Halloween Dungeon 2016

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+Nyx
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Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

Ready to hunt ghosts and ghouls and grims, shardlings? The Halloween dungeon is once again open for adventure!

Important Dungeon Info:

- Young players may not enter the dungeon. Your account must be at least 7 days old to enter.
- "Stealables" located in chests or barrels will move to new locations every 6 hours. There are 11 possible items.
- Each mini-boss will drop 6-12k gold and each has 2-4 Halloween dungeon 'artifacts' to collect. 22 in total.
- This dungeon has FREE CANDY! All candy can be picked up from the ground, is temporary, and provides a brief buff when eaten.
- All trash mobs have a chance to drop human skulls.
- There are 2 res stations per level.
- Healing has not been diminished in this dungeon.
- There is a 5 minute logout delay for this dungeon. This means that if you log out inside the dungeon without securing your camp, your character will stay in-world and be subject to death by any wandering hostiles as well as failed AFK checks. The staff are not responsible for any lost items or pets if you log out in the dungeon in spite of this warning.
- You MUST be patched to enjoy this dungeon!
- Safe-AFK room: There is a safe space to AFK on the 2nd level of the dungeon. Enter the center room, then go up the staircase. You will be automatically moved into the safe room, and may exit at your leisure.
- Please keep in mind that all spawn sharing and kill stealing rules still apply in the Halloween dungeon. If a person is camping a spawn that you want as well, you are free to wait with them. The person who was there first will get the next spawn, and the person who was there 2nd gets the spawn after that. If someone dies while fighting a boss spawn, allow them 3 minutes to return and re-engage the mob. If they do not re-engage within 3 minutes, the spawn is considered available. Instances of kill stealing will be documented and could incur jail time if they are repeated offenses. Play by the rules and save yourself the trouble.
- You can only complete this quest once per account per delay period.
- If you violate the rules of this dungeon or in any way exploit, take advantage of or participate in inappropriate behavior/activities in/about the dungeon your privileges will be revoked for the duration and you may be jailed. If you don't like hunting there, then simply don't hunt there. Don't bash the staff or the work we do here. Don't train mobs on people, don't cut in line, etc. Just be nice.
- If you are found to be AFK anywhere in the dungeon except the safe AFK room, you will lose access to the dungeon. If you are jailed for any reason and receive higher than 5 tasks, you will lose access to the dungeon for 1-4 weeks.
- Luring issues: This seems to be a problem every year. If you are running for your life in the dungeon and you pass another player, I strongly recommend you PM them to apologize. If you have mobs dragged onto you, I strongly suggest you take into account the player's overall gear level and time on the shard. If it's a vet doing it, then it's more likely to be intentional. If it's someone with less gear, then it's more likely they simply were trying to get out alive. If you have evidence of this happening to you, you may email a razor packet video to nyx@uoex.net. Otherwise, just realize that some players are inconsiderate people and do your best to avoid them in the future.
- Every 1 hour, all trash mobs in the dungeon will perform a full respawn.

By entering the halloween dungeon, you are agreeing to these rules.

To enter the Halloween dungeon, go to Mistas and run South until you see the small tent camp. The entrance is slightly to the Southeast of the camp.

The dungeon will stay open until November 1st. Enjoy, shardlings!
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+Nyx
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

The Haunted Halls Quest:

At the tent camp outside of Mistas, there is a paranormal researcher who would like your assistance with collecting data from the Halloween Dungeon. Say hail to her to begin the quest dialogue. You may repeat this quest every 8 hours.

The rewards are on display in Mistas, in the large 3-story building East of the entrance to the city. There are 62 total rewards for this quest. 28 of these are new rewards for this year. The Diablo and Quagmire minis are now interactive and equipable.

