By Edward "Dagger" Veno
In our current global landscape of lock-downs and reduced social contact, one could not fault themselves for searching for alternatives while the world fights to emerge from tunnel into a new day. Many have found online gaming communities, video calls and even online role-play as a substitute to stave off that hunger for human contact for another day. So, imagine my delight when members of the original Realms Craft team announced that they would be hosting Realms Questing in a Minecraft rendition of the Realms.
Having already had years of role-playing within a minecraft setting, I knew that Realms Craft had potential to deliver on what was promised. I had the pleasure of running with my Blackwood peers from across the sea in a quest which included an exciting and memorable moment where a natural stalagmite bridge collapsed while I was on it crashing into a lava stream. The moment was completely unexpected and nerve racking to say the least; but in a good way. The puzzles faced on these quests can range from well-thought-out riddles to combination collection quests which push exploration and team work. Even combat has elements of this within it as puzzles are often built into quest areas filled with enemies bringing a flavor of many live Realms Quests that one has come to expect in their questing experiences.
There was one feature that I found particularly interesting for immersion which was an area chat linked to the Realmscraft Discord server which makes it so the quest group's discord chat is not always allowing a player to be heard. If the player's character in the game is too far away from other characters, Discord will not transmit the player's voice to their fellow players. This serves to add to the immersion and Realms feel to the game while also adding just that little bit of extra difficulty further pushing the usefulness of teamwork.
In closing, Realms Craft Questing advertises an immersive-puzzle and action filled-online quest experience complete with its own slimmed down version of the Realms Magic system and it delivers. Constantly improving, players never know what they are going to get when they walk into the Realms Craft rendition of the Realms and set off on an epic quest with fellow questers. It brings the community closer together in a time where being close is difficult at best and even serves as a platform to allow Realms players who are not within the New England area to role play and interact with their comrades in a Realms setting from wherever they are no matter how far. That is why I want to go to RCQ3 and I hope now you do too.
Gary (Dagger) Heinstrom