Is this a preview of the "new Mabar?"

[Faltout]

So it will be much more like Crystal Cove? Including the lag? ^^

Except the Cannith challenges (palace, lava caves) are like Crystal Cove. So, not like Crystal Cove.

Summoning Chamber offered:
- Multiplayer experience with unknown players. Tested communication and planning skills (pretty good)
- True teamwork. 8 spots in the place to be, with 2 tasks for each spot introducing 16 roles to play. (extremely good)
- Decent chance of failure. Death by dragon, possible destruction of 4 altars.

The new challenges obviously do not offer the 1st thing. That's ok, because some players did not like it anyway.
Kinda hard to offer the 2nd thing since you only have 6 people and some of them may not be self-sufficient. Maybe if the challenges do not involve battles, there's still hope.
So, here's hoping that they at least offer the 3rd thing. A decent chance of failure please. It won't be exciting if we just go in and collect our ingredients by doing some mundane task.

[alancarp]

Except the Cannith challenges (palace, lava caves) are like Crystal Cove. So, not like Crystal Cove.

Summoning Chamber offered:
- Multiplayer experience with unknown players. Tested communication and planning skills (pretty good)
- True teamwork. 8 spots in the place to be, with 2 tasks for each spot introducing 16 roles to play. (extremely good)
- Decent chance of failure. Death by dragon, possible destruction of 4 altars.

The new challenges obviously do not offer the 1st thing. That's ok, because some players did not like it anyway.
Kinda hard to offer the 2nd thing since you only have 6 people and some of them may not be self-sufficient. Maybe if the challenges do not involve battles, there's still hope.
So, here's hoping that they at least offer the 3rd thing. A decent chance of failure please. It won't be exciting if we just go in and collect our ingredients by doing some mundane task.

I like your take here - though I will say that coordinating that many people was unique in the game (given that raid groups of 12 was the previous high-water mark for social gaming), and typically only 1 spectral dragon group (per level) was fully endowed with sufficient manning to be effective.

But to follow-on, it would be an excellent idea to have something requiring parties of maybe 2-6 participants where different roles are necessary in order to excel... yeah, kinda like Crystal Cove: you *can* solo it, but you can only truly excel if you have a full party.

[Cordovan]

Think of them less like challenges and more like quests that offer a wide range of levels. Unlike, say, Devil Assault, where we had several tiers of level (5 on casual, 6 on normal, 12 on hard, 18 on elite), we want characters at most levels to be able to run it closer (or above/below) their actual level.

[Marupal]

Intrigued by the names of these. Can't wait to get into them and see what's planned.

"Primary Objective: 1 Dungeon". ...interesting.

It was too much to hope that the raid was going to be salvaged, but are we going to see Eternity make a cameo?

Making challenges out of the event looks like it's going to be a nice move. Having 5 unique challenges (if they are unique) should be a boon towards keeping the event fresh. It should also make the event friendlier towards players that play at off times as well as Wayfinder.

I'm convinced that a big portion of Mabar's lag was mass instance creation and over-burdened instance release methods. Waiting to hear what the mechanism for entrance is for these but am optimistic that lag will be a non-issue.

[PuppiesAndRainbows]

Think of them less like challenges and more like quests that offer a wide range of levels. Unlike, say, Devil Assault, where we had several tiers of level (5 on casual, 6 on normal, 12 on hard, 18 on elite), we want characters at most levels to be able to run it closer (or above/below) their actual level.

Would it be accurate to think of them as haunted houses?
Are they going to be timed?

[HAL]

I took a wrong turn on my way to meet Dead Girl outside Valak's Mausoleum in Delera's Graveyard tonight and accidentally stumbled upon a "Mysterious Portal." After a bit of looking I found three more of them.

They are portals to challenges and all of them reference the DDO FallFest, The Night Revels, which I can only assume (and hope) is the long awaited replacement for Mabar.

They all say I can't enter them because I don't have access to the FallFest Content Pack. I wonder how much that will cost?

I don't hope this is the long awaited replacement for Mabar. Although I'm afraid you are correct. Challenges? I accepted one festival with a challenge as the major focus but I'm not happy about another one.

[HAL]

That doesn't preclude required purchases to actually participate. Please don't just give out five free "spooky challenge tokens" and then make anything worth crafting require six+ runs to complete.

Buy stacks of 50 spooky challenge tokens; only 100 Astral Shards or 20 Turbine Points! Buy a haunted candy bag and all undead you kill have a chance to drop spooky challenge tokens into it, just 150 Turbine Points in the DDO Store!

Careful, you're giving them ideas :>

[HAL]

He said pretty please. I will too... Pretty please?

I imagine that they will not allow trade-ins or re-open the trader for people to use them up. Too much duping has been going on.

Stupid dupers.

[HAL]

Crystal Cove, Risia, Festivult, and the Midwinter Festival are all still around, using the same ingredients.

Yes but since they were closing / changing the Halloween festival anyway, they have an opportunity to change the ingredients as part of that process. I don't like it either, but I understand.

[alancarp]

I imagine that they will not allow trade-ins or re-open the trader for people to use them up. Too much duping has been going on.

Stupid dupers.

Yep - ruined the fun for everybody else - especially since it's likely that these ne'r-do-wells already have all of the goodies they want.

