Editor-in-Chief Chris "Pwyff" Tom went on an in-game tour with DDO's Fernando Paiz and Erik Boyer to challenge himself on Update 12: Vaults of the Artificers. Mini-games ahoy!

The next challenge we moved to was Kobold's Island, a mini-game that combines resource management with a little bit of tower defense. On Kobold's Island, players need to collect engine parts and Dragon Shards in order to construct Extractor Towers, which will harvest more Dragon Shards in turn. The overall objective of the mini-game is to collect a certain number of Dragon Shards, but there are a number of side-objectives available. Monsters will also come to attack your Extractor Towers and, given how spaced out those towers were, it gets more and more difficult to protect your towers as you build them across the map. Players will need to strategically place themselves on patrols in order to keep their towers safe, or they can construct additional defenses by using some of their hard-earned resources.

During this challenge, I identified three objectives that I wanted to achieve (no matter what!) and then set about pursuing them with blind devotion. Unfortunately, this decision cost me a win, as I ended up missing the overall objective of farming up 750 Dragon Shards. As I was an abject failure on my first run, the only tip I can give is to not follow in my footsteps, but I will say that it's very satisfying to see all those objectives completed. The game might not acknowledge my achievements, but I think I'll call this a success.

In order to keep interest and replayability high with these mini-games, Turbine is also adding a pile of game-changing features that will add new twists to their challenges. For example, in Dr. Rushmore's Mansion, entering a different challenge mode enables "Moving Targets," where bosses will change locations at various times. The objectives also change with different modes, so players will need to drastically rethink their overall strategies if they want to get a five-star achievement in every challenge. For the Kobold Island Challenge, playing in "The Disruptor" mode sets the challenge during nighttime, with skeletons spawning at various times, and an enormous Giant Entropic Skeleton that spawns and instantly prevents all extractors from working while he is alive. There was one objective here that rewarded players for allowing the Giant Entropic Skeleton to stay alive for 10 minutes, so the challenge would be to accumulate the required Dragon Shards while actively preventing their extraction.

All in all, Update 12 will be introducing 4 new mini-games with 3 different modes and epic challenge modes for 9 of those challenges. That totals up to 21 unique challenges and objectives for players to pursue. Also, by meting out tokens daily (3 for free players, 5 for VIP or premium players), Turbine hopes that the House Cannith Challenges will be something of an arcade distraction for players intent on getting through all of DDO's expansive content updates. You can even hoard your tokens until the end of the week to go on a massive challenge spree!

That about wraps it up for the upcoming content planned for DDO's Update 12. Through our discussions, Fernando and Erik assure me that they really want these challenges to be a part of the DDO experience, and not just a simple "one-off" side project that goes nowhere. Apparently they've been working on this content for over a year and a half, and they really want to evolve it and run with it. In terms of other, smaller content, they've noted that there will be a new "Free Preview" Button for Cosmetic Armor (no more ultra cheap 'preview' kits), along with server performance improvements, a new shared platinum vault, some new armor kits (two exclusive Warforged Armor kits!), character rename kits and, finally, some polish and playability improvements for the Monk class's Elemental Stances. Let's hope Update 12 can keep players challenged throughout this winter holiday!

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom, Editor-in-Chief.