U42 Preview 3: Sharn Story Dungeons

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Masterminds of Sharn is expected to feature 9 Story Dungeons, 8 Explorer Dungeons, 1 Explorer Area, and 2 Raids. This third preview contains all 9 of those Story Dungeons, all 8 of those Explorer Dungeons, the Explorer area, and 1 of those Raids (The only one expected to go live with Update 42). Players can gain access to these quests by speaking to "Lord Poincelot" in the center of the test dojo and then purchasing the "Masterminds of Sharn" adventure pack in the DDO Store.

The Sharn Story Dungeons
The questgiver for the Story Dungeons can be found in the Clifftop Tower District of Sharn. You can reach Sharn either through a transport NPC in the Harbor or a transport NPC in the center island of the Test Dojo.

• A Sharn Welcome (Levels 15/32)

• Red Rain (Levels 15/32)

• Best Laid Plans (Levels 15/32)

• The Same Old Song (Levels 15/32)

• Just Business (Levels 15/32)

• No Refunds (Levels 16/32)

• House of Pain (Levels 16/32)

• Blown Deadline (Levels 16/32)

• Reach for the Sky (Levels 16/32)

Quest Known Issues

• Some minor things but if you find anything, let us know!

[vms4ever]

After finally getting the Lammania client loaded (yes, it took two previews to get it updated), I have been working through the storyline quests and they are nice but, out of the first 4 quests I have only been able to exit the dungeon once. (3 finishes and 1 release - 'cause I forget which toolbar had the heal scroll.)

When attempting to exit the dungeon, the progress bar gets to 90% and stops. If I alt-tab to a different application and switch back to DDO, Windows greys out the screen and says that it is not responding. If I do nothing [after same old song] and stare at the screen (long enough to go make coffee, come back, eat my blueberry scone -it was delicious- and ponder the meaning of life) long enough the screen refreshes with "teleporting" message -oddly, with a 1" grid, then displays the expected area. And that's when I get the pop-up from DDO saying that it has lost connection with the server.

I'm not positive but I don't think this is Working As Intended.

[Tist]

Best Laid Plans seems to have broken it's script or something. Maybe there's a way to advance it but I can't find it.

Ran thru it, opened the way to the office but didn't realise, and dropped into the basement instead. Killed all and named, clearing upwards. Went back thru tunnel to the office, came out of office, cleared all the spawn sequences. The chat didn't make sense so much because I had been down in the basement already. All the spawn waves finished and Victor is at the top of the ramp in his blue bubble. I can't interact with him and the quest has the following objectives left uncompleted :
Find a functional Vaunt prototype
Confront Victor Dabonaire
(Optional) Get in the office quickly

Ran around the whole zone repeatedly, nothing to click. Seems broke.

Edit : Ran it again, this time went into office, cleared all the spawns, victor was in his bubble, then I went to the basement and cleared all that, and on the way up the ramp to victor the script progressed and gave me forgewraiths to kill. Instance completed fine ... but even so Victor's story was wonky, he was in his bubble and unable to teleport before I got the DM announcement of the anchor being in place. That seemed to happen in the basement but I'd already seen him in his bubble.

[Tist]

At the start of Just Business, Casper tells you to go SE when actually you have to go NW.
In preview 2 I thought the quest was bugged and just locked up at that point since I didn't notice the NW pathway.

Quest ran thru fine, excluding the fact that it's NW

[Anuulified]

Made my way through all of these today with no issues. It looks and plays great.

[Xyfiel]

I had less time this weekend to test than I expected but did try the first quest and the raid.

A Sharn Welcome:
I used the boarding pass from the Dojo and didn't see how to actually get to Sharn. I was a bit disorientated but nothing major and that can be resolved at any time anyway. I felt like the quest was linear but at the same time I didn't always know where to go. I had to get close to doors and see if I could open them. The map wasn't that helpful since you are clearing out a big circle. I ran LE and the difficulty felt right. I had watched part of a stream doing the quest so I knew when I got stuck at the end there were levers to find. The bear wasn't blocking the view of the first one but did make it a bit annoying to get to. Dropping into the Cogs at the end was a surprise but on live I would just want to end the quest and recall out.

The optional felt like two bags of hit points. It wasn't dangerous, just boring.

[DYWYPI]

Following on from my last critique on: Masterminds of Sharn (Preview 2) [Post #9], we now conclude with the final: Preview 3. I managed to get time to run all Sharn Story Dungeons this time. Please refer to my previous Sharn Preview critiques, i.e. [Post #59] and [Post #9] respectively.

Feel the moonlight on your skin, let the desert wind cool your aching head.

Sharn Story Dungeons

A Sharn Welcome: the shadows and lighting were functioning this preview. Thus the inside of building no longer looked like "a badly painted stage set in most places" - immense visual improvement.

However, I'm still not a great fan of mindlessly running around in spirals. Most people are just going to dash through to the end within five minutes as there aren't a lot of interesting distractions except the dinosaurs.


Red Rain: this quest still has "major issues" regarding illogical "(mis)behaviour" of the some monsters - faulty "chain-reaction aggravation". I was questing on one of my main Assassins and using tried-and-tested Sneak techniques (see: [Post #375]).

However, the monsters were erroneously aggravating from halfway across the dungeon even after I had passed them safely - without alerting them - minutes ago... It really is dim-witted design; it was marketed as a "Murder Mystery" quest, and not: Kobold Assault!

