Gukta, Outpost of Marr

[OberonMiM]

the ones outside the city are on guk faction. So i assume the ones inside are

As for the frogloks i still beleive they are EVIL. After all that camping for manastones killing the "EVIL EYE" who is on "Frogloks of Guk" faction.

Think about it. Evil floating disembodied eye = evil = froglok faction

frogloks = froglok faction

frogloks = evil

its simple association

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Someone on the newbie zone just said that their troll's bind point was moved from Grobb to Neriak.

[OberonMiM]

oh but theres one thing you forgot to think about

The portal in POK still says GROBB!!! and leads to innothule.

Doesn't say Gukta

and think about it.

If new frogs started in the new grobb what would they kill to level up on besides the kobalds (which arent that common)

Frogloks?

Anyways in order to see what becomes of this we will have to let it play out for a few weeks. Lets just hope verant doesn't make grobb a buggy dynamic takeover zone like hallowshade (shudder)

[Jhayaha]

A patch message said they changed the port in on the Grobb spiritstone to be somewhere in Neriak. This change to Grobb I think is permanent. Has to do with the upcoming LoY I imagine. :roll:

Looks like I may have to move my poor lowbie Troll out of the swamp .... :shock:

[Moonlilly]

Grobb is no more, trolls live in Neriak

Time for my DE chanter to hunt down an new home to avoid the troll stench.

[Itzena]

If new frogs started in the new grobb what would they kill to level up on besides the kobalds (which arent that common)

Um, how about the new mobs added to Innothule yesterday?

[Wyrdlan]

As these accusations are based on the rather pitiful assumption that there are no more zone changes to come.


Expect new zones off the swamp, and level 1 trolls and ogres to wack.

[Ilona]

Poor ogre shamans, whose spiritstone won't take them anywhere near home now...

[Angelsyn]

See my post in the other thread on this subject.

Think one of the Moderators who have rights in here can merge the two?

[Namini Karana]

The portal in POK still says GROBB!!! and leads to innothule.

If new frogs started in the new grobb what would they kill to level up on besides the kobalds (which arent that common)

the ones outside the city are on guk faction. So i assume the ones inside are

As for the frogloks i still beleive they are EVIL. After all that camping for manastones killing the "EVIL EYE" who is on "Frogloks of Guk" faction.

You might want to do a LITTLE research, even just a LITTLE before you go making assumptions. 1) Yes, it does. The new Grobb and Neriak files already added 30 minutes to the patch time yesterday. POK would be pushing it for 56kers. Remember, they said INCREMENTAL downloads. You think this is the only change. 2) Take a look around Innothule some time. There are a LOT of new mobs there for little fribbits to level off of. 3a) The ones outside the city are NOT on Guk Faction. I am KOS to Guk faction. As a Bard of Mithaniel, I am amiable to the Gukta frogs that guard the city and all those which live inside the city. Those who have killed Guk faction need not fear so long as they are not an evil race (Dark Elves, Ogres, Trolls. Not sure on Iksars). If you are a Neutral or Good aligned race, the fribbits will at least tolerate you. 3b) The Frogloks of Gukta are worshippers of Mithaniel Marr, the Lightbringer. They are not evil.

To recap:

So i assume

Yes, and that was your critical mistake.

Namini

[Asharad]

I've seen screenshots of the new froggie sity and it isn't gukta.

I agree this is a temprory thing leading up to the LoY launch. I think the trolls will retake Grobb, and the froggies will move to their new permanet city.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Basic order of events, from my understanding:

1) Frogloks of Gukta (the new PC model) spawn in Innothule (sp) at the entrance to Guk and begin attacking the Grobb guards. The Frogloks of Gukta continue to get reinforcements.

2) Eventually the Frogloks of Gukta reach the zoneline to Grobb - the script "seemed" to zone them, but it could've just been something like "once frogs reach the zoneline, despawn all that arrive there and start spawning in grobb". Either way, the Frogloks of Gukta begin attacking the trolls inside Grobb.

3) I don't know at what point, but the Frogloks of Gukta begin setting up static spawns in some area (guards in the apparent "lord/king throne room" of Grobb)

4) The Frogloks of Gukta are victorious. Grobb completely despawns (Frogloks included, don't know about pets), and respawns as Gukta, Outpost of Marr. I believe Innothule respawns at this time as well, with a new set of mobs and Gukta guards.

