A hopeful request Turbine: Mabar 2014?

[psykopeta]

^Seconded. I know that I will be one of the first in line to go try out Mabar this year. And while I will secretly hope for a vast improvement in game performance, I will be in no way shocked to encounter crippiling Dragon fight lag. Its pretty much a tradition at this point, such that I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship with Mabar. Sure, Mabar lag wipes me each year, but Mabar also gives me lots of shinies so I always seem to find excuses for it's treatment of my game client.

last time i didn't even step in during the even, ignore the freebies for tomes and such

for real, the bad experience isn't compensated by the loot, not even close

1st fix the experience, then we can talk about releasing it in 2014 or 2030, or upgrading the loot to lvl 28 or 40

PS: im not talking about xp lol im talking about the hellish lag for the server, in the area even if u are alone, crashes, that stuff

[ishunt]

Mabar is the single best festival of all the year. I remember there not being so much lag one year. That was a year where we didn't have all the extra's and such. By the way: if you keep your farming to a specific area, the lag improves. I used to farm in a group up by delra's tomb, getting great spawns, without any lag.

[AbyssalMage]

^Seconded. I know that I will be one of the first in line to go try out Mabar this year. And while I will secretly hope for a vast improvement in game performance, I will be in no way shocked to encounter crippiling Dragon fight lag. Its pretty much a tradition at this point, such that I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship with Mabar. Sure, Mabar lag wipes me each year, but Mabar also gives me lots of shinies so I always seem to find excuses for it's treatment of my game client.

After last year, I felt the abuse. Like you, I'll be in line, internet providing.

Maybe they have been working on it sense the epic fail last year. I can hope...

[Psiandron]

This^^

More werewolves...less emo cyberpunk looking chain fantatics

This ^^ please.

[shores11]

Darn ... I was hoping you wished as I do that this event and all other events went away.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

Darn ... I was hoping you wished as I do that this event and all other events went away.

This is the only event that I see as a must play. It's the only event that would make me come back if I quit again, even if only for a 3 month stint.



It's crazy how the forums population is so far out of sync with the live server population. Everyone I speak to in-game loves Mabar, just hates the lag.



With the servers depopulated, Mabar should be much less laggy anyway. They couldn't afford server upgrades, but driving enough customers away will have the same result on lag.

[Thumbed_Servant]

Yes...yes I hope they have improved upon the performance of the event and Yes I hope they bring it back

[Ausdoerrt]

It's crazy how the forums population is so far out of sync with the live server population. Everyone I speak to in-game loves Mabar, just hates the lag.

Some of us hate the lag enough to not bother. Give me a bottle of excellent wine and I won't enjoy it - if you smash it to pieces and make me lick it off the floor.

I pretty much ragequit the game during Mabar 2013 because of the bad experience in the festival and the inability to play normally outside the fest.

I also dislike the way most of the events are designed in DDO: all-or-nothing, farm to death. IMO, a festival should be something you do for a bit every day then move on to do other things in the game. Or perhaps a challenge that you practice to succeed, not a repetitive auto-complete. Not all rewards have to be game-related, too - why not cosmetics, unique pets etc.? I hear that events in DDO were not always this way, what I read on the wiki about older festivals sounds very fun. Perhaps it's time to look back and/or take some pointers from GW2 and NW on how to design fun events.

With the servers depopulated, Mabar should be much less laggy anyway. They couldn't afford server upgrades, but driving enough customers away will have the same result on lag.

I personally haven't noticed significant population flight over the past year, it's more of a slow, gradual process. DDOracle pretty much confirms this.

[psteen1]

For the past three years, I've quit DDO for numerous months after Mabar, and eventually come back after feeling the itch again. There is something about Mabar that just makes me... feel the futility of playing a MMO. I'm not sure what it is.

In any case, I'll be avoiding it entirely this year, so I don't start to philosophize about the meaning of my life and why I waste so much time playing this game.

I'll be happier to just stay in the normal quests and keep my brain from wandering.

[Vulkoorex]

I've never played Mabar before. So yes I would like it back.

[Saekee]

I love mabar and special events in general. I recommend the following:
1) spread the event out to different locations. So there will be a Mabar influence in, say, Xorian Cypher where you can get shinies. Like with Crystal Cove where dubloons drop with the drink anywhere one massacres kobolds. I would even make shinies location-specific, i.e. the ruby is now dropping in end chest in x quest. Choose rarely run quests (well, that eliminates my Xorian Cypher example)
2) add slayer xp to the wilderness area so that one is not just doing it for the event
3) rotate the beasties! e.g. mondays--werewolves; tuesdays, skellies; Wednesdays, Zombies etc
4) Have the dragon appear as a rare spawn instead of the special fight as is? Not sure of this. Maybe add a mechanic? Or Have the dragon in the challenges drop scales?
5) Make tricksy stuff cheap. It is funny when someone runs into a tavern and makes everyone a pumpkin head
6) Include cosmetic gear that can be obtained that is Mabar specific, eg make your winter wolf form look like a werewolf; offer vampire cosmetic clothes; etc
7) allow free mirror of glammering that expires at end of event. This way everyone gets in costume.
8) trick or treat saga--do a saga series on either vanquish or devious cunning for separate awards (another example of spreading it out)

Any other ideas? Thoughts on these? Thx if you read this far

[Hoglum]

Heck yeah to Mabar! I hope they fix it. Maybe separating parties that go into different instances would help. I noticed sometimes parties I'm in go into different dragon dungeons. Not sure if this contributes to lag though. Either way I hope they find a solution. They had said it has something to do with the gargoyles.

