Smugglers Rest: Can't wait to visit again!

[knightgf]

(Photo of Bowling Alley in Crystal Cove)

Introduction

What a birthday extravaganza! I never had any idea that the pirate hunt event in Smugglers Rest was going to exceed my expectations in several ways! While it was a bit slow to start, after a while, I got the hang of it and began to love it. The exchangeable loot among other things were also quite good too, and overall, it was a excellent new thing for Turbine to host in celebration for their birthday. Well done!

First Impressions

When I first entered Smugglers Port, I was like, "Wow. I haven't been here in...years." Normally, I wouldn't approve too much of recycling content(The plants in Red Fens were an example, I didn't like the idea of recycling trolls to make them look like plants) but this was a exception. While I am certain that the main area probably is not a exact replica of the original smugglers port, it still retains those classical features, such as the 4 (Non functioning) entrances to the old training rooms, Euphonia, the ship to stormreach and even the old bar reappears! I was definately impressed with what I saw when I first came here.

The pre-run event

The island itself was actually designed fairly well. It's not the most impressive I've seen, of course, but it definitely stood out. Of course, most people probably brought this up, but the fog is kinda annoying when I run around. Maybe I have not lived by a seaside city, but I kinda hate how persistent this fog is, it's not bad to have in say, the morning hours or so, but I really wish this fog would go away at midday or sometime after that. The geography itself is also kinda cool; if it were not for this map, I could actually get lost in this small island for hours. It's nice to see what the outside of smugglers port looks like.

The encounters are much like the ones from mabar, only this time, its pirates, and in fewer numbers. On a rare occasion, you'll see a dread admiral, and thankfully, they actually stand out from the normal riff raff, as when one spawns, you will hear a whistle fallowed by some voice acting. I thought it was nice, because if your just looking for red-named pirates, you could run around all day and not worry about passing by one. I have no idea if you get penalized for killing enough lower leveled pirates, but you can at least still get rewards. I still feel this event was made for higher levels, because I've heard of and seen lower leveled players there, but they thought it was either too hard or not as fun.

The rewards for killing the pirates vary based on who you kill, what you wear and luck. Speaking of what you wear, somehow, I actually liked the pirate hat I got, so much that I decided to buy blood dye from the DDO store and redecorate my armor to try and match it(I couldn't afford exactly what I wanted for my armor but at least it doesn't look tight on me.)

I have a feeling I will regret this later on as I don't buy Turbine Points, but I like how I designed my character; definitely stands out within the crowd. And as for the rewards...well, don your pirate hat before you actually kill pirates, as it will help you get more pirate cash! Those who cling tightly to their minos legens helm will be annoyed that it takes up a helm slot, and there's no way to duplicate the toughness onto the pirate hat, but at least you can put heavy fort on your hat if you choose to wear it.

The rewards gained from pirates, apart from gold, can be treasure compasses, grog, treasure map pieces, actual treasure maps, and a few other things. I didn't like the treasure maps much because all you got was mostly trash loot, rather than something good. Personally, I think the loot gained from chests should be redone a bit better. The money gained is fine, but since it's DDO's birthday, why not have a small shot at various DDO Store products, like armor design kits, potions, a heart of wood and other goods, besides worthless ability potions? Or, if that's not a good idea, I would just say to heck with the trash and put stolen gems in there based on your level along with a small assortment of dragonshards. At least with that loot, you can make more progress on upgrading your items.

Crystal Cove

Again, much like the mabar event, a certain amount of items need to be collected, in this case treasure map pieces, and you need a special item to get in, which happens to be the magical compass. In my time pillaging pirates, I had to buy a few in order to get in, but I also got a few from kills, so you will probably need to buy a few compasses if you plan on staying long. When timing the period between gathering map pieces and playing the main event, I thought it was **** good. Almost perfect, if you will. After sucessfully completing the event, I had enough time to either go for a few rounds killing pirates or taking a break before coming back to see we weren't too far away from the next event, so overall, id keep it the way it is. There's really no need to change how many treasure map pieces you need, as the balance between waiting for the event and participating is a balance that cannot be made more perfect.

