EverQuest Online Anemoia

This morning I realized a lifelong ambition. Alright, not lifelong. Maybe a decade? I've had it for a while, anyway.

As plenty of people reading this will most certainly know, there was once a console version of EverQuest. It was called EverQuest Online Adventures, usually abbreviated to EQOA, and you can read all about it here. 

Or not, because that's a really skimpy Wikipedia article. I'm astonished. If there's one area of human activity that's been heavily over-represented on Wikipedia ever since it started, it has to be video games.

Still, it covers the basics, which is that the game launched in 2003 and closed down in 2012. Nine years isn't terrible but by MMORPG standards it's a blink. That's always going to be more of an issue with console games than on PC, I guess, thanks to the need to remake them for each new hardware generation at the same time the old generation is becoming obsolete, taking much of the playerbase with it. 

Or maybe that's not how it works. How would I know? The last console I owned was an Atari 2600. I vaguely knew the game was around while it was up and running so it was of notional interest to me at best. I sure wasn't about to buy a PS2 just to try it.

At some point, though, I started to get curious about what I'd missed. Not just with EQOA but all kinds of EverQuest-associated spin-offs and side projects I'd paid no attention to while I was playing the real thing. I bought almost all the EQ RPG and EQII RPG books, one of the comics, the Lords of EverQuest offline game... I even dabbled with the possibilities of playing the EQMac version, which was still running at the time.

The one I really wanted to play, though, was EQOA, which I'd heard good things about and which everyone who'd played it seemed to remember with great affection. There was an emulator project called Project: Return Home that I kept an eye on for a while - I have the website bookmarked and I'm in the Discord, although I rarely remember to look at either of them - but I wandered off and mostly forgot about the emulator before anything much got going.

And somehow I managed to miss completely that there was a fully-functioning emulator out there, with a public server that's been up and running for a while. It's called Sandstorm and I spotted a post on MassivelyOP about it last night, just before I was about to turn off the laptop and go to sleep. It seems they've just added fishing and that's news...

Well, it was sure news to me, anyway, even though it seems MOP have been reporting on the "Rogue Server" for at least a year. Shows how much attention I've been paying. It was after midnight when I read that post and I was excited enough to start downloading the files on the laptop immediately before I came to my senses and postponed the attempt 'til morning. 

After I'd had breakfast and walked Beryl and Mrs Bhagpuss had gone off to do some grandchild-minding, I set to the daunting task of figuring out what needed to be done to get the thing working. On the desktop this time.

And it wasn't that hard. I found the Sandstorm homepage, downloaded the patch that gets you access to the server, then downloaded the  PCSX2 emulator that lets you mimic a Playstation 2 on your Windows PC. Probably should have done those two the other way round...

 

After that I pretty much followed the instructions, interspersed with watching a YouTube How To video and downloading some stuff I apparently wasn't supposed to. All of that would have taken me about half an hour, tops, if one of the downloads hadn't slowed to a crawl. So I went and had a bath and did some chores and came back an hour later and... it was still downloading. 

But only for another couple of minutes, thankfully. I carried on with the Swedish furniture approach to computing, slotting file a into folder b as instructed, until I had what looked like a working PS2 emulator with one game installed - EverQuest Online Adventures. 

I double-clicked and up came the old, familiar tune. Seems EQOA used the exact same version of the theme as the original. I was soooo excited!

I hit Play and... it didn't work. No network connection. 

Fixing that took about twenty minutes and if you asked me how I fixed it, I wouldn't be able to tell you. That's been my experience for most of the time I've been doing stuff like this. I know enough to muddle through but not enough to know why something I've done has fixed a problem I didn't understand to begin with.

 

It's results that count, though, isn't it? Not like anyone's going to ask me to show my workings. And it's amazing how often googling fixes, applying them then fiddling about with them when they don't work seems to get the job done in the end. I ticked and unticked a lot of boxes and eventually something must have shaken loose because the greyed-out option to add a network connection colored up and I was able to work through the new set of instructions and make contact with the Sandstorm server.

And there I was at character creation. Quite a moment. And very interesting for an EQ player. Everything was the just same but not really.

For example, there's a class called "Alchemist" that doesn't exist in PCEQ. I was very tempted to try that first but then it seemed like it would be better to go with something familiar just to get the hang of things so I picked a Gnome Magician. If there's one class/race combo I ought to know how to play, it's that.

I was very impressed with character creation. In 2003, PS2 graphics would have been aesthetically superior to PC, I imagine, but even if that's not generically true, the EQOA character models are a lot prettier to look at than their contemporary EQ equivalents. I really liked the tall, pointed hat and one of the facial options even came with a huge pair of spectacles.

There were plenty of helpful descriptions, too. A lot more helpful than I remember anything being in EQ back then. That happy trend continued throughout the time I played, which ended up being an hour or so, with plenty of genuinely helpful tutorial tips and explanations.

And I needed all the help I could get, I can tell you. Klick`Anon, the EQOA analog of EQ's Klak`Anon, is a lot flatter and easier to navigate than the original but it's still a fricken' maze and as far as I can tell EQOA has no in-game map. 

I needed one because the first quest I got was from my guildmaster, who wanted me to go find a tailor called Nokar and get a student's uniform. That took me about forty minutes, most of which was aimless wandering and the rest looking the quest up on the web.

My research told me Nokar liked to hang out in the Marketplace, which would have been more helpful if there were any signposts or notices in Klak to tell me where the Marketplace was. By then, I had already spoken to several merchants as I blundered in and out of their stores, including at least three tailors, none of whom were called Nokar. I figured he must be in the area somewhere but I just couldn't see the blasted gnome.

I was using a controller because as far as I can tell there's no other option and it didn't help that the on-screen prompts about which buttons to press didn't match the ones on my generic accessory. It kept saying Press X when in my case X did nothing and what I should have been pressing was A. 

After a while that all sorted itself out as my brain began to translate the instructions to the language of my controller without my having to think about it. I figured out I could mash R1 to cycle through all the nearest interactables just like hitting TAB in Old EverQuest, so I ran around the dark streets of the clockwork city randomly targeting gnomes until finally Nokar showed up on my radar.

 

Luckily, by then I'd also read that you had to BUY the robe off and thank Tunare I had because it was way down the list of things he had for sale and I would never have thought to scroll down that far. I really expected him to know about my quest and just give the damn thing to me for the asking. At least he didn't want any money, which was just as well because I didn't have any.

