Blaugust Day 2 - What I'm playing now.

My PC gaming has been reduced lately thanks to other pursuits like teaching but I have found a little time each night to play something. I spent some time playing The Technomancer which I reviewed here and I've been trying out the Beta of  The Last Leviathon but feel it needs more polish before I review that. I've also been roaming about with Pokemon Go but that's an entire post in itself.

Aside from that, much of my gaming time of late has been in Neverwinter. It's one of those MMO's I keep going back to and unlike LOTRO which I get frustrated with very quickly, Neverwinter always sucks me back in for longer periods. There is so much content including user generated adventures that I never get bored and the seasonal events are always worth playing.



The recent Anniversary and Summer events have both given me worthwhile goodies in the form of new mounts and pets and I've rolled a whole new character, Storri the Dwarven Paladin, who's reached level 20 over several sessions.

I have a lovely War Boar for Storri, something I always wanted in LOTRO but could never have.

I've also found a lovely guild that feels very much a family, something I never found in Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Blade and Soul our Black Desert Online, my four most recent MMOs. I find that makes all the difference in wanting to log in.


I've taken to trying out group content, something I've rarely done in other MMOs as the grouping system is so simple and there is considerably less griefing from other players regarding your gear or general ability.

My daughter has discovered that she loves Skyrim and watching her has given me a taste to jump back into ESO, so I might just do that!

Neverwinter Anniversary Event

I've been away from Neverwinter for far too long. There was a time when it was my number two MMO, after LOTRO and I spent a lot of time there. I created my own content, I played the mobile crafting version of the game when I wasn't logged in to the main game and I loved it.

The story content was great and each zone flowed to the next, group content was easy to get into and user generated content in the Foundry added an extra layer to the already well polished veneer.

Then came the events, always well done with one small drawback that seems the same in events in every example of MMO's, they are grindy as hell. I threw myself into the Winter festival a couple of years ago and all I remember of it was a LOT of ice fishing. There was a particular pet I was after and I eventually got it but that burnt me out and I've barely set foot in the game since, until now.

I recently got a notification of the game's Three-Year Anniversary and naturally there is an accompanying in-game event and this called to me. Now it seems odd that the exact type of content that drove me from the game has drawn me back, but here I am.

As I really had no memory of how to play my game, I selected one of my lower level alts to jump back in on and try to learn the game from scratch. Elbereth, Level 21 Hunter Ranger was back in action!

Within a couple of hours, she was up to level 24, I'd figured out what was junk in my bags and cleared some space and ran a couple of simple quests to get used to combat again before looking for the Anniversary content.

The one thing I like about Neverwinter's event content is that it tends to be all in one place (unlike LOTRO where it's all over the starter zones) and this event is no different. Elminster, the infamous Wizard I read about as a teenager was in Protectors Enclave, the start hub and he had quests to hand out!

There's a mixture of simple quests, like find an NPC in a particular zone, or retrieve an item then there's a grouped skirmish that can completed daily. My first experience of this was great, the grouping simple as it ever was and easy enough that I didn't get yelled at or booted for not pulling my weight or not knowing what the hell I was doing!

As with all such events, there are rewards to be had. A new companion in the form of a travelling minstrel (Seen juggling juggling behind Elminster above), a couple of lovely looking thrones (also pictured above, presumably for housing, that I've not yet looked into), a few cosmetic cloaks and armour pieces and a lovely new mount, the Jubilee Parade Horse.

One thing I like about Nevwerwinter is that you can view exactly what the items look like so you're not just grinding without seeing the end goal. That mount is 3000 Anniversary coins, of which I barely earned 150 on my first day so not sure I'll be grinding for that!

All in all, Neverwinter is still a beautiful game and if the gameplay can keep me engaged, I may try to level Elbereth to cap and see where that takes me.

Return to Neverwinter and completely baffled!

So I decided to return to a couple of MMO's I've played in the past, Star Trek Online and Neverwinter. Both are Cryptic games so play in a similar way and both left me feeling completely baffled. When I logged into STO, the screen flashed with so many updates and messages I logged out straight away.

Then I tried Neverwinter and experienced the same thing. I've only been away for about 12 months, but so much has changed and even though my main was just 7 levels from cap when I left I now feel like a complete Noob. I have bags full of gear I don't know what to do with, skills I don't know how to activate and so many open quests and invites I'm left feeling overwhelmed. I managed to find a level appropriate quest line and did a few quests without dying too much, before running into a massive Dragon, that was apparently "Heroic Level"

I assisted in taking the dragon down, though I'm sure my contribution was very little and got more currency I don't know what to do with. Maybe I should just roll a new character and start from scratch again.

Have you ever returned to an MMO and felt completely lost?

Neverwinter - Masquerade of Liars Event

Neverwinter have released a very interesting event for the Halloween season. Running from 10th October to 4th November it consists mostly of collecting tokens to convert to cosmetic gear with a Skeleton Warrior companion up for grabs for the most dedicated of grinders.

What impressed me most about the event though, is the makeover they've given to the main city hub.