St. Patty's Day 2024

I am trying to put this together for ya'll.

--The event will be slightly different than in years past. There will be no "prize" or "winner" per se. Pots of gold will be replaced with something else, to avoid any furthering of the gold glut we currently have. Four Leaf Clovers will be in the drop lists, but more rare than years past. There will be limited Event Items, and as you descend deeper into the event space, drops will increase in frequency and quality. The nicer "regular" items will also drop from event chests-- but regular old items will be the "booby prize" when you don't roll well. So if you find a mithril dagger and feel cheated-- sorry about your luck. Try, try again.

--Event monsters will be different as well. The tried and true Leprechaun will be present, but joined by a wider variety of creatures from the emerald isles. Some of these creatures are going to require "thinking outside the box" to dispatch. Good luck with that. I will be borrowing heavily from Irish/Scottish/English folklore and tales to create these monsters. So if you run into the "Green Knight" or "Uther Pendragon" or
"William Wallace" -- please don't be nit-picky. Just roll with it. Some regular monsters will be in the Irish dungeon, but I plan on most of them being event monsters. Again-- just roll with the punches. Event monsters will be agile. Event monsters will be hostile. Event monsters will be worthwhile.

-- IF I can pull it off, {Big IF} my intention is to segregate the Event mobs into a separate dungeon space. That way players that don't want to participate can still run the regular dungeon. The event dungeon will be pretty straight forward from a mapping standpoint, so that you won't have to waste a bunch of time mapping. I intend to make you enter on event level 1 and WALK down. You are advised NOT to try TELEPORTING around. Locate and displace *SHOULD* function normally (but depending on some factors outside of my control, may have to be turned off! We will have to see how it plays out)-- but teleporting from level to level will have very unpredictable results [ROCK]. As well, locating a person that is not on your dungeon level, will most likely return bogus information. This is an artifact of the cumbersome system I am going to have to use to pull this off. The dungeon levels will be pretty small (for the most part) which of course means cooperation among players will be required, so everyone can have some fun and kill some event mobs. The new areas will repop in sync with the regular dungeon. So the standard methods to force a repop might be beneficial when the event spaces run out of encounters.

--The current plan is to have event level 1 be similar in toughness to the current dungeon level 7. So if you can't handle level 7, don't go hunting in the Irish area, you will get owned. The city guards will NOT visit the Irish area-- you are on your own. Each level is going to have a BOSS encounter who will be guarding the stairs down to the next level. If you can't kill the BOSS-- perhaps you really don't want to take the stairs down. I intend to make the descent gradient STEEPER (difficulty wise) than what you see in the regular dungeon. IE Irish level 2 is most likely going to resemble level 9 or 10, not level 8. If/When you reach the deepest level (think Uber area on steroids) you will know it. I am currently planning for 5 levels, but that is subject to the limitations of the current system (which is not set up to allow a totally separate dungeon space.) To make the whole thing easier-- I will place an "Irish Portal" near the city stairs, or some other conspicuous place.

-- I am 99% sure, that the Event mobs will NOT be assigned by the clerk for questing purposes, HOWEVER-- due to the implementation-- Event Items are possible (but unlikely) to get assigned. I will try and fix anyone stuck with one, but the chances of this happening are very small. If you cannot reach me, I would suggest turning in a Four Leaf Clover (if you cannot turn in the actual item) and I will replace whatever is lost to the clerk at some point in the future. (That way you can keep building)

--Lastly, I hope to pull this all together BEFORE 3/17... However, if it doesn't come to fruition we might just have an "Irish" event AFTER 3/17. After all St Patrick doesn't actually exist in our dungeon, does he?

Some good news:

I found some extra dungeon space-- so implementation is simplified and I should be done a little sooner than I thought....

and some bad news:

With the extra space I am able to make the dungeons a little larger and a little more complex.   Rudimentary mapping skills might be helpful.  I am not putting any "screw the mapper type stuff in these maps, tho."  There will be tombs on each level-- but not ones you can walk into.  Their only purpose is to penalize you for blowing a TP box.  As you descend, the amount of space for tombs goes up...IE you are much more likely to end up tombed (when failing a TP trap) on Irish 5, than Irish 1.

