Pumping Irony

The mayor and citizens of Korthos Village are excited and grateful that we have rescued several villagers whom the Devourer cult had recently kidnapped for indoctrination into their cult, as well as foiling the cults’ plans to awaken a gelatinous beast frozen by the giants thousands of years ago (an ancient minion of the Devourer god?) and their attempt to form an army of undead re-animated by the cult’s necromancers. Cowardly turncoat Jacoby Drexelhand has gotten his just rewards and the wizard Lars Heyton, last surviving member of his family who always led the charge against the sahuagin, has a plan to break the cult’s hold over the white dragon which should weaken the sahuagin and their cult.

Lars asks that we journey across the island to Misery’s Peak, where his warforged companion Amalgam awaits us. Misery’s Peak is the tallest mountain on the island, all the way to to the southeast corner. The closer we get, the colder the temperature and the land is more covered with snow and ice. The white dragon must have made the mountain its home! Climbing a snow-covered hill, we’re attacked by a few ice spiders, another new monster introduced with Module 8, then we come across a makeshift camp with a dwarf vendor Ves trying vainly to warm himself by the campfire. He tells us the warforged, Amalgam, has been awaiting our arrival. Amalgam, who we see pacing at the other side of the camp, says his master Lars Heyton is inside the mouth of Misery’s Peak and directs us up a narrow pathway leading into the the mouth of Misery’s Peak.

Occasionally the white dragon itself can be seen flying a circuitous patrol over Korthos Island! The dragon stays far overhead but is well-animated and moves very quickly. The dragon has actually been occasionally visible at various places on Korthos Island, including when we first washed up on Shipwreck Shore, but I waited until I was actually writing about the Misery’s Peak phase of the tutorial to mention it.

Stepping into the cave leading into the depths of Misery’s Peak, we see Lars Heyton along with our merry band of Hirelings again! Two corridors lead in opposite directions, each with a magical barrier preventing entry. Lars shares with us that an Illithid is bending the dragon’s mind to its will, forcing it to ally itself to the sahuagin and their Devourer cult. Normally dragons should be immune to such things, but this mind flayer has a Quori artifact — the Mindsunder — which amplifies its innate psychic powers and enables it to overcome the dragon’s natural defenses. Lars’ plan is to have Cellimas, Jeets and Talbron draw attention to themselves while we find and destroy the Mindsunder, freeing the dragon from the illithid’s mind-control. Lars drops the barrier to the left corridor and Cellimas leads the charge as the Hirelings rush into enemy forces to distract them away from us. He then drops the barrier to the other corridor, provides a magical defense to prevent the mind flayer from detecting our presence, and sends us headlong into Korthos’ final destiny.

Misery’s Peak

Like the Korthos Island wilderness landscape, Misery’s Peak is all-new content created just for the new tutorial. It starts off feeling and looking like the normal DDO dungeon crawls we’ve done so far, with narrow corridors but the further we explore into this huge dungeon, the more it expands until eventually opening into a massive open chamber where we climb up and along narrow ledges to dizzying heights, reminiscent of some of most memorable locations in the Tomb Raider games. Throughout each phase of the tutorial, we’ve seen gradually new and bigger things, and here in the Korthos story’s climax, Turbine pulled out all the stops and cranked it to eleven with Misery’s Peak.

The first narrow corridor begins a gradual descent into the depths of the mountain where more cultists and their zombies await us. We find a glowing pedestal with several humanoids frozen in contorted poses. If we smash the ice or simply stand near them too long (perhaps our body heat is enough to thaw them somewhat?) the pedestal sends beams of energy to each figure, animating as a zombie. Defeating the zombies eliminates the pedestal’s source of un-life energy, lowering it’s glowing shield. Stepping onto the pedestal activates its pressure plate, sending a blue-ish beam of energy further up the corridor where we find another frozen zombie-guarded pedestal. This pedestal sends its beam into the runes inscribed above the nearby doorway, dropping its magical barrier into a huge cavernous chamber. Another door blocks our path with two signal gems embedded into the walls. We turn and begin climbing the treacherous rocks and ledges higher and higher as we seek the locations of the switches to activate the signal gems. Looking up, we can make out a large rune-covered pillar protruding from the ceiling high above. As we make our way along the maze-like icy catwalks and rocky ledges, we find more pedestals, some of which send their energy into the runic pillar above. It’s runes glow with colorful energies as it sends a powerful stream of magical energy across the cavern. Gradually we make our way to the beam’s destination, where it has lowered a magical barrier matching its color and allowing us access to a signal gem lever. Further exploration, climbing up, down and around the cavern reveal two more pedestals that power the runic pillar. One of the chambers opened by the pillar’s magic holds Frostbite, and orange-named ice spider miniboss who guards a chest. The other chamber houses the a lever that activates the second signal gem, and we hear the stone door below rolling open.