Before I found him I had a few unscheduled adventures. There's a really annoying bridge over the river that runs right through the middle of town that has a gaping hole in the middle. I jumped over it the first time but on the way back I fell through and landed in the river. 

I couldn't figure out how to swim upwards to get my head out of the water and I couldn't find a way to get out. My breath meter was ticking slowly down to my inevitable death by drowning and I'd reconciled myself to finding out how the death mechanics worked the hard way, when I miraculously swam up a ramp with about two seconds of air left and found myself back on dry land.

That wasn't the only time I fell. I came out of a building one time and stepped in some hole or other to find myself in what I guess must have been the bad part of town, where the Rogues hang out. Probably the Necromancers too, if Klick is anything like Klak. 

One nice thing about EQOA compared to its originator is the naming conventions for NPCs seem to be a lot more comprehensible. Half the NPCs in regular Norrath seem to have been named in the same way gold farmers used to name their throwaways. In truth, they aren't - their names follow some arcane lore rules - but the effect is much the same. 

 

In EQOA, they all have proper names that someone clearly spent some time thinking up. Well, the gnomes do anyway. Can't speak for any of the other races. I found it made the place feel quite cheery.

Before I got my student uniform, I even managed to get a bit of fighting in. My explorations took me out of the city into what I presume must be Steamfont. It was hard to be sure because it was the middle of night. It's always the middle of the night in every game somehow, especially when I want to take screenshots. 

Leaving the safety of the town gave me the chance to see how much more thought had gone into making the game user-friendly than ever went into EQ itself. As soon as I emerged from the city gates a pop-up appeared to warn me I was going to have to think about combat and asking me if I'd like to learn how to equip a weapon.

I said I would and the game proceeded to walk me through Inventory and all the associated tabs, where to find my abilities, how to equip spells and weapons, how to con mobs, how to attack and - crucially - how to run away. I found it all very helpful, particularly when it told me what buttons to press on the controller, even if they weren't always the same buttons I had to press on my controller. At least I knew what I was looking for.

 

Since I was there I thought I might as well have a bash at fighting something. Literally a bash, since I had a stick in my hand. I conned a few things and the lowest was a white (Even) con spider. I chased it and hit it and killed it in a couple of blows. 

Charged up with my victory and figuring if a white con was that easy, how hard could a yellow con be, I took on a yellow-con rat and got my chance to discover how the death mechanic worked after all. I think I did two points of damage to the rat before it killed me in three hits. It'll be a different story when I get my pet. Well, I hope it will...

And I will, too. Get my pet. Now I've finally made my way into this version of Norrath I'm reasonably confident I'll hang around for a while. I've been waiting long enough to visit, after all.

There seemed to be quite a lot of activity. Chat was busy all the time I was there and it was far from peak. My next quest is to find Spiritmaster Lacy and Coachman Rizkar, both of whom I bumped into while I was looking for Nokar. 

The question is, will I ever be able to find them again? 

Marvel's Midnight Suns - First Impressions

One of the more interesting psychological phenomena surrounding gaming is the way multiple options so often collapse into one. It's common to hear people, myself very much included, complaining of choice overload or even choice paralysis but when it comes to gaming, at least, I find the choices mostly make themselves.

For example, I've been droning on about the number of games I've picked up for free and cheap lately, side-eying the much larger collection of freebies I've claimed and never even installed, yet as soon as I got my claws on Marvel's Midnight Suns I knew I was going to play it right away.

Or that was my plan. It didn't quite come off because the download from Epic Games turned out to be  i  n  c  r  e  d  i  b  l  y  slow. Maybe I've been spoiled by Steam and all those F2P gacha games but ninety minutes for a 57Gb download? That's about three times longer than it normally takes me.

Consequently, by the time the thing had squeezed itself down the pipe and gotten itself settled in, it was time for Beryl's late-evening walk and then for bed. I put off playing until this morning and right after breakfast, there I was... stuck in Epic's super-irritating log-in process.

At this point you should have been enjoying a couple of paragraphs of quality ranting as I complained volubly about having to fill in all the same details I filled in twelve hours ago and complete a Captcha puzzle, just to get to the point where I could see the game in my Epic library. I'd written most of it, too, but before I finished, in a spirit of journalistic integrity I thought I'd better log in again to see if I'd remembered all the steps correctly. And stap me if this time it didn't skip the lot and take me straight into the game!

So I guess all the delay was a first-time log-in check and everything I did yesterday must have been a "We see you haven't been here for a while" security check. Or something. Whatever. I'll give them a grudging pass but if it turns out to be a daily identity check after all I'm gonna be pissed.

Moving on, what abut the game? 

Couldn't tell you. Haven't played it yet. I have, however, played through the Tutorial and the following pre-game introduction. It took me seventy-five minutes, give or take. More than enough for a First Impression post. 

Let's do it old school with sub-sections. 

Graphics And Design 

Hmm. Start with a tough one, why not? Good? Bad? Indifferent? As the wits on YouTube like to say in the comments: "Yes".

The character animations are mediocre at best. Some are downright bad. Iron Man (For it is he...) walks bow-legged, like his armor doesn't fit him properly. I had a more scatological phrase in mind to describe what it looks like but I'll spare you. It's unconvincing as articulation and unbecoming of a super-hero, anyway. None of the others are as bad but few, if any, are good. They all look stiff and awkward.

But then, I find myself having a generic problem with the western game animation Firaxis is offering. It looks clunky and old-fashioned compared to everything I've become used to in the anime-style games I mostly seem to have been playing of late. It falls heavily between cinematic realism and cartoon animation, having weight and solidity but precious little fluidity or grace. I mean, it's not terrible and after a while I found myself getting used to it but it's definitely not something you'd gosh-wow over, which is a bar very many games easily leap over nowadays.

The backgrounds are much better and the character designs are very solid, although given they're virtually all specific looks taken verbatim from licensed characters in a very well-known IP it would be more than a little embarrassing if they weren't.  

The overall design aesthetic I liked a lot more. The UI is absolutely minimal, leaving nearly the entire screen clear for the graphics, which makes it even more of a pity they aren't better, I guess, but which is very welcome all the same. Every time a new major character appears the game pauses and a flash card appears to tell you who they are, along with sarcastic or amusing comment. I found that rather more entertaining than it probably should have been but then I've known most of these characters a very long time.

