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Neverwinter: Post-PAX Interview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Cryptic's Neverwinter was the belle of the ball at the recently held PAX East convention last month. We caught up with Andy Velasquez, Lead Producer on Neverwinter to chat with him about the game. Check it out!
MMORPG: How much content are you aiming to have at launch? Will there be full progression through levels 1-60, or will you rely heavily on the Foundry and player created content to round it out?
Andy Velasquez: We are excited about what our creative users will be able to make with The Foundry but that content can absolutely be a supplement to the progression of your character and will not be required for you to reach max level.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Neverwinter Post-PAX Interview.
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Comments
As a D&D pen/paper player i loved almost every single game i played. Since EYE OF THE BEHOLDER to last Dragon Age II, i enjoyed till last drop. I'm a huge fan of MMORPG genre. I will be playing Neverwinter Online from day 1. GW2 got my heart too, as a GW1 with 3k hours played.
Hope that Cryptic made an AAA+ game of it. As i watched over last weeks, this seems a must have for every D&D fans and fantasy style players.
PD: Sorry for my english if something is misstyped
just the mistyped part
given that PWE are looking after cryptic now..i think the game is gonna be awsome..if it was'nt for PWE we would'nt be getting a full mmo..it was them that told cryptic they wanted a proper mmo..cant wait for this game.from what i've read so far it sounds great.
And we've needed a D&D MMO set on Toril for a long time... so, yay for that.
Can't wait. Seriously. First time in a long time I've gone out and bought the books for an MMO
The more I hear of Neverwinter, the more it seems like the game design I would have wished for GW2. GW1 was just about one of my favorite games, as it felt very RPG-ish to me (more than most MMOs I've played), without leaving me constantly "stuck" when I had a group quest or dungeon in some low-player-population zone. The heroes in GW1 were always ready to fill in where needed.
In my opinion, the heroes were the very best feature in GW1, a game loaded with great features, and yet GW2 has ditched the heroes. That, for me, was a hugely disappointing decision on their part.
In this sense, then, Neverwinter looks (in theory, at least) more interesting to me than GW2, because it doesn't try to mash players into standardized groups. To me, "LFG Hell" is the bane of most modern MMOs. Heroes allow soloers and smaller groups to enjoy content without having to find that magic "1 healer, 1 tank, and 3 DPS" class mix or give up on a group quest because no tank/healer is online or available.
I love fiddling with party composition and heroes. Neverwinter offers me, as a player, a variety of ways -- i.e., with a full group, a smaller-than-usual group, or solo -- to tackle dungeon/group content. I really like that.
Hmmm, I wonder if they're planning for Epic Tier. The powers from 20+ are pretty stupid, at that point you're forced to go up against Gods and the like because there's really nothing left for you to do. There's even flat out immortality. You also are supposed to lose your character soon after hitting 30 (depending on the GM), due to that immortality. I would love to see something like that handled in an MMO, without the losing the character part, though.
Things like group flight, reality warping, gravity control, etc....that would be a lot of fun.
I'm ~not~ sure how I feel about their version of the level system, though. I'll take a wait-and-see approach to that. The gain in power in DnD is already pretty subtley spread over 1-30; except for a few level intervals scattered here and there, you never really gain a level and suddenly hit a new plateau...you sort of look around one day and realize, "Oh...cool, I don't suck anymore." DnD 3.5 made that come sooner than its prior versions but, still. Spreading that out over 60+ levels would go from gradual to downright sluggish, unless they're ditching the DnD stats and leveling system for something more typically MMO, which would be just as unfortunate, IMO. But, like I said, I'll wait. They could surprise me. They have, so far.
I'm glad PWE forced them back to the drawing board. The models, graphics, gameplay, etc., are all sounding far better than when they first debuted info about the game.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
After sto I don't believe anything cryptic says.
Foundry will solve the lack of content?
So they'll have their 4th edition D&D CRPG out right about... what? When D&D 5th edition launches?
Awesome.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Honestly, 4th ed is about only one DnD edition that can be properly "ported" to MMO gameplay.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
If DDO is a grind, it must be really well covered couse you hardly feel that when you play. The objective of each dungeon is different and diverse, unlike "Go there, slaughter 3 pigs, gg" or "take this, run to that guy and come back". Content is never "forgotten", people Reincarnate, make new characters, new people join the game. Each quest they come up with has story, presents a new part of Eberron into the game, new equipment (and its not just some stupid Great Sword +5, Attack 113-1333534 like some other games *cough* SWTOR WoW *cough*, items actually have interesting d&d like effects) and especially alot of replay value. Another thing you mentioned is DDO not following DnD rules, well guess why? It's an MMO not a board game and I bet this game won't be any different on following DnD rules couse this isn't PnP. DDO was P2P for 3 years before it had to go F2P (more then you can say for alot of other games).
