Customization and Collections, Patch 2.1

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic has been out about a year now. It's been a rough first year for the highly anticipated franchise.  That Bioware, a well-respected company, was behind it boded well for the product. However, for many gamers, the fact that EA was behind Bioware was frightening. However, that didn't stop the game from having a lot of hype leading up to launch.  Most people likely know by now, that the game never lived up to the expectations.   All that being said, the game has undergone a lot of changes in the last year. First and foremost was the Free-To-Pay, err Play format.  I should be clear, this is not specifically a comment strictly on SW:TOR but on most of the F2P genre. It's the current successful model, and so why not follow it?  Even Neverwinter uses it, a lot more than I thought at first (more on that in a different post).  The Cartel Market, as SW calls it, has been a huge boost to the game's financial recovery.  Based on the amount of Cartel Items on the GTN, there are people spending hundreds of dollars a week on Cartel Packs.  That adds up to a sizable amount of money for EA/Bioware.  Like it or hate it, the Cartel Market is a major reason for SW having the ability to still be around.

The second big change for the game was the first digital expansion, the Rise of the Hutt Cartel.  In this expansion that sold for either $10 or $20 depending on if you were a subscriber or a F2P member gave you 5 new levels, 4 new Hard Mode versions of lower level flash points, and a new Op.  As well as a new planet, Makeb.  The Makeb story line is entertaining, and well written.  I've played it from both sides and found the story to be good both ways.  For those who want Same Sex relationships, there is a male Sith NPC in the Makeb Imperial story line that can be flirted with/kissed by male players.  While for many homophobic gamers, this is terrifying, it's good to see them at least make good on part of their promise to players on this topic.  While it doesn't appeal to me, that doesn't mean that it doesn't appeal to others, and therefore has merit within the game.

Lastly, the first major "quality of life" improvement in SW:TOR for players who don't like their look. Patch 2.1 Customization.  This had several major changes for those who are into the whole look of their character. First they introduced the Cathar as a playable race. Again, not my thing, but I am sure there are a lot of people who want to make their Thundercat clones.   I've seen more than a few people running around with them already.  Secondly, they made it possible to get some new hairstyles that are more lush than the original ones.  Both unlocks are account wide once you pay for them once, so it's not too pricey.  The third change is the ability to change your character's race, and everything else in their look other than class and gender.  This can be done relatively cheaply as well, and subscribers get a discount.

Before, Kermit the Jedi here... It's not easy, being green.

Take for example the above. This was a before picture. Typical bland boring Jedi Knight. You see a lot of these guys running around. And well nothing goes with green well... A few cartel coins later and poof!

And you go from typical to what the heck is a Pure Blood Sith doing on Tython?!?

While the race change is pricey, the rest is under 200 cartel coins, meaning well under the monthly subscription.  Total here was about 900 cartel coins, so a month and a half's worth if you don't want to buy any coins (or can't afford to).

Artificing got buffed a bit by the expansion as well, making up for the Cartel Market killing the crystal market.  New Dyes can be crafted by Artificers to change armor colors.  These sell pretty well, though a bit of a pain to make.  However, I expect Dyes to become hot.

Lastly, is the Collections feature. And I'll be honest, if you don't like this, then either you don't care at all about what your gear looks like (which is perfectly fine) or you are just enjoying hatin' on EA/Bioware (which is ok too, if it makes ya feel better).    Essentially how it works is anything you have acquired from either the Cartel Market, Cartel Rep, or from EA/Bioware in the form of a promo/perk can now be accessed through the Collections tab.  The character that originally had the item can get endless copies of whatever it is for free, to replace parts either lost or whatever. Or for a new companion you are gearing up, etc.  For a small fee, you can unlock MOST things to be account wide.  This is a really nice feature, as it allows you to get that really rare whatever you paid x credits for or got lucky and got in one of your cartel packs and use it on everyone.  And this is not just on a specific legacy. I play on two servers, and my Collections add items from both servers to the collective.  This made for a very happy smuggler.

What good is it to be a smuggler if you never have goodies from the Dark Side?

The Overlord's Throne is courtesy of my Sith Inquisitor's purchase on the GTN, the title "Crime Lord" was something I got in an old cartel pack on the other server.  Now, my main has access to both. It's good to be the Crime Lord, Jabba eat your heart out... At least Leia didn't choke me with her chain.

