Issue:	Issue 17, August 2002
Section:	Events
Author:	Vulnax

Treasure Hunt - A review

From Vulnax's Vault of Virtual Veracity: Treasure Hunt 20/6/02

A bit of a change from the normal weekly mobile bash this, a Treasure Bash!

This mainly meant that instead of killing of all the mobiles, the players had to swamp or otherwise remove items of treasure from the game. This could mean destroying it, burning it, eating it, using it if it had some other use or simply dropping it in the swamp. Obviously some mobiles may be ... erm ... harmed ... on the way to getting all the treasure but that just can't be helped. If the players removed all treasures from The Land each person present at the end would receive a bonus of 5 times the number of treasure items swamped. A number of **Special** items were strewn around The Land, which entitled the finder to a free weeks play ... maximum 3 items. Which was nice.

About 7 players arrived at the start with a fair mix of magic users (possibly as it was a non PK event?) and off they all went. These included Robin the warlock, Vulnax the necromancess, Plank the sorcerer, Bammargera the warlock and Lemonhead the sorcerer with Mike the superhero as the sole non-MU contender to start! The guest version of Laura was on to watch proceedings and chat up the wizzes.

A new command had been added to the usual repertoire, TSV, which meant Treasure SurViving, similar to the usual SurViving command, SV, for mobiles left alive.

Quickly we were down to 294 items of treasure left, with loads more already swamped or destroyed. After Karya asked for votes for the swamp general, Mike was the lucky swamp general elected, for good or ill, with Bammargera being the deputy - actually Bammargera was doing well, having found the first of the free weeks, and Plank had found the second. Vulnax was busy being mugged by loads of rats costing serious losses even though fleeing in single figure stamina! Mike gained the next free week prize, but on his way to becoming a magic-usuer he lost a key item to the thief, and in his attempts to retrieve it he ended up in a fight with the thief, which he won. TSV was about 204 by now, 45 minutes into the game, with 7 active players, a guest, and four (yes, count 'em - Foddy, Turrican, Karya and Hawumph) wizzes looking on. Then a strange thing happened ...

*obit No one above novice level has died in a fight this reset. The following non-first-game players have died to the touchstone this reset: Mike the dragon-slaying swamp-general champion, short of luck by a very small amount.

As we get to 155 treasure items left, in under an hour, Mike was battling through the mobiles and the levels. As the mobiles were also down to about 100 it was suggested we try a double bash! Gulp! By now Polar, Heiach and Katamati had joined the fun.

Now 74 treasure items left in 39 minutes, as Laura (real Laura not the guest version) gains her second free week prize and Bammargera gets his third and last prize of the day, shortly followed by Polar again.

At 50 mobiles and 38 treasure items in 25 minutes, things were looking good, maybe even a double bash win? As the treasure left fell to 21, Katamati found a prize too. But a problem or two. An item to get another was missing - presumed swamped, and another large piece of treasure was in a small room, blocking access to itself. Could we shift it ... we tried ... and tried, could we access the stuck treasure, nope!

20 treasure items left in 10 minutes, and 39 mobiles! At 14 treasure items remaining things were looking desperate. How to get the stuck treasure ... Karya kindly offered to remove the stuck/inaccessible treasure if we finished off all the other treausre AND could name those we could no longer get to. The players were repeatedly requested to drop the pieces of their kit that were treasure, but since these were prized and useful items it wasn't surprising that many players held onto their kit until the end.

After 13 treasure remaining for a while, the 120 second warning to the end of reset was given ... which was promptly extended by another 900 seconds to give the players a fighting chance of clearing this inaugural treasure bash.

32 mobiles left and 10 pieces of treasure, 4 inaccessible and the odd one in use as kit ... with 10 minutes to go. As the TSV fell, it seemed 5 pieces of treausre were not accessible anymore, and with known treausre in use that left about 2 or 3 for the players to find. Which is how it all ended.

A fun and different, which we can all hope the Immortals wish to host again, in rotation with the usual Thursday Mobile Bash and other special monthly events.

Many thanks to all the organisers, and to the players for having a good go.

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