Cross-posting.

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The Sanctum of the Scales is open to the world.

Long the domain of the Arch-Lich Tseleth and his order, the Sand Snakes, the Sanctum has been corrupted by the magics of the Ur-Daemon. There is only one cure for the madness of those who dwell there: their blood must flow!

This capped hunting ground is accessible via the new caravan system from Wehnimer's Landing and Solhaven. You'll have to wander through the raging elements of the Sea of Fire, but skilled adventurers can find their way to the Sanctum gates and engage its mixture of living and undead foes. Those who venture into the Sanctum routinely can collect and charge special periapts by hunting there. These will open a portal from a Luukosian holy site beneath Solhaven to the Sanctum and vice versa, allow for easy transport to Elanthia's newest hunting ground.

Fight the corrupted forces of Luukos, and avoid getting transformed into a ravenous lurk along the way.

Be wary of murder, treachery, and the occasional disarm maneuver whilst there!

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Special thanks to all of the GameMasters who made the Sanctum possible:

Galene, Haliste, and Kenstrom, for their aid in painting the Sanctum.

Coase for a tremendous job QCing the mechanical side of the project, and Xayle for her work QCing the environs.

Finros and Estild for suggestions and advice that helped shape the creatures.

Lydil for permissions necessary to connect the Sanctum to Solhaven.

...and the numerous players who died in the release event. Luukos loves you. Luukos is (un)Life.

Best,

Auchand
Captain of the Firebird

This message was originally posted in Towns, Solhaven. To discuss the above, follow the link below.

http://forums.play.net/forums/19/225/2496/view/2351

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~Aulis
Forums Manager
QC'er

Really neat place Auchand! Thanks again for the assistance in the Platinum side last night!

>This capped hunting ground is accessible via the new caravan system from Wehnimer's Landing and Solhaven.

It doesn't seem to be an option from the Landing, just Vornavis and Icemule.

>It doesn't seem to be an option from the Landing, just Vornavis and Icemule.

Fixed.

>... are we going to get bounties for this spot? Possible answers I'll accept are "Yes" and "Yes" but I've talked to the judges and decided to also accept "Yes."

Yes.

>That is so awesome to see al-Rakeesh included, especially as it further upholds so many years of character history. Makes me wonder if ar-Deshal or any of the others were, too!

There's plenty of desert out there. Personally, there's one spot I'm most proud of in the Sea because I almost strained my back patting myself on the shoulder for how clever I thought it was.

Auchand
Captain of the Firebird

And.. Any chance we can make the periapt hidden in inventory like the confluence soulstones?

The flamepoint sand kitten hisses at a patchwork flesh monstrosity.
... 9 points of damage!

Questions in no real order of priority:

1) Any noted pilfering of stowed items (like OTF)?

2) Any noted equipping of inventory after an item is disarmed? If carrying weapon A and weapon B is in a sheath, after weapon A is disarmed, death ensues, and lurking is in force, does weapon B get equipped?

3) I wasn't under the impression that this is a 'town' that one would wish to reside in, or subject to justice rules, or. . . so - why isn't this topic in Hunting and Combat?

Doug

I'm not sure if I should go with 'ouch' or 'heh'. ;)

I'm going to roll with - 'Heh. It's a (?:gift|curse), I fear.'

Though the 'ouch' side might have been more fun. :D

Doug

I noticed last night between deaths that the region has SENSE indicative of an area that is part of the "in-between" category, like the no man's land of a trail between Solhaven and Wehnimer's. It is set as its own separate region, with separate fogging return point/decay point/society teleport point/ESP network. The animal companions present are typical of this type of region as well, and the death messaging likewise duplicates this (which in turn duplicates the death messaging of Wehnimer's). LOCATION, however, did give some interesting data!

It was night and we were getting hit by cold blasts, so the climate showed up as cold, dry.. and I'm guessing that in the daytime it's hot, arid instead. Either way, foraging for acantha will be super easy for those in need.

Question related to all of this-
Will death messaging eventually be changed to reflect being in a defined region to aid with rescues? That could be a fun contest to come up with something suitably sandy or snakey (see what I did there).