While I think the system needs some tweaking still, specifically the ability to make the space ship upgrades account wide (those get expensive otherwise for each new 50...) I think it's a major step forward.  While there are those who feel (justifiably) that some of the game issues and content could be addressed ahead of these cosmetic and Cartel Market things, one has to remember that it's the Cartel Market that pays the bills.

The Guardian Fighter: Tank & Spank

Neverwinter Tanking

So the Guardian Fighter is the last of the five classes currently available in Neverwinter.  At first look, this class is confusing.  A lot of the abilities are more damage oriented than defense oriented.  Though once you get the hang of the class it becomes more apparent how it works.  Neverwinter, as a whole only allows you a few things at any given time: Two At Wills, 3 Encounters, and at most 2 Dailies. The second daily doesn't open up until level 19.  You also get a tab and a shift ability that is unique to the class you are playing.  You have far more powers than fit in those slots.  So this is where the Guardian Fighter comes through shining.  The damaging abilities are nice at lower levels where where threat isn't as necessary as it is going to be all over the place with everyone going gonzo and many groups not even using a tank in skirmishes or Cloak Tower. However, if you are serious about tanking and damage mitigation, you have abilities for this around level 15-20.  So you swap things on your tool bar for when you need tanking stuff and when you are looking to be more damage oriented.  Once I got the hang of this feature, my tank became fun and easier.  

The Tab feature for the tank is Mark, which those who are familiar with 4th edition is essentially the tanks "taunt" feature that encourages things to attack them rather than the squishy dps with a death wish.  As you get stronger in levels, your Mark becomes more potent, and is more likely to keep the bad guy beating on your trusty plate mail rather than that crazy wizard in his bath robes.

The Shift feature for the tank is Guard. This essentially means lifting your shield up to hide behind it and block that nasty ogre's golf swing before you are permanently disfigured and your head is mounted on his pike.  Holding shift increases your chance to block that attack, and it also changes your two at wills to a new skill, much like the Channel Divinity in the Cleric mentioned previously.

Roric Saxon, sporting the spiffy level 20 blues available for 10s a piece.

When you are going to go dungeon delving, you just swap out your crazier attacks for extra defenses, and suddenly you are more study by a ton.  You also get more taunts that are good for snap threat.  This makes you feel more like a tank.  I ran a second Cloak Tower in the tank configuration, and the difference was palpable. Mind you, I went from top Damage dealer to last, but that's not my role, right?  However, I also needed no healing potions, and the cleric was able to dps his heart out rather than keep me and the squishies up. 

Devoted Cleric: Not Just A Healer

Neverwinter: Day Four

One of the more thankless jobs in most MMOs is healing, tanking being the other.  Everyone needs one, and yet if something goes wrong, their fault or not, it falls to blame the tank and/or healer for it. It couldn't possibly be the fault of the unaware dps standing in the fire or whatever too busy getting off on their recount numbers.  Or worse yet, the fact that your dps couldn't kill Hogger before the enrage timer at level 90.  Sorry for the WoW references, but despite their recent loss of a million plus subs, it's safe to say most people are at least somewhat aware of the WoW references.  With that in mind, and my predilection to playing the aforementioned DPS classes, I saved the two focal character types for last in my list.  

So, the Cleric.  It was once described to me by a very good friend as "the Lazy Man's Class" in 4E. You don't have to heal anyone until they are bloodied.  While this isn't the case quite in Neverwinter, it's still less intensive at low levels than other MMOs where I have healed.  Disclaimer: I have only played the Cleric through the first dungeon, so hard to say how much harder the healing gets later on.

However, that being said, I have run him through two skirmishes and the Cloak Tower twice now, and at level 17 he has been tremendously enjoyable. For starters, he doesn't only heal. One of his primary abilities at low level is Sun Burst, which is an explosion of holy power that heals allies and damages enemies at the same time.  It's a powerful AoE spell against the lowbie mobs in the first two zones and in the Cloak Tower.  In both skirmishes, my cleric was #2 on damage done while also being #1 on healing done.  The other feature that is fun is the Channel divinity feature you get at around level 15.  When you build up enough holy power, you can channel it, which takes your standard at-wills and changes them to two new channeled spells. One is a channeled attack that damages the target, and heals all the nearby allies.  The other is a channeled heal that heals the targeted ally with a stream of healing.  Both are relatively potent at this level, and I suspect they scale relatively well until you get your paragon abilities at level 31. 