Character And Plot

Since it's come up... In my long experience of Marvel comics, the writers only really have two settings: portentous and overblown or snarky and flip. Back in the days when I kept up, it was fairly simple to sort the entire roster of heroes - and most of their supporting casts - into one or other of those bins. Of course, one of the company's supposed USPs was always crossing those streams, often in the same story and sometimes with the same character, but almost everyone and everything reverted to one or other as a default.

The MCU, by and large, followed the same formula, back when I was paying attention, from the first Iron Man movie to Avengers: Endgame, which came out in 2019 (God... really? Seems like it was about six months ago...). Marvel's Midnight Suns (The prefix is part of the official name, by the way.) came out in 2022 but it feels like it's cut from the same spandex. If the tone of the movies has changed in the last few years, I wouldn't know but there's no sign of it here.

The movies were characterized by a never-ending torrent of one-liners and this game is the same. Tony Stark is particularly prone to bad dad jokes and Stephen Strange constantly sends himself up with a series of very pretentious pronouncements that neither the rest of the cast nor the player could possibly take at face value. It's all quite meta and post-modern in a way that I thought went out of fashion a decade or more ago but it plays to my sense of humor so I'm fine with it. I imagine it would drive some people to want to throw the monitor out the window, though.

The plot, what little I've seen of it so far, is one of those standard Some Bad Guys Just Summoned An Even Badder Guy And The World Will Come To An End Unless You Do Something About It affairs. In this case the bad guys are HYDRA, which has to be one of the most generic bad guy organizations in the history of comics; the badder guy is Lilith, who I think comes from Ghost Rider/Blade/Morbius continuity and is little more than a name to me. Other than that, not much of a storyline has developed yet, beyond needing to stop things getting worse.

 

The cast is interesting, to me anyway. As a long-time reader, I knew who most of them were immediately. Iron Man and Dr. Strange, obviously, but also The Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel, Blade, Magik; all characters I know either very well or well-enough. 

More intriguing were the ones I thought I ought to know but couldn't quite place - Nico Minoru and Robbie Reyes in particular. I had to look them both up and it turns out I was fifty per cent right - I knew one of them, not the other. Nico is a graduate of The Runaways - not the band, sadly, but the teen supergroup, whose TV show I watched and several of whose comic collections I own. Should have been able to peg her.

The other turns out to be an incarnation of Ghost Rider. I have never been a fan of the skull-headed biker and I certainly don't know this alternate version. Even if I did, I might not have realized who he was because the original Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, features prominently in the introductory sequence. Why (And indeed how.) the both of them are in the same reality is, I assume, a plot point yet to be revealed.

All of which tells you a good deal about who this game is meant to appeal to: people already steeped in the mythology and the backstory. Everything refers back to something else. It's all lore and history from the opening scene and I'm betting that won't stop until the closing credits. If you're not at least curious to figure out how it all fits together then I'm guessing it's not the game for you. Obviously, it works for me, even though I'm much more of a DC fan than Marvel.

Character Creation

I was surprised to find there was any. It hadn't even occurred to me I'd be asked to make a character. I assumed I'd be playing the regulars. And indeed I will - there are a dozen playable heroes plus another four in DLC - but you do get to do some minimal cosmetic work on a character I'd never heard of before - The Hunter. 

The rationale for that is quite clever. Dr Strange, The Caretaker (Another new one on me - I had to look her up and among other things she was Agatha Harkness's lover so she might even have been in Wandavision...) and Nico between them manage to resurrect Lilith's daughter (Stop me if you're lost...) but before they really get into the necromantic action The Caretaker suggests it might be a good idea to know what she looks like. 

That's when the game drops you into Character Creation. It was about forty minutes in for me. There's very little to it - Body Type, Skin Tone, Hair Color and Style and I think that's about all. I did manage to get someone I didn't mind looking at so that was fine. It's not as if I get to "play" her in any meaningful sense anyway. She's just another scripted character as far as I can tell, so far, anyway.

Gameplay: Combat

This is where it gets good. Not the rest of it is bad but what I was looking for was a compelling-yet-simple tactical RPG and that looks to be what I'm going to get. It's a card-based system. I keep seeing comparisons to Slay The Spire and similar titles, none of which I've played so I can't comment on whether those are valid. To me, it feels quite similar to Wizard 101 or maybe even more so to Pirate 101.

Everything is turn-based and represented by a bunch of three-dimensional characters, none of whom move or do anything until it's their go, which immediately removes all immersion and turns the whole thing into almost a virtual table-top game. Exactly what I was looking for. 

The tutorial is very good. How refreshing to be able to say that. The interface is intuitive, the controls are obvious and the necessary details on what each action does are there in front of you. It helps that I already know what most of these characters are good at but for those that I don't know, all the information needed is close to hand.

Since it's a superhero game, there needs must be lots of explosions, force rays and people punching other people through walls, all of which there certainly is. One of the generic problems with turn-based games is that you end up having to watch the same animations hundreds of times, so things that seemed spectacular at the start make you want to put your fist through the screen by the end. Where this stands on that spectrum it's far too early to say but I'd already seen more than enough of Iron Man's repulsor blasts by the end of the Tutorial.

Fortunately, with so many playable characters, it should at least be possible to take a break from the most annoying ones. I hope. I'm certainly looking forward to finding out because the combat is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

Gameplay: Out Of Combat

Can't really say. This was apparently what scuppered the game on release, when a lot of people took quite strongly against whatever it is you have to do to get from one set-piece fight to the next. 

So far, I've watched a lot of cut scenes, most of which were okay but nothing special, and had to pick a handful of dialog options, all of which looked like flavor to me. There's also an element of not-very-open world play, where you walk from one part of a non-combat instance to another to find someone you have to talk to or to go through a portal to somewhere else. Again, that seemed fine, nothing special but nothing awful either.

There's a big castle where everyone either lives or is staying for the duration of the crisis. You can pick your missions there although so far I've had a selection of exactly one so choice didn't really come into it. I believe you can also wander around and do... something. No idea what, yet, although the Wikipedia entry mentions sparring, upgrading cards and other practicalities.

I'm guessing the problematic part comes at night, when "players can interact with other heroes, or participate in a "Hangout" or a "club meeting". Sounds good until you learn it involves finessing how much other characters like you by giving them gifts and talking morality with them. That was literally the mechanic that made me stop playing the original Dragon Age mid-story and never go back to the franchise, so I can see what the problem might be. 

