News: LETOMIE Finally Arrives - (w/VIDEO)

[MindStar9]

On Friday, March 27, 2009, Treasure Island welcomed its third new resident in as many months with the release of the final creature to conclude the Triple-DNA Project conducted by the Island's proprietor, Deathifier. The Letomie was unleashed at its new home in the southwest quadrant of the island during the deployment event.

An Historical Journey

The Letomie is a culmination of 9 months of effort, and in fact, was the first of the 3 in the Triple-DNA Project that Deathifier started assembling, and says, "It's great to finally have it completed and out there on the island."

In May of 2008, Timon Stuka Miles discovered a Letomie Fossil Eyelense while mining, and thus began the start of the DNA construction. The DNA part was placed in public auction, and as the expiration time drew near, Deathifier states that this was when "a bidding war began between myself and Neverdie." The bidding war turned epic when the bid value soared, and ultimately surpassed the previous record for the highest valued DNA part. The auction ended with a winning bid of 127,271 PEDs, and thus began the research by Deathifier to determine what was needed in order to construct the entire recipe to launch this new DNA.

It was only a day later that Deathifier learned that the creature was expected to be something moderate to tough in difficulty, and that more parts were needed to complete the construction of the DNA. A few days later, a second Eyelense was discovered, "which complicated matters," said Deathifier, "as both Neverdie and I had expected only one of them to be required for the DNA." It turned out, that even more would be required, and according to Deathifier, "It created total chaos to my DNA budget."

As months passed, a Letomie Fossil Backplate and some Letomie Fossil Teeth were discovered, and looted off a couple of rather easy creatures (Caudatergus and Daikiba respectively). Once these DNA parts had been acquired, it was determined that all of the distinct parts of the new DNA had been discovered, and all that was left was to collect more of these parts in order to complete the DNA. This mission was eventually accomplished, and according to Deathifier, "The Letomie will now join a collection of creatures on Treasure Island that have been resurrected from the dead, or created out of whatever strange parts happened to become available."

About The Triple-DNA Project

Initially, Deathifier was only going to work on the Letomie, having largely ignored the Frescoquda whose first DNA part had been discovered earlier. However, due to an unexpected turn of events, Deathifier said that he ended up acquiring Frescoquda DNA parts which then led to a Dual-DNA Project. When Furor DNA parts showed up, Deathifier shares, that "There was considerable trepidation on my part to go ahead and start a third DNA." After much deliberation, he made the decision to purchase the Furor DNA parts as well, and turned his growing Treasure Island creature family into a dynamic Triple-DNA Project.

In retrospect, Deathifier states he finds it interesting that the new creatures were introduced in the opposite order of when they joined the project. Also, that the Furor wasn't as demanding when it came to quantities of DNA parts, "although a number of them did drop," he says.

Deathifier shares that, "The Triple-DNA Project became my largest in-world undertaking since the purchase of Treasure Island, consuming almost the entire income of the island for the past year, and presenting many interesting challenges – such as working out how to pay for fertilizer." Despite his perseverence in acquiring the needed DNA parts for all three creatures, the island needed to continue operating, which included upkeep of the creature parts for existing island creatures as part of the ongoing project to improve their spawns.

According to Deathifier, "When all your money is sitting in these new creature parts in storage, and at any moment another few could appear, it enhances the challenge to a greater degree." He states that when he purchased the Letomie Fossil Eyelense, he was expecting it to take one to two months to complete, not nine. He also didn't expect that it would require the number of DNA parts it did either, which of course added to the length of time to complete the construction, but the project is now finished, and Treasure Island has its newest resident.

Letomie Creature Information

Following is the official description from the Fertilizer System:

Long since extinct, an unusually well preserved fossil of the Letomie has made possible the re-animation of this giant slug from the dawn of ages.

Protests have arisen however, arguing that this kind of tampering with the course of evolution may be dangerous. Anyhow, the Letomie is back in the Calypsian fauna.

MindArk/First Planet Company had supplied some images, which Deathifier used in The Letomie is Coming teaser video he did, and anticipated that the creature would look like an oversized worm, although probably still quite low to the ground, similar to the Globster. He also expected that it would still be a difficult creature, but admitted that his predictions for both the Furor and Frescoquda weren't that great, other than being kind of close with the Furor. In spite of past predictions, he made the statement that he still expected the Letomie to be between the Furor and Hogglo in difficulty.

With regard to anticipated damage, Deathifier had said, that if it follows the other two creatures, it will do a mix of impact and acid, but if not, then it will probably be doing close combat damage like stab, cut and impact. He didn't know at the time as to how aggressive the creature would be, nor how fast it would move.

The Letomie Deployment Event

Those who had been invited to participate in the Letomie Deployment Event included the usual contingent of Deathifier's Dark Knights society mates, along with individuals who sold DNA parts to him and their guests. Deathifier approached media coverage of this third creature deployment more specifically, and opened it up to individuals from various communities, citing more structured requirements for publishing their articles. The details can be found here.

People started gathering at the Treasure Island Central location around 18:30 MA time in order to get their tickets for the event, then teleported out to the Landmarker to register and prepare for the unleashing of the newest resident to join the Furor and Frescoquda.

As with the deployment of the previous two new residents of Treasure Island, Deathifier took the time to share some information about the Letomie.

