Farewell to Old Sharandar

One thing I didn't immediately realise when the new Sharandar module was announced was that this also meant that the old Sharandar was going away: currency obsolete, zones and quests gone, campaign removed. I still don't know why Cryptic felt the need to do this to be honest, as there are precedents for having more than one version of the same zone in the game, e.g. Helm's Hold the levelling zone and Reclamation Rock the Elemental Evil zone, which are both the same place but at different points in time.

I'm not too torn up about it right now, seeing how I completed the old Sharandar campaign on eight different characters and have plenty of memories of the place. But I'm not generally a fan of removing content from MMOs, and occasionally I do get all sentimental and experience cravings to revisit.

For example one of the new Sharandar quests mentions that Kehl Skywatcher now has a plaza named after her and is missed by everyone or something like that. This then made me go "oh no, did she die" and suddenly I wanted to do nothing more than be back in the Witch Fen and be asked to disperse magical fog or torch giant toadstools.

Mob Signature Abilities

Courtesy of a week of double campaign currency I spent a lot of time in Icewind Dale last week, mostly on alts who still needed to complete the campaign. They weren't very powerful, so many fights still presented some challenge, and it made me realise just how strong a reaction I have towards certain mob types.

For example I loathed doing the quest to kill young remorhazes, as they had loads of health compared to the average mob and their endless fire circles and knockbacks made them extremely annoying to fight on melee classes. Similarly I always have a sort of low-key hatred for fighting wolves of every kind, because while they are generally weak mobs, they have an annoying knockdown that isn't telegraphed clearly and therefore hard to avoid. On the other hand I'm happy to fight corrupted dwarves for days, as their attacks are pretty predictable and easy to counter.

I think this variety in the way enemies fight as well as the fact that the game actually forces you to pay attention to what each ability does is one of the reasons I find Neverwinter's combat enjoyable despite of not being a fan of action combat in general.

Path of the Fallen Impressions

Because the new module didn't quite offer enough naming confusion yet, the new campaign coming with Avernus is called "Path of the Fallen". We finally started it this afternoon.

Having just spent days swoop racing in SWTOR, I was amused to be confronted with another racing mechanic, as characters are given an "infernal machine" to race across the wastelands of Avernus.

One of the machine's abilities is to "listen to the radio" (or whatever it's called in D&D terms). My husband told me that hearing devils talk about politics was vaguely amusing, but for me even trying to use that ability managed to crash the entire game every single time (because Cryptic), so I've missed out so far.

The mobs are pretty tough. The recommended item level is another 1k higher than the (already high) recommendation to start Infernal Descent, and it was very noticeable. Even though we were doing the quests with a group of three who all had higher than the recommended item level, we were downed a few times (though this mostly happened when we foolishly allowed ourselves to be split up).

Xuna

Xuna is one of Neverwinter's main NPCs - the scantily clad rogue that features heavily in the game's original trailer. For Neverwinter's fifth birthday, you could get her as a companion for free (or rather it was a choice between her and Makos). I claimed my freebie and put it in the bank but never used it.

Since I came back though, Xuna has apparently been ridiculously OP. I don't know if the worst of it has been nerfed already, but I still find her performance most impressive. Companions in Neverwinter have never been renowned for their combat performance and were primarily used to boost your stats, so Xuna chopping things to bits within seconds really stands out.

Having raised her to max level at this point, it's quite fun to run around and watch her kill low-level mobs before I can even touch them... though admittedly she can be a bit of a liability in dungeons and busy areas, as she has a habit of jumping into nearby groups that you weren't even planning on attacking.

Talking Swords

(Minor Undermountain quest spoiler to follow.)

I don't remember where and when I first heard or read it, but I distinctly remember someone once telling me that talking magical weapons in a D&D setting were pretty much always bad news. This memory keeps coming back to me every time I encounter one, but Neverwinter seems to be set on defying my expectations.

First there was the Sunsword in Ravenloft, whose pride and OP-ness made for - in its own words - "a superlative experience".

Now, in Undermountain you find another talking sword in a green dragon's lair. After you beat the dragon, it urges you to use its blade for the finishing blow. So you stick it into the dragon's head... and the creature rises again, with the magical sword now effectively controlling the dragon's mind and body.

Then you spend the rest of the zone with a dragon buddy helping you fight the baddies.

Not what I expected.

(Also, obligatory Bloglovin link so I can add the blog to my list there!)

