Cryptic's Neverwinter morphs into a MMO and goes F2P

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Thu May 08, 2014 8:42 pm

My new purple gear seems to have made my DC quite a bit more playable. It still takes a lot longer to kill stuff, and my recollection of when I was leveling that character was that even though it took me a long time to kill things, I healed myself so much that I was almost always at full health. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, but I hate switching powers once I get a set I'm familiar and comfortable with. Right now I'm using

Sacred Flame and Astral Seal as at-wills
Sunburst, Daunting Light and Astral Shield as encounters
Flame Strike and Hallowed Ground as dailies (which I rarely ever use on principle, and Hallowed Ground in particular I haven't used in forever because I rarely ever group and it seems like a waste just for me)

Toe · Post by **Toe** » Thu May 08, 2014 10:22 pm

Odin wrote: and Hallowed Ground as dailies (which I rarely ever use on principle, and Hallowed Ground in particular I haven't used in forever because I rarely ever group and it seems like a waste just for me)

Hallowed Ground gives 30% damage increase and 30% damage reduction. These are huge imho, even for just soloing. I use it as much as possible unless its just a pack of weaklings.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Fri May 09, 2014 12:38 am

Things that are a waste when used just for you are Astral Shield and Astral Seal. It was a bit hard to break myself of the habit of using them playing alone as well, but it really makes a big difference to how quickly things go.

Divine Glow is a nice big debuff which makes any follow-up damage more effective (like Daunting Light). I use Chains to hold stuff still, DG will finish off more things, and DL blasts whatever is still standing. That's usually sufficient. I have enough crit that weak mobs will often die just from Chains.

Mizi kills stuff fast enough solo that not having heals on her bar is un-missed. I do have her in a full set of Miracle Healer though, which procs a heal on you or a random ally every so often. Solo, that's basically a heal-on-self. I didn't find her difficult to play before I got her fully geared though.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sat May 10, 2014 12:37 pm

http://www.destructoid.com/we-ve-got-ex ... 4562.phtml

Another companion giveaway.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Sat May 10, 2014 2:21 pm

silverjon wrote:http://www.destructoid.com/we-ve-got-ex ... 4562.phtml

Another companion giveaway.

Thanks for the heads up!

I'm always up for free stuff.

I spent some time this morning doing my usual dailies but hoping to get some of the lockboxes I haven't seen (Feywild, Dark Forest). I got a few but not many.

Then I checked the Auction House and found them for ~50AD each.

Picked up a pile for future unlocking.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 10, 2014 6:13 pm

"All codes claimed, sorry. Thanks for your email address. Spamming will commence shortly"

KDH · Post by **KDH** » Mon May 12, 2014 10:05 am

Just for grins and giggles ... let's discuss guilds ...

<--- Creating-an-Asocial-Guild

(the thread above openly discusses (and volunteers) to have shills available to stand up at sign-in (for 3 gold) ...)

_____..)/..________..)/.._____ ___..)/..________
¯¯¯¯¯””/(”¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯””/(”¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯””/(”¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

I've seen a mention or two on these boards about "forming my own guild" ...

1) what are the benefits of forming a guild (guildbank size?)
2) what are the costs: to form\reoccurring monthly (if any)
3) any hassles?

as a general rule: I don't group or guild, and I've turned down all (most) requests> The primary reason being communication (I don't like having to quickly type little messages .. heck, I don't even know how to quickly get to the TEAM-SAY widget during DD's) .... and, also, at my age, I don't fancy being told what to do by a 15 year-old kid

if peeps are openly exploiting guilds for bank storage, on the forums, it can only be a matter of time before changes are made ... and maybe the exploiters will be grandfathered in

so .. we best hurry

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 10:23 am

Creating a guild is a sink for AD - it costs several hundred thousand to create one (500k? 600k? Something like that), plus similar amounts for additional bank slots. It's enough of an expense that if somebody wants to bear it alone, I'd expect they'll continue to be allowed to do so indefinitely.

The primary benefit is probably guild bank space. Of course, if you're asocial but still want to have a cool guild name show on your character, then that can also be a benefit. Also, you can only enter Gauntylgrim if you're in a guild, so if you want the option to do that area but don't want to join a real guild, that could be a benefit as well.

