Some thoughts about the Halloween stuff and quests.

[Prince Caspian]

1. The Khaldun story was pretty nifty. Some of the best storyline writing I've seen since the Candle Quest.

2. The Shadow Fiends are a real kick in the balls. Archers can't hurt the stupid things, but I notice meleers mop the floor with them. Any tips for archers to cope?

3. Crimson Dragons -- am I the only one not impressed? I mean sure, these guys are Peerless level baddies and neigh invunerable. And good golly miz molly, they hit damn hard. But the raining loot sucks (dont see why folks were so upset about this -- I could easily get 5x the loot in that time farming efreets or destard) and the corpse loot is really lousy as well. We did about six of them last night, and it REALLY didn't seem worth it, given all the deaths and trouble. Do they drop something special I just haven't got yet?

4. Last night in Minoc, Kevin the Butcher (from the Humility Quest) took matters into his own hands, put up his dukes and started to pull a Rocky Balboa on the Crimson Dragon. Hilarious! PAS and KVP all falling like flies around the Crimson, while an unarmored, unarmed doofus with a mohawk is throwing punches and not getting a scratch. Do these invunerable NPCs actually do any damage?

5. I keep notice an ominous "You have slain the innocent!" note when I kill a possessed NPC, even though they attacked me first and my char autodefended and killed them. I didn't get a murder count. Any idea how this is gonna take a karma-induced bite out of my ass later?

6. The stacking nature of the Shadow Fiends area of attack makes it instant death if you run past a group of them. And given the nature of Khaldun, they group up an awful lot. This seems totally bogus. I myself went from perfect health to the dirtnap 3-4 times before I realized what the hell was going on.

7. Trick or Treating. Ok, it's getting old. Start putting a little more effort into this, devs. It was a brilliant move when you first did it, but it's the same card every single hand, it seems.

8. Pumpkins. I did some pumpkin farming, and got a few black Jack O Lanterns, until I somberly realized that I have bags of these things from last year, and they are still worthless. Again, can we do something a bit different with them?

9. Skull Totems. I don't wanna drop my poison sac (a nifty little momento of this event) just to get an "atta boy" text. Do we get anything for doing it?

10. For this event, a lot of folks are ressing strangers more than usual on Sonoma. This is refreshing to see. I mean, come on, with 100% LRC and billions of bandies, is it really that hard to help someone out?

11. How many colors do the bats come in? I'm only seeing the brown and two shades of black.

12. What does the Skelelich drop other than the Conjurer Book and the Talisman? Anything good?

13. Anyone else having problems stacking treats? Arbitrarily, it just starts a new pile. In fact, I notice a lot of the items promised to stack in this latest patch still aren't stacking (choco ingredients, granite, etc)... nice to stack dough though.

14. Can you free yourself from Sickie's webs by using a dagger on the web? I could swear I did it once, but it never seems to work any more....

15. Mischief Maker works really good on the crimson dragons. Mostly because you never have to CW!

 

[hawkeye_pike]

1. The Khaldun story was pretty nifty. Some of the best storyline writing I've seen since the Candle Quest.

Yes, the quest is good, but a little too easy, to my opinion. I liked the Royal Council Murder quest better. I'm happy that they finally made the change so you have to visit all quest stations in order to get the reward.

2. The Shadow Fiends are a real kick in the balls. Archers can't hurt the stupid things, but I notice meleers mop the floor with them. Any tips for archers to cope?

There's one simple trick: Stand right next to it when you fight it (no matter if you're melee, archer or mage), and MAKE SURE no other creature is near, or you will die instantly.

3. Crimson Dragons -- am I the only one not impressed? I mean sure, these guys are Peerless level baddies and neigh invunerable. And good golly miz molly, they hit damn hard. But the raining loot sucks (dont see why folks were so upset about this -- I could easily get 5x the loot in that time farming efreets or destard) and the corpse loot is really lousy as well. We did about six of them last night, and it REALLY didn't seem worth it, given all the deaths and trouble. Do they drop something special I just haven't got yet?

I am impressed. I mean, the way they fight, the spells they cast, it is just IMPRESSIVE. The loot is lousy, but that's not the point. It is just fun fighting them.

