Event Catch-Up: Wild Hunt, Jester’s Fest, Happy Birthday, ESO!
I’ve been having so much fun playing with my dollhouse I haven’t done much of anything else. (Downstairs is done now, hopefully will have the next post up tomorrow or next week.) But for now…
Wild Hunt Crown Crates – RNG is a bizarre mistress. Bipolar, gives mixed signals, yet here we all are, courting her. Back in December I had some Christmas money, and decided to buy a big pack of the storm crates. Didn’t have much luck, as I described – 15 crates, no mount, very few big items, ended up converting all I could to gems and buying the belly dancer veil that way. Wasn’t impressed. Of the available treats in the Wild Hunt crates, I wanted two: the methrot multicolored hair, and the ancestor moths pet. I had gems left over from before, so I got 4 more crates, and could convert enough trash into gems to get the methrot hair, but not enough for the moths. However, I did much, much better in terms of getting the high-end prizes: an apex mount (the wolf), two pets, the leaf aura, and the Hircine banner. Nice, but I wouldn’t have bought any of those outright, and I’d absolutely trade in both pets for the ancestor moths. In other words, whether I do well or not, I’m still ambivalent about Crown Crates. Grade: C+
Jester’s Festival – Hm. On the plus side, like with the New Life fest, I love how it was integrated into the world lore; it felt like something that was really happening in Tamriel. On the other hand, I got super tired of doing those 3 quests, and quit after only 1 character had the full achievement, compared to the 5-7 each for the Halloween and New Life fests. And partly I bailed because distribution on the drops was so off – I have ~20 of those Jester banners now, and I wasn’t excited about the other prizes. Jester’s wasn’t my favorite so far, but it was a fun little diversion, and not every holiday event has to be huge. Grade: B-
2nd Anniversary Party! (for ESO’s 3rd birthday, lol) – This was great. No caveats, no “buts”. Fantastic set-up. Hooking the rewards to dailies meant every player could play/celebrate the way we each wanted, but there was still a group element, because players were grouping for dungeons and WBs. And there was incentive to participate, because the rewards in the boxes were real rewards – pre-existing, highly-sought items people already wanted, and not simply event-related gimmicks. Even the “trash” in the boxes were still useful (mats can be sold, if not needed), and seemed skewed towards housing mats (yay). In addition to sacraments/heists, guild, and WB dailies, I did a hella lot of writs because those were the fastest dailies, and as a crafter I had 9 alts already certified in all 6 crafts. (9×6=56/day, which I did several times, and yeah, it took hours.) Normally I don’t do writs on the alts with lower-level skills, but for the low price of maple or iron, I got another present box with a chance of a great motif page. Picked up a lot of Akiviri, Celestial, Glass, and alliance motif pages, in addition to the more common ones. Happy birthday, indeed! Grade: A
As a general rule, I like the events, and I like having incentive to do particular things to help break me out of ruts. I have to admit, however, that after New Life, the Jester’s Fest, and the birthday party, I am looking forward to just playing the game for a while. And by “a while” I mean: less than 5 weeks ’til Morrowind!
For me personally 2016 was a great year, but outside my immediate bubble it was pretty much an ongoing dumpster fire. As happy as I am about all I accomplished this year, including coming to the end of several huge, years-long projects (my Master’s degree being only one of those), the world still seems darker than it was. Still, the message of the season is that periods of Dark are always followed by the return of Light, and there’s a lot of weight off my shoulders right now, which makes optimism easier. So I will keep holding my little candle with hope in my heart and wait for the sun.
Crown Crates, the Summary: You spend actual $ to get crowns, then you spend the crown points to buy (usually cosmetic) goodies from the Crown Store. In the case of Crown Crates, what you’re buying is, per crate, 4-5 random prizes from a set pool. Items range from common to “apex”, the most rare items – in this round (they will be seasonal) all apex items are mounts with a storm atronach skin.
Letters From Tamriel 