GU61 Preview: Dynamic Dungeons at ZAM!

[Cyliena]

<p>Two new Dynamic Dungeons, originally announced at Fan Faire, take popular older zones from Desert of Flames and give a new take on them. These dungeons scale from levels 60 through 90 and are intended to be fun group content.The concept behind dynamic dungeons is that their population may change each trip. An example given in Podcast #115 was that the Silent City dynamic dungeon has 15 different "population sets". These dungeons were designed to be defeated by a group of average geared players.</p><p><a href="http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=27396" target="_blank"><em><strong>Head over to ZAM to find out more about Dynamic Dungeons!</strong></em></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://eq2.zam.com/Im/Image/204053.png" /></p>

[Gaige]

<p>Sigh.</p>

[Thunderthyze]

<p>Dynamic not DYO?</p>

[Banditman]

<p>DYOD is part of the expansion, the update AFTER this one.</p><p>This is just more heroic content with more lackluster loot.</p>

[Ciara52]

<p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The concept behind dynamic dungeons is that their population may change each trip. An example given in Podcast #115 was that the Silent City dynamic dungeon has 15 different "population sets". These dungeons were designed to be defeated by a group of average geared players.</p><p><a href="http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=27396" target="_blank"><em><strong>Head over to ZAM to find out more about Dynamic Dungeons!</strong></em></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://eq2.zam.com/Im/Image/204053.png" /></p></blockquote><p>I like the idea of "average geared player"  it would be very nice to have a "fun" group zone without the you need your epic, you need othmir gear or whatever. </p><p>To just have fun again?  sounds great to me  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Ciara52 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I like the idea of "average geared player"  it would be very nice to have a "fun" group zone without the you need your epic, you need othmir gear or whatever. </p><p>To just have fun again?  sounds great to me  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> </p></blockquote><p>Othmir gear and ER are average gear these days . . .</p>

[Flamewi]

<p>Funny thing is, I can agree with your logic. SAD thing is... It's really sad that SOE goes to all the trouble to copy and pas... erm... I mean "create from scratch" all these new instances and whatnot and 99.9% of the garbage that drops in there gets muted or sold to people that don't know any better.</p><p>Essentially, most instances in DOV serve only 2 purposes.</p><p>1) Get mutables.</p><p>2) Make easy cash.</p><p>REALLY too bad it's not possible to have an option 3 in there that reads "Actually upgrade characters" <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Ciara52]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ciara52 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I like the idea of "average geared player"  it would be very nice to have a "fun" group zone without the you need your epic, you need othmir gear or whatever. </p><p>To just have fun again?  sounds great to me  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> </p></blockquote><p>Othmir gear and ER are average gear these days . . .</p></blockquote><p>oh  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   guess I'm more of a loser than I  thought</p>

[Tarvos]

<p><cite>Ciara52 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>oh  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />   guess I'm more of a loser than I  thought</p></blockquote><p>Don't feel bad, <strong>apparently</strong> I am also since my main (88 Monk) only just started getting things in Great Divide.</p>

[Gaige]

<p>More zones no one will do that drops loot no one needs or wants, WAY TO GO SOE~</p>

[Ragefighter]

<p><cite>Ciara52 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cyliena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The concept behind dynamic dungeons is that their population may change each trip. An example given in Podcast #115 was that the Silent City dynamic dungeon has 15 different "population sets". These dungeons were designed to be defeated by a group of average geared players.</p><p><a href="http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=27396" target="_blank"><em><strong>Head over to ZAM to find out more about Dynamic Dungeons!</strong></em></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://eq2.zam.com/Im/Image/204053.png" /></p></blockquote><p>I like the idea of "average geared player"  it would be very nice to have a "fun" group zone without the you need your epic, you need othmir gear or whatever. </p><p>To just have fun again?  sounds great to me  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> </p></blockquote><p>you pretty much get an entire free set of dov gear just for standing in aa pq and not going afk.</p><p>IF you want to play with the rest of the server you have to at least put in SOME effort.  You can fully pq gear your toon in like 1 day or if you don't play much at most 3-5 days.</p><p>You do not even need to get a group just hang out in a populated G-D instance and throw a spell in every now than.</p><p>Is "Fun" meant to be so easy a person in a coma could solo it?</p>

