new quest - CASTLES????

[NytCrawlr]

Oh and ban somenewnoob's forum account for daring to say that Tolkien was a sucky writer.

Kind of in agreement, so add me to the list of bans.

Ultimately, I don't think he was a sucky writer overall, I did like The Hobbit, but ultimately I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy was overrated at best (i.e., not as good as the majority of the fan-base thinks it is).

So I will have to agree, movies > the books, which is usually a rarity.

P.S. I wouldn't mind seeing more castle-like assaults either.

[Samir_Bennal]

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

Simple solution to this part, get rid of dungeon alert.

[Chai]

Helm's Deep was boring??!!

I found the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring to be the most boring to reread.

(Although the first time I tried to read it... at age 9-10 I think... I got so scared of the Black Riders that I had to put it down, and didn't try to read it again for another year)

I wish they would have showed the actual horse charge in part 2 and finished off the battle. Instead they gave us a 15 second montage of them riding down the hill in slow motion, with Gandalf turning the brights on, and we just assume that the orcs all die or get driven off.

They saved the good calvary charge for part 3, only to get roflstomped by oliphants.

[Asmodeus451]

Just throw Westley a rez and storm the castle

if the do a "storm the castle" type of quest, i would LOVE to see some nods to Princess Bride. Maybe the Quest Giver could be called Max the Miracle Maker? (for copyrights sake)

[Maelwyn]

Just remember guys, this very game we play is based on Dungeons and Dragons, which was created by E. Gary Gygax, who was influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien. The very race you are probably playing after you read this, was a race based on one of Tolkien's races. So, have some respect for our gaming and fantasy heritage. Shoot, if it wasn't for Tolkien, there probably wouldn't even be a Dungeons and Dragons.

[Maelwyn]

P.S. The castle seige idea (and more castles in general,) is a great idea. I for one don't think the few forts we have in the game count as castles. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, there are no true castles in this game. Forts, yes. Castles, no. (Not blaming you FlimsyFirewood). It's all Eberron's fault! LOL

Still, a couple of high fantasy castles couldn't hurt the game.

[FlimsyFirewood]

Little known fact: the devil fort built in Subterrane was prototype for the construction of Bastion of Power. Bastion of Power was originally built a bit like a lego set out of spare pieces. When the artists saw it, they had to make awesome new tower assets just for that, so that it would look even more impressive on the landscape.

[AZgreentea]

Helm's Deep was boring??!!

I found the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring to be the most boring to reread.

(Although the first time I tried to read it... at age 9-10 I think... I got so scared of the Black Riders that I had to put it down, and didn't try to read it again for another year)

That was a rare shining light in that whole book. I think The Hobbitt was the best of the four, and the three ring series I almost wish I hadn't bothered with. Almost.

Now that I have had a few days to think about it, the idea of a raid party either attacking or defending a keep is becoming more interesting. The defense of a keep would be even more interesting if there was a mechanic in place to change the raid if you lose the different defensive components of the keep (i.e the outer/inner walls are breached. Ballista go down allowing air attacks, npc wall defenders go down allowing an attack on the front gate, ect.)

[Solmage]

I love castle sieges. In fact one of the few things I do like about the repetitiveness of tangleroot was the idea of breaking down the fortress defenses bit by bit. Of course, that quest should be changed to allow you, at a much greater difficulty, to just do away with larger chunks of the mission.

Objective: Breach the gate, kill 20 enemies, escape.
Optional Objective (Rescue Prisoners) [triggers in prisoners area]
Optional Objective (Kill Leaders, Steal Maps) [triggers in leader area]
[....]

And if you complete them all, then it allows you to 'skip' past the piecemeal missions that accomplish those goals. Of course because fortifications are in place, it should be much harder than doing the piecemeal assault.

Anyway, as a general idea, I really like it. Another thing I LOVE and would LOVE to see is aimable cannons/balistas (even if only roughly aimable, like to say certain pre-determined spots) and able to shoot them for an effective defense. Defending the ship in the IQ area would be FAR more awesome if the cannons cleaned house, and you could set one up to deal with the archers and one up to your solid fog/dancing ball for the melees.

