Some observations from the past 22.5 hours. I believe I have leveled between .5-.75% of the way through Grand Duchess. That's a good deal faster than I've leveled in a long time. I imagine everybody else is going to just fly up in rank.

I assume that the Mice page is ranked in approximate order of difficulty? I've attracted (and FTCed) a good deal more of the big, bad mice that I imagine will become unavailable as the Duke/Duchess rank finishes and Counts/Countesses are allowed in. Thus far I've caught 13 of the 20 available mice. Aside from the three locked mice, I still need the Biohazard, Sludge Soaker, Bog Beast, Sludge, Monster Tail, Spore, and Lab Technician. Most of those seem to be the lesser mice of the area and I imagine I will attract a lot more of them as the area overall becomes weaker.

Question for anybody else using the Super Rotten Charms. Have you noticed that the occasional soapy suds drop seem to be primarily from the lower level mice? That's what I was noticing yesterday, and if that's the case, I'm holding onto the rest of my charms until a much lower level to try to make the most of them. No sense in wasting my precious Flawed Orbs.

I had a Canister Ring drop from a Tentacle Mouse this morning so I just need 147 more Pollutium to upgrade to the next barrel.
I had the Theme II piece drop off of the Slimefist Mouse which surprised me. I haven't looked to see if anyone else has gotten any of the other theme pieces on the boards.

How are my fellow Dukes/Duchesses doing? Won't be long now until the Counts/Countesses are let in and then the majority of us will be able to hunt here.

ETA: Oh yeah, I noticed there are some new craftable trap skins as well... one of which is for the POWN, one for the OWN, and the last I have no idea what trap it's for.

I was at 93.62% Duchess when I entered the new area. I'm at 94.32% and I've not been highly active in hunting since about 5 yesterday afternoon.

I didn't get any soap suds until yesterday evening at some point, so that would be about when the duke/duchess bar passed the halfway point.

I've attracted 13 out of 20 available mice as well. I'm going to use Super Rotten charms through what I have crafted and then just see what happens after that. I haven't used the soap charms at all yet. I was holding on to them until I see what happens.

For those who like to have recipes spoiled for them, there is a thread on the MH forums for the new area's recipes here.

I'm just now getting into the area. I didn't make Duke before the Counts were let in, so I'll be waiting for that until the next time. I'm hoping to farm some Flawed Orbs after this outbreak, so Windmill (and minuscule amounts of gold and points), here I come.

I'm liking the area so far. I enjoy the team aspect of it, like with the trains, but I also like that this area isn't going to be quite as frustrating for upper-level players in that they are still responsible for their own progress.

Thanks for the link stwin There were a lot more spoilers on there than the recipes. Including a couple of mice only attracted when Rotten/S. Rotten charms are armed.

Well, 48 hours in and I've caught all of the mice except for the Archduke and Grand Duke levels. Finally nabbed the Spore this morning which was the last one I was waiting on.

Looks like we'll finish cleaning the river this morning as we were 2/3 of the way through Count when I went to bed last night, and when I got up this morning we were 85% of the way through Baron. I'll be curious to see what happens. One question I have is if we clean the Crude Pollutium, but don't use it to craft anything before the next spill, does it recontaminate? And how long until the next spill? So many questions...

Oh, and I haven't quite figured out the point of this area yet. I assume it's a prep area like Claw Shot City was to the Gnawnian express. There you collected as much Fool's Gold as possible. What are we supposed to be doing here? Collecting Crude Pollutium and crafting stuff? Amassing Soap Charms?

I see on the forums that a lot of the crafting materials like blue prints drop. Has anyone gotten any of those drops yet? I've only gotten a canister ring and a scrap of the theme. Oh, and 128 pollutium.

I've gotten the drop for the polluted base blueprints. Some soap suds and 114 pollutium.

I imagine that it is partially a preparation area like CSC and partially just a new area to bring in a wide range of players.

I've not looted any theme scraps, blueprints or patterns yet. I have 1 Canister Ring and 62 Crude Pollutinum (there's the option in your special menu to refine it, but this isn't actually possible until the spill is cleaned up). I'm still missing 6 of the released mice, but I think at least a few of those are Duke level and above, so I'll have to wait until the next spill to get those.

I doubt that Pollutinum will recontaminate. It would be impossible to craft some of the things they have for us in this area if that were true (some of the bases/traps I've seen require as much as 400 Pollutinum). I'm interested in seeing how much better the area-specific bases and traps do compared to our current equipment.

I know that the news releases say there's no way to gauge when the next spill will be, but I do hope there's at least a bit of a pattern to their beginning. That way we can know how long to spend in other places.

This new area will certainly keep me busy until the Lunar New Year/Valentine's event. I'll probably bounce between the Windmill (for orb farming), the Toxic Spill (for progress there), and the Living Garden/Gnawnian Express areas (for essence and trap part farming) between now and then.

I still need 3 Gur for the Grand Arcanum, and then I can start farming Icuri for Shattering Charms. Won't that be fun?

I found once I had all of the traps, this went quite quickly. If you want, you can wait until the Easter event and then hunt in the LG areas then. I think I recall it sped me through about three Icuri essences... the last two traps and the first boss mouse.

I doubt that Pollutinum will recontaminate. It would be impossible to craft some of the things they have for us in this area if that were true (some of the bases/traps I've seen require as much as 400 Pollutinum).

Good point.