But that's a problem for another day. Haven't even got through the first yet. I'll update my thoughts on the "social elements" when I get to see them. As for the fighting - which is what I came for - looking good so far!

Welcome Back. Now Get To Work!

It's a testament both to the compulsive pull of survival game mechanics and the specific way they've been implemented in Once Human that, despite having other things I'd rather have been doing, and despite the glorious sunshine streaming through my window, I just spent the last two hours making a new character and playing through the early stages of the game, as far as Deadville. I only meant to log in for maybe ten or fifteen minutes to get some screenshots of the Returning Player rewards for a post but things kind of spiralled, in what I suppose I ought to see as a good way.

It was fun, anyhow. I mean, it wasn't very productive. I could much more usefully have spent the two hours tidying the house or starting to get the garden back in shape or working on another music video or just taking Beryl out for a walk in the sunshine (Although she wouldn't have thanked me for that, having had one walk already and not being the most active of dogs...)

I didn't do any of that, though. Instead I spent the first fifteen minutes finishing making my new character, having already spent half an hour on her last night. I already knew I was in trouble, even then. 

There's a handy Save option for appearance so I didn't have to start over from the beginning. I was trying to get a character that didn't look like my other one, which is why I ended up with someone with blue hair and a big scar. The problem as always is that if I don't feel right about a character from the start I'm very unlikely to keep playing them and the range of looks that make feel comfortable is quite narrow. If i make anyone that doesn't look quite a lot like all the other characters I make in all the other games, chances are I won't stick with them.

That braid is going to have to go. And you need to dye your hair...

I think I did alright with this one. She feels like I know her a little already. I certainly know the opening tutorial by now, having played through it at least half a dozen times. It's very good but it's not short. Even tabbing through all the dialog it took me about twenty minutes to get through.

And that's not the only reason it turns out coming back to Once Human isn't quite as simple as Starry would like to have you believe. This dev team has always had the most back-assward, over-complicated way of doing things and that hasn't changed a jot. I notice the game now has a Mostly Positive rating on Steam, which seems quite appropriate. I'm all but certain if they'd made the choices at the start that they've slowly and grudgingly made over the course of the first year, that rating would be Very Positive instead but they like to do everything the hard way.

All I was trying to do was get the rewards and take some pictures so my first choice was to log in my one existing character and claim them with her. I was also looking forward to moving her to the new scenario that allows access to the full map, the original areas plus those added in the Way of Winter. My further plans would then have been to stay on that server indefinitely, now the option to do so exists.

Except it doesn't. Not yet. Here's a detailed explanation of how it works now and how it's going to work later. Even after a competent journalist has gone through the whole thing and reframed it in clear, concise terms, I still find it confusing. 

Gimme the good stuff!

As far as I can tell, you have to pick a server and play through whatever Scenario it's running up to the end, when you would normally be forced to leave. That usually takes around six weeks or so. When it  happens, you still get kicked to Eternaland as always but, after kicking your heels there for a couple of hours, you can indicate you'd like to go back to where you came from, rather than choosing a new server or Scenario as you always had to before.

Once you're back where you started, you just need to make sure you log in at least once a month to avoid being kicked off the server for good. Later in the year that grace time will be extended to once every six months. 

All well and good but my character didn't have server to go back to. She's been in the limbo of Eternaland since before Christmas, which was when I last logged in. 

No problem. I just needed to pick a new Scenario and go from there. So I looked for the one where the whole map was open and... I couldn't find one. For a very good reason: one doesn't exist... yet. 

The full map will only be available with the "Endless Dream" Scenario, which is due to arrive "this year". It seems I've come back a tad early. Oh, well...

The jacket is some kind of reward too but for what I'm not sure.

Also, I ought to mention that the Endless Dream seems like it might be more of an endless nightmare:

"You might find yourself engulfed in darkness or afflicted with strange vulnerabilities—becoming unusually weak, flammable, or even explosive."

That wasn't quite what I had in mind when I envisaged a permanent server I could call home for the foreseeable future. Even so, if that's what it takes...

For the time being, though, I've gone very much the opposite way in my return to the game: E-Z Mode.

I looked at all the available Scenarios and decide that if I was going to start over, I might as well do it properly. So I re-rolled on a Novice server. 

I hadn't seen much point making new characters before, what with having to start over from scratch every couple of months anyway, but things have changed. Not only can we now have as many as ten characters on a single account (I seem to remember it was just one to begin with and then it was three but don't quote me on that.), they now all share a number of benefits on an Account-held basis, not just currencies but also blueprints, mods, accessories and most importantly - cosmetics.

No more wandering around for days with no pants! No more looking like Jethro from the Beverley Hillbillies in your full Rustic crafted gear! As soon as I got past the introduction and into the game proper I got a series of pop-ups telling me all the shared stuff I was now entitled to use and the first thing I did was give my new character a new look.

Aww! Now we can't see your blue rinse.

And what that made me realize was that I've never put nearly enough effort into finding or buying cosmetics. There didn't seem to be all that much point before; once I get a look I like, I tend to stick with it so there's not a lot of point building up an extensive wardrobe. Now, though, I can have as many as ten looks I like and stick with all of them.

I'm probably not going to go that far but I am re-motivated to go hunting for new things to wear and I'm very happy to know I can do it on my high-level character, where it will be relatively easy, and my low-level characters will reap the benefits. 

There doesn't appear to be any limit to the number of times you can share things or to the number of characters who can use them, either, although presumably once currency is spent by anyone, it's gone. I ought to check if two characters can wear the same hat at the same time, I guess. I'll try and remember to test that next time I log in.

And that will be soon, I imagine, partly because I had a really good time playing again this morning but also because some of those Welcome Back rewards are time-limited until you complete a Reward track to make them permanent.

I have fifteen days to do that. Will I? 

Well, let's just say one of the rewards is that giant cat I used to have, right back at the start. I've always wanted that back.

Oh My Ears And Tail!

Today saw the opening of character creation for the revamped/retro/classic version of Blade&Soul - Blade&Soul Neo. NCSoft are really working the publicity levers for this one. Anyone would think it was a new game, not just a reskinned old one.

I love character creators, easpecially the newer, super-duper, glitzy ones with the sliders and the lighting and all. It has crossed my mind occasionally to wonder whether an enterprising studio might not do quite well with a game that was pretty much nothing but character creation, a cosmetic cash shop and a few multiplayer locations where people could parade around, showing off. If it was glam enough, I'm not at all sure you'd need an actual game to go with it...

