Anniversary Items

[Nobody]

Wanna know where the new white yalm come from. And second what does the Desert Rider drop? Is it worth the camp?

[RedWatr]

Wanna know where the new white yalm come from. And second what does the Desert Rider drop? Is it worth the camp?

add parts 1 and 2 and you have your answer

it also drops a ql300 set of nomad armor.

[Damon7]

fc,

i was critical of the bday content. So when you go and do something good i will respond and point it out. Putting the jet pack in the item store for free was a good call. Takes care of a big part of the griefing that was going on at the spawn....

While this fix was a nice one it should never have been needed. I hope you (fc) look at these events and take away some good lessons.

qft

[Dhargon]

I'm another one that rarely posts. But this event has compelled me to.

5000 items to spawn the boss? Seriously?

Let's assume that you get 20 people together (good luck with getting 20 people together for an organized farming event as there are few orgs that have that many people online at the same time for extended periods of time btw) and farm the items, that means each person has to farm pretty much 12 packs of junk.

Now, after those 20 people have spent a couple hours gathering the items, they proceed to The Tinker and feed him items. Yay, inputting 250 items one after another after another after another after another ad nauseum.

Now, this valiant group of people, who have worked hard to gather the items and feed The Tinker initiate the spawn of The Desert Rider. Because it's such an incredible accomplishment, the news of this accomplishment is immediately broadcast to every online player on the server.

In very short time, 100 or more people show up, forming random and non-random raid groups and DD teams. If you are lucky, you avoid the crowd control warp out of the area.

Less than 10 minutes after the boss has spawned, it's dead, and a raid force filled with the most DD toons wins loot rights.

The original 20 people who put all the time and effort into the raid are, for lack of a better way to describe it, shafted. Royally. Hours of boring and tedious, yes, BORING AND TEDIOUS, grinding, and 10 minutes later they walk away with absolutely nothing to show for it.

If you are generous, and assume that it's possible to gather 250 items in an hour, that's 20 hours of playtime invested for absolutely no reward. Most likely, with everyone else farming items and armor, it's going to take longer than 1 hour per player, especially if any of the toons are sub 200, as there are plenty of 220 players out there kill stealing and power farming on their own, start doing the math on the time investment to create the spawn for no reward.

Okay, let's look at it from a different perspective. 5000 items. This is meant to inspire server wide participation I'm sure. So, 100 overly positive people of all levels go out and fight for and gather 50 items each. The first person adds his/her items to the tinker, puts a smile on his/her face and waits for everyone else to add their items.

But of course, the 100 people gathering aren't all gathering at the same time, which is to be expected. 2 or 3 hours later, when the count is up to 2973, the first person, even the first 20 people have real life interruptions and get to log off. But, they have the satisfaction of knowing they contributed their time for the greater good and of course, the fact they will get no reward for their efforts is not a consideration.

1 or 2 hours later, The Tinker finally has his 5000 items. (greedy buggar if ya ask me). The Desert Rider is Spawned. Those random 100 people now finally get to reap the rewards of their efforts. . . If they are still online. The arrival of The Desert Rider is announced to the server, to all the people who had nothing to do with creating the spawn. Now, anyone who wants to, can come and help kill, sparking more server wide participation. Better yet, anyone that brings a 220 DD toon can count on getting into a DD raid force and count on having a pretty good shot at winning loot rights and at least get a shot of looting an item off the corpse.

If we assume 200, or even 500 people assisted in gathering the items for the raid, the "shafting" gets much much worse almost exponentially. Especially since only 12 loot items drop off The Desert Rider.

Anyone who is unable to get into that elite raid force is, to repeat myself, shafted. And, the odds are slim that any of the people who actually put some time into farming and feeding The Tinker got invited to that raid force.

Either scenario pretty much leaves the people who put all the time and effort into creating the spawn out to dry for their efforts. But hey, Happy Birthday Funcom!!!

What it comes down to, is a serious case of lack of forethought and yet another inspired event from our great and illustrious benefactors at *******. This event really doesn't inspire fun, it inspires disappointment, resentment and hopelessness.

Personally, I think that the items to be gathered should be combinable, kind of like the items you combine to make sided pads. Once you have, say, 20 (or more, but a number reasonable for a 12man, err, 12person+ raidforce to gather) combined items (and the final item for this scenario would have to be yesdrop), A group of people get together, create a raid, and the raidleader gathers and then feeds The Tinker the 20+ items. The raid leader could then be given a keybox similar to the biodome keybox to an instanced location and the raid group could go sanely have some fun killing The Desert Rider. No lagfest, no DDfest, no idiots camping on urns making it impossible to click on them. No people attending one raid and never bother to try again because it's so completely hopeless.

Ranting done. Solution offered. So, allow me to add a little more.

The new desert nomad armor is great. Thanks!!!
The fact it actually drops in ql300 in not so rare of an occurence, Thanks!!!
New head item that buffs int/psy, Thanks!!!

