Pumping Irony

Yesterday’s patch was primarily a massive overhaul to the Title Track system, which for many Guild Wars players takes up much of their “end game” focus and time.

The update provides several new ways to earn most of the faction-based tracks, such as Luxon and Kurzick from Factions, Lightbringer and Sunspear from Nightfall, and all of the Eye of the North title tracks, as well as making them less of a grind. with new ways to get points for Vanquishing, Challenge Missions, Dungeons, and more.

Additionally, each campaign gets a Storybook which functions similar to the Hero’s Handbook and Master Dungeon Guide from the Eye of the North expansion, where having the book with you as you complete a Mission from that campaign will check off pages in the book’s story. Players can hand in completed books for gold, XP or title track points.

Players who own all three campaigns get an additional Hard Mode-only storybook which covers events of the three campaign missions for additional rewards.

Read the massive full patch notes! And enjoy!

For those who missed the first Hireling Preview last night, Turbine’s Community Specialist Tolero has announced that the next event will be Friday (tomorrow) and the latest update in the thread extends the preview all day rather than the four hour window of Wednesday’s event. Tolero mentions if things go well, they’re hoping to extent the event for the full weekend, however no patching will occur — the hireling behavior will be identical to the first event.

More events should take place this month as they use the feedback to tweak the AI behaviors, then Hirelings go live full-time in December.

Did you miss your chance to try the Hirelings during the Wednesday night Hireling Preview? By popular demand, we will be having a Hireling Preview encore all day Friday, November 14th! Now is the perfect time to try out Hirelings and let us know what you think about them through our game survey and/or community forums!

Beginning tonight, Thursday November 13th, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT) Hireling vendors will be turned on for the Friday preview. If all goes well, we will extend the preview through the weekend!

Not sure how to use a Hireling? Click here for a helpful guide! Also be sure to check the Known Issues related to Hirelings, and the following FAQ:

The vendors are already live, and the event ends Friday night at 10pm EST. I snipped out the FAQ in that quote due to length, but I will quote one of them, which addresses a question Openedge1 and I brought up in the previous article:

Q: Will my Hireling disappear once the 60 minutes on the contract is over?
A: The contract will disappear after 60 minutes. If you’re in a dungeon and have your Hireling out when this happens, your Hireling will stay with you until you dismiss them or enter a public instance, even if the contract has disappeared.

In addition to goofing off with hirelings last night, I wanted to get into a group and actually do some adventuring. I saw some groups advertising one of the wilderness landscape areas Kori was working on then a new group appeared for Gwylan’s Stand on Elite difficulty, asking for characters levels 7 to 10. Hey, that’s me! I’d completed Gwylan’s Stand last week so I remembered the quest name and that I’d been there, but the group zerged the whole thing and I had no clue what was happening. Hoping for the best, as well as a challenge — it’s a level 8 quest, and Elite is +2 on top of that — and maybe even some gear, since that +2 level increase applies to the loot tables as well.

Gwylan’s Stand is a pretty big quest, it’s listed as “Very Long” in the description, consisting of a large outdoor area (not a wilderness landscape) with several smaller dungeons inside. Our group ranged from levels 7 to 9, though we may have had a 10 with us. On Elite setting, many of the mobs were CR10 up to CR15. I still have no idea what CR (Challenge Rating) actually means or how to approximate its relationship to character levels, but suffice it to say I’d never seen enemies that strong before! This was truly a challenge, but what was even better: the group respected that challenge and rose to it rather than zerging.

