Now, I am not against challenging content. Far from it. I would much rather a game be challenging than a complete breeze. That being said, some days you just want to feel badass, and GW2 doesn’t really allow you that feeling as well as other games.

Some days I just want to take my level 60 Guardian Fighter and absolutely destroy the level 16(ish) Cloak Tower dungeon in Neverwinter. Or maybe I skipped the Iron Tomb dungeon in RIFT and want to go grab the plentiful achievements for running through the place on my newly max level character. I enjoy that kind of stuff. Sometimes I just want to see the content… Doesn’t matter if the challenge is gone. The scenery, the bosses, the ‘cheevs… they make it worth doing.

I started a dwarven devoted cleric in Neverwinter the other day. I have a couple of friends with the game installed and we are planning on playing together. But, as often happens in our lives, our timings have rarely coincided over the last couple of weeks. We’d managed to get up to level 7 in our first couple of groupings together, so I easily managed to get my new cleric up to that level.

Thing is, I was chatting to our control wizard on Steam while I was playing — he was stuck doing something else for work and wasn’t able to log in — and it suddenly hit me that I had levelled past 7.

By a bit of a chunk.

I’d been enjoying the cleric so much, that I was level 11 already…

And this reminded me of a feature that Final Fantasy XI and RIFT have that I truly believe all MMORPGs with levels should have. Call it level sync, mentoring, whatever… An ability to adjust your level downwards to match that of comrades so that you can all play together no matter how much higher level you have got.

RIFT does this (like it does a lot of other stuff) perfectly. In RIFT you can set your ascended mentor level to any level as long as it is 5+ below your actual level. So if you want to go and help your friend’s new character in the starter zone, but you’re level 60 already, it’s no problem: set your mentor level to match theirs and off you go. You’ll get XP, rep, and everything else, as if you were a character of appropriate level. Your stats will scale down to make things slightly easier than the first time (mostly due to planar attunement stuff), but you won’t be one-shotting everything like you would at level 60.

Or, alternatively, imagine your mate hit level 17 and wants to try out the Iron Tomb. You can go in at level 60 and murder the place for him. Or you can scale down to 20ish and start a group of a more appropriate level. Unlike in Guild Wars 2, where you will always be the “right level” for the content, with RIFT you have the choice of going on a power-levelling murder spree if you want.

Neverwinter needs a feature like this. I want to be able to play my awesome cleric and not have to worry about how far I have already over-levelled my mates (which, for the record, is 21 levels at time or writing this ~_~). Being able to sync down to level 7 or so to help them out would improve both our experiences, and would allow me to enjoy my playtime when they’re not on, but also go join up with them when they are…

Foundry content in Neverwinter scales to your group’s level, which is great. It means the loot and mobs are always level-appropriate, so if you want something that is always going to be a decent challenge, that’s great stuff to go for. But that doesn’t help if you and your friends are of disparate levels.

RIFT’s ascended mentor system would work well here too: if you sign up in the group finder for any kind of group content in RIFT — be it Instant Adventures, dungeons, or whatever — the game will actually scale you to the appropriate level for the content if you are specific about it.

For example, say I’m a level 60 in Cape Jule and I fancy doing some Instant Adventures: I join up to the queue, I’m mentored down to about level 52, and I even get teleported to the first adventure area. I still have all my abilities so everything still works how I’m used to: I’m just scaled down appropriately.

Or how about say I’m achievement-hunting in Silverwood. I out-level the zone by about 40 levels. A zone event starts. I can be the superhero who one-shots everything but who also kinda ruins the content for everyone around me… or I can mentor down to level 20ish, gain planar attunement xp, planar currency, and actually play in a social group and a more epic battle for the zone. It is the choice that is important, and I feel it is a choice that all MMORPGs with vertical progression systems should give us.

What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? Do you think some kind of optional mentoring system is a must-have feature for MMOs these days? I’m just sick of enjoying something and then feeling guilty because I know if I out-level my friends I’ll be spoiling their experience.

~Demajen

PS. Oh, and did I mention mentoring down as a tank or healer would massively help with those lower level queue timers…?

Which is why in some ways its a pity that the Devoted Cleric (DC for short) is a ranger healer. This doesn’t mean it isn’t capable of pumping out some decent damage — it certainly can — but it just doesn’t represent the D&D Cleric archetype very well for me.

It is, however, a lot of fun!

Level 1

Your first at-will power on the Cleric is Lance of Faith, a ranged attack that hurls a bright spear of radiant energy at a single enemy target up to 80′ away. The third hit does extra damage, and extra ranks in the power add +10% damage each time. This will be your bread and butter solo ability for a huge chunk of the game, popping an Astral Seal on your foe and then using Lance of Faith to spear them to death. Max it out as soon as possible if you’re going to be soloing a lot.

Level 2

Speaking of Astral Seal this is your second at-will power. It has an 80′ range, does a decent chunk of single-target damage, and places a debuff on the enemy that allows anyone striking the target to regain hit points (including you). It’s not a huge amount, but if coupled with stats like life steal it can be very effective. Astral Seal has obvious benefits for Trickster Rogue attackers as they tend to strike multiple times quickly. Extra ranks add +10% damage and +1 second debuff time per rank.

This will be one of your go-to at-will powers for almost everything in the game, solo or party. It party play it is a great debuff to put on as many mobs as you can. It’s damage and free healing after all! Max it out as soon as possible.

Level 3

Your first encounter power is Sun Burst, and it’s a great ability for almost all content. It is a 25′ player-based AoE that does damage, heals for a good amount, and knocks back weaker enemies, all on a 12s cooldown. Each extra rank adds +10% damage, +10% heal, and an extra 5′ to the knock back.

It is pretty much a mandatory ability in group content, providing a really meaty heal to your party on a regular cooldown. 25′ is a deceptively long distance as well, so unless you’re way behind your party, you should get a few members healed, which is essential as your targeted heals can be tricky to get off on the right person. Max this out as soon as possible for party play.

Level 4

Your first daily power is Guardian of Faith, which has a nice animation that calls an angel down from the heavens, smiting your foes with radiant damage, knocking them prone, and then healing nearby allies as it ascends. Extra ranks add +10% to both the damage and healing of the ability.

I like the Guardian of Faith but I don’t use it much. In solo content it simply isn’t very useful, and in group content there are better daily powers. I don’t recommend putting any more points into it.

Level 5-10

At level 5 you gain access to your first power point, your first class feature and two new encounter powers.

The class feature is Healer’s Lore, which is a straight-up +5% boost to all healing you do per rank. Whether solo or in a group, this is pretty much a given, so max it out to three ranks as soon as you can!

