If you like 3.5 I couldn't care less, but don't try and sell it as the pinnacle of D&D. It's D&D - The Excel Edition.
Hear, hear
AD&D all the way for us as well. Adventuring, sometimes spent 2-3 months on the same level because the story and roleplaying was the key (hence the name, role playing game, I guess... ), and not the combat-loot-levelup trinity like nowadays, nor the "if i put an extra point on here, then..." crap.
I play the AH, I even play the Zen/AD market (although it's a lot slower to amass wealth that way) but I've put just as much effort into wealth creation as I have in improving my character.
Are you playing RPG or some stock market simulator?
And yes, NWO is an awful game.
Treat each feature of the game as you see fit, just as you will find many players in other MMO's use a games economy to their advantage, in fact some games such as EVE have very well developed player driven economies that it becomes an art in itself, and totally engrosses some players.
Lets not forget that we all gain enjoyment from different aspects of any game that we play, mine just happens to be in creating wealth for my character which I hen use to further advance my avatar.
I have found that even though PWE have created a P2W system, that with time and effort I can beat them at their own game and never have to drop real cash into their pockets, and I have fun doing so, just as I have when I have mastered other MMO economies. Now if only I had been an early adopter in Entropia, I could have been a rather rich man by now, and thats in real terms.
I have found that even though PWE have created a P2W system, that with time and effort I can beat them at their own game and never have to drop real cash into their pockets, and I have fun doing so, just as I have when I have mastered other MMO economies.
They're adapting though, have you checked the new fusion system? I doubt anyone will beat PWE in that... :I
At the dev diary I just said it looks greedy, at launch I said: wow, that's harsh... but now, after some dabbling with it I must say it's maybe the biggest money sink I've ever seen in f2p games (and I've seen a lot). RaiderZ's beyc mechanic is like an innocent, wide-eyed newborn baby compared to this...
And with the lowered ward drop rate (which is now a must, not just a convenience like before), it's hard to miss the deliberate, greed drive behind the implementation of it. I wonder how it will turn out on the long run, since it's not a new mechanic, it's a change, so there's a (close to) 1 year experience of the free fusion which is now locked away behind a pay wall.
Have to chime in and say i was pleasantly surprised as well.
I did one of the beta weekends way before the game even went into the open beta phase and i was far from impressed, on a whim; decided to reinstall it now that the new ranger class has been added.
And Wham! I got pretty much insta-hooked. Not to the ranger, but the trickster rogue. Combat in this game is what really makes it shine for me, combined with the story telling chunks that are small enough to be 1 play session long.
Yes, huuuge open worlds are all nice and dandy but they tend to be bland as hell for the most part, with my limited playtime i am quite enjoying the themparkishnes of Neverwinter's smaller zone design- it allows for very different visual themes to go perfectly with the story they are telling.
This game most certainly wont be everyone's cup of tea (but then again what game is?), but i believe it is doing what was designed to do quite perfectly. It is an on line version of the 4th ed. DnD rpg, focusing primarily on character progression through mix and matching various combat abilities presented through a chain of small adventure cycles that form a campaign.
If you like free form leveling in a wast open world where you create your own story and all that jazz, avoid it as the plague, otherwise i do recommend trying it out
The thing about true D&D pen and paper, they aren't open world but a segemement of linear turns rolling a dice. The problem with hardcore d&d pen and paper fans are that the "worlds" were built in thier imagination, so it will be impossible for any game to capture each imagination of millions of d&d fans since all of thier encounters where different.
I think Neverwintwer does a great joob of creating that old school linear encounter pathway by populating it with lush graphics and a really nice combat system.
I to liked the trickster but rolling some other class to about 30 to see hwo they play before Isettle on my class choices. I do with wish we had more character slots but I amm not complaining .
So basically you are saying this is a good single player/co-op action RPG. That doesnt equate to good MMO though. Also, the character slot is not an issue, just buy more slots.
Also, the character slot is not an issue, just buy more slots.
Will be dumping a few bucks into the game for sure.
