Ravenloft Expansion Preview #2 Friday-Monday

[Cocomajobo]

EDIT 3:

Lamannia will be coming down in roughly half an hour at 5:30 PM Eastern.

Thank you all for coming out to the second Ravenloft Expansion preview! We've been parsing all the feedback from the weekend and have had several long discussions about what portions of feedback to act on and in what ways in the office today. We are tentatively planning on running a third Lamannia preview late next week (but, as always, all plans are subject to change).

(EDIT 2: And the preview is now open!)
(EDIT: And just like that we hit a blocker with the second raid that is going to prevent it from being previewed this time time around.)

Hello, all! Wanted to let everyone know that our second preview of the Ravenloft expansion will be hitting Lamannia tomorrow (Friday November 17) and running through the weekend. We will make an announcement when it is open and provide release notes (well, feedback threads of the new features) at that time. This second preview is currently expected to contain the following things:

• The Land of Barovia Landscape
• 11 of 12 Quests (In varying states of polish)
• 1 of 2 Raids
• All of the Quest Loot (With a small amount of feedback based changes from last preview but not the full list of changes we currently intend on making)
• All of the Raid Loot
• Sentient Weapons (The mechanical side of this system only. The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.)
• Racial Enhancement Point Tome

There will likely be a small dev event on Sunday but that has yet to be confirmed. Regardless, we'd love it if you could get some people together and run the new content this weekend and tell us what you think once the preview opens up! <3

[Cocomajobo]

Feedback threads:

• Loot Feedback
• Content Feedback
• Sentient Weapons Feedback

[Cocomajobo]

Here's a small list of things to be aware of when wandering through this preview

Landscape

• Some “Mysterious Mists” do not actually do anything when interacted with, This is not intended.
• Various small critters that are supposed to run away (e.g. small rats, ravens) do not.
• Some random encounters are not completely functional – but please give us feedback on any problems you find.
• Vegetation density is currently in the process of being tweaked.Placement of the quest journals is not final (and, in the case of the Strahd and Tatyana journals, the final placement may be in different areas.)

Dungeons

• Not all dungeons have had their DM audio hooked up. A large portion, however, have had a first pass of it but not been adjusted for timing and the like. If you notice anything off with Voice Over in a dungeon that has some please let us know.
• Some of the available dungeons (for example, “The Final Vintage”) are not fully decorated yet, and various art assets (e.g. the portrait of Argynvost in “Oath of Vengeance”) are placeholder.
• Quests are not currently in the Adventure Compendium.
• Quest journal text has not yet been written.
• Quest flagging for capstone dungeons is not yet in place. For example, in the final release, you’ll have to play two other dungeons before “An Invitation to Dinner.”

Systems

• Some heroic equipment have +0 effects, these will likely be changed to enhancement bonus versions of what they currently are, in order to allow them to give actual benefits.
• Sentient Weapons do not currently have any voices attached to them.
• A number of Sentient Set Bonuses have yet to actually be implemented.

Misc

• Some monsters do not have correct appearances.
• Vargouilles look like the dev instead of the D&D monster.
• Flameskulls are still being tweaked.
• Barovian Witches, Barovian Trappers, Mountain Folk, Corrupt Watchmen, and most rares do not have correct appearances.
• Many NPCs and monsters do not have final/correct names, or dialog.
• The Brides of Strahd do not have their correct appearances.

[MacRighteous]

Sentient Weapons - woot!!

My time is limited and I hadn't planned on previewing any more RvL on Lamm - but I'm thinking of making an appearance for the weps...

What do we need to know/do to get these in our hands quickly for testing?
Will they be handed out by a vendor in the DoJo - or do we have to do a raid... quest?

Do we need a developer's guide to Sentient Weapons testing?

LOL

Seriously
How can I maximize my preview/testing time? Last week I spent hours running around the dojo cause I didn't know what was going on... it was my first time.
I would like to not ...."waste"... anymore time if I can.

Thanks
/Mac

[Cocomajobo]

Sentient Weapons - woot!!

My time is limited and I hadn't planned on previewing any more RvL on Lamm - but I'm thinking of making an appearance for the weps...

What do we need to know/do to get these in our hands quickly for testing?
Will they be handed out by a vendor in the DoJo - or do we have to do a raid... quest?

Do we need a developer's guide to Sentient Weapons testing?

LOL

Seriously
How can I maximize my preview/testing time? Last week I spent hours running around the dojo cause I didn't know what was going on... it was my first time.
I would like to not ...."waste"... anymore time if I can.

Thanks
/Mac

The same vendor in the dojo which had all of the quest loot during the first preview will now also have all of the Raid loot and everything you should need to preview Sentient weapons. There will be a writeup on how the system works in the sentient weapons feedback thread which will be posted tomorrow.

Notably, this preview is only expected to have the systems side of sentient weapons. The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.

[MacRighteous]

The same vendor in the dojo which had all of the quest loot during the first preview will now also have all of the Raid loot and everything you should need to preview Sentient weapons. There will be a writeup on how the system works in the sentient weapons feedback thread which will be posted tomorrow.

