Cryptic have repeatedly stated that NWN will not be an MMO. Online CO-OP play, yes. MMO. no.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Cryptic Studios is developing a D&D MMO based around Neverwinter and is employing R.A. Salvatore, author of many Forgotten Realms books and creator of the famous Drizzt Do'Urden, to create the lore for the game. The game will be like DDO in a sense that it will be based around a hub city.
This is pretty big news, as we are finally getting an online D&D game based in Faerun. What does this mean for DDO? Do you think when Neverwinter launches it will significantly hurt DDO's population?
If they manage to make Armor Class useful (something DDO has failed at to this day), I'm interested. But if it continues to be based on the fundamentally flawed D&D core rules, I'm not hopeful. I do prefer Faerun to Eberron though.
Now if only someone would make a real leap and give me my damned Planescape-based MMO. I've been waiting ages for the Lady of Pain's shadow to fall over me...
Replying to the above; I screwed up the quote box.
4th edition rules balance AC. Not only is AC not broken, but you cant ever be uber in all of AC, Fort, REf, and Will, and all four are handled like AC in 4th edition.
I hope Cryptic uses the 4E rules and does not alter them much. If they want to retain DND players they need to keep the mechanics true to 4E, in my opinion.
For a computer game, I think 4E is ideal due to it being a more 'balanced' system mechanically than 3E/3.5E.
Again, I see very little difference. There is a public area where you interact with other characters (like WoW capital cities) and then you go into your instances - again, just like in WoW where you sit with your random dungeon finder/battleground queue until you're ready.
I interact with more people in DDO than in WoW; by far. I play both games. I see very, very little difference in the "massively multiplayer" part of things.
CORPG is a undercathegory to MMO. We split them up so it is easier to understand what type of MMO we are talking about. Sandbox and MMOFPS are two other types of MMOs.
Some people say that CORPGs are not MMOs because they don't have an open world but frankly do som sandbox people claim that themeparks aren't "real" MMOs as well, it is bullocks but we still use the term CORPG so people know exactly what type of game we are talking about, it is just to make things easier.
Back to topic: I actually think NWN can hurt DDO subscriber base seriously if it is good, but Cryptic aren't exactly known for polished qualty products and making a game like this in just 2 short years sounds a bit suspicious to me.
NWN is not a game that anyone should preorder before trying the beta, and don't fall for the usual "preorder = beta" trick, it is like the discount life time sub just before the release a trap. Of course might they have learned from their lessons, FR is almost impossible to F*** up but it still isn't a smart preorder.
4th edition rules balance AC. Not only is AC not broken, but you cant ever be uber in all of AC, Fort, REf, and Will, and all four are handled like AC in 4th edition.
I hope Cryptic uses the 4E rules and does not alter them much. If they want to retain DND players they need to keep the mechanics true to 4E, in my opinion.
For a computer game, I think 4E is ideal due to it being a more 'balanced' system mechanically than 3E/3.5E.
I disagree. As an old AD&D player I think 4th edition is the worst D&D edition ever. I rather go back to 2nd edition AD&D myself than that. I can live with 3rd edition but DDO didn't implement it right.
And I really don't like what they done to Forgotten realms lately either. It was getting more and more interesting when they suddenly just killed off the setting.
I can't really say that D&D is the best pen and paper mechanics, in fact it is one of the worst I played even if I had many hours of fun in it. Balance never been one of D&Ds strong points and few P&P games have as unrealistic mechanics (Warhammer FRPG and Runequest have a lot more realistic mechanics) and I am not that happy that every single MMO uses variations of those basic mechanics but done right can D&D be fun.
4 edition is however just flirting with Wow players.
Again, I see very little difference. There is a public area where you interact with other characters (like WoW capital cities) and then you go into your instances - again, just like in WoW where you sit with your random dungeon finder/battleground queue until you're ready.
I interact with more people in DDO than in WoW; by far. I play both games. I see very, very little difference in the "massively multiplayer" part of things.
CORPG is a undercathegory to MMO. We split them up so it is easier to understand what type of MMO we are talking about. Sandbox and MMOFPS are two other types of MMOs.
