Memoirs of an Illusory Larcener Content Permanently Removed

[Speed]

in short,
"devs fix lag"
"okay we found a fix, one quest is just absolutely ruining server side performance, any items will be moved, no gear will be lost"
"what?! why would the devs remove this pseudo dead content ??!? they are bad at their job, First the lag now this ??!!!"

This quest is locked since 12 november.
When I was playing on last saturday (16 november), there was serious lag that disconnected all servers for 1-2 hours and I do not see performance difference in general since then (still getting same lags as before).

This quest could be remade with standard portals.
There are very few f2p quests at this level.

 

[Douglas Glyndwr]

As I said on the other game I play: Komerex, Khesterex.

If you know, you know.

 

[Aelonwy]

Unpopular opinion: I have never liked this quest. Even the basic storyline of the quest wherein the quest giver is basically lying to us, putting us in danger repeatedly, treating us as stupid adventurers... "the most murderous elf that ever murdered"?! The awful, purposely awful graphics, lame storyline, obnoxious narrator, janky mechanics - all sums up to a thoroughly unpleasant quest for me.

I'm sincerely glad that it is being removed, I always felt it reflected poorly on the quality of which they are capable.

 

[Douglas Glyndwr]

Of course he's lying to us, his name literally means "a lie to slander character".

 

[Blaster]

I looked in the Discord to see if anyone at SSG had commented on the closure and found a couple posts by Cordovan and Tolero in the order they posted them. (As always clicking the link to the message may try to open it in Discord so without the app or access to the official DDO Discord you may not be able to use them.)

Cordovan:

"It is certainly unusual, although that quest has long been a problem. It has an experimental design which is unique to it, and that design is ultimately not something we can get in a place we need it to be." -- On the quest's closure. LINK

"the whole thing sort of is a perf issue sadly" LINK

"Someone else can speak more authoritatively about it but it has a weird sort of design where rather than you teleporting around various bits teleport into your space." LINK

Tolero:

"More like every. single. thing in it hits perf. Even every floor and wall. " LINK

"Yeah the core design meant there was just no way to keep THAT issue from happening either. It just had so much wrong we'd literally have to rebuild the entire thing from full scratch. And for what it was trying to do it would end up being a big undertaking. For not a lotta pay off ultimately." -- This was in response to someone mentioning falling out of the world in the quest. LINK

"Like generally we like to refurbish quests so it's very uncommon for us to totally retire a quest in that way. This one was a big outlier." LINK

"Yeah we should be able to build on free agents favor in other ways pretty safely." LINK

"Yeah most everything we've been finding we've been either able to attack with deep code changes such as what's going in the hotfix tomorrow or with some surgery to the problem bits. Currently working on Best Laid Plans atm finally have an avenue to help that one." LINK

"We can take a look! Steelstar has a plan for where to move its treasure so I can have us look at the XP factor while we're doing that" LINK

"Yeah plan will be to add the favor back elsewheres. Also will look at the XP impact, it was mentioned that some folks had that quest in their TR loop" LINK

 

[Cordovan]

In order for this quest to be able to return it would need to be completely rebuilt, with it being about as much work as building a new quest from scratch. Not that that couldn't happen if there really were enough fans of it to justify the work, but I think a good case can be made to recognize its experimental and never-quite-got-there nature and allow new creativity to make something new.

 

[Solarpower]

Can you elaborate? Even if this was some "new system" why did it not impact things until MD dropped? It needed the Mythal? Sometimes it helps to question things a little bit.

That quest always behaves in a bad manner. Not just now.
Probably some new "look what cause lags" stuff on Cormyr gave the devs what they need ?

PS. MD ? What does MD has to do with it ? And, despite all the forum's drama I fail to see any of that "horrible lags" and "unplayable game".
Well, it's the same old story: 10 people using this forum think they are "the majority of players" and if they lag, everyone lags. Yeah...

 

[Tanis]

In order for this quest to be able to return it would need to be completely rebuilt, with it being about as much work as building a new quest from scratch. Not that that couldn't happen if there really were enough fans of it to justify the work, but I think a good case can be made to recognize its experimental and never-quite-got-there nature and allow new creativity to make something new.

Quest is trash anyway if you bring it back do something else with it

The gather points are way too annoying

Let us kill that annoying Illusionist for the end fight

 

[PurpleSerpent]

PS. MD ? What does MD has to do with it ?

DDO has been having some issues with lag for a few months, but particularly since Myth Drannor released, which has lead to some people blaming the expansion for the lag spikes. (I'd say this is pretty unlikely myself considering nothing in the expansion was exactly out of the ordinary - in all probability the actual cause was the increase in the average daily playerbase caused by the expansion's release, which placed increased strain on the servers and massively exacerbated all the other lag-causing issues that had been building up over the last few years.)