Nonetheless, I have a solution proposal: convert all of the old collectibles you want into motes. Then trade in motes for the new collectibles... a maximum of 1,000 per account per server (each mote giving 1 of the 4 new collectibles).

Lich dust, fangs, and ethereal keys? Trade 1 for 1 into motes as well. That would still be less than ideal, but it's something.

Then finally, let's hope that the trade-ins for loot are reasonable (as was the case for Mabar; ditto for Cannith crafting) and not like mysterious remnants or the mimic event - so that people who don't play the game 24/7 can actually have a shot at getting value for their efforts. Without the bank vault loophole, the mimic event would have been next to impossible to effectively farm.

[HAL]

Then finally, let's hope that the trade-ins for loot are reasonable (as was the case for Mabar; ditto for Cannith crafting) and not like mysterious remnants or the mimic event - so that people who don't play the game 24/7 can actually have a shot at getting value for their efforts. Without the bank vault loophole, the mimic event would have been next to impossible to effectively farm.

This PLEASE!

[Seikojin]

So it will be much more like Crystal Cove? Including the lag? ^^

No, I think it is more of a 'just because some components made it to live doesn't mean it will look and perform like people can speculate' type of response.

[Sillk]

So, it looks like all of our old ingredients are worthless.

Can you open the trader one last time so I can get a hat or something? After a few years, it's kinda rotten to have all that time go POOF.

[Nonesuch2008]

Is second (or third or 5th or whatever) the notion of allowing us to convert the old mabar ingredients to the new. Completely useless items are no fun to lug around, and we did earn them previously, did we not?

Absolutely, and we played nice when the plug was pulled & we didn't get to finish our stuff. I'm not asking for anything that I didn't earn, just a chance to tie up loose ends with that stuff.

Thanks

[Nonesuch2008]

Check your bags. All the previous mabar stuff is labeled 'Crumbling' with flavor text indicating they are worthless. I would be mad about losing a bunch of work casually, but I'm sure they are doing it because of the dupers who stacked the hell out them. The ten thousand mote stacks I made by actually grinding the stuff will just be memories of lag.

Anger is on hold until I see the finished product, giving them the benefit of the doubt until then. I absolutely, 100% completely and positively disagree with the notion that players who came by their mat's honestly should be made to suffer for the actions of a very select group.

[Nonesuch2008]

@ Steelstar :

Please comment on if/why the old Mabar mats are worthless. Why would Turbine scrap the old ingredients people worked so hard for and had been saving since the last iteration? This upsets me quite a bit as a player because:
1) Devs knew the players were saving them for Mabar and Mabar-reincarnated and had been waiting all this time for you to make the right choice
2) The performance issues in place required an EXCEPTIONAL effort for players to persevere and earn our mats and scales (patience,lag wipes, sudden closures, long periods between iterations)
3) Devs ended the event without notice- no opportunity for use 'em -or-lose 'em
4) Devs could easily put a barter system in place- you've apparently just chosen not to.

I gotta say I feel slighted by this process. Now please respond in this thread and tell me I'm all wrong and you will be implementing a barter system. If not- I'd really like to hear an explanation of why you won't be.

Very eloquently put & every word of it true.

[slarden]

Why Challenges?! The Mimic event was scrapped as the Mabar replacement, because the community made it clear we wanted Mabar back. So instead of a similar event, we get Challenges? Just because people either love or hate Challenges, and people either loved or hated Mabar, doesn't mean they should be mixed together simply because they have the love/hate thing in common.


Oh, and I'd like a way to convert every one of these, before they turn to dust, please...

It would be disappointing to lose the mats I earned dealing with lag and lag wipes the last time Mabar was out, but I understand why it's being done.

Still, it makes me scratch my head that even with re-creatable steps to duplicate duping and recycling involving things that likely cost you store sales you ignored that for a full year and then for something as trivial as out-of-date mabar gear you decide to invalidate everyone's prior work.and punish everyone for the transgressions of the few.

I just don't get you Turbine.

[Nonesuch2008]

FYI

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ld-Mabar-stuff

[Lanadazia]

i guess this would be alot of fun if it was some challenge-like content
CC is a challenge too, basically. if it has the same replay-value as CC, the new marbar will be a hit, everyone will be waiting to get back into it each year!

since we get +5 tomes via favor, will there be +6 tomes this year?

[Nonesuch2008]

It would be disappointing to lose the mats I earned dealing with lag and lag wipes the last time Mabar was out, but I understand why it's being done.

Still, it makes me scratch my head that even with re-creatable steps to duplicate duping and recycling involving things that likely cost you store sales you ignored that for a full year and then for something as trivial as out-of-date mabar gear you decide to invalidate everyone's prior work.and punish everyone for the transgressions of the few.

I just don't get you Turbine.

The dupers have come and gone, and even if there are a few left still clinging to Mabar mat's, this action is hurting far more fair players than it is those who cheated. Your intentions with this are good & understandable, but I'd say that they all already made what they needed at the time.

How about a compromise? Those of us who would like to finish our gear could somehow be afforded the opportunity to do so. I know there are those who will say that we had the opportunity to do so during the Mimic Festival, but that mechanism was totally different & offered no direct upgrade path for existing gear. Not talking about making new items, just working on what we already possess. Make the motes or gear fully bound to prevent illegal trade if that is the concern, at this point I will take it and be happy.