Developer Blog: The Runic Lockbox

strumslinger

Inscribed with runes of power similar to those of the Frost Giants, this lockbox contains many new additions to the top and lower-tier contents. So, let’s start from the top.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9944853-developer-blog:-the-runic-lockbox

peri87

The mount appearance is pretty meh

beckylunatic

The manticore is another example of a mount where the artist has outdone themselves and I am going to haaaaaate seeing them around because that thing is nightmare fuel.

Interesting improvements to some of the packs. I get that choices of what to include are thematic to ice and cold, but except for the polar bears, all of the mounts are items that are easily obtained from the Winter Festival by anyone who wants them, so as lockbox rewards, they're really underwhelming. The normal polar bear is a Zen mount, so a BoE version is also a pretty bad deal. The new Savage Polar Bear does look cool though. Weirds me out to see polar bears outside of zones with winter weather. I expect them to be very uncomfortable.

I suppose adding Twisted was inevitable after the elemental sets. Can't say as I'm bothered and I just wonder where the market prices will settle for each respectively. Also curious if the post was phrased as "Twisted weapons/off-hands" instead of "set" because you need two boxes for a set or if it was just varying the phrasing.

urabask

IMO it was a mistake to change the weapon pack. The elemental packs made sense because some of the elemental weapons are virtually impossible to get. Twisted just has a bit of a time gate so I wouldn't pay more than the cost of the RP they're worth.

archangelzorak01

First, why did someone ask about alum in this post? *boggle*

Moving on... do My eyes deceive me or is there no professions box in this lockbox?

At first glance this lockbox looks very sad and depressing.

two30

The "brand new series of insignias" is going to be very desirable if I've predicted them correctly from the drop rates of random insignia. Crescent Skill, Enlightened Skill, and Regal Aggression.

beckylunatic

defiantone99 said:

Ya, you forgot the profession pack with increased chances of the Forgehammer and Legendary tools.

Hmm.

Not that those prizes were really anything more than hypothetical anyway.

scathias

defiantone99 said:

Ya, you forgot the profession pack with increased chances of the Forgehammer and Legendary tools.

They updated the zen packs for profession assets with mod 10, this is likely a push to get people buying assets from the zen store instead getting them cheap from the lockboxes

beckylunatic

magenubbie said:

The artifact weapon pack contains Twisted weapons/off-hands in place of the elemental sets.
Is this change retro-active to all weapon packs? If not, how will we tell the difference between the 2 boxes?

If you look at the screenshot of the lockbox UI, it's a different pack. Just like the various rune/companion packs over the years have different names as the contents evolve.

two30

I wonder if the Savage Polar Bear will have useless insignia slots like the Moonbear and Panther.

scathias

@strumslinger about the Jarl’s Mount Pack. can you please poke devs about checking to make sure the Frozen Demon Sled drops as a BoE mount from this pack. Its original code in the winter festival had it as BoP and we have had issues with a number of old BoP items being added to lockboxes without changing the code to be BoE drops

beckylunatic

scathias said:

About the Jarl’s Mount Pack. can you please poke devs about checking to make sure the Frozen Demon Sled drops as a BoE mount from this pack. Its original code in the winter festival had it as BoP and we have had issues with a number of old BoP items being added to lockboxes without changing the code to be BoE drops

Same thing with the Winter Sled and Winter Wolf, since both those are BoP as well.

Edit: Vanilla Polar Bear too. All the mounts, just check all the mounts please.

dragoness10

RE:Manticore

Whilst artistic vision can be appreciated in interpretation of animals this isn't quite striking in appearance, nor entirely desirable.

One alliance member described it as a "crackhead face".
Another comment was "I just remember faces not looking like a murder hobo".
My initial reaction was that it looked like a smiley face horror clown with extra teeth, and large jaw.

I also noted the tail looked more like feathers ( or clumped hair), not iron spikes.

Original AD&D version's description includes - "All manticores have heads that resemble human males; the mane resembles a heavy beard and long hair."

For reference here's an image from the Monstrous Manual.



Please put a beard on the manticore.

beckylunatic

dragoness10 said:

For reference here's an image from the Monstrous Manual.

You don't have to like it, but Cryptic's art direction is whatever Wizards is currently doing with the IP.

5th Ed manticore:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137416-D-D-5th-Edition-Monster-Manual-Manticore-Revealed#&gid=gallery_3149&pid=1

sockmunkey

Wozers, that mount is some serious nightmare fuel.

valwryn

That Manticore is just Oozing with a plethera of Cuteness!!!

I want one.

archangelzorak01

scathias said:

defiantone99 said:

Ya, you forgot the profession pack with increased chances of the Forgehammer and Legendary tools.

They updated the zen packs for profession assets with mod 10, this is likely a push to get people buying assets from the zen store instead getting them cheap from the lockboxes

"Lockboxes" and "Cheap" do not belong in the same sentence.

zibadawa

clonkyo1 said:

Um.... from my own PoV, i don't see this lockbox really "desireable" at all. For me, it contains 1 interesting thing, which is the Twisted set.... which will make a lot of players stop farming eDemon which, imo, is wrong up to certain degree... But well, time will tell.

The only reason to do eDemo after you have your set is a pathetic chance at an artifact and the salvage. And they're nerfing the salvage.

lordseth1985

Now that's the first lockbox since ages I really wanna spend any zen and open it.

strumslinger

beckylunatic said:

scathias said:

About the Jarl’s Mount Pack. can you please poke devs about checking to make sure the Frozen Demon Sled drops as a BoE mount from this pack. Its original code in the winter festival had it as BoP and we have had issues with a number of old BoP items being added to lockboxes without changing the code to be BoE drops

Same thing with the Winter Sled and Winter Wolf, since both those are BoP as well.

Edit: Vanilla Polar Bear too. All the mounts, just check all the mounts please.

Yup, these mounts have been converted.

ghoulz66

Wonder if the companion drops will be as generous as the previous lockbox.

dsn1118

One word for that mount:FFFUUGGGGLLLYYYY


It looks like some mad scienist got drunk,puked in experiment glasses and that mount came to be as a result from that experiment

hawkblaze1954

There is no artifact box