[melaine_dvarvensplitter]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>More zones no one will do that drops loot no one needs or wants, WAY TO GO SOE~</p></blockquote><p>Speak for yourself Gaige, just because you focus on the raiding aspect, let those of us who enjoy running dungeons and seeing the stuff they do for us have what we ask for.</p><p>Of course you will get on your pedestal now and go ranting and raving about this and that and in the end your just wasting your energy <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I see the new dungeons as a way to get muting stuff, missing masters for alts, gear for alts etc. I hope to see a ton more of the Dynamic Dungeons to come in all the previous expansion that I would love to run at level with hopes for a situational weapon/sheild/item even a minor upgrade if not a full upgrade. With reforging it makes this "Useless" loot as your so keen to say Gaige, valid even if it's something "we" have to sit on for the next couple months etc. I have stuff from Launch I am sitting on just because of the cool factor, and will likely do it again with new gear.</p>

[Ragefighter]

<p><cite>melaine_dvarvensplitter wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>More zones no one will do that drops loot no one needs or wants, WAY TO GO SOE~</p></blockquote><p>Speak for yourself Gaige, just because you focus on the raiding aspect, let those of us who enjoy running dungeons and seeing the stuff they do for us have what we ask for.</p><p>Of course you will get on your pedestal now and go ranting and raving about this and that and in the end your just wasting your energy <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />I see the new dungeons as a way to get muting stuff, missing masters for alts, gear for alts etc. I hope to see a ton more of the Dynamic Dungeons to come in all the previous expansion that I would love to run at level with hopes for a situational weapon/sheild/item even a minor upgrade if not a full upgrade. With reforging it makes this "Useless" loot as your so keen to say Gaige, valid even if it's something "we" have to sit on for the next couple months etc. I have stuff from Launch I am sitting on just because of the cool factor, and will likely do it again with new gear.</p></blockquote><p>Even people who raid like Gaige like to let loose some times and run a challenging heroic zone, Maybe make the zones have different difficulties or something to satisfy Everyone.  You can't be raiding 24/7 some people like to run instences that present some what of a risk with more of a reward than just a velium shard and some legendary gear.  I like the new drunder zone that has a mount in it's loot table, or hard mode temple that drops a red adorn bp better than easy mode raids, thats just the kind of thing I am talking about, something everyone can use.  And the face that you can choose to run the zone hard or normal is great for everyone. (temple)</p><p>I haven't been on test this week but when I tested last I went into the silent city zone and not a single thing dropped.  maybe the loot tables were not in yet idk.  anyone got some shots of the drops?  would be nice to see.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>melaine_dvarvensplitter wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speak for yourself Gaige, just because you focus on the raiding aspect, let those of us who enjoy running dungeons and seeing the stuff they do for us have what we ask for.</p></blockquote><p>/shrug</p><p>I see plenty of non-raiders selling heroic loot all the time.  The fact is that I doubt these zones drop anything worthwhile and if they do they'll have to be nerfed because the zones aren't hard.</p>

[Talathion]

<p>How about raid zones with Clickys that raiders/heroic people can use and want to farm for?</p>

[Alvane]

<p>Does this mean our wed eve static group can't finish Peacock Club Timeline? We are currently in Living Tombs between Residence and Priestess Courts in regard to quests.</p>

[Ragefighter]

<p>The new zone is compleatly different on the zone in door.  will not effect old content at all (assuming all goes well) It will be a different instence.</p><p>Kind of like when you click on the Fortress Spire door in great divide it gives an option for the raid and heroic zones.</p><p>A static group seems like a fun idea. like if you go back and play the old content with people who have only low end gear form the era of the content, kind of like a self made progresive group.</p>

[Cloudrat]