The original Blade&Soul's character creator was probably one of the earlier tweak-heavy models I tried although certainly not the first.I was a little late to that party. B&S came out in 2012 but I didn't try it until four years later, when it launched in the West. 

By then I'd seen plenty of fancy character creation suites but I was still quite impressed:

"Character Creation is equally well-designed. Very easy to follow, plenty of choice, lots of presets, no sliders. Classes seem to be locked to races. Didn't notice if they're also locked to gender. I went Summoner because That Cat which means I am the cute, small race. Win!"

That's what I said first time around. No sliders, I notice. I didn't like sliders back then. Luckily I'm softer on them now because the new character creation options have plenty.

 

Classes are still locked to races, something I'm broadly in favor of, unfashionable though it may be. Of course, I'd probably think differently if the class I wanted to play was locked to a race I didn't like. Gender-locking classes would be a lot less acceptable but it's not happening so forget I mentioned it. Then again, one of the races is gender locked to all-female...

There are four races in B&S but I'd have to look them up to tell you what they are. I do remember they all have very short, one-syllable names but that's about it. I didn't spend much time on them because, as far as I could see, there were three flavors of vanilla human (Can you have flavors of vanilla?) and one human-with-animal-attributes.

In 2016, I chose the least-obviously human option and it won't surprise anyone to hear I just did the same again. There is a slightly different-than-expected reason for that. I mean, yes, if a race has ears and a tail I'm always going to favor it, that's a given, but in this case only the Lyn (That's the name of the animal-inflected race.) can be Summoners and Summoners are the only ones who get combat pets. 

I was sure I wanted to play a Summoner, even if it meant I'd be replicating my character from the old game. I could literally have cloned her - I still have the saved file from character creation nine years ago. I didn't find that out until the end, though, by which time I was emotionally committed to the new character I'd just created.

I might still use the clone option for one of the two remaining character slots, just for the appearance, not the class. You get three slots but only one can be filled pre-launch. Since the old game isn't going away, though, and since I still have my existing character there, I'll probably just play her there, if I feel like seeing her again.

 

When B&SNeo arrives next Tuesday (On the same day the Stars Reach Kickstarter goes live - I wonder which debut will draw the more interest?) I plan on starting over from the beginning. I haven't even taken the option to skip the three-level tutorial. If I'm going to play again, I'd like to refresh my memory of the plot, which I seem to remember has a fairly complicated opening.

Following on from the notes I gave myself at the end of yesterday's post. I'm not at all convinced the Summoner is the best class I could have chosen. Pet classes have historically been preferred for soloing, it's true, but the guidance you get in character creation clearly points to this one being best-suited as a support character. That strongly suggests it's intended for group play and there's not much chance I'll be engaging in any of that.

Maybe I'll make something else when the game starts. On the other hand, I seem to remember doing just fine with the Summoner last time. If it ain't broke, as they say...

As far as looks go, there have been comments, as there often are with "imported" MMORPGs, that the character models and outfits are over-sexualised. This is hard to deny when you first enter character creation. The default appearances are somewhat risqué and that's not even mentioning the "jiggle-physics". 

I'm happy to say that's a feature mercifully absent from the diminutive Lyn, although their childlike appearance brings up awkward issues of its own. Fortunately, if you use the "Outfit" toggle, you'll find that just about every clothing set on offer is perfectly respectable. Once properly dressed, as they are in the illustrations for this post, I'd say the characters almost qualify as "demure". 

I'm not sure if I'll end up with the same look when I log into the game for the first time. A lot of MMORPGs have a nasty habit of showing your character wearing clothes in character creation that they won't see in game for a long time. I think most of the outfits in B&S were tied to storyline or quest progression. Looking back at my old posts, though, my character seems to be decently covered-up in pretty much every shot, so it should be fine.

I was actually a lot more concerned about her ears and tail, anyway. And her hairstyle. There are so many great choices. I found it very hard to settle on just one. It does seem a shame to have such a huge variety of looks available but then to be limited to a mximum of three character slots to make the most of them.

Presumably there's some sort of in-game option to change looks but I always have an existential problem altering anything other than my characters' hair, clothes, accessories or make-up. Swapping body parts is a step too far for my suspension of disbelief, even in a magic-rich world so I'll be stuck with the ears and tail I started with.

Or maybe not. We'll see. I'm increasingly of the opinion that I need to get over myself on some of these self-imposed rules, many of which date back to old, unchallenged assumptions from my pen-and-paper roleplaying days. Those, scary though it is to think it, ended almost forty years ago. It's probably time I moved on.

The real benefit of making a character now, other than being able to get straight on with playing the game the moment it arrives, is that character creation also allows you to reserve your name. It's a bit of a moot point for me since I'll lay good odds no-one would have thought of the one I've gone with anyway. I very rarely have any problems getting the names I want for the very simple reason no-one else wants them.

It's done now, anyway. Should I want to hit the ground running on Tuesday, I can. I won't, of course, if only for the very good reason that I'm working Tuesday and I probably won't play any games at all, not even in the evening. And then on Wednesday I have something else on so maybe not then, either.

Thursday, though... that might be the day!

Throne And Liberty - First Impressions - Of A Kind...

Before we begin, just in case you came here from Google Search looking for some kind of useful information about the game, I do apologize. That's not really what we do here...

After an extremely lengthy and repetitive installation process that seemed to go on forever, I finally got in and played some Throne and Liberty last night. Just over three hours of it, according to Steam, although it didn't feel that long, which might mean I enjoyed myself.

On the other hand it, it might just be that I was zipping through the parts I'd already done back in open beta at such a pace it felt like a lot less time had passed than the clock would have showed. Shown... Shewn...?

Hang on... what's the past participle of "To show"? Let me ask Gemini...

Well, there you go. I get these moments of existential doubt sometimes. Doesn't everyone? How fortunate we are that our AI overlords allies are here to help. 

Although I'm not quite sure I like the way it's corrected my capitalization. That seems a bit cocky. Reminds me of Dirk Bogarde in "The Servant". Not a good sign.

Popular game is popular.

Well, this isn't going the way I thought it would. Shall we see if we can get it back on track? Or shall we just sit here talking to ourselves in the second person plural like some kind of experimental novel?

Does anyone really enjoy experimental novels? The kind that come in a box with all the pages loose so you can read them in any order? Or ones where the author has managed a hundred thousand words without once using the letter "e"?  

