Talk: The Frost Gate (mission)

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Cartographer

Recently, while obtaining my Cartographer title, I noticed that if the snow wolf near the bridge dies while under the bridge, necrotic traversal brings you on top of the bridge, usually where you already are, and dont want to be. This got me to thinking. Inside the cave, killing an ettin or a dryder under the small bridge Rurik runs across, then using necrotic traversal on the corpse brings you to the top of the bridge, and thus to Rurik's path. This has worked for me everytime Ive done this mission, and I find it is much more reliable than the methods already posted. Perhaps somebody can confirm this for us and have it added to the page for future Cartographers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.109.4.234 • contribs) 19:42, 19 July 2006.

This trick no longer seems to work, using NT on the ettins just takes you to the corpse, rather than popping you on the bridge.Ynara 18:34, 12 January 2007 (CST)

I tested today and agree that this is a very easy way. It worked for me both times I tried it. I also tested killing things over me, and this took me up to their level as well. Basically, it seemed to me (guessing), that teleportation tends to favor the top level, regardless of the corpse location. There are benefits, however, to teleporting earlier in the Frost Gate mission, since this breaks the mission and it will not fail when Rurik dies. (I read that you have to rush because Rurik might die, but in my experience this did not happen when I warped back up after leaving Rurik behind (basically, by skipping a couple of Engineers you force him to stay behind and he is later moved forward by a cut scene)). Also, the 0.4% I wrote about was measured with screen shots before and after, and should be reasonably accurate minus any rounding. --Alphastream 17:20, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

If you run to the end and kill the first stone summit that rurik will attack (just leave the two that spawn afterwards) before his cutscene, after the cutscene he will not attack but just stand still. If the mission does indeed fail because of his death, this is a (rather tedious) way of avoiding that.

To use the first option (Ice Golems kill Rurik's Guard(s)) the spawns for the Ice Golems must JUST right. There are MANY spawns where you can't get both Golems to attack the guards at once. If only one Golem attacks the the guard(s) then they will NOT die, BOTH Golems are needed to kill them. To give you a feel of this I had to do 45 runs to get 2 correct spawns. ALL other spawns meant that the first of the Ice Golems could not be aggroed far enough to get it to latch onto a one of Rurik's Guards. Raxous 05:00, 5 January 2007 (CST)

I just did this and only obtained .1% of my title that was not obtainable normally. I also merely waited for the first ice golem to kill a guard (the one right where you first see rurik)... it takes like 2 minutes... and it works every time.

Dialogue

Cleaning screenshots, but I'm not entirely certain where to put this:

(at the beginning)

Prince Rurik: Those Stone Summit ballistae are guarding the pass to the Frost Gate!

(slightly further)

Prince Rurik: Destroy them so we may lead our people through!

(a bit further)

Prince Rurik: We dare not move forward until they are destroyed!

And when doing the bonus:

(when first spoken to)

Rornak Stonesledge: Just me luck. I've been caught again.

Rornak Stonesledge: The Stone Summit are tryin' to buid a new and devastatin' siege weapon. King Ironhammer sent me in to steal the plans.

Rornak Stonesledge: There is a decrepit ballista pointed to the east. Take me to it, and I'll help ye blast open the doors that keep safe the plans.

(taken to the ballista)

Rornak Stonesledge: It should work now. Ye can fire it at the doors.

Rornak Stonesledge: After ye blast open the doors, return the secret plans to me.

(when given the plans)

Rornak Stonesledge: Any friend of Rornak Stonesledge is a friend of Deldrimor Dwarves. Many thanks, friend.

Just a quick question I am guessing that Ronak Stonesledge must live to obtain the bonus.

Bug?

Whilst going for the cartographer title Rurik managed to die whilst fighting two stone summit gnashers off the minimap, though the missin let me continue. I had not unlocked all of the gate mechanisms yet, and once i did i recieved mission reward even though Rurik had died! Don't know if this is isolated or whether it has happened before, but i have screen shot proof if anybody requires it. ~ Hunter Darkbow 01/06/07 (edited, typos and i had "bonus" not "mission reward", i did not do bonus, already had it done)

Aye, it's normal. Keeping rurik alive is not a requisite of successful mission completion. He normally tanks the spawns at the end ok, but if you leave him eventually he dies. --BlueNovember 06:48, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Edge of the World Glitch

While i was look around on Prince Ruriks Path way for Cartographer title i found that you can go back into Borlis Pass, and the map ends there. This Glitch seems different than the other it has a Dark gray instead of seeing water or something. Theres also a spot on the edge where it makes half of your screen go white. promo302 13:11, 16 June 2007(CST)