There are no random TP's in the Irish dungeon.  The large benefit to doing a little mapping is discovering the short cuts across the various levels.   You would be wise to make note of whatever AM spaces you find.  Each TOMB exits on the same level in an AM room you can walk into and out of.  So escaping the tomb is much less risky than say level 15.


IF YOU CANNOT FIND YOUR WAY OUT, I WILL PERFORM OPERATOR ASSISTS-- BUT THEY WILL COST GOLD.  The amount will vary based on 1) your chars levels, 2) the depth of the irish dungeon you are on, and 3) how long you have been tombed (will be cheaper if you have been stuck for a long time -- pricier if you just got stuck.)  To give you a relative idea:  min charge is 10M per char.  Max charge will be 150M* per char.    

* Unless I am being abused by you.  Then I will use my best judgement.

At the end of the event, all chars will be placed at the city stairs-- so I guess you can always just wait it out.

Lastly:  I encourage you to not dispose of event items, until after the event is over.  Even the most mundane items, can be powerful in the correct situation.  

If all goes well--

I am hoping for a Saturday 3/09/24 drop on this event.  The deepest event level won't be done yet-- but levels 1-4 are in.

The maps, monsters and  1/2 the encounters are in.  Items still have to be done.  As well as some very limited play testing.  When this thing drops-- I will start a thread for comments.  The first day or so-- Your feedback will help me tweak whatever I didn't get right-- IE you are the play testers!!!!

There are some really nice (regular) items available starting on level 3.  IE you can pull limited level 15 gear on 3, a wider assortment on 4, and uber gear on 5 (assuming I get that done!)  

Remember-- you don't HAVE to run the event space.

*IRISH LEVEL 3 is not installed*


I worked Thursday night until late on this; which in hindsight was a stupid mistake.  Somehow, I dumped about 80% of the work I had previously done by accidentally overwriting some files.  Yesterday was a family emergency day-- so real life blocked about 95% of the time I had intended to spend on this.

This morning I have gone as fast as I can go-- The good news-- levels 1 and 2 are done.

The bad news-- this is recreated work and it might be a little hodgepodge, and is 100% untested.

I am installing this in about 5 minutes.  Use the comments string in the "other" section for feedback.  If anyone has a party of chars that runs 9 or so(ie not a bunch of 500+lvls)-- it would be great to take them down to level 1 event and see how they fare.   I need feedback.  Please tell me if it is too easy as well as too hard.  I can tweak stuff in small incremental nudges.

Jude is going to get back to me on the "set sanc" block.  I will be resetting all sanctuary locations as soon as it goes in.  I will post when that happens.

IF you find your way all the way across 2 and find the stairs down-- please do not take it. The best you can hope for is an empty level.  The next most likely thing is that you will find yourself in a test area full of god knows what.  The worst outcome is you will crash the game.

If either of those two things happen I am gonna be pissed as hell-- so don't go down the stairs.

JPA

Level 3 is open.  Don't go to 4 yet.  I hope to have 4 and 5 done tomorrow.

All levels are in and live.  Sorry, I forgot to post this earlier when level 4 went live.

Be warned.  FIVE is not for the feint of heart.  There are stud rooms and uber rooms down
there, and when I say uber, I mean UBER.

There are 4 pieces of equipment down there that are "event" gear.  My plan is to leave 3 of
them active when the rest of the event items go away in approximately a month or so from now.  IF you can acquire these goods, you will be able to use them for a minimum of 3 months before they get placed on the item purge list.  (IE +/- July 31)

One of these items will get the axe with all the other gear around April 7 or so.  GC is the hint to know which one it is.

It appears The City Guards had their Wheaties -- they are doing rescues from event space.  It wasn't my intention to allow that to happen, but-- in hindsight, it may be a pretty good idea.

This event is entering the home stretch. Look for it to end on or about 3/23/24