24 Hours In...

The cutscene that introduces the Scions of the Seventh Dawn is only ten minutes long. That I say 'only' suggests I'm building up a tolerance to the narrative style of Final Fantasy XIV . The next two dungeons - Tam-Tara Deepcroft and Copperbell Mines - follow directly on from Sastasha in the MSQ, and since I'm currently running ahead of the minimum level for both I did them one after another with nothing much in between. These are slightly more complex than Sastasha, and there's two boss fights in Copperbell that can be tricky to anyone unfamiliar with the mechanics involved.* Neither are hard though, and both runs were smooth and enjoyable. *I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a belated apology to the players I ran Copperbell Mines with on my first character. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the Ichorous Ire fight and can only assume I lucked my way through it. After that I took some time out from the MSQ to work on hunt logs and run ...

Difficulty & Dragons

There's never a shortage of players waiting to take on Charthraxis in Neverdeath, but that's not always true of the later dragons. With no one else around I tried to take on Venfithar in Rothe Valley solo, and did get him to half health before being overrun when the nearby cultists started to respawn. I'm reminded of a time on a previous character when there was only myself and one other player in Rothe Valley for that fight. I'd say 'we' won, but really it was the other player - a well geared level 70 - who did it, being so in control of the fight that they even took time to rez me midway through it. Win or lose though it's a terrific fight. Neverwinter does exceptionally good boss fights – interesting, challenging and always driven by a suitably exciting soundtrack. So the boss fights are challenging, but how about the rest of the game? At level 3 rogues get an encounter power called Blade Flurry. It's a fast animating and hard ...

Four faces of villainy

It feels like the pace of levelling has slowed down since I hit 20. I have some recollection of that being the case when the game was live as well, and it definitely slows further at 40. That's not a bad thing – running at +0/x2 since level 5 has seen me through the first three zones of redside fairly fast. So much so that I've barely written about them up until now, and they're worth writing about. Mercy Island Mercy Island was given a revamp toward the end of the game on live, with new contacts added and the flow of the zone significantly changed. I have to admit I do miss the old Mercy Island – the new story arcs are good, but I liked it more when new villains started in Fort Darwin in the north, and only later came down to Mercy itself in the south. To go from the anarchic no man's land around Darwin to the more urban environment of Mercy felt like ascending – it's no coincidence that the first exploration title you acquire upon entering ...

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