Stargrace

Dungeon Delving – The Cloak Tower #Neverwinter

My guardian is level 16 – almost 17 at the time of this post. Some fantastic things came with reaching those levels. At 15 I was able to access the foundry, which is dungeon creation. I haven’t begun to even attempt to create a dungeon yet, but they’re coming. I’ve had a lot of fun playing through the few foundry missions I’ve done so far, they have had some great stories. One tip I would give to people is to read the description of the foundry carefully first. They’re very specific as to how many people should be attempting them – I began one that said it was ideal for 2 people and it was a painful experience – but I did manage to complete it. It was also the first time I died.

You go through a few important stages. At 11 you can begin invocations (I think that’s what they’re called, basically its’ prayers). There’s an NPC you visit in the main city near the Northern part, she’s surrounded by a blue circle much like you see at a campfire. You can pray every hour, and earn buffs and astral diamonds from these blessings. The first time you pray every day you’ll earn some seals that you can collect and turn in. You also learn how the broker works, although to be honest I didn’t even bother reading the text on that quest, so far I’ve just sold everything to vendor.

I am also able to queue for dungeons now. The first one being ‘The Cloak Tower’ – and it was a lot of fun, but you have to be alright with ‘typical’ dungeon mechanics. What I mean is if you’re going with a group of strangers expect there to be that ONE person who rolls need on absolutely everything that drops. There’s those who don’t recognize anyone as being the tank and who are constantly rushing forward, etc. If you don’t enjoy PUGs you may not enjoy doing them in Neverwinter. However, I didn’t let that stop me, and just went with it. I didn’t win any gear, but I couldn’t use it for my class anyhow. I did earn a bunch of seals, and I enjoyed the little stats at the end that mentioned how much “stuff” everyone did (healing, dps, etc). I have no idea what the seals are for, or where to spend them. I think I saw an npc standing outside of the actual zone-in entrance, but I’ll have to check tomorrow to be certain.

Anyhow. It was fun, I had fun, and I’m having fun. More details tomorrow! For now I need some sleep. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Lets Play #Neverwinter

Surprisingly enough I am having an absolute blast in Neverwinter. There are queues but as far as stability I think this was one of the smoother “open beta” launches I’ve seen in quite some time. When the servers were first opened to the public there was some incredible lag and “rubberbanding” which is where your character seems to fling around backwards after you’ve moved, like a rubber band snapping back into place, but that issue was solved quite early on (and they even let the public know it was due to a bad firewall at one of their data centers). There are still queues and they are still annoying BUT they’re the lesser of two evils I like to think. I don’t mind doing something else while I’m waiting to log in, it isn’t as though I’ve dedicated any money to the game (yet).

Which brings me to the next great point. The game is free. There’s apparently no moment where you will be stopped because of not paying. I asked that in specific this morning because I couldn’t see where they’re going to make any money from. So far I’ve reached level 10 and haven’t felt an urge to spend any coin at all. I have two bags and there are enough merchants around that I can sell before either of them fill up. I’m crafting without any issues and I don’t mind waiting for the crafting to complete instead of spending gems to quicken it along. I do have some Zen on my account, I’m guessing this carried over from STO where I have a lifetime subscription because I’ve never purchased any.

I can see where appearance gear is going to be a nice money maker. It doesn’t seem to matter what class everyone is playing, we all sort of look alike. Above is Blesse, my guardian fighter. I had to inspect two friends to see what classes they had chosen because we all looked very similar. I had a shield. They didn’t. That was about my only indication.

This morning the queues are longer than they were last night. There’s also down time starting shortly for a number of hours. Still, I’m excited and can’t wait to start playing again. This one certainly caught me off guard.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Giving Neverwinter a Chance #Neverwinter

When I played the beta I was pretty unenthusiastic. The controls gave me motion sickness and I couldn’t see myself spending $60 for the options that were granted, so I didn’t get that excited about the game in general. Then a few close friends of mine started playing and I decided to give the game another chance today when it went into open beta.

I’m very glad I did.

