The Gaming Den

Pretty much. I'm not big on the Multiplayer part of MMOs, so when I get to the point where I am basically not allowed to advance without a) teaming up with complete strangers or b) convincing the people I know to play too and organize a time for us to play together, I stop playing. Mostly because video games are something I play because I don't want to deal with strangers and I can't get a group together in meatspace.

I still waste some time on it. The next expansion ups the level cap, which I can only hope doesn't invalidate the grinding done on artifact equipment, and adds a paladin class. The dungeons aren't all that worthwhile, since most of the epic-level gear can be bought cheaply. I'm not that into PvP, so for the most part I just collect two days worth of dailies to do simultaneously, run the Tiamat fight which pops up 1/hour (taking from <5 minutes if it's obviously going to fail to ~15 if successful), set up crafting*, and occasionally imp farm.

*Jewelcrafting is the annoying one, since it provides a couple of best-in-slot items that you can't buy. Other than that, Black Ice is nominally useful, Leadership is the default for making AD, and the rest are useless.

I'm glad they got their shit together regarding Epic challenges (well, some of them). Because "An Ogre Wight" is not an Epic challenge, whereas "A five-headed dragon, each head is the size of five of you and your horses, also it's a deity and surrounded by crazy cultists" does sound pretty rad.

That said...


Must have a target? DOES A GIANT FUCKING DRAGON HEAD COUNT AS A TARGET? BECAUSE I HAVE FIVE OF THOSE RIGHT THERE?

Tiamat is behind a field. The bars filling up for Sehanite Moondancer, Dreamer of Sehanine, and Linu (yes THAT Linu from Neverwinter Nights 1 <3) are to break the shield. That run did not go so well, for the record.

I spent a lot of time in NW, mostly in the Foundry. The tools for creating adventures are not even close to Aurora, but I'll take what I can get, and NW/STO are pretty unique in their ability to create UGC. I just wish Champions Online had it.

That dragon looks truly awesome though. I didn't play the actual game enough to get anywhere near close enough to seeing it, LOL

That's one of those XX-person (25? 30? 60?) raids that I'm not really interested in, for people who are max level, and also has fairly high gear requirements, so it's not enough to "just" hit level 70.

I do like some of the ideas for Epic conflicts they have, like a giant phantasmal castle. It has a bunch of optical illusions in the style of 3D street art, as well as some of the walls being illusions, but having that be a thing in D&D (where you need to jump and disbelieve in the wall while airborne so you don't disbelieve in the floor and plummet to your death), inhabited by Shadow Conjurations and Ethereal beings and... some kind of permanent phantasmal killer that is a monster and not an Instant effect? That'd be a solid, memorable thing.

And the battle against... shit, I can't remember, the Demon Prince that is a giant minotaur? Part way through it, he Mazes you and you need to actually navigate a maze. But also, you have a bunch of high-level NPCs helping, in that they are all surrounding the area, fighting off the summoned lesser fiends while you take on the bad guy.

Later on, every week you can listen to a bard's rendition of your battle, where you fight it again, except this time the bard... adds to the drama. So every now and then one of the NPCs is bewitched by the Maze Engine and fights against you, and other effects happen to make things worse. Bards are utter dicks.