Neverwinter, The Tomb of Annihilation, and Grief

Back before the pandemic, I was running a D&D campaign for my family and Jeff Toney and his daughter. The ragtag group called themselves "The Saviors," and I had them on a ship headed toward the peninsula of Chult (as I blogged about it here in 2019). 

Unfortunately we all got busy for a few months . . . and then the pandemic hit, so we never actually got a chance to undertake the quest to reach the Tomb of Annihilation. Now, look, I'm not the best DM in the world, and taking on an epic sandbox adventure such as the Tomb of Annihilation is a bit daunting to be honest. I remember feeling that pressure and went to an old MMO named Neverwinter (you remember this game, yes?) to get some inspiration.

The colorful town of Port Nyanzaru

Back in the day, I absolutely loved Neverwinter, and especially the foundry system (RIP). Even on my last venture there back in 2019, I was vibe-ing with the game even though the foundry system was gone. Anyway, in Neverwinter, you can visit Chult and run around Port Nyanzaru and the surrounding jungles of The Tomb of Annihilation as part of a campaign. It's great this exists!

You know, I guess I've had a bit of a fascination with the Tomb since in 2021, I even played the turn-based Steam Game. What can I say? I LIKE ME SOME DINOSAURS AND LICHES!

I really did have fun playing this game.

Fast forward to last Monday, the family and I finally took a couple hours over the holiday to once again play the Dungeons and the Dragons together. In fact, everyone in the family thought it was finally time for my youngest to join in our nerd-dom and roll up his first character, and they all agreed that dad needed to step up and be the DM again. Well, since I never got a chance to run Tomb of Annihilation, guess what adventure we started playing? Yup, it's all happening!

The first session went well, they formed their party in Baldur's Gate, met the quest-giving wizard Syndra Silvane, and teleported over to Chult after a considerable amount of roleplay and laughter. It was a good time. My son's Goliath Paladin named Gungaga is amazing. I think they're going to have a lot of fun playing together.

I love the book art for Tomb of Annihilation

Now (insert nervous laugh) once again, I'm feeling the pressure of taking on this epic sandbox adventure known as the Tomb of Annihilation.  Because of this, I logged on Neverwinter again and got fascinated all over with what I found there. This time I even went as far as reassigning my skills, cleaning out some of my overstuffed inventory, and ran out the doorway to kill a heard of raptors.

It took me a second to catch up to speed and then I realized . . . everything had changed once again in this game.  What?! I was now level 20, which seemed like a downgrade to where I was back when you could level to 70. The gear ratings on my gear were unfamiliar. I was in that back-to-an-old-game lost state.

A little research on MassivelyOP turned up some information about a game update back in 2021 where all the levels got squashed down to 20 to match the pen and paper RPG. 

I then took to YouTube to find a guide for returning players, and instead stumbled upon the Josh Strife Hayes Worst MMO Ever series where he talks about his ruined love for Neverwinter. I couldn't make it through the whole thing, but man . . . it's full of sadness (especially at the end of the video). This was the MMO that got him into MMOs, and you could tell there was a lot of love mixed with a lot of loss there. Long story short, the aggressive monetization practices of the game made him mourn the game he loves to play.

You know, most of the problems he cites won't affect me as an extremely casual player of the game, but I couldn't help but sympathize and understand where he's coming from. It was weird because his emotional stress made it even more difficult for me to want to log on and run around where I was already having trouble reacquainting myself with the game. 

In the end, I don't know if I'll ever really return to Neverwinter as an MMO of choice, but I am happy there are some resources there I can draw from for my game. I'll most likely queue up the Chult music on our TV during the next game. That alone will help set the mood for our game. 

 

I'm sorry that money ruins the online worlds we love, but at the same time I am happy the money that funds these games allow for art like this to exist. It's truly a bittersweet feeling.

Happy Dueling

#Blaugust2019 Day 21 -- What's a combat?

