That leaves me to simply enjoy the sights (and Neverwinter has some great sights) and mindlessly quest and fight while my real world body slumps in relaxation and my brain downshifts from the day’s hectic tasks. The quest flow is as predictable as it is smooth, with minimal backtracking and ease of quest grouping. The second I log into the game, the most pertinent quest of the zone I’m in is already queued up and a sparkly trail is pointing me right where I need to go. We drive with a GPS, so why not game with one? Again, I know this might sound sad, but I don’t always want to be bothered trying to navigate some weird fantasy landscape. It’s easy to slide into this mindless zone when I’m fighting packs of mobs, over and over again, while enjoying the Pavlonian reponses to loot explosions and leveling up.īut in my opinion, the greatest achievement of Neverwinter’s design is that it does a magnificent job organizing quests and showing me just where to go. That’s where games like Neverwinter come in.ĭespite being action combat, Neverwinter’s combat is pretty simplistic and flashy like an arcade game. By nine in the evening, I might be leaning way back in my chair instead of forward and looking for a gaming experience that is more relaxing than demanding. I’ve been up since six in the morning and have been working two jobs while spending time parenting and husbanding. Sometimes I have that at the end of a day, sometimes not at all. None of these things are bad, but I have to have the physical energy and stamina to approach them. These are the ones where action combat is more typical, real thinking has to go into solving quests and puzzles, and social grouping is more expected. Some are high energy games - ones that take a lot of focus to excel and win. Not every game is the same in this regard. One thing I think about at the end of a long day is how much energy and attention a game will demand from me. There’s something more to it with Neverwinter, though. As I’ve said in the past, Cryptic’s games are always solid fallback experiences when you want something comfortable and genuinely enjoyable. There seems to be a small MMO blogger surge back into Neverwinter this winter. I liked checking out the shops, such as the above cabin-themed outdoorsy locale. And, as a bonus, it’s one of the few locales that offers free fast travel. Upon the recommendation of several F76 guides, I went over to a fancy resort where apparently there’s this huge mall in the basement with every type of vendor available. Still, I had some fun taking screenshots along the way. She’s doing fine for a newbie, a lot better now that she’s got a shotgun, but the glee of coming back to the game wore off pretty quickly. From the get-go, it seems like she’s mostly a magic user with some close-range sword attacks if desired.Īnd then there was some time on my Fallout 76 character. I like to see what I can learn from tooltips and hands-on experience. I’ve done zero research into the Bard, mind you, and that’s probably not going to change soon. Happily, all my account unlocks were still intact, including my armored spider mount that gives me the warm fuzzies late at night. In any case, it’s been more than long enough to justify a reroll, so I conjured up a tiefling Bard from the ether, slapped a lute and rapier on her, and got to work seeing what’s changed. I last visited Cryptic’s D&D realm back in spring of 2020, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t remember much from that year. It’s been long, too long, on my to do list to roll up a Neverwinter Bard and take another run through this MMO. Speaking of Cryptic, I poked into Neverwinter after seeing the D&D movie. I think the odds are good for her getting a full run this year, although it may well be an off-and-on experience. I did set her up with the Pathfinder science ship as a good middle ground with firepower and a launchable fighter pet. I had to go through the entire tutorial, however, because the Delta event was running and didn’t allow me the option to skip past it. And so that’s certainly sparked more interest in playing Star Trek Online - this time with a new character named Doxology. I’ve been watching and greatly enjoying Star Trek: Strange New Worlds lately, which feels like a return to form for the wayward franchise. So here are a few snapshots of games that I’ve dipped lightly into over the past couple of weeks. Bouncing around to various titles leaves a debris field of posts in WordPress, and sometimes I like to compile those and clean up some space.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |