Ebon Gate primer - Feywrot Mire

An Ebon Gate Primer by Luxelle for the TownCrier.

Introduction

Ebon Gate is a huge, multi-faceted annual Festival Event in GemStone. It is a paid, box office event open to everyone who buys a ticket. Tickets go on sale a week or so before the event. In 2015 and 2016 the cost was $49 for one of your characters to attend. There is no cut off date - they are sold up to the last day, and there is no maximum number of attendees. Everyone can come! There are multiple character ticket options for people who may need that.

1. The first rule of Ebon Gate: Bookmark the wiki page and the shopping page. It saves you time later. They will be regularly updated with new Ebon Gate information as it becomes available. The wiki team has already created the pages, and will update them with new info. (Also - check with the wiki team and find out if you can help with the documentation of the Festival. There's a Lich script that does almost all the heavy lifting for you.)
   • Main Info Page: https://gswiki.play.net/Ebon_Gate_2016
   • Shops Inventory Page: https://gswiki.play.net/Ebon_Gate_2016_shop_listing
2. The second rule of Ebon Gate: Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.
3. The third rule of Ebon Gate: ;tune TownCrier to pick up important breaking news
4. The fourth rule: Give the wiki team a day or three to inventory every shop. If you'd like it finished faster, join the GSWiki room on the Gemstone IV Slack channel for the script and instructions how YOU can painlessly help document the festival via a great Lich script. Last year there were 143 shops! That's a great deal of work.

For the first time ever, a companion event to Ebon Gate, Delirium Manor, will also take place outside of the Festival Grounds. Like Duskruin Arena it is available to everyone. To search the manor and have a chance to find the prizes inside, you will need to purchase the invitation passes in the SimuCoin shop. Repeat: this happens at the same time as Ebon Gate, but you do not have to buy an Ebon Gate ticket to play. Wyrom wrote that 5 entries to the Manor come with each Ebon Gate ticket, though.

Shopping and Merchants:

There are many shops (around 140 in 2015, pared down to 79 in 2016); new scripts and items are often introduced at this festival. Some of the shops have wares that are only available once a year at this festival. There are multiple appearances by multiple merchants during the festival. Sometimes you may even see them simultaneously and you'll have to make a QUICK decision which merchant to find. The merchant appearances are often general services (GALD: General Alterations, Lightening, Deepening), sometimes only one or two of those things, sometimes unlockings only, or in addition. There are merchants who will provide custom tattoos, customize your features, and other special offerings. Some merchants might only work on their own things. Some merchants you dare not ever ask them to alter something they've made. Rare unlockings can sometimes be found during the festival time.

• The first week (this year, Oct 14 - 21) consist mostly of time to shop and find all the merchandise for sale, plus the live, hosted games.
• The second week is Merchanting Week (this year, Oct 22-28). The shops will all still be open, but the REST of the Festival opens up. Merchants, Necropolis, the Midway, Digging, etc.
• The extra days are new this year (Oct 29-31). Shops and games will both be open.
• To see how many services you have gotten, use the MERCHANT EBON command.

Games and Fun:

• There are live games hosted by a GM. Look below "Feywrot Favorites" on the Ebon Gate Information Page. There are brief descriptions of almost all of the games at that Information Page (only).
• Also see the schedule under the FESTIVAL command within GemStone
• GHOUL Games (BINGO) are a confirmed return to the Festival Schedule during the second week of Ebon Gate.
• Midway games: pick from fun little automatic games of chance that run 24/7 during the last week of Ebon Gate. Win tickets and prizes. Keep collecting tickets and pick from one of the many Midway Prizes in the prize rooms.
• If you complete the Carousel Quest, there's a carousel ride at the end of the Midway that you can get to to collect tickets and prizes, in addition to the Midway ones.
• Keep Eyes Open at this festival, all the time! You never know what's going to happen when.
• Raffles - there will be many raffles held during the second week. Read.The.Signs.
• Digging is sort of like Duskruin Dig. You buy your shovels for silvers, and dig around for tickets and/or loot! The dig is open the second week until the 31st.