Out of all the nights of the week, Tuesdays are by far my busiest. I'm running kids around everywhere and knee deep in commitments, but despite all that real-life garbage, I was able to jump on to Neverwinter last night to actually give combat a go. The day before was merely a sight-seeing trip around Port Nyanzaru. Who's ready for some cleric DPS? This guy's ready!

First, Last night I spec'd my character out by randomly clicking on buttons, and it looks like things have really changed. There's now 10 more levels to earn, which, I'm not sure how that will play out with the already existing gear recommendations in place.

Looking at the campaign for Chult in Neverwinter, it appears there's a gear recommendation of 13,000. My gear rating is currently just above 11,000. Hmm. Will being level 70+ be more impactful than the gear rating? I have no idea.

Anyway, so last night I skootched out into the jungles of Chult with a low gear rating and decided to test my metal against some intro mobs to see how it went. I remember it being tough, but managing a few kills here and there.

Ah friends, you know this is not going to end well . . . but that scenery though! LES DO THIS!

There was a pretty feisty pull of six or seven baby raptors just down the first path outside of Port Nyanzaru, and that wasn't too bad. I mean, sure, it took all the firepower I had and a health potion, but I was fine . . . I was fine I tell you!

Just down the road a bit from the baby raptors there was a cluster of four giant spiders, and I was just . . . ok, that didn't end so well . . .

 Then I remembered something very important about how I used to play this game. Whenever things started getting dicey, I'd smack that "W" or "S" twice to slide and dodge away quickly. It was kind of what I did while waiting for my cooldowns to pop and while dealing with a huge mob of mobs. After that realization, those spiders were still tough, but I could at least get past them and win the fight. I was just fine . . . JUST FINE I TELL YA!

Then I took on some Yuan-ti sneeple types and a few other mobs that I could find here and there . . . and then there was this T-rex fiasco . . .

You know what . . . let's talk about that T-rex ever again, ok?

Then I remembered something else. During combat I used to do some pretty amazing stuff after pressing the Tab key. There's this whole targeting system set up in the middle of your screen . . . and then it was time for me to get the kids to bed. I'll have to remember how to work that system out next play session.

So there you go. I learned a bit more, killed a few things, and died mightily to a nasty T-rex. I guess you can call that a successful night. I really do feel like I don't belong in this campaign. My gear rating is way low, and I haven't even thought about rejoining a guild or asking for help in general chat yet because you know, asking strangers for help when you don't know what the heck you're doing is always fun.

Maybe once I figure out my set up and how to fight again, I'll brave those chat channels. Until then, perhaps I need to take a step back, earn a couple levels, find some new gear, and research good specs for DPS clerics first.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaughust2019 Day 20 -- Gith Outta Here!

Ahhhh, Neverwinter. How did I once again come crashing through your download screens?

So, ultimately the boat ride that The Saviors are taking (see post from yesterday) will land them in Chult. Because of that, I wanted to go back into a fun, little MMORPG known as Neverwinter. Why?  Duh. There's a whole huge section of Neverwinter completely devoted to Chult and the Tomb of Annihilation!

The realization that I'm simply an adventure away from bringing this group I DM into Chult makes me want to explore just a bit more there in Neverwinter for . . . research purposes . . . also fun!  It's been a while since I've jumped into Neverwinter, you know?

The surprise of the evening, however, is that as it turns out Neverwinter is right here now in the throws of a brand new update that features an epic undermountain struggle between the Githyanki and the Mindflayers. WHAT THE WHAT?

You know what else is super crazy?  You can play AS A GITH!

According to this write up about it, the following conditions apply:

The new gith race will be free for a limited time:

• Free to VIP for the first 2 weeks of the module (August 13 - August 26)
• Free to everyone (including VIP) for the 2 weeks after that (August 27 - September 9)
• Starting September 10, players who didn’t log in for the free gith will have to buy a pack to get access to this race.

So while the whole world is logging in to WOW Classic, you know where I'll be? logging in to WOW Classic . . . just kidding. I'll be logging into Neverwinter! . . . and maybe Diablo III. . . . and maybe other stuff!  'Cause there's just too many games and it's Blaugust!!! I'M GOING CRAZY! . . . whew, sorry, had to get that out.