He activated the DNA at approximately 19:00, but estimated that it might take longer this time for the first spawn to appear.

He said that when he released the DNA for the Frescoquda, the first spawn didn't appear until after the time that the Furor's did, so he anticipated that the Letomie might not spawn until around 19:45. Once the DNA for the Letomie was activated, those in attendance dispersed in various directions.

It was time once again to play the waiting game for the first red dot to show up on the radar. Deathifier had set the spawn to maximum, and the maturity at the lowest level in order to test how the first spawn would occur. If necessary, he would adjust the maturity during the event. As it turned out, the maturity levels were working just fine.

Deathifier called the time of the first spawn accurately, and at 19:45, red dots began to appear on radar. The hunt was on, and he quickly found himself engaged in the worm-like creature with an incredibly comical movement across the terrain. He offers the following in further describing this vision:

"When resting the Letomie moves in a typical crawling fashion, however when agitated the Letomie moves in a cartwheel style end-over-end fashion, using its mouth and tail as anchor points.

When in motion it has the effect of looking like the creature is rolling and when several of them are 'rolling' towards you it can be quite intimidating!"

This of course can best be appreciated by viewing the video at the end of the article where you will find some rather fun, circus-type performances. With each new DNA deployment, I have witnessed a progression of some interesting antics by the Island's proprietor, and I could only imagine what he might have up his sleeve if there were a fourth DNA.

In the meantime, take a look at what appears to almost be engravings in the skin of the Letomie. I found it incredibly interesting, as they look like die cuts of some sort, and quite picture-like. I am curious to see if anyone else notices this, and what they might make of it.

The event was now in full force, and it was determined after several deaths, that the difficulty of the Letomie actually matched fairly closely with what Deathifier had been expecting, and indeed, the creature fits in between the Furor and the Hogglo.

It also lived up to the expectation of being tough, and able to absorb a fairly large amount of damage with very fast regeneration capabilities. "Despite this," says Deathifier, "and a nasty stab + acid-based attack, the Letomie does not move very quickly, and is rather peaceful provided you stay more than 40 meters away from it."

To put it more into perspective, the following information was provided:

Aggression: Low
Regeneration: Fast
Movement Speed: Slow
Damage Types: Stab (at least 40%) and Acid (exact distribution not yet known)

Health level and maximum observed damage from attacks, per maturity level:

Young: 1530 Health – 91 Damage
Mature: 1990 Health – 104 Damage
Old: 2100 Health – 112 Damage
Provider: 2370 Health – 117 Damage
Guardian: 2590 Health – 124 Damage

During the course of the event, the following notable items were found in loot:

Skildek Viper (L)
Isis BL 1600 (L)
Chronicle Gloves (M, L) and (F, L)
Eon Helmet (F, L)
Vain Thigh Guards (F, L)

Various armors and plates were being tested throughout the course of the event in order to determine the most efficient, but I wasn't quite sure what to make of the following. I didn't know whether Deathifier had lost something, or he was just checking out the teeth to see how razor sharp they were.

The event concluded at 22:00, and as expected, the LA found itself flooded with green dots in a rush to have their first experience with the newest resident of Treasure Island, each hoping to share in the items that had been dropping while the event was in session.

As an interesting side note, while waiting for the event to end, many gathered at the outer perimeters of the LA taking their best shot in order to draw a Letomie across the border of the LA. Apparently it was successful, because there were teams not participating in the official event who globaled, and the first HoF was also achieved by a team outside of the event.

Be sure to get out to the LA and experience this rather athletic and circus-like creature, but … there is one last piece of advice before doing so:

Don't Be Fooled When They Smile At You


* * * * * * * * *

With regard to the video ... I did something different this time. I made it all about Deathifier and his getting acquainted with the third and final creature that emerged from his Triple-DNA Project. Perhaps when I can find the time, I'll make a second video from the rest of the footage I have assembled of everyone else's fun at the deployment event.

PRESENTING
Deathifier and his Letomie

(once video starts, press HQ at bottom right for higher quality)

YouTube Video

Special Thanks To ... MK Design for graphics assistance.


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[kpward]

Looks like another new "attraction" for TI.

Have to visit again.




darri

[Hurrikane]

Letomie.... the new Itumatrox? Discuss.... (comical movement, low aggro, odd attack)

Nice work Deathifier, that thing looks mental

[DanielleYourMom]

First - I don't think that's a smile !!

Thanks for sharing the back story - it's neat to know where it all started & came from.

New mobs are soon going to be synonymous with Mr. Deathifier.

[LAZZ]

Another very well done article of my fav reporter thx for the info MS9
Gratz to Mr Deathifier to finnalice the tripple DNA project and thx for bring the comunity more intresting mobs to hunt thx

[bylund]

ahh, a other new mob
nice article MS9 +reppy

[lokiscamaro]

very fun mob, inna team. thx deathifier for the cool new stuff man.

[Blackjack]

Big thanks and Gratz to deathifier for all his hard work and (hopefully) well spent ped! I hope it doesnt take 9 months for your ROI! Gonna have to go check these out this weekend!


Blackjack

[Dav]

The Letomie is undoubtedly MA's tribute to Frank Herbert, although they're on a somewhat smaller scale than the worms on Arrakis Sadly, would've been fun to hunt 300-meter long Letomies...or be hunted by...

[Rave]

Excellent article, thanks for the info!