Sonreeva/saved posts

The Dungeon Crawl Primer

Discord Message Link: [1]
Author: PM Wyrom
Date: 10/15/2022

The Dungeon Crawl Primer

Hey gang, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the dungeon crawl, the goals, and give you some helpful tips before jumping right in. Sonreeva is the name of mausoleum and crypt in the Graveyard Temporalis. The cost to enter is a single entry on the enruned stone cubes. You will need to figure out how to gain entry though (it’s not too hard). There are no timers once inside, so you can go as fast or as slow as you need.

You are thrown right into a puzzle that you must figure out to proceed. From there you must battle your way to the end, solving many more puzzles and possibly finding secrets inside. There are no true skill checks, but perception will come in handy. If you get stuck, there are a few exits that you can locate throughout Sonreeva that will give you a warning should you really want to leave. You will forfeit your entry entirely if you do. Toward the end, the only way out is to finish or to die.

Death in Sonreeva will teleport you out. Creature spawns are a bit tamer here than the previous incarnation at Feywrot Mire/Caligos if you did it. There are some instant-death traps, as well as some damage producing things happening in the area, but there are ways to avoid it all together or reduce your chances of taking damage/dying. Strategy, tactics, and reading what’s happening are all very important.

Speaking of spawns, Sonreeva also is not instanced in any way. That means you’re in the same area as everyone else. Creatures will not attack anyone but the person who spawns it (outside any boss), but you may get whacked by AoE attacks. I’ll keep an eye on this to make sure it’s not an issue. This also means others can kill your creatures. There will be a way to be able to know how many adventurers are in Sonreeva before entering if you want to go at a less crowded time.

Because of the nature of the dungeon crawl, please use the spoiler tags on Discord about any puzzles, as once most are solved, it will be fairly easy to push through. There are secrets that maybe no one ever finds in here, and I’m not going to tell anyone either.

I highly recommend going with a group or go with enough stuff to be self-sufficient. Herbs, magic items, and anything else that may help you. If puzzles aren’t your thing, I honestly don’t recommend being one of the first people to try it out. I spent a lot of time designing some of these, I even removed some of the harder ones.

Lastly, there is a quest reward at the end. You may only grab one per character forever. Whichever item you select is the one you’re locked into for now. Each year you will be able to improve this item for 5 years. If you miss a year, no worries, you won’t be locked out from catching up.

The item is a magical trinket that when activated will provide a bonus to AS, DS, CS, or TD. You will select which one at the time you get the reward. Each year you will be able to gain +1, so the first year will be +1 to the strength or defense you select. At the end, it will be +5. There is a 25% chance that it will cost 1 spirit point to activate, but then it will double the bonus. The effect lasts for 15 minutes, but you can activate once an hour after initial activation. You cannot get multiples. You cannot change which bonus it is. If something changes with this, it will be at a future EG. The cost to get one of these trinkets will cost 10,000 soul shards. You do not need to buy one if you don't wish to. And you can re-enter Sonreeva and solving everything if you wish.

The plan is that this launches either later Saturday night or in the afternoon Sunday. I will create a thread on Discord for specific chatter about this new experience shortly after this announcement.

Newcropolis Update

Discord Message Link: [2]
Author: PM Wyrom
Date: 10/21/2022

Newcropolis Update

• Some creatures have either been removed or reskinned due to them not playing fairly with low level characters.
• To access the final boss, there is now a halt if someone else is already facing the final boss.
• You can not leave the final boss room if you need to, the timer to summon the final boss will remain the same, so you might be waiting in the Dark Sanctuary for awhile if you do this.
• The boss will attempt to chase you if it can.
• Creatures that are chasing you will eventually stop if enough time has gone by.
• You can now go backwards in the Hall of the Dead if you wish to find one of the hidden exits in an earlier room.
• P0 falls from the sky is corrected in all instances.
• The end NPC that awards the prize has a few new fluff statements that were in the drop down menu.
• The clues for the secrets of the Newcropolis now trigger a little quicker, but are still very rare. There are three, you can't miss that you found one.

Ebon Gate 2022 Dungeon Crawl

Discord Message Link: [3]
Author: PM Wyrom
Date: 10/24/2022

Just some responses to the feedback about spawns being slow.

The pacing is around solving the puzzles on your own. I ran multiple simulations on how quickly it would take to solve the second puzzle. The third "puzzle" (which is the slowdown) is aimed for people to explore as well. The room descriptions are the same to throw you off on said exploring. There were a few backtrack puzzles in here that I removed for sanity. Originally, the Newcropolis played out like a lot of puzzle games where once you get to a point, you had to go back to find new clues (you find a key in a later room that unlocked something in an earlier room). But I removed them as I noticed in testing, even staff just bunched up at the end thinking it was broke.

The area is not a hunting ground though, and it was one of the biggest complaints when it was in Feywrot Mire. Granted, at this point, the spawns are more frequent than Feywrot. I do think the game has sped up considerably in the last 10 years. What felt fast in 2013 is too slow in today's game. Spawns are set 66% of the time every 45 seconds. You want to be spending time before that third "puzzle" slowdown.

The exp at the end is exp for the secrets, which I thought was neat. You can't miss the fact you got a secret. We'll have really cool titles for EG stuff next year. I've given a lot of spoilers and hints for the secrets over the last few months when I talked about it. I also gave some that I've deleted. As it currently stands 1 secret has been discovered 2 times.