Now to just vocalize my pinch points about logging back in to Neverwinter:

1- I have to retrain all my spells and figure out how to play again. They went and changed everything with the classes, so it's going to take a hot minute or two to figure out how to play again. Now if I could actually survive a day in Chult as a cleric, that'd be amazing. So, we'll see!

2- The number one curse of all time . . . full inventory.  Someone shoot me now. My inventory was overflowing and I can't remember what half of these things even do.

3- I really have to get over them ripping out the Foundry system. Give me a moment. There. I'm over it.

Ok, I'm ready to log in and play some Neverwinter now. whew.

Happy Dueling!

Barovia: What the BHE is that?

I continue to play in Barovia . . . although I don't know why . . . I'm getting my butt handed to me most days and really have no business being here, but I'm succeeding "just enough" to make me want to stick it out.

Barovia is a setting that's been around for a long time hailing back to the days of Ravenloft, a 1983 Dungeons and Dragons module that borrows lore heavily from Dracula. It's a mountain valley that's a densely wooded area with cold winters . . . and lots of undead, cultists, vampires, werewolves, and gypsy folk. Sounds like a great place for a Friendly Necromancer to hang out, doesn't it?

There's one thing I know for sure about Barovia . . . I can kill a deer there!  

. . . not only "a" deer, but two deer at once! 

Yup, there's a quest to kill deer for their meat and then place the meat in front of wolf caves to lure out the alpha wolf and kill it. Check. Can do! Did that this morning in fact! What I can't really do at the moment is kill a giant werewolf boss. It's a gear check fight, and my gear and stats just aren't up to snuff yet.

That's ok. There's still plenty to do here with repeatable daily quests, which most I can do, but those witches and their Ray of sickness spell though. Wow! Can't do that one just yet!

They own me every time . . .

Ultimately Neverwinter is an MMO and the coolest things in the game are definitely multiplayer focused. My favorite of the multiplayer experiences are the "low barrier to entry" heroic events. Most can be done with one to three random people that also happen to be nearby.

There's heroic events with everything from saving a couple of merchants from disaster to defeating a large mass of undead or wolves. . .  and then there is Yester Hill. 

Looks pretty ominous doesn't it? 

I kept seeing people yelling for more assistance for a "BHE." I'm like ... What the heck is a BHE? Bad Halitosis Encounter? No? I'm checking my quest log. *Shrug* then someone (like me) asked in the world chat what that stood for. I'm so glad there are other confused people out there in the world. BHE stands for "Big Heroic Event." Duh. In Barovia the BHE is called Yester Hill.

Now it all made sense. There's a weekly quest to complete three smaller 2-3 person heroic events and the Yester Hill event. I finished mine up just yesterday by joining a group of 12 or so likeminded adventurers in downing the evil Thornspur.

Gettin twiggy wit it

The gist of the encounter is that you need to defeat 50 twig blights who are trying to give Thornspur damage resistance and also defeat a "draggle of druids" (you like that? I just came up with it) who are giving Thornspur additional health. Pro tip: just follow the crowd and kill everything.

Kill all the things!

Eventually Thornspur himself rises up and you burn him down ... End of the Yester Hill BHE.

Low barrier-to-entry events like this I have no problem with completing. It reminds me a lot of the fun world events in Guild Wars 2. Those were always a good time and pretty easy to beat as long as enough random people were gathered in the same area.

My next goal in Neverwinter is to actually go on some 3 person hunts in Barovia. That takes the scariest thing of all . . . interaction with other gamers. *gulp*

Till then ... Happy Dueling!

Revisiting Neverwinter 2018

Several weeks ago, I saw one of my new friends from Overwatch (Oh Hai Eboni! Everyone visit her Twitch channel, she's awesome) playing Neverwinter. I hadn't thought about Neverwinter in forever! In fact, the last time I talked about Neverwinter was back in 2016. And before that, the last time I actually played Neverwinter was back in 2014.