Healing Word is a targeted encounter power that can stack up to 3 encounter charges on a cycling 15 second cooldown. It applies a regeneration effect to both you and your target, which heals for a decent amount per tick. This can be improved by +10% per rank. You’ll almost certainly put 3 ranks into this, but you might not actually use it all that much once you get into the higher levels. At lower levels — especially in party/skirmish/pvp play — this is unlikely to leave your bars.

The other encounter power at this level is Searing Light, a ranged cylinder attack that hits all targets in front of you out to 80′. It does moderate radiant damage on a 12s cooldown and again is one of your better abilities in solo and pvp play at lower levels.

You’ll eventually put 3 points in everything except Guardian of Faith in this pre-10-points bracket, so put points in based on the type of play you’re mostly finding yourself doing. If its group content, points into Sun Burst, Astral Seal, and Healer’s Lore are well worth it. For solo, take a bit of everything.

Level 10

Until level 10, the Cleric can seem like a really straightforwards class. Level 10 adds a huge layer of delicious complexity onto it. Five abilities become available at level 10/after spending 10 points.

Your class power is called Channel Divinity. On the left of your HUD is a curved gauge with 3 cross-shaped pips. Damaging abilities cause this gauge to fill up, and once it is full, it charges one pip and empties, until a max of three pips and gauge are full.

You can expend this power by pressing the [TAB] key, which raises your holy symbol and does two things.

Firstly, it swaps out your at-will powers for two new ones: Punishing Light, which channels a blue beam of energy that deals heavy damage to enemies (and allows you to move about); and Soothing Light which heals your allies for significant amounts.

More significantly, it empowers your encounter powers with additional effects.

• Sun Burst now heals for more and knocks enemies back further.
• Healing Word now gives an actual direct heal as well as granting Regeneration. It also doesn’t use an encounter charge.
• Searing Light does more damage, and now deals an additional half damage to enemies around the target.

Each encounter power immediately drains one + pip from the divinity gauge.

As well as this class power and two linked at-will powers, two new daily powers become available after spending 10 points.

The first is Flame Strike, which will be one of your bread-and-butter solo powers for most of the game. It raises a column of holy fire that knocks enemies up into the air in a reasonably narrow area, then splashes down over a slightly wider radius. It does significant damage, as well as knocking enemies down for a brief time. Extra ranks add the usual +10% damage per rank. If you solo a lot, I’d recommend maxing this power out early, as it’s great for opening up on large packs of weaker enemies.

The second is Hallowed Ground, which will be your other daily power for much of the game, regardless of what type of content you’re doing (it’s just that good!) The power creates a wide area of glowing ground around you. Allies standing within the ground’s boundaries have increased offense and defense. Extra ranks add +5% to damage and damage resist.

So there we have it, the first 10-14 levels of the Devoted Cleric. The ways you allocate your power points will very much depend on what type of content you play the most — especially when concerning your choice of daily power.

Hope this has been useful!

~Demajen

There will also be a cash shop, featuring boosters and, in an odd move, gear. But they remain adamant that all buyable gear is also earnable in game, and that the best gear in game is only earnable in the game. Since the drive for having the best stats was never one to concern me, this changes nothing.

In fact, this is a great move for people like me who didn’t raid: we may now be able to access some of the cool looking gear from lower tier raids that we simply had no interest in getting previously. I wouldn’t mind dropping a few quid on a cool set of gear to make my solo experience better…

Free Players will get access to 2 character slots and 3 bag slots, but all current content — Chronicles, Raids, Dungeons, World Events, Invasions, Carnage Quests, Instant Adventures, the classic souls (not including Storm Legion’s Tactician, Tempest, Defiler, and Harbinger) and more — will be unlocked for use.

Anybody who has ever purchased RIFT in the past, regardless of if they are subbed now or not, will receive everything they have ever expected from the game — full slots per server, full bag slots, etc. Nobody loses anything in the transition.

Purchasers of the Storm Legion expansion will also have access to the 4 additional souls that came with that addon, but these will also be available in the cash shop after launch.

No pricing on cash shop items have been released yet, but rest assured I’ll be making a blog or two on them as and when details do come out.

I stopped subscribing to RIFT because although my sub was rediculously cheap, I simply wasn’t playing at all. I had no friends on there. I firmly believe that, assuming they don’t screw up the transition, RIFT will be one of the best F2P MMOs on the market! I know I’ll almost certainly download and install the game again (on my big, oldschool HD where rarely-played games get stored).

~Demajen

Other teachers haven’t realized how badly poor planning can screw up an 185,000 word novel, however.

In 2007 I started writing my first novel, based on some preliminary characters I’d developed for the creative writing part of my undergraduate degree. 2007 was the year I did my Masters in Creative Writing, something I’d always wanted to do, and it allowed me to focus on getting a good 90,000 words written.

In the first half of that year, I wrote what would become Parts One and Three of Chains of Memory, but there was a snag… Characters that I introduced in Part Three weren’t received very well. Or, rather, they were received so well that the people in my group wanted more of their backstory.

I knew the broad strokes: who they were, what they were after, etc. But I didn’t know any of the immediate details. Those were things I expected to come to me as I went along, and that I would polish up in redrafts.

Huge mistake, and one I’ve learned a lot from.

People who know me often ask why it’s taking so long to get this book on the shelves. After all, I’ve been telling people it’s nearly finished for the last two years. And it was. I even properly finished it in October last year.

Trouble is, in that intermediate time I’ve been working on finishing the first draft of Chains of Time, the second book. And in the evolution of that book — a book much more cleanly plotted out than Chains of Memory ever was — I’ve found a few interesting new possibilities, a few new hooks.

So over the last couple of days I’ve gone back to Chains of Memory again and started making little alterations to bring key characters or concepts in line with my current thinking.

In some cases this is easily accomplished with the odd detail change here or there. But in one character revision, certain details cascaded in a delightful chain of cause and effect that had me making pretty hefty changes to a couple of key scenes — scenes that I’d forgotten how much I liked.

Scenes that are now gone.

I think it is almost certainly for the best. I’ve long been conscious of the fact that, from the basic outline I drew up for Chains of Memory, the series as a whole has become almost bloated with subplot and detail. Sure all those subplots are nice and twisted and clever, and they all get wrapped up quite nicely at various points in the series… but they aren’t necessarily all that tight. Chains of Memory is a really fat book, and I really want to try and chop it down by 20,000 words to give it a better chance of getting published. But finding places to cut out that much story is hard without making some of these more radical changes and murdering a few darlings.

This evening I revisited the Prologue and Chapter 1. The Prologue is still too hefty, but it’s a lot more interesting now after a few subtle alterations. Chapter 1, too, has had a pretty big shift in the action — gone are the adversaries only really mentioned in this chapter, replaced with an earlier introduction to a type of foe prevalent throughout the book. Sure, this will have a knock-on effect and I’ll have to go and cut out some of the introductory description later on, but that will almost certainly help improve pace later on too!

