Was in the Press Beta, ask me anything.

XAleX360

As above. I'll start saying that I had tried briefly the game at Gamescom and got a good first impression back then, and I was showed the Foundry at that time which seemed impressive. 

 

Having now played the game for a few hours on my PC, I can definitely confirm the positive impression. The graphics is quite lovely (even though not all options could be pushed to maximum yet) and the art style is vaguely reminiscent of Fable. Even from the start, the D&D roots are immediately visible: you can choose your character's origins, submit a background bio for your character, choose a deity; while in-game you can pray to get the God's favour which may give bonuses and "astral diamonds" which seem to be a currency for items. The action combat is enjoyable and the animations are smooth; the first few quests are really easy but I expect the difficulty to spike since everyone is supposed to have a companion on for most content (they don't fill up party slots though). 

 

Do not expect to find a seamless world, though. There are many (short, at least on my PC) loadings between areas and even moving from a district to another in Neverwinter brings up the map ala NWN and there's a loading screen. PvP was available to queue up but unfortunately not many other press colleagues did so, and I couldn't try it yet. 

 

I met Bill from MMORPG.com, he had a lovely dwarf and was more than willing to chat some. Hi Bill!

 

Dragnelus

ok

azzamasin

While I am not a fan of lots of loading screens and overly done instancing, I can say without a doubt because of the Foundry and the overall feel of the game portraying a D&D experience the game will be a sleeper hit.  The content and the combat is so plentiful its amazing another fantasy themepark hasnt ever done UGC prior.

cybertrucker

UBC is that user built content? Because of so city of heroes had it as does EQ2. Did not really mess around much with the  EQ2 one but the COH one pretty much lead to AOE  power level instances being made. Which will probably end up being the majority of what we see with the mentality of the newer gamers these days. 

XAleX360

Originally posted by cybertrucker
UBC is that user built content? Because of so city of heroes had it as does EQ2. Did not really mess around much with the  EQ2 one but the COH one pretty much lead to AOE  power level instances being made. Which will probably end up being the majority of what we see with the mentality of the newer gamers these days. 

 

Yes, City of Heroes had it (it was Cryptic's first MMORPG). But Foundry is much more fleshed out, not to mention that UGC heavily depends on how many people are interested in the game in the first place, and Neverwinter has much more appeal than City of Heroes in terms of IP to attract players and therefore, potential Foundry creators. It has also the history of UGC through NWN 1&2, although those game used the Aurora Toolkit, but it's likely that at least some of those who tinkered with NWN 1&2 could be back for this game.

reploidx

did they mention putting more classes in? I.E. Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and the other staple classes from the core rulebook?

MadDemon64

Ok, so my question is this: what is your take on the character creation?  Are there enough options to make your character look unique?  Is it the best, worst, or most average character creation of all the Cryptic games?  Do some races have better options than others (and if so which ones), and last but not least, what is your take on how they handled the creation of each race, especially Tieflings?

XAleX360

Originally posted by reploidx
did they mention putting more classes in? I.E. Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and the other staple classes from the core rulebook?

5 Classes will be in at launch, you already know them by now. They added in the Q&A that they will release other classes "continously post launch". I guess one of the first if not the first to be added will be Ranger, seeing as there's no option for bow lovers at the moment (a friend of mine  is very pissed for this).

I'll add that I asked them if they planned to release some large-group oriented content postlaunch, and they actually answered that they have "awesome large-group oriented content" already in, although they have not announced it yet, and that they're also pretty excited for it. This is pretty big news as there were no hints of this whatsoever.

 

 

Kaerigan

I will find out tomorrow (bought a founder's pack) but I figured I could ask anyway... is there any sort of level scaling? With the whole foundry thing going on I thought it'd be a great idea to be able to replay foundry-made content even if you're a much higher level than the foundry-made content. Also, if you have any friends that are not in the same level range as you it'd be great if you could play missions together without it either being way too easy or way too hard.

cybertrucker

I guess as the saying goes time will tell. And while neverwinter will have a following due to it being DND and because of NWN franchise. It is also going to have a lot of competition this year. Also DnD overall has jaded a lot of its fanbase in general due to its constant edition swaps . There is a reason it is no longer the number 1 RPG in the world any more. 

I know I myself was burnt out on 3.5 and was actually enjoying 4th which this from what I understand is based off of. However when wizards abandoned 4th I decided to stop supporting them. It's all shadowrun, deathwatch, or iron kingdoms for me.

While I might keep an eye on this as its based off 4th edition. There are definately other titles that have me  more interested. EQNEXT first on that list.

ShakyMo

Is it instanced to hell and back like swtor?

XAleX360

Originally posted by cybertrucker

I guess as the saying goes time will tell. And while neverwinter will have a following due to it being DND and because of NWN franchise. It is also going to have a lot of competition this year. Also DnD overall has jaded a lot of its fanbase in general due to its constant edition swaps . There is a reason it is no longer the number 1 RPG in the world any more. 

I know I myself was burnt out on 3.5 and was actually enjoying 4th which this from what I understand is based off of. However when wizards abandoned 4th I decided to stop supporting them. It's all shadowrun, deathwatch, or iron kingdoms for me.

While I might keep an eye on this as its based off 4th edition. There are definately other titles that have me  more interested. EQNEXT first on that list.

Well, without a doubt it's not going to be the "savior" of MMORPG genre or even an amazingly innovative title, for sure. But at the same time it seems a good game and it's F2P, so I reckon it will be a no-brainer to at least try for almost every D&D/fantasy fan out there. Whether there will be enough meat to make people stick with it, is hard to tell right now.

