Sunday 1 March 2015

Neverwinter Online: Black Ice Backfire

[Added to my MMO Design folder.]

Back when Neverwinter Online introduced The Curse of Icewind Dale, they added Black Ice Armor which can either be junk at low levels but if charged with a LOT of mined and refined black ice it can be near top tier gear. This "charge" suffers a continuous drain as you use said equipment and it slowly degrades to junk status, the idea being that players using it will therefore be forced to go back to Icewind Dale to mine up more "fuel" at some stage.

Punishing Treasure.

I'm one of those that use black ice, and yes I mined a ton of the stuff for my two characters in game. Now though, after I've done everything I've wanted to in all the released modules, it is serving as a barrier to play for me. Unless there's something new or something rewarding enough to let my armor "drain", I feel there is no point in playing. Pretty sure that's the opposite effect of what they initially intended when designing it. Guess I'll be adding this to the list of bad design after all! :P

2 comments:

  1. I suppose that problem ends once they release new modules? I never played Neverwinter - so many options, so little time!

    Still, it may be a 'bad' mechanic but I salute them for trying something different!

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    1. Hehe yes, new content usually brings me back, but not enough to grind the epic gears from them, because the odds of me finding epic gears are close to zero while the chance of my armor draining is a certainty. :P

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