July 4, 2009

Explore - The Adventure Begins

by Antons

As with all the other changes on Medievia explore was ushered in swiftly and secretly.  I decided to give it a try, and be the first (Traveler). The competition and knowledge required for completing certain zones would become the adventure. I think at first this feature was designed to help with newbie retention, but the side effect is that it gave us old heroes something to do. I decided that it would be best to take as many people with me as I could to speed up the journey. So in my normal fashion I invited anyone who wanted to come from chat. What would happen amazed me, I saw like minded people begin to stand out. I was seeing the same faces over and over again, the same people kept showing up in my groups. Before I knew it we were in a race, a race to complete all the zones on (explore open). With new zones being added daily, it became a battle of knowing where and when to goto certain zones like; the beak on the robin in Fen on restart, or The Village of Gnomenel at night-time, and the rope from The Pirate Ship on zone-reset. As with all features, some people like to solo things, while others help everyone out in the process. Like Asmira soloing goblin castle while my group of 5 tried to complete it at the same time. Only to have her ice our hobgoblins, and bank us :-( .
 
So we decided to try The Pirate Ship, where one of the many objectives was getting a rope from a crate. The only problem was that the rope required, only loads 15 percent of the time or something, and usually only on restart. This brought the pkers out in force, with Zymax and Duncus leading the way. They had decided that they would stake the crate it loads in, and pk all those seeking the rope. So I brought my little group of dedicated Pathfinders, and we charged in to take the crate back. Our victory would have to wait for a system restart at 7am the following morning, but it was fun none-the-less.
 
Oh, also important to mention because it’s not in the helpfile. (Explore S) will probably be your most useful tool to completing zones quickly. Not only does it suggest the best zones to explore next with your formation, but it lets you see your entire formations zones completed, or achievements as it were.
 
My review: Overall a great feature for all players both new and old. Designed and implemented well, and opened as well as updated quickly. I would like to see at the bottom of Explore open or Explore S: "You've completed 21 of the 32 (65.6%) of the open zones", or something to that effect, but other than that I dont see anything I'd add.
 
A sincere thank you, to all the gods whom made this happen, and a special thanks to Celylia and Zuasha, who I noticed did a lot of work on the project and were very helpful.
 
Antons.