The Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG Neverwinter is named after the fictional city of Neverwinter, which got its moniker because the gardeners there are so skilled that they can keep plants growing all year long. Hence, it's never really winter there. But here's the thing ...
I have never played this game when it wasn't winter. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with the game. I love D&D, I love high-fantasy in general, and I can even tolerate interacting with other real-life humans for short bursts of time. If they're hiding behind half-elven and tiefling avatars, well, that's even better. But when I first discovered Neverwinter about seven years back, I was already pretty heavily involved in Lord of the Rings Online, so I wasn't exactly looking for a similar timesink in my limited gaming schedule.
So what drew me in, and what keeps me coming back?
"Simril!" the portly NPC on the pedestal shouts at me way too exuberantly, and at a much higher decibel level than I was anticipating in the wee hours of the morning when I first downloaded this game on my brand-spankin' new PlayStation 4. "ON SIMRIL," he starts to explain as the rest of my household covers their ears with their pillows, but I'm not sitting here for his entire spiel. I'll just sum up the lore instead. See, Simril, which just launched again this year on December 15, is a lengthy festival that happens every year in the little town of Twilight Tor. The town is only accessible each year from mid-December to early January, and it's perpetually covered in snow and ice (Neverwinter my foot). The festival itself is a celebration of the stars, or celestial light — something along those lines. There's a giant telescope anyway, and you can learn about constellations and make light rain down on other players, so it's very much a festival of lights.
You want winter-themed activities? Well, first up, there's an ice fishing tournament about four times every hour. If you've never played before, there's a very brief quest in which you need to go to the lake and catch a very common brown fish and turn it over to the fish master. Once you've proven yourself a barely adequate fisherperson, you're qualified to start participating in the fishing tournaments.
Different fish are worth different amounts of points, and you can accidentally reel in monsters who will materialize and kill any players around them, so be sure to pick a hole right next to someone of a very low level and make them waste their valuable time walking back from the respawn point halfway across the festival map (every Christmas needs its Grinch, and I fill that role gladly).
If standing around a hole in the ice and waiting isn't your idea of holiday magic, there's the Twilight Run, a slipping-and-sliding bonanza in which you and your horse — or maybe just you without your horse — slalom down a bobsled run full of jumps, boosts, and sacks of bonus points. You can do this whenever you please, but there are also timed events every hour, in which you can move up the leaderboards based on how many times you go careening down the icy slopes, for beating other players' best times, and for collecting more bonuses than everyone else. Earn enough, and you might even get enough premium currency to buy the special Simril-themed mount, a rocket-powered sleigh that you can use anywhere in the game (it gives you a completely unfair speed advantage in Twilight Run, but who ever said fairness was a Christmas virtue?).
Additionally, there's another timed event that has you going into the wilderness to rack up points killing monsters, but that would require that I a) learn how to play this game, and b) bother leveling up, and that's just not what Simril is all about.
There are lots of other winter-themed goodies to pick up as well. If you're feeling generous, you can shoot lights up into the sky, which rain down rewards among your fellow players standing around. But why waste currency on that when there's a bunch of exclusive (and expensive) cosmetics you can pick up, like decorative clothing, winter-themed mounts, and adorable little treasure chest mimics and snowy-white winter foxes that will follow you around.
What's that? You want to know about my character? My race, class, alignment, and stats? The extensive backstory I've meticulously laid out? Sorry, can't help you. I haven't played this game for nearly a year, so I don't even remember. As far as I'm concerned, in the world of Neverwinter, I'm an independently wealthy dual-class fisherman/bobsledder.
I'm not as heavily invested in Simril-themed activities as I used to be, but Twilight Tor is still a nice, cozy little village for me to come back to every December, and it really lights that special holiday fire in my soul. I don't really care so much about getting the latest exclusives anymore. Maybe I'm getting soft in my dotage. In fact, now that I think of it, the last time I really went for a marathon session in Neverwinter was that second year I'd discovered it.
Out in the real world, I'd just moved into my first house a few months back. It was Christmastime, money was still tight from the move, and I just felt like I hadn't done enough for my then-girlfriend. We couldn't really go out and enjoy the season together — everything was so expensive — and she dedicated so much of her time to planning social engagements and picking out the perfect budget-conscious gifts for our friends and families. The PlayStation 4 was one of the few things we had that we could spend time together on, and she was enjoying the joy of Simril just as much as I was, but with less time to do it.
So, on Christmas Eve, after the last presents were wrapped, the stockings hung by the chimney with care, and no one else stirring, I logged onto her account. As Santa flew around the world, I was busy at work too, hauling in as many fish as I could and careening down an ice slalom ad nauseam, until, just before dawn, her account finally had enough winter currency to get that little ice fox she'd been eyeing up since she first logged on, and a rocket-sleigh and clothing options to boot. She had given so much of herself to make a Merry Christmas for everyone we knew, and I wanted to give something extra to make her Simril a little bit brighter. Because that's what holiday magic is all about. And, you know, maybe I'm not such a very bad guy after all.
But seriously, stay away from my fishing hole.