[EM Fiction] Meanwhile in Felucca... (Part 5)

[EM Emile Layne]

Meanwhile in Felucca... (Part 5)

Lord Herbert Luxford rubbed his hands as he walked to his offices in Nujel'm Palace. He skipped a step, but then quickly straightened his composure. He was so excited, he could barely contain himself!
"Harry! Harry, walk with me!" Herbert said to his son, who was hanging out at the gate to Nujel'm Palace as usual.
Herbert continued in a hushed voice, "Gather some mercenaries for our next mission. It will be soon..."
"Alright father," Harry replied.
Herbert looked at his son intently, "Can I count on you Harry? I don't want to miss out on this shipment!"
"What will we be stealing this time?" Harry asked with a slight worry on his face.
"The less you know the better..." Herbert looked around to make sure nobody was around to hear them, "But... It is a shipment for the Museum of Vesper. Needless to say they are very valuable items."
Harry nodded, "I understand father, I won't let you down."


OOC Information
Lord Herbert Luxford and his son Harry Luxford can be found at the Palace of Nujel'm, Felucca. Have a word with them and see if maybe you can help each other.
These events take place entirely in Felucca.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

"What will we be stealing this time?"? Does it mean we will actually be able to use our thieves? For the first time in years?

 

[EM Emile Layne]

The 'Meanwhile in Felucca' events are, quite obviously, set in Felucca, so thieves can play a role in them. But, the object of these events is to find a transport, take out the guards and any competition you may run it to and get away with the loot. They weren't designed with thieves in mind specifically, sorry.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Thought so... I was just hoping at least some of the loot would have been inside the NPCs backpacks, so snoopable and stealable... or at least cursed so it would be stealable from other players

 

[EM Emile Layne]

Those of you who haven't visited Herbert and Harry yet, should do so before 8pm tonight

 

[Wizal the Fox]

You asked for feedback in the book: here is one: It took 4.5 hours and I had no fun at all.

1) Few mobs with a gazillion of HPs, making it extremely easy for PK guilds to control the few targets. In Fel the exact opposite should have been done: more mobs but which could be disposed of quicker, much like a champ spawn, not like a peerless where there is no chance to finish a target you engage before every single PK of the shard knows.

2) Like last time, it was PKs vs stealthers, only this time, thanks to the stupid Lethal Poison area, it was close to impossible for the stealthers to do anything: even if you succeeded to grab something you were lvl 5 poisoned before you could rehide, making you a super easy target for the already overnumbered PKs.

3) The dogs had no loot, only the guards did. As if it wasn't unfair enough to have to kill both the mobs and survive the PKs, you had no incentive for doing so with the dogs.

4) While you could snoop to see them, none of the rewards were stealables, again giving a huge advantage to PKs (thieves have always been the PKs worst nightmares)

I believe there were 9 rewards "crafted by Julia, A True Antique": 3 chairs, 3 tables and 3 armoires, one of each in the locked crate and the other 6 on the guards.
I actually had one of the first ones from the guards (a table), but with the near-perma lethal poison I couldnt get away from the gazillion of PKs.
In the end I got another one (an Armoire this time) since after all the PK kids went to bed we came back to kill the remaining guards, but the fact that not a single Blue got away with a reward before the Reds left proves again that there is something wrong with the design of the event.

Reds always have a huge advantage by beeing able to focus their template on PvP while Blues have to be able to kill the mobs, but here they also have a huge advantage by having the event at a known time, a known place, and during peak hours, something that they can't do with champ spawns (any smart Blue perfectly knows the only way to do champs is when kids are in bed or at school).

In the end Reds outnumbered Blues about 3 to 1. And again, the swamp with Lethal Poison was making the situation even more unbalanced by compromising stealthers, the only ones which would have had a slight chance of survival. The result was not PvP but mere pointless mass murdering.

Actually I believe the only way to correct the balance would be to do the exact opposite and have the events in the middle of Pixies, Kirins and Unicorns.

 

[Maleachi]

I see your point there friend Wizal, however I can not agree with you completely.