This group was amazing! I had thought I’d been in a few good groups in my short time in DDO, but I was obviously mistaken. DDO plays fast and furious, and even I mostly play in mouselook mode (except with my wizard, too many spells and clickies to keep track of) and play more like a console action RPG than the slower pace we play Diku-MMO’s at. But this group actually took things slow, planned strategies for encounters and used the class roles as they were meant to be used. Rogues actually scouting ahead? Rangers shooting near mob’s feet to get their attention without pulling entire groups? Players working as a cohesive unit? Whoah! I had the most fun with this group that I’ve ever had in DDO. Crowd control was particular interesting; a ranger would lay down some sort of spike trap, I would cast a Grease spell on top of it (well, until I ran out of material components… gah!) and the sorcerer cast another crowd control spell on top of that. Three spells to slow, stop or damage the enemies as they tried to get to us. In several places, we cast those right in the middle of traps as well, so any mobs who managed to get through it all were severely weakened and easily dealt with.

We successfully managed to complete all the bonus objectives as well for the additional XP, which was enough to get Koriander to level 8! He learned two new spells, one of which is Phantasmal Killer. I keep hearing that spell being talked about as if it’s single-handedly the Totally Awesome Spell of Total Awesomeness, so I gleefully added it to Kori’s arcane arsenal and look forward to seeing it in action soon!

I had so much fun with this group, who treated it all like a normal Diku-MMO instance or raid, thinking encounters through and giving a role to everyone that I joined their guild! It was completely a spur-of-the-moment impulse decision, but one I feel will revitalize my short- and long-term interest in the game. My old guild has nearly dried up, and until last week I hadn’t been able to find a group in months. I was beginning to peruse the guild forums anyway, so perhaps this was meant to be. If this turns out to be a good guild, I can foresee DDO truly becoming my second game rather than the occasional dabbling every few months that I’ve been doing. My eyes have been opened to a whole new way of playing DDO, one that matches my playstyle in LOTRO and other MMO’s while taking advantage of DDO’s active combat and fast pace.

Next will be learning to play the wizard class better. Something I’ve been struggling with all along, but I’m hopefully getting a grip on things. I’ve asked in forums and everyone has suggested at low and mid-levels that I concentrate on spells that provide buffs and crowd control, with only one or two combat spells. That worked last night until I ran out of material components but luckily I’d memorized a couple other crowd control spells that did not require them. I love versatile classes over one-trick ponies, and the wizard certainly fits that description, but I’ll admit I’m anxious for Kori to finally become fearsome and powerful, nuking the hell out of enemies in addition to providing other benefits for the party.

DDO’s Hireling Preview Night was scheduled to begin at 6pm EST so I arrived a few minutes early. Checking the Marketplace map, I found the icon for the vendor located with the trainers near the gate to the harbor, but the NPC itself had not spawned. Right about 6pm, Draithon Aurelius <Mercenaries for Hire> appeared then shortly thereafter a World Broadcast:

For tonight’s Hireling preview, Hireling vendors are now available in the following locations: the Harbor, Marketplace, Gianthold, and Meridia. Look for the vendor icon on your map.

If my theory is correct, the vendors are level-bracketed in each location. The Marketplace vendor sold contracts for Hirelings in the level 4-6 bracket. The Harbor vendor would have had levels 1-3 Hirelings, then level 7+ starting in Gianthold. I didn’t run around testing this though; and I cannot get to Meridia anyway.

In the Marketplace, contract prices were as follows:

• Level 4: 653 gold, 4 silver
• Level 5: 1,257 gold, 3 silver
• Level 6: 2,158 gold, 2 silver

All classes were available, though Hirelings appear to be single-class only; no multi-classed Jack of All Trades for hire.

Contracts last one hour, and the timer starts ticking at the moment of purchase not the time of summoning the hireling! However, it would seem that hour means an hour logged in. If I got a contract then logged out for a few hours, the contract would resume its countdown the next time I logged in.

Feeling especially evil and mischievous, I bought a contract for a level 6 elf fighter, Kastinalia Windblossom and headed into the Searing Heights landscape, which has always been extremely challenging for me even in full groups on the upper end of its level bracket. Being just a duo of an uber-squishy wizard and a hireling fighter, no heals, nada… I wasn’t expecting to last long anyway, and the denizens of Searing Heights didn’t let me down in that regard.