Thing is, I’ve been working on this series for five years now. That’s a lot of time to spend with these characters, in this universe, hammering away at this rather intricate plot. While I’m not getting bored of my creations — far from it: I’m really looking forwards to hammering out the details in the next three books — I admit to getting a bit frustrated with the first novel.

All because of two things — a lack of planning in the first place, and the natural evolution of writing as it is being written. The latter I can do nothing about — nor would I want to! But the former… if there’s one lesson I can pass on to would-be writers or students of English, it’s to always have a strong plan. Don’t leave details until later. “I’ll figure that out when I get there” is not a good philosophy when trying to write a coherent and realistic plot.

Trust me on that one!

— PART ONE — PART TWO — PART THREE —

By level 40 you will not only have a great feel for the Guardian Fighter, but you’ll have chosen both your paragon path — the Iron Vanguard being your only option currently — and started to specialise in a line of paragon tier feats: Conqueror for maximising damage output; Protector for defence and threat-management; or Tactician for clever use of tactics.

I went down the Conqueror path with my feats, picking up Take Measure for a nice 5% max HP temporary hit points buff when I am crit; Wrathful Warrior to give me a +15% damage buff whenever I have temporary hit points; Cruel Cut Style for a +15% damage bonus on Cleave; Tactical Superiority to ensure I always deal 5% more damage whenever I have the Combat Superiority class feature slotted; and obviously Reckless Attacker which gives me a percentage of power equal to my remaining percentage of Guard Meter.

I then moved into Tactician for Fight On, which reduces encounter power cooldowns by 10% with 5 points; and am about to start picking up Daunting Challenge for tanking.

With that disclosure out of the way, it’s on to my summary of the last 7 powers/features available to the Guardian Fighter.

40 Points

Seems like a long while since we got a new daily power, but here’s one, and it’s a doozy. Supremacy of Steel gives you a buff that lasts about 6 seconds (+2 seconds per rank) which counts up all the damage you receive in that time and then shoots a percentage of it out at your attackers when the buff wears off. Extra ranks increased the damage of the attack by +10% each as well as the duration buff, and the power can actually be triggered early by pressing the activating button again. I’ve found this to be an especially helpful power at dealing with larger packs of enemies — especially those featuring rogue or mage-type mobs. Oh, and it’s great seeing a berserker-type abberant receive a huge chunk of his damage back. Supremacy of Steel has been a staple of my build since I unlocked it.

Also available at 40 points is Trample the Fallen, a paragon class feature that allows all your attacks to deal 5% (+5% per rank) damage to foes affected by control powers. Control powers are ones that inflict a status effect like knockback, prone, stun, daze, freeze et cetera. For Guardian Fighters this means Griffon’s Wrath (stun), Terrifying Impact (stun), Knee Breaker (slow), Frontline Surge (knockback, prone), Bull Charge (knockback, prone), and Indomitable Strength (knockback, prone),  but of course it takes advantage of all the control powers from the other classes. With control powers and effects being so prevalent in the game, this is a pretty good class feature to max out, even if you aren’t going to be slotting it all the time. I’m saving it for my last few points.

45 Points

Two new encounter powers await you after you’ve spent 45 points. Both are a certain kind of “oh shit!” button and as such are rather situational!

Iron Warrior gives you a short buff (+1 second per extra rank) that boosts your hit points pool with temporary hit points based on how many hit points you are missing, allows your guard meter to sustain more damage before it breaks, and recovers some of that same meter. It’s a last stand-style ability, an emergency button that you can use right near the start of big fights where there are a ton of mobs quickly beating on you, and it has a reasonably short cooldown.

The other encounter power at this tier is another tanky one: Knight’s Valor is a damage redirect that allows you to intercept half of all damage they would have taken over a short period of time (+2 seconds per rank), and then builds threat based on a portion of this intercepted damage. This is a good power to slot for any fight where you know you’re not going to be able to control mass mob aggro, or if your party is going to be taking considerable AoE damage at points. It’s on a short cooldown of around 12 seconds so can be used in rotation with some ease.

50 Points

Finally, the last tier of powers. One encounter power, one daily power, and one class feature await you after spending 50 power points.

I was really hoping that Bull Charge would be an updated version of Lunging Strike, since I’ve been using it since the tutorial. It isn’t. Its cooldown is longer and it only works in melee range. It does do a chunk of damage (+10% per extra rank), but where it shines is in its control effects. It knocks back enemies (+10′ per extra rank) and makes them prone, which depending on how your feats are specced can help with your damage dealing. However, since it is a single target attack, I’ve found it to not be all that useful and, over all, a bit of a let down. While I like my control effects, Bull Charge just doesn’t have much of a place on my bar with its limited range. Since you only get three slots, you have to weigh all the powers up, and I can’t forsee too many encounters where Bull Charge outshines the movement benefits of Lunging Strike.

The final daily power is part of your paragon path: for the Iron Vanguard path, this is Indomitable Strength, a heavy damage melee strike against a single target which knocks them up into the air with a flurry of blows, and then knocks them back and leaves them prone. Extra ranks grant a +10% damage increase each. I’m currently fielding this in my generic solo loadout because it’s fun to toss mobs up in the air and then slam them over scenery to see how screwed up you can make the ragdoll physics go, but as with all knockback/prone-type abilities, they have limited success on the harder elite or boss mobs.

Last and kinda least, Enduring Warrior is your final paragon class feature, a rather weak passive that heals you 1% of your max hit points every time you kill a foe. Extra ranks increase this percentage by 1% each time, but even maxed out, 3% of your max hit points is really not very strong. Just for comparison’s sake, at level 55 I have around 23,000hp in crappy questing gear. That’s 690hp every time I kill a foe. Against really weak packs of mobs that you can kill in a couple of Cleave hits, fine, that looks great. But against anything else, it just isn’t worth it… Maybe there’s something I’m missing with this power: I’ve still got a few levels of experimentation to go with it, but so far, no good.

So there we go, a run down and commentary on all the available Guardian Fighter powers and class features, including the Iron Vanguard paragon path.

At level 55, my standard setup for everyday stuff is:

Q: Lunging Strike – my initial strike, or for closing gaps, as well as a nice solid hit of damage.

E: Enforced Threat – my third strike, ensuring I grab as much aggro as I can to keep my cleric companion safe as possible (though she’ll probably stand in the fire soon enough anyways).

R: Frontline Surge – my second strike, for battlefield mob control and nice chunks of damage that will leave most weakling enemies almost dead at the initial strike, allowing me to focus on the normal or tougher mobs.

LMB: Cleave - my go-to at-will power, buffed by feats for improved damage.

RMB: Threatening Rush - my go-to threat-management power when Enforced Threat is on cooldown. Allows me to zip around to mark mobs.

Daily1: Indomitable Strength – for LOLs-factor and shouting “HOME RUN!” at the screen. Swap out with Terrifying Impact for area control and damage.