There are no recurring fees, only up-front costs for the guild and then as you wish to add more bank space. I'm not aware of any hassles other than the expense and the need to get a group of 5 (total) players (including yourself), all unguilded, and all above level 15, to initiate a new guild. I've definitely toyed with starting one and still may at some point.

KDH · Post by **KDH** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:02 am

I had no idea it cost so much .. but, if they are going to charge 300k to allow a rank 15 pet to progress to rank 20, I should have guessed

I guess most serious guilds split that cost amongst 5 (or more) people .. I wonder how many charge new recruits a 'buy-in' to offset their own initial outlay .. or charge dues .. I imagine they could claim the guild has expenses, or some kind of "help the guildies upgrade" program (enchantment-wise)

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:28 am

One correction is that there is no initial cost for starting a guild (except possibly paying 4 people to group with you to do it).

My guild has had a fully unlocked bank since long before I joined. Here's what I found about costs.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Guild

Depot 1 costs 150,000 AD; depot 8 costs 8 times more

48 items per tab, so it is much larger than the personal bank, even if you don't unlock it all.

People with storage guilds typically use them to hold large quantities of items to sell on the AH when they increase in value, so the bank is an investment. As for it being exploitative, there's nothing in the rules that says guilds must be created for socializing, or must continue to have a minimum of five members, or whatever. (The only issue I can see with that forum thread is that trade isn't permitted on the forums, and their mods will probably include offering services in that category.)

The only other cost I know guilds can incur is changing Gauntylgrym alliances, which I can't see anyone ever doing with a personal/vanity/storage guild. That might be the large cost Odin is thinking of... I believe it's 750k AD.

On the subject of actual social/content guilds, each one is going to be as good as the people in it. Some just want to pad their memberlists so they can say they are the biggest or fastest growing. Some will only recruit players who can speed-farm Castle Never with them. And some are simply looking to play with people they like and share some common ground with (like mine).

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:29 am

KDH wrote:I had no idea it cost so much .. but, if they are going to charge 300k to allow a rank 15 pet to progress to rank 20, I should have guessed

I guess most serious guilds split that cost amongst 5 (or more) people .. I wonder how many charge new recruits a 'buy-in' to offset their own initial outlay .. or charge dues .. I imagine they could claim the guild has expenses, or some kind of "help the guildies upgrade" program (enchantment-wise)

Except that's a mistake and there is no start-up cost at all.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 12:13 pm

That's odd - I could have sworn there was a start-up cost. Back when people were buying the Founder's packs, I distinctly remember somebody saying that the AD included with it was enough to start a guild with. Odd. Maybe they were including the costs of opening up bank slots in that figure or somesuch.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon May 12, 2014 12:46 pm

Guilds absolutely have an AD cost in the hundreds of thousands to create. Or at least they did. When did this change, Silverjon?

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Mon May 12, 2014 1:32 pm

Maybe enough to buy the first bank tab? The Hero pack would be enough for that.

For people to be eligible to found a guild, they have to be level 15 or have purchased a pack or Zen. Basically the same restrictions as to send tells, access Foundry, etc.

I have always been under the impression that there was no cost associated with starting a guild, only with buying the bank. Nothing on the internet indicates that there is a monetary cost. Zone chat has always indicated "nothing" when people ask what it costs to create a guild (but that the bank costs).

But, it's not something I've ever actually done, so....

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 2:11 pm

Okay, I had to experiment to find out for sure. I just created a new guild, and sure enough there's no AD cost involved. I've never created one before so I can't say whether that's always been the case. The first guild bank tab is 150,000 AD. If you see anybody from the guild "Superstitious," it's my alts.

And boy, logging on with three instances of the game simultaneously really put a hit on my frame rates. Wow. It was unplayable. On the plus side, I was able to recruit a mere two additional players to get started.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Mon May 12, 2014 4:33 pm

Odin wrote: If you see anybody from the guild "Superstitious," it's my alts.

And boy, logging on with three instances of the game simultaneously really put a hit on my frame rates. Wow. It was unplayable. On the plus side, I was able to recruit a mere two additional players to get started.