Upon loading into Searing Heights, I double-clicked the contract icon in Kori’s inventory and Kastinalia appeared. The Party UI also came up and Kastinalia appeared to be a normal party member except for a very small additional icon on her vitals which real players wouldn’t have. Hirelings have their own new hotbar for controlling them, very similar to what you’d expect in your typical pet-command hotbar for pet classes in other MMORPG’s. DDO’s hotbars are 10-slot and so is the Hireling hotbar. The first 6 slots are the standard controls, and the final few are class-specific. Kastinalia had 3 fighter skills. It’s possible the other fighter hireling had different ones, I didn’t try it. The cleric hireling I tried later had 4 cleric spells, for example.

Standard Hireling Controls: (listed by slot number)

1. Order your hireling to stand ground.
2. Order your hireling to follow you. (Default)
3. Order your hireling to abandon anything it is doing and move to your location. If your hireling cannot for various reasons, it will teleport to your location.
4. Order your hireling to become active. Your hireling will perform actions that it believes are useful at will. (Default)
5. Order your hireling to become passive. Your hireling will not perform any actions unless specifically commanded.
6. Order your hireling to interact with your current target. If this is a usable object, your hireling will attempt to move to the item and use it. If this is an enemy, your hireling will attack that creature.

As I noted, the default modes are Follow and Active. As it turns out, part of the Active behavior is the equivalent to setting your pet in other MMORPG’s to Aggressive. Then feeding it steroids. And crack. Holy mother, these guys have an insane aggro range! And they’re not afraid to use it! I am officially giving Kastinalia the middle name Leeroy; she’s earned it…

The interact command is particularly interesting. Obviously it can be used for attacking, and it was very handy in Searing Heights when I’d manage to tab-lock onto a stealthed target which was completely invisible but I could tell Kastinalia to attack and she’d run right to it! Nifty! Exploit? Perhaps, but on the other hand maybe I shouldn’t be able to tab-lock invisible targets in the first place… *cough*

Most pet commands end with “attack” but this interact truly lets you do just that! If I click a rest shrine, the hireling will run to it and use it, regaining its Hit Points and Spell Points. If the hireling dies, I can grab its soul stone and carry it to a resurrection shrine and tell the hireling to resurrect itself. I’m guessing I could probably use a hireling to talk to an NPC to activate scripted events, too. Turbine mentioned rogue hirelings using traps, etc. but I’m wondering if they can detect the traps on their own? Because if I cannot, and my Search skill doesn’t find the trap control box then I can’t target the box to have the hireling disarm it. I wish I’d thought of that before the event ended, I would have loved to have seen what the rogues can do.

The three fighter skills Kastinalia had were: Attack Boost I (+2 Armor Class for 20 seconds), Haste Boost I (+15% attack speed for 20 seconds) and Intimidate (taunt).

So Koriander and Kastinalia rush off in Searing Heights. I was madly spamming the tab key to find any stealthed mobs and told the hireling to “sic ‘em!” That worked well enough for the first few mobs. Then I ran onto a toppled pillar stretching over a river that I thought was one of the explorer locations. While running down to the pillar I’d been playing with the Stay and Follow modes so Kastinalia was running further behind than she normally would have been. Right in the middle of the pillar was a stealthed Quickfoot bandit who ganked the hell out of poor Kori! Doused me in a flaming oil then critted me a few times left me incapacitated quicker than I could fire off a spell or two. Kastinalia rushes to my rescue, slaying the weasely bandit and using her Heal skill which revives incapacitated players back to 1 Hit Point. (In D&D, incapacitated is 0 to -9 Hit Points; death occurs at -10 and lower.) She has Heal?! That’s awesome but I would have liked to have known that. However the flaming oil was still on me and almost immediately incapacitated me again. I haven’t had to use Heal in a very long time so I don’t know if it has a refresh time or if she only had a single healing kit in her inventory, but at this point Kastinalia apparently had enough of my squishy shenanigans and left me to die covered in the still-flaming oil. There were three black wolves hidden (probably stealthed too) under a bush down the hill from the pillar. Without a screen shot it is difficult to describe how far away they were, but I was lying with my robes on fire on the far edge of the pillar. Much further and I’d have fallen down into the river below. These wolves were all the way back across the pillar, down the hill a bit, hidden by terrain and stealthed and yet the crazy elf bitch still somehow sensed them and rushed off to attack! I wish I’d had WeGame or Fraps running, that moment was pure gold! I was laughing my ass off the whole time…