Daily2: Supremacy of Steel – for AoE retaliation damage, especially useful for dealing with heavy or fast-hitting mobs.

Combat Superiority and Enhanced Mark round out my tray with a 5% always-on damage buff, and extra threat from marks.

Hopefully this has been helpful for you all! I plan on taking a look at stats and feats in a future installment, but I’m not sure when that’ll be. Probably after I hit 60, which should be in the next couple of days. Currently killing drow in Rothé Valley, and then on to Mount Hotenow (daft name!) to kill fire giants and elementals.

~Demajen

— PART ONE — PART TWO — PART THREE —

By level 10 you should have an initial feel for the class, how it works, and whether you enjoy it or not, but really your play experience is still in its infancy. Unless you’ve done a lot of group mini-instances or Foundry content already, you won’t really have fully explored your roll as Neverwinter’s tank class. That will come soon enough, however, with The Cloak Tower, a level 16-ish instance for a full party of 5.

15 Points

When you’ve put your 15th point in a power, you open up one new encounter power and two slottable class features:

Knee Breaker is a hard-hitting encounter power that does significant single target damage, but also inflicts a damage-over-time effect on the enemy and slows them. A great ability to use in PvP despite the debuff’s relatively short duration. Extra ranks can improve the debuff duration for +1 second each rank. I can’t say I’ve used this much because I haven’t done a huge amount of PvP, but it would be slotted on my bar if I had because control is key!

Enhanced Mark is a pretty essential class feature to slot in dungeons in my opinion. Marked targets build threat towards you while marked, meaning that even if they’re attacking someone else currently, your threat will hopefully soon outweigh theirs. When striking targets who have been marked, you gain +33% extra threat against them, and each extra rank adds +33% to that figure. This won’t guarantee your enemy will stick to you, but it will certainly help.

Guarded Assault is a class feature I haven’t really slotted very often. It reflects 1% (per rank) of damage received while blocking back at the person damaging you. I guess that could all add up quickly, especially against fast hitting rogues who will have a much lower health pool than you, but I really need to test it out some more.

20 Points

The first thing that unlocks at 20 points is the ability to go back and upgrade to rank 3 in any previous tier ability. Personally I’d go back and rank up Cleave straight away, as the new at-will power you can unlock at this level just doesn’t feel as good for me.

That at-will is Crushing Surge, a series of slow attacks whose third strike deals extra damage and heals you. Extra ranks add +10% damage each. There’s a real emphasis on slow with Crushing Surge. The strikes seem more heavily weighted towards the third attack, and the heal isn’t really enough to make a dent in your health. That being said, it is certainly an at-will with its uses. It has the same arc of attack that Cleave does, and if you are running without a healer or cleric companion, every little extra healing can help!

Your next encounter power is Knight’s Challenge, a power I have purchased but have never really used. It locks a single target into one-on-one combat with you and causes both you and your target to deal double damage to one another (and half damage to everything else). Since so many of the fights in solo and dungeon play involve adds of some kind, this isn’t as useful as you’d think. That being said, if you can weave this in with something like Enforced Threat or, down the line, Threatening Rush, you may be able to get away with keeping a little threat on enemies thanks to marks — otherwise you aren’t going to be doing much to them at all. With a fairly long cooldown and not a massive buff uptime (extra ranks increase it for 2 seconds each) I really haven’t found much use for this power.

You can also put points in the Combat Superiority class feature at this level, which gives enemies a debuff for 5 seconds per rank after they hit you which allows you to deal 10% extra damage to them. It’s not a huge amount, but for the Guardian in solo play, every little really does help. There are paragon feats that you can use to increase the damage some more, and even negate the need for them to hit you first. I maxed this one out as soon as I had the points, but I’ve been using it constantly since level 25 or so.

30 Points

Thirty points unlocks two encounter powers and a class feature. One of these is especially nice for people who like to control the battlefield.

Anvil of Doom is an encounter power which is very much like the execute ability in other games — it deals double damage to foes who have 25% or less health. It’s a great way of finishing off enemies, especially in PvP, although it’s cooldown is slightly too long in my opinion. You have to be very strict on the timing and ensure the opponent isn’t going to get a heal from a friendly cleric to take them over that 25% mark and waste the power. Subsequent ranks increase the damage by 10% each, which makes it a very respectable, hard-hitting attack, but if you want a heavy single-target power I’d still use Griffon’s Wrath over this.

Frontline Surge is one of my favourite encounter powers so far in the game, and it is the first paragon power you unlock (meaning it is based on the paragon path you choose at level 30, which is currently a no-brainer as each class only has one so far!). It’s a targeted 30′ x 10′ cylinder that knocks back your does and leaves them prone. It does great damage over that cylindrical area, knocks back the enemies a good 10′+, and each rank adds an extra +10% damage and +1′ knockback. It’s great in combination with Threatening Rush to allow you to control the battlefield, and it takes off a big chunk of weaker mob HP. I’ve had this ability bound to my R-slot since I first unlocked it.

Ferocious Reaction is your first paragon class feature. When slotted, as soon as your hit points drop below 15%, you regain 10% of your hit points, the foe who hit you takes that much damage, and you gain a damage resistance buff for 5 seconds. Sounds great, but there’s a catch: it only triggers once every five minutes. Even the -60 second bonus per extra rank doesn’t make this an especially useful class feature, but it would probably be nice to have in dangerous situations as a last-resort style feature. Perhaps PvP?

35 Points

Thirty-five points unlocks only two powers: an at-will paragon power and an encounter power.

The at-will is Threatening Rush, a great ability for crowd control and movement. It allows you to rush to your target and slam them, doing a fairly low amount of damage, but it also marks all nearby enemies. It can’t cover the distance that Lunging Strike can, which means it’s not brilliant for a fight opener, but it gives you much more moveability in combat, allowing you to zip between spread out mobs and bring them back into the fold — especially with Enhanced Mark slotted as a class feature. Two extra ranks give you +10% damage on the attack each. I find Threatening Rush to be my second at-will of choice for most fights in the game, though I will swap out Tide of Iron for dungeon boss fights for the damage resistance debuff as and when I think it is necessary.

Into the Fray is a rather odd encounter power. It’s a 50′ range shout that buffs all nearby party members with extra Run Speed and Action Point generation, enabling them to get to their destination faster and use daily powers more often. Party members also receive a small portion of your max hit points as temporary hit points, and you recover a bit of your guard meter. For solo play this really isn’t worth it, but in team play — especially in skirmishes, dungeons, or PvP — this power certainly has its uses. It can save the party from wiping in a pinch thanks to the temporary hit points (since as a Guardian Fighter you should have a pretty hefty hit point pool), or it can definitely add to your survivability and damage output when holding/capturing a location in PvP. Most of my experience has been solo with the occassional group activity, so I haven’t explored this power to its fullest. Extra ranks give you +2 run speed each, which all adds up.