Questing:

• The Necropolis is a dungeon crawl that you go together with people of a similar level. Complete it and win an attuned Enruned black ora heart with a spell in it that you can use 3 times a day; pick the spell from a list that works best for you.
• There is a little quest for an attuned intricately painted tin carousel that can be used once a month for a realms teleport. (Ta'Vaalor to Teras, anywhere to anywhere else, basically). Your carousel works every year, you don't need to do this every time. TIP for playing this game: TAKE NOTES of where you are when who sends you for what from Someone else at some place, because you'll work your way backwards, and your brain will melt. SPOILER ALERT, there is a walk-through of the Key To the Midway quest for the painted carousel: [1] and also at: [2] both walk-throughs are good guides that can help you from your note-taking, but the order of things can get mixed up from year to year. Which is why you took notes, right? (first room #) (Person) (What they need) (From whom) (at destination room #)
• There is a storyline. As near as I could figure out, you go where HUGE groups of people gather to follow some storyline on 4 or 5 consecutive nights. At the end, for everyone that was there on the right night(s?) you select a gift. I took one look at the crowds and didn't care if they were giving away 10 million silvers, the rooms were too crowded. So I can't really tell you any more than this, nor what the gift was at the end or if it was worth braving such crowds. I could not find any mention of it on the wiki either. Ask around, maybe? NOTE: GS crashed almost every night during this time. When the announcement came for this, I gathered my things, went somewher safe, and logged off for a bit.

Special Features:

• Get some ether infusion to upgrade your heart from the Simucoin store (or maybe from digging?). It should remove the curse and/or let you customize the appearance of your quest-won heart. My heart was new last year, so ... I did not get to do this.
• There's a slab generator that costs 25,000 silvers per chance, and randomly generate metal slabs for weapon forging. Some may be far more useful to forgers than others. I watched Aetheri spend millions there, and most of them were not keepers. This is the only time that metal is available to forgers. At what it costs to find vultite, it's a small miracle forged weapons do not cost more.

Getting Ready for The Festival:

General Tips

• Plan your fusion orbing carefully
• Consolidate your shopping money in the bank of the city you'll be attending from. Ebon Gate bank draws from the city you enter from.
• TIP: Keep an eye out on SHOW SERVICE for Merchants. They’ll appear in Monsterbold, so they will stick out a bit.
• TIP: Stay tuned to GS Twitter - they might not use it for much of anything else, but they do sometimes use it for the pay Festivals. Just read the fine print since they mix plat and prime stuff up on the same channel (Don’t get me started about that…)
• Unsure about the properties of something you have? Or something you buy at the Festival? Ask a bard to listen to the item sing.

Inventory Management

• If you have access to Mist Harbor lockers, move things there that you may need to have worked on. If not, make sure you enter the festival from the city your lockered items are at.
• Have a Festival-specific large container you can drag around with you for all the things you want worked on by Merchants. You can quickly exchange it with the one in your locker of your usual stuff for a fast hunt or 6. (Lumnis happens whether Ebon Gate is open or not, after all.)
• Gather all the special materials you need for the alterations you want. Keep them in your Merchant Bag.

Lich Preparations

• LICH: download ;raffle or ;draffle (It's newer and supports the new duskruin raffles, I understand) to keep track of ALL the raffles that are about to happen. use the command alone at a raffle table to register it - then use the command anywhere for a list of upcoming raffles. It does NOT keep track of whether you bought the ticket or not, and does not notify you since the raffles usually do.
• LICH: download ;wishlist to start your window shopping. Look in lich/logs/wishlist.log for the saved list of what you noted; the room number and shop room name appears with your names: EX: > ;wishlist I think I really need the slim dark blue pants. They have pockets and are scripted with the flashy pants script
• LICH: download ;digger.lic - it might help with the repetitive digging tasks. OR … does that work? I didn’t understand digging last year and never did it, let alone looked for a script.
• LICH: Download ;gearinfo to keep a quick notation of the items you need work on, then update it each time you lighten/deepen/unlock something.
• LICH: Download ;roomorder to make just a little clearer sense of where you are in line. It tells you what GAZE LINE should.