Notably, this preview is only expected to have the systems side of sentient weapons. The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.

Thanks mange... I'm looking forward to it.

[sebascz]

great i love this expansion.

[SerPounce]

[*]2 of 2 Raids (In varying states of polish)

Sweet! Glad there's going to be two!

[Cocomajobo]

And just like that we hit a blocker with the second raid that is going to prevent it from being previewed this time time around. OP has been updated to reflect this.

[Satyriasys]

The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

[Kza]

Had to log in and just say that this sounds really nice!

My feedback on the loot after i have thought much more:
Many items is really weak, they have spell saves, fort saves and much
Of that. I have 0 interest in that. It is wasted. Plz get more real resistance on a few
And other boosts instead of all those more or less ”wasted fillers”.

So Plz reconsider some of that and boost set bonus!

Thanks for your hard work. Looking forward to ravenloft!!

[Fenix93]

• Sentient Weapons (The mechanical side of this system only. The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.)

you and go! I've long been waiting for you to test sentient weapons! : D and if I'm at the level of what I saw in the first preview it will be a bomb but...Wait ... a moment ... sentient weapons will have an actor voice ...

I know it will not "to listen" in dis beta but ...OMG but it's a fantastic thing! there is! for sure maybe it will not be like the paper .. as you speak it ... it seems to be a really delightful thing! mannages for tomorrow morning flight in beta to test!

[Cordovan]

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

Yes, the option to turn it off will be there.

[Fenix93]

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

But how can you deactivate such a thing ?! and too fantastic like what! manners, it must be really great to have a weapon that speaks to you ... I still remember the time I played at Baldurs Gate ... the two-handed swordsman was spectacular .... wao ... there's .. I really do not see this feature.

[Wizza]

Glad to see it's open on a weekend.

[Thar]

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

This game has sound??? I've turned off 99.9% of sound since you can't hear people otherwise.

[PsychoBlonde]

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

If they're smart, they'll put it on the same toggle with DM voiceover.

[red_kain]

If they're smart, they'll put it on the same toggle with DM voiceover.

Personally I would prefer it had its own slider/option. Likely more work then its worth though.

[Rylex_Night-Shield]

I can first of all say thank you for holding this preview on a weekend. I know many others and myself didn't or couldn't get the full previous preview done due to work/time limitations. I don't know if I'll find a raid group but I hope to run a few of the quests over as I wasn't sure of the 2 (3) quests I picked up, what was a bug or working as intended. The Wereraven quest I picked up but the portal wouldn't work and in Lord Straud's castle, on normal epic, I fought the 2 black dragons down only to have 2 more pop and fight again to finish the quest. But as there was mention of quests that had place holder monsters for some of the mobs, I found it amusing to fight a kobold with the title "shambling mound" above it.

So I'm looking forward to this preview and having more time to explore and search for things in the quests and wilderness areas. Hopefully, then I can provide a lot more and better quality feedback for you.

PS: Also looking forward to sentient weapons. I love the confused looks of NPCs as I keep telling them to shut up and stop talking about my mother. =D (yes, I know, no talking THIS time but "soon"™) *rubs hands together in a malicious manner*

[lyrecono]

Notably, this preview is only expected to have the systems side of sentient weapons. The flavor side of voice lines which talk to you periodically while wielding a sentient weapon are not expected to make it into this preview.

I hope we can turn this off. I know I'll quickly grow tired of it.

i'm glad to hear that we can turn it of. I'm surprised that;

A, people play with the sound on, i heard the harbor piirate theme and the noices of buffing at the start of the first quest and turned in game sounds off.
Only turned it on again for edd greenwoods audio commentairy, once.

B, people are getting exited by sentient weapons, every modern shooter has some npc interupting gameplay to state the obvious every few minutes. Even the latest doom that went oldschool couldn' resist putting one in.
Even B.J. Blazkowicz in ww2 must have caried a 10 liter battery to facilitate the ammount of chatter in those games.
Even in the 3D sonic franchise they felt the need to have your animal friends state the obvious every minute (yeah, hearing them yell bouncepad gets real old, real fast).

So isn't the inclusion of voices a waste of time and money once people checked them out once and turn them off?

Oh well, i hope the gear will be worth the potential investment, i hope it resolves all the glaring melee issues we're dealing with....

I also hope the ballance issues are fixed and the content is playeble at lv 10 for all classes. Not just tr vets on warlocks like ToEE or the mines, nothing brings boredom to a game like dense packs of mobs with 20 times the hp they shouldd have had, it's only heroics, we don't all like to play wizards, warlocks and arties online.
Please give us a reason to go there during tr's and don't give the excuse of try a lower dificulty, noboddy wants to turn of their streak for a handfull of quests.
Plenty of other content that likely will offer better exp per minute even if you ignore having to run through ravenlofts wilderness area.

I assume that the raids won't contain a heroic version? Nor any heroic sentient weapons?

Have all the set issues been worked out? The ones we gave feedback on last round?