Yeah the game really hates multiple instances running on the same machine. Fortunately you only have to do that to create the guild. You can send Guild Invites to offline players so you can invite the alts on your account and then switch to the alt to accept the invitation.

Exodor's Army is going strong with 12 members now. I've got the first two bank slots unlocked which will probably be enough for awhile.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 4:42 pm

Heh - I unlocked the first two slots and almost immediately filled them up with crap from my alts and stuff that's been sitting in the mail. And hardly any of it's useful at all. I should dump it on the AH.

I've actually played two instances successfully on my newer machine (and by successfully I mean that it ran playably, not that I was any good at it.

). Three was simply more than she could handle.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:45 pm

You guys will have to forge into the new zones without me tomorrow. I've volunteered to do groundskeeping at our local Renn Faire all day, then Karate, then dinner. By the time I get a chance to play, it'll be bedtime.

Say hi to Drizz't and Cattie-Brie for me if you see them hanging around.

KDH · Post by **KDH** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:55 pm

I love the Renn-Faire

.... NEW COMPANION <--- VG247.com Promotion

Archmage's Apprentice

apparently .. you have to "like" them on facebook

.. why can't people gain "likes" by being worthy of gaining "likes" from their everyday actions\content ... and NOT by resorting to THIS tomfoolery

I hate facebook

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 12, 2014 9:50 pm

I'm all about facebook, but I wasn't fast enough to get the companion. Luckily, I have that one already on at least two of my accounts, and I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't have been able to get a second one, so it's no great loss.

There's actually a page that I find when I google neverwinter code (or some similar search string) that tracks companion (and other) give-aways. If I really cared, I suppose I'd keep a better eye on that page.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Tue May 13, 2014 1:21 pm

Module 3 is live!

Looking over the patch notes and I don't recall hearing about this before

Zen Market Coupons

There are now coupons in the game from various sources that grant a onetime discount off a specific item or category of items in the Zen Market within a limited duration.

The majority of the coupons come very rarely as drops from killing appropriately challenging enemies. A few can be found in the “Adventurer’s Reward” chests as well as upon completing the level 60 congratulatory quest from Lord Neverember.

Examples include:

40% off an Enchanted Key purchase
25% off any Fashion Outfit purchase
15% off any Companion purchase
15% off any item in the Zen Market

40% off Enchanted Keys?

Glad I stocked up on lockboxes.

Other good stuff:

Increased the size of the Professions Resource bag to 120 slots.

The Invocation Store now has a 6 day Celestial Coin item to a Chest of Campaign Treasures that will give a choice of Sharandar or Dread Ring campaign currency items.

Added a "Do not show me this again" check box for the confirmation window when selling unidentified items

In the Guild Bank, players may now drop an item from one repository to the other by dropping it onto the tabs

Potions and other consumables now auto slot if there is an empty belt slot or will go into an already existing slotted stack if one exists.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 13, 2014 6:44 pm

So I fired up the client and got it all patched up. Then I thought "maybe I'll play a little marvel puzzle quest" instead.

Guess I'm not too excited about the new module.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Wed May 14, 2014 1:01 am

First heroic encounter I tried solo. I was just about to win when my computer bluescreened.

Second one I also tried to solo and failed miserably.

Then I found a group that was roving from one to another so I tagged along. That was a great time and totally ad-hoc. Players would come and go but the core was just moving from one encounter to another. Good fun.

They took the server down for maintenance so I wasn't able to get far enough to start Black Ice Crafting which is kind of a bummer.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Wed May 14, 2014 1:09 am

I *just* had time to get the "come back tomorrow" quest activated. I also got distracted by the fun of heroic encounters and spent a lot of time roaming around.

Started refining my first batch of black ice.

Also made a little headway in the PvP campaign just from doing my dailies. It's a whole lot of do X Y times, so even a few matches put points towards a bunch of them. Should make plenty of progress towards it while farming up my sneaky armor.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Wed May 14, 2014 2:24 pm

My first significant brain fart since creating my own personal guild: I opened up the guild bank and wondered "what the hell is all this stuff??" Then I realized I was logged in with the one character who's in an actual guild, and that wasn't my stuff.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed May 14, 2014 2:39 pm

Heh.