5. I keep notice an ominous "You have slain the innocent!" note when I kill a possessed NPC, even though they attacked me first and my char autodefended and killed them. I didn't get a murder count. Any idea how this is gonna take a karma-induced bite out of my ass later?

I don't think that message has any meaning. If you have doubts, don't slay the innocent.

6. The stacking nature of the Shadow Fiends area of attack makes it instant death if you run past a group of them. And given the nature of Khaldun, they group up an awful lot. This seems totally bogus. I myself went from perfect health to the dirtnap 3-4 times before I realized what the hell was going on.

Well, people should be careful and not run blindly into their doom. Then Shadow Fiends are not really a problem. I always have to laugh when I see people dying like flies while trying to loot the Skeletal Lich, instead of getting rid of the Fiends first.

7. Trick or Treating. Ok, it's getting old. Start putting a little more effort into this, devs. It was a brilliant move when you first did it, but it's the same card every single hand, it seems.

I pass on this.

8. Pumpkins. I did some pumpkin farming, and got a few black Jack O Lanterns, until I somberly realized that I have bags of these things from last year, and they are still worthless. Again, can we do something a bit different with them?

My house is full already. Don't need those pumpkins.

9. Skull Totems. I don't wanna drop my poison sac (a nifty little momento of this event) just to get an "atta boy" text. Do we get anything for doing it?

If you organize, you could destroy a graveyard spawn and finally get rid of those hated Shadow Fiends. But it probably takes A LOT of poison.

10. For this event, a lot of folks are ressing strangers more than usual on Sonoma. This is refreshing to see. I mean, come on, with 100% LRC and billions of bandies, is it really that hard to help someone out?

It is because people are dying a lot more.

12. What does the Skelelich drop other than the Conjurer Book and the Talisman? Anything good?

Apart from conjurer's items, I've only seen crap.

14. Can you free yourself from Sickie's webs by using a dagger on the web? I could swear I did it once, but it never seems to work any more....

No, you can't. You can destroy her spawning cocoons with a dagger to avoid dread spider spawn.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Well, people should be careful and not run blindly into their doom. Then Shadow Fiends are not really a problem. I always have to laugh when I see people dying like flies while trying to loot the Skeletal Lich, instead of getting rid of the Fiends first.

I remember one Crimson Dragon death where there was still a fire field up. We all ran in and several of us (including myself, admittedly) died while looting.

I still remember, as I was re-equipping, thinking, man... if that wasn't a lesson of how greed can do you in, I don't know what is.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

1. The Khaldun story was pretty nifty. Some of the best storyline writing I've seen since the Candle Quest.

The whole thing although solved by the time it hit prod shards still had bugs, the same bugs it had on TC.

I don't understand why they put things on TC when they don't fix the stuff that gets reported before it goes to prod shards.

2. The Shadow Fiends are a real kick in the balls. Archers can't hurt the stupid things, but I notice meleers mop the floor with them. Any tips for archers to cope?

I'm amazed how many people still don't get how to fight these (not having a go at you specifically), the more stuff it leeches from the more it heals. They only take proper damage from non ranged attacks. Although the trend seems to be just to lure them off all over UO (found a trail almost from yew to skara!)... so to generalize they need to be 1v1'd not at range... if you try to fight it not at range and a load of people keep letting it leech off them you won't be able to kill it.

3. Crimson Dragons -- Do they drop something special I just haven't got yet?

They drop crimsons cinctures.

7. Trick or Treating. Ok, it's getting old. Start putting a little more effort into this, devs. It was a brilliant move when you first did it, but it's the same card every single hand, it seems.

I agree, a lot of people haven't even bothered with it this year.

8. Pumpkins. I did some pumpkin farming, and got a few black Jack O Lanterns, until I somberly realized that I have bags of these things from last year, and they are still worthless. Again, can we do something a bit different with them?

I think the thing to remember with certain content is that it's not going to be worth a fortune years later sometimes it's just for decor, after haloween I wouldn't waste the storage. (Not that I use them anyway... but some people do)

9. Skull Totems. I don't wanna drop my poison sac (a nifty little momento of this event) just to get an "atta boy" text. Do we get anything for doing it?

