Add more RL-quests

[Pandjed]

Ravenloft has a beautiful wilderness, that is mostly unexplored, and those who do explore it, usually just do it once to read all the notes. While the guides are a life-saver, they basically destroyed the wilderness and taking them away or adapting them might be answered with some contempt and outcries.

So why not add some quests that uses pieces of the wilderness and either enhance the story-line or are standalones. Like a quest to protect Ireena traveling from Barovia to Vallaki? How about a quest that uses Lake Zarovich? Whenever I see all the art-assets basically wasted on a wilderness that has little reason to be explored, I kinda feel sad.
I know, most of the interesting places are made into quests, but you have some creative minds and maybe can add some optional pre-quests with ambushes from Strahd and his forces on the Tsolenka Pass, looking for a cure for lycanthropy at the River Ivlis, defeating mountainfolk raiders that are in the northern svalich forests, etc.

I don't know how much of the IP of the 5e-module you can use, but there are still crazy dollmakers, the mad mage, and other nice things there as well.

[Gniewomir]

If im correct ssg cant even fix lags in wrath of earth cause of d&d rights and wotc, im 100% sure adding quests to ravenloft would require a lot of legal actions and i doubt they'll be interested in spending their time arguing with wotc just to add few quests to raven wild, even if they would like to. :P

[Aelonwy]

While I would love, love, LOVE more Ravenloft quests... they very rarely add new quests to an existing zone. In fact I'm having a difficult time recalling them ever doing such to a premium zone without creating an ALL-NEW zone such as when they made Epic 3BC (adding Precious Cargo). And they may have added new quests to the Vale of Twilight Pack but they weren't in the Wilderness zone only direct-entry Teleport-from-Questgiver from the public zone of Meridia.

There have been many player discussions in the past for ways to circumvent this premium issue. I tried searching but my searchfu is lame. Off the top of my head some options players considered:

A) Making select much older premium zones permanently free such as Restless Isles, Threnal wilderness zone, Tangleroot, Sorrowdusk, etc. Then a 2nd adventure pack could be set in the zone and while the Slayer XP might be free the quest access remains premium.

B) Give the new quests two ways to enter, direct-entry Teleport-from-Questgiver in a public zone and entry from within wilderness zone if you own the zone. Recalling/or Finishing out would take you either back into the Wilderness zone or the public zone dependent on from which you entered.

C) Give later adventure packs access to the same Wilderness zone with a discount to people that own the original adventure pack. E.g. in your wish-list example of new Ravenloft quests, a new adventure pack could be set in the Ravenloft wilderness zone with both people owning the expansion and people owning the new adventure pack having access to the same Ravenloft zone but people that already own RL would get a discount purchasing the new pack presumably with the store checking that they already owned it. This however comes with the issue of people buying the 2nd pack first perhaps not getting a discount if they ever buy RL expansion later.

D) ?

This is all I remember clearly, but I think there were other solutions.

Maybe if they ever made a heroic versions of King's Forest & Underdark we could get some NEW heroic, iconic level quests in the KF and Underdark. That would be neat too.

[Torkzed]

While I would love, love, LOVE more Ravenloft quests... they very rarely add new quests to an existing zone. In fact I'm having a difficult time recalling them ever doing such to a premium zone without creating an ALL-NEW zone such as when they made Epic 3BC (adding Precious Cargo). And they may have added new quests to the Vale of Twilight Pack but they weren't in the Wilderness zone only direct-entry Teleport-from-Questgiver from the public zone of Meridia.

I think there are a few more examples of quests being added to old zones. In addition to your 3BC example, I found these two:

-- Bargain of Blood was added to Searing Heights (Update 4 in 2010, a loooooong time ago...).
-- More recently, the Gatekeeper quests were added to Cerulean Hills. (Update 46, 2020)

But I generally agree that we don't see new quests added to old zones very often.

[arminius]

I agree. However, I so read that RL as "real life" at first, and was intrigued and ready to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Aelonwy]

I think there are a few more examples of quests being added to old zones. In addition to your 3BC example, I found these two:

-- Bargain of Blood was added to Searing Heights (Update 4 in 2010, a loooooong time ago...).
-- More recently, the Gatekeeper quests were added to Cerulean Hills. (Update 46, 2020)

But I generally agree that we don't see new quests added to old zones very often.

Yes but per my post those are FREE to play zones and I was explicitly addressing the issue of adding quests to PREMIUM, I.E. purchased wilderness zones.

[SocratesBastardSon]

I've long thought that refreshing old zones and packs would be welcome. There are so many great ideas and environments laying around. IQ is one that I like, but few people run. The Quori race, crystal weapons, the city/wilderness mix of quests, the weird dream feel, has a lot of untapped potential. If you were to expand existing material like named loot and freshen up the quests and associated wilderness, it would add a lot of interest. I completely approve of what they did with the Catacombs and Deleras, and cleaning up Cannith stuff like alchemical weapons. It doesn't appear like it was a huge investment, so is it a bigger bang for the buck for the developers? And now people run those quests a lot, on epic at least. Improving on what we have can be as valuable as rolling out all-new material.

[Aelonwy]

I've long thought that refreshing old zones and packs would be welcome. There are so many great ideas and environments laying around. IQ is one that I like, but few people run. The Quori race, crystal weapons, the city/wilderness mix of quests, the weird dream feel, has a lot of untapped potential. If you were to expand existing material like named loot and freshen up the quests and associated wilderness, it would add a lot of interest. I completely approve of what they did with the Catacombs and Deleras, and cleaning up Cannith stuff like alchemical weapons. It doesn't appear like it was a huge investment, so is it a bigger bang for the buck for the developers? And now people run those quests a lot, on epic at least. Improving on what we have can be as valuable as rolling out all-new material.

Hmmm I would actually really enjoy a "Dreaming Dark style" wilderness. Especially if they worked to make falling not a start over issue but that say falling in section 1 randomly teleported you to locations A, B, or C and falling in section 2 meant randomly teleporting to locations D, E, or F, etc. similar to Demonweb. The dreamscape of the Dreaming Dark is visually breathtaking, an incredible and surreal experience. As it is meant to be. It is one of the seminal quests of the entire game. Maybe not entirely unique, as it shares some visual cues with a few other Quori quests and shares some mechanics? influences? with Xoriat quests but still exemplary within the context of DDO and the possibilities open to designers. More please.