Shoot, now that I know the guild thing is free, I might do the same for me. Would help dealing with multiple stacks of marks and enchants across 10 characters.

I know you have multiple accounts, but is there an easy way for a single account to get everyone in the same guild? I guess I'll need a second party to invite all my guys? Or can you invite characters that are off line?

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Wed May 14, 2014 3:14 pm

You should be able to invite offline characters. I think there's an "invite" button on the guild interface and you just type in name@handle. Don't quote me on that though, as it's not a feature I've used.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Wed May 14, 2014 3:31 pm

silverjon wrote:You should be able to invite offline characters. I think there's an "invite" button on the guild interface and you just type in name@handle. Don't quote me on that though, as it's not a feature I've used.

This is exactly right. Once you've got the guild formed you can invite your own offline characters.

The only trick is you must have a party of 5 characters over level 15 to create a guild. I levelled an alt on a second account to 15 and then invited 3 randoms from Protector's Enclave to create my guild but I could probably have just invited 4 randoms instead.

The account-wide bank is a nice addition to the guild bank since you can't share account bound items in the guild bank.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Wed May 14, 2014 3:58 pm

Slayer Amulet of the Xvim...

For some reason, this item seems to have been left out of the news article on the new lockboxes when first posted. I just went back to look up the name of the campaign-booster trinket to peek at prices and there it was. I don't remember it being described before.

Like the Mulhorand items, it scales to the level of the character using it. Unlike the Mulhorand items, it binds to account when equipped, making it an absolutely incredible twink item. About 10k each right now, because I think people are overlooking the BtA part. Will be part of a set, but the other items aren't available yet. Even if the rest of the set is unattainable if this thing catches on, the amulet seems to be a thing worth owning. Just FYI.

Edit: As I thought, on a level 60 character, this has the same stats as the Amulet of Fire, which is an ok-but-not-great piece of epic equipment.

Redfive · Post by **Redfive** » Wed May 14, 2014 7:38 pm

So do you guys all just play the game solo or do you group up and do stuff?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed May 14, 2014 8:00 pm

Redfive wrote:So do you guys all just play the game solo or do you group up and do stuff?

Solo. Silverjon has invited me a few times to fill in a slot when her guild was gearing up a younger/newer player and were short a player, but I play almost exclusively solo/pugs.

The co-worker that I talk to every day about NWO doesn't even know my account name.

Solo.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed May 14, 2014 8:03 pm

Oh, and that same co-worker texted me about 2 hours ago to tell me that the Zen exchange had exactly ZERO zen for sale. Now that's something you don't see everyday.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Wed May 14, 2014 11:18 pm

Redfive wrote:So do you guys all just play the game solo or do you group up and do stuff?

Solo about 99% of the time. Probably more like 99.9%.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 19, 2014 2:40 pm

A few thoughts:

First off, if you missed it, it was announced today that Module 4 will be "Tyranny of Dragons" and debuts on August 14th.

Also, I've noticed that green-quality black Ice "graver" profession tools are currently somewhat inexpensive - selling for between 18k and 25k on the AH. That's about 20% less than the blue-quality, assuming you were to buy 4 green ones and smush them together. Granted, at this point few people have the ability to upgrade the greens to the blues, but, then, that's probably why the blues (and purples) are so much more expensive. Anyway, it occurred to me to invest in green ones now, while they're (I'm guessing) less expensive than they one day will be. I've bought enough of them to craft three purple-quality tools someday. My plan is to rotate them through my guys so they can do any black ice crafting at near-maximum efficiency. Only time will tell if the purple gauntlets will ever become affordable. In the meantime, I'm hitting the rank 2 result for refining black ice around 60% of the time just using the green ones, so they're not without use.

