Chapter 30: Frostlake City Caravan Event Review

The Eternal Kingdom dungeon's "chat plaza" quickly relocated from the training grounds to the entrance hall of the Frostlake City caravan's campsite. The players gathered there, traded there — and Nicholas's baseline, common-sense understanding of the creature known as "goblin" got refreshed over and over.

One goblin had literally just sat down not far away and finished eating the spider meatball in his hands, when another goblin walked over and asked him:

"You eaten yet?"

"Not yet — I was just about to go eat."

"Then I'm gonna go start a group. Come find me when you've eaten, I'll save you a slot. Event's only three days — tonight we grind all night."

"Cool."

After that conversation wrapped, the goblin who had JUST finished a spider meatball dropped to the ground, took all of one second to fall asleep, woke back up ten minutes later, and immediately hollered toward the gathered goblins:

"ChestHair! I'm done eating!"

What were they doing? Some kind of collective psychosis?

If Nicholas hadn't already signed that agreement with Sharlock, he'd have been sorely tempted to grab a goblin and crack open his skull to see exactly what had gone wrong in there.

While Nicholas was being driven up the wall by the players' bizarre behavior, Sharlock had already finished editing the full details of the Frostlake City caravan event, posted it online, and started browsing the official site.

The official site was already flooded with posts about the Frostlake City caravan — though most of those were just speculation from players who hadn't gotten into CBT1. The hottest few threads were, as ever, the beta testers' intro posts about the caravan, and the hottest of them all were still the two threads by xX_ShadowBlade_Xx — 【Frostlake City Caravan Event: Entering the City, Illustrated】 and 【A Detailed Analysis of the Frostlake City Caravan Event】.

The first of those threads had gone up roughly two hours ago — right as Nicholas's caravan was entering the city. Clearly xX_ShadowBlade_Xx had posted it the instant it happened, to snag maximum traffic and attention. The content: a huge pile of caravan photos.

You could tell from the thread that xX_ShadowBlade_Xx had thrown it together in a rush — aside from the photos there were barely any words — but the reply count was still piling high.

The second thread had only gone up after Sharlock published the detailed event announcement. The reply count wasn't huge yet, but people kept manually bumping it back to the top — you could just imagine how blazing hot that thread was going to get.

"Hey everyone! It's me again, xX_ShadowBlade_Xx.

I already posted some pictures of the Frostlake City caravan coming in, so let me round those out:

(images)...

As for the Frostlake City caravan — I'm too stunned to even know what to say. I've got exactly one thought right now: devs, PLEASE hurry up and update the game and unlock more races. Holy crap, that stitched-together abomination is so hardcore the game's about to get yanked off shelves. If I ever get the chance to play an abomination, I am absolutely trying it.

Beyond hinting at a few races that might get unlocked later, this Frostlake City caravan event also showed off a new form of transportation — a giant four-legged beast with a weird long shell. By the way, yes, this beast CAN stomp players to death. Same deal as the Undercity elevator flattening people — nothing weird about it; honestly, I'd have been surprised otherwise. I mean, you can kill yourself by running into a wall in this game — no reason a beast that size couldn't stomp someone flat.

Here is the provenance: NovelPhoenix contains the author's chapter, while this copy was made without approval; readers support the creator at that source.

A lot of you forum folks might not know about the Undercity elevator thing — just Google it.

Alright then, based on my personal understanding of this game, plus the event rules just published on the forums, let me break down this Frostlake City event.

First: the Frostlake City event runs three days. The redeemable items are the 【WinterSunHat】, the 【GoblinInTuxedo】, the 【Frostlake Diamond Shortsword】, the 【Frostlake Shortbow】, and the 【Little Cloth Sack】. I'm sure you've all seen the detailed item descriptions by now. And judging from the materials these redemptions cost, getting ALL of them within three days is flat-out impossible — even if you camped the Spider Nest entrance for three days straight.