Some people say that CORPGs are not MMOs because they don't have an open world but frankly do som sandbox people claim that themeparks aren't "real" MMOs as well, it is bullocks but we still use the term CORPG so people know exactly what type of game we are talking about, it is just to make things easier.
Back to topic: I actually think NWN can hurt DDO subscriber base seriously if it is good, but Cryptic aren't exactly known for polished qualty products and making a game like this in just 2 short years sounds a bit suspicious to me.
NWN is not a game that anyone should preorder before trying the beta, and don't fall for the usual "preorder = beta" trick, it is like the discount life time sub just before the release a trap. Of course might they have learned from their lessons, FR is almost impossible to F*** up but it still isn't a smart preorder.
you make some very good points. I was pointing out that if everyone starts calling this an MMO when Cryptic themselves won't...start stacking the firewood. I played Dungeon runners for years as well as DDO so I'm well used to that type of setup. Others...not so much.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I disagree. As an old AD&D player I think 4th edition is the worst D&D edition ever. I rather go back to 2nd edition AD&D myself than that. I can live with 3rd edition but DDO didn't implement it right.
And I really don't like what they done to Forgotten realms lately either. It was getting more and more interesting when they suddenly just killed off the setting.
I can't really say that D&D is the best pen and paper mechanics, in fact it is one of the worst I played even if I had many hours of fun in it. Balance never been one of D&Ds strong points and few P&P games have as unrealistic mechanics (Warhammer FRPG and Runequest have a lot more realistic mechanics) and I am not that happy that every single MMO uses variations of those basic mechanics but done right can D&D be fun.
4 edition is however just flirting with Wow players.
Agree. 4.0 more of a PnP trying to emulate an MMO. Which basically would make NWNO like an MMO trying to emulate a PnP game that's trying to emulate an MMO... :P
3.5 or earlier, or I go from mild interest to, well, the opposite of interest...? Or just scrap any attempt at emulating the PnP ruleset and use something else, which I suspect Cryptic will do, anyway. See CO vs. Hero System.
I disagree. As an old AD&D player I think 4th edition is the worst D&D edition ever. I rather go back to 2nd edition AD&D myself than that. I can live with 3rd edition but DDO didn't implement it right.
And I really don't like what they done to Forgotten realms lately either. It was getting more and more interesting when they suddenly just killed off the setting.
I can't really say that D&D is the best pen and paper mechanics, in fact it is one of the worst I played even if I had many hours of fun in it. Balance never been one of D&Ds strong points and few P&P games have as unrealistic mechanics (Warhammer FRPG and Runequest have a lot more realistic mechanics) and I am not that happy that every single MMO uses variations of those basic mechanics but done right can D&D be fun.
4 edition is however just flirting with Wow players.
Agree. 4.0 more of a PnP trying to emulate an MMO. Which basically would make NWNO like an MMO trying to emulate a PnP game that's trying to emulate an MMO... :P
3.5 or earlier, or I go from mild interest to, well, the opposite of interest...? Or just scrap any attempt at emulating the PnP ruleset and use something else, which I suspect Cryptic will do, anyway. See CO vs. Hero System.
I prefer 2E personally, but I have played 4E for a while now and have no issues with it. For a computer game I still think 4E is a good fit, due to mechanical soundness. The '4E is WoW' thing I disagree with, but opinions will vary.
Again, I see very little difference. There is a public area where you interact with other characters (like WoW capital cities) and then you go into your instances - again, just like in WoW where you sit with your random dungeon finder/battleground queue until you're ready.
I interact with more people in DDO than in WoW; by far. I play both games. I see very, very little difference in the "massively multiplayer" part of things.
CORPG is a undercathegory to MMO. We split them up so it is easier to understand what type of MMO we are talking about. Sandbox and MMOFPS are two other types of MMOs.
Some people say that CORPGs are not MMOs because they don't have an open world but frankly do som sandbox people claim that themeparks aren't "real" MMOs as well, it is bullocks but we still use the term CORPG so people know exactly what type of game we are talking about, it is just to make things easier.