Other questions: yes, it's pretty instanced and actually SWTOR has some decently large worlds. Right now I've only been inside the city of Neverwinter, so the districts are relatively small, however areas outside Neverwinter might be bigger. 

About level scaling, I very much doubt it's in, but cannot confirm it 100%.

sea.shell

Since these Classes do not even remotely resemble what D&D character creation is about, how much can you customize each class roughly?

Will it be the usual skilltree in a different shape, maybe even a more open approach like STO (where ship and officers actually defined your class, rather than one of the three "classes") could you even go as far as to wear a shield as rogue?

Thanks for any information.

Filbur

Originally posted by XAleX360

Right now I've only been inside the city of Neverwinter, so the districts are relatively small, however areas outside Neverwinter might be bigger. 

The zones outside have the same size. You can ride from one end to the other in less than 3 or 4 minutes.

XAleX360

Originally posted by sea.shell

Since these Classes do not even remotely resemble what D&D character creation is about, how much can you customize each class roughly?

Will it be the usual skilltree in a different shape, maybe even a more open approach like STO (where ship and officers actually defined your class, rather than one of the three "classes") could you even go as far as to wear a shield as rogue?

Thanks for any information.

Unfortunately, not. WIth the Guardian I am able to specialize in damage dealing, defensive or "tactics" (threat/control) trees, but there isn't really the opportunity to choose the weapons and such. 

Sad to hear that even outside Neverwinter the zones are really small.

DoomsDay01

Originally posted by XAleX360

Originally posted by reploidx
did they mention putting more classes in? I.E. Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and the other staple classes from the core rulebook?

5 Classes will be in at launch, you already know them by now. They added in the Q&A that they will release other classes "continously post launch". I guess one of the first if not the first to be added will be Ranger, seeing as there's no option for bow lovers at the moment (a friend of mine  is very pissed for this).

I'll add that I asked them if they planned to release some large-group oriented content postlaunch, and they actually answered that they have "awesome large-group oriented content" already in, although they have not announced it yet, and that they're also pretty excited for it. This is pretty big news as there were no hints of this whatsoever.

 

 

This really bugs the crap out of me! How can they even think of releasing the game without a ranger class in it? That is freaking staple D&D (at least IMHO). I supported cryptic in STO by buying the lifetime sub right up front but there is no way in hell I am buying the founder pack in a game that  sounds like its being half-assed released. While I enjoyed STO and still do to a certain extent, at least when it released you did have all the playable classes there lol.

hardicon

can you dual class or is it just one class and that is it?

 

what is the leveling like.  super fast or kind of slow where you get a feel for the class by level or do you just jump to level 10 or 20 real quick?

 

Is it fun?

is it solo friendly or does everything require a group like ddo?

In your limited playtime does the game feel like it will be pay 2 win or can a free player aquire everything a paying player can get?

Did you play a control wizard and if so does it feel like a wizard or just a controller from coh?  Does it have any power or is it just gonna be a support toon?  I really like the wizard class in dnd games but I want the wizard to be able to hold his own and not just be a support toon.

 

is the cleric just a heal bot or can they actually fight?

 

 

 

 

gotha

http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/11/neverwinter-the-races-and-classes-of-the-game/

 

The website only has 5 races but this seems to show more than 5 races.

 

Also how destructive is the cash shop?

I know nothing is free,  but i do not like getting monetarially raped to play a subpar mmo.

Punk999

I dont mind loading screens at all so that is fine...

Tho i must ask, was there a limit to how many people could be in the same area till another instance of it was made?

Filbur

Yes. From what I have seen, one shard can hold up to 30 players - at least for now.

DoomsDay01

Ok here is my question. Astral Diamonds. What are they worth in real cash? The early one says you are getting 750,000 astral diamonds. So trying to figure out what that is in terms of Perfect worlds Zen currency.

Nanfoodle

1. So is this really more a lobby game, or does it have a persistant world worth playing and exploring?

2. I noticed some cleric skills required targetting other team mates, with a mouse look type game, how hard is it to target other players?

3. Can foundry make outdoor zomes that more then a team can populate?

4. As a fan of old school dungeon crawling (like my EQ1 old school days) how happy will I be with the dungeons?

DoomsDay01

I was really hoping someone would know about the astral diamond stuff.

Arathir86

WotC is so careless with their IP these days, they will give it to anyone that shows them a Proffit Graph and/or Nifty Pie Chart.

The only thing this game has for me in its current state; is the Foundry... everything else seems underwhelming to me, to say the least.

The Classes have almost no resemblence to any of the traditional DND Archetypes, I would prefer a something including the usual Fighter / Paladin / Ranger / Rogue / Sorcerer / Wizard / Bard / Monk / Barbarian / Cleric, with the option to Multiclass.

Even I can understand that that would be a lot of classes to work and balance into the game, but even if they just had the 'staple' classes for a group they would do alright.

The fact that Ranger isnt even going to be out for launch is the biggest turn off for me.

Pyuk

The more I read about this, the more interested I get. Maybe Cryptic can pull this off. I've been enjoying Champions lately, despite Cryptic not really paying attention to it. And STO has been a title I come back to every couple of months due to the updates and refinement. So maybe I will shell out $59.99 for the Founders thingy...

goosie

Originally posted by DoomsDay01
Ok here is my question. Astral Diamonds. What are they worth in real cash? The early one says you are getting 750,000 astral diamonds. So trying to figure out what that is in terms of Perfect worlds Zen currency.

I saw in the stream that the more prestigeous mounts in-game cost 350k astral diamonds. As to how much it's worth in Zen, I don't know.