Neverwinter Online: Ravenloft First Impressions

So misty. So cool. So Strahd.

Just before my internet conks out for the next two weeks I thought I'd give my first impressions of Neverwinter's latest module: Ravenloft, which has a pretty cool intro cinematic. After a cheesy quest hook that lets everyone traverse the "unescapable" mists (which is mandatory in an MMO I suppose), we finally get to the beautifully spooky land of Barovia which just oozes of theme. I especially like how Strahd's castle is literally just so close to everything.

It's nice that Strahd shows up early too.

The weekly bounty thing from Chult is here and the repeating quests are a bit more time consuming not only because of the slightly tougher baddies but also because said tasks are just slightly longer. Instead of killing 20 things, its now kill 20 of these AND 5 of those. Instead of get the 4 doohickeys, its get the 4 doohickeys AND put them somewhere afterwards.

Best parts for me so far are the night and day cycle which changes the spawns slightly. It's definitely scary to know that the Stalker from Warframe Night Terror (miniboss) shows up randomly each night to terrorize some unlucky adventurer.  Then there are the hunts which are amazing! No more grinding for bait, now you just hop into an instance with a difficulty of your own choosing, ala Mabinogi Quest Boards.

My personal favorite so far is using increase aggro range cards, the higher the better. This means the baddies aren't stronger but they come marching out for you from all over. While I first did it for a laugh, it's turned out to be a valid farming tactic since all those mobs can then drop more cool hunt cards. The bad part - I'm hunting all the time, and not actually progressing in the campaign! :P

Neverwinter Online: The Lost City of Omu

Apparently less dinos = more fun.

The Omu ruins is a pretty good Chult map after Soshenstar, especially since there are far less dinosaurs waiting to pounce on you from annoying aggro ranges. Their replacements, the normal aggro range gorillas, aren't so bad provided you know how to side step.

King Kong makes a cameo.

Also great is the Undercity with its short cuts and shrines. It's a fun though claustrophobic place to explore and each entrance comes with a campfire. This makes channel hopping (which brings you to the last campfire you visited) a most viable "recall" travel method. You'd probably do it anyway just to chase the hourly Tyrant HE around.

I've now finished the middle tree of the campaign progression which means I have access to all the weeklies - most of which are easily completable. The Fane isn't that tough (definitely not as bad as Ras Nsi's first encounter), but it is moderately lengthy.

A new, old friend shows up unexpectedly too.

Anyway, I've a bit more to go with boons and hunts to unlock. The hunt drops here seem quite scarce, but I haven't been actively pursuing them enough to compare with the previous area. I'll let you know how that goes

Today I Sighed: Where to Find Time?

Seems that I'm back in a "so much to do and not enough time too lazy to do it" phase at the moment, with my gaming addiction strangling out most other things once more. Thanks Neverwinter Online. Lol. At least I've got Chult done now, along with the long outstanding Tyranny of Dragons (thanks to the Linu improvement).

This leaves the Storm King's Thunder, the Day of the Dungeon Master event (too many dice required), and the PvP campaigns (no interest in that, so no biggie) unfinished. All that is also eating into my blogging time, which is annoying since I want to continue the Fate of Heroes story at some point.

I did do something different last weekend by attending Comic Con where I was surprised at how many people purchase boxes of random gear. That is, you get a box but don't know what's inside it. Haven't these guys played MMOs? Lol.

I also learned that the world of war gaming is very varied if this list is anything to go by, and that for each kick ass "good guy", there are psychos to balance it out.

In honor of one of our guild mates who has left I'm putting her favorite bands up here as my closing musical numbers: If these Trees could Talk and Explosions in the Sky. If that's too heavy for you, perhaps you'd enjoy this piece from the Eurovision Choir contest instead.

And as a bonus for bird lovers: here's a live feed for some roosting Peregrine Falcons.

Neverwinter Online: Tomb of Annihilation

Where dinosaurs are worse than dragons!

Now that I've finished the campaign, apart from the titular dungeon itself, I am fairly confident when saying that this is one of the better campaigns to date. Cryptic expanded on the good idea of letting people do "what" they want from the River District and included a "when" they want too. That is, players can pick a (small) variety of things to do during the span of a week to advance the campaign, instead of the stressful and rigid dailies from campaigns before.

That's perhaps the best feature for me, as it makes it easy to alt through it - and still have time to catch up on other campaigns! The new zones are also quite pretty and the monsters suitably dangerous. Though the dinosaurs do have a large detection range I've worked out paths that can get you into almost all the areas without drawing any aggro. It does involve jumping off cliffs and almost never following the road but it works.

It's a pretty place.

The new hunt mechanic is pretty fun too, especially when accompanied by some guildies. The only downside is the limitation of only being able to carry one lure type at a time, which makes "grinding" hunts a bit of a chore though I suppose that may have been intentional. Definitely a good module, and while not one new players can access right away due to a high iLevel suggestion (for good reason), it's certainly one worth working towards and looking forward to. :)

Today I Smiled: Power Up!

The grind through the River District and Chult continues in Neverwinter Online, so much so that I've not been typing blog posts! Oops! It's great to see my characters improving again though, using Baphomet as a measuring stick.

Once I put some thought into what enchantments I actually used in my gear, my mounts and my npcs companions (who I previously didn't equip at all), I'm now easily beating the demon prince.

Speaking of training, here is the real-life weapons training of Keanu Reeves for John Wick 2, which is pretty awesome. Thank you to the poster who told me about it. Also cool is this site about military strength by country which is an eye opener. Some are higher than I thought!

If that is too violent for you, I've also just learned that Japan has a cat island and a rabbit island which is cute-overload at first, but when carefully thinking about it are islands full of a) rabbit poop or b) critters that actively seek to overthrow the human race. :P

As usual I'm going to end with some musical links - the first one being the Coconut song on an airplane and the last one is Peter Hollen's version of Hands of Gold from Game of Thrones! Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Neverwinter Online: Chult Totem Grind

The new campaign for NWO is out and with it comes some really nice looking areas which will be introduced to you in the somewhat lengthy intro quest. You'll also quickly learn that dinos have a big aggro range, Batiri that glow red are very dangerous, to watch your ranged attacks as to not draw unintentional aggro from the densely packed mobs, and to turn away from the giant eye icons above the yuan-ti dancers who can push or pull you into said mobs.

Also, don't piss off the King of Spines. :P

More importantly, you'll also be introduced to the new grind which is that for totems, the currency that unlocks this new campaign. You can only collect 100 per week to begin with but can boost that as you advance. How does one get to the 100 per week though? The Prince in the new hub gives you 6 patrol quest bonus rewards per week, which each give 5 totems, so that's 30 out of the way. His patrol quests (the ones that start from the city) are quite fun too. You might need to wait a few minutes if you finish them too quickly for his quest cycle to restart though.

There's another 20 from a weekly that comes from defeating a rare critter, which randomly spawns in the place of a regular mob. Hopping to a channel with less people gives you a better chance of finding one I feel since I encountered 2 at a very off-peak time. I'll keep an eye on that  and update here if it continues to be the case.

The remainder of the totems will need to come from repeatable quests at Camp Vengeance, giving 5 totems each. There aren't that many variants, but if you are just gunning for totems, the path of least resistance (with or without a party) seems to be "Rescue Templars" and then "Rescue Scouts from Batiri". They're fast, and don't involve fighting your way into (and then out of) one of the many ruins or sanctify spots required from the other quests.

Does that sound boring and repetitive? Yes, but it's also efficient. There might be better options as more quests get unlocked, but for now that is my plan of attack.