Back to topic: I actually think NWN can hurt DDO subscriber base seriously if it is good, but Cryptic aren't exactly known for polished qualty products and making a game like this in just 2 short years sounds a bit suspicious to me.
NWN is not a game that anyone should preorder before trying the beta, and don't fall for the usual "preorder = beta" trick, it is like the discount life time sub just before the release a trap. Of course might they have learned from their lessons, FR is almost impossible to F*** up but it still isn't a smart preorder.
What makes a game a "CORPG" (to you) as opposed to an MMORPG?
Just curious. As somebody who plays WoW and DDO I see that both games are heavily instanced, both games have large public areas where people meet and talk like idiots in the chat channels while they wait to group and do their real adventuring, and WoW as of late with the dungeon queues and battleground queues... well, it certainly seems more CORPG like to me than anything else.
Does the simply addition of larger public areas that you can wander in make it an MMORPG and not a CORPG? Because... that's basically all the difference I can see. If DDO made, say, Cerulean Hills able to support hundreds of people killing mobs at once instead of it being an instance would it suddenly become an MMO? If WoW decided to just go full-on in the direction it seems to be heading and only have two capital cities where you queue for random dungeons and battlegeounds, would it then be a CORPG?
Kinda just trying to nail down exactly what the huge difference is when all the main raids, dungeons, etc., in BOTH games are instanced. If a few public forest areas where you can run into other people while you play make one game an MMO and another a CORPG... well, um, okay. I can live with that I guess. I just don't get all the outrage when somebody tries to call DDO a MMORPG. It's massive, it's multiplayer, it's an RPG; the "public area" just happens to be a big city. On Thelanis alone last night I saw about two dozen people in one of the inns roleplaying.
Lines seem to be quite blurry between those two terms.
I am a long time EVE online player a small time DDO player. I've actually never visited these boards before or (obviously) posted anything here, but this topic got me intrigued so I decided not just to be a lurker and try to contribute a little to the discussion.
My DDO experience is relatively small. I have no characters past level 10 but I have enjoyed the game immensly until this point. I think that most of you DDO players actually don't realize that Turbine is at the moment relatively respected as a mmo developer. You might say that being relatively respected in a market dominated by douches is not a big thing, but still, bear with me for now.
Cryptic studios, on the other hand, is probably the least respected MMO developer on the market, and for a good reason. They are pretty much a scam waiting to happen and mainly because of that I'd like to try and shed some light on this whole D&D situation.
First of all, Wizards of Coast, the original D&D 4e developer is not doing very well. 4e is being killed in sales by Pathfinder RPG, which is basically a spinoff of 3.5 D&D published a year ago or so. WotC is also cancelling it's miniatures line. The sucess skyrocketed the small company that took the mantle of 3.5 D&D and the company is still coping badly with the success. They still operate on the website that looks like it's from the 90s for example.
To anyone that is familiar with the pnp market this is not a surprising event and it's been extensively discussed on the web.
The funny thing here is that 3.5 Player's Handbook is ahead of 4e Player's Handbook and Rules Compendium even though the amazon sales rankings are based on the demand during the last 24h.
That being said I think that WotC is pushing for increased sales of 4e and is taking a huge gamble by hiring a company that is known for rushed releases and general disrespect towards it's player base. No respected developers this time (Bioware/Interplay) and probably lack of finances that will lead to another money grabbing scam by Cryptic and in this case, Wizards of the Coast sadly.
I am a long time EVE online player a small time DDO player. I've actually never visited these boards before or (obviously) posted anything here, but this topic got me intrigued so I decided not just to be a lurker and try to contribute a little to the discussion.
My DDO experience is relatively small. I have no characters past level 10 but I have enjoyed the game immensly until this point. I think that most of you DDO players actually don't realize that Turbine is at the moment relatively respected as a mmo developer. You might say that being relatively respected in a market dominated by douches is not a big thing, but still, bear with me for now.
