O.K everybody it's that time aqain Ziroc has opened level 12, and it's a winner.
Everybody that wants to go with the team to assalt level 12 show up Friday and Saterday nights the next two week ends between:
East Coast 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM
West Coast 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM
(If you think you may show leave a post of about what time and day so others know when to meet you. Then Just show up During those times and you can wait for a number of our team members to show then, Go directly to Lvl 12.)

Most all of us have gone from level 1 to 11 many times so, If we all just go Directly to level 12 right away I don't think we could call it cheating. From what I saw of level 12 It may take a 6 man (or woman) team about 2 to 4 hours to complete the whole level, Maybe longer! Remember this is the realm of the Dragon Warriors and I would say many of Big Reds larger Brothers and Sisters are what we will be up against and I ran from Most but got stuck in the Shadow Dragons Roon and Had to fight for what seamed like Days. Turned out to be just a little more than an hour but as I said that was only one Dragon, Then you have that army of Dragon warriors and all those wizzards to get past to go to each section.

"Z" is sitting at home right now with a giant smile on his face and scratching Choc on the head saying "see what we did, Bring them on" I really think Halaster Has take possession of the Man and his Cat and now they are testing us!! HA! HA! HA! HA! :D :D

[ 03-03-2004, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: TheCrimsomBlade ]

<font color=skyblue>I am in.

I cannot say when my exact time will be that I can log in...but I am East Coast time.

I will be available after 10pm on Friday and Saturday I imagine. Unless the kids give me trouble.

I will most likely be a Shifter.
You'll know it is me.</font>

Looks like im in as well, just checked a few things i had going on and they all revolve around the time frame. I am on west coast and shold be home around the 5pm time, ill log on and hang out in the tavern till i find others.

I will be using my aquatic elf fighter/cleric. My log in name is Teri-sha Illistyn.

What level characters are we targeting for this expedition?

<font color=skyblue>I dunno...what does our leader say?</font>

Try to stay below a total Level of 24 for Multi-Class and 18 for duel class with no more than 9 levels in any one class unless you bring a single class PC then Use a Level 16 cap.
I have been testing these combinations since monday and anything more than these will double the Bad guys, and if you bring in An Umber Class PC it will spawn More bad guys of such high levels you won't last 10 seconds Even as A level 40 Weapon Master Believe me I tried. There is something in the 1.62 patch that triggers the monster and bad guy spawn when an overpowered Umber PC shows up
I did find out that the power of weapons and armor from +1 to +10,+20,+30 don't make any difference in the bad guys at all, so bring anything that the server will let you bring or buy the powerful stuff when you get in the mountain.
Like always, once we are in the game its all for one and one for all. Nobody is the Boss but everybody try to stay some what together and look out for each other. If you find something you think we should all go after just step up and say so.

Anybody that has played with Larry should know by now, stay out of his way but keep up with him if you really want to have fun.

If you find yourself in lock up or you crash or if you get stuck in a wall just reload the game and use the same PC and you will return right where you got stuck when your system crashed You just won't be stuck anymore.

One more thing "HAVE FUN" :D

<font color=skyblue>Huh? You have a story to go along with that? btw...I LMAO when I read this... :D You have me intrigued as to what I might have done to deserve this mention!</font>

My Fighter/Cleris is level 17, ill be using her

My guy is a Level (6/7), Druid/Shifter.

If you will remember last summer when you had your first Shadowdancer and A group of us ran from level 1 to the gateway of then unfinished level 10. When I say ran I mean just that, for 4 hours 6 or 7 of us tore up everything in undermountain. Larry Had perfected the turn invisiable Back stab move and as we hit the bad guys from the front side larry was hitting them for serious back stab points. By the time we got to level 9 it was only larry myself and one other PC There(I think it was Robert the Bard but I'm not sure) the rest were still back on levels 5,6,& 7 and we called them the sleepers.
That was one great night of many. But the point is, We were following and Larry was leading and we didn't waist any time anywhere just hit and run, I think we set a record for fasted trip to level 9 without using any portals. NO cheats and no umber characters that night all speed and brains. Do you remember?
I should be in the mountain By 9:00 eastern tonight got to take the wife to dinner (MEX FOOD) see you all later.

[ 03-05-2004, 07:28 PM: Message edited by: TheCrimsomBlade ]

I am in the tavern and waiting, i have I.W. at the end of my character name

Lol! I do remember that! Lol! I am not going to be ready until 10pm. I hope that is ok. I will stop in to tell you incase you do not see this message.

Darn... hope you're all there... I just got back in from work.. .arrgh... I have a dwarf character somewhere around here...