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

I just feel like doing something other than DDO.

I've been logging in for my gold rolls because I can't get a refund for my VIP sub I shouldn't have bought--but man do I feel this.

 

[Drachmor]

From Lammania:

• The quest "Memoirs of an Illusory Larcener" has been permanently retired from the game due to irreconcilable performance issues. Unique treasure from the quest will be re-located to a different quest in the near future.

I've been playing DDO for about 13 years I believe, and I've always tried to have a pretty positive outlook on the game, even when I don't like changes. Typically even if I don't like new content or don't like an adjustment, it doesn't particularly impact the comfortable gameplay loop I can engage with.

Seeing permanent content cut from the game seems to be my limit- I no longer have faith in the developers to resolve issues in a way that is good for the longevity and health of the game. Hopefully the decision to do so gets a rework. Else, I'll continue playing when I feel like it, and spending money when I feel like it - but I doubt I feel like it near as much on either of those.

I don't even feel like writing a passionate argument for why this is where my particular limit is, I just feel like doing something other than DDO. My apologies to the hundreds of people who have expressed disappointment over the last few months on Myth Drannor drop rates, crossbow changes, or general lag issues- I did not speak out when they came for you.

Dude :( This is actually devastating.

No drama, this recontextualizes* all of the times I've been disappointed about a particular nerf or change (which usually ended up for the better). The voice acting in that quest is sooo iconic for me, I can recall it so easily, and it sucks that we won't be able to experience it again :(

Man. I seriously did not expect this

*Edit: Idk if I was clear here - this is actually saddening in a way that none of those things quite were! Darn. With those other things, I could be convinced it was for the general health of the game, and in time things always seemed to work out. But this is another in a long line of recent changes that seems... just drastic? I have never been one to hop onto the "devs don't know what they're doing!" bandwagon (because let's face it, we've all posted something like "that's it, I'm done-" and then no, in fact, we were not done). But finally yeah, this has somewhat damaged my faith in the process. I really hope more content does not go missing / they are able to somehow rethink some of the underlying mechanics of Memoirs

Something that could work, for me - keeping the structure of that quest, minus the teleportation. Stitching together the environments (or doing regular-ole "enter the door" instancing, rather than whatever the portal business clearly was) while keeping the voice acting. Dang.

 

[Drachmor]

This quest is locked since 12 november.
When I was playing on last saturday (16 november), there was serious lag that disconnected all servers for 1-2 hours and I do not see performance difference in general since then (still getting same lags as before).

This quest could be remade with standard portals.
There are very few f2p quests at this level.

Yeah, this is my thing... again, I have always been wary of the whole "devs don't know what they're doing!" thing but like. It has not been very convincing, I guess, that the recent, novel forms of lag we've been experiencing have been the result of things that are... anything but?

Regardless of that - yes, I sincerely hope they remake this with standard portals. The argument about f2p content is also interesting and important, although in this context I do hope this quest specifically can be somehow salvaged + even improved. That'd be a real cool way to patch this up, imo.

 

[Drachmor]

In order for this quest to be able to return it would need to be completely rebuilt, with it being about as much work as building a new quest from scratch. Not that that couldn't happen if there really were enough fans of it to justify the work, but I think a good case can be made to recognize its experimental and never-quite-got-there nature and allow new creativity to make something new.

The adjustment is definitely hard, but I understand this. Frankly the main loss for me is the amazing voice acting - is it snarky, annoying and horrible? Yes... it's also just. Delicious, I can't explain it. Maybe I've been Cenobite pilled into enjoying the pain, but it reminds me of the line "Adventurers, do what you do best!" It's like... being able to experience in-game annoyance is a rare but full experience haha. I found it to be an interesting perhaps because of its deviation from the norm; maybe if this quest is ever reincarnated, players gain the option to turn on the narrator.

Would be cool to get an NPC of him somewhere in the Hall of Heroes, maybe even with a dialogue-activated voice playback...

 

[Aelonwy]

The adjustment is definitely hard, but I understand this. Frankly the main loss for me is the amazing voice acting - is it snarky, annoying and horrible? Yes... it's also just. Delicious, I can't explain it. Maybe I've been Cenobite pilled into enjoying the pain, but it reminds me of the line "Adventurers, do what you do best!" It's like... being able to experience in-game annoyance is a rare but full experience haha. I found it to be an interesting perhaps because of its deviation from the norm; maybe if this quest is ever reincarnated, players gain the option to turn on the narrator.

Would be cool to get an NPC of him somewhere in the Hall of Heroes, maybe even with a dialogue-activated voice playback...