Cryptic studios, on the other hand, is probably the least respected MMO developer on the market, and for a good reason. They are pretty much a scam waiting to happen and mainly because of that I'd like to try and shed some light on this whole D&D situation.
First of all, Wizards of Coast, the original D&D 4e developer is not doing very well. 4e is being killed in sales by Pathfinder RPG, which is basically a spinoff of 3.5 D&D published a year ago or so. WotC is also cancelling it's miniatures line. The sucess skyrocketed the small company that took the mantle of 3.5 D&D and the company is still coping badly with the success. They still operate on the website that looks like it's from the 90s for example.
To anyone that is familiar with the pnp market this is not a surprising event and it's been extensively discussed on the web.
The funny thing here is that 3.5 Player's Handbook is ahead of 4e Player's Handbook and Rules Compendium even though the amazon sales rankings are based on the demand during the last 24h.
That being said I think that WotC is pushing for increased sales of 4e and is taking a huge gamble by hiring a company that is known for rushed releases and general disrespect towards it's player base. No respected developers this time (Bioware/Interplay) and probably lack of finances that will lead to another money grabbing scam by Cryptic and in this case, Wizards of the Coast sadly.
Sounds like the gamble they took with Turbine, game pushed out way too early and no respect for its player base. Hmmm is Cryptic owned by Turbine? They sure have a lot in common.
I am a long time EVE online player a small time DDO player. I've actually never visited these boards before or (obviously) posted anything here, but this topic got me intrigued so I decided not just to be a lurker and try to contribute a little to the discussion.
My DDO experience is relatively small. I have no characters past level 10 but I have enjoyed the game immensly until this point. I think that most of you DDO players actually don't realize that Turbine is at the moment relatively respected as a mmo developer. You might say that being relatively respected in a market dominated by douches is not a big thing, but still, bear with me for now.
Cryptic studios, on the other hand, is probably the least respected MMO developer on the market, and for a good reason. They are pretty much a scam waiting to happen and mainly because of that I'd like to try and shed some light on this whole D&D situation.
First of all, Wizards of Coast, the original D&D 4e developer is not doing very well. 4e is being killed in sales by Pathfinder RPG, which is basically a spinoff of 3.5 D&D published a year ago or so. WotC is also cancelling it's miniatures line. The sucess skyrocketed the small company that took the mantle of 3.5 D&D and the company is still coping badly with the success. They still operate on the website that looks like it's from the 90s for example.
To anyone that is familiar with the pnp market this is not a surprising event and it's been extensively discussed on the web.
The funny thing here is that 3.5 Player's Handbook is ahead of 4e Player's Handbook and Rules Compendium even though the amazon sales rankings are based on the demand during the last 24h.
That being said I think that WotC is pushing for increased sales of 4e and is taking a huge gamble by hiring a company that is known for rushed releases and general disrespect towards it's player base. No respected developers this time (Bioware/Interplay) and probably lack of finances that will lead to another money grabbing scam by Cryptic and in this case, Wizards of the Coast sadly.
Just FYI, read your own links carefully... 4th edition D&D is NOT being "outsold" by Pathfinder except in a limited amount of gaming stores.
"As far as the publishing side, Paizo’sPathfinder line appears to have taken a huge chunk of market share away from D&D, with many stores reporting it supplanting 4th edition as their number one seller. "
Many stores doesn't equal all stores; and WoTC definitely has a lot more presence in stores such as Borders than Paizo does. Not saying its good or bad, but to say that Pathfinder is "outselling" 4th edition is not exactly true. It's doing better in some small, mainly gaming specific, stores. And Amazon's top sales lists are all over the place with WoTC and Paizo books changing almost daily for supremacy.
Now, is WoTC happy about Pathfinder? Probably not.
Full disclosure: I play both Pathfinder and 4th edition.
This is my observation from the P&P industry. And life of it....
First off, the pie of P&P players is disparaging to other things that people have time for. In the late 80s and 90s I would say was was golden age or P&P. There was 8 or 9 popular creators of different gaming system. There were many only RPGs then, or what we think RPG is in computer terms. and since that time the P&P has population has been ageing and the youth has not been brought into the fold.
