SSG did a revamp of the original system. Gone are the "mimic frenzy", card/crunching system, and lost motes. Instead, you get mimic tokens upon dispatching the aforementioned nemeses and then trade them in via the now familiar barter system UI window.
They have also made it so that a character opening a chest in an heroic* quest must be within 4-levels of the quest-level in order to even have the possibility of spawning a mimic. Furthermore, you can only open the same chest 5-times; after that, no more mimics from that chest** (you will even get a notification that you have opened the chest too many times to spawn a mimic once you open your 6th+ time). Additionally, mimics are now immune to "insta-death" effects. And they have made the 'lock-boxes' in the Kundarak bank (in The Stromreaver Fresco) no longer capable of being mimics.
What has not changed is the number of tokens per mimic killed (that being 'one'). However, the mimic tokens are BtA, so while you cannot trade them amongst*** other players, you can at least trade them between your other toons (on the same server, of course), which is a good thing. The BtA status is better than a BtC status, but I don't know why (other than potential 'duping') they aren't unbound.
Costs for items are...well, I personally think they are high - too high. But maybe that's just me. The (new) items cost 80 tokens, regardless of the level of the item. I know that doesn't sound like much, but consider: how many chests do you actually open in one, normal play session? Yes, you can guarantee a mimic by buying the mimic attractant from the DDO Store. But those of us misers who don't like spending points on such 'frivolities' and also who happen to work for a living and can't play 24/7 like some unemployed teenager, that's a lot of tokens. On the plus side, it is the intent that the mimic hunt become a regular event - the current thought, from what I understand, is quarterly - but until it actually happens, I'm not going to count on that. Because things change (remember Mabar?).
However, the DDO community is a...creative bunch, and someone come up with a way to farm the event. Personally, I don't think of such things, as I tend to just want to play the event 'normally' like it was intended, but given certain...limitations, one sometimes needs to adjust. So, here is what some DDO-er posted in the fora (sorry, "forums"):
Step 1: Roll-up a new, Vet 2 (assuming you have access to Vet 2 status) barbarian, and take the first, default path option (I'll explain 'why' later).Now, as to why you take the default first path when rolling up your toon: Because it's faster. You can just keep selecting "I continued on my path" as you level-up and let the system distribute your skill/stat points for you. However, don't forget to also distribute your EN points before you leave the "Heart of Wind".
Step 2: Run "Haverdasher" on hard†, 5-times; run "Irestone Inlet" on any difficulty setting (including 'casual'††), 5x; optionally, run "Kobolds New Ringleader" on hard, 5x (and maybe a few other quick quests).
Step 3: Transfer all tokens to shared bank, delete toon, then repeat from step 1, ad nausea, until you're done with the event.
I can attest first-hand that this works well. Some say you can get about 12 tokens per hour, just from running Haverdasher and Irestone. I'm not quite sure I was that efficient, but I was able to get the 80 tokens within my limited playing time during the event.
Oh, and a quick note about Irestone Inlet: Since there are regularly between 8 and 14 chests, not counting the end chest, you can skip completing the quest and simply leave once you've opened all of the camp-site chests (and whatever rare chests are there, too), and then reset/reenter. It might be a little bit faster. Also, since the campsite chests are random, you can actually run more than 5x and still have the possibility of being able to open chests to spawn a mimic. Obviously, there will be diminishing returns for that.
And one last note: as of this posting, there may be a 'work-around' for the 5-openings per chest limit. For it seems that limit is applicable on a 'per person' basis. So if you team up with other players‡, simply let the same person open the chest 5x, but make sure the non-openers DO NOT loot the chest. Tokens are granted upon the killing of the mimic and everyone in the party gets a token upon its demise, but if you then loot the remains, you are, in effect, opening the chest (even though it was technically already open). So after 5-runs of the same quest, switch who opens the chests for the next 5 runs (I think the first opener still gets a token and can loot the chest, but I'll leave that testing up to others to confirm), etc. Just make sure the non-openers don't loot or it'll count as an opening.
Overall, I like the event and think it's an improvement over the original one; I'm looking forward to its return. I'm still not a big fan of the "one token per mimic kill" mechanic, because, as I've said, chest are (by design) not that plentiful - usually. And I really don't care for the 'invasion of the barbarians' work around, but hey - sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, if you want to get what you want to get.
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* For all intents and purposes, this is (more-or-less) correct. Actual wording is something like "quests with a quest-level of less than 20". And, yes, you can open a base level-18 quest on elite and it would have a quest-level of 20, so I'm not 100% certain whether you need to be within 4-levels at that point, or not. For the sake of clarity, I'm ignoring that minutia. And, yes, "an heroic" is (technically) just as correct as "a heroic". Some say it depends on how the syllables are stressed when spoken and may depend on the accent used. Me, personally, I think "a heroic" sounds just a little off. But you can use it if you want.
** There is a 'ransack' decay, just like normal ransack, but since the timer on a normal ransack is one week (7-days), and the mimic hunt event only lasted for 7-days...
*** Yes, yes - I know the more preferred spelling/usage is "among", but I'm using lesser known/used, but more 'poetic' form of "amongst" on purpose. Because I wanted to.
† If you don't have VIP status, and don't want to buy an unlock-hard-content-key, just run once on normal, but DO NOT open the chests. Save all chest openings for 'hard' (or higher).
†† But if you do run on 'casual', I reserve the right to mock you incessantly, as I scoff at 'casual'. *Scoff*
‡ Or multi-box, if you are so inclined.
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