Lastly, I have to admit that I'm having more fun playing Icewind Dale than I'd anticipated. It's always hard to judge from the Preview Shard, as the numbers of players and various other factors just aren't equivalent to the real game. I'm still going through a hell of a lot of injury kits, which still sucks (because it means I'm dying a LOT, not because of the cost), but in-between I'm having fun. The PVP element sucks, though. I don't care for it at all.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Mon May 19, 2014 3:00 pm

Odin wrote:Lastly, I have to admit that I'm having more fun playing Icewind Dale than I'd anticipated. It's always hard to judge from the Preview Shard, as the numbers of players and various other factors just aren't equivalent to the real game. I'm still going through a hell of a lot of injury kits, which still sucks (because it means I'm dying a LOT, not because of the cost), but in-between I'm having fun. The PVP element sucks, though. I don't care for it at all.

The Heroic Encounters are very fun and well done. They obviously erred on the side of "too much inclusion" as I've gotten credit for completing a few just by being somewhat nearby when others did the deed - a wise choice and better than risking players getting nothing when actually participating. I got to take part in the rare "kill the Remoraz (sp?)" encounter this weekend which attracted a horde of players to beat on it until it fell over. I'm impressed that frame rates never took a hit despite all the spell effects bursting everywhere.

My only complaint is there should be more variety - it seems like the "protect the merchant" and "marauding barbarian" encounters are constant.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 19, 2014 3:16 pm

Exodor wrote:My only complaint is there should be more variety - it seems like the "protect the merchant" and "marauding barbarian" encounters are constant.

I think those two and the Totem of Auril (sp?) basically are constant. It looks to me as if the easiest ones are up all the time, and the harder ones tend to rotate a bit. There are a few that I've seen infrequently enough that I'm not even sure what they involve.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon May 19, 2014 6:01 pm

For the record, after the module was released, I ran my ranged HR (I also have a melee one) through the normal solo grinder content (Sharandar and Dread Ring) and didn't notice any difference. Maybe splitshot was under performing but if it was, I didn't notice. Was the nerf rolled back/never released?

The same HR performance in Icewind Dale was perfectly fine. I did notice that the new content is significantly tougher. I died once or twice on a couple of characters, who hadn't touched their potion supply in months prior, so that was a nice change.

I like what I see so far, much more than I expected. The heroics are fun. The open world pvp/contracts have greated a sense of purpose/opposition that didn't exist previously. The heroics have created a nice sense of inclusion and purpose to working with strangers while roaming the country-side. The ice profession seems interesting, although I'm just starting out.

Colour me surprised after the first two lackluster modules.

They've regained my attention.

A small complaint. What's the deal with opening a chest (random event) only to get another container (profession kit, companion upgrade kit etc) which is a random opening. It's starting to get annoying. I get the fun of opening presents at christmas time, but it starts to get dumb when that box contains another wrapped present.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Mon May 19, 2014 7:00 pm

GreenGoo wrote:A small complaint. What's the deal with opening a chest (random event) only to get another container (profession kit, companion upgrade kit etc) which is a random opening. It's starting to get annoying. I get the fun of opening presents at christmas time, but it starts to get dumb when that box contains another wrapped present.

I've played a lot over the last week (enough that two of my guys have "leveled up" at least once), and I have not encountered these random event chests with containers inside. Where are you finding them?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:50 am

No, I meant "random event" like the results of a die roll is a "random event".

I'm just talking about the results of opening a locked box (the results of which are random within a limited set), only to find another container that must be opened (the results of which are, again, random within a limited set).

It's particularly obnoxious since the results of the random outcome are not all equally valuable. So I hope for something good. I get a result that is not the worst case scenario, but then I have to hope that opening the 2nd container is also something good. There is no guarantee that the second container will result in something worthwhile. So it's a Christmas present within a Christmas present. Which is socks. Or maybe a remote controlled scale model WWII B52 with working bomb bay doors and micro nukes inside. Or shoelaces.

I swear, if they add a 3rd tier to this lockbox opening lottery, I'm gonna...complain some more, I guess.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:52 am

Oh, the gauntlets for chillwrights are now going for ~400-500k AD for the green ones, so I guess I missed out on that window of opportunity.

And do I understand this correctly? The only way to get a second (or 3d, etc) set of gauntlets is to buy a professions pack (or buy 1 on the AH from someone who bought a prof pack)? That's obnoxious even for PWE.