New Tutorial

One of the things that intrigued me enough to get back into Neverwinter was mention of a revamped early levelling experience. In hindsight I had already read about plans for that back in July last year; I'd just forgotten about it again after more or less moving on from the game.

So I went ahead and created a new great weapon fighter barbarian of the one free-to-play race I didn't have yet - wood elf, apparently (this game has too many sub-species of elves) - and levelled her from one to ten.

And... I quite liked it! In terms of functionality and major plot points, the tutorial is largely unchanged, but it now makes for a much smoother continuation from the intro cinematic. I always thought it was a bit odd that after you witness the city under attack, the game then introduced your character as a shipwreck survivor (?!), with the only vague connection to the cinematic being a flash of memory indicating that your ship was sunk by the same dracolich that's also attacking the city. Then you fight your way into Neverwinter itself and... everything is peachy keen inside.

In the new version, you willingly join the battle to defend the city and even assist Makos with bringing down the dracolich. You also meet Celeste early on. When you get into the city, there is still fighting going on, with the Nashers having used the distraction to steal the crown, and only after you re-emerge from the vaults do you see that things have calmed down.

What does intrigue me is the fate of Private Wilfred though, who used to be the friendly NPC guiding you through the tutorial instead of Makos, just to die by Valindra's hand five minutes later. In the new version he's inside the city and lends you a horse at Sergeant Knox' command but doesn't speak. Has the timeline been altered to result in his survival? Or is he just doomed to die at a later point now, like the protagonist's fiancée in the 2002 version of The Time Machine? I kind of want to find out.

Scourge Warlock Quests

I've previously written about how Neverwinter's class and race quests are a kind of under-appreciated feature, and while levelling my warlock I was fascinated to see how Cryptic had initially iterated on the concept before abandoning it. You see, unlike the other classes, the Scourge Warlock doesn't have to hunt down quest givers in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a letter as a hint: They get their very own warlock friend hanging out in Protector's Enclave, making it much harder to miss her quests.

These also felt much more condensed than the chains for other classes, with a lot of them pouring in quickly during my warlock's early levels, and the whole chain coming to a conclusion as early as level 30. The finale was pretty epic as well, with my warlock descending to the nine hells to meet her patron and being told that her tiefling "mentor" had a debt with the demon that would have some dire results for her unless you were willing to pick up the tab. I took the "nice" option and saved her, but I wonder what happens if you sell her out...

Cleric Life

I didn't used to pay that much attention to him because I rarely did his quests, but lately I've been doing so more often and I've got to say: the cleric NPC in the stronghold is hilarious. As a cleric main I can really relate to his jadedness! "I wish he'd just give me tasks I can do by myself" indeed. "I'd be... grateful?" That question mark at the end just kills it. In an unusual twist for Neverwinter, the voice actor does a really great job as well. (Though actually, all the stronghold NPCs are pretty well done.)

The Cloaked Ascendancy Story (Spoilers)

We finished chapter five of the Cloaked Ascendancy story today, and while there is still the quest to do Spellplague Caverns, I think the main arc is pretty much over. While I consider the River District a great new map, the story accompanying it has struck me as very lacklustre. I don't expect a particularly high standard of storytelling from Cryptic, but I know they can do better than this.

It started off interesting enough: Who is this Gyrion? And Lord Neverember grousing about how ungrateful people were towards him was pretty hilarious. For a moment I wondered whether he was about to go rogue or something, but the actual reveal was fine too.

But the whole thing with Celeste was really badly done. When she "changed sides", she looked like she was being mind-controlled or something and it just felt wrong that nobody seemed in the least concerned by this! When it was revealed that she had only gone undercover I was kind of: "Bwuh?" It just didn't add up. Maybe the bad voice acting and lack of animation on her face were to blame in this case.

Gyrion and his allies didn't really go anywhere either though. There is a hint early on that they might have interesting backgrounds, with Kabal having formerly been a mage for example, but in the end nothing ever came of that either. Honestly a bit of a let-down.

Cold Run

But what about Makos...?

Nooooo!!!

(This post might not make sense to you. But if it does, nothing more needs to be said.)