So there we have the 10-35 bracket. Due to how the points unlock, you’ll often find yourself having to put a handful of points in powers you really have no interest in, but they may well be useful to have as backup for specialised situations. I would definitely recommend grabbing and using Enhanced Mark and Combat Superiority as your two class features, and Frontline Surge and Threatening Rush as soon as possible. Rank them up to max and enjoy being able to control hordes of mobs.

Next time I’ll look at the final three tiers: 40, 45, and 50. I’ve unlocked all the abilities on them, but haven’t had chance to really get to grips with them much yet. (I’ll mention now, however, that the two dailies: Supremacy of Steel and Indomitable Strength are both very useful, with the former proving one of my favourite powers in the latter levels!)

~Demajen

— PART ONE — PART TWO — PART THREE —

Level 1

You start off the game with your first At-Will power: Cleave, a cylindrical attack that hits enemies in a pretty wide arc. Every third hit does extra damage, so it is often worth going for that third swing if you know you’re not in much danger of a big hit coming your way. Cleave has been my bread-and-butter damaging ability for much of the game so far. Upgrades to Cleave give it a 10% damage increase each time. It was the first thing I powered to rank 3.

You also start off with the Guard ability, which allows you to raise your shield using [default:Shift]. This will block a chunk of damage but deplete a shield meter displayed on your HUD. When the meter turns red, your guard is dropped, and you can no longer use your shield until the meter recovers.

Many Encounter Powers available to the Guardian Fighter restore your Guard meter.

Level 2

As you finish your very first quest in the tutorial section, the game will give you a fixed amount of XP to get you to level 2. Here you learn your second At-Will power: Tide of Iron, a cool-looking shield slam that does a chunk of damage to a single target and also lowers an enemy’s damage resistance. The strike does +10% more damage for each rank upgrade.

Level 3

After collecting arrows, sticking them in the barrel, and talking to Private Hawthidon, you’ll be given level 3, and here you’ll learn your first Encounter Power, which I’ve had set to Q since the end of this quest and have never removed. It is called Lunging Strike, and charges you at your targeted foe with a crashing stab. It’s a great gap closer, on a reasonably short cooldown, and does a pretty fierce amount of damage if it crits. Upgrades come in the form of an extra 5′ range increase at each rank.

This is a brilliant ability for all occasions, especially since Guardian Fighters otherwise lack some of the manoeuvrability of other classes who can teleport, sprint, or dodge out of the way — though Lunging Strike does need a target to charge at!

Level 4

Just before your first boss fight at the end of the tutorial, you’ll get your first Daily Power, Villain’s Menace. This attack can only be unleashed when the d20-shaped action points gauge is full, and sees you plunging your sword in the ground for an initial burst of damage to all surrounding enemies within 30′, and then a short buff that sees you deal increased damage and become immune to disabling effects.

This is, in my limited experience, a bit of a mixed bag skill. I’ve not found as many uses for it as I’d like. Generally it’s good for dealing with the slightly harder mobs you find in some areas, but for killing general trash mobs it is very much a waste. When upgraded the buff lasts an extra +2 seconds per rank.

I believe you also get your first slottable class feature: Shield Talent at this level. This increases your Guard Meter by 5%, and adds an extra 5% for each rank for a total of +15% maxed out. I got it to rank 2, then realised there were other class powers I was using more.

Level 5-10

After the tutorial is over, you gain power points to spend, at the rate of 1 per level, instead of the game actually picking your powers for you. You can use these points to rank up your previously given powers to rank 2 (rank 3 is unavailable until you hit level 20!) or spend points to unlock two new encounter powers.

Enforced Threat is a 30′ burst AoE ability that taunts nearby foes, causing them to attack you, and doing a bit of damage in the process. It also marks your target, which causes you to double the amount of threat you gain from hitting that foe. Marks disappear if you are hit by the enemy’s own attacks, unless you Guard against them. On a pretty short cool down (15s), Enforced Threat has rarely left my bar. Most enemies come in packs in Neverwinter, and being able to grab some initial AoE aggro on them is useful! (It also recovers your Guard meter!) Each rank of upgrade adds +5% to the amount of Guard Meter recovered.

Griffon’s Wrath is your other encounter power, and it’s a pretty powerful one that I used for quite some time. It’s an overhand, single-target strike which stuns the enemy and does a nice chunk of damage. It’s also a charged ability, meaning that at both ranks 2 and 3 you get an extra use of the power. The recharge constantly cycles, meaning with more charges you have more uses of the power in the same 15s full recharge time. I found this especially useful for bandit-type enemies who like to chug healing potions: the stun stops them doing so.

Level 10

Level 10 is where the Guardian Fighter really starts to feel a bit like a proper tank. They gain access to five new powers at level 10.

Mark is your active class ability, set to the [TAB] key. Marked foes have lowered damage resistance, build twice as much threat when you strike them, and marks disappear if you are hit by a non-Guarded attack. The power has a 100′ range so it’s good for pulling enemies!

At level 10, when you are Guarding, your two At-Will powers swap out to Stab and Slam: the former allows you to stab over your shield with a high threat attack to keep building aggro, and the latter also does damage but recharges 5% of your Guard meter with each strike. Now you no longer have to just sit there like a muppet when your Guard is up!

Finally you have two new Daily powers:

Fighter’s Recovery is a buff that allows you to heal for a portion of your outgoing damage — so every attack you do, you heal up for a percentage of it. I’ve really not found it very useful except against large packs of mobs where you can hit multiple enemies at once with Cleave or another AoE power. Upgraded ranks offer an extra +20% healing each rank, however, which should add up to quite an amount in the early game (though may not make much of a dent in your health pool later on).

Terrifying Impact, on the other hand, was my Daily power of choice well into the 30s. With it you slam the ground and send a wave of energy crashing along a 50′ long, 4′ wide cylinder. It’s your first attack you have to ground target, but you get used to it pretty quickly. There are two methods of ground targeting you can use, and you can switch them in the options.

The first type allows you to press the button once to bring the ground template, then press the button again (or left click) to place it; the second allows you to aim the template when the button is down, and cast automatically when you release the button. Enemies caught in the blast of Terrifying Impact take damage and are tossed briefly into the air, Stunning them. New ranks offer +15% damage a pop, making it hit pretty hard.

Of the three available Daily Powers, I recommend Terrifying Impact the most. Being able to control your enemies, especially when solo, is absolutely invaluable.

So there we have it, the first ten levels of Guardian Fighter. Not many huge choices to make — focus on Cleave, Lunging Strike, Terrifying Impact, Griffon’s Wrath and Enforced Threat in that order for upgrading to rank 2. I honestly wouldn’t waste points on Fighter’s Recovery here, especially considering how easy Lesser Healing Potions are to find.