So what should be fixed on level 12 besides the chick mage and some of their resistances? I watched a bit tonight, and saw some things I'll change for the next reset at 2AM. I will also correct the speech for one of the Wizards too. It's set to default. ;)

Any thing else? Let me know here or in PM (I cleaned my PMBOX out).


BTW, Level 13 is almost done TOO! As well as a large multi-leveled area called "Temple Darkmoon" [img]smile.gif[/img]

Some of the Cult Mages seam a little over powered. For them to be able to do 290 damage in one hit seems a little much when there are three or four that powerfull in the same place. also the respawn seems a little fast, no alot too fast. WE had just finished clearing an area and 60 seconds later the whole area has respawned.Thats way too soon. But this is my personal view.
Your Dragons should all be almost as strong as the shadow Dragon, Everyone likes fighting the Dragons more than the cult guards. Robert the Bard and myself both killed Green Dragons with less than 10 hits with +3 & +4 weapons. Beef them up and down play the guards. What I'm trying to say is the Mages and Cult fighters shouldent be stronger or last longer than the Dragons.

Drat... got in there too late... everyone left and the uber munchkins were there... oh well. Guess that leaves me to work up some details for my dwarven cleric.

Oh... and ditto for me on the dragons vs cult guards.

Quick question: if we come in with characters at the recommended levels as the threshold, do the monsters get epic tough-like if we start gaining levels in there? Would we become "epic" outmatched and outgunned more quickly than anticipated?

I still like the idea of starting from 1st level and role playing the characters through the place as a server vault.

Ehrys...
Cause you got in a bit late, Crimson and I tried playing level 12 with sub 20 level characters and didnt stand a chance. There were too many high level characters already in the mod.
So we bailed and came back with our own high level characters. I was playing a 37th level mage and was near usless. The monsters magic resistance was itself epic.. Greater missle storm and a handfull of 9th level spells were the only things doing damage. Even Hellball was laughed at by most everything down there. That was impressive.
Then Z came in to join us and all chaos ensued... assassians fighters, clerics, and mages were throwing everything at us and we were all fighting just to keep our feet. At one point Larry grew breasts the battles were so stressful.

BTW Z, I have to thank you again for spawning hostile badgers right on top of me while I was resting. I wont forget that.

All in all it was a extreemly fun time. I have some work to do on my mage, I gotta change a few things around on him. Talk to you all later

[ 03-06-2004, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Teri-sha Illistyn ]

<font color=skyblue>I agree with all that has been said and have nothing to add. I was real surprised at how fast the green dragons died, but I REALLY liked how that statue turned into a dragon. That was beautiful! Totally unexpected.

I really really hate all the darkness spells. It was bad enough that the server was lagging, but to be in a constant state of blackness and not know where I was made the game that much worse.

And it was great to have the chance to see you in there, Ziroc! It was the highlight of the game last night.</font>

No I thought the highlite of the game was when Teri-sha sat down to rest and all those bagers started spawing and climbing all over him and him yelling "Oh thanks Z wait till I rest and attack me with Badgers" LOL,that was really funny!! weather you did it or not "Z" :D

Saturday Game

I have been in and out of there today, and am going back in right now. I do not know how long I can stay, however, so just play your hearts out and I will try to be there. If the server does not get rebooted, I should be able to start right back on 12.

[img]smile.gif[/img] Yeah, the first few Dragon statues were just Statues.. I lulled you into thinking they would ALL be statues! [img]smile.gif[/img] Halasters twisted mind at work, I know... ;)

I totally agree about the darkness spells, but I also like them too. So what I'll do is make a copy of the Assassin, and make two of them, and make one not use the epic dagger with darkness, and one with it, so it'll cut down the times you'll encounter them. Sound cool?

Also, the Green Dragons from the statues are simple fodder at the moment, I'll buff them up a bit, but the tough ones will be rare, as I want them to be a treat to find, not in every room, ya know?

Also, something I HATED last night was being 'feared' by the Dragon, and some of the Cultists. I'll make some items and drop them around level 12 that will make you immune from Fear as well as stunning. I know Crimsonblade got feared/stunned a lot, and I know *I* personally hate it, but I do want the monsters to have that ability, I just want you to have something to protect you from it as well.

Usually, I try to have items/spells/misc items on the same level that will deal/protect you from the monsters on that level--or atleast help better that without them. Like the Lizardrealm folk--I sprinkled some acid protection items on that level, which helped, and lots of cold spells that the Lizardrealm folk are very susceptible too. (in other words, game balancing) :D

Great plans Ziroc. The mark of a truelly evil mind. Halaster don't have shit on you.

Now...About attack strategies. It seems to me that Acid works pretty well on that level, but Fire and ice does nothing.

Does anyone else have any strategies?

