Curse

actionjack · Sep 19, 2006, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Journal Into New Land #3 - Monster Raid

(Forward: Here is a complication of several idea suggestions, written in a journal like format. (I think the scribes copied me J) This one focus more on the idea of Monster Raid type of mission, as well as boss/mob/mission improvements. The ideas, from me or taken from others, are mostly embedded into the journal, but some are in ( ) for easier finding. Also I am not a very good writer, so please by pass the numerous spelling or grammatical mistakes. Also it is just a summary of ideas, so don't worry too much about details... that could be in thread of its own. Thanks for reading)

I was in the game one day, just messing around, messaging few friends over the chat box, and about to go on some farming run, when I see a new message box pop up (Messenger Chat System*). Its my guildsmate, Chi, and she ask if I want to join playing the Monster Raid Mission. Well, since I never played that before, quickly I say sure, grabbing few buddies to go with me as well.

We meet outside at an outpost call “Entrance to Mineshaft of Rockleed”. There we see lots people gathered already. It is a (Time Access Mission), meaning it will open up at certain time, which if the condition is meet, that if enough player are able to slay bunch of monster around this area, than the mission will open up once every few hours. I guess it would be an easier way to gather large amount player at one time, for a large group mission like this. Well, since we still have minutes to kill, we decided to help with the cause and make a group to go outside and slay some monsters. After 10 min or so of randomly killing, we figure it is time, and went back to the outpost to start our mission.

We group in a group of 6. Well, that is a small group, I thought, but than Chi later explain to me that once enter, we will be match up with 4 other group, making it 30 player. Once we are ready, we hit the ready button (Ready Button*), and we are on our way.

Just as Chi said, we spawn, with 4 other group. We quickly say hi to each other, and divided up on which group to go where.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the back story. It seems that the whole Dwarf Mine of Rockleed is been taken over by an evil Beholder Cord Tyrant. The few miners that made it out alive manage to shut the evil monster inside the mine, but now they seek heroes to help them reclaim it.

Oh, and did I mention this mission is also timed? So we only have 45min to defeat the Beholder Cord Tyrant or suffer defeat.

So we enter into the mine. We quickly face few large group of monster, the Beholded Dwarf Miner, who’s brain has been gauged and is now control by the beholders, who act as warriors, as well as few Vision Beholder who are caster type. The pose little trouble to the cumulative work of our large group and our Dwarf Allies. But The Beholded Dwarf is a very interesting enemy, for when defeated, the Eye Stalk, the thing that is parasited on them, come off their head. They are very weak, but they have a special ability of Mind Control, which will turn a ally to enemy. So there are few times in which we are attacking our own team members, to get the Eye Stalk off them.

After few fights, we come to a cross path. Onward is a large gate blocking the area to the deeper mines. To open it, we must escort 4 Dwarven Engineers down the 4 branching tunnels for them to fix the opening mechanism. While it would be easy if we all go as one, but it would mean lots back track time. And since few members are pretty confident of them self, we quickly split into 4 groups, with one group having 2 teams, and quickly went down the way. (Splitting Team)

The first few part wasn’t bad, but than around the midpoints, we face a deep darkness. “Tis A magical blackness cast by da damn Eyeballs”, our Dwarf engineer said, “Yar need get yarself some magical touch, if you hope to make it down that road. Come Tis way”. Since it would very bad to know not which way to go and attack by unseen enemies, we follow him to a side chamber where they store the magical touch. After clearing out the room, Me and Chi was assigned as the touch holder, with a warning from other “Don’t Drop IT!”. So we back track, and with our touch, we can see a short distance into this darkness, enough to defend against the enemy there. We come across a nasty Spawning Nest there, which keep on spawning more Beholders and Eye Stalk. “Killing” the Nest will only stop it from spawning for short while. There is also a boss Beholder there, which is causing the darkness, but since it is not necessary and to save time, we didn’t bother attacking it. Chi got attacked, and was forced to drop her touch. Good thing I still got mine.

We pass on though the dark area. There is the opening Mechanism, guarded by few boss Beholders, lots enemy, and two Spawning Nest. It’s a hard hard battle, but we manage to win the day. Just as we are rejoicing and letting the Engineer do his job, we got a depressing message. The other team are doing fairly, but one of the team seem got all but whip out. Good thing that there is still plenty of time, so other team who finished their objective quickly back track to that tunnel to help them. We too made our retreat, but almost run into big trouble when running pass the darkness area, for I dropped touch while back, and the spawn nest is respawning. Guess we should of take out that boss beholder earlier, but now we have no choice but to run. Sadly, our Dwarf engineer die on that run, but at least other team still have theirs. With the might of 4 other teams, they quickly clear the last remaining tunnel, run back to the main gate, and enter it to the next zone.

The time is running short. The next zone is a net work of maze like tunnels. This part is randomly generated (Randomly Generated Dungeon), so no one really know which way is which. We need to find the main key, and the second gate, which are spread thought out. So again we split the group into 3, and split up to look for those two things. There were few mobs and spawning nest, which prove not too troublesome, but there are few things like the Screeching Mushroom, which cause cave in, or the explosive barrels that lies around, that are new to me. (Environmental Danger) It was also fun to run into another group in those labyrinth of mine shafts. We got lucky, and the key and the gate is both not to far in, which help us save some time. All our team regroup, and we all go onto the final area.

Here are large caves that are already been tainted by the evilness of the beholder, as the rock walls are now cover by artery like bio-matters. In this large area, we were greeted by a large group mob, wave after wave. We manage to kill it all, and drive back many, by take out the leading Beholders (Mob AI), but suffer few casualties on outside as well. Finally, we reach the last room, where the Beholder Cord Tyrant lays. But before we go in, the more experience players who has been to this area assign each team with a job. Two teams are to keep the groups of spawning nests on the side in check,, while the rest will try to take out the smaller eye stalk first, before concentrated on the main body.

We enter, and wow, is that Tyrant huge. It take up one of the one whole wall of the room, with a impressive lv 52 and purple health bar. From the ground, there pops up several Tyrant’s branching eye stalks, which case different type of monk, necro, mes, and elm spells, with the wall of spawning nest ready to spawn. (Multi Part Grand Boss) We each move into our positions. We were doing a good job of take out the monk eye stalks, as well as the more damaging elem ones, when one of the team guarding against the next call for help. We rush to help them, and manage to keep them all shut again… for short while at least. Using this opportunity, we all fall on the central body of the Tyrant, which despite being big, can not move, and have much trouble doing attacking with all the interrupted we give him. Several of its eye stalks are still popping from the ground, and killing few of our teammates, but still we focus fire. The other nest guarding team finally falls, but not before we manage to give the Tyrant its fatal blow, just before the time almost run out! That was intense!

We collect our rewards, few got some nice rares and greens, some got a card or lore books (Collectible Items), and we each got few thousands of gold and good amount of experiences from completing the mission, as well as few Token Points (Token/Merc Reputation Points*), which we could use to later trade for other stuff too. I also got 2 new badge, “ Hero of Rockleed” and “slayer of Beholder Tyrant”, which goes into my badge window, and each give a nice description of this achievements. (Honor Badges) Also with the hero, I can now return to this outpost anytime I want, even when it is not under friend control, which is very helpful to help opening up this mission again later for other. Overall, it is a good play.

Demesis · Sep 19, 2006, 05:55 AM // 05:55

The beholded miner looks like he's being mind controlled by that eye stalk thingie... :P