500 Zen for 2 more slots (if it's not on sale)
or, it costs a few minutes of your time (registering a second account, I mean. lol)
I was thinking another account, but if I buy something that is account wide, then im screwed... I made that mistake in AoC, put godslayer on a new account not thinking the AA system is only through the xpac. Made 4 lvl 80's uuseless
Yep, but AoC is a freemium (former sub) game, while Neverwinter is designed as f2p from scratch... and with it not leaning on accounts. There are no "bound to account" stuff, no account-wide purchases in the store, everything is per character. The only exception is the claimable stuff, but that is a whole different league, if someone is willing to spend $60 - $200 for a pack, I think the $5 for 2 character slots is just some change
In Neverwinter the additional character slots are convenience only. I'm an altoholic, but I have a second acc as well (with one character as a mule, and one is for the runestones / enchants - or at least was, until the **** fusion change with Shadowmantle...).
Trust me, the only noticeable drawback is that at the character change you need to type the login/pass if they're on separate accounts. So it's more convenient to have them on 1 account if you switching a lot between characters like I do. And if you buy packs, then you can claim a mount and a companion on every character, but those are never a "best ones" anyways... (ok, the sylph is cute)
For example the bag in the packs is for 1 character only, and not an account wide claim, same with the consumables. While they usually have +1 character slot in them, I think they still not worth their prices.
Edit: it was very incoherent, sorry. Put it simpler:
-if you buy every pack they release, then character slots is the way,
-if you have 1 pack, then it depends how many characters you plan creating, and that the extra mount and companion justifies the char.slot purchase or not,
-if you don't buy the packs, then it only depends how many characters do you plan to have, and how often will you switch between them (because of the login takes a few sec more than a simple character change)
There are no account-wide stuff in game besides the packs. Everything can be traded / mailed between characters on different accounts.
There are no account-wide stuff in game besides the packs. Everything can be traded / mailed between characters on different accounts.
This is not correct. Mounts purchased from the Zen shop are also account wide. They can't be mailed, but once you buy one you can claim a copy of it from the shop for 'free' on every character on the account. Also with mod2 they changed the 7 day prayer rewards to be account bound. There are a couple other account-bound items, but not many. Overall character slots really aren't that expensive though. They've had a couple of sales on them already. And keeping everything on one account is very convenient.
The big draw back right now is that the AD/Zen exchange rate has gone to crap since module 2. I've only ever seen it this high twice. Once was the early access release, when the only people playing were those who had early access from buying a founder's pack. (That gave everyone either 600,000 or 1,000,000 AD.) The second was during the Caturday exploit. Will be watching to see how they handle it.
We have an agreement then, I worte as well that keeping character slots in one place is a convenience and I mentioned mounts too (however, unless someone is a collector, 1 mount is more than enough).
You're right with the Vault of Piety, I missed that change... which is a shame since I ranted about the Coffer change right after Shadowmantle went live. The peridot and aquamarine was so disturbing I didn't notice the "Bound (Account)" on the top Same goes to the Sharandar treasure box.
But that's not a big deal either, nobody is stacking or mailing those, opening it right away is the standard way I guess.
And now I went throught the shop too, but no more account bound stuff in there. Right now I don't remember account bound loot either. There were requests in the beginning of making at least the Seals share-able among characters, but those were rejected too.
I would imagine that now we will have a bigger push from the players for more account-bound items. Before mod2 it wouldn't have mattered. As we had no way to trade the few account-bound items that did exist (such as the caturday xp scrolls). Now that a system is in place to trade account bound items... it makes sense for more stuff to be changed to account-bound instead of character bound.
I will say its odd they went with a mail delivery system for account-bound items. Both of the other games by cryptic have a shared bank, and I'm told you can't share account-bound items through the mail. Yet they use the same mail system as neverwinter. Heck, sometimes my STO account gets my neverwinter mail. Just surprised they tinkered with that instead of adding a shared bank.
I think that uncertainty is part of the reason I keep all my stuff on one account. We have no idea what else they might change to account bound later. On the other hand, if they never bother with it. I'm not really hurting myself all that much since I bought the character slots on sale anyway.
I always thought it's intentional, and a result of the f2p design. The absence of shared bank was a clear sign as well of the character focus instead of the account focus.
