Recent reviews by Twilight Nightingale

I've been a dedicated player of Neverwinter for over 10 years between here and with the original arc client, though I don't recommend this game. The story is nice and the combat system is the gold standard that has helped keep this game alive for so long, but I've observed certain trends in the game's development that have left me increasingly frustrated and disappointed. The development team is more focused on making changes that benefit themselves rather than enhancing the player experience.

One notable concern is the way class balancing is handled. Instead of buffing under performing classes to bring them up to par with the others, they seem to be on a mission to nerf everything until every class plays similarly and frankly this becomes boring. Additionally, advanced techniques that players discover and enjoy seem to be regularly dismissed as "unintended gameplay." These techniques often add depth and challenge to the game, but they are frequently removed, leaving players with a less engaging experience. This approach kills the diversity and excitement that different classes and playstyles should bring to the game.

What's even more disheartening is the apparent prioritization of fixing bugs that make classes stronger while ignoring those that make them weaker. Bugs that benefit players seem to be addressed promptly, while issues that negatively impact the gaming experience tend to linger for years and in some cases never get fixed. For example, the long-standing shield bug, which has plagued the game for years, still isn't fixed. Despite repeated assurances on the forums and claims in the patch notes, this issue continues to persist causing frustration for tank players who rely on their shields for protection. It's baffling that such a crucial issue remains unresolved despite the attention it has received from the player community. Instead, they put focus on nerfing at-wills for fighter and cleric. Like we really needed to make the support classes harder to play for a game that doesn't have nearly enough tanks and healers as it is. This selective approach to bug fixes creates a sense of imbalance and frustration among the player base.

Neverwinter has the potential to be an incredible game, but the development team's approach to addressing player concerns and balancing classes can leave a lot to be desired. I've long lost hope that the developers will listen to anyone in the community other than their top 1%. They are more inclined to cater to a select group of "high-skilled" (endgame best-in-slot geared) players and prioritize a certain arrogant Youtuber influencer with his often incomplete and flawed testing over addressing the concerns of the player base as a whole.

You could play this for 5 years straight grinding every day to never catch up to being relevant for anything other than just basic random queues. It's only a matter of time before they nerf whatever class, companion, and gear you get anyway. Don't make the same mistake I did. Save yourself thousands of hours and go play something else. This company doesn't deserve your time nor your money. If you want a more in depth review, take a look at this as he touches on the issues more in depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzfF9sJ-rc

10th gen Intel iGPU is nowhere near powerful enough to run this. At 720p you get nice crisp 28 frames per second looking at a still screen telling you that it requires a Battle Net account. I guess that's why Intel isn't listed at all for GPU minimum requirements. Plugging in a real GPU, I see I wasn't missing much. They've removed the PvE stuff they hyped everyone up for just before release it would seem; so, they've basically lost what little chance it had of me trying it any further now. From the looks of it Overwatch 1 was better as this forced "upgrade" to Overwatch 2 is loaded with micro transactions. I see why there are so many negative reviews. Remind me, why is this on Steam again? Isn't this Blizzard's game? Graphics here look polished with decent voice acting, but that's about where anything good about it ends for me. Going back to Valve's Team Fortress 2, a game with both PvE and ability to use mods.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, for the intellectual extravaganza of a lifetime! This is more than just a product; it's an intellectual spectacle that will challenge your beliefs and stimulate your curiosity. Well received in 2013, this re-release is even better with more content and improved graphics all for so cheap even Bambi and his gang could afford it. Pick this up today and you won't regret buying some of Billy's Deer Repellent!

Going to have to give this a thumbs down for a few reasons with the first being it was broken on day 1 with a "Failed to load ili2cpp" error preventing the game from even starting. How did this even make it out of testing? Mac version got delayed shortly before release to some point yet to be announced as of writing review on day 2. Unsure yet about the Linux release yet as I've only tried the Windows release so far. Old saves not being compatible was annoying, though understandable and it was warned ahead of time this would happen. Would've been neat if there was a save converter, though I'm not sure how practical this would be with so many things changing. Controls getting partially reset was more annoying as well as all the accessibility options being reset to their default settings. It should've asked to rebind everything upon initial startup instead of potentially surprising the player with being unable to move upon creating a new world.

There are however a few interesting/positive changes such as a nice new map with new music, but it's price is just WAY too much for all it is. This was nearly the price of the base game and in some regions more than the base game. Got it this time on good faith and due to being curious, but probably won't be this doing again if there are any more DLCs within the next 5 years. Am not a fan of how the menu system is and how clunky the menus are now that it's split into two games masked by a launcher. Also, disappointed with how much more laggy actions are now. Hopefully in the days to come things will improve, but for now I'm giving this release a 4/10.

Slightly interactive narrative story that's a bit interesting on the first and maybe second playthrough, but lacks depth for additional playthroughs to really add much to the experience.

I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a survival based sandbox type of game. As a bonus, there's even a story mode that's slowly being added to it. Also, it even has a native Linux x86/x64 port which works pretty good as long as you have at least Intel HD Graphics 4000. Even on a chip with Intel Graphics 4600, it's a bit of a struggle getting it to work at full speed on Linux with OpenGL without overclocking the GPU, but it can be done if the settings are tuned to their lowest possible settings. With a modest overclock like from Intel XTU (settings won't persist on shutdown but do persist on reboots from Windows to Linux on my machine), I'm able to just barely pull off 720p without framedrops as long as I have desktop effects disabled (as of the 2019 STEADFAST RANGER update using Linux kernel 5.1 on Kubuntu 19.04). One last thing to note is there is still currently a bug affect the Linux version where for some users the screen goes black upon starting the game in fullscreen. It appears that just waiting for a few seconds and then clicking anywhere in black gets it past this almost like it's a focus problem.

The Stanley Parable reminds me a bit of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.