I know a couple of people who claim to read that sort of thing for pleasure but I can't stick them, myself. The novels, that is, not the people who like them. Although...

I'm all for being pretentious but there are limits. I was reading Stuart Lee in the bathroom a few minutes ago and he described Tarka the Otter as an experimental novel for adults that Puffin repackaged as a children's book in the 1970s, which goes a long way to explaining why I gave up on the damn thing when I tried to read it in my teens.

Speaking of otters, I think you can be one in Throne and Liberty. There are "travel forms" you can morph into, "morph" being the verb employed in the game for the process which, in keeping with all such events in every game, is never explained. It's just magic, I suppose.

I have three travel forms so far: wolf for running, hawk for flying and otter. (Or at least something that looks like an otter although, for reasons that also go unexplained, it appears to be wearing a hat.) I'm guessing the otter is for swimming but since I haven't been in the water yet I can't say for sure.

If you'd just switch the lights on, we could appreciate the stitching.

I like travel forms as a rule. I think my first experience with them must have been in EverQuest, where druids get a spell that lets them change into wolves. Being a wolf in Norrath confers a number of advantages besides letting you run faster. 

I mean, that's a given, given the name of the iconic spell: Spirit of Wolf aka SoW or more often "Can I get a SoW?", the cry so frequently heard in any public space where crowds gather in preparation for adventure, but being a wolf in EQ also makes some people like you more. And others less but swings/roundabouts.

When I get back to Throne and Liberty (I'd have used the name of the world where it takes place there, if I'd known what it was. I wonder if Gemini knows?

Okay, come on! You have to admit it. That's useful. I know I could have googled it to get the same result but isn't it neater to ask a straight question and get a straight answer? Of course it would be better if the answer was right...¹)

I left a sentence hanging up there, didn't I? I haven't forgotten. I'll start that part over. 

When I get back to Arcion (See? That's better, isn't it?) I'll have to see if I can't find some water to jump in so I can try the otter-form out. I wonder how many travel forms there are in the game? Not nearly as many as there are in AdventureQuest 3D, I bet. There are dozens of them there.

I think I look pretty badass. But then, I would...

So, anyway, other than running around as a wolf, which is always fun, what else did I find to do in Arcion? (Now I know what the place is called you can bet I'm going to make the most of it.)

Mostly questing so far, as you'd expect. I haven't really bothered to read up much about T&L but I have a general idea from things I've heard that it's a very group-oriented game. Unsurprisingly, that restriction has yet to get in my way. It's early days. I'm still getting tutorial tips.

Before I could begin, of course, I had to make a character. That was fun. I do like character creation. It's a game in itself these days, isn't it?

Hold that thought. I have to stop now and drive to another city to drop off Mrs. Bhagpuss's annual accounts at the accountants, which makes it sound way more grand than it really is. Then we're going to give Beryl a walk and maybe have lunch - it's a beautiful day - so I'm going to have to pick this up when I get back. 

Maybe I'll be in a less self-indulgent mood then. I'll probably read this back and delete most of it so you'll only be reading this if you're in a different timeline, one where that didn't happen.

And I'm back. Had a lovely walk, saw some impressive goats, ate a very large ice-cream. Good times.

We're all still here so I guess I didn't split the timeline. Always a consideration. Also I read the above back and it seemed pretty spry so I'm gonna carry on. Where was I? Oh yes...

So I made a character and almost fell into the same trap as last time. Nearly ended up with someone who looks like the first cousin of the first NPC you meet, which would be a bit like wearing the same frock to a party. Embarrassing!

I'd love to say I remembered and caught myself in time but in fact it was only when I got into the game and the person in question came running up that it all came back to me. Fortunately, I'd already gone for a goth-gamine-tomboy look just very slightly askew from my norm so it all worked out fine.

After that I sped through the tutorials as fast as possible. It's amazing how it comes back to you. If you'd asked me ahead of time to recap my adventures in open beta I would have stared at you blankly but every step and most of the dialog drifted up from somewhere, just a beat ahead, as I clicked through for the second time.

It took me more than an hour and a half to get back to where I left off last time, which was the bit where you have to make bait to lure wolves for the annual wolf-killing competition and then get the wolf-bits to make the trophy you get for killing the most wolves (Except, as it turns out, you don't, because they stopped giving them out years ago.).

I felt a bit odd, running through packs of wolves as a wolf, killing them and stealing their teeth, but that's the way of things in magic-land.

Last time I did it, I stopped after I'd made the bait and gotten a drunken dwarf with a really unconvincing accent (Although not, for once, a Scottish one - or at least I hope that's not what it's meant to be.) to make me a couple of fake trophies. It seemed fair enough for the trophies to be fakes since I hadn't even entered the competition, let alone won it.

A dwarf with Imposter Syndrome. That's new.

It was around there, somewhere, that I felt things were getting a little meta but I hadn't seen anything yet. At the risk of spoilers, although it's one of the first quests in the game so it's probably exempt in under the ten-minute rule (Which I just made up so don't bother googling it. Or asking an AI.) the quest carries on for a fair old while, bringing in hallucinations, visions, time-travel and who knows what-all else until it turns out you're the mysterious hero who saved all those children a decade ago. 

Or something. Don't look at me. I didn't write it. I could barely follow it.

It's all quite confusing and honestly not really as bad as I'm making it sound. It was fine. By the standards of MMORPG questing, that is. Which, let's not kid ourselves, are not all that high.

I'm extremely wary of raising expectations that are bound to be disappointed but the quality of both writing and voice acting in Wuthering Waves have spoiled me for these kinds of quests. I think I would have been moderately impressed with this one a couple of years ago and I still think it's more than decent for the genre but standards have risen.

Or my tastes have changed. Or both. 

I don't think there's much doubt about the voice acting, though. It is not great. At least, not in these early stages. Maybe it improves later. That happens, sometimes.

It's not actually bad. Just not very engaging. If I had to guess I'd say it was a lack of direction more than any fault of the actors themselves.

Down in one! Down in one!

There are exceptions. I liked Chris, Dave's pal. He was good. The voice actor seemed to be having some fun and putting the effort in, which is more than I could say for some of them. 

I was predisposed towards him just because he was called Chris, though, to be fair. I liked there being two nobles called Dave and Chris. (Dave wasn't as convincing.) It made a nice change from all the Lord Evertrues, Ragnar Bloodswords and Lentensip Fentonworps we usually run into in these things. 

