Neverwinter Online: Arcane Reservoir Challenge

For those who want quests that aren't in the game. :P

It's been awhile since I made a challenge post, but I thought I'd do one for the Sharandar Weekly in Neverwinter Online. Most people fly through it these days (myself included), literally just running past everything to murder the boss and leave. Well, if you want to mix things up here's the task for you:

Get all four of the NPC Reservoir Guards to the final room.
 

This is the finish line.

Note that they will vanish when you hit the boss cut scene but that's fine, if all four of them made it there alive you win. As your gear score improves you also might want to add a few extra options like:

Complete the quest solo
Complete the quest in under 3 minutes

Shouldn't be that tough and if at first you don't succeed, don't worry too much since you'll probably be doing this quest every week at some point. :)

Neverwinter Online: How to avoid fall damage

An easy tip for those new to the game...

Physics does not apply. 

[Added to the Gallery and Tutorial sections]

MMO Design: Enemies should be like Plants

If we're farming we may as well be gardening.

I hate weeds. If left alone they grow and expand and become a lot tougher to remove. It does feel better removing a huge cluster than a single tiny sprig though. Now imagine if we translate that into MMOs. Lots of spawn points on the map but they all start out as weak critters with little loot. Much like there are different types of weed, these don't need to all be the same type though.

Areas that are frequently farmed or tended will spawn more of those weak critters again. Those less frequented will have mobs "grow" into stronger versions. Maybe a lizard becomes a small dinosaur or a spider becomes a bigger spider, and the loot becomes better. Maybe you can't get dragon scales until a lizard evolves that far.

Obviously the map design and available travel modes will play a big part in this setup. On a flat plain with teleporters equally spaced out among the spawns it's likely the player population will simply murder everything fast enough so that nothing will ever "grow" (though the "growth" stages only need to be a matter of minutes in between). In maps like in Guildwars 2 that has secret zones, jumping puzzles, bridges and gates that are only open when set conditions are met, this system might be better as it will force people to venture out and/or to return to zones already done in search of "big game".

Do you think such a system would be good in your (or any) MMO?

[Added to the Design Folder.]

NWO: Siege of Neverwinter Voucher Tutorial

Avoid dragons, draw out the infantry.

As this event is on again I thought I'd put a quick post down for those who don't yet know the best method to farm those stronghold vouchers that drop from all enemies on this map. You will need a quiet, low-pop channel and as much free time as you can throw at it for best results.

Killing everything is a good start, but the respawn rate is kinda slow for the usual spawns which is why you want to look out for the non-dragon heroic encounters that pop up. All of these spawn a flood of infantry farm targets, and will keep doing so until the event is finished. That's right, the idea is to never kill any of the end generals or destroy the catapults. Ideally for the catapults, damage each of them without breaking any. If you do it right the spawning guards will chase you across the back end of the map making your farming even easier.

Also, if you are only after vouchers, avoid the dragon encounters as they eat up a lot of time and have no adds that drop them. Most importantly, don't get angry at people that finish the events you are trying to farm. They've been trained the whole game to do so, and have a daily that requires them to finish 2 of them. Regardless of what they are doing, just kill the infantry and if your channel gets too crowded, or has double dragons, its time to move on to the next quiet instance. :)

[Added to Tutorials.]

Gallery: How to beat Zhaitan

[Part of the Gallery.]

It's been a while since I did this in game so it might have changed by now, but my general recollection of it went as follows...

The lesser dragons are more of a challenge.

Gallery: Powerslide

[Part of my new gallery!]

Whee I did it! I forced myself to draw something! Very rough but oh well, I'll need some work to get back to where I was and then more again to actually improve. :)

It's the most OP move in that game.

Gallery Works

Just a place where I can store all my masterpieces doodling (*cough*). :P

How to avoid Fall damage (22 May 2018)
How to beat Zhaitan (19 May 2018)
Powerslide (16 May 2018)