So, that was a quick wipe with a Wizard/Fighter duo, let’s try something safer and get a Fighter/Cleric team. I logged into my level 5 warforged fighter and bought a contract for a level 5 Cleric hireling from the Marketplace vendor. Even though the Marketplace vendor had contracts up to level 6, they will only sell contracts of a level equal or lesser than that of your character. This time I decided to try the revamped Three Barrel Cove landscape.

The cleric came with the following spells: Turn Undead, Cure Light Wounds, Dispell Magic, Cure Serious Wounds.

This went much the same as Searing Heights only it lasted longer since warforged are a little tougher, plus I had a +2 heavy shield. On the downside, warforged only take 50% (I think?) of Cure spells since they are sentient constructs not living beings. The cleric still had a crazy aggro radius but we were doing fine until we pulled two groups of mobs and I took enough crits to kill me. The landscapes weren’t going so well, as they’re intended for groups of 4+ so I took the cleric hireling into a normal quest instance. I chose “Missing in Action” which is next to the Rusty Nail tavern in the Marketplace. It’s listed as a level 2 quest and I chose Normal difficulty. The cleric performed very well here and we completed the quest easily. His aggro radius was still a factor when he’d charge off to start a fight in a different direction than I was planning on going but aside from that, the Fighter/Cleric team is as good as it would obviously seem. From what I can tell, the current AI is set to cast heals if anyone goes below 75% of their maximum Hit Points. Above that and you’ll need to manually command it to cast Cure Light/Serious Wounds. I also noticed that instead of self-casting, the cleric would drink Cure Light Wounds potions! I wasn’t expecting them to have personal inventories; I wonder what all they carry, and how much of each item?

The first public test of hirelings seemed to have gone well. The server I play on was packed with players, so many that lag was getting to be an issue even outside the city itself. The hirelings behave as advertised with the exception of the aggro radius/cone of vision/CIA spy satellite implant/whatever being larger than I expected. I would imagine this in particular may be dealt with before hirelings go live on a permanent basis, and Turbine has said this is Hirelings 1.0 — it will be an on-going process of developing and tweaking their abilities and AI. They’re a great addition to the game, offering enough control to take the place of a player without being able to create a full group of AI like we can in Guild Wars. When it comes to overall abilities, Hirelings are a bit of a compromise between a Henchman and a Hero from Guild Wars. Like a Hero, they are fully controllable including skills and spells, but like a Henchman the player cannot equip them with specific gear, skills or spells; they are pre-configured.

I ordered Tabula Rasa from Amazon last week at the bargain price of $0.96 + S&H. I was in the beta last year and was heartbroken by what I saw. It’s been a year now and “heartbroken” is still the only word I can think of to describe the difference between the hype and what we’d been told the game would be versus what I actually saw in beta. Plus I couldn’t escape the niggling thoughts in the back of my mind that the art style looked awful similar to SiN. Sure, I was fighting Bane on alien worlds, but I kept expecting messages from JC and wondering when the sultry villainess Elexis Sinclair would reveal her plans as well as her cleavage.

The box arrived yesterday but I plan on waiting until December 1 or thereabouts to install and give the game a shot now that it’s been out for a year. I’ve been reading encouraging things about TR lately, and the next Deployment patch will be finally adding a first-person camera to the game. That was also something I didn’t jive with last year; I’ve said before that I just don’t understand why console development studios can nail third-person shooters but PC studios seem unable to. I am unable to play Hellgate: London in third-person either, it’s just doesn’t feel right.

