Neverwinter Online: Tales of the Old - Dread Vault

Tales of the Old is an interesting event that revives some of the previously removed dungeons with some updated foes and challenges, all to earn tales currency to buy rewards. Unlike normal runs you are limited on time, unable to use consumables (no heal pots), and have a party wide total deaths limit for starters (because you can make it harder).

I don't have any problems with that, though death is annoying due to the run distance from the campfire but I think that mainly stems from dungeon design - and one of my main gripes about lengthy dungeons.

In Dread Vault your team must work your way down a lengthy cavern to ultimately fight an elder brain. Unfortunately the whole journey is just move forward, kill trash, repeat over and over for more than 10 minutes. Even without the enemies it will take a decent amount of time just to walk from point A to point B.

Prepare for more of the same thing!

While some players like Syncaine enjoy massive instances dungeons, I personally find them to be fucking boring. Sure you have mini bosses before the main villain but that makes what, 20% of the dungeon interesting? And then you are expected to run the entire dungeon over and over? That just reeks of dumb design and I'm starting to see why Cryptic removed it in the first place.

The only place massive dungeons have in MMOs is if they are not instanced at all, so that you are able to randomly encounter other players and not the automatons that are the NPCs. They did this right in the general Undermountain zones.

Meanwhile instanced content works best when it gets right to the point. Tiamat, Demogorgon, and Baphomet (my favorite) all drop you right into the boss fight itself. I'd much prefer a similar event centered on those, though obviously "Tales of the Old" wouldn't be a suitable title.

Better still, just hold a Boss Rush event with the option of soloing. There are enough bosses and mini-bosses in the game to pick from now to make that happen. Anyway, Tales of Old - thumbs up. Dread Vault - also thumbs up, but only for the boss fights. The rest of it is just a waste of time.

Darklands: The Great Escape Part II

This is part of The Darklands story.

At the courtyard Liore and Syncaine decide to separate, as it would increase their chances of someone surviving to get help. The pursuing templars follow suit, half their number going after each fugitive. Liore spots a staircase to the South West while Syncaine rushes North East to a red door which he crashes through, finding another staircase up beyond it.

Both scramble up their respective flights of stairs and strangely are not pursued by the templars. Syncaine finds himself in a tight stone corridor, finding two doors at the end - one wrought from red metal and the other made of wood. The red one is locked, and he can't bust it open this time so he moves over to the other door. It's his only option as going back downstairs means meeting the templars again. He opens it and finds a room full of demons waiting for him!

If only he had a gatling gun!

With a wry grin he readies his mace and holds his ground as they come swooping towards him - he knows he has no chance of outrunning the things anyway. With a thunderous roar Syncaine engages in battle for the last time. Meanwhile in the graveyard outside, a secret passage opens and Liore finds herself outside the monastery once more. Panting, she flees back to Flensburg to seek aid from the King of Denmark.

Darklands: The Great Escape

This is part of The Darklands story.

Imprisoned in the dungeon beneath the Monastery the templars take most of the team's equipment (though somehow Syncaine managed to conceal a mace and everyone still has knives). The lead templar implies that they will be used as food for the next feast and cackles manically as he leaves them in their cell. Fortunately someone is on their side, unlocking the door after a few hours and whispering hurriedly for them to escape before vanishing into thin air.

The four cautiously explore the crypts that double as the templar dungeon, finding a chatty skeleton who Liore returns a bone to. The skeleton informs them that at the top of the monastery is a great demon preparing a powerful ritual. It uses a lot of fire attacks but is quite susceptible to the rather humble flea dust alchemical potion (it makes people itchy. Seriously). Not that it matters as no one was carrying that and also their gear is stored in a trapped / locked chest that none of them can unlock.

With escape being the top priority they find some stairs and climb up, only to run into a bunch of templar guards! River is killed almost instantly while Doone heroically sacrifices himself so that Liore and Syncaine can exit to the courtyard. Armed only with a small knife against six guys in full plate armor and two handed swords he doesn't last long, but the few seconds he buys them are invaluable before eventually he is overrun and knocked out.

