the new puzzle

[Corrupt Shadow]

Not a clue... no hints whatsoever!

[Ryme]

It'll be a permanently existing recipe in the game, just a particularly complex one.

The 48-hour rule will be very strictly enforced on this.

[Corrupt Shadow]

"Damn your tormenting us! Ryyyyyyyyyyyme!"

[Olaf]

Hmm, so will there be some significant advantage to finding it earlier than others?

[Ryme]

Other than using it earlier than others? No.

C'mon, people. I didn't announce "the best thing in the history of the game" is happening next week Friday. I just said "a puzzle". Sheesh.

[Ryme]

Yay, puzzles! But I agree that it's a bit cruel to gve us teaser over a week before (unless it's so we can farm items in large numbers )

The teaser is for two reasons:

1) So interested parties have time to take notice and make sure they're around for it.

2) To push me to finish up the last bits of it.

I'm not being mean, I truly figured people would want to know when something out of the ordinary was coming.

[Ryme]

Will it make the pit easier, elementalists better, and/or bring back my interest into this game?

Er, probably not? It opens a new zone, but I don't see you liking the zone much. If you really like puzzles ... maybe?

Very indirectly this will lead to other changes which will lead to alternatives to the pit and some corresponding help with your objections to elementals. So, given a week or two (or four), you might find that appealing.

[Ryme]

Them's the breaks.

[Cristiona]

So if it's a puzzle, where are the clues?

It's a new vehicle. It opens a new area.

[Ryme]

It's a new vehicle. It opens a new area.

I dropped those first two in chat within the first hour. I was prepared to give more, but a lot of people seemed to have a good start with even that little, and I didn't want it to be over in just an hour or two.

I also mentioned that it's got a lot of steps, and that is uses mostly not brand-new items.

And finally, I mentioned that there are a couple of tricky spots.

I didn't mention, but will say here that one of those spots doesn't require any guessing at all -- if you've got the right two items, a step will be revealed to you just by looking around at your options.

There's another hint thrown into an item's use text, to prevent you from getting stuck at a counterintuitive spot, where you'd expect to use it but can't.

Hope that helps get ya started. I'll drop more hints as necessary.

[Ryme]

Adding a couple of more hints. There's one step that I don't think anyone here has gotten yet, so I dropped this in chat:

It's a little tricky. It involves an old item and a less-old item. The old item has a few purposes already, so this extra purpose might be missed. The less old item is trickier because it's got a fairly obvious use on the surface, but you have to try to do something else with it.

[Ryme]

It's been a cruel, cruel winter, and apparently that's made me a cruel, cruel game designer. One of the necessary ingredients for today's mystery puzzle wasn't dropping properly, and I missed it. I can't tell you how bad I feel about this. The new item is available from a man with a sword--either of two different men with swords, actually.

[Olaf]

'twas indeed. Good work

[MagiNinjA]

Uh huh.

Wanna get back on topic, instead of calling the derailing crew?