Yes to werewolves too.

Big fat giant NO! to Shadork Kai's as well.

[Amundir]

Didn't they say last year after closing it that they figured out a not-small amount of lag was being caused by the effects on the umbrel gargoyles? So maybe they'll improve that since they identified it.

[Faltout]

I think the devs said they will bring a new event. Not sure if it's instead of Mabar, but what they said is:
"The new event will be what people love doing: Opening Chests!"

[Cordovan]

We will be replacing the Mabar Festival of Endless Night with a new event, currently scheduled to debut sometime after the release of Update 24 (not this next update; the one after it.) The new event is likely to make its debut after the new year. We're not yet ready to provide details about the event, other than the hint provided in the Producer's Letter from July, but we can say that the event's items will be the items from Mabar. At this time we have not been able to recover the Mabar festival in a way that addresses the issues with it and allow for its return.

Regarding Crystal Cove, we're planning to run the event this year with the new tier of loot around the time that Mabar would normally arrive. The plan for the future is to have the new event run around the time that we used to run Mabar.

[Loromir]

We will be replacing the Mabar Festival of Endless Night with a new event, currently scheduled to debut sometime after the release of Update 24 (not this next update; the one after it.) The new event is likely to make its debut after the new year. We're not yet ready to provide details about the event, other than the hint provided in the Producer's Letter from July, but we can say that the event's items will be the items from Mabar. At this time we have not been able to recover the Mabar festival in a way that addresses the issues with it and allow for its return.

Regarding Crystal Cove, we're planning to run the event this year with the new tier of loot around the time that Mabar would normally arrive. The plan for the future is to have the new event run around the time that we used to run Mabar.

This is disappointing. I really like Mabar...Warts and all. The theme and the mood around Halloween and the graveyard...just made it fun.


EDIT...maybe you could remove the Spectral Dragon fight and just give us a way to farm up materials to make the gear.


I'm really depressed now.

[psteen1]

We will be replacing the Mabar Festival of Endless Night with a new event, currently scheduled to debut sometime after the release of Update 24 (not this next update; the one after it.) The new event is likely to make its debut after the new year. We're not yet ready to provide details about the event, other than the hint provided in the Producer's Letter from July, but we can say that the event's items will be the items from Mabar. At this time we have not been able to recover the Mabar festival in a way that addresses the issues with it and allow for its return.

Regarding Crystal Cove, we're planning to run the event this year with the new tier of loot around the time that Mabar would normally arrive. The plan for the future is to have the new event run around the time that we used to run Mabar.

No Mabar. Some will be sad, but I applaud this decision. Looking forward to the new event in 2015!

[Loromir]

No Mabar. Some will be sad, but I applaud this decision. Looking forward to the new event in 2015!

I'm hoping the new event will be a recycled Mabar minus the Spectral Dragon while adding some new, less laggy mechanic to still allow us for compete.


My fondest memories of Mabar were running around the graveyard spawning various undead. Pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns everywhere. Skeletons, Zombies, Wights, Mummies and Liches (No Shadar Kai)....it just oozed halloween.

The Spectral Dragon Raid was just a means to get scales. They could replace that with anything...I don't care. But give us back the Graveyard.

[Ovrad]

I'm glad you guys do acknowledge how broken Mabar is. The horrible lag in there has been ignored for quite some time.

However, I'm a little surprised the whole thing is getting scrapped. Seems like you could've done some changes to fix it,
-Like redesign the place to have only 2 rooms instead of 4 (and limiting the groups to raid size),
-cut the number of trash spawns inside (instead of dozens of gargoyles, just spawn 1 stronger mob),
-or making it so the dragon instances aren't all created at once by changing the mechanic (have people flag individually, say turn in 25 items, to get a "buff" that opens the instance)

[silinteresting]

We will be replacing the Mabar Festival of Endless Night with a new event, currently scheduled to debut sometime after the release of Update 24 (not this next update; the one after it.) The new event is likely to make its debut after the new year. We're not yet ready to provide details about the event, other than the hint provided in the Producer's Letter from July, but we can say that the event's items will be the items from Mabar. At this time we have not been able to recover the Mabar festival in a way that addresses the issues with it and allow for its return.

Regarding Crystal Cove, we're planning to run the event this year with the new tier of loot around the time that Mabar would normally arrive. The plan for the future is to have the new event run around the time that we used to run Mabar.

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooo

your friend sil