[somenewnoob]

Little known fact: the devil fort built in Subterrane was prototype for the construction of Bastion of Power. Bastion of Power was originally built a bit like a lego set out of spare pieces. When the artists saw it, they had to make awesome new tower assets just for that, so that it would look even more impressive on the landscape.

This is the kind of "behind the scenes" stuff I like to hear about!

And well done on the quests you've worked on. Storm the Beaches and Framework are 2 of my favorite quests when I'm running lower level alts up, just for that storm the castle, break into the fortress kind of feel to them.

[Ganolyn]

I found the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring to be the most boring to reread.

The first part of FotR is mostly filler because the publisher decided to split LotR into three parts. It was too big to publish as one volume and be cost effective. They asked Tolkien to break it up and when he got to the logical place story-wise to stop the story for that book (the breaking of the fellowship), he found that FotR was pretty thin compared to the other two parts. So we got Tom Bombadil, Frodo wasting time for a month before leaving and the unnecessary side trip to Crickhollow.

As for the detractors who say Tolkien's story telling style is lacking and somewhat plodding: There is some truth to that, but you have to realize that he wasn't writing a story (in the traditional sense), he was recounting a history, and history doesn't flow like a well written book, it just happens.

Tolkien made up the history first and then felt like writing a part of it down as a story, so he was bound by the world events as they unfolded. Nowadays, fantasy authors come up with a good plot first, add interesting characters with twists/drama and have the history as backdrop to the action. Some don't even bother with it at all.

Even George R.R. Martin, who recently has created a world and history nearly as complex as Tolkien's, is making up the history as he goes. He just has to make sure that the newer stuff doesn't conflict with his already established history as it unfolds. He admits it stifles him at times and that he sometimes forgets little details that fans remind him of after a new volume is published.

[sephiroth1084]

All of you bashing Tolkien...I'm sorry for you.

The three things to keep in mind about his writing:

1. Before anything else, Tolkien was a medievalist, and draws heavily upon the medieval style, although he has much more sophisticated characterization, descriptions and narrative flow.
2. What he really wanted to be writing was his mythology, which became the unfinished Silmarillion, but was pressed to write a sequel to his children's story, The Hobbit, by his publishers. and The Lord of the Rings ended up as a sort of bridge between the two.
3. He was more concerned with showing off the world, the language and history of Middle Earth that he had been working on for half a century than he was with the plot, though obviously he was very much concerned with that as well.

I really can't understand how anyone could find the movies more enjoyable than the books in any way other than as a lack of attention span. Sorry if I'm coming off as harsh here, but they are some of my most cherished books, having read them 5 times now, and getting something fresh out of them each time through.



The movies were fun, and pretty, and did a pretty good job of staying true to the novels, but they still fall short.

[grodon9999]

Little known fact: the devil fort built in Subterrane was prototype for the construction of Bastion of Power. Bastion of Power was originally built a bit like a lego set out of spare pieces. When the artists saw it, they had to make awesome new tower assets just for that, so that it would look even more impressive on the landscape.

I LOVE Bastion of power, one of the best quests in the game. but I gotta ask . . .

Why such low XP?

[AZgreentea]

What he really wanted to be writing was his mythology, which became the unfinished Silmarillion, but was pressed to write a sequel to his children's story, The Hobbit, by his publishers. and The Lord of the Rings ended up as a sort of bridge between the two.

And it feels like that when you read it. I really enjoyed the Hobbit, it was well paced and mixed the myth in with the plot. I found the LotR trilogy to feel like I was reading a mythology textbook that happened to have a few current events thrown in. I didnt think about it until I read your post, but LotR feels like a book written by an author not well invested in the plot.

I tried to read the Sword of Shanara series after that, and I ended up becoming frustrated with the whole genre for a long time. I switched to more traditional non European fiction due to my hate for english authors like Charles ****ens (though I love Shakespeare). I read the likes of Dostovesky and Mishima before giving up on reading for a long time. Then I started playing DDO and reading Eberron lore reignited my spark for reading. I might even try the Shanara series again after I finish the True Blood books.