Ironically, now that I’m finally willing to look Richard Garriott in the eye again after the beta ruthlessly raped my long-held regard for the man (serves me right for becoming what I blast others for: a fanboy built on hype alone), his creative vision and the game it spawned, Richard Garriott today announces he is leaving NCsoft.

Fellow Soldiers of the AFS,

I am happy to finally be able to write the players and community of Tabula Rasa. We’ve been on quite a journey together. First in creating a game unlike any other on the MMO market, then growing a loyal community and finally launching the game and its players into space with Operation Immortality. It has been quite an unforgettable journey, one that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I am very grateful to you loyal players for sticking around through what I think we can all honestly say was a rough launch. I thank the development team for pushing hard to get polish, updates and new content out every month since launch…a feat that I think is unusual in MMO development. They have a lot to be proud of.

Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going to space. Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests.

This news is difficult for me to deliver. I am honored to have worked with the team I’ve had and I’m grateful to the community who makes this game so unique and fun.

Thank you and farewell.

Richard “General British” Garriott

I’m sure I won’t be the first to question the authenticity behind his departure.

Yes, it’s true he’s always been fascinated with space flight. His father was an astronaut. Perhaps his journey did indeed inspire him to pursue other interests, much like id’s John Carmack also puts a lot of effort into Armadillo Aerospace. Garriott could easily take his clout and personal finances into the aerospace industry or even as a philanthropist donating work and money to aerospace-focused business, schools and programs.

However, it’s also true that Tabula Rasa was way over-budget and the product under-sold. NCsoft’s bottom line was affected by Tabula Rasa. Going into space isn’t cheap either, and many would consider Operation Immortality to be simply a promotional excuse to get NCsoft to foot the bill for his personal dream. Little to no promotion for the game ever resulted from Operation Immortality.

Now Garriott is back on Terra Firma, his orbital vacation come to its end, and we find him departing the company who invested so much into his vision. Cynical as we bloggers tend to be, I hope he’s being sincere with his reasons and it’s not a termination in disguise. I also hope NCsoft keeps the game alive and doesn’t pull the plug ala Auto Assault. Tabula Rasa isn’t as fundamentally flawed as Auto Assault was and its problems can be overcome, but I’m still a believer that MMO’s are still only given one real chance to gain their audience. Players who tried and canceled might come back for a visit, like I’m doing soon, but I never hear of them staying. They already have their “main” game for dinner but from time to time they’ll peruse some of the light desserts on the menu.

Home from Tampa, and my back is killin’ me… I must have been sitting at a weird angle the final hour of the drive or something because I can barely stand or walk. /sigh

Anyway, just noticed Turbine will be having a Hireling Preview on November 12th on all Live servers!

Are you ready to try Hirelings? Your opportunity has arrived! Next week, November 12th 2008, we will be having a Hireling Preview on all Live game servers! All players are invited to attend…

At 6:00 PM EST (-5 GMT) Hireling vendors will appear in the game worlds on all servers. From 6:00 PM EST to 10:00 PM EST you will be able to purchase and quest with Hirelings! Need to know more about how to purchase and play with a Hireling? Read more in our handy guide to Hirelings by clicking here! You can also view the Hirelings now in the DDO Compendium by clicking here!

After the preview event, you’ll be given the opportunity to participate in several forms of Hireling related feedback activities. It’s the perfect time to tell us about your experiences with the Hirelings! So come out and contract your very own Hireling during our Hireling Preview!

Source

Cool beans, and I think I’m even free Wednesday night to check things out! I’m thinking something evil like grabbing one and letting it run wild in Searing Heights…

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.

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I know some of you didn’t like this awhile back so I disabled it, and things have been fine for a very long time. However, I am once again being deluged with spam-bots registering tons of bogus users so for the time being I have re-enabled the registration plugin.