It was that dang Foundry system . . . it pulled me back in! I reinstalled just to see if it was still a thing and if I could play my Dragonspyre tribute dungeon again. What I found out from the Neverwinter Forums was that no, the foundry system wasn't in, but yes, it would make a return in the future! I guess this is a thing. After every major update to Neverwinter, there's a huge lag time (we're talking months) and then the Foundry system quests get published again, and then a few days later after that, the entire Foundry system once again is available.

Anyway, when I came back to Neverwinter, the Foundry system was offline thanks to the new Ravenloft expansion to the game, so I decided . . . what the heck . . . let's give this game another shot.  My character, Dr. Philgood, was level 30-something and all I needed to do was get my character to the new cap of level 70.

This free purple Owlbear mount offer from Twitch Prime was a nice encouragement as well.

My leveling up experience was . . . interesting. What I discovered was that all the leveling up areas kind of played in the exact same way. You go to a hub, you solve all the problems in that hub, culminating in a solo instance adventure, which then leads you to another hub, where you solve those problems and go deeper in the zone . . . wash, rinse, and repeat that three times and you're ready to move on to the next area of the game. Wash, rinse, and repeat that exact same thing in the next area -- only this time with different monster types. (Now that I think about it, that describes most MMOs, doesn't it?)

But in how many MMOs can you kill a beholder in . . . 2 . . . maybe 3? Still cool.

It was a little boring grinding out to max, but that's actually when it became a bit better. What I discovered was that Neverwinter has a gear rating system similar to DC Universe Online, which is a game I've played MORE than my fair share of. To level your character, you undergo "campaigns."  Campaigns lead to permanent character boosts, which equate to higher gear rating.

Oh good . . . you're still reading this blog post . . . I thought for a second all that talk of leveling and gear rating would have scared you away by now.

Long story short, the game gets a lot more fun post-70 when you're doing campaigns rather than grinding out the leveling areas.

Yes, I run from T-rex's . . . standing very still didn't work.

Just last week the Foundry system was put back into the game and I discovered that I had unpublished my "Dragonspyre" adventure in the hopes of fixing it since it was a bit buggy.  I went ahead and republished it with the bugs still in it, and after a day or two it showed up as an available quest! It was exactly as I remembered it only a lot easier since my character is a lot more powerful now.

Now for the good news for returning players in Neverwinter who want to experience Ravenloft but have bad gear ratings . . . what I also discovered was that any character that can make it through a relatively easy intro-quest to get into Ravenloft, also gets a free set of gear that boosts your character's gear rating up to a nice new minimum.  You can't beat free gear. It won't be quite enough to really demolish things in Ravenloft, but you can survive a few quests.

Barovia is a nice place once you get past the gloomy forest and deranged cultists.

And that is, in a nutshell, where I sit currently with Neverwinter.  I think my current plan is to keep logging in daily while I still have VIP membership and grind out some of these older campaigns to get my character a few more boosts.  When I reach a certain gear level, I'll be able to survive a bit better in Chult and Ravenloft, which are kind of the end campaigns in the game currently.

I'll let you know how it goes, and if I'm feeling brave enough for the challenge, I might take my hand-written D&D 5e dungeon and try to recreate it in the Foundry system . . . we'll see.

Happy Dueling!

Hello, old friend!

I haven't posted on the Friendly Necromancer for quite some time, so I thought "Why not just say hello and see who's out there and willing to read along if I blog a little?" Let's chat!

The big news for me of course is that I have a new job at KingsIsle! I announced my departure from being a Community Manager on the forums and on KI Live. Now I'm taking a new direction in my professional life, and it's one that probably seems a bit unexpected from those who mostly see me as a "communicator." It's probably more expected from those who see me as a creative person. If you don't know me, I love to be creative, whether it's making music, or writing blogs, or crafting poetry, or what-have-you, I love to create THINGS.