Chase the murderer with the rancid pores.

The only real saving grace was the appropriate background music and quality narration by Satine Phoenix. Without Satine's voice-over or the background music; it would have been mainly a very monotonous quest (for the most part). :-)


The Same Old Song: within this quest we begin an investigation into some "problems" at a mysterious Nightclub. Then get to listen to a private performance from an alluring female temptress (Tiefling) singer with a stage name: Encore. Satine Phoenix, did a good job with the light-hearted leisure singing, and of course the song lyrics were meant to be comical rather than serious.

Overall the quest was reasonable as you got to help out various staff at the club rather than just kill everything. I liked the use of the Dinosaur pen inhabitants; to tackle the intruders, but would have preferred that, some of the other staff, also reacted as allies.

I feel Encore, was a little underutilised after the Dimension doors were appearing; here, there and everywhere. Plus it would have helped if the "Dimension Door markers" on the map were a little more distinguishable rather than 'minuscule red dots'.

Also the Dimension Door mobs were a little repetitive so perhaps you could reduce the amount of spawns or alter the monster composition a little more.


Best Laid Plans: not much has changed with this quest since the last Preview, which is slightly disappointing, e.g. map markers might have enhanced the experience.

I have no stash, I keep the trash, and clean it for you.

How fast - time wise - is the: (Optional) Get in the Office quickly, meant to be completed?

I already knew all the lock combinations before I touched the Puzzle Wheels or triggered that Optional, still it failed to register as completed. I think you need to re-evaluate the countdown timer for that Optional.

Some of the voice-overs were out of synchronisation. Though I suspect that was mainly because you could enter the lower "Prototype area" via the shaft. Furthermore I wasn't able to either target or interact with one of the Prototype Devices in the lower area - that might want checking out. :-/


Just Business: I haven't got a lot more to add from the previous preview of this quest other than the voice-overs were utilised fairly well. The fizzling Bats were still underwhelming. Overall the quest was still good, but with it being 'open plan' it was easy to get disorientated.

Cast a stone in a grave of the plans that you made.

I noticed Casper was badly bugged. For example: Casper's "Barge" map locations would actually completely disappear from the Map in several places. Also the dialogue was not correct for what compass direction you were meant to be heading - in at least one place.


No Refunds: there was a vast improvement to the shop interior since the prior preview mainly because of the lighting, shadows and textures had been applied.

Say hello to a mannequin, the ghost of an automaton.

Other than that I don't have a lot more to add except it had more polish than it had before albeit I'm not a great fan of the decor in the glass cabinets or wooden panels.


House of Pain: I didn't have time to do the puzzle, and I still think the slums were designed pretty well and helped with the immersion.

Brother, are you trained to spy?

Blown Deadline: there was a slight improvement to this quest since the last incarnation, i.e. mainly shadow disguising linear fake looking immaculately straight rows of crates.

The two breakable floor areas were probably the best features of this quest. Overall it was a well balanced quest with a good composition of enemies albeit the explosions were still rather weak.

When darkness is falling round your bend, kindness will follow.

Within the main "malfunctioning" machinery production room it was rather dark and on my monitor I had difficulty seeing the exit ramp. Perhaps another light source might help.


Reach for the Sky: quite a lot of themes were running through this extensive sprawling quest. Though basically we have the adventurer trying to sneak into a Theatre and sabotage Vaunt's evil plans by stealing an ancient relic from under his nose, while he was distracted giving his Speech.

Some of the Vaunt lines were pretty humorous and he had some great abilities such as the use of the "Go to Jail" feature.

Rescue missions dig up the bones of sorrow.

I liked the voice-over for Lucy, that was classy and very Pantomime like (I mean in the British sense of Pantomime; so if you're American, you probably won't understand the innuendo there).

I'm not really sure what Monlin Kaine was meant to be doing as such (regarding aiding you) he just randomly vanished after following me for a few corridors for no real reason. That could have been better explained even though I can probably guess why that happened.

The part near the Stagehand was a little confusing as there were several levers close by where she was positioned. Plus some of them were up in the rafters though she only referred to one single lever (I think for the upper floor by the ladder). Somehow, I managed to bypass needing to use any of those 'rafter levers' and incidentally Lucy was below stage.

Stagehand: "There's a Gate off to the stage-left. Lucy locked it up tight - but there's an override lever up on the rafters."

Also "Stage Left" is the left side of the stage for an actor who is standing facing the audience so you have to take that into account. Basically her text was slightly ambiguous since there were actually also two levers in the rafters.

I go to the theatre about ninety minutes late. Skip the whole dang movie 'cause the credits are great.

Also there was a nice use of anti-gravity mechanics and the plot was pretty solid throughout the quest and it was well done. For me personally, I'd prefer a much smaller map but of course you didn't need to explore the whole area. Overall; I liked the quest as attention to detail was applied.


I don't think the DDO Developers acted upon many of the suggestions from the two former Story Quest Previews or more importantly alleviated any of the potential problems with the maps. Some of my proposals also could have helped various players that had disabilities, etc. :-/

Note: to his credit Flimsy, did have the compassion and gumption to alter the 'Cogs Explorer Dungeons'. Nonetheless I'll write another review for "The Cogs Explorer Dungeons" as this post doesn't concern the Cogs "Explorer" aspects in the slightest. :D

I haven't gone into great detail and just reiterated those issues that I found most memorable.