The other two abilities are nice as well, Lance of Faith is a decent at will attack and Astral Seal is a pretty sweet stock buff/heal.  Apply Astral Seal on a foe, and any friendly target that attacks that foe gets healed. This is nice, as it even heals you which many of your abilities don't.  One of the encounters will heal you and your target both, but other than that, you are only caught in the AoE heals, I have yet to find a self heal.

The primary thing I didn't like about the cleric and healing mechanics is the reticule that Neverwinter uses to target. It is harder to target your allies to heal them.  Which is likely why you rely on several of the healing mechanics already mentioned. It's far easier to target the boss than to target all the moving parts of your allies, especially in random groups where everyone races about willy nilly.  However that aside, the cleric has been fun.

The devoted cleric and his Control Wizard ally, Likka.

The cleric uses chain main, and a holy symbol. They do not carry a weapon like in other MMOs, rather the holy symbol is their weapon of choice. Implement casters, clerics and wizards both, only use their implements rather than weapons.The cleric's is located on his belt on the right hand side of the image above.

Great Weapons Fighter: Smash and Grab!

Neverwinter Beta Report 3

On the third day of testing Neverwinter, I picked up the first character I made and leveled him.  The Great Weapons Fighter.  Enter Mugwort Bladebiter, Half-orc Warrior.  Wort or Mugs (your choice) is an old established character of mine going back to the nineties, and as such is my default brute warrior dps type when I start a new game.  Armed with Scale Mail and a Greatsword, the Great Weapons Fighter is all about the DPS race.  Kill it before it kills you.  No defenses to speak of until you get your healer companion, until then it's kill fast and keep your potion box stocked.  Ironically, the weakest of the three classes I've looked at so far, it's been the one I've enjoyed the most to date.  Something therapeutic about taking a massive greatsword and holding the right click button watching your power meter go up, and then releasing and watching the small mobs flop over.  Of course it does little to the larger mobs, but meh.  That's what encounter powers are for, am I right?  

The Great Weapons Fighter is all about brute force. They do get an ability around level 8 or so that allows them to heal themselves back from the damage they deal, which is very handy.  They also have an encounter power that knocks foes back, and slows them. Again, handy.  The key to the GWF is to hit 3 or more mobs at once, to get the damage buff to their cleave like abilities.  As with any other two handed weapon fighter in any mmo I've played, the attacks are slower and feel a bit clunky at times.  The biggest challenge I've found is in moving out of the way of attacks by the bigger mobs and casters.  It appears that my movement speed is much lower than my less armored characters.  Those of you who know me, may guess that this is part of why I like this class so much.  It's difficult for me to master.  If it was overpowered, like my rogue was day one, I would lose interest pretty quick.  

The side quests early on for the Warrior, the Half-orc, and the Dungeoneering Skill were rather amusing.  Especially the one where the half-orc lady is complaining about being treated like an orc spy and the guardsman trying to explain to you, a hero of Neverwinter, why your race is being targeted for racism.  "Umm no, Mis-ss-ster B-b-b-bladebiter sir, of course not you.... but.... ummm .... other half-orc scum... I mean.... Please don't kill me..." (Conversation is mine in this case, not in the story, but it summarizes the conversation pretty well to me).

In the first dungeon, Cloak Tower, I found the GWF strong and flexible. It functioned as an off tank on adds and small mobs easily, with my cleric companion maintaining most of my healing needs.  Though the cleric in the group did toss some healing love my way in boss fights, on trash my companion did more than adequately.

From what I have heard in zone chat (what passes for Trade or Fleet or Whatever ya wanna call it), the Rogue kicks tail until about 30 and the GWF is weak until then. After that, the two change places.  My rogue is 20 and my GWF is 17 so thus far, I can't say.  

Wort and his Kelemvor Acolyte (Companion available from Zen Market)

As this shot has a nice close view of the UI, I'll give you a quick run down.  The left button, Tab, is for your "Unstoppable" class ability, which is essentially beserker rage. You grow big and red, and it's very cool. Doesn't last long but it's fun.  The big 1 is your daily, think whirlwind.  The two unmarked yellow ones are class abilities that are passive, they build a buff to the character during combat so he isn't totally defenseless.  The Q is your knock back encounter. E is your leap into the fray encounter.  R is your self heal encounter.  The two green guys are left and right mouse. Left is your single target base attack.  The right is your channeled wind up and let fly ability.  You may see a small symbol above the elf's head that is the rage meter for Unstoppable. When that is full, the tab button lights up.