That quest chain itself was quite long. I think it probably took me the best part of an hour. By the time I
finished it (Plus all the other tutorial tasks.) I was Level 12. 

It mostly involved a lot of running around, plenty of chatter and a good deal of fighting. All the fighting was easy even though I had no idea what any of my abilities did. I could have stopped and read the tool tips but I wanted to get on. Anyway, button-mashing seemed to be more than up to the task.

Apart from the two tutorials showing me how to craft and upgrade weapons and armor, I made absolutely no effort to improve myself from the moment I stepped into the world. I kept getting messages telling me I had new abilities or I could upgrade the old ones but I didn't bother. 

I made a nice hat and a sword and then annoyingly I got another hat as a quest reward. Other than that, when I dinged 12 I was still wearing the same clothes I started with.

I'm guessing at some point I'll have to buckle down and make sense of what looks like a very fussy and over-complicated gear-and-skill system but so long as I can get away with not bothering, that's what I plan to do. I find it unlikely that I'll stick with Throne and Liberty for long, especially if those rumors about needing to guild and group up are true, but I'm not done yet. I had fun last night, though, and I'm quite keen to carry on and have some more today.

If nothing else, the world is extremely pretty to look at and I quite like the character I'm playing, which is always key. Whether that will be enough to hold my attention for more than a few sessions I somewhat doubt. As I keep complaining, if complaining is the right word, which it's not, there's a lot going on in gaming just now. T&L is going to have to dig some pretty sharp claws in to hang on to my custom and the no money at all it's worth. 

I doubt it can but I'm going to expose myself a little longer to give it the chance. It seems like the polite thing to do. They are giving the game away for free, after all. It would be rude not to play it for a while.

^{1. [The actual name of the world in Throne and Liberty is Solisium.]↩}1.

Nightingale: Realms Rebuilt - First Impressions

So, who's up for some more First Impressions posts on Nightingale then? Nobody? Tough luck! They're coming. Why, look! Here's one now!

I think it's fair enough. The Realms Rebuilt update is about as close to a relaunch as you get in live games - the cute callback to Final Fantasy XIV's "A Realm Reborn" being no co-incidence - so a re-review is entirely justified.

There's supposed to be a whole raft of entirely new content but as yet I've seen almost none of it so this is going to be a very first impression: character creation, the opening scenario and the basic tutorial up to the point when Puck (For it is he.) deems you ready to step into the first new, handcrafted, story-rich realm. 

That's about it so far, even though Steam tells me I've played for just over three hours, which seems really high. It felt more like two but I don't think it was because the gameplay was so scintillating the hours just zipped by. The difference is more likely accounted for by the length of time it took me to get my "old" character copied to the offline client. It looks as though Steam was counting every minute of that little escapade.

Anyone got a torch?

I could easily fill a whole post with all the fuss and bother but I don't see why anyone else should have to suffer, even vicariously. All I'll say is that the process is convoluted and messy and really ought to have been made much simpler. It does at least work, though, so there's that.

After I'd managed to get my character successfully transferred to what's now known as "Legacy Mode", the client-based, offline version of the former game that will never receive any more updates, I found myself wondering why I'd bothered. I stopped playing that character because I'd lost interest in what there was left to do in the game. If there's never going to be anything else, why should I care if I can still play that version of the game or not?

I guess the reason rests in those hundred-plus hours I spent there. It just seems wasteful to throw it all away. I might not ever play that character again but I'll probably log her in now and then just to say Hi so I appreciate that Inflexion took the trouble to make that possible. They very easily could have not bothered. This is still Early Access, after all. Wipes were always a possibility. I'm sure it'll be in the EULA somewhere.

Once I had my past safely archived, I swapped back to the present (And maybe the future.) with the regular client, something that was also more awkward than it should have bee. I suspect that's a function of Steam that Inflexion can't do a lot about, though. It looks like they've had to finesse thngs just to get two versions of the game up at the same time. Legacy Mode is masquerading as a beta. 

Then I set about making a new character. That took a while but not for any problematic reasons.

They shall not pass! For a given value of "they", that is.

I couldn't see much different in character creation but I thought I probably ought to go back and refresh my memory by reading what I said last time. Just about everything I said then applies now so I won't rehash it all except to say I still have no clue why there's all that rigmarole about birthdays and ancestors. It never did seem to mean anything but it's all still there. 

Whether it will have any added significance in the new, narrative-focused Nightingale I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I bet it doesn't, though. It looks to me like someone's clever idea they just won't give up on even though it never quite went anywhere. Kill your darlings. It's sound advice.

There was one thing that went differently this time but it was entirely by chance. The first step in character creation gives you a basic face to work with and the one I got reminded me a little of Sabrina Teitelbaum (Aka Blondshell, if you want to go the Blondie/Debbie Harry singer-is-the-band route.) It might just have been because I watched the Deceptacon video from Friday's post immediately before I logged in. Or possibly it was because I'd watched it about half a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. Not that I'm obsessed with it or anything...

Whatever the reason, I decided I'd try to make my character look as much like her as possible, which took a while. I couldn't get the chin right - there just didn't seem to be a slider that would do it - and none of the longer hair styles came with a central parting but overall I wasn't displeased with the final result. 

My photo-reference and the final result. That's the closest together the eyes will go, the roundest I could get the chin and one of only two longer hairstyles available, neither of which has a central parting. I actually forgot about the eyebrows altogether and the eyes ought to be a darker blue. Other than that...

I did consider naming her Sabrina Teitelbaum, which would be an excellent name for a Nightingale character, given it sounds like it is one already, but I thought that really might be crossing a line . So I called her Califa Mortensen instead. She looks both Californian and Scandinavian so it seemed to fit.

Once that was all sorted out, I logged in and found myself in a very dark cave. I don't remember it  from the original game but I suppose it might have been there. If it was, though, it must have been a lot better-lit because I definitely don't remember being completely blind at the start of the game. I couldn't see a bloody thing!

Puck, our unreliable narrator with the orotund vowels, popped up and told me to follow the sound of his voice but then he immediately stopped talking, which I thought was very unlike him. I blundered around in the dark trying to find where he'd gone, got jumped by a bunch of Bound (Zombies to the uninitiated.), got confused in the dark trying to turn around in the narrow corridors to fight them off and promptly got clawed to death. 