On another note you're hanging your hopes on a company owned by Perfect World and you dare talk about grind games? haha
Foundry is meant to compliment it.. The team that's dedicated to Sto is using a way out dated foundry tool set and they said it won't be updated until Neverwinter is done..
I'm hoping great things with Neverwinter, the awesomeness Of not constantly spamming LFG or LFM is good and keeps things moving..
hope they take there time, as PwE seems to be giving them all the time they need to get it right and not greedy Atari, saying release it now finished or not..
I think ddo uses a different ruleset if I remember correctly.. Also the foundry is meant as compliment the game not necessarily be the main content distributor. Think of it like the toolset Neverwinter knights or Skyrim has, but it's not too much mmo out there where a user can make there upload there dungeon idea for others to play..
Cryptic eh?
Get ready for some serious financial bleeding... on your end of course. Can't wait to see the Cryptastic casino shop they have planned for this one lol.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
DDO has so much content that the vast majority is forgotten or how it takes em months n months just for a few trivial amount of quests?
Yeah that 10000000 possible character builds which 99999975 are not even viable.
DDO isn't really D&D, all it is is a typical grind fest MMO that is D&D "inspired," many features of that game are non-existant in D&D or how many core features in D&D are not even evident in DDO.
So established that they had to merge the EU servers with the NA servers or how going to F2P was a ploy to save a sinking ship?
Obviously you never really ever played PnP nor know anything about the toolset in the NWN games with a your ignorance on player crafted dungeons skepticism.
Ohh that edition thats years away? That edition?
4e has incredible potential in the MMO gaming industry, much better than 3.5e. Actually read the article and you will see that it is 4e "inspired." This is no direct trastlation but they will take waht fits their design.
Considering the EPIC, and ongoing fail that is STO in the hands of Cryptic and PWE, there is no way I'm getting anywhere near NWN.
But, blowing tons of cash on horrible (and undisclosed) casino odds are teh cool these days!
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I played a ton of Neverwinter while I was at PAX and I honestly think Cryptic has a winner on their hands. The combat is tight, easy to learn, yet has just the right amount of variety and hack and slash elements that it kept feeling fresh even after I'd played through the short demo they had multiple times. I actually had to remind myself at several points that I was playing an MMO and not a single-player game.
Having player-made content and DM'ing options available at launch is what I think is gonna really put this game on the map. Anyone who's played games like Neverwinter Nights knows that some players can create truly spectacular content when given the right tools.
I hope the extra year+ that PW gave Cryptic to re-tool this one is worth it but given Cryptics track record, I will not be standing in line for this one. I'll wait for others to try it and see what the reviews are before I waste any more time on a product from Cryptic.
Highly indicative of what to expect . MMO I believe has a Multi player aspect to it. Sorry , but Cryptic's game design doesn't lend itself to this. History is a great teacher as are past and present products. So in summary , expect a single player game , billed as multi-player , with minimal content, highly repetitive, player generated content ( of which you'll need to pay to use the tool set , undoubtly there will be levels of tool set access ) and a casino atmosphere that will bombard you with false advertising about winners and prizes awarded. ie a typical Craptic f2p game .
I want to give this game a fair look, but knowing first hand how cryptic has run their current games I have my doubts. Still I'll give it a fair shake when open beta is on and read up on player reviews once it's out.
While I would love to have PvP at launch, I have to respect them for this comment:
"We are focused on making our launch feature set as good as it can be so we were not interested in doing something quick and dirty just to say that we have PVP in the game."
Fingers crossed that they get it right.
D&D for life!!!! neverwinter FTW!!!! I loves a good underdog and this ones bite is going to be better than its bark i beleive
Please don't let cryptic crap the bed on this one. I can just imagine same same dungeons ala CoH / CoV or say STO. Nothing like leveling up playing the same 4 environments mixed with 4 different quest objectives ad nausium til cap.
Yea, DDO sucks. Of course it does. But the things tmr819 was saying about GW2 are just flat-out false, with the exception of no heroes (though there are a couple of systems in place to work with this concept). This LFG nonsense is just that, nonsense.
And how can anyone trust anything we hear from Cryptic. Sure, the graphics are pretty, but has anyone heard the saying "Never judge a book by it's cover"? Everything I've every touched from Cryptic has just been awful, and STO was no exception. On top of a terrible game with terrible mechanics and a terrible engine, they butchered the lore and world of Star Trek so badly that it cause me physical pain in my nerd bone.
Yea, it's pretty, but how can anything think it will be even a passable game with their track record?
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman