Stomp-A-Shrew

Disclaimer: No shrews were harmed in the making of this game. Stomp-A-Shrew is a challenge loved equally by humanoid and shrewish participants alike. All shrews are present of their own accord, and are free to leave the game at any time. The stomping boots given to the Garden’s defenders have been carefully crafted by the Elves of Duillond to ensure that shrews are only knocked out of the running, and are not actually squished at any point during the course of the game.

The Elves of Duillond are extremely frustrated right now. This was their season, their own celebration. They were supposed to draw crowds away from all the other events of Middle-earth’s festival and to their new garden, the loveliest sight in all the Elf-lands. They did indeed draw crowds – crowds of pesky shrews! They have been attacking all the beautiful young plants and creating a very hostile growing environment. The Elves are at a loss, and have admitted that they need help in order to get their garden up and running.

Simple solution: Beat up shrews, right? Easy! We have shrews all over the game. Heck, they even have their own settlement just outside of Michel Delving. This game is a very simple concept…but as I said, I’ve learned not to be surprised when simple concepts are anything but straightforward by the end of production. After this game was implemented (and began to be tested by our Quality Assurance team and not just in dev by myself and Tim,) we learned that combat in our game is not intended to support all levels at once. Level 30 players are meant to attack level 30ish mobs. The shrews were originally set to level 65 so that they would attack everyone in the garden, but when QA started testing with low-level characters, they found that they missed about 75% of the time.

Rask tried everything he could think of to make it so that a level 1 player could beat up a level 65 shrew, but alas, the code delves too greedily and too deep. Our combat system would not be persuaded to abandon its folly for the sake of festivals, in which players of all levels are meant to do things together. (We had a similar problem with the Beer Fight as well, with high-level characters hitting low-level ones and the skill system not wanting to recognize it due to players conning grey.) Then we had the problem of making the shrews level 1, but then they wouldn’t actually attack higher level players at all. That’s an example of one of the numerous problems we tend to run into with festivals, and gameplay must generally be redesigned several times over the course of production in order to find balance among the various issues that pop up.

In the end, though, we try to present a fun, quirky, and engaging competitive mini-game to go with the standard MMO content. Stomping shrews may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this is why I work hard to grow the festivals every time an update rolls around. I am very excited that this is my first chance to expand upon an event to which I’ve already dedicated an entire Book cycle a year ago.