WoC picked up TSR the Creator of AD&D in 1997. By this time 2nd Ed has become a slowing fading power house of P&P games. WoC first atempt to produce AD&D was 3rd ed, This was the first major split in the AD&D crowd, many did not want to put up there investment in 2nd edition books, by this time there could be 100s of books and reference materials over it run from deferent game developers. WoC did a good thing at this time the released the Open Game Listen for AD&D3, and the industry had new life.
But never less WoC saw that AD&D they made major mistakes in the revision from 2nd->3rd, Most believed they were minor and did not affect the game. But as people tried to mix the 2 version, lots more then peopel every tried to mix the 2 and 3 version they found problems with this. And people who jumped on the band wagon loving the game jump off of it at the prospect of buy a motherload of books.
AD&D3.5 slowly became the standard , and the only game played . Other P&P would come and they would fade. Company came along and tried to revive 2nd like Hackmaster were barely popular.
For you who don't know WoC, the make Magic the Gathering a card collecting game and the had several minagure games out, Both of which they release new content every month. So every few months a new book from WoC would come out for 3.5, and other companys produced them under the OGL. This is the time DDO came out and was loosely based on 3.5.
Nerveless WoC seeing decline in sales and demographics in AD&D line announced in 2005 realizing 4.0 and went in development and was play rested and release in 2007. This is when a huge chunk of the AD&D P&P split between 3.5 and 4.0.
Now we have the hard core 2nd, 3.5 and 4.0 spliting the slowing fading market.
AD&D4 was another radical change in AD&D, no more OGL and the game mechanics now works more like a video game. Hoping to pull in the younger crowd. I do like the game, It plays nice and the poor wizard and other spell casters can do something past the first encounter with magic
I personalty been ruining AD&D and other games since the 70s, and seen lot of the P&P market share lost to console and online gaming and to other cheaper games. Now only the rich play 4.0, the "Book of the Month Club"(TM probably) AD&D4 which been release a book a month at US$40 per book on average. This defiantly will chase away lot of people and overwhelm someone looking into playing the P&P.
There will always be P&P players. With the world with all the things you can do and socialize the day of live contact is slowing fading away, thus activity like P&P and card playing with real people will be hard to fine.
Right now DDO has a large foothold it has it own rocky starts. Neverwinter nights has it followers, will it be replaced by it? Time will tell. The people who can pay for online games is a finite pool and the free players seam to be a infinite poll.
Remember all companies are in this for the money, the game might be the best thing since sliced bread it will fail because of the money.
my concern is the game has been in development for what 2 years now and is suppsoed to come out this year and we have yet to see a single screenshot or even a single piece of concept art out yet.
DDO went F2P to save it as Turbine was losing money for it. Many of it's seasoned players left it ages ago and those that remain play it because it's free and are die hard D&D fans who play it only because of it resemblence to D&D.
Neverwinter is a breath of new life to the D&D online gaming. The Foundry system alone will most likely dominate over DDO as it's the essence of D&D...DMing put onto the players instead of standing around ages and ages with ones thumb up their ass for new content which is nothing but empty promises from Turbine. Turbines attention is more on LotRO anyways at that game makes the serious buck while DDO is kinda of a side skimming.
Cryptic has grown to have a horrible reputation but any company can turn around. Cryptic appears to realize their mistakes in the past and hopefully they'll provide a decent project this time round.
The question should be: "Would Cryptic kill Neverwinter?"
Hahahahahaha, they already have imho!
If they manage to actually get a game out, bugs etc aside, Atari, WoTC, and Hasbro will seal it with their "approval" system. Why else do you think even Bioware told them where to go after years.
Then come to think of it, I now put Bioware in the same category as the above mentioned and nearly as bad as Cryptic.
Say what you will but for me DragonAge (and so on) is utter shit and Bioware is now a big pile of crud.
For the matte rof this discussion, Why the @#$@% redo NwN, there are alot of other areas/campaign worlds with much better options. Then again the games industry is going down the road of HolyWood, "What can we remake and reap a killing"...