Changes for 2016:

- All special gear drops (batwings, jackals, etc) have been removed from mini bosses. I received quite a bit of feedback last year and in advance of this year's run that a lot of folks were only running the dungeon for the easy attempt at these desirable items. This goes against the entire point of the event, as they were originally added only as an additional draw to the dungeon. Some of you may remember the original Halloween dungeon designed by a previous staff member - it was always very buggy and difficult to run, it had no associated quest, and for the most part people didn't run it at all. When I completely remade the halloween dungeon in its current location, I knew folks would be hesitant to try it after having such an unpleasant time with it most of the years before that, so I added these drops as an extra perk. Over the years this dungeon, and its associated quest, has become one of the most popular we have; so these extra drops are no longer needed in order to draw people to the dungeon.
- The small halloween candles dropped on trash mobs have been removed.
- Various internal changes for efficiency and functionality.
- There are no longer any mob-removing tiles in the entire dungeon. People were using this as a "get out of trouble free" card, essentially eliminating the inherent (and intentional) difficulty in running this dungeon. Because of this, mobs can and will end up bunched up in some areas until they are killed, despawn, or the 1-hour full respawn is triggered. Hunt accordingly.
- Pets are allowed in the dungeon at this time, however last year there were a lot of problems with people using their pets "for evil". If I find that pets are still being abused here, I will disallow them.
- Exiting the dungeon or going from level 2 to level 1 now has a 5 second delay. You will receive a chat message when the delay is triggered.
- Mobs wandering the dungeon have a much smaller detection radius
- Lady grim got a makeover, she is now over 9000 in faaaabulousness.

You can now obtain a Halloween totem by completing the Haunted Halls quest 35 times and the new side quest 20 times. Totems are on display in front of Andrew the Collector, as well as on the wiki. Say hail to Aimery once you've reached these numbers.

You may also obtain a Halloween puppet by completing the Haunted Halls quest 20 times and the side quest 15 times.
Puppets are on display on the 2nd floor of the display building. Say hail to Lysel when ready.
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+Nyx
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

New for 2016!

Trick or Treating
Mary loves Halloween, and her favorite part was always trick or treating. She refused to give up on this once she reached adulthood, and instead of irritating her neighbors by showing up amidst a herd of adorable children, she started the Trick or Treat Network. Mary's friends each host trick or treating for adults at their homes during the Halloween season, and give out little candies to any costumed participants who drop by. Since that much candy can get expensive, Mary will take donations of your extra treats in exchange for a much nicer reward from her personal collection.

Quest Information:
- You can repeat this quest every 10 hours.
- Quest books decay 16 hours after they're received. No, I won't make this longer. It's a simple, short quest and you should only accept it if you can complete it the same day.
- There are 73 total rewards for this quest.
Note that the "Mummy heart" candies are randomized in a more dynamic way than some other quests. There are 10 phrases and 10 colors, but the phrases are not bound to specific colors. So you could choose to collect one of each color and phrase, or all phrases in one color, all colors in one phrase, etc etc.
- This quest uses a new, custom feature as part of the quest requirements. I'm not going to say what it is, it should be fairly obvious once you read the quest book. I will, however, tell you that due to the rather restricted (and ancient) nature of UO's coding, there was only so much +C could do to make this type of quest step work. Thus, the quest item you need in order to progress the quest is "unique in pack". This means that you can only have one in your possession when you approach the NPC or it will not trigger. Since you may need more than one per, you have a few options: You can store them in your bank and port back and forth to pick up any additional ones you need. You can store them in a bag, then drop the bag to the ground next to you as you speak with the NPC - the items are account bound so nobody else can pick your bag up - but BE CAREFUL with world saves, which might delete your dropped bag. You could also visit the NPC each time you have looted one quest item, but I think this will be too inefficient for most players.
- There is a very minor known issue with the pumpkin quest rewards, it doesn't display the item name properly when the NPC gives it out. Since I've already got a request in to +C for this to be fixed and it doesn't actually affect the item in any significant way, I'm going to go ahead and open the dungeon and if anybody gets one of these as a reward before it's fixed, they can page and I'll change it once the fix goes in.

Please do not page me or post here regarding this quest if you can't get an NPC to talk to you. Read the gumps given by the NPC, and the quest book text, thoroughly. It is explained there, and the NPCs have all been tested at great length. They do work if you are doing it right.

