Summer's here! No, wait, that's not right... summer's nearly over. But not in Hethereau! It does seem odd, dropping a summer-themed update in late August, but then a lot of games do it. It seems even odder when you consider that the big Summer Break in virtually all the regions where these games are played is just about to come to an end in a couple of weeks, whereas the beach-themed content is likely to be with us for a month and a half, well into the start of the new school year. Of course, it's not only kids or even college students who play these games but given the kind of events and activities that feature in many of them, it's hard not to believe that's the target audience. If it was intended to appeal to an older demographic, there'd be a lot more alcohol involved. The new update for Neverness To Everness brings a bunch of seaside fun, as I mentioned in a post a week or so ago. What I didn't mention then, because I didn't know, is that the seaside resort where it all takes place is in a new part of the city. The district is called Duskmoor, which doesn't sound remotely like anywhere you'd go to eat ice-cream and stroll along the promenade. It's described as "a vast mountainous region north of the Miguel District" and they are not kidding. It's gigantic, although I suspect a lot of it is open country. I'd be a bit more authoritative but I've only taken a quick look so far and that was on the laptop, in bed the other night, so I don't even have the few screenshots I took, near to hand. (And I'm too lazy to go into the bedroom, power up the laptop and mail them to myself...) I didn't do anything while I was there anyway, other than run all the way to the Wertheimer Tower to register the teleport and get the region opened on my map, which was when it became immediately obvious just how big the place is. It's damn near as big as all the rest of the districts put together. I'm very much looking forward to exploring the whole thing. But first there's a story to get through. I started it this morning although that wasn't my plan. What I was going to do was try out some of the new summer events and I did, for a while, starting with the volleyball because when I logged in the intro quest for it, Jade Star, was already up on my tracker. I have no idea why it was there. I must have been looking at it when I was on the laptop, I imagine, although I can't remember doing it. Anyway, Flora was in Duskwood, next to the Anomaly Tower, and the blue quest marker was pointing towards the beach half a kilometer away, so I just went with it. I was curious, anyway, to see how this volleyball thing was going to work. I did wonder if it might be player vs player. It's very easy to forget, but NTE is a an online co-op title and it seems a four-person sport like beach volleyball would be a perfect fit for four-person co-op. It might be yet, for all I know, but that's not how the event starts out. Sidebar: By a synchronicitous co-incidence, a very odd thing happened as I was running through Duskwood today. A window popped up on screen, asking me if I wanted to accept a request from someone called Jana to join me in my world. This is the first time anything like that's happened since I started playing the game. I had no idea it was even possible. Jana was waiting for a Yes or No but the whole thing took me completely by surprise and I just stared at the pop-up, not responding, trying to figure out what was happening, until the timer ran down and it vanished. Sorry, Jana. After it was gone I rummaged around in the settings until I found the section that tells you who else is playing and allows you to set parameters on invites. You can have Private, Friends or Confirmation Required. I had no idea any of that was there until this morning. I considered setting it to Private but in the end, considering I've only had one in several months, I figured I might as well leave it as it was. Next time, if there ever is one, I might even accept a request, just to see what happens. It might be someone wanting to play volleyball... The volleyball event starts with a conversation with someone going by the highly unlikely name of Uncle Loong. I know, thanks to playing the MMORPG Loong many years ago, that a loong is some kind of traditional Chinese dragon. Any time I meet an NPC in a game and they have a name like that, it makes me suspicious. I don't think "Uncle" Loong is a dragon in human form but you can never be sure. As to whose uncle he might be, your guess is as good as Flora's. He looks about twenty-two, though, so that makes me even more suspicious... Whoever or whatever he is, he sets you up for a warm-up match so you can learn how the game is played and show him how good you are. You need a partner but luckily Mint volunteers so fast you don't even have time to finish asking her. She's there in a nanosecond, dressed for the part. I had actually been wondering if Flora was going to have to play beach volleyball dressed in her pant-suit. She looked bad enough trotting along the sand dressed that way, weaving between all the beachgoers in their bikinis and cut-offs. Luckily, once the game starts, Flora magically re-appeared, dressed in some suitable beach-wear I had no idea she owned. It's absolutely hideous but that's by-the-by. The game itself has quite a few controls to master. I haven't yet mastered any of them. By the time I'd played two matches, I just about knew how to serve and that was it. The Warm-Up is the lowest possible level of difficulty and I still only won one of the two maches. The first was a close-run thing that Mint and Flora eventually won 9-7. You need to get to seven and then be two points clear for a victory. In the second match we were doing much better. We served to open and I seemed to have gotten the hang of that to the extent that we were 6-1 up by the time we lost serve. Unfortunately, I very much had not gotten the hang of returning serve, so we lost our massive lead and ended up losing 8-6. At that point I felt like I'd probably had enough beach volleyball for the time being. It seemed like something I'd probably be able to get to be at least passable at, with practice, but I wasn't convinced I had the motivation. It is fun and it's beautifully animated. I could do without Mint apologizing every time she misses a shot but other than that I enjoyed it a fair bit. I was very surprised to find, when I spoke to Uncle Loong again, that we'd somehow met with his satisfaction, despite only winning one match. The quest completed and immediately another replaced it, telling Flora she needed to go to Eibon right away. So she did. That turned out to be the start of the new Main Story Quest. I spent the next hour and a half on it and it was excellent. But that's a tale for another post.