My apologies to the OP, for participating in this derailment.

[sephiroth1084]

It's how you approach the stuff, I guess, and what you enjoy.

I tend to enjoy slow-paced stories that build in a lot of non-plot material. In the case of the LotR, that was the history, language and setting. On one read-through, I decided to pay especially close attention to the descriptions of the surroundings, the lay of the land and such, and found myself really absorbed with enjoying nature in a different way for weeks after I finished reading.

Then again, I enjoy reading medieval literature, which really does drag.

[Vormaerin]

It is critical to realize that Tolkein wasn't an author in the sense that we think of them today. He wasn't writing books for the purpose of selling them. Most of his stories were written either

1) In letters to his son or other relatives to entertain them
2) Because he wanted to try writing in the same style as the texts he studied (The homecoming of Beorthnoth or the Gawain stories)
3) Because he wanted to invent a mythology and history to go with the languages he'd invented.

Making money selling the books to the general public didn't make very far up his list.

Regarding LotR, it wasn't that he wasn't invested in the story. Its that his publisher wanted The Hobbit II and he didn't want to write that. So he sent them LotR and then they made him split it into three books...

But he's a terrible example of how to do things for anyone who wants to be a professional author. Way too much critical stuff happens off camera and there's a lot of exposition relative to action. IIRC, Bilbo singing a song in the Hall of Fire is longer than the face off with the Balrog in Moria.

It is Middle Earth that sells Tolkein's work, not the story of the Lord of the Rings. And very few authors have the ability to create anything remotely as compelling as Middle Earth. Its better to focus on the story and characters if you want to make a living from your books.

[FlimsyFirewood]

I LOVE Bastion of power, one of the best quests in the game. but I gotta ask . . .

Why such low XP?

We underestimated difficulty/time to completion, I think. It's a pretty arcane formula with a lot of moving parts (party composition, dungeon settings, "sadism factor", dungeon length, difficulty selection) and it's a surprisingly difficult task to make sure that all quests award appropriate amount of XP at level, below level, above level, etc. At various times the numbers have been adjusted and it's more or less an ongoing process, as new quests come out the landscape of best xp/min across various levels changes. This may lead to older quests getting bumps etc.

I have no ETAs or anything, but we are aware that some of our dungeons don't give as much XP as they should, and Bastion isn't the only one with that problem.

[stoopid_cowboy]

We underestimated difficulty/time to completion, I think. It's a pretty arcane formula with a lot of moving parts (party composition, dungeon settings, "sadism factor", dungeon length, difficulty selection) and it's a surprisingly difficult task to make sure that all quests award appropriate amount of XP at level, below level, above level, etc. At various times the numbers have been adjusted and it's more or less an ongoing process, as new quests come out the landscape of best xp/min across various levels changes. This may lead to older quests getting bumps etc.

I have no ETAs or anything, but we are aware that some of our dungeons don't give as much XP as they should, and Bastion isn't the only one with that problem.

I dunno about anyone else, but I find this great and exciting news!!!
I think Bastion is a fun and challenging quest to run, but never more than once per life to get my Yugo pots. Give it a proper amount of XP and I could see myself farming it a little to get through that lvl19 hump.

yuda

[Sarisa]

Glad to see Bastion planned to get a boost in experience. The House C quests also desperately need it.

Aside from the low experience, the only other thing I dislike about Bastion are the dungeon alert issues. Mostly resulting from the first floor, where you can easily aggro something above you, yet you won't be able to reach them for around 10 minutes. All the while, they are contributing to DA which makes the ambushes much more annoying (instant orange, or worse, instant red).

If you fail a stealth-kill of even a single guard, you will have ambushes every single part.

Otherwise, I really enjoy Bastion, and it's one I don't mind doing.

[DANTEIL]

(party composition, dungeon settings, "sadism factor", dungeon length, difficulty selection)

I personally would love to see the dev formula for "sadism factor"