Apparently, Dungeon Master Narration means that whenever the player enters a room or other situation a short audio track may be heard:



This sort of thing. Wish there was some way we could get hold of the entire Arneson narration audio.

-Havard

I play DDO on and off and have done the 9 quest series that DA narrates. I also got the Mantle of the World Shaper.

DA does indeed narrate in areas. IIRC in the intro to each quest and a few points along each way. Also, just outside the entry areas is a memorial to Dave Arneson.

DDO is now kind of free to play. IIRC I think you can download it free at the website. Not sure I can post a link but it is pretty easy to figure out.

What they do you is you can have 3 different kinds of account
free- you can have IIRC a couple of characters and the standard quests are free to play.
pay for content- You can buy certain quest chains and account upgrades a la carte.
VIP- Sometimes on sale for $9.99 per month. Sometimes more. Up to 10 characters per server upgradeable, All quests available, but there are some where you have to complete another quest first. Also, 500 free Turbine Points each month. And there are a few other unlocks as well.

The "Threnal" chain that DA narrates is Pay to Play (P2P) content.

If you are dead set against paying, but want to do the DA series for free you can also pay for the content by earning Turbine Points (TPs). This is accomplished by collecting favour. Favour accrues when you complete a quest depending on the quest and the difficulty level. For example a quest can have a favour breakdown as follows
norm 3
hard 6
elite 9
You cannot do the same quest over and over with the same character for more favour. 9 would be the max total for that quest in the previous example. However, if you make a new character you can have that one also earn the favour which will translate into IIRC 100 favour=25 TPs. A few bonus TPs for new people tot hat server.

also they got Gary Gygax to narrate the Delera's chain of quests.


Minor spoilers below....






If you have never tried DDO before the Threnal chain is for intermediate level characters so you will have to play somewhat before trying these quests. You will start in the new peoples area of an island called Korthos. There is a tutorial and some entry level quests. Once you do the Korthos capstone quest (Misery's Peak) you will be qualified to sail onto the main play area known as Stromreach. Slightly more difficult beginner quests will await you in the harbour and a few high level quests as well that you can return to the harbour later to complete. After some quests in the harbour you will move onto the market place. There are some slightly more difficult quests in the market. The market is the central hub and most other areas of town can be accessed through it. One of the areas attached to the market is known as House Phiarlan (House P) It is in here that you can be transported to the ruins of Threnal. Come ready you will have to fight your way through giants to get there. In Threnal there are a series of 9 quests accessed through 3 different entrances. There is 1 quest giver per entrance. IIRC you have to do 3 the western quests and the 3 eastern quests before qualifying for the 3 southern quests.

THIS IS IMPORTANT - often after completing a quest 1 will reset the quest by talking to the quest giver after getting the end reward so they are ready the next time they want to do it. DO NOT DO THAT HERE. Unless DDO has fixed this it will screw up your quest chain and you will not be able to the 3 southern quests until you repeat the quest chain you reset.

After doing all 9 quests you will be given the option of some pretty sweat end rewards. The Mantle of the World Shaper is normally among them. No guarantees though.

Happy hunting!

Best regards,

Hunter Fairbanks

Hello Hunter!

Thanks for taking time to comment on this! This was exactly the sort of information I was looking for. I would love to play through an adventure DMed by Arneson, and this is the closest thing we can get now I guess.


How important are the narration parts to completing the quests?

Welcome to the Comeback Inn!

-Havard

If you are new to the quest sometimes the DM narration will provide clues. Sometimes they are desriptions. Sometimes the narration is a conrgatulations on a job well done.

As far as the importance of the narration to completing the quest

Normally there are up to 6 people in a group. 12 in some special quests called "raids". Almost always at least one person has already done the quest and already knows everything there is to do and in what order. There are 2 ways of joining a a quest group. Looking for member (LFM) and guild a organised quest. It is very common in the near random groups that form using the LFM interface that you end up in a group with 1 or more "zergers" who run through a quest as fast as they can in which case the narration is basically background info that is optional. If you prefer to savour a quest I reccomend either joining a role playing guild or after becoming experienced with the game a permadeath guild.

On guilds

As I prefer to play whenever the mood strikes me rather than when a guild has an event scheduled and have very long periods where I do not play at all I only have membership in very informal guilds and my guidance on joining and being a member of a guild can be very limited. I do not know the names of any role playing guilds, but with some research you could probably learn this. Also, if you are interested in being in a guild and are not a frequant player I would reccomend joining one which does not kick for long periods of inactivity. I have not joined this particular guild, but if you are interested in taking things slowly and enjoying the narration there is a guild on the Argonesan server known as "we do not run through dungeons" that may be of interest to you.

Hunter - thanks much for posting this. Its all new to me.

How much realtime do you think it would take to play through this adventure?

By the By, I stumbled on this thread that mentions Dave's passing and the Mantle tribute http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=178928

The actual conclusion times on the adventure chain itself can be highly variable.

If you have a fast moving experienced group of people who can stay for the entire chain and everything runs perfectly it can be done in about 2 hours. However, that is rarely the case.

First there is finding a group. As it is not a free to play quest series and requires a time commitment in a chain which is more convoluted than most putting together a group can take a while.

Often somebody will have to leave partway through or take an extended AFK (away from keyboard).

If somebody leaves part way through then there are 3 choices
1 Continue short staffed
2 Use a hireling (NPC that can be rented) whom tend to be very inferior to live players.
3 Wait for somebody new who either does not mind jumping in part way through, or if the group is willing, restart the entire quest chain over with the new person. If the group does not start over, unless DDO has changed this, if the new person does not have east and west subchains finished they will not be able to take part in the final 3 quests.

Sometimes, whether through not knowing or just not paying attention to what they are doing, someone will reset one of the subquest chains.

Then there is one quest which is difficult to succeed at and often requires multiple attempts to complete.