Choose My Adventure: Holiday? What holiday?
It's the time of year in Vanguard when all manner of Halloween hijinks are going on. With that said, I probably wouldn't have known about it at all, had I not logged into the game and saw other players in strange shapeshifted forms. Looking at the official site yielded no splashy separate news post announcing the arrival of the celebration; there was only a link to a forum thread in which a player had asked someone at SOE to flip the switch for the event and the ensuing discussion. Anyone who wasn't playing the game likely would have completely missed out on knowing an event even existed.
That said, this week was its own mix of deviltry and dilemma, as well as another example of just how great this small player community is. Curious as to what happened and what I observed as a relative newcomer to the lands of Vanguard? Join me beyond the break as I wrap up this week's adventure!
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As playtime was in incredibly short supply for me due to real life cropping up, this week I was relegated to playing at very odd times. To be frank, I expected that very late night or early mornings would yield a barren world, but even in the late hours I managed to find people online. Admittedly, there were not as many as I normally find in prime-time USA evenings or weekends, but there were still a handful of folks around. Veskal's Exchange appears to be the hot-spot to find people, even if the enormous level disparities make like-level parties almost impossible at odd hours.
Since the vote indicated I should stay put, level, and get into a dungeon, this week I focused on wiping out all the quests at Veskal's and the side camp that Orin and I had been at last week so I'd be ready to head to a larger dungeon for this final week. As mentioned previously, there's really no shortage of quests if you're looking for things to do -- and I'm noting that I'm only talking about adventuring quests. There's even more to do if you add in the diplomacy and crafting quest lines, easily enough to keep one busy for weeks.
Sure enough, my quest log was packed full of quests that were rapidly turning green or even grey at level 15. Heading out from Veskal's, I aimed for the camp of Sir Redrenthal to get to the bottom of what was going on there. It would appear that this errant Knight is on the bully (or possibly lunatic) side, as all of his servants were terrified of him and his erratic, overbearing behavior. As if their lord's being a complete tool wasn't enough, the servants were additionally frightened of another attack from the nearby Kaon -- a group of wisp-like creatures that appear to be made of some type of sinister, floating energy. Even their quests showed the divide between master and servants: Sir Redrenthal seemed fixated on my gathering hunting trophies for him in the form of pelts and teeth from mobs that largely ignored the camp, whereas his minions wanted me to make sure the Kaon were stamped out so their camp was safe. One terrified servant even asked that I relay a message to a nearby official that they were being repressed, but the official blew off the request. Sorry, servants. Guess I can't help the violence inherent in the system.
The camp largely secure and the crazy man appeased, I headed back to Veskal's to finish off quests there. Once there, I saw groups of higher-level characters in cool costumes. In talking to a splendidly outfitted nearby Necromancer named Lunif from the Avantguard guild, I found out about the Halloween event and learned that their interesting forms were due to permanent masks that drop off of certain mobs. Sadly, none of those mobs was in my immediate level range and soloable. However, it seems other drops with temporary costumes were available from humanoids around the world. I'd intended to set off and go hunt those items when I received a whisper from Lunif, who offered very kindly to take me to get a permanent mask. Initially, I hesitated, not wanting to waste her time to get me a bauble, but Lunif was very sweet, insisting it was no trouble, and soon we were headed off to find the Marshmallow Grim -- on another continent!
Initially, there was some confusion on travel from my end -- apparently I'd needed to click the rift stone and travel to the Tauthien Delta first, then fly to the destination -- but once that was straightened out, I found myself in a strange new land. Even better, this new locale yielded a completely different flying mount: a dragon! (Yes, I know they're called wyverns, but it looks like a dragon to me.)
Landing on the nearby isle, Lunif started to attack the Marshmallow Grim with her legions of necromantic pets -- both ranged and melee! Thinking I'd try to be helpful, I joined the fray, but she politely advised me that it was better if I stood back. Apparently the reason this mob is named the Marshmallow Grim is that one of his attacks is to cover you in a goopy white marshmallow coating, which causes your attacks to heal him rather than hurt him. It also has the nasty ability to jump to others if you're nearby or if you heal them -- two things a Disciple tends to do. Nonetheless, Lunif easily defeated the Grim and allowed me to loot the mask, so now I have the ability to transform into Gremlin at any time! Many thanks again to Lunif, who is yet another example of the really nice people I've met in Vanguard to date.
Meanwhile, back at the outpost, those Verdant Lurkers from last week were still lurking, planning, and plotting. With everything in place to infiltrate their encampment, I headed out to scout, find information, and report back. This proved to be incredibly easy as my shiny new shoulder armor marked me as a member of the Verdant faction by giving me 10,000 positive faction. Waltzing in, I looked around in the main building for the orders but didn't find them. Since I'd heard from the kindly Necromancer that humanoid mobs dropped Halloween treats, I decided to see just how well the shoulder armor worked and set to systematically slaughtering entire rooms full of the Verdant creeps. This, in turn, netted me the heads of about six different named mobs that spawned their own quests, a few nice drops that were armor upgrades, and yes -- Halloween drops!
Only one problem with that: Apparently when you eat a candy, your hitbox resizes, and not just your graphical image. While the giant ghostly cockroach form is definitely fun and creepy, it also meant I couldn't get through the door. Couple it with a little bit of server lag that wasn't allowing me to remove the temporary costume, and it made for a real buzz-kill as I wondered if I'd be stuck in the room until the costume wore off in 10 minutes. Thankfully, the server caught up and I was able to get out of the shapeshifted transparent glowing cockroach form and back to my adorable Raki self. Lesson learned: no Halloween candy-eating indoors. Good to know.
Ultimately, the orders turned out to be outside in a tent. The extra quest experience from all the named heads was well worth the overshoot, and Veskal was pleased that I wiped the leadership of the Verdant Lurkers off the map. They'll be struggling for a while to get their ranks back in order. (Well, until the leaders respawn, but a girl can dream.)
For now, I'm going to continue questing through the last entries from Veskal's (mostly miscellaneous quests to restock supplies and take care of a few smaller nearby enemies) and building up levels so I can hit a larger dungeon and hopefully wrap up my adventures in Vanguard next week with a bang. This week I'll be livestreaming on MassivelyTV again: Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. EDT and again Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. EDT, if you'd like to watch. In the meantime, it's back to Thestra (and candy/mask-collecting) with me!
Join Krystalle as she makes her way through strange lands on a Choose My Adventure directed entirely by you, the Massively readers! If you'd like to play along, you can add Krystalle in-game or on Raptr, Xfire, or Twitter. Once the two months are up, we'll put the adventure to a vote -- and you'll choose what Krystalle plays next.
