Hypothetical idea for a new update

[Fenix93]

considering that this year SSG has made all those people who wanted a cobold-themed event happy ... I would like to propose an idea I wrote yesterday evening ... and bring it here to give (I hope) more visibility to everyone...

Idea U ??: Heroes of The Feywild-> link for more information:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...e-Feywild-quot

I did not want to redo the whole post not to create mistakes ... so I brought the link to not copy and paste too many times the speech, in short I propose the idea of a theme update Ferywilde, feriwylde and another fantastic setting where we you can imagine several adventures, can be located in the Forgotten Realms near the druid challenges the entrance, and with itself would bring a new heroic race and an iconic and a new class as well as new and incredible prizes named loot and cosmetic pet.

tell me what you think (always responding kindly and respectfully)...

[Algreg]

tell me what you think (always responding kindly and respectfully)...

From your original post: "yea i know many of you hate farye and gnomish creatures and blah blah blah though "

Yeah, that basically screams "respectful conversation".

[Fenix93]

From your original post: "yea i know many of you hate farye and gnomish creatures and blah blah blah though "

Yeah, that basically screams "respectful conversation".

So what do you mean? that I was wrong to say so? or that I did well to incite the mature and civil discourse?

[glmfw1]

As the Feywild is co-terminous with the Prime Material, you could use the existing wilderness areas as a base...
Eveningstar Public Area, Battle for Eveningstar Quest and the King's Forest wilderness all lead on one to the other, so you could put an entrance anywhere along the West edge of Eveningstar, leading into a new Wilderness using the quest and wilderness as the base, but with Eveningstar being replaced with Faerie homes the further from the entrance you get.
Colours could be brighter, more trees could have blossom, and more butterflies, floating motes of light etc could be added to give an otherworldly feel, while still being familiar enough.

There are plenty of potential quest entrances throughout the Kings Forest that could be used - odd cave mouths here and there - and plenty of locations that could easily be adapted (the drow's "dead" area could be alive and the location of the faerie court, with the inside of a palace accessible where the Underdark entrance is.

Monster-wise, I would keep things similar to what already exist (Satyrs, Dryads, Hags, Pixies, Pseudodragons, Will-o-wisp, sentient plants) and add in a few others as standard monsters, then create unique monsters for the members of the Faerie (and Unseelie?) court(s?). Adapting the existing models (give the satyrs flower wreaths round their necks, giving the dryads flower crowns) could go a long way to making it feel different without too much effort.

For it to work well, you would need a decent storyline to link together a series of quests - and this would be the toughest part... coming up with Faerie related storylines that all players can accept and will want to play. The setting would allow for quests with good-aligned monsters who simply have different motivations from "regular folk" - they may be the antagonists of the story, but are not necessarily villains.

[Fenix93]

As the Feywild is co-terminous with the Prime Material, you could use the existing wilderness areas as a base...
Eveningstar Public Area, Battle for Eveningstar Quest and the King's Forest wilderness all lead on one to the other, so you could put an entrance anywhere along the West edge of Eveningstar, leading into a new Wilderness using the quest and wilderness as the base, but with Eveningstar being replaced with Faerie homes the further from the entrance you get.
Colours could be brighter, more trees could have blossom, and more butterflies, floating motes of light etc could be added to give an otherworldly feel, while still being familiar enough.

absolutely no I do not think it's like the shadowfell an alternative version of reality ... this is not Wow where we are in the EmeralDream and so it's all an alternative version of reality (in positive).

There are plenty of potential quest entrances throughout the Kings Forest that could be used - odd cave mouths here and there - and plenty of locations that could easily be adapted (the drow's "dead" area could be alive and the location of the faerie court, with the inside of a palace accessible where the Underdark entrance is.

Making a mappaspeculare of the king forest I see a bit of a "madness" in quotes ... unless I revamp the area a bit and add guides as they did for Ravenloft, then I would agree, but I would have preferred something similar to the penultimate pack "Duels in the Undedark" where wax a single Hub with inputs to the quests ... I imagined something of that kind.

Monster-wise, I would keep things similar to what already exist (Satyrs, Dryads, Hags, Pixies, Pseudodragons, Will-o-wisp, sentient plants) and add in a few others as standard monsters, then create unique monsters for the members of the Faerie (and Unseelie?) court(s?). Adapting the existing models (give the satyrs flower wreaths round their necks, giving the dryads flower crowns) could go a long way to making it feel different without too much effort.

