Hero's Festival: The Play's the Thing

I've been reading up on this as I wait for the Commonlands puppet to spawn. I'm very excited about this quest. I'm a little concerned at the long wait time for spawn, though. Or the haphazardness of it, if that's more accurate. Comparing it to the Scarecrow King.. you have to wait for that to spawn, but at least there's a specific time for it. you can plan to do other things and come back in time for the spawn.

I've been hearing about people waiting hours for these things to show up... which reminds me horribly of Evercamping in EQ1. Perhaps there is rhyme and reason to it that we just haven't figured out since its' only the first day. But unless there is some way to figure out a little more precisely when one of these things is going to spawn, I think many people will not bother with it. Casual players definitely can't sit around for hours waiting for a spawn, and even non-casual players will get bored with it.

On ZAM they have the following note. Can anyone vouch for its accuracy?

All players are able to participate in this PQ-style battle! The patchwork bosses will spawn anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half in each of their specific zones and will notify anyone in the zone once they are up.The creatures also bestow a stacking buff to characters that are participating, which will increase their DPS over time. This should help lower level players more significantly than higher level players. Each boss maintains their hate list throughout the fight, and anyone who gets onto that hate list will be granted the quest which auto-completes when the boss dies.

http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/eq2_quest:The_Play's_the_Thing

Well, I can report one part of the statement is incorrect. I have been waiting for Roehn Theer to spawn for almost two hours. Well over the 1.5 hour limit in the quoted statement, more like two hours. At least a half dozen other players have come, waited and given up while I was here. Not a positive game experience, so I am calling it a night.

I dont know how is your server but on AB spawns are usually warned heavily in general chat, you have then approx 10 minutes to reach the camp which is far more than needed. And the spawn message are also zone-wide so any players in that zone can hear it without having to stay at camp.

Also sometimes they all 6 spawns at same time, but they have plenty of hp and die slowly (except maybe djinn and trakanon) so you have time to tag along on 3 maybe 4 fight. Last night i did djinn, roehn and baelon on same spawn.

Nope no spawns on AB for at least 2 hours now. Each zone is checked and monitored on general chat.

VALOR :Event buggy since EIGHT Hours.....

Things appear to be working on Butcherblock now -- and I'm starting to announce spawns in General, if I see them.

Doesn't seem to spawn very well in freeport today - something appears not to be working as well as yesterday

Yeah I find it laughable that the "content" to celebrate 10 years of EQ2 is to stand around for hours bored to tears evercamping a mob to pop.

I can vouch for it being a for-real quote - it was posted by Afista, and I'd assume she got that information from Kaitheel. Whether or not everything 100% functions as advertised I can't vouch for since I've been out of town all weekend and only got to play a bit shortly after the event launched. The PQ-style battle definitely worked on the two I participated in, though. No idea about the DPS increase.

The spawns seem to have sorted out, but I'm not getting the buff on my DPS toons, which means they can't get on the hate list. I've tried different merc's, just about everything I can think of. Other than that, it's been a really fun time.

Been happening mostly on my Beastlords. Low levels ones of course. Not sure what to do but just keep trying.

I've not waited too terribly long on the two I've done so far. But if it got to be ridiculous, I'd just go on to another one and not wait for a specific one.

The other thread has worked out that scouts can work around the bug by speccing into the AA ability Evasive Maneuvers (which has a +100% hit rate or however it's phrased). Nothing found yet for fighters though. I've personally confirmed that hex dolls won't do it even if you manage to get the debuff past monster resists.

I've gotten my beastlord to work ok - level 20 and cleared them all. One or two of the abilities count as "magic" I suppose, or maybe it's something the pet does. I didn't really try my baby beastlord much, so I can't comment on him, and as I've bought all five plushies and have about 700 or so tokens left, I think I'm done spawn camping.

Hopefully they come up with something for low level toons that don't have 80 AA's lying around to respec.

Is there a way that a mid 40s level toon can get to the Stonebrunt Highlands and Eidolon Jungle spawn sights to participate, without dying on the way?

I've actually done it, but mine are all high level crafters, i.e. they can fly. The other way is to have a high level friend or guildy veteran call you to the spot maybe?

Thanks for your helpful reply, Tierisch. I will see if I can get a guildy to call me there.

If you are in a guild, you can also have someone place a rally flag. Call of the tinkerer would work if you are able to use it.

Stonebrunt is easy. Take a druid ring (easiest to get to is Enchanted Lands, just past the Spire) to Stonebrunt highlands. From there it's a short walk to get to the flying station - I think it's north on the map - if you see mobs in the way, you're heading in the wrong direction. Just take the pad down to the southermost station - Intercontinental something I think.


Edit:

You can get to EJ, but I always asked for a CoV for my chars that couldn't fly. Druid ring to obol plains - run to the tourbouillon. From there you can run or transport to fearcreep. I haven't done it personally, but I've seen a few low levels that got there that way.