Yep, the mail, chat and socialising systems are wired together, I also see mails from STO and CO, I used to chat on Doffjobs while waiting in queue in neverwinter, etc. I think it's a great feature. Friend lists are shared as well.
edit: and yep, you can't mail account bound items in STO, nor in CO. I found it hilarious when I first saw in CO the shared slot option on the store for cheapskates (as in shared bank, just with 1 slot, and cheap)
Well truth be told, Neverwinter combat is pretty action oriented, especially in the pvp department. I love it how you must manage your stamina to roll out of the your enemies big hitting attacks, and how staying in one place will get you pretty much insta killed.
And surprisingly, as far as i have seen so far, bunny hopping is not a viable strategy for any class due to cast animations of most attacks (thanks god)
I am level 6 now the game is not too bad so far.The combat is quite good but must not spam an attack otherwise you cannot dodge an incoming attack because you're locked in the attack sequence so must play carefully and not mash keys.
Level 6 is still part of the tutorial Not literally, you defend the bridge and get into Neverwinter before that, but in the sense of the features and mechanics.
I used to say it's tutorial until lvl16 (the companion system and your first companion), some say until 20 (the first mount) but I don't think a mount is a system or a mechanic At lvl 16 you're already learned through the teaching quests every mechanic you'll use during leveling - and at 60 there will be some endgame ones as well.
After playing both superhero games from cryptic, I am surprised the at the depth of this game.
This game has a lot of features that franl;y. I was expecting. I'm huge on character progression , attribute systems and clsass systems, and this game has it. The mini games have been the best mini games to date with each class possessing it's pwn ability to be OP.
Good work Cryptic , don't F it up please !
I can see this filling a void in my top f2p list ....
LOL this game is about as deep as a childs pool.
The failed so hard. Characters look like STO characters, they even copy and pasted the dance. But they did not copy and paste teh amazing modifcations you can do in STO...leaving cookie cutter ugly models that do not match the environment. Then mix in the game is 90% slide and stop and cast...and that slide is a magical skateboard. In STO they actually have a nice animated jump and cover going on. How do you fail when handed all the tools? It is called "fast, make it, take the cash. Fix it later or never or poo in a bag".
Then we move on to game play. Repetitive quest hub BS. I will give it 2 good points. The experience of cinematics and tying in story in levels 1-10 is AMAZING. Then it slumps off into standard horse Shizaky instantly. Not to mention you have to fight just about every mob (agro issues) and super linear game play.
Second good point. It is all instanced small world game play. However they make good use of the small world and give it a nice illusion of large world. Not bad, exxcept for piss poor agro management and forced to encounter every fight or skateboard out.
The rest is just below par. The armor, skills etc. Super linear, very direct, NOT DEEP. Not sure what game you are comparing this too, but I can play this eyes closed with a guide dog barking out the commands.
After playing both superhero games from cryptic, I am surprised the at the depth of this game.
LOL this game is about as deep as a childs pool.
That was a good one
I like Neverwinter but this was my first comment too, that it's nowhere near CO or STO, especially in character building. Which is not right or wrong (actually based on the numbers it serves as an advantage to the game, being easier), simply a fact. For theory crafting STO or CO is a better fit than Neverwinter.
Dren posted a list, I don't even want to dabble with character progression itself (I know a guy who left STO because the point allotation was too difficult to understand... lol), nor the Professions (which is a watered-up and easified DOff system), let's just compare the BOffs and the companions - because that system was copied almost 1 by 1 from STO, so with the comparison you can see, how much simplification Neverwinter got.
Looks: in Neverwinter you can pick from 4 default looks for each companion (unlocked as they leveling up), and that's it. In STO you can modify all of the Officers with the character creator system itself (which is also deeper than its Neverwinter counterpart, just noting). You can modify them any time you want. You can change their uniform as well, any time you want.
Gear: Neverwinter you can give them 3 gear pieces (locked by type, and the slots opened up by leveling), and 3 runestones (also locked by type and slots opening with leveling). In STO you can gear them up just like your captain, give them consumables they use during the fights, give them different weapons, etc. Right from rank Ensign (lvl1).