Moving Henchmen

I was mapping out the area with Henchmen and heroes and I used Necrotic Traversal at the first bridge and ran all the way to the end of Prince Rurik's trail. Of course, after using Necrotic Traversal, I was seperated from my Henchmen and Heroes. After I was done defogging the area at the end of the trail, I killed the Stone Summit guarding the last bridge, and then used Necrotic Traversal on them as well. I continued towards the end of the mission and died. I decided to see what my NPCs were doing before I logged out, and was suprised to see them on Prince Rurik's trail. None of them had Necrotic Traversal or consume corpse. I continued to watch them and they were able to warp up the last bridge and ran to my location, then revive me. They followed my exact path on their way to my corpse. Afterwards, Ogden revived me and I finished the mission.--Downfall of demise 19:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)Downfall of Demise

Its been brought up before, I utilise it for dunes bonus all the time. Lord of all tyria 19:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I compressed a note about this. This is the original text if someone wonders:

"An interesting bug that needs further testing was discovered while using the necrotic traversal trick. After flagging his heroes at the beginning of the mission above Rurik's initial location and running to the end, the player unflagged his heroes and ran back to the cave with the Dryders with the intention of using necrotic traversal to get back on the main path. Succeeding, but also dying in the process, the player then clicked on his heroes. Oddly enough, they had somehow gotten on to Rurik's path and were running madly through siege fire. This is probably the same "henchmen teleportation bug" which some players also experience while using Necrotic Traversal to achieve the bonus in Dunes of Despair.

This bug has also been verified by another player using the same technique of Necrotic Traversal to exploit the alternate pathway, but on the way to the end (southernmost) point of the path, the player died from unexpected instant spawns of both Stone Summit and Ice Golems. The player released the heroes from their flagged point near Prince Rurik and clicked on one of them to see just where they were going. They had somehow traversed to the same point as the player did and followed their exact footsteps (running first north then south) until they came to the player." -- -- ( talk ) 11:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Rornak Stonesledge

i'm doing this mission/bonus is HM and got rornak, went to the lever he had to fix. and he's gone. i ran back and forth from where i got him to the lever over and over and i cant find him. is it possible for him to die? because i dont see my heros healing him when he's not in the party window. 76.119.149.60 17:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I am pretty sure it is possible for him to die, but it doesn't usually happen in either this or Ice Caves of Sorrow (mission). I know that he will sometimes fight...Usually enemies won't target him, but I don't like to take chances so I always try to clear the way before talking to him. (T/C) 22:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Bonus

Doesn't matter for Easy or Hard mode, but, the two groups are not linked so it's sort of a no-brainer to pull them apart, thus so not to fight four Dolyaks at once. With two Dolyaks, you don't even need an enchant removal in HM to beat them, just Backfire plus few interrupts (on hero) is good enough to beat 'em in a timely manner. (Or else I was extraordinarily lucky) (T/C) 14:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Annoying

I'm not sure why, but every single time I do this mission I have problems with the last gear.

I get the first gear and the second gear done fine, but when it comes time to trigger the last gear, the end scene doesn't trigger for a good 5 to 10 minutes. I have no idea why, but trying to complete this level in hard mode in a timely fashion has been impossible for me. Firelink 05:34, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

After that happened to me twice, I changed two things: (1) I wait for the update to the log before trigger the next one; (2) I drop something near each lever to mark which I've done (they all seem the same to me). Since then, I've not had to wait more than the 20-30 seconds it seems to take each mechanism to engage full. While I'm waiting, there always seems to be 1-2 more dwarves to kill, so I wonder whether one also has to kill all the nearby foes.   — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:59, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

Are the recommended end mission strategies unnecessarily complicated?

I have just finished this mission for the second time, and for the first time with only henchmen (so that I was fully in control of strategy). Maybe the game was being particularly kind to me for some reason, but I found the end part of the mission to be far easier than I had been expecting it to be from reading (in order to refresh my mind) your article's description of possible strategies. What I did was simply drop a low value loot item at the foot of the left and middle gate mechanisms to help me find them again in a hurry (as suggested by a commenter above). Then I found the right hand mechanism (which is forward of the other two, just to make it more difficult), and decided to activate that one first with the lever (in retrospect, I would probably choose to reverse this order, but I couldn't guarantee the same outcome). I waited there for a few seconds for the expected attack but nothing happened, so I decided to try to make a dash for it. I reached the second mechanism (the middle one) and activated the gear. Again no immediate attack, so I dashed to the final (left hand) gear and activated it. After a few seconds the attacks (against the whole party huddled on the platform) did begin, but they were rather minor (no Dolyaks) and can't have lasted more than 30 seconds before the end cinematic cut in (I presume that this is how long it takes for the gate to open with all three gears activated). As I said, maybe I was just lucky, but I do now wonder if the rather complicated and risky strategies promoted in the article are, actually, the best advice. K A 217.135.157.4 02:04, December 19, 2010 (UTC)