5) Systemwide broadcast that Neriak FQ and Grobb will be coming down for a short patch.

6) Grobb/Gukta comes back up. New textures and objects from grobb_2_obj.s3d, downloaded in the Feb 6 patch are added - new signs replace old signs (A texture change. Generally "golden" as opposed to blood-written, properly spelled, referencing "Gukta", and usually deciently written), new objects cover old ones (think "object" like the tents and such they occasionally add to zones. They are not part of the zone geometry, but a single "item" that can be placed around. Minor illusions can duplicate these at times, and the sometimes don't even count as obstructions (for LoS issues - don't know if this is true in Gukta). Aquagoblin tents in BBM, the new Kobold camps in Steamfront, and most lamps, are examples of "items" rather than zone geometry) such as the main town of Gukta covering a handing disembowled dwarf and bloody wood elf legs. All tradeskill containers have been removed from the zone (most times they WERE logicially placed in relation to the merchants - ie oven in the middle of baking merchants, wheel next to a pottery merchant).

7) The zone rests in this state. There are a handful of quests (Bog Juice, Bone chips/Fresh Fish/Large Rat Ears, 3 Pelts for 1 Higher, Fungus Clump armor, Giant Mocassin (sp) trinket, rusty weapons, etc) which seem to work (the chip/fish/ear is the only one that seems to yield faction, raising "Frogloks of Gukta") which have existed since pre-patch. The caged troll guard prisoners are found to be EXCELLENT 40s xp (hear 20% at lvl 40, 7% at lvl 47, but on different prisoners), and are low risk (no adds whatsoever). As far as I know this was the state of the zone when the servers came down around 5pm EST.

The zone is significantly changed with significant time investment. Is it a permanent change, ala Sleeper/Kithcor? No idea. Is it a significant, decient duration change? Yes. They have invested a lot of time and effort into this, and have done a minor patch exclusively to facilitate it. Whether Grobb will go back to the Trolls and the Frogloks will have a new home is unknown and completely speculation.

Other noteable changes:
-) People camped out in Grobb (and Innothule I believe) were moved to Nektulos. Storyline, the Trolls grabbed everything as they were fleeing, including those camped.

-) Newbie Trolls now can only choose Neriak as their starting city

-) Troll Bouncer Model was added to Neriak FQ, and apparently Troll guildmasters replaced some existing DE NPCs in the Foriegn Quarter.

-) For a time it was impossible to zone from Neriak FQ -> Nektulos. Hopefully this was a bug and was fixed

-) The Troll/Ogre Spiritstone's name was changed and now ports to Netkulos (or Neriak?).

-) Innothule and Grobb both pulled new models from other zones (odd "txt" files downloaded Feb 6 seem to have been the source for the exe's processing of this - innothule_chr.txt and grobb_chr.txt). Grobb stole the snake from CT, piranna from Qeynos, and spider from EC, and Innothule took the CT moss snake and EC spider. These seem to be to facilitate the new mob spawns, without needing to download entirely new chr files (or addendum files).

-) Innothule is completely changed. Froglok of Gukta guards, "fallen froglok" and "fallen troll" 'items' (look like corpses, named, but untargetable) with "a corpse spore" spawns, and numerous Luclin worms, swamp Mosquitos, Moccassins (snakes), and occasional alligators, kobolds, and froglok tads.


I personally am KoS to undead Guk faction, dubious to live Guk faction, and seemingly indifferent to Frogloks of Gukta. They are THREE factions, and separate. If your race/class seems to point to being welcomed by the Guktas, you probably are welcome regardless of your actions in Guk itself.

[Namini Karana]

Re: Dunthor

Completely correct, however I would like to point out one thing. There WERE geometry changes. The giant rock formation at the loc I mentioned in a previous post was not an object, it was actual zone geometry/geography that changed, and quite drastically. There were also other minor changes (additions of walls/structures in some places that are not "objects" but again, geo changes), but the one I noted earlier is QUITE apparent if you have visited Grobb before or were in that room in Gukta prior to the zones coming down briefly. On Karana at very least, ALL tradeskill containers were present, openable, and combineable: brew barrel, forge, pottery wheel, kiln, loom, oven.

