Neverwinter impressions

I just hit level 29 before the servers went down, figured I would post my impressions here

Character Creation-

The game has one of the better racial selections of recent years.  Obviously we are getting standard fantasy because its what standard fantasy is based off of.  Even so the Tiefling is a bit of an unusual race, as is the Half Orc.  We also have Dwarf, Halfling, Human, and a few types of elves (with Drow being added soon).

Appearance customization is slightly above average but still unremarkable.  Character models arent great.  The little RP touches of deity, hometown and organization are nice touches, but a bit disappointing they dont factor into the game at all.

Combat-

Starts slow.  At first it seems like a left click, move out of the redfest.  But its certainly deeper than that once you get into it.  

However, those red circle abilities really arent all that damaging for the most part.  While in TERA getting hit with a BAMs special ability was extremely painful, in Neverwinter its easy to recover.  So far up to level 29 the difficulty is not where it should be, needs to get tougher faster.

Questing:

meh.  the outdoors quests mostly suck.  however the ones that send you into a dungeon type environment are good.  the Wizards folly line in the late teens is a pretty fun quest line.

Dungeons and Skirmishes:

Skirmishes are in a way mini dungeons (but outdoors, at least the two Ive done).  they are fairly short and give a blue item at the end, not bad to do once a day for some Astral Diamonds.

The first two dungeons are a bit of a slog.  No real need to worry about tanking, just hack and slash.  And fairly trash heavy.  Boss in second dungeon, Cragspire Crypt (not to be confused with the excellent foundry dungeon Cragsteep Crypt) did get a little hectic, but my guess is the mechanic is to have adds spawn as the boss takes damage so dps on adds/tank on boss should be used.  but i had dps in my group that wanted to be a wart on the boss's ass so there were many semi-tough adds that never were getting killed.

The good thing about these dungeons is they arent fully linear.  See that side path out of the way from your objective?  It likely has treasure chests in it or possibly a big ugly spider mini boss.  The first dungeon, Clock tower, has a hiddenish boss that drops an item that can be used to spawn a chest in the end room.

PvP:

I have done two skirmishes.  Its nice that they seem to have done a good job with the length of time it takes to kill someone.  BUT PvP is not fun with the excessive crowd controlling.  they need to put some diminishing returns in fast.

Crafting:

Sucks.  Bad.  I liked the SWTOR system, but this is like an unnatural feeling copy of it.  And it takes too long, because its meant to get people to rush their workers with diamonds.  Its cool having recipes randomly available for an hour, but unless soemthing picks up fast this will go down as one of the worst crafting systems ever.

the Foundry:

Absolutely amazing.  There are some great storytellers out there.  I recently did a creative one where a Dwarf was under a curse and I had to go into his dreams to put a stop to it, and it was a clever look into the history of that particular Dwarf.

I know this sort of tool has been used before, but the toolset is pretty amazing for an MMORPG.  outside of boss fights (which are oddly missing, but people have been creative enough) you can do most anything.  

the cash shop:

Still too early to judge.  bag prices are excessive.  Character slot at 5 bucks isnt bad.  Will have at least a slight influence on power at 60, but just how slight well have to wait and see.

I am having a surprsing amount of fun.  I almost wrote it off after the first day, but the more I play the more fun I have.

It is not a standard MMORPG, and should be approached as more of a dungeon crawling Action RPG instead.  It needs more classes, and I didnt touch on it but the character customization seems pretty lackluster.  your choices of what to put points into 1-30 arent thrilling because you can get all the abilities anyway and you are bound to have a few where you ar ehappy with 1 point so you will likely be able to get everything you want from the treats page.  the initial feat selections are uninteresting.  

The game isnt for everyone but definitely does more things right than wrong.  I would highly recommend checking it out.  It probably wont become your main game, but its something you might very well enjoy spending a few hours playing here and there.