The new pet nano's are great, love the LotV one. Thanks!!!

The new Yalm looks great, Thanks!!!

The opportunity to actually get the new yalm on a few toons, not a chance, No Thanks there

More squeaky duck items??? OMG! What is someone's fascination with rubber ducks???? I think it could finally be considered overdone. No Thanks there lol.

So, 10th anniversary, some good items, some cool social items, but I feel the event raid is incredibly disheartening and disappointing.

[Demoder]

Don't bash on Ducky. What did Ducky ever do to you?

[Awikun]

Desert Rider event in NLD is very badly designed !!!

Simple solution would be the following:
1. Place Tinkerer in every player city.
2. He should ask for 500 gifts.
3. Once he has 500 put option start event (like lower cloak for alien raid)
4. Depending on number of players in city and their levels spawn proper level Desert Rider (like with alien city raids)
5. Everybody is happy

[Redesine]

Don't bash on Ducky. What did Ducky ever do to you?

Apart from retcon the story from a celebration of the opening of Rubi-Ka's borders... to the birthday of a rubber duck?

[lyledesol]

Well.. I've done two goes now at the desert rider event and have absolutely nothing to show for it.. Wasted hours farming crap and feeding items 1 by 1 (ffs!) to an overcrowded mob...

Have to say it's easily one of the worst events FC ever designed.... Kintaii, you really should be ashamed to put your name to it..

It's a laggy OD fest that only rewards top DD whores in a team..

My advise to everyone, don't bother :/

[tigerengi]

And as said earlier.. It's awful quiet at FC side...
Don't they have any comments on the experiences of players?

[Siahanor]

My advise to everyone, don't bother :/

That seems to be the growing sentiment in game as well. Sad that this is what I come back to after deciding to take advantage of the comeback offer. Wonder how many others have just come back only to see this fiasco. Oh, well. I got a jetpack, at least.

[tigerengi]

They should've put in a mission or quest to make the yalm available to most of the people in the game, not just some OD endgame raid team...

[Sonikeep]

yalm will be available from phasefront vendor later, i'm sure =)

[snurrie]

well said Dhargon, well said. I too rarely feel the need to comment but hey it's been 10 yrs! and now that I understand how the desert rider thing works, I will join the masses that don't have hours to waste on disappointment.

[Rktim]

I did this raid this morning, handed in 200 items and didnt get to loot.

BUT all in all i like it!

Its quite awesome and well done BUT

It should NOT have the global message.. That just means that people standing around in towns will swarm in for the kill and makes it harder for the people that atleast (afk or not) where there to loot.

Skip the global message and the graze period and it will be a hell of allot better!

[Valdonay]

I rarely write on the forums but this time .......
Badly designed desert rider event with little to no chance to get the loot many players really want. Only 6 yalms per spawn Cant be many players left if thats what FC consider plenty of loot for everyone....... On the brigth side seems there still are lots of players (maybe returning players?), so the raid is a big lag fest, and not worth the bother. I already used a few hours for gathering items and have nothing to show for it. The full armour set drop from desert rider is fine as you can get that also from killing the desert nomads.
PLease give us an alternative method of getting the yalm, and no i dont mean by buying it. And maybe not everyone has a 220 toon. And dont just increase number of yalms that drop, since once people have yalm they probably wont farm items anymore so gonna get slow hard to collect 5K items. I like the city idea mentioned previously, do it like alien city raids.
If there are any new players it must be a disappointment that they can not get birthday Yalm, but ofc they can farm items if they are that borred.

On the positive side I like the action figures, and the fact that you have made last years birthday building available again.

An official respons to all this would be nice........

[Crowena]

Don't expect to get any official response to this. Everyone is probably still hungover if not just plain drunk because of the AO gathering. I haven't even logged in game since I saw what kind of fiasco this turned out to be. Heh.... and to think that I was pondering of reactivating 3 accounts....

[vampdragos3]

Trying to get the new mech leet pet sucks for those of us with physical disabilities who can't click as fast as others regardless of having a 220 or not. Put the damn thing in store and get it over with. This celebration has been a real PITA since day one for me and I can just imagine how the low levels and new players feel that don't even have elite toons.

[Sonikeep]

just kill one fanatic urself and u can loot him alone for 2 mins

[RedWatr]

the only part i dont like is huge amount of lag once the raid starts, and the global message. competition between players for loot, is good for the game. letting people feel like they have something unique for a change, even if it is just for a few days or whatever.

[lyledesol]

That seems to be the growing sentiment in game as well. Sad that this is what I come back to after deciding to take advantage of the comeback offer. Wonder how many others have just come back only to see this fiasco. Oh, well. I got a jetpack, at least.

Talking about the new jetpack.. I remember some old posts about people wanting an grid warp item, think it was the Sunrise Apartment Golden keys to make it easier to get there.. FC's reply was stfu, we won't give away part of the Fixers toolset! ... Another day, another dollar.. Stfu MP's.. FC just gave away your Quantum Wings nano to everyone in game, for free