Skills: in Neverwinter it's simple, they have 3 (level locked) skills, by default, same companion have the same skills. Period. In STO they can have 4+4 skills, every Officer have a random 4+4 by default but you can change all of them as you wish by sending them to trainings, learning from other captains, etc. And their skills are "yours" gameplay-wise, you clicking them to fire off, or they can use them at will too. In Neverwinter companions using their skills automatically.
Numbers: in Neverwinter you can have 1 companion with you. In STO you play with an away team on the ground (team of four, with 3 Officers of your pick from the roster), in space it based on the bridge of your current ship, but even the lowest ships have 3 BOff slots. So you're playing at least with 3 Officers at any time. (Smallcrafts have only one Officer slot, but as the name tells, they're small )
And it's only one system, I could list many others, right from the character creation to the endgame. It doesn't make Neverwinter a weak game, it's fun, and it seems the folks in there doesn't mind the easier setting. I'm just saying, compared to the other Cryptic titles, Neverwinter is simpler.
Comments
There is probably only 1 thing I do not like about STO - ground combat. And Neverwinter is just that.
I tried the game but could not get pass stiff character animations and somewhat clunky controls/movement.
Hear, hear
AD&D all the way for us as well. Adventuring, sometimes spent 2-3 months on the same level because the story and roleplaying was the key (hence the name, role playing game, I guess...
), and not the combat-loot-levelup trinity like nowadays, nor the "if i put an extra point on here, then..." crap.
Maybe you should not try to sell other editions as the pinacle of D&D either?
Different strokes for different folks.
Treat each feature of the game as you see fit, just as you will find many players in other MMO's use a games economy to their advantage, in fact some games such as EVE have very well developed player driven economies that it becomes an art in itself, and totally engrosses some players.
Lets not forget that we all gain enjoyment from different aspects of any game that we play, mine just happens to be in creating wealth for my character which I hen use to further advance my avatar.
I have found that even though PWE have created a P2W system, that with time and effort I can beat them at their own game and never have to drop real cash into their pockets, and I have fun doing so, just as I have when I have mastered other MMO economies. Now if only I had been an early adopter in Entropia, I could have been a rather rich man by now, and thats in real terms.
They're adapting though, have you checked the new fusion system? I doubt anyone will beat PWE in that... :I
At the dev diary I just said it looks greedy, at launch I said: wow, that's harsh... but now, after some dabbling with it I must say it's maybe the biggest money sink I've ever seen in f2p games (and I've seen a lot). RaiderZ's beyc mechanic is like an innocent, wide-eyed newborn baby compared to this...
And with the lowered ward drop rate (which is now a must, not just a convenience like before), it's hard to miss the deliberate, greed drive behind the implementation of it. I wonder how it will turn out on the long run, since it's not a new mechanic, it's a change, so there's a (close to) 1 year experience of the free fusion which is now locked away behind a pay wall.
Have to chime in and say i was pleasantly surprised as well.
I did one of the beta weekends way before the game even went into the open beta phase and i was far from impressed, on a whim; decided to reinstall it now that the new ranger class has been added.
And Wham! I got pretty much insta-hooked. Not to the ranger, but the trickster rogue. Combat in this game is what really makes it shine for me, combined with the story telling chunks that are small enough to be 1 play session long.
Yes, huuuge open worlds are all nice and dandy but they tend to be bland as hell for the most part, with my limited playtime i am quite enjoying the themparkishnes of Neverwinter's smaller zone design- it allows for very different visual themes to go perfectly with the story they are telling.
This game most certainly wont be everyone's cup of tea (but then again what game is?), but i believe it is doing what was designed to do quite perfectly. It is an on line version of the 4th ed. DnD rpg, focusing primarily on character progression through mix and matching various combat abilities presented through a chain of small adventure cycles that form a campaign.
If you like free form leveling in a wast open world where you create your own story and all that jazz, avoid it as the plague, otherwise i do recommend trying it out
So basically you are saying this is a good single player/co-op action RPG. That doesnt equate to good MMO though. Also, the character slot is not an issue, just buy more slots.