Queue Yakety Sax music.

Darklands: The Great Monastery

This is part of The Darklands story.

It is an uneventful journey from Hamburg to Lubeck (same city as in Stalker Online I wonder?) and again to Flensburg which is ruled by the King of Denmark himself. Unfortunately all the monks within the walls (of all those cities) have no knowledge they wish to share of St. Thomas the Apostle, which Liore diligently checks to avert any Wild Hunt attacks. This doesn't bother her though as the Wild Hunt hasn't chased them recently, and more importantly because their destination was in sight.

After resting up at Flensburg the team journeyed across a large plain to the Great Monastery, ready to face anything. The exterior simply had a graveyard and two guard houses. Opening the door to the first they are surprised to find a squad of templar knights!

The bad ass kind, like the ones you find in Priest!

These traitors are well trained and well equipped, and the team just scrapes through for a victory with River sustaining heavy,  near death damage. After looting their chamber with Liore finding a strange bone they then come across a second group of templars and having been so weakened from the first fight Syncaine and Doone get knocked out early. Before anyone is killed Liore decides to surrender instead of abandoning her comrades. They are taken prisoner and brought to the dungeons below.

Darklands: To Flensburg

This is part of The Darklands story.

At the city of Paderborn, Liore studied the map on how to get to Flensburg since that's where the lead was to the witches "Great Monastery". For this task she decided to recruit veteran soldiers, men who enjoyed dealing out death and punishment in the name of God. 30 year old "Doone the Red", 25 year old "River Highlaten" and 45 year old "Syncaine Hardcore", a grumpy tough as nails warrior.

They set out North, dispatching of more bandits and giant spiders before running into another Tatzelwurm. The lizard is a mighty opponent but it too falls as Syncaine manages to tear its face in two with his bare hands. A few alchemists try accost them for reagents too, but since the party isn't carrying any they are easily bypassed.

They do get into a bit of strife trying to cross the Elbe river though, with Liore stepping into a peat bog / quicksand by accident. Fortunately the other three manage to pull her out with the loss of minimal equipment. They also lose a day as a storm causes the river to flood, leaving them stranded and soaked on a small rise but not even this can dampen Liore's fury.

That last option is there for A--holes I guess.

NBI 2013 - Aftermath Eternal

With the dawn that ends Halloween, so ends the Newbie Blogger Initiative this year... or does it? It has the structure to continue going despite the end of its term but I guess that's more a decision for the organizers. I'm pretty glad I joined in, as it spawned a few of the blog posts I had this past month.

It also got this site a number of links, boosted those graphs and numbers I'm not meant to be looking at, learned a few things, and given me a whole bunch of new blogs to follow and comment on myself (you can see from the extensive "paths I travel" on the right. If I missed yours or you just want to be added - let me know)!

Lastly, if you are or know of a newbie blogger then I strongly suggest visiting the site, regardless if it's on-going or not. Lots of tips to be learned and easily built bridges to be made.

What the picture doesn't show is the wealth of information and community that dragon is sitting on.

Also I thought that for a change I should put down what things you might see appearing on this blog during the upcoming month. Can't make any guarantees but if it's in the game plan, there's a good chance I'll blog about it!

My to do list for November (no particular order):

• See the Tower of Nightmares for myself in Guildwars 2. (can't log in)
• Investigate the werewolf attack on Conarch Village in Age of Conan. (done)
• Complete all missions on Warframe (only around 50% done).
• Finish that second quest in the Neverwinter Online Foundry.
• Write the first part of my guild's history, it's NanoWrimo afterall.
• Check out Path of Exile as suggested by Doone. (done)
• Check out Atlantica Online as suggested by SynCaine. (done)
• Finish mapping the Aria Reservoir in Wizardry Online.