Descending further into the next tunnel, we suddenly come face to face with the white dragon Aussircaex herself! (The name struck me as appropriate for a female dragon, so I’m going with it.) She’s resting on an icy platform across a deep chasm opposite where we enter. She senses our entry and begins stirring just as Cellimas, Jeets and Talbron rush her from a tunnel nearby and engage her in combat! Cellimas and Talbron cast all sorts of spells while Jeets stabs away as Aussircaex swipes and sprays short breaths of icy mist at them. Suddenly a door on our side of the chasm swings open and cultists, hearing the roar of combat, rush inside and see us! While we’re busy fighting the cultists the band of Hirelings run down another tunnel, Aussircaex angrily chasing them.

Through the door the cultists came from, we descend still lower into the cave where ghouls and wights, along with the necromancer masters, await us. Eventually we arrive in a chamber with a translucent icy floor. Through the ice we see Cellimas and the gang running through the corridor below us, the dragon roaring as it continues the chase. Continuing through our tunnel we come into yet another vast chamber with winding paths and stairways carved from the ice itself. On either side, cultists guard signal gems which will open the door below.

Once both signal gems have been powered and the door opened, we encounter a group of necromancers conducting some sort of ritual — they’re summoning a demon! Before we can interrupt their vile incantations the ritual circle flares to life as the demon, an Ice Flenser, springs forth amid glowing mystical tentacles which destroy and siphon the souls of the acolytes who summoned it. The red-named demon has a nasty Ray of Frost spell that rarely misses, so we rush into melee range to defeat him.

Brushing off our wounds, we hear a roar as we enter the next chamber. Cellimas and the others have led Aussircaex on a chase that ended with the dragon meeting her slaver, the illithid Darastrix Archthend, and the two powerful beings engage in a battle of wills as Aussircaex struggles to break free of the mind flayer’s hold on her mind. “Parasite! Mind twister! Free me! This is not my role in the prophecy!” cries Aussircaex as Darastrix summons more of his psychic power, commanding the dragon to obey him.

On a ledge nearby us we see a large glowing green crystal floating atop a pedestal with ritual adornments. This must be the Quori Mindsunder artifact! With the mind flayer too distracted by the dragon, this is our chance to destroy the artifact. As the Mindsunder shatters in an explosion of green crystalline shards, Aussircaex finds her natural defenses restored, Darastrix is no longer able to exert his influence upon her. In a roar of fury, the dragon angrily belches forth an extended blast of her deadly frost breath, utterly destroying the illithid.

Her mind freed, the dragon lumbers down a passageway to leave the mountain, as Jeets sneaks up and startles us saying Heyton wants a word with us. Jeets leads us to a final chamber where the wizard and the hirelings congratulate and thank us for our efforts to save Korthos from the clutches of the Devourer cult. With the dragon gone and the mind flayer dead, the sahuagin should be of much less danger to the village. Lars suggests we speak to Rinnar d’Thuranni, captain of the Sojourn, who can take us to Stormreach, then summons a brightly glowing mystical portal back to Korthos village which is thawing and returning to normal now that the white dragon has departed.

The captain tells us now that the dragon’s icy influence has dissipated and the waters around the islands thawing, his ship can continue its voyage. He suggests we speak to his first mate Valeria Sinderwind on the pier, she will book us aboard the Sojourn for transport to the city of Stormreach, where our adventures continue…

New Player Experience Summary

Compared to DDO’s former tutorial or new player experience, the difference here is night and day. The quality and polish here is unsurpassed. The developers took some of the favorite and most highly rated starter quests of Stormreach, all of which had unrelated stories, and re-imagined and re-purposed that older content — while honoring its original spirit and integrity — combined with all-new content to create a cohesive and episodic storyline worthy of the D&D name. I can’t help but to some degree make an analogy between the entirety of the Korthos experience to one of LOTRO’s Epic Book story lines. It’s that good.

Nothing is perfect, however, and I did make a few notes on things I personally felt — trying to put myself in the shoes of a brand-new player — should have been addressed in help tips or through talking to some of the NPC’s in the village who describe various aspects of the game.