500 Zen for 2 more slots (if it's not on sale)
or, it costs a few minutes of your time
(registering a second account, I mean. lol)
Yep, but AoC is a freemium (former sub) game, while Neverwinter is designed as f2p from scratch... and with it not leaning on accounts. There are no "bound to account" stuff, no account-wide purchases in the store, everything is per character. The only exception is the claimable stuff, but that is a whole different league, if someone is willing to spend $60 - $200 for a pack, I think the $5 for 2 character slots is just some change
In Neverwinter the additional character slots are convenience only. I'm an altoholic, but I have a second acc as well (with one character as a mule, and one is for the runestones / enchants - or at least was, until the **** fusion change with Shadowmantle...).
Trust me, the only noticeable drawback is that at the character change you need to type the login/pass if they're on separate accounts. So it's more convenient to have them on 1 account if you switching a lot between characters like I do. And if you buy packs, then you can claim a mount and a companion on every character, but those are never a "best ones" anyways... (ok, the sylph is cute)
For example the bag in the packs is for 1 character only, and not an account wide claim, same with the consumables. While they usually have +1 character slot in them, I think they still not worth their prices.
Edit: it was very incoherent, sorry. Put it simpler:
-if you buy every pack they release, then character slots is the way,
-if you have 1 pack, then it depends how many characters you plan creating, and that the extra mount and companion justifies the char.slot purchase or not,
-if you don't buy the packs, then it only depends how many characters do you plan to have, and how often will you switch between them (because of the login takes a few sec more than a simple character change)
There are no account-wide stuff in game besides the packs. Everything can be traded / mailed between characters on different accounts.
This is not correct. Mounts purchased from the Zen shop are also account wide. They can't be mailed, but once you buy one you can claim a copy of it from the shop for 'free' on every character on the account. Also with mod2 they changed the 7 day prayer rewards to be account bound. There are a couple other account-bound items, but not many. Overall character slots really aren't that expensive though. They've had a couple of sales on them already. And keeping everything on one account is very convenient.
The big draw back right now is that the AD/Zen exchange rate has gone to crap since module 2. I've only ever seen it this high twice. Once was the early access release, when the only people playing were those who had early access from buying a founder's pack. (That gave everyone either 600,000 or 1,000,000 AD.) The second was during the Caturday exploit. Will be watching to see how they handle it.
We have an agreement then, I worte as well that keeping character slots in one place is a convenience
and I mentioned mounts too (however, unless someone is a collector, 1 mount is more than enough).
You're right with the Vault of Piety, I missed that change... which is a shame since I ranted about the Coffer change right after Shadowmantle went live. The peridot and aquamarine was so disturbing I didn't notice the "Bound (Account)" on the top
Same goes to the Sharandar treasure box.
But that's not a big deal either, nobody is stacking or mailing those, opening it right away is the standard way I guess.
And now I went throught the shop too, but no more account bound stuff in there. Right now I don't remember account bound loot either. There were requests in the beginning of making at least the Seals share-able among characters, but those were rejected too.
I would imagine that now we will have a bigger push from the players for more account-bound items. Before mod2 it wouldn't have mattered. As we had no way to trade the few account-bound items that did exist (such as the caturday xp scrolls). Now that a system is in place to trade account bound items... it makes sense for more stuff to be changed to account-bound instead of character bound.
I will say its odd they went with a mail delivery system for account-bound items. Both of the other games by cryptic have a shared bank, and I'm told you can't share account-bound items through the mail. Yet they use the same mail system as neverwinter. Heck, sometimes my STO account gets my neverwinter mail. Just surprised they tinkered with that instead of adding a shared bank.
I think that uncertainty is part of the reason I keep all my stuff on one account. We have no idea what else they might change to account bound later. On the other hand, if they never bother with it. I'm not really hurting myself all that much since I bought the character slots on sale anyway.
I always thought it's intentional, and a result of the f2p design. The absence of shared bank was a clear sign as well of the character focus instead of the account focus.
Yep, the mail, chat and socialising systems are wired together, I also see mails from STO and CO, I used to chat on Doffjobs while waiting in queue in neverwinter, etc.
