EBON GATE NEWS: PM Wyrom gives a status update on Sonreeva (Newcropolis). It’s going to open without any change from last year, and there may still be things planned for it next year as he makes adjustments to the dungeon crawl, value of the activity, and people’s expectations. Read what he said:
Text of Discord Post follows:
PM Wyrom
Sonreeva Update
on 16 Oct 2023 7:25 PM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord
on #forums/paid-events channel
We had anticipated on opening the second phase of Sonreeva this year on the 15th, but there seems to be a rather large disconnect on the reward in Sonreeva, the cost, and whether this is the EG gift. When I created this classic dungeon crawl, I was doing so with the idea that it should be repeated a large number of times before anyone solved it. The reward at the end was going to be something that can be rather powerful on top of all your equipment, something we haven’t really done outright before. The pricing would scale with the more powerful tiers since it’s something that we felt would get endless use.
Feedback about it has been less than stellar, entries into Sonreeva were really low last year, and when the price was revealed on the 10th, it didn’t seem like things were lining up. Sonreeva is designed for about 3+ updates that tell a story each year that have evolving puzzles so that it continues to be challenging until the end of all its updates. But as it sits, I feel we are too far apart on the reward in terms of pricing expectations and power creep to just let it go. Sonreeva alone was roughly 300 hours of work I put into it last year, and another 100 hours of work this year, and I feel like I rather improve both the experience and reward structure before just pushing it out with the idea that two thirds of the updates are done already.
Sonreeva’s updates will not go into effect this year. We will open it as-is from last year if you want to experience it with a single stone cube entry. The reward will still be something you can pick up at the base (so +1) but we will not be offering any upgrades. There are pending titles for your achievements in Sonreeva, so if you want to get things like the secrets figured out or release the undead, you can continue to do so to prepare for that.
As for the reward and the pricing, I’m not sure which direction we will go, but I will give you some possible outcomes. More time is needed to make this decision, hence why things won’t be progressing this year.
The ring will be discontinued and you will be able to claim a refund of 10,000 soul shards.
The ring pricing and power will be adjusted.
A new reward is offered in the dungeon crawl and the ring is repurposed for something else.
Sonreeva’s entry will require something other than the cubes.
Hopefully everyone understands, making a big decision based on feedback is just too difficult to have the turnaround time of 7 days for something that a lot of time and energy went into. I don’t want to cannibalize something that I feel has a lot more value as it stands.
Direct Discord Link (Right click, copy link, and paste into Discord App if you don’t want to use the Discord web interface.)
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