No, nothing. I was annoyed I'd already wasted mine when I found out but then some cool person gave me another one!

11. How many colors do the bats come in? I'm only seeing the brown and two shades of black.

I thought there was only black and brown (1 of each).

12. What does the Skelelich drop other than the Conjurer Book and the Talisman? Anything good?

Not really but they do seem to drop a lot of high % fire weapons which goes nice with the talisman.

 

[Gheed]

9. Skull Totems. I don't wanna drop my poison sac (a nifty little momento of this event) just to get an "atta boy" text. Do we get anything for doing it?

No, nothing. I was annoyed I'd already wasted mine when I found out but then some cool person gave me another one!

You can get more sacs from Sicarii if you fight her again.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

"You can get more sacs from Sicarii if you fight her again."

Ah I didn't know that thanks. I have 2 now hehe.

 

[Flora Green]

7. Trick or Treating. Ok, it's getting old. Start putting a little more effort into this, devs. It was a brilliant move when you first did it, but it's the same card every single hand, it seems.

Unless trying for the web (of which I haven't found ANY for sale on Origin ), what's the point?

8. Pumpkins. I did some pumpkin farming, and got a few black Jack O Lanterns, until I somberly realized that I have bags of these things from last year, and they are still worthless. Again, can we do something a bit different with them?

I like the pumpkins, but I don't need tons of dev named pumpkins. Would rather have my character's names especially since I have newly created ones. Maybe a mix of dev AND player named pumpkins and a change in color would be better. Keep the rarity of the black pumpkins and add some green or cream.

11. How many colors do the bats come in? I'm only seeing the brown and two shades of black.

Where do you get these?

13. Anyone else having problems stacking treats? Arbitrarily, it just starts a new pile. In fact, I notice a lot of the items promised to stack in this latest patch still aren't stacking (choco ingredients, granite, etc)... nice to stack dough though.

I do not know now how many times I have asked about the chocolate ingredients without getting an answer. And I'm not the only inquiring about it. In fact, some of us were asking BEFORE the publish. What's worse is there were responses (if I remember correctly) from Dev(s) in the SAME threads that just glossed over the chocolate questions. Nice communication. Would be nice to know why pre-pub items aren't stacking either.

15. Mischief Maker works really good on the crimson dragons. Mostly because you never have to CW!

Thanks for the tip.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Trick Or Treat -- The main reason I make it a point to trick or treat is because treats are stackable. When you deal with a stackable item in UO, 1 takes up just as much space a 1,000,000,000,000 -- so you have absolutely nothing to lose hoarding huge numbers of them.... and sure enough, they came in handy (even if marginally so) during the cleanup. Packrat mentality, I guess


Bats -- Kill some of the baddies around the graveyards, but only the new kinds of undead (spectral armors, red brigands, fiends -- the old school undead dont drop them) and you get a chance of a bat statue drop. Seems to be around 1 in 20. A word of warning -- only by killing the red brigands will the bat be secure for you to loot. The others will just drop it on the ground for anyone to take.

Stacking Issues -- Ok, so if the past 1,000 times have been any indication, if the devs ignore the question, either they have no idea how to fix it or can't be bothered to. So they'll just wait for you to give up asking. Don't expect to see it fixed any time soon in that case.

 

[Flora Green]

Thanks for the bat tip. Maybe I can sneek in a little bit of playtime instead of cleaning my dining room. I missed out on the ghoul statue so I really hope to get a couple of bats.

Agree on the treats stacking. But, there were so many from the past two years I decided to dump them for points. Still missed a bag on a lesser played character.

 

[cucujanu]

there are 10 different threads of each (fate,life and thought)
if u got ss and double click an them they will give u different messages.
only the ones with the same message stuck.
so, they don't stuck for a reason.

 

[Basara]

Out of my 3 bats, two were from others' killing of Fiends, where they never went back to check for a bat under the pile of gold (even though you can usually SEE the bat sticking out) - I made sure to wait 10 seconds before grabbing.