Twas the 5th part of a string of events, I missed but one and I saw the following happen;
#1. One PvP guild showed up with it's blue counterpart and a few WoY. Awards went to the "One" guild.
#2. Missed this one.
#3. Two PvP guilds showed up and a blue guild which doesn't shy PvP. A number of stealthers around, everyone got a reward.
#4. Two PvP guilds showed up, one with it's blue counterpart and a number of stealthers around. Awards were divided by the stealthers and blue guild.
#5. Plenty PvP guilds showed up and it was a good fight. I saw lots of blues in between as well, no idea who got the rewards.

In all fairness, is this really all about the "rewards"? Are these events designed to give some PvM players some "event items"?
Is trammel not a good enough place already to get event items for blue players?
People showed up in felucca, red, blue, orange. There were fights, people had fun.
I was around for over an hour and in that hour not many blues got killed cause the PvPers only focussed on eachother.

From what I read, you got a reward, maybe even 2, out of 9?
I saw plenty people there, plenty reds and oranges and I doubt ANY of them got a reward.
Why? Cause they were trying to fend off other players trying to dominate the event.
You want to stealth in quickly, kill some guards off and take 6 out of 9 rewards without being detected it seems.
I doubt this is how it was intended.

You know well how it goes in Felucca cause you spend plenty time there.
So come prepared!
No offense intended friend Wizal.

 

[jack flash uk]

For me, I only managed a few fleeting visists due to real life calls! but , as I have said before, its is somewhat impressive as a blue evasion fel stealther, to see 2.0 SWARM in, all diff templates,(wish i could make videos) I make DAMN sure I stand VERY still as they pass! with this in mind, as everyone will know I love shinies, my attention switches to watching the show , oh and high tailing it outta there when I am found!
I wont comment negatively on the PVP or running of such event as this is not my arena.....

Great Stuff

now give me shinies!!!!!

 

[Myphsar]

I was there from the start as usual, saw plenty of people come and go.
I do beleive there was 8 rewards, 5 on Guards, 3 on Caravan (2 Thrones/2 Chair/2 Writing table/2 Armoir)
Myself, i managed to get 3 (i gave them to a friend )
Good event, even if it was 4 hours+ (and thats only because PK's were patrolling)

 

[funkymonkey]

I learnt that TB, SL and any other random blue needs to team up to kill 2.0.

Long and hard fight, killed waves after waves of faction players.

Long live 2.0!

 

[Heimi]

Wave after wave..?

 

[funkymonkey]

Yer that too!

 

[PJay]

Har har! Lol!!

This event was spot on! my only slight complaint was the guards were untouchable!

However this event has nothing to do with rewards its all about the pvp and so it should be! its about everyone in fel meeting in a mass battlefield. Fox this isnt really built for stealthers only and i would urge the em to keep the area poison to preserve the time it takes for this event to be achieved.

Unfortunatly i had to goto bed so i didnt know the outcome but am i peeved about no reward?.... Naw it was a good time and good to see SL and TB outnumber us 2 - 1 and they all died! lol.

Eventually when people went to bed we had 4 people vs 10+ oh well it was fun!

Thanks to all who made it possible!

 

[EM Emile Layne]

I'm sorry you feel that way Wizal.

I told you beforehand this event wasn't designed for thieves though. And pretty much all of your complaints are purely from a thieves' perspective. So once again, I'm sorry, but there's little I can do, within the spirit of the event, to 'fix' those issues.

If you have a good idea for an event for Thieves, I'm always willing to listen (email or PM me).


What I read from the comments in this thread; the event went off as planned. I saw several different guilds from different factions fight for control over the transport and its spoils. And that was the intent. Like PJay said: "its about everyone in fel meeting in a mass battlefield".
The guards, I made them tough on purpose. To make sure the fight would last long enough for more than one guild to mobilize. But... 4,5 hours is a bit much! So I'll scale it down a little for next time.

In the near future we'll have another meeting in Felucca. To discuss where we want to take things from here.

