Announcing the Five-week Darkshrine Events

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A few weeks ago, we realised we had a problem. The Flashback events would be ending on the 2nd of November but there would still be five weeks after that until the next challenge leagues could be released.

Since all our developers are busy working on future content, there would have to be a gap where Standard and Hardcore would be the only leagues running. We weren't really happy with that.

Back in the good old days of Closed Beta when both the company size and player expectations were smaller, we used to be able to throw together some content and have players testing it in a short amount of time.

So I decided to see what I could throw together. Could I put together a fun league entirely by myself in a week?

We had a look at some of the past ideas for challenge leagues that had been rejected. One of them in particular stood out: Darkshrine.

The idea behind Darkshrine was that the player would encounter shrine-like objects in the world that they could put a rare item into to sacrifice. Depending on what item was sacrificed, there would be some kind of interesting effect. The more powerful the item, the better.

You might get a powerful buff for the area. An item in your inventory might be modified in some way. Hard monsters spawned in the level. The monsters in the level might even start fighting each other. It should be unpredictable at first and hopefully surprising.

Darkshrine was a challenge league idea that we rejected in the past because it had two problems. The first was that it probably wasn't substantial enough for a full three/four month league on its own. The second was that we thought it might be a bit oppressive for all the new players that we get for a fully-marketed challenge league release.

Neither of those are problems for a fun and short league like this, designed for experienced players.

So over the last few weeks I've been working on Darkshrine. It has been a lot of fun coming up with ideas for the league. I also haven't had a chance to work on gameplay for a long time now so getting back to that has been an enjoyable experience. I really hope you enjoy it.

I want to stress that there is a lot of content reuse in this league. I couldn't make new bosses or art by myself! You should expect some of your favorite mechanics from past leagues like the Corrupting Tempest to turn up as Darkshrine rewards. Any stat or mechanic that looked like it could be a cool Darkshrine outcome was thrown in.

There is a lot of interesting variety there though, so I think people will have fun finding out some of the crazier Darkshrine effects. In no other league will all the monsters in the level be spontaneously set to 1 life. Or an inconspicuous barrel somewhere on the level have a unique item put in it.

Don't always expect it to be fair. Darkshrines are capricious and arbitrary.



Event Times: (displayed in your local timezone)

• The events will start at: Nov 02, 2015 2:30 PM (EST)
• The events will end at: Dec 07, 2015 2:30 PM (EST)

Prizes:
The following microtransaction prizes are being randomly given to players who reach various level thresholds in an event. There is a separate prize pool for each event:

• 100 random players who reach level 30 will receive the Skin Transfer Bundle (10)
• 70 random players who reach level 40 will receive the Steam Powered Portal Effect
• 20 random players who reach level 50 will receive the Lightning Skull helmet skin
• 20 random players who reach level 50 will receive the Arctic Skull helmet skin
• 20 random players who reach level 50 will receive the Infernal Skull helmet skin
• 20 random Players who reach level 60 will receive the Seraph Wings back attachment
• 10 random players who reach level 70 will receive the Steam Powered Armour Set
• 5 random players who reach level 80 will receive Demon King Armour Set and Demon King Horns

In addition, the top twenty players (from each event) by experience will receive an alternate-art Demigod's Beacon.

We are also inviting community members to post videos or screenshots of crazy encounters that they experience in the Darkshrine events. At the end of the event we'll pick our favourites and award additional microtransactions to those winners. On the day that the events start, we'll also post where to make these submissions!

In the Hardcore event, dead hardcore players are eligible for prizes. The single highest level character in each event on your account will be considered. If you play with multiple accounts, we will use the highest character from between them. GGG Staff members are not eligible for prizes.