Hope this has been useful. Coming soon, the 11-35 abilities, with commentary!

~Dema

Character creation is a varied beast, because of how many options you have, and — as a non-founder player — how many character slots you have. You get all of two. Fortunately, there are only five classes available to play so far, and with only one real levelling path of “official” content (more on this down below) you’ll find that unless you mix it up with a lot of Foundry content, levelling multiple characters in rapid succession may get a tad boring anyways.

Race, Class, & All That Good Stuff

You get plenty of choice racial choices: from the typical human, elf, and dwarf, to halfling, half-orc, and tiefling. Founder members have access to the Drow race. For everyone else, it’s coming soon as best as we can tell. By soon, I’ve seen quotes in the region of 60 days, but don’t quote me on that. Just as in D&D (4e, on which the MMO is loosely based) you get bonus stats and racial perks which, naturally, depend on your race. The perks aren’t huge, however, so really, choose whichever you think looks most awesome unless you’re a die-hard min-maxer!

Class choices are, as I said, considerably more limited, at least for launch. There are rumours that the next class, probably some kind of Warlock, will be releasing within the next few weeks, but until then you’re given the opportunity to roll Guardian Fighter (a tank class with sword/mace and shield and the ability to actively shield block attacks); Great Weapon Fighter (a DPS class with a two-handed weapon, widely regarded on the forums as being somewhat underpowered at launch); Trickster Rogue (a DPS class with some control abilities who uses dual daggers and can inflict the Daze condition which is an utter bastard in PvP); Control Wizard (a Control class with some DPS abilities); and Devoted Cleric (a ranged healer class with moderate DPSing abilities and decent survivability).

Soloing and Companions

All classes can solo all the solo content in the game, we’re told, and I’ve certainly seen nothing to the contrary so far on my Guardian Fighter. Aiding you in your questing are Companions, NPCs who tag along and level up with you. Founder members start off with a free “striker” (DPS) pet; everyone else gets a quest to obtain their first companion at level 16. I honestly recommend everyone takes the Cleric companion as their first one, unless you’re playing a Devoted Cleric, or you don’t mind burning healing potions like a junkie!

Crafting

Crafting is an odd beast, about which I have considerably mixed feelings. On one hand, I love the fact that you can use a web interface to craft while you’re not even logged in. On the other hand, I find it rather slow and tedious and not hugely rewarding, and by the time you can even start crafting (at level 10) you’ve outlevelled the first few gear items you can make (level 9 stuff as a platesmith, not sure about the others).

Each craft has a class associated with it. Cloth for Control Wizards, Leatherworking for Trickster Rogues, Chainsmithing for Devoted Clerics and Great Weapon Fighters, Platesmithing for Guardian Fighters. The exception is Leadership, which allows you to hire and train mercenaries, and is a good choice for people who just want to fire and forget their crafting. Leadership rewards XP, Astral Diamonds, and often chests of goods with basic supplies in.

Bear in mind that you can have each character learn all crafting professions, so you can do whatever you want.

Banks and Bags and Seals

Inventory space is at a premium in Neverwinter. Literally. In one of my least favourite decisions about the game, you can’t seem to craft bags. Bags are acquired at the end of quest lines (I’ve got two 12-slotters from these so far, by level 40) or by using real world money in the cash shop. They will also fill up remarkably quickly, thanks to seals and enchantments and a billion different types of potions that drop.

The bank is single character, as far as I can see, and you can mail stuff to alt characters easily enough if you want to use them as bank mules, but I kinda thought we’d moved past this thanks to Guild Wars 2‘s far superior shared banking system. Bank space is also very tiny indeed, so don’t be expecting hundreds of spare slots after a quick jaunt back to town. I think I have maybe 20 slots in my bank…

The biggest inventory hogs are seals, which are special slottable enchantments that you can put into sockets on year gear. 4 seals can be fused together to create the next higher rank, and there are maybe 5 or 6 different types of seals (and 3 or 4 runestones, which work in the same way, but can be slotted into your companion NPCs to improve their stats). By level 40 I’m starting to be able to fuse Rank 4 enchantments (I believe max rank is 7) but the rank 1 stuff still drops in the zones I’m in. So with up to 4 slots filled for each type of seal/runestone, you can see how quickly inventory space will disappear.

The Foundry

Neverwinter has a Foundry, a place where player-made content can be authored. Some of the Foundry content has been really great so far. Some of it has been terribly written and designed. But that is par for the course. As it is, you can go to a Bulletin Board or a Harper NPC and they will offer you a massive choice of player content that you can go and try. All the content I’ve tried so far has scaled to near my level, and the loot drops are random and controlled by the server, so there are no loot pinata instances!

I’m looking forwards to seeing what else comes out of the Foundry once more people get access to it. You can start creating Foundry content for yourself at level 15, or experiencing it from Level 4 (which is the level you leave the tutorial at).

How Free is F2P?

As a F2P title, Neverwinter will undoubtedly have its cash shop and game systems under intense scrutiny. Nobody wants to play a Pay-to-Win game. Nobody wants to play a game where you are constantly gouged by the cash shop.

Neverwinter is, so far, treading water, but I can see a waterfall not too far off in the distance. All of my niggles with the game so far come down to things like bag space, bank space, character slots, and stuff like that. A lot of game systems work with either Zen, a real world money currency, or Astral Diamonds, which is earnable in game. Astral Diamonds can be traded with Zen in a similar manner to GW2′s gold exchange. Gold itself in Neverwinter isn’t all that useful.

I don’t think that Neverwinter is a play-to-win title, but I can certainly take umbrage with their pricing model for real world money transactions. Store prices for basic commodities are a little high for my taste. Sure, I don’t have to buy them, especially since I got the Hero of the North founder pack for plenty of extra stuff, but I suspect it will turn people off.

Finally, Is It Fun?

Yes. Yes it really is. Combat is actiony, weighty, and has real meat behind it. It’s also tactical. Positioning really matters. If in a group, try and ensure you stand opposite another player or companion. If solo, try and keep the enemy between you and your companion. This way you’ll both get combat advantage, gaining bonus flanking damage. This is especially helpful as a Guardian or Cleric, as their DPS is a little lower than the other classes.

Crowd Control is also vital in the game. The temptation to stand and hack away, even as a Guardian, is high — especially considering how visceral the combat feels — but I often find using abilities to knock down or control my enemies are more useful in the long run that straight up damage.

Movement is also key. Lots of enemies cast very powerful attacks which can flatten most characters. Get out of the way of them — they’re pretty obviously telegraphed.

The best thing about Neverwinter is that it is free. You can sign up and try it, starting this evening (GMT), and if you like it, you can read up more about it afterwards. If you don’t, move on. Plenty of games out there.