Please bear with me, and thank you for your patience. If there are issues, problems, or better suggestions, please comment on this thread or use the contact page for other means of communicating.

Turbine is running a promotion in concert with MMORPG.com for a free new cosmetic outfit, the Hauberk of the Mithril Guard. Sign in at MMORPG.com and click the promotion link to get a product code to add to your Turbine account. Next time you login to LOTRO, the cosmetic will be in all your characters’ inventory.

The promotional link has three small screen shots of the hauberk, here’s one of Arwellyn modeling it.

Note: this is a Turbine promotion, not Codemasters, so this is only available to Turbine’s US customers.

The traitorous Jacoby Drexelhand has been defeated and the sahuagin’s secret passageway into Korthos village secured, there is still the problem of the Devourer cult. Most human cultists are former Korthos citizens who were taken and brainwashed into the evil cult of the Devourer. More villagers are still missing and suspected as being held prisoner before being taken one-by-one up to Misery’s Peak where their indoctrination occurs.

Unlike Phase II where the tavern keep Sigmund Bauerson would direct you to each quest individually if you had not grabbed them already, Phase III gives no such direction. In the village, you’ll notice three new quest icons on the minimap, so take each one, as each quest location will be found within Korthos Island, where we continue our adventures.

First we meet the mayor of Korthos village, Viggie Storr, who’s daughter Arissa has been taken along with other villagers. His information suggests villagers are held in the Cannith aqueduct before being transported to Misery’s Peak where they become Devourer cultists. Next is “Handsome Wilm” one of the crew of the Sojourn, a Khorvaire ship frozen in the ice just outside the docks. His employer, mistress Drusen d’Jorasco, was taken by cultists with undead minions. He followed them to some catacombs near the aqueducts, and wishes to hire our services to retrieve Ms. d’Jorasco. Finally, near the village gate we meet Ursa Jernsvard, a friend of Sigmund’s daughter Kaja who is convinced Lars Heyton is indeed alive — she saw him! Near the old Cannith Manufactory where long ago mages from House Cannith created sentient construct — who later became the Warforged — Ursa claims she saw Lars briefly and thinks he may be inside.

The gates into Korthos Island were previously barred until we completed The Collaborator quest. That’s done now, so entry onto the island itself is permitted. Korthos Island itself is an all-new wilderness landscape, and like all DDO wilderness landscapes, its quests are gained automatically upon zoning in for the first time. In addition to the standard incremental Slayer quest, Korthos Island has twelve Explorer locations to find, and three Rare Encounters. Rare Encounters are random each time you enter a wilderness landscape; sometimes none spawn, sometimes one or two. I don’t recall ever being in any wilderness landscape where all rare encounters spawned in a single session, but perhaps it’s possible. Defeating the rare encounter boss will spawn a chest to loot. Wilderness areas certainly cover the Explorer and Killer categories of the Bartle Player Types, and perhaps to a much lesser degree the Achiever who may stand a chance at new gear from a chest.

After leaving the village into the wilds of the village, we see a scout up ahead, Gunnar Bauerson, son of Sigmund. Gunnar warns that the sahuagin have discovered a great beast which has been imprisoned underneath the island since the age of giants. A giantish device keeps the creature trapped in eternal slumber but the sahuagin are trying to sabotage the device to awaken the creature.

All said and done, we now have four new quests all located within the Korthos Island wilderness landscape, in addition to the slayer and explorer objectives. As with Phase II, these four quests are all re-imagined versions of original Stormreach Harbor quests. In Phase II the physical layout of the dungeons and their objectives were largely unchanged. In Phase III, however, Turbine raised the bar by adding all-new graphics to some areas, altering some of the layouts and objective, and adding new puzzles. Unlike the Phase II quests, veteran players who recognize the layouts of the Phase III quests and think they know exactly where to go and what to do may be in for a bit of a surprise.

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