Thoughts on 4.6 [Spoiler-Free]

Another month, ano -- wait a minute, we're still in June! I just got this bloody schedule system finalised and now even the game I'm writing about is encouraging messing with it!

So, yeah. 4.6 and Chapter XV have come in the same month as 4.5 and Chapter XIV. No exact reason has yet been given, but the commonly accepted reasoning is that it's because they were trying to get as much out as possible before Celebration in July (which, incidentally, will also be the first ever time I have met people from any of my guilds if all goes to plan) before any potential Season 2 reveal.

The same would apply if Chapter XV was to be released next week if Chapter XVI is still not to be released until after the Celebration Cantina, of course, so maybe this theory doesn't hold as much water as people like to postulate.

Never is the Winter of our Fun Content

Yes, this is a post about another game other than SWtOR.

No, this does not mean that I'm finding SWtOR a drag and am following the oft-shouted "play another game if you aren't finding this fun" clause. The title may suggest this, but if you don't know what it's a reference to, you clearly need to brush up on your Shakespeare.

So, NeverWinter Online. If you've never heard of it, it's a completely free-to-play MMO based on the Fourth Edition of the well-known physical RPG Dungeons and Dragons. It's not even buy-to-play - compared to other "F2P" MMOs such as GW2 and ESO which are - making it by far one of the easiest MMOs to get into in general.

I myself had never heard of it until earlier this year, as it is a running joke that everybody in my particular raid team "must" have a toon in the game. Indeed, only one regular attendee (out of the ~11 or so who are in some way a part of the team) hasn't installed and started the game.

Not being a particularly "gaming" gamer - I don't play games for the sake of playing games and I can only really get invested in games based on Universes I'm familiar with - and because I've never actually played D&D - although I have played PathFinder - I'm honestly surprised that I've taken to this game as well as I have. Similar to Skyrim, I believe this could have something to do with my fascination and appreciation with the Lord of the Rings universe.

Or at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Whilst this post is overtly about NeverWinter, I will be comparing it to how SWtOR does things, and see what things either game does better than the other.

Dark vs. Light: Grindy, Grindy Grindy!

Two posts in one day! This is what happens when they announce details of a new Event on the same day as a pre-scheduled post. :P

Events in Star Wars: The Old Republic have been a mixed bag. The most well-known ones have been the Rakghoul, Gree, and Bounty Events, as they occur at various times throughout the year - whilst it used to be much rarer the Rakghoul Event now occurs once a month - whilst only two before this point have been utterly unique in of themselves; these were the original Rakghoul event and the long-gone Chevin Grand Acquisitions Race.

Since the Developer Stream on June 3rd, a new one-time event was mentioned: Dark Side vs. Light Side.

From what we understood at the time, it was a case of getting through various 'tiers' to unlock rewards whilst the overall number of Dark/Light points pooled decided on what a new Companion (pictured above) would look like.

Now that more details have been announced earlier today, it's far more complicated than anyone could have anticipated at the time.

A New Inmate in the Madhouse!

The Bounty Hunter Class and I have had a bit of a vast history.

Not as vast a history as Troopers (I've had eight of those!), but still; six Hunters have all come and gone during my time in-game, with each one being discarded simply because they did not resonate with me one bit. As pointed out previously, I can tend to be really rather fickle when it comes to deleting characters, with reasons for doing so ranging from not enjoying the class (more so for Powertechs) to simply not being able to come up with a good outfit/story/whatever for them (more so for Mercenaries).

So this brings me to Phirella, the fresh-faced 'baby' Hunter I started last Sunday afternoon.

4.0 Catch-Up: Star Fortresses

A long while ago (on a blog quite, quite close), I made a series of posts looking over aspects of 4.0; this covered the characters, a brief summary of the KotFE story, and just general universal changes.

Things I never got around to covering included the Star Fortresses and the Alliance system. Whilst the latter will only be written when the final Alliance Alert of this season is released, I see no reason to delay the summary of the Star Fortresses.

NBI 2016: Comfort Zones and Self-Confidence in MMOs

The New Blogger Initiative has come and gone once before during this blog's overall lifespan, and yet I just largely ignored it last time, mainly because I couldn't think of anything to say. This time, however, I'm determined to make an actual attempt and come up with something to say. This was supposed to be one of next week's posts, but I feel as if it's in a better place to send out now than what today's post was supposed to be.

This first piece is actually something which I am incapable of in one very particular area: creating comfort-zones in the games you play and using this as an aid to increasing self-confidence. Self-esteem is, after all, hard to gain but comparatively very easy to lose.

In MMOs, it's very easy to feel overwhelmed and that you don't have a 'set' place more than in any other game - NPCs in single-player RPGs cannot judge you to the same extent other players can, after all. This is not so much to do with blogging, but feeling confident in your gaming prowess is a very big plus for any gaming blogger.

This post will take the form of six tips, ranked in no order of particular importance, which will hopefully be of some use to people new and inexperienced with MMOs in general.

Flashpoint Craziness: 5 Least Favourite Flashpoints

It's time to draw this series to a close.

This post will return to the more general overview of the Flashpoints, including a summary of the included story and a brief look over of the boss fights.

Without further ado: