Dragonfable: Critique on the Release of October 30, 2009

There is plenty of material in this release for free players: the finale of Mogloween 2009, the age-old tradition of Trick-or-Treating, and the much-anticipated hatching of the rare Halloween gourds. Plus, the next quest of Zorbak’s Legion is up for Dragon-Amulet holders.

Share and Share Alike

About:

In Falconreach, Myx stands alone, covered with cobwebs. He’s bored and lonely; he has sat all alone and unused for weeks while his beautiful mistresses had gone off to use other cauldrons. Just then, we arrive on the scene with Tomix with some good news for the evil cauldron: we’ve got a plan to get the Cauldron Sisters back together. The Soulweaver asks if Myx knew the secret recipes of the sisters, but the cauldron refuses to tell. However, Tomix is not after the recipe; he wishes to know if Myx could make their candy on his own, the one they planned to make together this year. Myx is hesitant, for the sisters had never decided on a formula. But we tell the cauldron that he’s our only chance; we’ll get the ingredients, and then it’s up to him. Myx lets loose a burst of fire in delight at being needed.

Our character proceeds to run through the town to steal bits of each of the Cauldron Sisters’ candy, battling past the various ghosts along the way. Unfortunately, each sister has her table guarded by a pair of Moglinsters, so we are forced into battle with those familiar friends before pinching the ingredients.

Once we have done, it is night in Falconreach, and we return to Myx with all our ingredients. We remark that we don’t know what the mixture would turn out like, since each sister’s candy on their own is kind of… meh. Myx sniffs that the Sisters’ true brilliance comes out as a team; we’ll see when we toss the ingredients inside him.

Just then, the Cauldron Sisters arrive, and they start berating our character for stealing their candy. But Trouble manages to notice Myx quivering violently, and he yells for everyone to duck and cover. With that, an explosion bursts out from him, and knocks us all off our feet, though a new kind of candy showers the area.

Once we have recovered, each sister takes her time to inspect the new candy. Trouble notices that her Sugar Springs have melted into this brown creamy stuff covering the confectionary. Bubble takes a bite and notices that her Faerie Floss has melded with the Bits-O-Wax to create nougat. Toil then remarks that the nougat is perfect; that’s what inspired Bubble to add Faerie Floss into the mix. And Bubble turns to Trouble, letting her know that her melted Sugar Springs were delicious. At last, an incredible thought comes to Trouble: they have created the perfect candy, and they must share it.

But a cry of ‘no’ is heard, and Greed explodes into being before us, knocking Myx over. He declares that we can’t share the candy, for he had worked too hard. After the Cauldron Sisters right Myx again, Trouble snaps back at Greed that it is there candy to do with as they please. They were too worried with what they were going to get out of their own pieces to realize that this was the time of year to celebrate and share. Toil adds that together, they had made a candy better than they could have crafted on their own; Bubble simply growls and sticks out her tongue at Greed. Tomix then appears before the malicious spirit, and tells him to leave, for he has no power over the sisters any longer. But Greed instead replies that he doesn’t need the Cauldron Sisters any more; he has the whole town to draw power from. Our character retorts that we also have something to share with him, and with Tomix by our side, we proceed to battle Greed.

At his defeat, Greed explodes, and darts away into the night as a little ball of black smoke. Tomix declares that it isn’t over; Greed still had some power over the town, so he was unable to banish him completely. He could still sense his thread moving in the darkness; and sure enough, what is left of Greed retreats to the town hall, and hides within the bookcase in Damien’s library. Meanwhile, what are we to do with the current Greedling infestation? Twilly then pops in and claims that they moglins could help; they could absorb the Greedling’s magic to render them harmless. They’re going to really want candy from now on though… we better be in disguise when we want to come visit with the candy. But what about the townspeople hoarding their precious candy in their homes? The Cauldron Sisters then propose a solution: they would share their candy with everyone else. Hopefully, the more we give to them, the more they would get in the mood to share. So it’s time to Trick or Treat!

Meanwhile, in the town hall, Sepulchure’s spy reports to his master that something new has come to town, but now it has hidden in Ravenloss underground. The Doomknight believes it to be another good distraction for us, so his spy must be ready to make his move.

Pros:

Much of the plus points of the quest comes in its second half. After Myx manages to, er, mix, the Cauldron Sister’s candy together, a new type of confectionary is formed, and it’s composition is quite detailed; instead of vaguely saying that it is the perfect candy, it is mentioned that Trouble’s Sugar Springs have melted, and Toil and Bubble’s ingredients have combined into nougat, which is precisely what they were shooting for from the beginning. Thus ends the speculation on what the original recipe, and thus the perfect candy, is. The fight with Greed afterwards is a good challenge; he has plenty of hit-points, and excellent multi-hit attacks that deal significant damage, not to mention are well-animated as well. And at his defeat, there comes a surprising plot twist; Sepulchure is back in town, and his spy is almost ready to make his move. It looks like whatever the Doomknight has in store for us is only just around the corner, but as it is, the plot twist effectively closes the quest with a good deal of intrigue, and ties in this otherwise independent event with the master plot of DragonFable.

Cons:

The first part of the quest, with the exception of the Moglinster guards, is exactly the same as the previous two quests; we run around the town to collect things and battle various ghosts along the way. It is repetitious, and took a good amount of patience to complete. And the resolution to the Cauldron Sister’s bickering is not, admittedly, all that surprising; right from the first quest, I predicted that Myx and our character would show the sisters just how much better it would be to work together than apart by making some candy ourselves. Lastly, though there’s no way to completely avoid it, the message the Cauldron Sisters give about realizing their mistakes, and that Mogloween is the time to share comes off as preachy. But other than these three points, this quest is actually a very good one.