<p>This sounds like an awesome addition to the game for the casual player.  Will take some of the staleness out of knowing exactly what is coming all the way through a  dungeon, especially when playing with someone who is new and they are just learning an area it will add some newness for the old hand leading the way.</p>

[retro_guy]

<p>So what happens to all the uncompleted quests we have for those zones?</p>

[Iren]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>More zones no one will do that drops loot no one needs or wants, WAY TO GO SOE~</p></blockquote><p>Just like SoL eh?</p>

[Rijacki]

<p><cite>retro_guy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So what happens to all the uncompleted quests we have for those zones?</p></blockquote><p>Like Runnyeye, Nek Castle, and the others which have revamp versions, the original will be there as well as the new one. Just a different selection on the door.</p><p>On the other hand, I'd love it if the new zones in the same places would complete the quests from the original.</p>

[Cyliena]

<p><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>retro_guy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So what happens to all the uncompleted quests we have for those zones?</p></blockquote><p>Like Runnyeye, Nek Castle, and the others which have revamp versions, the original will be there as well as the new one. Just a different selection on the door.</p><p>On the other hand, I'd love it if the new zones in the same places would complete the quests from the original.</p></blockquote><p>Yup, the original Silent City is still there! And I agree, that would be neat if you could complete quests from originals, though for The Delving Dead it's only a small slice of Silent City.</p>

[Alvane]

<p><cite>Ragefighter@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>A static group seems like a fun idea. like if you go back and play the old content with people who have only low end gear form the era of the content, kind of like a self made progresive group.</p></blockquote><p>It is fun. We started out when New Halas was born end of May 2010. We made new characters. Since then, the original members have left the group except me - so I became leader. Our first dungeon was Blackburrow. Our goal and still is - to clear all dungeons of Norrath. We started in T-1 and are now in T-6. Along the way, people have come, stayed for a while, then left. Others join up.</p><p>Some are new players, some are on alts. Some have done these dungeons all or in part, others not. Even I haven't done every single dungeon since inception! For me, even the old dungeons I've completed on another character, all seem new since it had been a number of years since I did them.</p><p>The group also teaches people who mostly solo or duo, how to work with a group and get the most out of their character within a group. Sometimes we work HQs or certain quests or part of quests like "To Speak like a Dragon" or an entire timeline such as Peacock Club. We don't raid as a group, but we have taken down a few epic x 2 but they need to be green to us.</p><p>As for loot, none of us mind that it is 98% trash/transmute loot. We live in our Master Crafted/HQ gear which works just fine and keep our spells expert/master level.</p><p>And yes, we do die - in fact in the group's first dungeon - Blackburrow - I was encouraged to pull the entire brewery. Being a first time tank ('zerker), I was a bit cautious, so I pulled about half. One of the mages or the scouts pulled the rest. The mobs were all white level to us. We all died! LOL</p><p>It's all about the fun, teaching others about grouping, not fretting if we aren't doing something exactly perfect and having groups that aren't exactly the best set up in the game!. Currently we have 2 fighters ('zerker & bruiser), 2 rogues (troub & swashie) and 2 priests (fury & warden) and no mages. Prior groups had 1 fighter, 1 healer 3 mages and 1 bard. Then there was the time we had 3 fighters, 2 healers, 1 mage. Quite the fun to work encounters with what the group has!</p><p>And there is a "waiting list" of peeps who want to join us when there is a slot available! They keep a character about the same level the group is working.  TBH, I'm looking forward to dungeons of T-8 on up with non-conventional group setups! Fun challenges are always there if you keep an open mind.</p><p>The "new" dungeons of the desert (Silent City/Living Tombs) will just be added to the list of the "sliding" scale dungeons we have.We did complete Shard of Love at level 50, more as a fun thing to do that was different. We'll prolly do it several times for those who like to collect the shinies and appearance/house stuff.</p><p>I'm glad we can continue the Peacock Club line. We are enjoying it. The solo quests that require time limits are especially fun since we do them as a group x 4 of us who are working the timeline. The other 2 members just like knocking heads and killing names!</p>