Nights of the Dead 2018 - Feedback and Bugs

Nights of the Dead has been activated on Test server!

Nights of the Dead brings goblins and ghoulies out from the shadows. Those inclined to celebrate the holiday through crafting will find a new book of recipes full of new house items being sold by official event merchants. And those feeling more adventurous can hunt ghosts in Antonica, and the Commonlands, or investigate the multiple haunted locations! Grab a shovel and dig up a ghoulish good time in any of the decorated cities! As always, tricks and treats are the name of the game!

New Features for '18!

• TLE Server
  • Fallen Gate - All of the event is active, except a lost necklace cannot be looted from A Gleaming Chest in The Hedge Hollow!
• New Collection!
  • Grave Memories (added to Wake the Dead content)
• New costume illusions available from holiday merchants!
  • Hobgoblin
  • Aviak Stormrider
• The Nights of the Dead merchants have new things to sell!
  • Celebrations of the Dead XI
  • New mount!
  • New house items!
  • New equipment!
  • New Petamorph Wands!

Returning features:

• In-game mail informs everybody of the event!
• Achievements!
  • Baying at the Moon [series]
  • Calcified skeleton kills [series]
  • Wake the Dead
  • Candy Crusher
  • Closet Full of Skeletons
  • Tricky Treats
  • Ghost Hunter Extraordinaire
  • Nights of the Dead Devotee
• Collections!
  • Frightfully Frosted Cupcakes
  • A Swinging Wake
  • The Hollow Hedge Collection
  • Crunchy Candied Crickets
  • Deadly Remnants
  • Frightfull Fabric
  • Ghoulish Masks
  • The Great Haunt
• Events!
  • Wake the Dead event in Qeynos, Freeport, Kelethin, New Halas, Gorowyn, Darklight Wood, Haven, Maj'Dul, and Great Divide.
  • New “Charcoal Baby Dragon Clothwork” added to the random treat box!
  • Headless Horseman Epic X2 Event in Nektulos Forest.
  • Haunted House in Qeynos and Freeport.
  • Haunted Mansion in Loping Plains
  • Haunted Hedgemaze Zone in Nektulos Forest!
  • Calcified skeletons spawning in Antonica, the Commonlands, and Nektulos Forest.
  • Ponchy's quest line in Antonica.
  • Gigglegibber Goblins in the player cities that cast illusion costumes on players.
  • Candy drops!
  • Including creatures in PoP
• Quests!
  • “Broken Mirrors”
  • New house item “Haunted Piano” reward choice!
  • "A Dream, By Any Other Name"
  • "Survive the Night"
  • "The Haunting"
  • "This Won't End Well..."
  • "There Will Be Ghosts"
  • "A Nightmarish Illness"
  • "A Nightmarish Return"
• Races!
  • Ghost Hunter: Commonlands
  • Ghost Hunter: Antonica

Changes to returning content:

• Calcified Skeletons no longer spawn at level 1. Players must approach the mob to force it into combat.
• Grabby Gigglegibber will now exchange much larger quantities of candy at a time! (50x, 100x, 200x, 500x, 1000x)

Please note: All of the scaling content should accommodate the new level cap (110). Please be sure to feedback any troubles you may encounter. No, really.

This event content is currently set to run 10/05/18 at 12:01 AM PDT through 11/01/18 at 11:59 PM PDT on the live servers.

Happy hauntings!

** edited to update the plan for Fallen Gate.

~ Kaitheel

We're hitting the point where we could probably benefit from event vendors that echo the Tinkerfest setup ... one vendor for old stuff, the other for new stuff. {eyes cross} Not sure I'm going to be able to figure out all the new stuff, given how many petamorph variations there are, gravestone variations, etc ... eq2u can't keep up with my queries. ;D

Meanwhile, "Grave Digging" mobs can be 1-shot at level 110. I've yet to find the new collection from digging, but I'll keep trying for a bit before I go craft.

Confirmed - Grabby Gigglegibber has attained massive feats of mental prowess (for a goblin) and successfully counted to 1000, 500, 200 and 50 ... I didn't have enough leftovers from last year's pony runs to get the 100, but I'll test that in the next day or so, I'm sure.

I was able to complete Broken Mirrors easily at 110 ... the mobs were 110, but easy kills, the ghost did NOT drop like a rock when I used ascension abilities, but properly stuck with her script. So that one looks good.

More later. It may take the rest of the day for me to just finish this darn new collection.

With the new collection on Wake the dead, could the grave respawn time be shortened? I grabbed a newspaper, put music on, and I'm still falling asleep after 15 minutes. I know it's only 10 seconds but with the 5 seconds animation on top, it feels slow.

After an hour digging, I got:
10 mummy heads, 7 skeleton plushies, 7 grave mounds, 5 candles, 6 dragons, 1 petamorph wand and 5 collection bits (out of 12).
So 1 wand, 5 collections and 35 furniture. That can't be right. The drop rate is really really bad.

The drop rate for the new grave-digging collection needs some serious consideration. I'll have my numbers later. I am still digging ...

For those testing - if you have a pet or merc, make sure to move your character a step or two now and then while gravedigging. Since these grave-spawned mobs are not considered proper kills, your inactivity timer can hit. This is NOT considered a bug, and is how it worked last year as well.

*screams* Yay!!

However, every time I have downloaded the test server in the past, it whacks out my live game code whenever I switch back. At that point, it always downloads the whole game again instead of just getting me back to the live game via the launcher. Is there a workaround for this?

