Dungeons & Dragons Online: Mists of Ravenloft Launches Today, Update 37 Release Notes

The heroes of Standing Stone Games’ MMORPG Dungeons & Dragons Online have already explored Eberron and visited Forgotten Realms, but now they are about to be swept away by the magical mists of Ravenloft and face count Strahd von Zarovich, a relic of the times when vampires were still regal and terrifying. If you’re interested in visiting count Strahd in Barovia, you can pick up the Mists of Ravenloft expansion for $39.99 for the Standard Edition. And if you would like to learn more about the expansion and its various editions, you can check out this FAQ.

You should be able to begin your journey through Barovia today after the planned maintenance (2:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM GMT), when Update 37 is scheduled to go live. Here are the release notes for the update:

Mists of Ravenloft includes:
The Land of Barovia wilderness area
Twelve quests
Two raids (one raid is currently available, with the second raid arriving soon.)
New public areas
New Saga
Save the people of Barovia, slay Strahd, and restore balance to the land!
Sentient Weapons
Sentient Weapons allow players the opportunity to discover weapons with their own personality and customize their powers! See more information about Sentient Weapons in the News and Notes below, and find Sentient Jewels and more in the Mists of Ravenloft expansion.
Veteran Status Level 10
Veteran Status Level 10 is now available as a limited-duration event. When the event is active, players will be able to create characters and begin their adventure at level 10 with updated gear, a limited-duration level 10 hireling cleric, and more! This event begins mid-day Eastern time on December 7th, and runs through December 17th.
News and Notes:
DDO Store
When redeeming a Store code at Character Selection, any character items will be delivered to the last character logged into, or, if no last character can be found, sent to a randomly-chosen character, to prevent items from failing to deliver. A message will display to let you know which character the items were sent to. Attempting to redeem a code that delivers an item specifically to a character will continue to not deliver the item if there are no characters on the account. We recommend logging into the character you want to receive character-specific items before redeeming character-specific codes, but this change serves as an additional layer of protection to avoid lost items.
Favor
In Mists of Ravenloft, there are three tiers of Keepers of the Feather Favor:
Tier 1 is granted at 60 Favor and grants Blessings of a Feather Feat.
Tier 2 is granted at 120 Favor and provides a Small Augment Bag.
Tier 3 is granted at 180 Favor and provides access to the Vistani Knife Fighter universal enhancement tree on a per-character basis. Once unlocked for a character, the availability of the enhancement tree persists through reincarnation.
Items
Several weapon types have been added to the reward vendor when first arriving in The Marketplace after using Veteran Status 2 or 3. They are Hand Axe, Handwraps, Dagger, Light Hammer, Light Pick, Shuriken, and Throwing Dagger.
Items acquired from barter boxes (like the Anniversary Event, Night Revels, etc.) now show their proper durability, and are now created with their proper durability.
There are two new statistics, Missile Deflection and Deflection Bypass. Missile Deflection grants a chance to have Missiles or Eldritch Blasts miss you. Deflection Bypass grants a chance to bypass an enemies Missile Deflection.
Some Festivult cookies have been updated ahead of the event’s start this year.
Sentient Weapons
Sentient Weapons have their own personality and customizable powers. Here is some important information about how they work:
Each Sentient Weapon comes with a Sentient Jewel that holds the personality of the weapon. The power of the weapon is contained in the Sentient Jewel. The Jewel can be pried out of an existing weapon and attached to a new weapon of sufficient magical power. This transfers the sentience and its power level to the new magical weapon.
Once a weapon is slotted with a Sentient Jewel, the weapon can also slot Sentient Filigree to enhance the weapon’s magical properties. As the weapon’s power grows additional Filigree can be slotted, up to a maximum of seven.
Most named weapons with a minimum level of 20 or higher can accept a Sentient Jewel.
The power of the Sentient Jewel is increased by feeding it named magical items.
The Sentient Weapon can make comments to the player as the weapon is held and used. There is a Gameplay tab option to turn off voice, text, or both.
Each piece of Sentient Filigree also belongs to a set, and slotting other Filigree from the set can provide Set Bonuses. A fully-empowered weapon can hold up to seven Filigree, and can provide multiple Set Bonuses. A weapon can only have one of each specific Filigree.
Sentient Toolkits are used to unslot a Filigree or Sentient Jewel. Sentient Destroyer Tools can be purchased for platinum from tools vendors throughout DDO that destroy a Filigree or Sentient Jewel to open the slot for a new piece. A player cannot destroy or unslot a Sentient Jewel unless all Filigree have been removed from the weapon first.
Feeding named items to a Sentient Jewel provides Sentient XP as follows:
Minimum level 1-20 named items: Adds Sentient XP equal to the Minimum Level.
Minimum Level 21-27: Adds Sentient XP equal to the Minimum Level x5.
Minimum Level 28+: Adds Sentient XP equal to the Minimum Level x10.
Costs to open Filigree Slots are as follows:
Sentient Filigree Slot 1: Free
Slot 2: 2000 total Sentient XP
Slot 3: 6000 total Sentient XP
Slot 4: 12000 total Sentient XP
Slot 5: 20000 total Sentient XP
Slot 6: 40000 total Sentient XP
Slot 7: 60000 total Sentient XP
Sentient Filigree can be obtained from chests in Ravenloft for now, and could appear in non-Ravenloft chests in the future. Higher difficulty settings have an increased chance to provide Filigree. Filigree is unbound, and can be traded and auctioned.
A Sentient Jewel can be found in the Ravenloft Saga reward list. An initial Jewel can also be obtained by speaking to a Vistani Trader inside the Barovia wilderness area. A Jewel can also be found as a Raid reward in the new raids.
Sentient Toolkits can be obtained from the same chests where Sentient Filigree can be found, and they are also available in the DDO Store.
Items become Bound to Account when a Sentient Jewel is placed into them if the item is unbound or Bound to Character on Equip.
Sentient Weapons will not consume named items with Augments slotted into them to prevent the Augment from being destroyed. Augments can be unslotted using a standard Jeweler’s Toolkit.
Reincarnation
Additional work has been done to correct an issue where items were sometimes lost during Reincarnation. After reincarnating, any items that the system detects have been lost will be automatically mailed back to your character, and you should not require customer service intervention. In addition, information about your issue will be automatically sent to Standing Stone Games for further investigation. At this point in time, we are only aware of stacks of bolts and arrows being lost in this manner.
UI
When examining an item and the information is too tall to fit on the screen, the examination panel is now scrollable. If you are viewing it by hovering your mouse over the item, it will scroll automatically. If you are viewing it using Z or whatever key is mapped for Examine, you can scroll using the scroll bar in the traditional manner.
Augment Bags and Quivers now have a search bar.
Fixed an issue where Augments do not display properly when linked in chat.
Miscellaneous
Avatars now turn off the display of their weapons when picking locks or using a device.
Avatars now have proper turning while in a knife-fighting stance.
One of the statues in the Hall of Heroes has been replaced by Byron Scoutsword, because Byron Scoutsword is the greatest level 1 Hireling ever. This is important.