Devilstick, there are some other threads floating around that are more specific. What we don't have yet is a thread devoted to monster play. There was some kinship chat last night about monster play, and forming a kinship there since nothing carries over. I played MP a little bit in closed beta, but have been too busy putzing around to jump in yet. hmmm, I do like Wargs though...

I havent played it either, but it would be fun to group as a bunch of monsters since we would all at this point be similar in level. I do know that you can use your destiny points to improve monsters at least according to the manual. I will be on this evening doing quests and gathering some lynx claws for Gimmi to make me a new shield.

I only had a few minutes left by the time I created a monster, but I basically just ran around trying to find other human players. I get the impression from the in-game chat that there were maybe just a couple of regular players getting jumped by a mob of 15 or so monster players - but I kinda got tired of running.

One little quirk is that the monster doesn't seem to take up a character slot. I guess your monster is tied to your character somehow so maybe you can create a different monster for each "regular" character. But, I only have one L10 character so I don't know for sure. It might be that all your characters get access to the same monster.

Either way, since you don't seem to be able to log in directly to your monster, it looks like it would be a good idea to get an alt to L10 so you can keep a character near the Fell Scrying Pool.

From what I've seen, you get a slot for one of each type of monster per server. They're linked to your account, not your free peoples / alliance character.

I have a Warg that I've been working on, and it's fun to get together with other monsters. Just need more freeps running around to make things real interesting.

She's a super freep, a super freep, she's super freepy. I have plenty of alts so I will put one by the feel scrying pool in Bree. Has anyone tried to improve their monster with destiny points?

I've been playing quite a bit of MP last few days, and played quite a bit in Open Beta. I didn't know that the monsters are tied to your account and not just one of your characters. I do know you can have one of each of the monster types. So far I have only played a Warg.

Currently I don't believe Creeps can create Kinships.

Wargs don't carry weapons, no opposable thumbs I guess. The rest of the classes come pre-equipped with their weapons. There is no gear for Creeps, no death penalty, no repair costs. Some of the classes receive some "gear" as rewards for reaching Ranks (Ranks are achieved by accruing Infamy by killing player Freeps, not NPCs). Last night a Reaver made Rank 1 and received a helm emblazoned with a white hand. To the best of my knowledge these are merely appearance changes and don't affect your armor stats and such.

There are a great number of quests to be done, most of which are repeatable. Things like collecting a certain number of Hobbit feet or legs of Man. Some are resource gathering, mostly logs, maggoty meat or pieces of stone from Sun Touched Trolls. Creeps cannot harvest the standard resource nodes that exist there like Gold, Platinum or Black Ash branches, but Freeps can. Destiny Points are rewarded for killing NPCs, a paltry amount, 2-4 points, or for turning in quests, typically about 500 points for standard gathering type quests, and much more for killing elite type named mobs or for taking keeps and such. I was involved in retaking two keeps last night and received 2,000 points for each keep retake. Then the DP you acquire through your regular player is also available for use. I believe there is just one pool of DP that are available to both your regular characters and your monsters.

For Creeps, Destiny Points can be spent for permanent traits for your monster. Having really only played the Warg I only know about their traits, but some of those are things like increasing your normal run speed, your stealthed run speed, more base armor, &c.. Some traits are only available upon reaching a certain rank. There are also some skills which can be had with DP but have not reached a rank high enough to acquire most of them. Some of the traits, I think, are referred to as corruptions which have a plus/minus type bonus to them; in other words, you give up some power for more morale, or more damage at the cost of armor, &c., allowing you to somewhat specialize your Creep.

You can also purchase things like morale and power potions, or food with silver. And again, at higher ranks, you can also get single use, limited time charms that can be used to track a particular race of Freep.

