DDO Times: The Red Fens

[Thelson]

DDO: Times

The Red Fens preview.
Sunday 22 August 2010

The Red Fens


For years the Raveneye Clan has sold rare pearls to House Kundarak, but now their home is under attack. Repel the invasion by battling the denizens of a vast and dangerous swamp, then take the fight to the enemy's underwater base in a climactic finale!

The “Red Fens” is the newest adventure pack added to the online MMO “Dungeons & Dragons Online” or DDO for those in the know. The pack was added on Tuesday August 17 2010 for VIP members and available in store on Thursday August 19 for the non VIP players.  The pack is aimed at level nine characters and contains four quests,  twelve rare encounters and twelve explorer locations.

On the opening day I initially entered the area solo on my level 9 Monk, when you enter the area you can see the Raveneye Refugee camp. I grabbed the quests and headed out in to the great unknown.

The going was easy, the critters didn't appear to be hard at all, if anything they were a little on the easy side. The trip around the explorer area was quite fun with plenty to see and do. The monsters in the fens were  fun and it made a change to experience something new on the critter front. The spiders over near the mushrooms were the hardest mobs for me, but even they were not too much hassle.

Later in the evening as guildies arrived I dragged them around the Fens until we decided to try out some of the quests. We found the quests to be pretty easy to 2 or 3 man on normal at level 9/10, ignoring the Cube & the Demon that is. I suspect they would be easily manageable on normal/hard by a PUG in the 7-8 level range.


Quests

Fathom The depths:
I liked this quest the most apart from the end quest, well right up to the point where a cube ate me. It is a little different to other quests I have seen in DDO, once you have done it once, it can be run pretty fast. If you don't have underwater action items you can breath air from air pockets near the ceiling of the rooms, but I would recommend taking underwater action items.  

The Claw of Vulkoor:

This is another interesting quest, lots of sneaking make the quest easier, at the giant burial horde you have a couple of options, plunder the loot and kill a named for 168xp, or ignore the loot and get a 800xp bonus. When I soloed it on hard on my pally I was unable to find the secret door, no find secret clicky , so I was forced to plunder the tomb and kill the named for the door to open. In this quest the scorps can hit very hard. It was a death of a thousand cuts for my poor pally.

The Last Stand:
This is the type of quest I do not usually like, protect the IDIOTIC NPC usually do not go well for me, but it is well done and I have ran this quest several times on normal/hard with only two characters and never lost the main NPC. Although on hard we have not managed to secure the safety of any of the the villages.

Into the Deep::

This is the final quest in the series, the rewards are the second part of your set items. The much hyped underwater combat is in this quest, it is true you are underwater and you are partaking in combat. The underwater combat aside this is a good quest which I found quite enjoyable.

Rares & Explorers

Rare encounters Slay Gorger the carrion eater Slay Beacon the will-o'-wisp Slay Sharkeater the scrag Slay Fencreeper the swamp stalker Slay Crooktooth the swamp raider Slay Mudfoot the hill giant Slay Riptide the water elemental Slay Chokebriar the vine stalker Slay Anogoreth the abishai (Summoned using the 3 crests at the “Red Tree”) Slay the sahuagin captain Kar Xyr Slay the sahuagin captain Nab Ren Slay the sahuagin captain Vyx Ka Each rare  is worth 600xp with a bonus of 3600 for getting them all.

Explorer Find the Raveneye village Reach the top of the ziggurat Find the inlet overlook Find the mudpot Explore the giant mushroom forest Find the great red tree Explore the dank cave Find the Fire Giants' territory Find the hidden waterfall Climb the highest mushroom Find the lone adventurer Find the hunting platform Each explorer is worth 300xp with a bonus of 900 for them all.

Loot & Loot Sets

I think what makes this area different to the explorer areas like “Ataraxias Haven” is the quality of the loot that drops from the quests, and the set bonus gear. Some of the sets would be very useful at their minimum level, and some will be considered “OK” for levels 9/10. I suspect this area was made to deliver higher quality gear to the recent masses that have arrived in DDO in the last 12 months with the high drop rate of the set gear and the ease by which you can repeat the end quest “In to The Deep” to complete a set.