But so far, I’m having a blast, and since I’ve managed to get some friends interested too, we’ll probably be spending this evening — opening server rush willing — rolling through some low level content on new characters! We’ll be on Mindflayer. Because illithids.

~Demajen

Over the last few weeks I’ve started writing multiple blog posts, but not finished a single one, and ultimately scrapped them when they became irrelevant or I moved on to pastures new. So instead, here’s a bit of a catch-all update!

Tomb Raider

I just finished the latest Tomb Raider game and can honestly say I loved every minute of it. It will most certainly be in my Top 10 of 2013 list, assuming I write one this year. Which I probably will.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what I like so much about the game. It’s gorgeous, which helps, but I also really appreciate the mature and mostly-grounded storyline: the story, in fact, is what kept me playing. Brilliant, empathetic voice acting and great musical cues really help build the tension and immerse you in the plight of the characters.

I’ve never been a Tomb Raider fanboy — still aren’t — but will definitely play a sequel to this reboot should they make one. I hope they do, but I also read that it didn’t live up to sales expectations. God knows why!

Neverwinter

I’ve been playing in the Neverwinter beta, an upcoming F2P MMO based (very loosely) on the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, made by the same people who brought us Star Trek Online (which had awesome character creation but the animation quality of me waggling action figures to represent a dynamic firefight).

My experiences so far have been very positive — enough to get me to plonk down a little money for one of their founder’s packs. It’s definitely taking a gamble, on my part, but as long as I can get a hundred or so decent hours of play out of the game, they I’ll have gotten my money’s worth.

There are two things that I like about Neverwinter so far: firstly, the actiony combat reminds me very much of what I wanted but didn’t quite get from TERA — namely the ability to play a sword-and-board fighter; secondly, user-made content through the game’s Foundry system.

One of my biggest issues with MMOs in general is how staid the game gets because you have to wait for patches for new content. With the Foundry, there will be a constant influx of new content from the community. Some of it may even be good. It sure beats (hopefully) having to wait 2-3 months for new content anyways.

Final Fantasy XIV: ARR

I still can’t talk much about this, since there is a big fat NDA in place, but I can certainly tell you the game is shaping up nicely, and I’m actually having fun beta testing it. I know, right!

RIFT

After two years, I finally cancelled my RIFT subscription. It was due for renewal tomorrow, and while £35 for 6 months is a great price, I just couldn’t really justify it considering how many other games I have to play.

Don’t get me wrong, I love RIFT. It’s a great MMO and it still has a lot to offer me, I think, even without raiding or expert dungeons etc. I just need a break from it, and since my sub was up for renewal, now seems like a good time to check out other things.

Defiance

Other things like Defiance, an MMOFPS from Trion, makers of RIFT. Now, I beta-tested Defiance and found it to be… okay. It doesn’t rock my world, but I see considerable potential in it, and for me it is something new. The only other MMOFPS I’ve played is Planetside 2 and that was very much a large scale army vs army shooter. Defiance is much more friendly for solo players, has reasonably interesting story missions, some decent voice acting, and lots of guns to pick up — though no guarantee you’ll ever find one that you want.

Defiance is in the unfortunate position for me that FFXIV v1 was — it has a list of noticeably absent features for an MMO. It’s chat system is barely existent, there’s no auction house so you basically have to get lucky with drops to find a weapon that is of the family you like, and its UI reminds me very much of Borderlands 1 in the sense that it’s an unintuitive console port. It’s character creation customisation options are very limited too. It feels in many ways that it was a little rushed out the door (to say the least).

That being said, the game runs very well, has some really nice scenery (if a little soulless thanks to a lack of actual wildlife), and has solid shooting mechanics. It also has a nice horizontal progression system — but dayum I wish it explained stuff better!

The Secret World

Speaking of horizontal progression, I’ve spent a few hours in The Secret World over the last couple of days. Since it is now a no-sub required title, I have it installed on my secondary drive so I can just hop in and play whenever I want. There have been 4 content updates since I last logged in, so I’ve spent a handful of hours just taking a look at all the new missions/stories they’ve added.

These include a big handful of the investigation missions which remain my favourite in the game. Almost purely intellectual, they’ve had engrossing stories from the outset. I finished one yesterday that required me to work out a system of notes and flashing lights and play them back in the right order on a series of little standing stones. Sure, the quest would be horrid to do if you’re tone deaf or colourblind, but for me it hit the emotional heartstrings as only a good piece of music can.

And yeah, the game’s soundtrack is still one of the best on the market in my opinion.

Guild Wars 2

Finally, I haven’t played a huge amount of Guild Wars 2 recently, but they have just released their April update which includes a whole new mini-game-style world to explore called the Super Adventure Box. This looks absolutely crazy fun, and I plan on giving it a go during the second week of the Easter holiday. I’ve also got all of the Living Story stuff to catch up on!

Now I’ve finished my big teaching blocks for the Spring term, I’ll hopefully have more time/energy to write blogs, so the severe lack of updates of the last couple of months will blow over.

Until next time!

~Dema

I wondered whether multiple professions with a more limited scope than TSW’s skill wheel would increase my fun through altoholism, or whether it would diminish my enjoyment through repetition of similar content across those eight professions.

I thought about the timers on TSW’s repeatable missions, and compared them to the hidden timers on GW2′s events, and had to wonder: just how much repetition could I take?

Let Us Do The Dance Again

I haven’t been playing much Guild Wars 2 recently. Despite the January and February updates so far this year, with the introduction of the Living Story elements, I just haven’t had that drive, that impulse, to log in and play. With close to 600 hours invested in the game, I’ve had a pretty good run at it, but there are things holding me back from playing again.

And it boils down to repetition.

Over the course of the last few years, my definition of acceptable repetition has been mercurial. It has changed constantly, and I think that is fine. My tastes and interests wax and wane, and so do definitions that interact with them.

For example, one of the things I complained about with Diablo 3 was having to constantly play through the game to get to the higher and higher difficulties, yet I’m quite happily chugging my way through the NG+ mode on Torchlight 2. Changing standards. Hell, I’ve actually reinstalled D3 recently and am playing through Nightmare difficulty on my Monk after several months break. The content isn’t quite fresh, but it is definitely more playable for me now than it would have been trying to launch straight into the game again after completing it.

In Guild Wars 2 I have levelled Guardian, Necromancer, Elementalist, and Engineer to the level cap. In doing so I’ve explored pretty much all of the open world levelling content in the game: I’ve seen most of the events, uncovered most of the maps. I haven’t 100%ed the world with any one character, but across the four I’ve probably seen the basics.

But now what do I do? I have four mini-alts: Warrior, Rogue, and Mesmer at level 30; Ranger at level 24. I have been logging in to do the dailies since they introduced the Laurels currency, but I can’t say I’m massively enjoying doing so. In fact, the dailies have actually highlighted a flaw of the game that has been niggling at me for a while: the events system itself.