 

[funkymonkey]

Excellent news, maybe a timer on the "prize" would be good, but make it like a champ spawn level system maybe?, Example would be low level creatures spawn with in the first say 15 mins, after that a 2nd level of spawn comes for 15 mins, so on a so fourth each time they get harder and it makes it harder to defend from attacking guilds until the prize is released? I dunno sort of has a pvp element and pvm element to it.

Then again the only issue with that would be no one would come till right at the end?

 

[Wizal the Fox]

What I read from the comments in this thread; the event went off as planned. I saw several different guilds from different factions fight for control over the transport and its spoils. And that was the intent. Like PJay said: "its about everyone in fel meeting in a mass battlefield".

That's fine. If this was the intent, I guess you succeeded.
But I hope that you realize that by reducing any Fel event to large groups of Reds battling each others and killing the few "lost" Blues on sight, you are just feeding every misconception about Fel that has made most of the players flee to Tram over the years.
Just FYI, within the first minutes of the event, I received several messages from the 2 red guilds I shall not name calling for a temporary alliance to mess up the event. I'm not even sure you realize that while you design the Fel events basically only for them (thus ignoring the traditional Fel Blue players), they still despise you.

As for thieves, you said beforehand the event wasn't designed with thieves in mind but that they could play a role, but I beg to differ: you designed it so the items were unstealables and the area unstealthable, so I would say it was actually specifically designed precisely AGAINST thieves, not just ignoring them.
Of course you can get away with it since we are so few, while if you had done the same kind of move against Reds, like filling the area with 50 unicorns constantly respawning, you would be flamed to death over this board.

However this event has nothing to do with rewards its all about the pvp and so it should be!

Surely you realize that without the rewards, there wouldn't be a single Blue there, and thus basically no event but just 2 Red groups battling each others.
And even with the rewards, I hardly would call PvP a gazillion of Reds murdering a few Blues, stuck on foot (because of the total requirement of RCs/GDs vs the badly designed mobs) and unable to hide (thanks to the stupid Lethal Poison area).

God I so much miss Garriott's vision of the game, where there was no Tram but life in Fel was made extremely hard for Reds!
Hopefully with pub75 it might get a little better, thanks to noob Reds beeing unable to equip godlike equipment anymore without working hard to get it.

 

[PJay]

Plenty of Blues turned up and had a go at PvP that is something i admire and this is a perfect way to engage them to have a go. Theres nothing of major value to loose and theres also enough pvpers there that they arnt insta killed everytime they attempt pvp.

Also you should have noticed faction fighting TB and SL vs Min then i believe COM vs TB and SL so tbh i dont this this event could have got any closer to its intended audience!

The current setup from what ive seen has been excellent i see no need to change anything the rewards should be next to useless in value and so its clear to all from the outset this is a fel pvp battle field beware!

As for the equipment comment from Fox this hasnt been the case for a while my current setup with faction arties only gives me 10 dci and 3mr extra from a normal suit since shame this became nullified. With the new reforging and suit ive made i wont even require the faction arties anymore and will have a far superior suit.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

As for the equipment comment from Fox this hasnt been the case for a while my current setup with faction arties only gives me 10 dci and 3mr extra from a normal suit since shame this became nullified. With the new reforging and suit ive made i wont even require the faction arties anymore and will have a far superior suit.

Don't take everything in a personal way, try to see the big picture: the fact is that without the ability to build a quick cheap template with cheap faction arties, it will hurt a lot the noob Reds, thus reducing back the Reds to what they always should have remained: a MINORITY of hardcore very good players with lot of experience in the game and a lot of char/equipment development. While it is true that high end reforged suits are the way to go, I can tell you very firsthand that they are nothing like the stupid faction arties: they aren't easy or cheap to make.

 

[PJay]

Using the reforging system correctly isnt costly at all infact its stupidly cheap when you think about how the runics used to function.

I didnt take this personally but was merely pointing out the faction arties are mostly redundant as of the reforging addition.

The big picture btw is this game is now item based and so this means to be the best you need to have the best.