{"id":7238,"date":"2010-08-24T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"new-neverwinter-game-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/7238-new-neverwinter-game-announced","title":{"rendered":"New Neverwinter game announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Word around the World Wide Web is that a new Neverwinter game is in development. The game bearing the Neverwinter name was Neverwinter Nights, developed by BioWare and released in 2002. The game was a smash hit, spawning a couple of expansion, and later a sequel.<\/p>\n

Atari and Cryptic Studios, in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, have officially announced that they are hard at work on a game simply titled ‘Neverwinter.’ Just to clear the air and dispel rumours – this is not a direct sequel to the previous two Neverwinter Nights games. The story for the game was developed in collaboration with Forgotten Realms authorial legend, R.A. Salvatore.<\/p>\n

The game is tentatively scheduled for a Q4 2011 release. Salvatore has a new trilogy of books scheduled for release before the game hits – books which will act as a prequel to the storyline of the game. The first of the books, Gauntlgrym, should be arriving in stores in October 2010.<\/p>\n

Forgotten Realms fans may recall that Gauntlgrym was an ancient dwarven city that fell into ruin before the memory of any living dwarf. Those who have been keeping up with Salvatore’s works will recall that one of his main characters, dwarven King Bruenor Battlehammer, hopes to uncover the lost ruins of Gauntlgrym. The wishful thinkers among us may hold out hope that Salvatore’s characters are going to make an appearance in the Neverwinter game.<\/p>\n

Cryptic Studios are at the development helm, a studio that has been responsible for a number of cool and moderately successful MMO’s – City of Heroes\/Villains, Champions Online, and Star Trek Online. To allay any fears, Jack Emmert, Chief Operating Officer of Cryptic, has confirmed that this will not be an MMO. Emmert describes the game as a cooperative RPG.<\/p>\n

The game will be based on the 4th Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule sets, tweaked for use in live action video game. Players will be able to form teams of up to five human controlled characters, or choose to adventure with AI companions if they wish.<\/p>\n

There will be five staple D&D classes to choose from:  Wizard, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger and Cleric.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Gamespot<\/a> Emmert discussed how the gameplay would cater to different class abilities: “We’re using the same concept of “recharge,” which breaks a player’s abilities into three categories: at will, once per encounter, and daily. General abilities like a basic sword attack are at will. Slightly more-powerful abilities can only be used once per encounter, and even-more-powerful abilities can be used only once per day.”<\/p>\n

Emmert also discussed the inclusion of some 4th Edition rules – healing surges and action points: “In the tabletop game, an action point lets a player perform a reroll or add an additional die to a roll. In our game, action points are earned through combat and spent to power special abilities called “boons.” These boons give players special boosts, but only in certain circumstances.”<\/p>\n

“Healing surges represent the amount of times a player can heal [themselves] before resting. In D&D and Neverwinter, various abilities let players use a surge immediately or perhaps replenish the number of surges available. It’s a precious resource that players will need to husband as they adventure in the brave new world,” Emmert continued.<\/p>\n

Other 4th Edition elements such as positioning, flanking, tactics, and using powers with your teammates will also be making their appearance in Neverwinter.<\/p>\n

As with previous titles bearing the Neverwinter mark, there will be a campaign editor. This is tentatively named ‘Forge’ and it will allow player to create their own custom scenarios and adventures. These sorts of toolsets definitely lend longevity to RPG titles.<\/p>\n

Finally, Emmert set up the plot of the game, and explained how it ties in with the R.A. Salvatore book trilogy which begins with Gauntlgrym: “The game is set a little over 100 years into the future, and Forgotten Realms is recovering from an epic catastrophe: the death of the god of magic triggered a massive “spellplague” that swept across Faerun and changed everything it touched.”<\/p>\n

“The Salvatore trilogy touches on all the events leading up to the game and, most importantly, how Neverwinter fell. Through these great novels, readers will get a taste of the Neverwinter world, characters, and enemies.”<\/p>\n

“At some point, Neverwinter was laid [to] waste. Why? No one really remembers at this point. The players will need to find out what happened and whether it’ll reoccur,” Emmert concluded.<\/p>\n

Discuss Neverwinter in the forums<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s official, there will be a new Neverwinter game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}