Your Front End Prep

Whether it is Stormfront, Avalon, Wizard, Profanity, or something else, they can very likely make some things easier for you!

• Color code merchant names in unique highlighting color/s so you don’t walk right by one. (Been there, done that, missed the service…)

Reference Lists

• Make a list of what needs unlocking and it’s current status - as well as it’s max status. Not all unlocking lingo is the same, this sometimes takes a trip to the wiki to unravel. As always, keep the items on you.
• Have a list of items you want altered with several different versions of alterations for that item. Just in case one gets turned down, you have options to fall back on. via Cleric of Ta’Vaalor on Twitter
• Make a list of what needs lightening. And keep the item with you. Seconds count at a Merchant appearance.
• Make a list of what needs deepening, and keep the container with you.
• keep a list in notepad or something of what items you buy in what store and what the merchant is so when the merchant pops in, you know what item to grab. I use ;wishlist!
• As you buy things at the festival keep notes about what NEW things will need to be unlocked while the merchant/s are at the festival. (Or Lightened or Deepened)

During The Festival:

Locations

Ebon Gate Entrance locations:

• Icemule Trace - Icemule Temple, Foyer - Lich ;go2 2334
• River's Rest - River Road - Lich ;go2 10841
• Solhaven - Liabo Plaza - Lich ;go2 1484
• Ta'Illistim - Shimmarglin Var - Lich ;go2 29
• Ta'Vaalor - Amaranth Court -
• Teras Isle (Kharam-Dzu) - Vaalin Street, Temple District - Lich ;go2 1978
• Wehnimer's Landing - Town Square, Southeast - Lich ;go2 282
• Zul Logoth - Hall of Arches - Lich ;go2 9408
• Four Winds Isle - Oleander and Daisy - Lich ;go2 3650

General Tips

• Use the first week to figure out who each shop's merchant is (if there is any signage) so you'll know if a merchant announcement mentions the shop you are interested by merchant name only. It can happen either way.
• TIP For Raffles: look at the ticket carefully AND read the sign on the raffle table. This will tell you if you need to be present in the room when the raffle draws or just in the game somewhere.
• Shop for general things during the first week so you never miss a merchant or forget to buy something that second week
• Not sure what a new item you bought does? Ask a bard to sing. Wonder about that THING you won, you dug up, you found at the new Delirium Manor? Ask a bard!

The LINGO

• New to GemStone and/or Ebon Gate? There's a rash of lingo that's about to be thrown at you.
  • GALD or General Merchant Services means: General Alteration, Lightening, or Deepening.
  • the ANALYZE command will give you overall altering info and unlock status about most items.
  • Familiarize yourself with the rules under the ALTER verb, too.

Contribute with ;chat on towncrier to submit or ask about other lingo that you think needs defining!

Merchants

• READ ALL THE SIGNS near a merchant. Some of the shops will have the signs up even if the merchant is not working right then. (Don't be the one asking for a pink thing from Kyrinthe!) Read all the signs.
• Become familiar with alteration rules if you're going to have that type of work done. The command ALTER in GemStone goes over lots of what you need to know in great detail. Ask for help if you need on LNet, and if alterations are just NOT one of your life-skills, never fret about asking the merchant for help. Give the merchant an idea of what you want, maybe why you want it in some circumstances, and then give them your trust.
• Use the wiki to plan your shopping!
• Merchants will pick various methods to determine what order, or how many people they will be able to help.

Page Version Info

(Written for Ebon Gate 5116)