No need for me to reflect too much, but some of my best times at KingsIsle were when I was a brand new community manager for Pirate101. I loved that position and what I was able to do with a new community. As all things do, that position changed and grew to where I was not only doing work on the Pirate101 community, but many other things as well. (NOTE: Ask me in six years how my Designer job has evolved from now.)

Being a Community Manager is pretty intense, and I don't think those who haven't been a CM can really know what it's like. Even describing it to someone, it always sounds a bit strange. Ultimately, you're a gatekeeper, a town crier, an advocate, a marketer, and a "fun committee" (and more!) combined into one person. Every day brings a new challenge.

It's super cool my company has allowed me to shift into a new role so I can grow and learn: and that I am! This is all good stuff.

~~

Some other cool things have been happening too! Like this amazing picture that Dearly Doodles made for me:

IT'S A ME! FRIENDLYO!

And, as to be expected, I've been playing a lot of games (outside of the ones I play all day for work) like Neverwinter . . .

Currently lost somewhere in the Jungles of Chult.

. . . and Overwatch.

I'm a #dumbfist wanna be (but mostly play Reinhardt) main

I've got a tentative date of "sometime this week" to also finish up the Medulla fight in Wizard101 with Blaze and Tara, so who knows . . . I may even have some more Wizard101 gameplay to share in the future!

Anyway, I just wanted to get this first, uncomfortable, and long overdue post out of the way. Hopefully I can post a bit more again soon, and maybe even try my hand at Twitch streaming again. (I don't know if you happened to catch my marathon run of the game Overgrowth, but it's three and a half hours of bad voice over and animal on animal violence. GOOD TIMES! I want to do that kind of stuff again!)

Let me know what you'd like to hear more about here on The Friendly Necromancer. It's been a long, strange road . . . hasn't it? So what's been going on with you? (That's a request for comments, yo.) 

Happy Dueling!

Neverwinter Foundry System . . . removed?

(continuing along with the #OneWeekDailyBlogging challenge from Emy . . .)

My wife the other day asked me to help her load up Neverwinter on the computer, which is strange.

Because here's the deal. Back in 2014 I was on a crusade to get my family playing Neverwinter. I even managed to coordinate a moment where my daughter, Uber Wife, and I were playing in the same group.  This, like, never happens anymore.  After that one experience, my family dumped the game. *cries*

Oh well, I'm sure one of Uber Wife's Internet buddies convinced her to download it, and as it turns out the game was crashing on her during mid-load with a nasty "graphicalclient.exe error."  Basically I had to run the launcher in Safe-Mode and then everything seemed to work.

I even logged in for a second and checked out my super sexy cleric, Dr. PhilGood. Don't remember him?

 

Now you do!

Of course the first thing I wanted to do when I was back online was revisit my dungeon that I spent all that time crafting in the Foundry system, because . . . 1- I missed it and 2- let's be honest, Neverwinter has the best UGC (User Generated Content) system out there, right?! Honestly it was my favorite thing about the game.

. . . "was" my favorite thing about the game. The foundry system and all the quests that went with it were nowhere to be found. *GASP*

And apparently I was late to the party to know about this as I took to an Internet search:

• The Foundry wiki states it "disappeared from the game" several months ago.
• The Neverwinter uncensored blog had a quote from a Dev that said they were looking at several frustrating bugs with the foundry system, but also gave a very telling couple of sentences: ". . . the more power you give authors in creating user generated content, the more likely some are going to abuse that power. But the less power you give authors, the less the foundry can serve its purpose of being a true sandbox environment."
• And finally, Reddit, takes us to the land of truth . . . people were abusing the system to create maps specifically for farming exp and astral diamonds.

I guess it's human nature . . . someone builds a game and someone else tries to break it.  It's just too bad we can't have nice things, and that's a shame.

One things for sure, I'm glad I did screenshots of my Labyrinth tribute dungeon and captured it in this post so I could remember it though! Screenshots or it didn't happen! (now if only I would have made a YouTube video of it . . . ahh well.)

Happy Dueling!