The big hexagon in the middle is your Action Points. This is on all characters, and fuels your daily power. It's not available until all of that hex is filled.  This is the stock UI, how it looks for each character. Dailies at the top, special feature ability, Encounters, At Wills.  You get your first free companion at level 15 or so, unless you sign up for one of the Founder Packs or buy one from the Zen Market.  The founder's packs expire May 30, 2013.  The middle one seems like a pretty sweet deal, though if I had the money I would get the top end one. It gives 3 extra character slots, and the Drow as a playable race. 

The Control Wizard: Ice Spells and You

Neverwinter, The Control Wizard 

After talking to some people about the launch of my new blog, I decided to take a look at the Control Wizard class in Neverwinter.  And so far, it's pretty nice.  My elven wizard just hit level 16, and will be running his first dungeon and foundry quest sometime tonight.  Like D&D 4th Edition, upon which the mechanics are based, the Control Wizard in Neverwinter is built around keeping the bad guys at a distance, and then burning them don with area of affect abilities and applying affects/debuffs on their foes.  Like in World of Warcraft and other games, the methodology here is frost magic.  You start out with magic missile, a D&D staple from day one.  As you level up, you get Ray of Frost, a channeled spell that over time can freeze your target in place.  These are your two at will abilities.  Your big guns are of course your Encounter and Daily abilities, like the pen and paper version of the game.  Ice Storm, your daily, is pretty potent as you'd expect.  The encounter powers are pretty nice including something that resembles a force choke from Star Wars.   Having a companion certainly helps, of course. But even without one, the wizard solos relatively well. The key is, of course, to start the pull off with an aoe encounter power usually, freezing or immobilizing the biggest melee type in the pack.  Then magic missile down the ranged, before channeling your ray of frost to keep mr bad guy away from you.  If they get close, and you have enough action points built up: nuke em with Ice Storm and blink away.  Yeah, double tapping the W key allows you to blink in a magical effect that makes me want to say "Bamf" and talk with a kitschy faux German accent ala Nightcrawler of the X-Men.  

Bosses are a bit trickier, as you usually have to fend off adds while trying to keep the big guy away from you, this is where the chill/freeze effect comes into play. Freeze/chill the boss long enough to burn down the adds and then reapply the chill asap.  Then blink away and channel while your pet beats on it. If you have a pet that is.  If not, you beat on it, and blink away whenever trouble rears its ugly head.  Which can be often if they get close to you.  

But other than that, I have so far found the Wizard to be a treat to play.  I made mine a bit on the scrawny side, as one would expect of a class that traditionally had d4 hit dice.  But hey, it hasn't stopped him at all.

Koli Vile, Scrawny Elf Mage admires the death of his first boss.

The little orb in the corner that reminds me of the "bit" in the original Tron, is your implement orb that you use as a "weapon" to cast your spells.  The wizards are easy to spot in game, they are the blinking fools followed by their little orbs. It's pretty funny actually.

As usual, I took the cleric companion, to keep me healed and buffed. Plus its the only female companion available so far, and well those who know Koli from my old games would know he would NEVER hire a male hireling.

Why does she look like she could beat me up?

You can see one of the mounts in the background along with some of the "creative" and "awe inspiring" names I have seen in game.

Neverwinter: Open Beta

Screen Shot, Alaryn and his clerical companion 

So I got into the open beta this last week for Neverwinter, the much heralded Free-to-Play game from Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic Studios.   This game has gotten a lot of good press so far, and justifiably so.  It has a smooth play style once you get used to the slightly arcady feel to it.  For older fingers like mine it took some time to get used to using W,A,S,D and tab, and Q,E,R and thankfully my mouse has the 1-5 keys on it, so can do it all with two hands.  For those unfamiliar with the game, it is set in the Forgotten Realms city of Neverwinter during the 4th Edition D&D rules set, ie post Spell Plague.  For those of you who played Neverwinter Nights, and it's sequel NWN2 I know most of us wanted more of an MMO style game. Well this is it. :)  Bioware, who made the first NWN is busy with their project Star Wars: The Old Republic, so they are not involved. In comes Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment who runs a number of F2P games.  The fact that they have run several of these now helps Neverwinter have the feel of a game that will be around a long time.  