Get some new ideas or at least make something original!
The question should be: "Would Cryptic kill Neverwinter?"
Hahahahahaha, they already have imho!
If they manage to actually get a game out, bugs etc aside, Atari, WoTC, and Hasbro will seal it with their "approval" system. Why else do you think even Bioware told them where to go after years.
Then come to think of it, I now put Bioware in the same category as the above mentioned and nearly as bad as Cryptic.
Say what you will but for me DragonAge (and so on) is utter shit and Bioware is now a big pile of crud.
For the matte rof this discussion, Why the @#$@% redo NwN, there are alot of other areas/campaign worlds with much better options. Then again the games industry is going down the road of HolyWood, "What can we remake and reap a killing"...
Get some new ideas or at least make something original!
Scratch out atari, add Perfect World International to that list, then think about it again, lol. I actually like Forsaken World, but if the main feature of this game is a DnD wedding you can count me out.
Comments
Cryptic have repeatedly stated that NWN will not be an MMO. Online CO-OP play, yes. MMO. no.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
CORPG is a undercathegory to MMO. We split them up so it is easier to understand what type of MMO we are talking about. Sandbox and MMOFPS are two other types of MMOs.
Some people say that CORPGs are not MMOs because they don't have an open world but frankly do som sandbox people claim that themeparks aren't "real" MMOs as well, it is bullocks but we still use the term CORPG so people know exactly what type of game we are talking about, it is just to make things easier.
Back to topic: I actually think NWN can hurt DDO subscriber base seriously if it is good, but Cryptic aren't exactly known for polished qualty products and making a game like this in just 2 short years sounds a bit suspicious to me.
NWN is not a game that anyone should preorder before trying the beta, and don't fall for the usual "preorder = beta" trick, it is like the discount life time sub just before the release a trap. Of course might they have learned from their lessons, FR is almost impossible to F*** up but it still isn't a smart preorder.
I disagree. As an old AD&D player I think 4th edition is the worst D&D edition ever. I rather go back to 2nd edition AD&D myself than that. I can live with 3rd edition but DDO didn't implement it right.
And I really don't like what they done to Forgotten realms lately either. It was getting more and more interesting when they suddenly just killed off the setting.
I can't really say that D&D is the best pen and paper mechanics, in fact it is one of the worst I played even if I had many hours of fun in it. Balance never been one of D&Ds strong points and few P&P games have as unrealistic mechanics (Warhammer FRPG and Runequest have a lot more realistic mechanics) and I am not that happy that every single MMO uses variations of those basic mechanics but done right can D&D be fun.
4 edition is however just flirting with Wow players.
you make some very good points. I was pointing out that if everyone starts calling this an MMO when Cryptic themselves won't...start stacking the firewood. I played Dungeon runners for years as well as DDO so I'm well used to that type of setup. Others...not so much.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Agree. 4.0 more of a PnP trying to emulate an MMO. Which basically would make NWNO like an MMO trying to emulate a PnP game that's trying to emulate an MMO... :P
3.5 or earlier, or I go from mild interest to, well, the opposite of interest...? Or just scrap any attempt at emulating the PnP ruleset and use something else, which I suspect Cryptic will do, anyway. See CO vs. Hero System.
I prefer 2E personally, but I have played 4E for a while now and have no issues with it. For a computer game I still think 4E is a good fit, due to mechanical soundness. The '4E is WoW' thing I disagree with, but opinions will vary.
What makes a game a "CORPG" (to you) as opposed to an MMORPG?
Just curious. As somebody who plays WoW and DDO I see that both games are heavily instanced, both games have large public areas where people meet and talk like idiots in the chat channels while they wait to group and do their real adventuring, and WoW as of late with the dungeon queues and battleground queues... well, it certainly seems more CORPG like to me than anything else.
Does the simply addition of larger public areas that you can wander in make it an MMORPG and not a CORPG? Because... that's basically all the difference I can see. If DDO made, say, Cerulean Hills able to support hundreds of people killing mobs at once instead of it being an instance would it suddenly become an MMO? If WoW decided to just go full-on in the direction it seems to be heading and only have two capital cities where you queue for random dungeons and battlegeounds, would it then be a CORPG?