Not the most encouraging of starts but possibly not entirely unintended either, given what happened next. After I'd revived, exacted revenge on my killers and managed through sheer luck to stumble into Puck, he pointed me at a portal he told me would take me out of the cave. Thank god! Daylight at last!

Don't tempt me...

Yeah... nope.  I was very annoyed to find myself ported to somewhere just as gloomy if not more so. I was about to curse all developers who think darkness equals atmosphere when Puck handed me a card and told me to put it in the machine next to him. I did as he said and suddenly the gloom vanished, the sky turned blue and the sun came out.

Granted, it was an impressive piece of scene-setting and a clever way to demonstrate how cards can be used to change the environment but was it worth fifteen minutes of frustration in the dark? I don't think so. If this was a brand-new game I might well have consigned it to the recycle bin before I got to the punchline.

That said, it seems quite likely that the cave isn't supposed to be quite as dark as I found it. A while later, when I reached the settlement where the NPCs stand around waiting to hand out the missions, I was more than somewhat irked to find they'd chosen another subterranean pit of gloom to hang out in. They gave me some spiel about it being safer down there but it cut no ice with me.

Those caves were even darker than the last lot, so dark I literally couldn't see where to go. I couldn't even see the steps leading down. Frustration sent me to the Settings to see if there was anything I could do to make it lighter. 

I wasn't expecting much joy there. I haven't seen a gamma slider in a very long time. But Nightingale has one.

Gamma to the max.

I slammed it all the way to the right and suddenly I could see normally again. I think that's probably what underground is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, when I emerged from the cavern back into the sunlight it was like someone had let off a magnesium flare in my face so I had to push the slider a ways back to the left again. I suspect that slider is going to be doing a lot of work in the days ahead.

Lighting aside, the rest of the visuals seemed much the same. Character models stil feel slightly off and no-one seems to have thought about adding any idling animations yet, which sometimes makes me feel I'm looking at a very clever automaton rather than an actual human being. 

There was some evidence of the new, hand-crafted scenery off in the distance but the bits I was walking around in felt very familiar. The game now sets you down in an Abeyance realm, meaning it's relatively safe to go exploring. It's a large zone with a lot of points of interest marked on the map, so I guess if you wanted to go off script and ignore the story prompts you could settle down and amuse yourself there for quite a while.

Speaking of the map, it seems to have had a quality-of-life pass. There's annotation now to tell you what some of the POIs are for, not just where they are. It also has the relevant locations for at least some of the missions marked on it.

I know where the bodies are buried.

The first thing the new main questline asks you to do is go find some tools. They're all handily marked on the map but since they're also all right next to the only obvious path that isn't quite the boon it first seems. There are a dozen "treasures" you're supposed to go find as well, which I thought, somewhat goulishly, were going to be on the corpses of Realmwalkers who didn't make it home. They're actually just lying about and they're all marked on the map too, or they appear there once you get the quest. It's defintely an improvement

Everything I've done so far has been pretty much a tutorial and at these very early stages it's all been extremely straightforward. Puck pretty much tells you he isn't going to let you go anywhere until you've learned the absolute basics so that's what I've been doing. Gathering mats, making tools, claiming a base. All the traditional tropes of the genre.

As I said the last time, the basic survival gameplay loop is pretty much bullet-proof by now. If you ever enjoyed it at all, chances are you'll enjoy it again, whenever and wherever you encounter it. It's obvious why these games have been so overwhelmingly successful - they pare that old Skinner Box/Dopamine hit combo down to its core and then absolutely ladle it on. It just works, at a back-brain level that's very hard to resist.

The last thing you'd call it, though, would be exciting. Compelling, immersive, addictive, any of those but thrilling, exhillarating, surprisng? Nope. Not a chance.

Maybe a little more of this, a little less "Go pick up that second-hand mining pick"?

The original introduction, as I remember it, did go a little further in that direction. I seem to recall Puck instilling some sense of urgency into the process as he insisted you experience all three major biomes before choosing one to settle down in. I seem to remember there being some actual plot and an element of danger that did something to pull me into the game.

There's none of that here. This time it's all far more streamlined and considerably less intense. I spent a couple of hours doing pretty much nothing and it's clear I could double or treble that without gettin the feeling I'm going to miss out on anything important or that anything rests on my getting my act together.

Maybe Nightingale is going to re-pitch itself as some kind of cosy base-builder. It certainly has the chops for it. Or maybe once I follow Puck's next instruction and cross the Abeyance realm in search of a way out into the Realms the narrative will pick up pace and I'll start to feel like something's actually happening. 

As for the structural changes, I'm not wholly on top of all of them as yet. I haven't encountered any of the new pets, for example, just the good old dachsund, who I made it a priority to invite into my home. (No sign of my old Twitch drop dog or any of my other Twitch rewards, though. I asume those didn't make it through to the New Nightingale.)

As for the crafting revamp, rather baldly re-badged as "Progression", it seems like a sideways move at best but maybe it'll grow on me. It is certainly a lot tidier and better-presented but also quite a bit less evocative. The original may have been chaotic but it also felt aspirational. This new one looks a bit too much like a work schedule for my tastes.

An example from the new crafting Progression tree.

I think they must also have done away with the system whereby you had to visit all kinds of NPCs scattered throughout the realms to buy most of the blueprints. Now it looks like all of that happens in the UI which, once again, is a lot tidier and more convenient but also considerably less interesting.

The one new addition I was really keen to try out doesn't appear to be available at this early stage of the game at all. I couldn't find the "Glamour Station", the new device that lets you swap the stats of one piece of gear onto the look of another (So you don't have to go around looking like one of those scarecrows even Wurzel Gummidge wouldn't be seen with.) anywhere in the Progression tree at all. [Edit: I found it! It's in the Structures tab, Tier Two. It requires a whole bunch of stuff I won't be able to get for quite a while but it's a worthwhile goal to aim for.]

There seems to be very little information available as yet but from the little I was able to glean I have the impression it relies on tokens dropped by mobs, which seems like an unecessary complication. Changing your appearance seems like something that really ought to be a UI option.

Anyway, there's no need to speculate further on things I haven't had the chance to try out for myself yet. I already know I'm going to be carrying on with the game. It feels both familiar and fresh, which is a nice combination. I wasn't expecting to be playing Nightingale again but it looks like that's what's going to happen.

If I do, you can expect to read about it here. You can take that as either a threat or a promise. Up to you!