamber of Kourush. Some of the party will need to stay outside to fight off the undead horde while the rest of the part searches for the remains. The quest will log each undead able to enter the door to the chamber. When the 3rd enters, all players inside the chamber automatically die, when the 6th enters all players inside the chamber die. This continues as intervals of 3. This creates a risk of failure without totally resetting the quest from the beginning.

Chapter III: Fight past the undead armies in the desert, enter the Obelisk and fight the end boss encounter with the mummy king then collect possible named loot from a chest. Turbine would need to create a room and an end boss mummy king with a few minions.

Note, although the event would be rolled out chronologically, players who missed the first chapter could still experience that content since the Sands of Menechtarun is a private instance. There could be an option to choose Chapter I or Chapter II when clicking on the entrance.

[CREATE TEAM VS TEAM COMPETITION EVENTS]

Example: Treasure Hunt in Tangleroot Gorge

It has become public knowledge that treasure (random named loot) is in a hidden chest in one of the caves or buildings inside Tangleroot Gorge. Each hour, the game will put the chest in a random location. Every instance that is generated on all servers during that hour will put the chest in the same location. Here is the catch, the first group to find and open the chest out of all the servers is the only group that gets the named loot for that hour. All other groups on all servers that find the chest only get normal loot.

In effect, this is a race. Players are competing with other teams. Monsters will need to be cleared and players will need to coordinate their search patterns to be competitive. The chest itself can not be tabbed. Players will have to find it visually. This is hide and seek after all and should reward imagination rather than autotab radar. Turbine could throw in a few twists like locked chests and special named encounters to give the event more variety.

In a competition like this, higher level characters would have an advantage. Various events could be run with different level ranges (3 PM could be 3rd level and lower during that hour, 5 PM could be 5th level and lower during that hour, 7 PM could be 7th level and lower during that hour, etc.)

[CREATE SCAVENGER HUNT EVENTS]

Randomly place items in different locations inside the instance. The party obtains XP and loot from a quest giver after recovering the items. Because the location is different every time and the wilderness areas are vast this should make the quest/wilderness area more interesting to repeat.

• Runaway Bride in Giant Hold: Find and subdue (hold person, charm, etc.) the reluctant bride who is hiding in giant lands and return her to her family.
• Army Deserters on Ataraxia's Haven: Capture the draft dodgers hiding on Ataraxia's Haven and return them to House Dennith
• Alchemy Ingredients in Orchard of the Macabre: Collect 10 or more rare fungi, toadstools, lichens, etc. only to be found in the Orchard of the Macabre.
• Hunt the Silver Hair Rabbits of Cerulean Hills. The rabbits are quite rare and quite a delicacy. Hunt them down for epicureans willing to pay for a fine meal at the Golden Lobster.

Please, tell me what you think of these ideas as a whole and suggest some of your own. Is there a way Turbine could get more mileage out of its wilderness areas? How would you go about making these areas more interesting to revisit?

[coolpenguin410]

I very much enjoy the idea. I believe the player base has been asking for randomized dungeons/quests since mod 2. Variety is always good. I could see myself running these even if I'm capped and getting nothing out of it, if just to kill some time. Even more so on my characters inside the level range. Running wilderness areas can get boring fast even if you are getting decent Xp if you've run them 20 times each already.

I especially liked these:

Randomly place items in different locations inside the instance. The party obtains XP and loot from a quest giver after recovering the items. Because the location is different every time and the wilderness areas are vast this should make the quest/wilderness area more interesting to repeat.

• Runaway Bride in Giant Hold: Find and subdue (hold person, charm, etc.) the reluctant bride who is hiding in giant lands and return her to her family.
• Army Deserters on Ataraxia's Haven: Capture the draft dodgers hiding on Ataraxia's Haven and return them to House Dennith
• Alchemy Ingredients in Orchard of the Macabre: Collect 10 or more rare fungi, toadstools, lichens, etc. only to be found in the Orchard of the Macabre.
• Hunt the Silver Hair Rabbits of Cerulean Hills. The rabbits are quite rare and quite a delicacy. Hunt them down for epicureans willing to pay for a fine meal at the Golden Lobster.

So long as we don't go overboard in the whole "collecting" bits. It gets annoying much too easily.

[esoitl]

they would be fairly fun without a doubt but the undead one you outlined - while pretty cool sounding - is a bit too in depth for this sort of thing i'd say

if we were talking a small scale type of event, maybe a special named boss with one or two named items, that'd be easy to implement and be a way of getting people into the wilderness areas
to be honest i don't think the wilderness areas are that terrible but the XP is almost entirely scaled towards the high slayers
rares are nice additions and you can get some nice loot out of the higher level chests but look at which wilderness areas get run the most: Vale and Orchard

why??
because of the collectables there

if they want to make the explorers more populated find some greater incentive to be there
i've run the Vale and Orchard wuite a bit - enough in fact to get some massive slayer counts and into a range that the XP can get pretty impressive although that takes a boat load of time.... more time than i would ever put in without the collectables

even an event would only bring me to run them a few more times than i would normally and probably not get enough incentive to get the high XP and make it worthwhile


i know some people think otherwise and love the wilderness but for myself and i'm sure lots of others, these areas just represent and area to put around in every now and then while your bored for a handful of XP or going to a quest

[ShadesofGreen]

I like the ideas of using exploration areas more, I really like these areas and wish DDO had more of them.

If we could incorporate some randomness or even make these areas, or future ones, seasonal; I think we would see a lot more life out of these areas.

Seasonal ? Yeah, some monsters can be tribal and move from areas during certain seasons. Example: a tribe of drow leave an area during the winter/cooler months (say real life Nov - Feb), becuase of this both local flora and fauna re-establish and create new Xp or questing opportunties. Or make it during moon phases, as the world has 12 moons, doesn't it?

[Claver]

I like the ideas of using exploration areas more, I really like these areas and wish DDO had more of them.

If we could incorporate some randomness or even make these areas, or future ones, seasonal; I think we would see a lot more life out of these areas.

Seasonal ? Yeah, some monsters can be tribal and move from areas during certain seasons. Example: a tribe of drow leave an area during the winter/cooler months (say real life Nov - Feb), becuase of this both local flora and fauna re-establish and create new Xp or questing opportunties. Or make it during moon phases, as the world has 12 moons, doesn't it?

Great Idea!!!

A more dynamic use of the day and night cycle would be welcome as well.