Kinda just trying to nail down exactly what the huge difference is when all the main raids, dungeons, etc., in BOTH games are instanced. If a few public forest areas where you can run into other people while you play make one game an MMO and another a CORPG... well, um, okay. I can live with that I guess. I just don't get all the outrage when somebody tries to call DDO a MMORPG. It's massive, it's multiplayer, it's an RPG; the "public area" just happens to be a big city. On Thelanis alone last night I saw about two dozen people in one of the inns roleplaying.
Lines seem to be quite blurry between those two terms.
Hello everyone;
I am a long time EVE online player a small time DDO player. I've actually never visited these boards before or (obviously) posted anything here, but this topic got me intrigued so I decided not just to be a lurker and try to contribute a little to the discussion.
My DDO experience is relatively small. I have no characters past level 10 but I have enjoyed the game immensly until this point. I think that most of you DDO players actually don't realize that Turbine is at the moment relatively respected as a mmo developer. You might say that being relatively respected in a market dominated by douches is not a big thing, but still, bear with me for now.
Cryptic studios, on the other hand, is probably the least respected MMO developer on the market, and for a good reason. They are pretty much a scam waiting to happen and mainly because of that I'd like to try and shed some light on this whole D&D situation.
First of all, Wizards of Coast, the original D&D 4e developer is not doing very well. 4e is being killed in sales by Pathfinder RPG, which is basically a spinoff of 3.5 D&D published a year ago or so. WotC is also cancelling it's miniatures line. The sucess skyrocketed the small company that took the mantle of 3.5 D&D and the company is still coping badly with the success. They still operate on the website that looks like it's from the 90s for example.
To anyone that is familiar with the pnp market this is not a surprising event and it's been extensively discussed on the web.
Wall of text: http://www.enworld.org/forum/columns/299860-4-hours-w-rsd-who-am-i.html
Amazon Fantasy Gaming Sales Ranking: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16211/ref=zg_bs_nav
ICv2 report: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19177.html
The funny thing here is that 3.5 Player's Handbook is ahead of 4e Player's Handbook and Rules Compendium even though the amazon sales rankings are based on the demand during the last 24h.
That being said I think that WotC is pushing for increased sales of 4e and is taking a huge gamble by hiring a company that is known for rushed releases and general disrespect towards it's player base. No respected developers this time (Bioware/Interplay) and probably lack of finances that will lead to another money grabbing scam by Cryptic and in this case, Wizards of the Coast sadly.
cryptic= auto fail = it cant kill DDO
Sounds like the gamble they took with Turbine, game pushed out way too early and no respect for its player base. Hmmm is Cryptic owned by Turbine? They sure have a lot in common.
Just FYI, read your own links carefully... 4th edition D&D is NOT being "outsold" by Pathfinder except in a limited amount of gaming stores.
"As far as the publishing side, Paizo’sPathfinder line appears to have taken a huge chunk of market share away from D&D, with many stores reporting it supplanting 4th edition as their number one seller. "
Many stores doesn't equal all stores; and WoTC definitely has a lot more presence in stores such as Borders than Paizo does. Not saying its good or bad, but to say that Pathfinder is "outselling" 4th edition is not exactly true. It's doing better in some small, mainly gaming specific, stores. And Amazon's top sales lists are all over the place with WoTC and Paizo books changing almost daily for supremacy.
Now, is WoTC happy about Pathfinder? Probably not.
Full disclosure: I play both Pathfinder and 4th edition.
Hey,
This is my observation from the P&P industry. And life of it....
First off, the pie of P&P players is disparaging to other things that people have time for. In the late 80s and 90s I would say was was golden age or P&P. There was 8 or 9 popular creators of different gaming system. There were many only RPGs then, or what we think RPG is in computer terms. and since that time the P&P has population has been ageing and the youth has not been brought into the fold.