Yeah, the drop rate for grave-dug items seemed pretty low in general last year as well; not sure about the new stuff yet of course.

There was no digging collection last year - you're likely thinking of the pumpkin pulping, which is another story altogether

Test "should" be going to a subdirectory of your main directory, so uses separate files, etc. and wouldn't cause that issue. You are using the dropdown from the launchpad to switch the region to Test, right? Not some other creative launching method that bypasses that part of the launcher?

Sadly, I am way too frain-bried (and monofocused) at the moment to be able to think of any troubleshooting suggestions.

Yes, I always use the launcher to switch between them; I don't know of any other way to do it. Don't worry, Niami, October 5th will come all soon enough anyway.

From the launcher, go to where you can select which server you wish to start, select public test..let it run for 10 seconds then close the launcher.
Open your EQ2 directory(where ever you installed it...you should see a Test folder, and a Paks folder, and a Music folder.

COPY the Paks folder and Music folder and paste each one into the Test folder...Overwrite the files if they are already there.

Restart the game launcher and make sure it is set to Test server..the download will now be MUCH smaller.

Doing this wont overwrite any of the live server stuff.
Use the launcher setting to switch back and forth from test to live as needed..
If you dont know, its in the lower left corner of the launcher window..no need for two different launchers.

Hope this helps.

"Broken Mirrors" If your not a healer this can be an issue
Or at least it has been for me, this has to be my all time favorite quest to dislike


I just don't get this quest..first you have us search around a mansion for random lost things in different rooms..easy enough I guess, you find everything, then some spirit is mad at you..but you can't hurt it unless you run through the rooms and select certain things but don't touch the wrong one or you are whacked for HALF? of your life..if your not a healer this can be an issue..
I don't recommend selecting wrong twice..unless your a healer then its not a big issue

If you don't select wrong again
Then you are supposed to break bottles while this thing is trying to kill you..(There's a TON of bottles)..if you are not a healer this can be an issue..

Maybe I am just doing something wrong I guess, but for me I don't find this quest intuitive or fun

I second or third the Wake the dead respawn needs to be faster, like maybe by half. you know on second thought, maybe its not the respawn thats the issue, it seems to be more the animation of swinging the shovel that takes the longest.
And at level 100 I am one shotting these things..no challenge

Digging for shinies testing


TLDR, Since there are 12 of those that we need, far more than we need enough mummy heads for an entire circus troupe to juggle with them, it may be good to tweak the odds a bit.

~~~~
I did not set a timer, because I've been multitasking, but I've been at this for over 5 hours off and on, and am still missing 1 shiny.

Dealing with the rng twice for each shiny (once to actually get a present to drop, once to get a shiny to be the reward from the present) is an exercise in frustration.

I have two other caveats to go with my data - I already had the 3 titles and the familiar, so that theoretically improved my odds due to having them out of the loot pool. I also didn't count the number of critters and ghosts that I abused during this time, but I'm sure Kaitheel has access to the overall odds of presents vs non-present results from the graves.


petamorph wand: 1
cube pet: 1
charcoal baby dragon clothwork: 13
bloody tooth skeleton plushie: 15
fresh grave mound: 20
arrangement of snuffed candles: 22
shinies: 26 (11 unique, plus dupes ... I am still missing one)
mummy head: 30

If you go with this breakdown, the shinies seem to be a reasonable rate ... but that is not 1, but 12 more unique items that you're lumping into one, and you need all 12. The worst was Spectre's Terror, which took 3+? 4+ hours of concerted digging by multiple people before it was even discovered on the server. Folks are going to massively burn out gravedigging just to get 1 complete collection for their mains. (We can't even trade around to get us all finished, as the three main multi-hour diggers have one, total, spectre's terror, and we're waiting until one of us has everything else before scribing.)

So now that Mum discoed the reward (and that I'll be able to go to bed), here are my stats after 4 hours straight gravedigging:

- 1 petamorph wand
- 0 cube pet
-12 charcoal baby dragon clothwork
- 20 bloody tooth skeleton plushie
- 25 fresh grave mound
- 27 arrangement of snuffed candles
- 25 mummy head
- 27 shinies (I never dropped the banshee's wail nor the spectre's terror)

As mum's said, shinies as a "single item" are dropping fine compared to the other items, but it's not "a single item" but "12 items". Ok, I'm missing the cube too in the list, but you don't need pets on every char and you can trade it between chars, and you need a single one period, so no big deal. But shinies, that's another matter. And I hope that there isn't a rare on top of it.
As was Niami's case I also had the titles and familiar from last year, so it helped the drop. But you have what, 20% chances at a box? something like that. And in those you have let's say roughly 1/6 chances or so to get a shiny, and in those 1/12 to get the shiny you want... That's way too low.

The items are in the same location for everyone, so once you know the list of items/locations, and know that you can mouse over the mob's buffs to see which item you need to find next, it shouldn't need any healing. (Also, duck behind the bar for getting rid of any of those bottles, and the mob doesn't have line of sight to hit you for them.)

Details on the items/locations can be found in the Broken Mirrors section of my writeup from last year: http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=q316&menustr=080000000000

Completely agree with your assessment and appreciate all of the work you and Whilhelmina have done already. I'll be sure to work on the drop rate for the collection pieces.

~ Kaitheel

Hey, so sometimes my characters are diggin up some graves and randomly pull out their ranged weapon to dig with. I don't know if that's supposed to happen, but it is kinda funny. hee hee