After a whirlwind world tour, and a couple of dings, it was back home to Stygia again, to find ourselves at last, ready for the big black pyramid that had been bothering me since I got out of Tortage. You can't really miss it, giant squatting monstrosity visible from clear across the zone, and so obviously a Den O Evil that it was something of a relief to actually be eligible for all the lead-in quests involved.
There's actually two instances in that neck of the woods, and we decided to warm up with a go at the other one first; the Treasury of the Ancients. One of the desert nomad types out front of the Pyramid turned out not to be there to mooch off the enigmatic Oracle of Derketo, but was in fact looking for some freelance antiquities retrieval specialists to wander by. Hello there!
I was actually very impressed with the Treasury actually. It's very short, as instances go, and somewhat linear in design, but... well, I don't want to spoil it actually, as the scripting used inside does something I never thought I'd ever see in an MMO; create suspense. Actual edge of the seat stuff, which coming from me, the kind of gamer who is generally immersed as a lily-pad these days, is saying a lot. Stuff Happens in there, and at points I was doubting my senses, and detecting actual signs of panic in myself. Remarkable, and worth a go if you're in that neck of the woods. Very well done. Its apparently a solo instance, but we were duoing. I can only imagine what it's like alone...
We made it out alive, and largely as sane as when we'd went in, and it was on to the main event, the Pyramid of the Ancients. This is more of the normal kind of MMO Instance kind of thing, a large rambling multi-levelled tomb full of objectives, monsters and the like. This one is very well done though, and almost DDO-like it it's design and complexity. It has traps, environmental effects, winding passageways, invisible ninja ambush, and a number of sub-bosses which required a little more than my usual Meet-n-Greet tactics, ("Hello! Can I interest you in the Good News!"... mash Hellstep...), instead involving using previously dropped items to significantly debuff them down to manageability.
Quite a quest haul on the rampage through, and I'm sure I dinged once just inside the place, which is always nice. Things went a bit complicated when we reached the summit and the final boss. A novel and curious designed encounter. The chap starts off normal enough; a largish thug in dire need of a concerted pamphlet campaign, but soon demons up. It's always the demons in AoC!
Once in his full glory, it all gets rather hectic, and choreographed, and reminded me somewhat of anecdotes I'd heard from the Front Lines of endgame WoW. Although not doing an awful lot of straight damage during the ensuing melee, the chap comes with four different insta-nukes he can casually toss out. They take a second or so to charge up, which you can see happening if you've got him targeted. Now, all through the preceding rampage, we'd been collecting four useable gems, which when used, will protect the team from the correctly colour coded blast. Had a bit of trouble with these; important thing to note here, is that they're No Trade, so it is vitally important to have the team work our who wants to be in charge of what gem.
We didn't, of course. I ended up with one and my compatriot had the other three. All made for quite a slapstick exercise, as we tried to coordinate gems, which seem to have linked reuse timers, and whose buffs overwrite each other, meaning that you can't just spam all four constantly, and of course, actually kill the bugger. On the plus side, the respawn shrine thing is only next door, but on the negative side, the entire thing resets if you all die. And there's a door that shuts behind you, preventing the old Tag-Team Attrition Strategy.
I was somewhat divided on the whole thing to be honest. Objectively, I couldn't help be impressed by the intricacy of it all. Its a very well designed encounter, which at an intellectual level, I approved of thoroughly. On the other hand, we did get our arses handed to use repeatedly, which has been known to make me grumpy! It was a good kind of grumpy though, and that special kind of nagging failure which makes me go away and plan and plot.
We'll be back...