- Overlord EK

>You now regard Eorgina with a warm demeanor.

<Tickets are tough to get when you have no silver.>

There is no longer a fee for the caravans heading out of the desert.

First, I heart the Sanctum and heart the Sea of Fire. It's overly obvious that a great deal of care and attention went into its design and, having been excited for it since it was announced a year ago, it's not disappointing in the least. It's also nice to have a stable capped hunting area on the West Side (I don't really count the Confluence because tracking it is a pain).

That said, I want to second/third/fourth what's been said about disarm mechanics. I fully understand the philosophical reasoning behind the mechanics such as challenge, choosing where you hunt based on mechanics involved, removing treasure from the game etc..., but it's simply silly for GS at this point. Change Disarm mechanics to some sort of AS/DS pushdown, stun, or something else that doesn't involve gear loss. When players reach the gap, asides few and far between post-gap goals, the only way for advancement is stronger gear and many people spend literally years cultivating gear sets that fit their playstyle and RP. To have players cultivate said gear and then not use it for fear of losing it is just bizarre. And I know, for a fact, that were I to lose certain gear pieces to a disarm, I would cancel my account. It sounds petty, but I'm sure that I'm not alone. It's like watching years of effort, merchant chasing, etc...just flush away.

It would be different if there was a transparent way to knowingly recover said gear at a cost, but currently, it's random. You're either lucky and a friendly PC picks it up or it gets janitored/ethered and you wait in a queue to ask some poor GH/GM the fate of your gear. It not only causes excessive frustration for the player but I'm sure it also is a resource suck for the GMs/GHs that have to answer those assists/referrals.

X

I have refused to invest much silver in weapons due to disarm mechanics and I find it quite annoying to be honest. It takes so much resources to acquire a weapon of high caliber. Having a chance to lose it in a cheap manner such as a disarm mechanic just sucks the fun out of the game. I think eliminating disarm mechanics is a valid request and I feel like there are better ways in disabling characters without necessarily having their weapon removed from them. I hope the GM's can understand the feelings of so many capped characters who would love to spread out and take advantage of all of the max level hunting areas that Gemstone now has to offer.

>Nelemar is probably the most popular cap to post cap hunting area.

Nelemar also doesn't take ten years (cart/caravan ride types) to enter like other remote areas do. Nelemar also doesn't move your body upon disarm like this seems to. This seems like the worst of all worlds and literally not worth bothering with, but to each their own. I couldn't have any less interest in even exploring it.

>OTF has a lot of people even though critters there disarm.

Capped players hunting OTF are underhunting.

OTF isn't a post cap area. It's barely even a capped area.

A couple things in Nelemar disarm, but that's also a very rescue friendly place. If you're in Voln, you can go from town to Nelemar in a matter of seconds. Even if you have to swim there it takes under a minute.

The current state of the game + common sense should be reason enough to remove item loss from Disarm and instead just have it affect your DS as if you weren't holding a weapon for its duration.

A lot of players have quit the game over the years over Disarm causing them to lose an item they invested countless amounts of time and money into. And for what? Because having to type "get sword" to get your sword off the ground is more "realistic" than just having it push your DS down for its duration without the item loss?

If someone loses an item they spent the past 5 years working on, there's nothing Simu could introduce into the treasure system to offset that, short of releasing items of the same power as the lost item after 5 years of beefing it up.

When I eventually make my way over to SoS, I'll be using a throwaway staff instead of my 6x super bubble flare staff (which compared to a lot of weapons isn't even that great, though it has saved me from countless attrition deaths). Even with having max Disarm training, I'm not risking that crap on top of all the other nightmarish sounding mechanics (for better or for worse) that are in that place on top of what seems to be a 5+ minute time sink just to get into the place.

If someone would like to explain how Disarm mechanics are a net positive for the game overall, I'm all ears. Though I expect to hear roughly 0 arguments that aren't trolling, from either staff or players.

While it might have been cool in the 90s (even though it wasn't), it's a completely unjustifiable mechanic in 2016. It literally has a 0% chance to bring in new or returning players, but it definitely has a greater than 0% chance to cause someone to quit.

~ Methais