To start with, you are limited to two characters unless you buy more slots through their Zen Market.  Other than that, however, I've seen no limitations on play that require real money.  Most of the real money options currently are minor buffs and some things to open up other things. Most likely at somepoint that will change, but at least during the beta, it's relatively limited in my experience, which is a plus in my opinion.

Alaryn, my alter-ego, is as he should be, a trickster rogue.  That is, he is a dual dagger wielding elf with a habit of tumbling into trouble and poking things in the back with small sharp objects until they expire and shower him with lewtz.  I have found a number of places where the rogue is very handy to have a there are a number of traps in most of the crawls I've done.  The story line starts out pretty linear, as it has to I think, to teach you the game. Soon after it branches out some and you have many options to pursue.  

There is the Foundary, which is player created content.  Like the original NWN, the MMO version allows players to create content for other players to play and rate.  And through the Daily Foundary quest, encourage players to try the content out.  I tried one out today, and was pleasantly surprised with the effort and story work put into it by the author.  The rewards are set by Cryptic, so they aren't unbalancing compared to normal content.

There is Dungeon Delves.  The stock five player dungeons just like most other MMOs.  I did the first one today, the Cloak Tower (not to be confused with the Clock Tower as many players seem to call it).  It's a pretty straight forward crawl against the Many Arrows Orc Clan which is embedded in the city and making a fuss.  While I found the Need/Greed system slightly clunky in it's execution, it worked well other than the unguilded guy rolling need on everything (one in every game isn't there?)

There are skirmishes, which I have yet to try though it sounds like larger scale battles versus orcs and such.  I will try one, but just haven't gotten to it yet.

And of course, there is PVP arenas.  Not my thing, sorry.  I do understand it is a necessary part of the game, as there are many many people who like it, and it makes money, but well just not my thing.

Leveling through the first part of the game is pretty easy, your starter quest line will take you to level 4 and into the city itself. And another quest or two will get you to level 6.  After that it slows a bit, but not excessively so.  After a weekend of pretty steady play, I have Alaryn to level 17 and have cycled the second slot through three other toons to level 5 just to get a feel for the other classes.

The rogue plays a bit like a fighter early on, as you don't get stealth until level 10.  So while it fits Alaryn, it may frustrate some purists and those who are familiar with the stealthy rogues from other games.    They do dish out pretty effective damage though, from what I can tell, though I clearly need work. In my dungeon delve, I was the lowest kill count of anyone but the controller.  Meh, I am learning and I was busy trying to get the feel of things so I had something to write about.

Riding comes at level 20, and the mounts look cool from what I've seen.  Both the ones they give you with the Founders packs and those that you can buy from the traditional mount vendor. 

I've not gotten there yet, but I see a lot of mounted characters in game.

The servers are packed, which if you've played games like some of the other games I play is a nice change.  The graphics engine is smooth, and doesn't seem to hiccup much.  They are working hard on server stability, something that has yet to be adjusted for the player load, but it's the first weekend so that's to be expected.  All in all, So far so good. :)

Welcome to the Inn of the Four Winds!

The Inn of the Four Winds is a "quest hub" of sorts in my home brew D&D campaign that I've been running since 1981. Owned and operated by Alaryn Nightshade (the shadowy figure in the logo), an elven swordsman and rogue of dubious reputation.  It seemed the right choice for my blog's feel and flavor.  So now that we have that out of the way, this blog will be about online gaming, not any one specific game (though the image is from WoW, it's only one of my games).  It will cover topics from my impressions of games that I am/have played, interesting things I've found in games, and of course plenty of other game related stuff. If you have a specific request on one of the games I'm currently playing, let me know and I will try to accommodate you.

So, that being said, I am sure you are asking who am I am why should you read my blog?  I know there are tons of bloggers and video bloggers out there (many more attractive in real life than myself) for you to choose from. Why me?  Well I've gamed since I was well, young.  As I said, my D&D campaign (still active btw) started in 1981and has seen many incarnations including online in PBP and IRC games that have been played by people on at least four continents.  I started video gaming with some silly game named "Pong" and then moved to more "hardcore games" like Space Invaders and Defender...

In the more modern era, my games include World or Warcraft (since launch, and still play), Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Neverwinter (currently in open beta).  I have also played D&D Online and Star Trek Online, though do not do so currently.  I have a well rounded set of experience in several different types of MMOs, both subscription based and f2p.  I like to think that I bring a different perspective than the average gamer with a touch of wit from time to time.

I hope my style appeals to you!

Thanks for stopping by.

---Alaryn