Sonreeva Semi-Custom Titles

Discord Message Link: [4]
Author: PM Wyrom
Date: 04/28/2023

Better late than never! I have some semi-custom titles to give out to those who were either first at solving Sonreeva's main objective (making it to the end) or the first few people who solved the secrets. This is just something for the debut run as a special reward for playing in my demented world. I will be contacting the winners in game or via their play.net email address. The guidelines for the titles are that they need to be in theme with the area.

At Ebon Gate 2023, titles similar to other events will be available that have been tracking your stats all along for Sonreeva/Newcropolis.

P.S. I know a lore write-up is also due, I'll be getting to it soon. My GM notes are just too GM-y to share.

Sonreeva (Newcropolis) Updates

Discord Message Link: [5]
Author: PM Wyrom
Date: 10/01/2023

This will be year two for Sonreeva, the dungeon crawl nicknamed the Newcropolis. It will have some new and updates puzzles, updates to the map, new areas, new secrets, updates to the boss, and the year two upgrade to the reward at the end. I will be posting more details about Sonreeva and including some of the lore as we get closer to the launch, which will be at the midpoint of October. Be sure to follow this thread for updates!

Update as of 10/10/2023

The plan for Sonreeva opening is October 15th in the evening and to remain open until the end of EG.

The reward can be upgraded this year to +2 from +1. You cannot get a new ring if you already got on.

Obtaining a new ring: 10,000 soul shards.
Upgrading a ring to next power level: power level increase * 10,000 soul shards.

So year two (this year) it will be 20,000 soul shards for the upgrade for a total cost of 30,000 (20,000 upgrade + 10,000 ring). Year three will be 30,000 for a total cost of 60,000 (30,000 upgrade + 20,000 upgrade + 10,000 ring). You will be able to catch up on your rings for the foreseeable future, so if you decide to sit out, you can. If we ever discontinue the ring, it would be after year 5.

If we ever add onto the ring with new features, they'll have separate soul shard costs associated with them, similar to the Arena of the Abyss rings.

Sonreeva at Ebon Gate 2024

Discord Message Link: Sonreeva
Author: GM Wyrom
Date: 10/17/2024

Going to start a new thread on this, but I am pasting the old thread here if you want to scan the old one if any of this is new to you.

2023 Sonreeva Post

Last year we had a false start, but we allowed the ring to be upgraded last run at a scaling price and the dungeon crawl itself was untouched. I mentioned last year we will come to a better conclusion on the pricing of the ring and it was upgraded at your own risk! The original pricing plan was 10k to get the ring, and then 20k, 30k, 40k, and 50k to fully upgrade over the years, but it wasn't clear at the start so I mentioned I would take a year off from updates until we had more time to come to some better conclusions.

A good chunk of the puzzles have been updated this year. There is a hint system you can access if you're stuck in certain areas. Not all puzzles have hints, but any place that you are stuck with no way out will have some hints somewhere. Whether it's a specific verb or something in the area. In case it wasn't clear, there are hidden exits throughout if you do get stuck and want to just get out of this place. The dungeon crawl does require reading through the areas, listening to NPC dialogue, and searching around. It can be completed by yourself, but it may have areas of difficulty if you don't come prepared. Examples would be to bring herbs, possibly some magic items, and be ready to fight creatures.

Sonreeva is a little larger than last time, with some areas having a new layout or theme. Some areas can be skipped, as multiple ways to solve areas are being introduced this year. There is a "save point" toward the end where you can rest. It should be a little clear that it's a safe spot, but an easy way to tell is if creatures don't spawn there. There are 3 old secrets that you can discover. There are 2 new secrets you can discover. These secrets play into older RPGs or nod toward other games. They might require multiple attempts to find, even if you have tried over and over in a room and see nothing. Having more people can be helpful. When you discover a secret, you get listed as having done so in your EVENT STATS. You can only get credit once per secret and there is a small reward for getting it.

There is a lot of guessing the verb in here, we're a MUD after all. There are things you might have to do in specific orders that can reset if you do them wrong. You can die from doing them wrong in some areas. Sonreeva is telling a story, something is going on here. There are clearly two or three separate pieces to it. I would be interested in hearing theories about it.

The end prize cost will be a flat 15,000 soul shards each time instead of a scaling cost. It has 5 tiers, and each tier is unlocked each year. This year marks tier 3. The catch-up mechanic will be changing after this year. You can get it fully caught up this year, but after this year, you may only do one upgrade a year if you miss it. You can still catch up as Naidem is planned to be a long-term home for EG, and Sonreeva is going to stay beyond the 5 years of tiering. I will post more in a follow-up comment.

Sonreeva opens Friday evening a little after merchant week starts in Prime.

At the end of Sonreeva, there will be a shop similar to what I put out in the Mobile Smithy. Unique items such as some unreleased temporal weapons, monster fleshes, and some other high-end goodies. They won't all be there from the start and I will post when anything new is added. They will all be in soul shard pricing similar to what I did at Duskruin for pricing, so if you got a big bag of shards and want to spend them, this might be for you.

There will also be some new rare drops on creatures this run. Some single-use SimuCoin Store items may populate on creatures you can kill. Even though they are commonly purchased in the store, the drop rate will be on the leaner side just since it's only a single cube entry to get in here. You might find one during a run to keep it interesting. They will have different descriptions from the SimuCoin Store stuff so they don't get confused and are listed in shops after this to mislead people. Be sure to share what you find!