Before you even begin the event, you have the option to select which level you choose to play at for yourself or your party, which is ideal because you can choose just how much of a challenge you desire. As a high level, I experimented between the 20+ levels, and found that beyond level 20, all NPC's have epic ward, which is not visible upon examining a monster. However, they thankfully do not have a truckload of inflated hitpoints even at level 25 like other epic monsters, so I thought "If this is Turbine's step towards epic, I think they just got one step closer to making it better." Don't get me wrong, the monsters still pose a challenge and cannot be brushed aside, but they're not boringly difficult to beat either. If Turbine is working on redoing epic, I would say that, so far, they're doing ok with redoing the challenge.

In the actual crystal cove, the goal is to gain 100 crystals in order to pass the quest, in which each crystal you gain after that counts for how many you get upon running out of time. So, if you get exactly 100 crystals, and time runs out, you get nothing. However, you don't fail the quest either. Getting 100 crystals won't be easy by yourself, especially when pirates try to slay you and your kobold workers, so teamwork is vital to getting yourself crystals! I have noticed, however, that the A.I. could use a good polish, as they tend to either get stuck at the torches, not knowing what to do, or they skip valuable crystals and pursue the torches instead. The crystal cove is a important place, as it is the only place to gain green dragonshards for upgrading your items and probably a source of 90% or more of all your stolen crystals for additional upgrading, so don't plan on skipping this in the slightest! Plan on going in a group, and if you want, try going a few levels(But no more than 5!) above your lowest character level in your party to gain a bonus on how many crystals you get.

The rewards

I feel most of the rewards are targeted at higher leveled players, but there is a reward for everyone. To start with, you have your usual rewards to either enter the crystal cove, or do other things to collect more doubloons. The sea grenades are fairly interesting, especially the solid fog ones; however, I am not sure if they work, as when I tested them out in a tavern brawl, the fog effect showed but did not apply, and even if they did work, they last for a fairly short time. I feel that the duration should be bumped up on the solid fog grenades to more than 10 seconds or so, and maybe give all characters a BtA recipe card that allows them to create more of the sea-type grenades(That will bind on creation) using the trapmaking feat(Hence the reason its BtA is to give it to any character who has trapmaking if you do not have it yourself) when the event ends. The grenades themselves are very interesting, but need a little tweaking.

As for the item rewards...quite a bit of them caught my eye, and overall, id say just check them out for yourself. If you got a really good UMD score, and you run shroud often, I would see about investing in a few greater dowsing rods, as if you roll really high (17 or so) you can actually pick the locks in part III of the shroud! You will need a bit of resources to fully upgrade wearable equipment, however, and I feel that, for the epic level upgrades, throwing in a trinket as a requirement seems like it makes the cost a bit excessive. But seeing that these are epic items, 'maybe' I could excuse the fact that it costs a lot to fully upgrade them. Swapping gems for either other gems or pirate tokens is also a good thing, as it opens the gems for other uses and allows yourself to gain more items.

The pirate hat enchantments were kind of "meh" but at least they still had a few uses. If you use the minos legens or a GS helm, you probably will be annoyed to have to wear this in order to get more pirate tokens or do whatever with it. The enchantments weren't much, and I was kinda hoping to see at least a "Exceptional +1" option to purchase for your pirate hat. But oh well. There are three types of enchantments you can get: Adventuring, Skill and Crystal Cove. I feel that the pirate hats should either have more than one adventuring slot if its a high level cap or separate enchantment types in order to make it a viable option to invest in, but whatever. I must admit, being without heavy fort throughout most of my gameplay there was definitely interesting, and not as horrifying as most people say it, but it still hurts. If you like to show off your pirate hat, I would definitely look into getting enhancements for it to make it more useful to wear, such as heavy fort or seeker +6 for example.

Conclusion

Whether you read this whole forum or skipped 90% of it, overall, I would check it out when it comes back. It had kinda a rough start to it, but once you get through that, it's a amazing event, with challenging foes, old places and faces, and plenty of treasure on the way! I would definitely invest some time in fully maximizing your rewards though, as they do take time to gain! Some things need to be polished with it as well, but otherwise, it's a good event. It's a refreshing thing to do in-between updates. Don't miss it!

[Loromir]

So tell us newbs about the original Smugglers Rest? When and why did they take it down? What were the quests, or was it just a slayer area? Has it changed much since it was taken away?

[Jerren]

The original smugglers rest was the starting point when you created a new character. The quests where not really quests so much as lessons on how to play. The 4 doors where for combat, arcane, divine and rogue training. When Korthos was added the smugglers rest went away never to be seen until now.