Also of note: New Named mobs in Innothule--at least, I've never seen them before and I have seen no record of them. Bloodneedle (mosquito), **** the Poisoned (old-world froglok), and Devn Kevkan (naked DE) along with cronies a troll bone spirit, a froglok bone spirit, and a ghoulish frog. None of these mobs dropped anything on the instances I killed them (2, 2, 1) and gave no faction hits. Bloodneedle and Whatshisname the Poisoned seem to either have a very quick (1-5min) spawn time, or randomly spawn in place of other mosquitos and possibly kobolds(?). Devn Ksomething spawned by the undead tower. When I approached him, the bone spirits and ghoulish froglok spawned in front of him. These 3 mobs are presumably aggro to lower levels, though not to lvl 53. Devn did NOT respond to hails and was targetable, all though I COULD NOT ATTACK HIM. After unsuccessful experimentation, I killed his cronies, who all dropped bonechips. After the 2nd bone spirit's death, Devn said he could finish me off himself and immediately cast a necro pet I would guess maybe lvl 25 ish, but not sure. Devn himself died swiftly, and his pet took 10-20 swings from me before collapsing. He didn't drop anything. I am not sure if the ghoulish froglok was related to Devn or if his spawn location was a coincidence, but the bone spirits are definitely connected to this guy. No idea what he's for.

That's all I can think of.

Namini

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Tradeskill containers and many of the rocks are what I consider "items/objects".

Looking at the list of files with "grobb" in the name (ignoring *.txc since those are "texture cache" files, and the new story.txt bit):
grobb.s3d
grobb.xmi
grobb_2_obj.s3d
grobb_chr.s3d
grobb_chr.txt
grobb_obj.s3d
grobb_sndbnk.eff
grobb_sounds.eff

From my understanding the two .eff files are having to do with zone sounds, and can be ignored for these purposes. No idea on the .xmi, so will ignore that.

The grobb_chr.txt seems to be considered to be referencing other zone's character models to add them to the grobb zone without the need for them to be in the global file or a specific grobb file. Nice way to save space. grobb_chr.s3d seems to be the base character file for grobb, including all of the zone's non-global models.

The three that seem to be most pertinent are grobb.s3d, grobb_obj.s3d, and grobb_2_obj.s3d. My understanding of these is that grobb.s3d is the zone geometry - the basic, unadorned zone - with textures. grobb_obj.s3d is the zone-specific additional objects, like grobb style chairs and tables, lamps, and like other objects that are both a) often repeated in identical forms and b) potentially wanting to be moved/added at later times. This type of object file is how they were able to do the newbie revamps without downloading an entirely new Butcherblock, Steamfront, Nektulos, etc - they used existing objects, just added/modified locations. grobb_2_obj.s3d seems to be an addendum file to this - new objects for placement throughout the zone. http://www.gameroom.com/krulk/ (link from the shadowknight thread) has some of the items extracted through a viewer - as you can see, some of them are the signs and stones adorning modern Gukta.

I guess its a question of terminology. These are physical objects with geometry that you can stand on and mess with. But they're not part of the *base* zone. They're added *ontop* of it, at least from what I can tell.

Anyhow ... I'm not part of the groups that attempt to pull apart the engine or throw things in simulators, I just try to understand it from viewing what is given to us. I could very well be wrong :P But I *think* this is the way it works. Those crates on both sides of counters (to raise the frogloks and customers), the promanent "Gukta/Outpost of Marr" stone, the (now missing) tradeskill containers, all objects added ontop of the base geometry, not part of it.

Anyhow ... any luck with other parts of the zone? I'm about to head back and see if my short dwarven self can see through anything interesting :P

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Woot! Take a short race (ie someone that can look through walls), and go to the big "Gukta/Outpost of Marr" sign/stone where the hanging dwarf &amp; wood elf legs were. Do the sit/look through bit, and you will see the hanging dwarf and wood elf <i>still there</i>. That's what I mean - these objects were added ontop of the existing zone geometry to change its appearance without actually changing the base geometry file, make it non-troll, and make it Gukta feeling.