I've noticed a frustrating and fatal flaw with the new area. While I have a TON of cheese, I don't have an infinite amount. And now that I've maxed out my crude pollutium, it's not in my best interest to stick around. A good portion of the top level players have already left, so as more and more people leave to preserve cheese, progress slows even further and thus becomes a catch 22. And this is just the first run through!
The devs need to implement a solution I think or this area will stall out and cease to cycle. Either cut off the last couple levels because Heros and Knights already have PLENTY to do (and honestly I'd say Lord/Lady as well), OR make those levels require fewer mice to catch to complete, OR bump up the crude pollutium collection.

ETA: Looks like the devs have noticed this as well as this is at the top of my page.

Every capture at the Toxic Spill helps to clean pollution, even if you've collected your maximum Crude Pollutinum!

Yeah, I've been thinking they should stop adding Lord/Lady areas. There's more than enough to do and reach the next level for that rank, so they should focus on the upper levels.

That said, Toxic Spill still has the highest concentration of active users in the game. 26k+ versus no more than 2k in other areas.

I think I will do some LG hunting during the Easter event, then. I can hop back and forth between there and the KG. I may try for an Iceberg run as well, but I doubt it.

I'm watching FBF and reading the chat, this is a concern for everybody so I'm hoping they'll address it.

~They said the math was off and that's the reason Baron flew by and all that sludge got pushed downstream to the lower levels. They've corrected it for the next spill, but they're still working on a solution to fix this particular spill as it's stalled out.
~They admitted that they are watching the Toxic Spill numbers so if it stalls out, they can tweak it for the future, like add a timer. But for now they're leaving it as is, which was overwhelmingly preferred by the players in chat.
~They've added new HUD displays on the Mobile for CSC, FW, and obviously the new area.
~They talked about many updates to the mobile app that are coming up soon, which I didn't pay close attention to.
~They had some trivia questions with pretty stellar rewards. I linked them on our MH FB page so you can find them there, but those links are temporary, so grab them asap.
~They confirmed that the Olympics will be rolled in the CNY event, and that will be starting sometime around the 31st.
~And finally they dropped a spoiler for the next Noble release... it will include a new piece of the Rift set. So if you don't have your Rift Base, you may want to consider getting it soon.

I got lots of Orbs of all types in the Charge Eggs in the Egg Hunt last year, and I hadn't sold or used any of them, so they are all available for my own use now. I'm crafting and using both types of rotten charms, hoping to get both Soapy Suds and even more interesting loot.

It's an amazing area for points, even with only those 12 mice that are available for a Baroness (I've caught all and bronzed some) - I got a million points and ranked up 2% of my Baroness rank through two days of trap checks
Now I'm hunting actively again, and will do so until I fill up my barrel of Crude Pollutinum.

I realize that there's no need to worry about not getting enough loot for the more useful items yet - they are primarily for higher levels anyway, and I'll get there eventually. I'm at 84% Baroness now, and I haven't finished all Baroness tasks yet - most of Muridae Market is untouched.

I'm getting enough Flawed Orbs at these lower levels that I no longer have any worry about farming for them as I'm collecting them faster than I'm using them. So no Windmill farming for me. Yay!

This pollution spill is just about cleaned up. I imagine it will be done before the end of the day and then it will be interesting to see what happens. It's been rather amusing to watch the pollution slowly disappear on the HUD. (It only took me a few days to figure out the stuff was disappearing. ) I've been wondering if the glowing purple core was anything important, but it's sinking so I guess not.

I have all the components to buy the Small Waste Barrel but nothing else. I didn't get any blueprints this round. They talked in FBF like the next spill may not happen for a little while. I think it's slightly random. If that's the case then I'll have plenty of time to hunt elsewhere on our map. I also need to craft all of the various pollution charms. Kind of curious to see what those do.

Anyways... Fun and simple new area. I think the next time around I'll aim to be there through the Grand Duchess - Countess (good mice/good potential drops/good leveling) and then return at Hero (flawed orbs/soap suds) to save cheese.

Won 25 Super Brie via Daily Draw.

Continuing the March of the Gauntlet. Surprising, eh?

Phalanx Mouse count: 1,007.

Nice ceppault!

Some stats from using Chesla's Revenge during Summer in the garden

Setup: CR + Seasonal Base + amplifier charms

(The GTB base is a bit better than the Seasonal Base)

Catch rate: 17 out of 30 hunts
Amplifier: 95%

This is since 5:40 p.m. yesterday and only intermittent hunting.

Edit: I switched to the GTB about 7 a.m. and in 7 hunts, I've caught 6 mice. My amplifier is now at 115%.

I finally got my GAT, so I am done with LG traps! Now I just need to farm essences for Shattering charms. By the way, Regal charms are amazing for going after Twisted Carmine. I've caught 4/5 TCs in the last 13 hunts (with a 10/13 overall catch rate). That's my best run yet for TCs. If I catch a few more, I'll be well on my way to my next Icuri.

Well I was hoping for another pollution spill well before the CNY event starts, but that doesn't look like that's going to happen. Unless it's one that starts with Baron or something.

I'm gonna start signing up for a train here and there again. I'm more interested in treasure hunts (specifically the LE trap), but I still want a healthy supply of Magmatic Charms before the Easter event rolls around. I just have this feeling I'm gonna need them. I currently have 12 and my goal is 20.

Meanwhile I'm plugging through the Warpath for a treasure map, but I'm so far from Wave 2 I have a feeling that those in the Iceburg are going to finish up, then come to the Warpath and beat me to the mouse.