• Mouselook. A help tip appears if I press T to enter mouselook, but I already knew about it. I spend most of my time in DDO in mouselook, especially with melee classes, only leaving it if I need to click an extended hotbar or loot a chest. A tip informing new players of its existence would have been nice rather than explaining it after the fact.
• Experience Report. Yes, a big “XP” button is on the quest objective UI staring players in the face, but there’s no guaranteeing new players will pay attention or click it. This is where you get to fully see all the objectives to a quest and the various XP rewards and penalties associated with the current adventure.
• Leveling. While the new templates may prevent gimping your character upon creation, there’s really no guide or assistance once you’re playing for how to utilize your Action Points, how to train upon leveling, etc. It’s all very confusing and overwhelming for non-D&D players such as myself, and extremely easy to gimp your character during its progression.
• Recall. I had already completed several quests before a help tip ever informed me what the “Finish” button is for to recall out of an adventure. Sometimes you need to recall from an adventure in progress to sell or repair, not to mention the obvious recalling from a completed adventure rather than running all the way back to the entrance. /boggle
• Challenge Rating. Combat terms in general could stand help tips, but every time we select an enemy we see it’s CR. Nowhere did I ever see a tip or NPC explanation of just what the hell CR actually means. Hand us non-D&D players a bone here, this stuff is important.
• Social Panel. This is a multiplayer game, right? How about showing players how to bring up the social panel to actually, you know, find and group with others? Hmm?
• Brotherhood of the Silver Flame. These priests are common about the various locales and can provide a binding point for characters to return to upon death as well as advanced healing such as curse removal. Could be useful, no? I’d also lump the bartenders in here also, as they sell food and drink that restore Hit Points and Spell Points much faster than the normal regeneration we have in the city.
• Combat maneuvers. While we learned how to swing our weapons very early in Korthos, and how to click abilities on the hotbars, it wasn’t until I had completed the tutorial, arrived in Stormreach and entered the Cerulean Hills landscape area that a help tip told me about Blocking and Tumbling and other more advanced maneuvers. Call me crazy, but maybe that would have been helpful to have known in the tutorial?!
• Hide. Very early in the tutorial we used our Search skill to find a secret door. All DDO characters have that skill, though it’s up to the player to put points in it. All characters can also Hide, something players coming from other MMO’s might associate only with a rogue-type class and therefore not notice. It would have been nice to have seen Hide being demonstrated early in the tutorial as well.
• Leaving Korthos. Players who didn’t pay attention to the Heyton’s final words at the conclusion of Misery’s Peak had no clue to speak to the Captain once back in the village. His first mate has the normal travel icon over her head, but she won’t take us to Stormreach until we speak to the captain first, who has no icon of any sort. Granted, this is the player’s fault for skipping ahead and not reading, perhaps some of the NPC’s in town, especially the first mate, should suggest speaking to the captain?
• Skipping the tutorial. When we first arrived on Shipwreck Shore and spoke to Jeets, we had the option to skip The Grotto and go directly to Korthos Village. Similarly, once we have taken one new character through all of the new tutorial, we can skip it entirely and go directly to Stormreach on subsequent characters, but I don’t recall seeing a tip or other notification that would inform players of this should they not wish to play through all of the Korthos adventures on their next characters.

On a final note, I don’t normally delve into official forums but I did stop by the DDO forums briefly to take a peek at what was being said about the new tutorial. Most were very appreciative but there were a vocal few, the current leader of my current guild (read into that all you want) being one of them, who are simply unable to cope with having their cheese moved. “OMG how dare Turbine change anything about those old quests? How are we supposed to help new players now?” First, you learn them just like you learned them when you were new and like you learn any new content. Second, this content is for level 1-3 players. How much do you need to help them? I’ve seen all too well how you veterans “help” the new players. You rush through, zerg the adventure, skip the optional objectives, bada bing!, bada boom!, XP awarded, quest complete, and the new players are left standing there wondering what the hell just happened. Personally I say “no thanks,” ya jerkoffs.

When SOE unleashed the much-maligned New Game Experience (NGE) onto Star Wars Galaxies, those three words did not have a particular emphasis. It both provided an entirely “new game” from the original as well as providing a new “game experience” because of that difference. This New Player Experience from Turbine is no different. Turbine is not placing emphasis on any particular combination of those three words, but too many DDO veterans are. Rather than whining about what you think is putting too much emphasis on a “new player’s” experience, why not take it for what it is: a new “player experience.” If this draws more players to DDO, increasing the population with more people to adventure with, are you seriously going to whine and cry about it? Sometimes it’s ok when your cheese is moved…

Previous Articles:

Character Creation
The Grotto
Korthos Village
Korthos Island

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 5:49 pm and is filed under DDO, MMO Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.