WoC picked up TSR the Creator of AD&D in 1997. By this time 2nd Ed has become a slowing fading power house of P&P games. WoC first atempt to produce AD&D was 3rd ed, This was the first major split in the AD&D crowd, many did not want to put up there investment in 2nd edition books, by this time there could be 100s of books and reference materials over it run from deferent game developers. WoC did a good thing at this time the released the Open Game Listen for AD&D3, and the industry had new life.
But never less WoC saw that AD&D they made major mistakes in the revision from 2nd->3rd, Most believed they were minor and did not affect the game. But as people tried to mix the 2 version, lots more then peopel every tried to mix the 2 and 3 version they found problems with this. And people who jumped on the band wagon loving the game jump off of it at the prospect of buy a motherload of books.
AD&D3.5 slowly became the standard , and the only game played . Other P&P would come and they would fade. Company came along and tried to revive 2nd like Hackmaster were barely popular.
For you who don't know WoC, the make Magic the Gathering a card collecting game and the had several minagure games out, Both of which they release new content every month. So every few months a new book from WoC would come out for 3.5, and other companys produced them under the OGL. This is the time DDO came out and was loosely based on 3.5.
Nerveless WoC seeing decline in sales and demographics in AD&D line announced in 2005 realizing 4.0 and went in development and was play rested and release in 2007. This is when a huge chunk of the AD&D P&P split between 3.5 and 4.0.
Now we have the hard core 2nd, 3.5 and 4.0 spliting the slowing fading market.
AD&D4 was another radical change in AD&D, no more OGL and the game mechanics now works more like a video game. Hoping to pull in the younger crowd. I do like the game, It plays nice and the poor wizard and other spell casters can do something past the first encounter with magic
I personalty been ruining AD&D and other games since the 70s, and seen lot of the P&P market share lost to console and online gaming and to other cheaper games. Now only the rich play 4.0, the "Book of the Month Club"(TM probably) AD&D4 which been release a book a month at US$40 per book on average. This defiantly will chase away lot of people and overwhelm someone looking into playing the P&P.
There will always be P&P players. With the world with all the things you can do and socialize the day of live contact is slowing fading away, thus activity like P&P and card playing with real people will be hard to fine.
Right now DDO has a large foothold it has it own rocky starts. Neverwinter nights has it followers, will it be replaced by it? Time will tell. The people who can pay for online games is a finite pool and the free players seam to be a infinite poll.
Remember all companies are in this for the money, the game might be the best thing since sliced bread it will fail because of the money.
my concern is the game has been in development for what 2 years now and is suppsoed to come out this year and we have yet to see a single screenshot or even a single piece of concept art out yet.
DDO went F2P to save it as Turbine was losing money for it. Many of it's seasoned players left it ages ago and those that remain play it because it's free and are die hard D&D fans who play it only because of it resemblence to D&D.
Neverwinter is a breath of new life to the D&D online gaming. The Foundry system alone will most likely dominate over DDO as it's the essence of D&D...DMing put onto the players instead of standing around ages and ages with ones thumb up their ass for new content which is nothing but empty promises from Turbine. Turbines attention is more on LotRO anyways at that game makes the serious buck while DDO is kinda of a side skimming.
Cryptic has grown to have a horrible reputation but any company can turn around. Cryptic appears to realize their mistakes in the past and hopefully they'll provide a decent project this time round.
Hahahahahaha, they already have imho!
If they manage to actually get a game out, bugs etc aside, Atari, WoTC, and Hasbro will seal it with their "approval" system. Why else do you think even Bioware told them where to go after years.
Then come to think of it, I now put Bioware in the same category as the above mentioned and nearly as bad as Cryptic.
Say what you will but for me DragonAge (and so on) is utter shit and Bioware is now a big pile of crud.
For the matte rof this discussion, Why the @#$@% redo NwN, there are alot of other areas/campaign worlds with much better options. Then again the games industry is going down the road of HolyWood, "What can we remake and reap a killing"...
Get some new ideas or at least make something original!
Scratch out atari, add Perfect World International to that list, then think about it again, lol. I actually like Forsaken World, but if the main feature of this game is a DnD wedding you can count me out.