Foreign Merchants

The new escort quest for the jubilee event is an excellent way of grinding both renown and the protector's bounty boxes. You only need one person to have the scroll with the quest to get him moving (which is a fairly common drop), everyone else can then tag along without having it and still get the rewards. After every combat the merchant and his horses will drop either a box or some renown for everyone present... which adds up to quite a number as he gets ambushed several times, walks through a bunch of existing mob groups and you can even pull some more on top of him to make him drop extras.

There are a couple of these merchants in different zones - I escorted one in Blacklake District today and there was a huge crowd following the merchant's every step, with the low-level mobs getting one-shotted before they'd even fully spawned. With my guildies I've mostly been farming the stronghold version though - it might have been luck of the draw, but that one seemed to drop a much higher number of bounty boxes for me.

It was probably the most bizarre kind of social content I've participated in so far, constantly running up and down the road as a group to escort more merchants. It was pretty fun and relaxing though.

Foreign merchants showering us with gifts... I think Cryptic is sending a clear pro-immigration message here!

Underdark

I realised that I never actually gave my opinion on the Underdark module, even though my pet tank and I actually played through its story shortly after it was released, so here goes:

Cryptic made a big deal out of the fact that they had managed to get R. A. Salvatore to write a storyline for them, and even though I've never read any of his books, I thought it was immediately obvious that the Underdark story was very different from their usual fare. Aspects of D&D were referenced that had never been mentioned in Neverwinter before, and there were some interesting twists and turns. Even the voice acting seemed a bit better than usual, though dwarf accents seem to be doomed to be terrible no matter what.

I also liked the small hidden achievements in the various chapters, such as waking up a passed out, drunken orc by poking him. My favourite character was probably Captain Belgold, the guy that hands out all the different chapter quests, simply because his dry sense of humour cracked me up. The decision that one playthrough would also unlock the campaign for any alts also seemed very generous.

My only issue was that it was way too easy to burn through the whole thing in one night and then be left with nothing but a stupid grind for the rest of the campaign.

Aggro

I find it kind of interesting how aggro works in Neverwinter. Basically, when you pass a group of mobs at some distance, there are two stages of aggro. Stage one is the mobs turning to stare at you, which is pretty much a warning that you've come too close and that they've noticed you. If you stay in the same place, they will advance to stage two after a couple of seconds, which means actually going into combat.

When you travel around in a group this can be tricky, as the first person that runs past will make the mobs turn, and then the second person immediately gets aggro because the mobs are already alert. Yet of course it's the second person who gets the full blame for aggroing "unnecessary" mobs. It's been fun to observe this when my guildies, who are newer to the game than me and my pet tank, fall behind and end up pulling. (Usually it's me who does that.)

Immersion

In the Well of Dragons there is an area called the cult prison camp. There are two dailies that require you to go to this area, one to kill hostile NPCs and one to free prisoners. However as far as I can tell, these are never given on the same day.

On a day like today, where the only available daily quest is to kill enemies in the camp, this means that one arrives to the bizarre sight of the area being pretty much devoid of cultists, while sad prisoners are standing around all over the place, still shackled and with their heads bowed, looking lost. Nobody's got a quest to save them!

A guildie and I started running around and releasing them anyway. (You do not have to be on the associated quest to be able to do this.) My pet tank yelled at us for wasting time when we should have helped him hunt down the few remaining cultists instead.

Minsc and Boo

Minsc and Boo are probably the best part of this module, and that's coming from someone who hasn't even played Baldur's Gate. I've done the repeatable "Seed" quests a few times now and some of Minsc's comments in them still take me by surprise and make me chuckle. It's just a shame that three quests seem to be all these two feature in (unless there's one last hurrah after you've completed the roughly 200 hourly "tasks", which I may or may not find out one day.)

Protector's Jubilee

Neverwinter currently celebrates its one-year anniversary with the Protector's Jubilee event. There is a skirmish associated with the event called "The Protector's Speech". Before running it for the first time with my pet tank, I joked that it was going to consist of us standing around for fifteen minutes just to listen to Lord Neverember talk. Of course this didn't turn out to be true; you actually have to repel a series of random attacks on Protector's Enclave. (It can't be very well protected with all these random baddies showing up at once...)

However, Lord Neverember does hold a speech throughout the whole thing, unperturbed by all the fighting behind him. It takes over ten minutes and is therefore probably the longest single piece of voice-acting I've encountered in an MMO yet. If you do the associated daily quest for the wizard Elminster, he quips that Lord Neverember tends to be quite long-winded. Too bad nobody is actually going to have much of a chance to listen...