IN case you saw me in there tonight not dying at all on level 12...I was in there with my "Testing" character...the one I wanted to use to test the area out for stuff like boo-boos and what-nots. I had on some nice gear that helped protect me in human form, but if I turned into Dragon form...I got butchered!

When playing in a party...I would not use these items. They are, however, factory built by the toolset and under legal limitations by the game's design. But I agree that there was no fun in using them.

I myself was trying various characters last night. I popped in with my namesake 'Teri-sha Illistyn' and chopped through a few cultists with Crimson.

We got inside the dragons lair and were doing ok till we got near the door that hides the dragon... then it seemed that everything just whent chaotic. I know I died over 100 times outside the dragons door... I counted. The really sad part was that a 'munchkin' came in and rescued us. He was a 40th level mage with Sunburst as an 'on hit' on his robes and he never took a point of damage. He was fighting meele when his spells were out.

Then after dinner I came back in and talked to Larry for a few, but he had to go so I brought in my Monk. I dont play her often enough but I will be more often now.

I met Ehrys and we saw that 2 munchkins were on level 12 so we ported to level 10 and had a grand time. His paladin and my monk made a good team. All the time we were watching the character side bar and saw that the 2 people on 12 never took a single point of damage.

After they left we began level 11 and while fighting on the bridge, the 2 munchkins came back in. I saw 1 of them do 125 pts of damage with an arrow! They began following us and I mentioned that the damage they were doing was just insane. The one with the bow bragged she could break 400 pts of damage with a critical hit with her arrows.

Ehrys and I seperated away from them and began our assualt on level 12. We held our own pretty good, even through the dragons lair again, I died only 8 times in that corner instead of the 100 with myprevious character.

Both our characters were level 40 I believe but level 12 challanged us all the way through. It was fair battles from start to end.

Hi guys, had a blast. I tried the come in with a sub epic char, but got my head handed to me so many times it froze my computer, just after I became CB for a minute or so. Doppleganging is cool, but why couldn't I be one of the mages???? [img]tongue.gif[/img] Had much more success with the second char, but he was using the scimitars from the desert warriors CB, not +3. The greens were really too easy to kill, unlike all the followers. If I were going to change anything, I'd tone down the followers a bit, and turn up the dragons, they are, after all, supposed to be nigh on impossible to kill. Oh, and I'd tell that Shadow Dragon to quit picking on me so much.

I did have quite the time in there lastnight with my 40th level paladin as Teri-sha was mentioning... but those uber munchkins started to take some of the fun out the game. Level 12 was a blast.. and between the two of us (40th level but non-ubered), quite the challenge!

A couple of comments however (I think some others have mentioned it already):

- too much use of the darkness and blindness spells: it's cool that the enemies are casting them at you as part of the fight (I would be casting it also), but not repeatedly in the same fight like a machine gun.

- too many area affect spells that don't dissipate quick enough (blades, acidfog/gass, tanglegrass, oil slick, storm of vengeance, etc.)... it's causing the server to lag too greatly and decreases the playability level.

- the dragon cultists are too powerful compared to the dragons... the cultists should be toned down a bit. Notice I said the cultist should be toned down, not ubering the dragons... it's annoying when you're spending 50 mins hacking at the enemies and they still have another 2000 HP to go - otherwise, I'm bringing a rod of continuous Harm as part of my permanent inventory :-P

- I'd like to see more assassins compared to the mages/ clerics, and why are the rangers weaker than the desert folks? Also, the mages/ clerics should not be more powerful than the fighters in melee. Especially as they start piling on top of you like a rugby game. :-P

- The traps are great! I'm thinking that they should deadlier however... and some of the doors/ chests should be locked and left for lock picking. Afterall, what's a rogue char to do, if there is nothing to excercise the profession on?

- You need Nim, the darkelf merchant down there to trade or prep the chars... there's too much "loot" hanging around (not sure if this is adding to the lag experienced sometimes?)

I was in earlier today, and noticed that:

- you don't automatically join in as one party :)
- item level restrictions vs char level was turned on :)
- monster spawning numbers & toughness were somewhat proportional to the total party char levels? :)

Good game! I think I still wanna try the rp building of char from level 1 though... it's been awhile and sometimes you just miss that "keep char alive through strategy as you swing your non-magical longsword"

TTYAL.

Awesome tips guys, I am now working in the suggestions right NOW! [img]smile.gif[/img] I will reduce the area spells-- I TOTALLY agree, and there is a freaking bug that allows the DM to be blinded as well. sucks! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'll be correcting the level now, so the new changes will be done around 5am EST.

Let me know what you think about them after you check out the new changes.

I am going in now for a check of the place. I doubt anybody is there this time of morning.