Happy trick or treating!
cameronmajere
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by cameronmajere »

the gump for trick or treating is bugged when you open the trick or treat basket it says escort blaasd then at bottom invalid property string, and its probably not a bug but the lady in haven has tricked me 5 times now and turned my skin hue blue.... evil.
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by nasskarr »

I think the blood vials that spawn on the vampires need a bit of a boost. It's hard enough to kill the things but it's really depressing to kill 10 in a row without the vials. I'm almost 3 hours into this quest and only have 10 vials after killing 50 or so. Or maybe I'm just unlucky.
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

Their drop rate is 50%, I don't intend to make it higher. I've noticed that for drops like that, when there's a ton of folks hunting during the peak times, some folks end up perceiving a lower rate, since other folks are killing and managing to get them more than 50% of the time. It's just a matter of which mobs have them and if you're the one who loots it. Likely on future runs you'll get them more often.
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Golden Temptress
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Golden Temptress »

Just wanted to say as a quester how lovely it is we are all working together to kill stuff in groups so we can share the kill to complete our books faster :) just make sure we all show each other respect and whomever got there first loots that boss and we ask permission first before piling on
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Baxster
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Baxster »

Yes definitely, thanks to everyone who has shared their mini-boss kills. If you see me alone killing a boss that you need, you don't even have to ask, feel free to join :)
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

The haunted halls quest has been modified, it is now only 3 books. You no longer have to do a kill count for bats, but the bats will now drop vampire blood. Their name has been changed to reflect their new plasma-loving ways. The gold checks awarded for books 2 & 3 have been increased so that the total gold earned from turning in books is essentially the same as before.

Various minor fixes with the trick or treat quest. NPCs should be more responsive as long as you're in range, and the counter is now working for tracking your totem/puppet progress.
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Aryck »

"Note that the "Mummy heart" candies are randomized in a more dynamic way than some other quests. There are 10 phrases and 10 colors, but the phrases are not bound to specific colors. So you could choose to collect one of each color and phrase, or all phrases in one color, all colors in one phrase, etc etc."


RIP Junobo who died of fatigue trying to collect each phrase on each color.
Onoquoy
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Onoquoy »

ill be leaving the dungeon alone this year. Ran in first boss i fight was taken off me despite me pointing out to the player that i was fighting it already, then they looted it and told me that's how they thought it was in here and they didn't think id mind. Seems the greed and lack of decency is already rife despite the lack of batwings.

Cant be bothered with people who cant obey simple rules and play courteously .
Lilith in game.
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+Nyx
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by +Nyx »

If this happened, why did you not report it? I specifically said in the rules posted above that this sort of behavior won't be tolerated. Coming to the forums to complain about it instead of paging to get it resolved isn't appropriate.
culichi
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by culichi »

Baxster wrote:Yes definitely, thanks to everyone who has shared their mini-boss kills. If you see me alone killing a boss that you need, you don't even have to ask, feel free to join :)

same for me if im alone with a mini boss feel free to join don't even bother asking but if there are people with me do ask them I might just be their guest on that boss
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Annachie »

culichi wrote:
Baxster wrote:Yes definitely, thanks to everyone who has shared their mini-boss kills. If you see me alone killing a boss that you need, you don't even have to ask, feel free to join :)

same for me if im alone with a mini boss feel free to join don't even bother asking but if there are people with me do ask them I might just be their guest on that boss
Always feel free to join in.
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Alex
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Re: Halloween Dungeon 2016

Post by Alex »

Following up to other's posts feel free to bash away for credit when you see me hitting a mini boss alone. When two or more people are there, as Culichi said, always ask to avoid any problems. Most likely it will be ok.

In addition, two things:

1) Try to refrain from killing mini bosses when you dont need it. If you want the gold, go kill Balrons and Lurgs, if you want tokens go to Doom Gauntlet or similar.

2) I have seen people litter the dungeon with costume masks and mob weps and armor. Try to reduce this since it does clutter in the dungeon, making it harder to see things plus increase the item count of items on the shard, which could have an effect on shard performance.
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