I created a Guardian Fighter, Dwarf, named Blesse (on the Dragon server for those who are looking for me). She’s level 6 so far and I’ve had a blast with the character despite the fact that there has been some incredible lag on the servers since the masses started logging in. I’m looking forward to inching my way to level 10 so I can start professions, and aside from that I know absolutely nothing about the game. Maybe that’s for the best. I played through one of the foundry missions that someone had created and I can’t wait until I can make my own.

Will I stick with it? Well, as a nomadic gamer that’s a pretty hard decision. I’ll just have to take it day by day for now!

Are you trying out Neverwinter? What are your thoughts so far? What are you playing? Let me know in comments!

Missions and Prayer Shawls #EverQuest

It was a great Sunday for playing EverQuest, though I did manage to get a lot of spring cleaning done too (and broke the balcony door, thankfully that was easy to fix). Last night Oger, Xoxox, and myself decided to head to House of Thule to work on some missions, mostly for our alts. I boxed my ranger, and Xoxox boxed his ranger. We all earned a bunch of achievements for completing the missions in a timely fashion and for having no one die. Oger managed to edge his way to level 92 which is fantastic because that’s the first tier of Rain of Fear gear. Gear doesn’t make or break the game exactly (aa do) but it certainly does help.

Earlier on in the day I completed the pre-quest for the prayer shawl 3.0. Since I have not completed my 2.0 shawl yet I can’t go any further but it was nice to get it done. For the 2.0 I need to farm snow griffin eggs, something I dread. I’ll have to use my ranger to track and lately they have been camped by other people also trying to complete their prayer shawls. Go figure.

The 3.0 pre-quest was quite easy. It begins with Kerst Frostrift in PoK who is a new NPC in the center building of the small bank. There are a bunch of new NPC there along with various crafting depots. You need to speak to a few people and make a few items, nothing out of the ordinary. When that is completed you’ll be granted the title “Alliance Artisan” and you’ll also be given the book “Merchant Alliance Tradebook” – this book allows you to craft a few unique recipes which are great for end game characters.

My enchanter is very slowly inching her way towards level 96. It’s quite slow going now, but that could also be because I haven’t actually been earning experience on her in the typical sense of the term. I haven’t been grinding experience, rather. I’ve still been having a lot of fun completing what I have so far, yesterday I started the hand augment quest that involves an enormous amount of bits and pieces. I’ll have to make some room in my bank.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Citadel of the World Slayer #EverQuest

One thing I really like about EverQuest is how out of date content is still quite relevant in the current game. Last night I was invited along to raid the Citadel of the World Slayer, which is a raid from the Seeds of Destruction. Those are void zones, and while I’ve done a fair amount in the regular zones I had not done anything in the raid zones before so it was bound to be an adventure. We had 21 people in the raid but a good portion of those were boxed. The raid involves 7 boss fights, and we managed to down 5 of them before calling it a night. I imagine we’ll get the last two today.

While the gear that dropped was not anything to write home about the augments that drop and spell components are still quite handy, and of course there are achievements for completing these raids.

The first mob we were up against was Mindblight, which was a pretty straight forward fight. The mob would spawn, we hit it a while, then adds would spawn. We fight those until dead, then back to the named. Eventually a new type of mob would spawn, I would mez those and they would vanish. A few AOE went off at the same time, but nothing too serious. It was a fun fight, and a nice introduction back to raiding. The mobs gave experience since they were light and dark blue to me at 95, so while they’re certainly a few expansions behind it’s not as though they were complete pushovers.

Next was the Trophy Room, then Stasis which was my favorite fight. It involved a lot of running around, people being banished to cells, and an entire script that had to be played out. I may not have felt like the most useful person in the raid (almost everyone else is level 100 and are geared for raiding) but it was still a great time. I didn’t even die, although I did have a few close calls.

Left is Overlord Muram and the Edge of Destruction. I believe we’re going back to do those tonight, we have a lock out timer on the rest of the zone now. Who knows, eventually I may even be raiding current content, although these days I don’t really see a need to have very many enchanters on raids. We’re not exactly awesome DPS, though we do bring a few unique things to the table I don’t feel (yet) that any of them are essentials. I guess we’ll just have to see!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!