Finding events, due to the nature of the system, can sometimes take a little too long. You don’t know when they’re going to start, or where, or in what order. Sometimes I’ve got the dailies sorted in under half an hour. Other times it’s taken me an hour and a half. That is infuriating, because I can’t really say I want to be doing it.

“Well okay,” some of you might be saying. “If you don’t want to be doing it, why are you?”

It’s definitely a good question. It isn’t like I don’t have other games to play. I guess I just have “a thing” about persistent world games.

Let’s examine RIFT, the subscription based MMO I still continue to play. At the moment I’m logging into RIFT sporadically to either do a run through the solo dungeon A Hero Rises to earn marks I can eventually put towards equipment; or I’m doing a couple of PvP matches because I think the rogue female PvP gear looks spiffy and I’d like a set.

The reason why I’m playing less and less of RIFT is because to get the items I’d like is a big-ass grind. I remain infuriatingly shite at PvP, so get frustrated easily and am usually done with the whole thing after 2-3 matches. (Of course, I enjoy it when we’re winning!)

Maybe it is because I’m a casual player, but the sheer number of repetitions of the content I’ll have to do to get what I want really puts me off. And it is the same with GW2. I really like the look of some of the dungeon gear, but I can’t say I’m a huge fan of running trinity-less dungeon groups.

And I feel like, saying that, I’m going back on something that I think I might have said last year but I’m not sure about. I can no longer remember what my opinion on the Holy Trinity was, save to say that it always made looking for group a bit of a pain if you wanted to play a DPS character.

I never did. I still don’t want to. In RIFT I play a Tactician or a Bard, which are support roles. In World of Warcraft I played a tank. In TERA, my current F2p-on-the-side I’m levelling up a Lancer, which again is a tanky character. In TSW I could do everything on one character so I was working on building up both tanking and healing builds while maintaining a good soloing build.

I have enough dungeoneering experience, across multiple games, to say I’d probably be a dab hand at tanking or healing through a variety of games. But unfortunately, the repetition of WoW’s heroic dungeons (and raiding) has left me with a bit of a stigma about group content. That being said, I rather enjoyed TSW’s boss-heavy, trash-lite dungeons! So perhaps my issue with dungeons isn’t so much the repetition as to how much time they eat up?

I’m not really able to say, and that’s why I’m at an impasse with my MMOing at the moment.

As much as I love GW2′s actiony combat, it’s too chaotic and unstructured for me to really enjoy it in anything more than a zerging environment. RIFT, on the other hand, is too hotbar-orientated: too many abilities to keep track of in dungeons for me.

What I really would like to try is a trinity-based action MMO. Yeah, I have TERA, but I’ve waxed lyrical about its dull questing system before. Cryptic’s Neverwinter is hot on my radar for something that might scratch my itch for a while — and the fact it’s got the Dungeons&Dragons license is a bit of nostalgia too — but I haven’t been able to try it yet.

Final Fantasy XIV ARR is due to start beta-testing in a few days. Not an action MMO in any sense of the word really, but it certainly had a decently fast pace when I tried it in alpha. (Am I allowed to say that? Eep!) So as a Legacy-status member I’m looking forwards to trying that out, if for nothing else than to pass the time between lesson planning and marking.

So, What Am I Looking For?

For my own reference, here’s a list of stuff I’d like to see in my MMO of choice:

• beautiful, expansive, explorable environments; preferably with hidden things to find, including – perhaps – randomised mini-dungeons that scale for solo or small group play; preferably with achievements for exploration, or artifact sets (like in RIFT) to uncover. GW2′s jumping and exploration puzzles are great, as is its vista system, so I’d like to see more of that in games.
• an easily-customisable gear wardrobe; preferably closer to TSW/DCUO’s selector system whereby once you get a certain style of gear from a loot drop or purchase, you ‘unlock’ it for that character, and can access it again at will. GW2′s transmutation system is, IMO, not very good (which is even worse when so much of the leather gear looks awful: I love my Engineer but I can’t find a decent leather outfit for her!)
• scaleable content. One of the things RIFT (and FFXI) does well is its mentoring system, whereby you can scale yourself down for any content, so you can play with your newbie friends or experienced friends’ alts, but still go back to kill stuff and solo lowbie dungeons as a max level character if that’s what you want to do. GW2 takes away that choice, and while I appreciate the design decision to always make all content challenging, I feel it works against the game as a whole.
• weighty action combat that doesn’t overwhelm you with a gazillion buttons. GW2 does this mostly right; TSW does it right in theory, but lacks the actual weight of combat; Neverwinter seems to have it pretty spot on with an almost MOBA-style take on action that reminds me very much of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s combat in a way (though I don’t know about it’s rooting-in-place when you use an ability — I’ve read that it adds a lot more weight to combat, but I’ll have to try it for myself first!)
• a levelling system that makes sense and has plenty of options: all of the games I’ve mentioned so far have their own benefits ingame for the levelling systems they’ve taken. RIFT’s soul trees allow flexibility within a defined character archetype; TSW’s skill wheel allows for a huge amount of flexibility; GW2′s profession system gives a strict look but a chunk of flavourful flexibility in builds; TERA’s glyph system allows you to expand on your given role by tailoring it a little to your style of play.
• a levelling style that is fun: I love GW2′s dynamic events and renowned hearts, but RIFT really has it beat in terms of ways to level up. Instant Adventures, Carnage Quests, traditional quests, PvP, regular dungeons. Neverwinter seems to be going the right way about this too, with plenty of dungeon-delving content, traditional quests, and hot-joinable PvE events happening on a regular basis.

I’ve Got My Eye On You…

Defiance, TESO, FFXIV ARR, and Neverwinter are the four MMOs that I’m scoping out news on.

Defiance is a MMO shooter and what I’ve seen of it so far looks pretty good, though I’m not yet sold on its tie-ins with the SyFy TV show. NDA is in place so can’t talk more about it.

The Elder Scrolls Online is a token gesture on my part. I’ve not really enjoyed any of the Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall, but I’ve at least applied for the beta for TESO. Who knows, it might change my mind on the whole series.

FFXIV A Realm Reborn is a Final Fantasy game, and Dr Saikyo (he has a PhD you know!) and myself have a barrel of FF MMO nostalgia between us. I’m hoping that FFXIV ARR will at least redeem the failures of v1.0 in some way, but I suspect the opportunity to get Saik to play it has long passed. Especially if it doggedly sticks to the subscription-based payment scheme.

Finally, Neverwinter has a lot of strong features so far, including player-made content, but as an entirely F2P offering — especially one coming from Perfect World, whose games I’ve tried and am not a fan of — I’m not yet sold on whether its monetisation options are going to be any good. I fear it could turn into a real gear grindfest. But at least since its entirely F2P then I can hop in and out at my leisure!

~Demajen