I think it's a great feature. Friend lists are shared as well.
edit: and yep, you can't mail account bound items in STO, nor in CO. I found it hilarious when I first saw in CO the shared slot option on the store for cheapskates
(as in shared bank, just with 1 slot, and cheap)
Well truth be told, Neverwinter combat is pretty action oriented, especially in the pvp department. I love it how you must manage your stamina to roll out of the your enemies big hitting attacks, and how staying in one place will get you pretty much insta killed.
And surprisingly, as far as i have seen so far, bunny hopping is not a viable strategy for any class due to cast animations of most attacks (thanks god)
Level 6 is still part of the tutorial
Not literally, you defend the bridge and get into Neverwinter before that, but in the sense of the features and mechanics.
I used to say it's tutorial until lvl16 (the companion system and your first companion), some say until 20 (the first mount) but I don't think a mount is a system or a mechanic
At lvl 16 you're already learned through the teaching quests every mechanic you'll use during leveling - and at 60 there will be some endgame ones as well.
LOL this game is about as deep as a childs pool.
The failed so hard. Characters look like STO characters, they even copy and pasted the dance. But they did not copy and paste teh amazing modifcations you can do in STO...leaving cookie cutter ugly models that do not match the environment. Then mix in the game is 90% slide and stop and cast...and that slide is a magical skateboard. In STO they actually have a nice animated jump and cover going on. How do you fail when handed all the tools? It is called "fast, make it, take the cash. Fix it later or never or poo in a bag".
Then we move on to game play. Repetitive quest hub BS. I will give it 2 good points. The experience of cinematics and tying in story in levels 1-10 is AMAZING. Then it slumps off into standard horse Shizaky instantly. Not to mention you have to fight just about every mob (agro issues) and super linear game play.
Second good point. It is all instanced small world game play. However they make good use of the small world and give it a nice illusion of large world. Not bad, exxcept for piss poor agro management and forced to encounter every fight or skateboard out.
The rest is just below par. The armor, skills etc. Super linear, very direct, NOT DEEP. Not sure what game you are comparing this too, but I can play this eyes closed with a guide dog barking out the commands.
That was a good one
I like Neverwinter but this was my first comment too, that it's nowhere near CO or STO, especially in character building. Which is not right or wrong (actually based on the numbers it serves as an advantage to the game, being easier), simply a fact. For theory crafting STO or CO is a better fit than Neverwinter.
Dren posted a list, I don't even want to dabble with character progression itself (I know a guy who left STO because the point allotation was too difficult to understand... lol), nor the Professions (which is a watered-up and easified DOff system), let's just compare the BOffs and the companions - because that system was copied almost 1 by 1 from STO, so with the comparison you can see, how much simplification Neverwinter got.
Looks: in Neverwinter you can pick from 4 default looks for each companion (unlocked as they leveling up), and that's it. In STO you can modify all of the Officers with the character creator system itself (which is also deeper than its Neverwinter counterpart, just noting). You can modify them any time you want. You can change their uniform as well, any time you want.
Gear: Neverwinter you can give them 3 gear pieces (locked by type, and the slots opened up by leveling), and 3 runestones (also locked by type and slots opening with leveling). In STO you can gear them up just like your captain, give them consumables they use during the fights, give them different weapons, etc. Right from rank Ensign (lvl1).
Skills: in Neverwinter it's simple, they have 3 (level locked) skills, by default, same companion have the same skills. Period. In STO they can have 4+4 skills, every Officer have a random 4+4 by default but you can change all of them as you wish by sending them to trainings, learning from other captains, etc. And their skills are "yours" gameplay-wise, you clicking them to fire off, or they can use them at will too. In Neverwinter companions using their skills automatically.
Numbers: in Neverwinter you can have 1 companion with you. In STO you play with an away team on the ground (team of four, with 3 Officers of your pick from the roster), in space it based on the bridge of your current ship, but even the lowest ships have 3 BOff slots. So you're playing at least with 3 Officers at any time. (Smallcrafts have only one Officer slot, but as the name tells, they're small
)
And it's only one system, I could list many others, right from the character creation to the endgame. It doesn't make Neverwinter a weak game, it's fun, and it seems the folks in there doesn't mind the easier setting. I'm just saying, compared to the other Cryptic titles, Neverwinter is simpler.