Creeps all start at level 50 and according to Dev notes are approximately equivalent to a swarm type mob of that level. Apparently that is how Creeps are classified, as a swarm type mob. So going 1v1 against a Freep gives you little chance of surviving; it's superior numbers that Monsters rely upon. Creeps also have a very limited skillset. My Warg has about 5 skills available to it, one is stealth and the rest are various attacks. I did acquire one skill via Destiny Points that allows for a brief 100% increase to my run speed.

As far as the state of Monster Play on Landroval, there is really one main guy (Ryan) that plays quite often and he has a few others that run around with him on occasion. After the recent server reset three of the keeps reverted back to Freep control. It was quite a bit of fun last night retaking two of those keeps. A 20 monster raid group was formed and some intense fighting took place for a while attempting to retake them. Some of the Lieutenants have HPs in the tens of thousands and I believe the Captain-General that oversees the keep has over 100,000 HPs. So some strategy and teamwork are definitely required. Once more Freeps are about I see this being a good bit fun as the keeps flip back and forth between Creep and Freep. Right now I don't think there are enough Freeps playing to retake the keeps from the monsters, unless the server resets, so most time is spent working on quests, chasing around the few Freeps who come to play and raiding the permanently held Freep keep (there is one keep for each side, besides the starting location, that can be taken by the opposing force but not actually held; it resets back to the original side once it has been taken, and rather quickly I might add. Once taken get out of there or suffer the consequences).

As it is, I probably won't be playing too much more MP until more Freeps begin to show up, and here's why. As mentioned I had a great time retaking the keeps, and afterward, as most Creeps left, I joined up with two other Wargs and a Warleader (the primary Creep healer) to hunt the Freep Ryan and one of his buddies. We began tangling with the Freeps down in the Hobbit town. We'd fight for a bit then they would run into the NPCs which would then agro us. So we would go from a 4v2 fight, fairly even, to a 4v8 or more fight where we would either get wiped or have to retreat. On the occasions that we could draw them out far enough to fight without much NPC worry we had a pretty good chance of winning. We'd get one of the Freeps down to just a sliver of morale and then he would pop one of the Man traits, I think its called Last Stand or something, and he would quickly be back to near full morale. We would then either die or have to retreat. The Freeps would then and go hide until the cooldown on the trait reset. We rinsed and repeated this several times until we realized there was just no way we were going to win and were just feeding them Glory points.

On other nights the Creeps had vast numbers about and the Freep was nice enough to play and allow us to gank him a few times until he would begin to lose too much Glory and then would leave for the night or until our numbers have subsided.

So as it is right now, this is how things tend to go when fighting Ryan (one of the few Freeps that regularly play). He'll make a few sweeps of certain locations looking for lone Creeps about. Once engaged he'll fight until it looks like he is going to lose and then make a run into a group of friendly NPCs which will agro you if you follow, or he'll pop his one trait if it is available. If too many Creeps are out hunting him he'll play for a bit and then leave. About the only chance Creeps have at the moment is if we can get him to burn his trait and if lucky enough to have a spider about that can get him rooted so as not to be able to run to the friendly NPCs. Sometimes we can lay a trap for him, but it tends to work once and then its back to the usual routine.

It was fun, but pretty discouraging. Right now it seems to come down as to whether or not the Freep wants to play against superior numbers where the Creeps have a decided advantage or fight to a stalemate and/or hand them Glory points when the Creep numbers are less or you are out and about solo. That trait combo of Last Stand and one other trait I cannot recall the name of seems a real game breaker right now. I'm hoping things will change as more Freeps come out or maybe the trait combo is balanced a bit for Monster Play.

Definitely MP is worth giving a try, a nice change of pace from leveling your regular character. All you really have to worry about is attempting to decimate the other side and just being evil in general. The folks playing MP really seem to get along, no resource or mob stealing, folks ready and willing to group up for quests, raids, or Freep hunting, and in general a very real sense of Us vs. Them.

If more of the Kinship is wanting to give it a try I'd be willing to play some more. My Warg is pretty maxed out until I can gain a new rank, so I'd probably roll up one the lesser played classes like a spider or warleader.