Angler of the Northern Sea

At the same time as finishing Storm King's Thunder, I also got the Angler of the Northern Sea achievement (catching/finding one of each type of fish in Sea of Moving Ice). I was inspired to go after it after getting Angler of the Soshenstar, though unlike the latter this one actually required a fair amount of work.

Basically I tried to go to a different fishing spot every time I got the daily fishing mission for several weeks, eventually using this guide by DDM's Realm to keep track of which locations I still had to revisit to get the last couple of fish I was still missing.

It was time-consuming, but I thought the amount of randomness and grind required was just right to not feel annoying. I've been displaying my new title with pride, as it stands for one of the rare accomplishments in this game that can't be bought or fast-tracked with real money (at least as far as I'm aware).

Storm King's Thunder Silenced

At long last, I completed the Storm King's Thunder campaign, the last of the "old" campaigns that were still lingering as incomplete on my main's campaign screen. Even though I already had partial completion when I started on my project to finally finish it up, it still took me three months of near daily play (admittedly not involving maximum effort, but still) to complete all the boons. Seriously, three months! The grind is real.

What's interesting was that the Voninblood, whose number requirements looked the most intimidating initially, didn't turn out to be that much of an issue. As Joseph Skyrim noted in a comment on my original post about the campaign grind, the Ostorian Relics you can collect on all four of the campaign maps and which can be traded for Voninblood largely make that particular currency a non-issue as they can be farmed easily and indefinitely. I just didn't realise this right away, which wasn't helped by me not even having a trowel (required to collect them) for a lot of my early play sessions. Also, duoing with my pet tank initially meant that each of us only got half as many relics as a solo player would have collected.

I soon found that everything seemed to hinge on Secrets of Ostoria, the currency associated with completing the main daily mission (which in turn required you to do one regular daily quest in each of the first three zones). I eventually realised that I could actually collect all the various dailies to save them up for later, they just wouldn't show up if I didn't also have the main daily in my log. I then settled into a routine of doing a whole batch of dailies in each zone on different days of the week while also saving up the completed missions to hand in one at a time each day for the overarching daily quest. If that sounds a bit convoluted that's because it was.

Sea of Moving Ice was a different matter as there was a limited amount of saving up you could do in that zone, and eventually I had to focus more attention on it as I just needed Runic Fragments (that map's unique campaign currency) to complete the last two boons. The main two lessons I took away from that were that the fishing daily couldn't be "saved up" as it auto-completes as soon as you've gathered the required amount of fish, and that "Recasting Alarm" could be abandoned and re-picked until it gave you the super easy circuit just next to the base.

All said and done, I do have to give credit where credit is due though: The zones themselves were enjoyable, with nice visuals and music, and I still enjoyed questing in them again. I just wish the campaign didn't require you to do it for quite that long.

No Life At Sea

The other day I was surprised by this achievement popping up while I was making the rounds in Sea of Moving Ice (click to embiggen):

Seriously, five hours of just cruising around in the damn boat? Just more evidence that this zone is way too large. What am I doing with my life...

I Tried Assault on Svardborg Today

Until a couple of weeks ago I'd never done an "epic trial", which I guess is what passes for a raid in Neverwinter. When I finally overcame my reluctance and queued for (normal) Demogorgon (the epic trial introduced with Maze Engine), I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was and that it didn't even take ten minutes.

So when I recently hit the maximum amount of "potential bonus rewards" for the epic trial Assault on Svardborg, which you accumulate from questing in Sea of Moving Ice, I thought I'd give that one a try too.

I got a pop after about fifteen minutes. Everybody seemed kind of hesitant to run in and start the fight, until one guy finally took the lead. I followed him and immediately got turned into a block of ice. I stayed that way for about ten seconds, then died. This repeated a couple of times (me running in, turning into an ice block and then dying a few seconds later), with other people also dying left and right; then everybody abandoned the instance.

I looked up the basic strategy for the fight to better understand what had happened and to be honest it sounds way too complicated for a pug even on normal. For example when people get turned into blocks of ice, others are supposed to break them out within seconds or the frozen person dies (like I did). As if that's going to happen with a bunch of randoms!

I guess those bonus rewards will remain unclaimed.

Sea of Moving Ice Impressions

While the transition between water and land is a bit laggy and awkward, I do like that it's seamless and doesn't require any additional action from you (e.g. activating the boat or anything). Also, the khyek's sails are really pretty; I love the way they shimmer. I hate having to spell "khyek" though; I always just want to write kayak.

I do like the fishing mini game. It's nice and relaxing. And I love the idea of having fishing heroic encounters! That giant sea turtle coming out of nowhere to kill you is bullshit though. Also, ultimately I'm not sure what the point of having all these fish is, as there only seem to be a few rare ones that are used for crafting and everything else can only be turned in for elk tribe reputation? I'm kind of missing a reason to keep at it, other than the daily quest.

Not sure what I think of treasure maps. Asking people to identify the correct spot based on an environmental drawing in a zone that consists entirely of samey-looking ice and rocks is a bit of a pain, not to mention that everyone will just look up a guide on the internet anyway. That said, the treasures often seem to be hidden away in such a manner that even if you know the rough coordinates on the map, it's still a challenge to figure out how to get there.

I'm on a Boat!

That is all.

Counterproductive

In most MMOs the release of new content is a time to celebrate and to get back into the game if you've been away from it for a while. In Neverwinter, last week's release of Sea of Moving Ice has just made the game (temporarily) completely unplayable for me. I get disconnected almost as soon as I log in, and if I somehow manage to stay on for a little while, I suffer thirty second lag spikes and rubberbanding up the wazoo, making it unpleasant to impossible to even do something as simple as a couple of dailies.

Maybe I'll actually get to check out the new content in a month or so.