Grade:

Though the initial phase is quite lackluster, the second rivals ‘As the Cauldron Boils’ in quality. Thus, ‘Share and Share Alike’ earns a 7.5/10.

Trick-or-Treat

About:

It’s that time of year again, when we knock on the doors of Falconreach’s houses and beg for candy, risking our necks to the ghouls, fiends and moglinsters that could crop up unexpectedly. For those who aren’t familiar with the tradition, our character comes to a lane before three different houses upon accessing the quest, and runs to one of them each time to knock on the door for candy (once we finish with one house, the three houses are replaced with new ones). If we’re lucky, we receive an amount of confectionary from the owner of the house as a treat; if we aren’t, we are either waylaid by a mad moglinster, or tricked into fighting a Mogloween monster. We could continue trick-or-treating for as long as we want to collect candy, which could be exchanged afterwards for a variety of things: unlocking the Pumpkin King armor, upgrading the weapons that are dropped at the quest’s end, and/or unlocking the various masks to ward off the moglinsters.

Pros:

And I thought that there wouldn’t be any room for real Trick-or-Treating this year. Guess the team proved me wrong, and that’s a pro in itself. Plus, there are quite a few good drops for the free player this Mogloween: the Batwing weapons series are both powerful and armed with excellent stats, and the Greedling helms are also equipped with great statistics, rivaling even the helms from the SandSea. Both the weapons and the helms are quite simple in design, which is a change from the detailed equipment we usually receive.

Cons:

Other than the weapon and helm drops, there really isn’t that much new material for this year’s Trick-or-Treating. The Pumpkin King armor is exactly the same as last year’s, and the new weapon series, the Frankenblade, is DA-only. In addition, the masks that are meant to be unlocked are both expensive in terms of candy, and not quite as fun as last year’s batch, though they do offer a good percentage of candy bonus.

Grade:

Though it’s a nice tradition, this year’s Trick-or-Treating doesn’t stand very well as a quest on its own. It gets a 6.5/10 from me.

Mogloween Gourds

About:

In the beginning of October, three types of rare gourds could be found in various quests across the game. Now they have hatched, and I happen to be lucky enough to possess the Small, Twisted Gourd, which became Gourdon the Gourd-o-Lantern, a pet.

Pros:

Gourdon is a funnily-animated character, I guess, and deals a decent amount of damage for a pet that isn’t our baby dragon: 6-12 hit-points, and with the occasional double-attack.

Cons:

Let me be blunt: Gourdon is poorly drawn. I’ve seen far better pets in DF’s history; even the gold-fish looks better. And… there’s not much else that could be said here. An ugly pet is an ugly pet.

Grade:

Gourdon may be a kind of pet you get used to after a while, but it still doesn’t hold a candle against a fully- or even partially-trained baby dragon, in terms of art, animation and power. Therefore, this part of the release deserves a 6/10.

And finally, Endon’s back and here to critique on the Zorbak’s Legion quest.

Zorbak’s Hideout

Sorry for the delay guys, we just had the snowstorm of the century where I live. But onto the review!

The latest entry into the Zorbak’s Legion chain is here! It starts with a meeting between you and “General” Zorbak. He is moaning that now that he has a proper army, he deserves a better lair than his current home. Well, you can’t really blame him once you see the condition of his hut. But Zorbak is aiming high, and sends you and the army of dracolichs to cease Thursday’s mansion in the name of Zorbak! After walking to the outskirts of Amityvale, you resolve to try and end this mission with no one getting hurt. Not gonna happen. The moment you open the door, the dracoliches stampede and rush inside. Since there are bigger and badder than them inside, you race in and try to find them all.

You basically explore Thursday’s mansion, which looks appropriately dark and creepy. You fight past a bunch of spirits and wisps until you get to the end, basically.

At the end, apparently you beat up the mansion so much in your various battles that it’s no longer worthy of the might Zorbak! You have two options: Stay and clean up, or come home with the dracoliches. Guess which one you choose?

The loot from this quest is a poison dagger, staff, and sword for levels 28 and 45.

Pros:

The theme for this quest was very well made, set in a spooky mansion, complete with untidy bookshelves and an abundance of cob webs. The loot was OK, nice to see some of the lesser elements get new weapons. Other than that, there wasn’t much to it.

Cons:

This was a filler quest, through and through. It was short, as you can explore the rest of the mansion if you want, but you can finish by going left and walking up the stairs. What’s more, nothing was really accomplished with this quest. Zorbak doesn’t get a new lair, and there is no character development in it. And although it was nice to see some lesser elements get some new additions, poison is not very useful, and I’m not sure there are any monsters with a sufficient weakness to warrant the use of these over the Dooms. This quest could be omitted from the chain and it wouldn’t really have an effect. The monsters are nothing new, just spirits and wisps. This quest was incredibly easy, with there being few monsters and most fold before the Destinies.

Grade:

I have not been very impressed with the Zorbak’s Legion chain so far, and this quest has done little to change that. After the downright breath-taking fire war quests, these are definitely sub-par. Therefore a 6/10 seems appropriate.

Final Grade of the Release:

It’s all about Mogloween for us free players on this release. We have overcome Greed but lie at the mercy of Sepulchure, Trick-or-Treated until we dropped, and battled alongside odd-looking pets.  In addition, Zorbak has been thwarted once more, and we save the baby Dracolichs. All in all, this week’s release earns a 6.75/10.

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