Satyrs, Dryads, Hags, Pseudodragons, Will-o-wisp, sentient plants, there are already ok but creatures like Pixie and Sprite have never been in DDO, except in a small part of Party Crasher but they were one of those creatures that in DDO it was not very thorough according to me.

The Dragons then are a different thing from the Pseudo dragons, I would not mind to have them as a cosmetic pet even the Pixie and Sprite, I would pay 500-600 points DDO to have one of them that follows me ... apart from those rare cases in general, DDO's pets do not inspire me much, except bears, bears-owls, and wolves, the rest does not convince me at all.

For it to work well, you would need a decent storyline to link together a series of quests - and this would be the toughest part... coming up with Faerie related storylines that all players can accept and will want to play. The setting would allow for quests with good-aligned monsters who simply have different motivations from "regular folk" - they may be the antagonists of the story, but are not necessarily villains.

For me the most difficult art and even if you intend to create a mirror version of KingForest and Evening Star, the King Forest and an area too big to be able to re-sell, this implies additional costs that are then added with the addition of new quests and the development of the storyline.

PS: even if I agree with tea on the plot this in part for many and very subjective, most of the first players keep the audio of the DM turned off then do not even read the dialogue of the quests without understanding the story, so many a well-structured story does not interest much, just give him something more to farm to stay in the game.

Personally I love the plot of Ravenloft I think it is well structured and there is a good progression in history, I hope they do a similar job for future packs.

[glmfw1]

I suppose it all depends on whether you want to add a few quests to the game or want to have Faerie/Feywild become an integral part of the setting that people feel immersed in. Tethyamar's hub works because "Dwarven Mine" is a fairly familiar concept to people. Most adventure packs have a wilderness area so people feel familiar with the setting - Shavarath feels like you are in a place of war even before you get to the quests, the Vale introduces you to the different power groups, giantholds "statues" give you a sense of the back-story of dragon/giant conflict.
As you have said, there are a lot of people who don't like fey, gnomes and blah-blah-blah. Using a familiar wilderness but making it different is a way to get people more immersed in the setting.

Shadowfell and Feywild are both planes that sit next to the Prime Material... similar on the borders, getting more different further away. Who's to say that the King's Forest on Faerun isn't a reflection of the Feywild, rather than vice-versa? Using the repurposed "dead area" as a public area (obviously in the Feywild it wouldn't be dead any more), you could have quest entrances there that can also be accessed from the wilderness... satisfying different playstyles. Wilderness areas allow for random encounters that add to flavour but would seem out of place if shoe-horned into a quest.

From the Devs perspective, the ability to re-use existing elements allows more detailed environments to be created with a lot less effort. Faerie Dragons are (in visual terms) slightly smaller pseudodragons, with butterfly style wings. From a design perspective, changing the wing artwork and adjusting the colouring would provide a faerie dragon model with a lot less effort than redesigning from scratch. Similarly Lythari (elf werewolves) can use existing models and various faerie creatures can be created by taking existing character models (elf/gnome/halfling) and reskinning/resizing and adding wings and accessories as necessary. The Tressym from around Eveningstar could be added as monsters too. As you say, the pixies already exist - all that's needed there is to come up with a few colour variations other than "illusion pink" and you can add swarms of them at random throughout any quest/wilderness that you like.

[Annex]

I would absolutely _love_ a faery/fey/romance era fantasy story with lots of appropriate quests but I doubt it would play well with the current DDO audience.

For whatever reason, Dungeons and Dragons leans extremely strongly towards horror and modern fantasy. Classical mythology, medieval romance, and folk lore of the Romantic and Victorian eras provides background fodder but little more.

The thought of sneaking through the Hall of the Mountain King to rescue two kidnapped children before the Midnight Hour tolls, all to the music of Grieg, gives me goose bumps. As lightning plays atop Bald Mountain, what sinister plan has the Faery King for the beautiful young maiden he kidnapped?

Maybe a detailed proposal would stir the hearts and stoke the creative fires of the developers. Or maybe not. One cannot change the Winds of Fate if one never tries.