Whale players, well, we'll leave them out of it — they probably CAN clear everything inside three days. But don't panic, everyone: the items are quantity-limited, but there aren't that many whales in CBT1, so you've still got a shot at one or two of them.

Now let me rank these items by how much they're worth, in my personal opinion: 【Frostlake Shortbow】 > 【Little Cloth Sack】 = 【Frostlake Diamond Shortsword】 > 【WinterSunHat】 and 【GoblinInTuxedo】.

The Frostlake Shortbow — as the only ranged weapon in the game so far, I don't need to tell you what it's worth. A hundred-meter range might even let you solo-kill a subterranean spider without taking a scratch. Exact performance, though, we'll only know after someone redeems one and tests it. One more note: nobody has redeemed a short bow yet, because 500 units of spider legs, spider meat, dire wolf pelts, and killer vine hide, or 50 units of spider silk — that is not something you scrape together overnight. But it is absolutely the #1 redemption target for whale players.

Then there's the Little Cloth Sack: 100 units of basic materials, or 10 units of spider silk. A player who grinds hard enough can probably redeem it within two days without spending a cent. But with only 20 of them available, you regular players better hustle.

As for the 【Frostlake Diamond Shortsword】 — honestly? I'd call it optional. Priced way too high. Sure, it hits 0-15 attack versus the hiltless short sword, but this game's combat system is basically modeled on real fighting. The combat system is so complex that stats alone can't explain it. That attack power, from my own testing, performs differently depending on who's wielding it. Holding a higher-attack weapon does NOT mean you beat stronger enemies.

Equipment is one factor in who wins a fight — and it only counts when both sides are evenly matched or close to it.

What really matters is your own combat skill. Take us pushing the Spider Nest: thirty fully geared newbie players couldn't even kill ONE subterranean spider. But five veterans who'd taken ten rounds of newbie combat-training courses could handle a subterranean spider with total ease — and pull off a no-damage kill. THAT is how much your own skill and combat experience matter!

Not that weapons don't matter at all — a bare-fisted player and a player with a good weapon are two very different animals.

As for the combat and weapon systems, the devs haven't published any design docs — clearly they want us to figure it out ourselves. I could talk all night and still not cover it all, and there's way too much we don't understand yet. That's for us beta testers to keep exploring and testing.

I know some players might think a combat system this complicated kills the fun. But like I said before: Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom — at this point calling it a "game" feels wrong. I've been here half a month, and for me it's been like starting a whole new life. A life of swords and magic!

A complex, true-to-life combat system hasn't cost this game any fun for me — it's got me hopelessly hooked. I won't go into detail on the feels; just get in when open beta comes and experience it yourselves.

The remaining 【WinterSunHat】 and 【GoblinInTuxedo】 are pure fashion-player picks. For me, honestly? Useless. Sun hat, tuxedo — put those on and you can't even grind coins comfortably, let alone run the Spider Nest. So fashion players, go ahead and redeem; pure combat players, skip them.

Alright, that's it for today. I've got spiders to grind in-game. I just redeemed a Little Cloth Sack — short bow, you're next!"

Sharlock finished reading xX_ShadowBlade_Xx's post, amazed. He'd put on a little event, opened up a handful of redemption items, and the players STILL produced an analysis this detailed. What do you even call that — too much free time?

But then, that was one of these players' signature traits. They'd done plenty of dumb stuff already; this was hardly an outlier. The replies below were great reading too — mostly salt and envy, some combat-technique discussion, and the usual pedants.

...

Sharlock was still happily reading everyone's replies and F5-refreshing away when he suddenly heard Bru speak to him:

"Lord Sharlock, sorry to interrupt — Nicholas is headed this way."

Sharlock found that odd. He had an arrangement with Nicholas: if nothing was up, stay inside the designated zone — and if he had questions, hold them in and don't ask. So what was he suddenly coming to see him about?

He was still puzzling over it when Nicholas appeared outside the dungeon's core hall.