The content Winter has ended and Spring arrives - what better way to celebrate than a trip to the Faire? Darkmoon Faire is the first of Rumble's events, revitalising the Questing and Guild experience with new ways to play. Let's dive in!
So, what is the Darkmoon Faire? The Darkmoon Faire is a week long event, coming every second week. When it arrives, you'll be able to access a new set of challenges.
These are more similar to quests in other games, requiring a specific task to be completed such as winning matches with a Beast leader, rather than the open-ended daily system used in Rumble currently. Challenges award tickets, which can then be exchanged for prizes, such as tomes or (at higher cost) cosmetics such as player avatars.
Unlocking prizes requires following a path along the reward track (similar to a talent tree in other games), so you'll have to decide early on which goodies you're going to go for this week.
It's not expected you clear the whole prize tree each week, but (at least some of) the rewards will return for next time. If you don't make it to the end, don't fret - unused tickets are converted into Arclight Energy (20-1 conversion rate). Furthermore, any tickets earned by yourself are also granted to your guildies (one-to-one), so you can share in the fun together!
So, the Faire offers a new way to earn rewards. Is that it? The Darkmoon Faire will also change the gameplay of quests for the duration of the event. During the Faire, chests and mines are replaced by Darkmoon Chests. When 4 chests are cracked open (either player counts), chaos erupts! For example, during Deja Vu any mini played from hand is immediately replaced, allowing you to play it again and again. During March of the Sappers, a swarm of sappers spawns at the base. And we have.. whatever this is called:
Since the challenges require completing quests, it's really good to see them given a second life like this. I hope this is alongside some other improvements to the questing experience, like lowering (or removing), the scaling level system as you complete more of them.
Overall, I think this event is exactly what Rumble needed. It hits on three important categories:
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Questing got boring very quickly and people did not want to do it. This is a big problem when questing is one of the core non-PvP forms of repeatable content in the game. If the random effects are wild enough, then just spinning the roulette wheel of Darkmoon Madness will be entertaining. Even though Surges get a little stale after a while, I do still enjoy a good Gold Rush or Dragon's Hoard, and I can see the same holding for Chaos Chests. When we get tired of that, it should be straightforward to expand the system in the future.
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Guilds are being used. After you rush through your guild chest, it's easy to forget that the guild exists for 90% of your Rumble playtime. Bringing them front and centre with shared guild rewards both builds bonds and lets players establish a sense of community progress. There's a tension here that it may cause excessive policing by guild members (if you log in and your guild has kicked you out for low activity, maybe that is an exit point for the game as a whole) - but I think this is adequately counterbalanced by the feeling of connection to your guild as you log in and see their hard work granting rewards.
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Extra rewards. Even though it's crude to think about, just a set of extra tomes will go a long way to helping smooth out the leveling curve, especially as players get stuck in the later part of the campaign. The rewards actually seem fairly substantial - an active guild is probably granting you around an extra 1000g per week. There's also the possibility of targeting specific rewards you want, like family tomes, Arclight Energy, or Epic cores.
My only criticism is I wish this had come out faster. Had this been in place on day 1, I think the game would have retained the Halo of positive opinion much longer. All we can hope now is it starts turning the tides of sentiment. Existing players, new players, or people thinking of jumping back in - I can't wait to join you in the Darkmoon Faire!