Neverwinter : Beta Impressions from Total Biscuit

[diabolus]

Ran into this, probably as good as preview as one can get of this upcoming game. Quite lengthy too, but i always like Total Biscuit's angle of these games, if he doesn't like something , he say so.



It actually looks like alot of fun. Definitely the action combat. Plus the world being Forgotten Realms (Baldur's Gate / Sword Coast etc) , can't wait for that.

[Shrike]

Despite it being LOTRO skin on Forgotten Realms, I probably will give it a go too. And now I find out it is F2P from the get go. So most definitely will play it. Interested to see where the money comes in ;-P

[diabolus]

Despite it being LOTRO skin on Forgotten Realms, I probably will give it a go too. And now I find out it is F2P from the get go. So most definitely will play it. Interested to see where the money comes in ;-P

I think it will be similar to Guild Wars 2 cash store, if you look at the "Founders Packs" which you can buy already:

http://nw.perfectworld.com/founderspack

You will notice the things you get is most likely things that you'd typically buy in the cash store. Things like mounts, character slots, more inventory slots and extra races.

There's also the whole "pet system" aka "companions" that looks like it can be a big cash cow for them if they do it right. You can see parts of the pet system in the video and it looks pretty good. It looks like they took the "Henchmen" found in GW1 and went all the way with it. So the "pets" is not just cosmetic but actual combat AI which you can level,upgrade and skin. It already looked like the skins might be something you buy in a store.

Despite it being LOTRO skin on Forgotten Realms,

I would more say it is a DDO skin on Forgotten Realms . It looks like Neverwinter is not going to be true open world like LOTRO. It's most likely going to be similar to DDO with the dungeons/instances . Maybe more like GW1.

The disadvantage is , you will do your "questing" on your own or with a group of friends and return to a "open world" hub to trade , which might make it feel more like a solo/small group and the "massively" in MMO would be missing. The advantage is, they can do more in an instance. Even DDO had it, the stories are more elaborate and alot more interactive possibilities (traps,secret doors, etc) within the "dungeons."

I mean their aim is to allow player content in the game afterall. They mention it there in the video where players can create quests and goals within the instances, something that is very difficult to do in a open persistent world. Will see how it will turn out though.

[Shrike]

The player content sounds promising, will have to see how it actually plays out. I worry about the respec token thing. Looks like you buy em from the cash shop. I always worry before an MMO comes out how it allows a healer to solo. Do I have to respec every time I want to go from solo to heal mode?
I haven't read anything about the game, when is the release date?

[diabolus]

The player content sounds promising, will have to see how it actually plays out. I worry about the respec token thing. Looks like you buy em from the cash shop. I always worry before an MMO comes out how it allows a healer to solo. Do I have to respec every time I want to go from solo to heal mode?
I haven't read anything about the game, when is the release date?

No official release date, they only said "Early 2013" . So my bet is somewhere in April/May. They are now busy with these beta weekends. The last beta weekend is March 22 . So i would guess an open beta might follow for a week or two in April before launch.

As for the class respec thing, i dunno, if they follow the traditional DnD standards , chances are they would not want to make it a trivial affair to "respec" . I assume a "respec" in the Neverwinter context is like a class reset, not just talent/trait tree reset. I might be wrong , but i doubt there will be the kind of flexibility we've seen in Rift and WoW with multiple talent trees which you just swop around to change your role. I just don't remember DnD ruleset to work that way. I expect more of a classic specialisation effect in your class, rather than everyone becoming hybrids (like we've seen in GW2). So i would be surprised if there is a "heal mode" and a "solo mode" to switch between. More likely, you will have a heap of circumstantial abilities and you will just put different spells on your actionbar based on your role.

Either way, i also know very little how flexible the classes will be in terms of their roles.

[diabolus]

In terms of player content, they call the designer the "Foundry", here's an overview:



Kinda reminds of how Turbine adds the "adventure packs" into DDO , now the community can do those. So you (the player) can open a screen and go do these community adventures.

It looks actually quite interesting to create these content and i'm sure Cryptic is ultimately going to rely on the players creating the content. And it is seriously awesome to be honest, you can create entire custom maps + dialogs + quests for your adventure and hook it into the "persistent" world for players . This is why the instanced design makes sense.

Doesn't seem too far off from Neverwinter Nights (the old PC game) where you also could create entire new adventures/worlds for players to download and play.

[Shrike]

I am excited now ;-P

[Mephisto_Helix]

Glad I could check it out, will not be leaving DDO for this. It's a cheap knock off and just doesn't feel 'right' at all.

[diabolus]

Here's an interesting article on Massively which may of interest for us gamers who no longer have the time to do these 5 hour marathons, but rather want to play an MMO in meaningful "bursts" .

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03...-sized-gaming/

Some of you are probably blessed with as much gaming time as you could ever want. Some of you might be like me, however, and exist on a very limited budget when it comes to free time to game. It's just how it is when you grow older, busier, and add more responsibilities to your life. There are only so many hours in the day, right?

When you have very limited play sessions -- and here I'm defining them as anything as small as a half-hour to perhaps two hours a day -- then you can't afford to waste time. It not only rules out very time-intensive activities like raiding; it means that when you log in, you're under the gun to get something substantial done in that period. It really does force you to reorganize priorities.

...
...

The core of Neverwinter is getting into the action quickly and painlessly. This could be solo, as in logging in to pray to your deity, running a solo mission, or doing a few quests. But it definitely is angled toward quick group content, especially with PvP, events, Foundry missions, and dungeon runs. The interface is set up to allow you to queue up for these and run them with either a PUG or your guild. It's the meat of the game, not the side attraction, and a vast majority of these experiences (again, from what I can tell) are not insanely demanding of one's time.

I definitely have a tendency lately to look into games that allow for these smaller play sessions and Neverwinter looks to be a great candidate for exactly that.

This is also exactly why i keep finding myself in games like Planetside 2, simply because i can play for 30 minutes and still feel i've achieved something.

[Shrike]

100% Agree. DDO had the same, although the dungeon runs could take a long time. I am hoping that a beta client can be used to play the full game, it gives me a few weeks to download it ;-P