Maybe what they should do is create a Sentient Gem with his voice/personality? Sentient Jewel of the Snarky? of the Duplicitous? or go straight to Calumnious? It would end up being a little like the kobold sentient gem... trying to get you slain and enjoying your hardships.

 

[Solarpower]

Maybe what they should do is create a Sentient Gem with his voice/personality?

If it is going to say that "an Elf is an Elf no more reasons needed" (whatever the actual line in the quest is) line, I'm in !!!

 

[Drachmor]

Maybe what they should do is create a Sentient Gem with his voice/personality? Sentient Jewel of the Snarky? of the Duplicitous? or go straight to Calumnious? It would end up being a little like the kobold sentient gem... trying to get you slain and enjoying your hardships.

Haha that would be awesome.

 

[Zavina]

I hope they are able to rework that quest, not a fan of permanent removals myself, I was kind of annoyed with the TOEE weapons getting removed.

Well tbf, the TOEE weapons (original ML7) weren't removed. They are still exist in the game system, just they don't drop anymore and the mats for doing the upgrade don't drop anymore. But Otis & his crafting table are still in the entry way, if you have the blanks and mushrooms to do an upgrade.

 

[Crell_1]

I never like to see content go away, and even though this quest was extremely problematic for me to run (crashing at the transitions), I quite enjoyed its different style the few times I got to play it. I'm glad I got to experience it and can't wait to see what sorts of similar experiments get tried in the future with lessons learned from this one.

Edit: I've skimmed a bit more of the thread. I agree wholeheartedly on the voice-overs being a good thing to preserve like the kobold. Not sure there's enough to make a gem out of it though =/

 

[PurpleSerpent]

The adjustment is definitely hard, but I understand this. Frankly the main loss for me is the amazing voice acting - is it snarky, annoying and horrible? Yes... it's also just. Delicious, I can't explain it. Maybe I've been Cenobite pilled into enjoying the pain, but it reminds me of the line "Adventurers, do what you do best!" It's like... being able to experience in-game annoyance is a rare but full experience haha. I found it to be an interesting perhaps because of its deviation from the norm; maybe if this quest is ever reincarnated, players gain the option to turn on the narrator.

Would be cool to get an NPC of him somewhere in the Hall of Heroes, maybe even with a dialogue-activated voice playback...

I never like to see content go away, and even though this quest was extremely problematic for me to run (crashing at the transitions), I quite enjoyed its different style the few times I got to play it. I'm glad I got to experience it and can't wait to see what sorts of similar experiments get tried in the future with lessons learned from this one.

Edit: I've skimmed a bit more of the thread. I agree wholeheartedly on the voice-overs being a good thing to preserve like the kobold. Not sure there's enough to make a gem out of it though =/

They can be a little difficult to make out at times, but Aldbar's YouTube walkthrough of the quest includes all of Callumnie's voice lines.

 

[erethizon1]

The duality and sheer short sighted nature of this community is baffling. The past two months has seen some of the worst lag spikes in the game's history. While we haven't suffered a near 3 week shutdown of servers like a certain server transfer caused, the lag spikes have brought an unparalleled level of hate towards the devs and their "ability to do their job" unlike anything I've seen in this community.

So here we are, almost a month into cormyr launch, the data gathered by the devs have found a source of absolutely game breaking lag. The devs conclude that the quest is bricking things from the roots up and need to axe it and will move anything of value to another quest. Yet somehow in a game which needs lag fixes asap, the community has the gall to call this as their walk out moment. Holy buddy go outside and take a break for your own health.
Memoirs has only 60% of the xp of a quest of its level and length, super outclassed in terms of loot esp since MD came out, and is already known to be super buggy and can soft lock itself. All in all, the quest is a terrible thing to run; bad xp, below subpar loot, can't even enjoy the story experience cause it hitches on itself.
I absolutely call bull on anyone who has this even in their top 30 ddo quests to run, let alone top 5. There is no way you ran this quest more than once every 3 lives. I'd even wager you didn't even know its been disabled for a week already. If you really love the loot out of here, its still in the game.

All I see here is upset players looking for more to be upset about. Being salty is your right, but this is just not a good take. Devs had to choose between axing dead content or keeping a large source of lag in the game and somehow we are complaining that taking the quest out is a bad move?

in short,
"devs fix lag"
"okay we found a fix, one quest is just absolutely ruining server side performance, any items will be moved, no gear will be lost"
"what?! why would the devs remove this pseudo dead content ??!? they are bad at their job, First the lag now this ??!!!"

Posts like these make me wanna invest in a neck brace so I don't break anything reading such logical whiplash

It is an extremely popular RXP daily quest to run at end game, so no, once every 3 lives is not the norm by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps you are confusing it with Invaders or Mired in Kobolds. Those are the kind of quests of that level that people commonly skip. Memoirs is quite a popular quest.