PAX East - Massively's Neverwinter discussion

[kovah]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04...d-impressions/

[Saulus]

Graphics look pretty good, the rest is meh.

[Seheren]

If only it had a Toolset to create your own server like there is now.. Sundren with a (hopefully) more stable/bugfree game, and those graphics.. Screw us, though right? They want the MMO feel now..

[Silas North]

I'm actually somewhat interested in this. My experience with certain MMORPGs taught me that they can produce a surprising amount of good rpers, under the right circumstances. It's still a gamble that may not pay off, but I'm willing to roll the dice.

Besting NWN2's train wreck of a battle system will likely be no problem at all (especially with the 4th E. rule basis), but I'm more curious how the non-action elements will work in comparison. Will there be a decent amount of conversations, lock-picking, trap-finding, and the other stuff we liked in NVN2 and other previous FR installments? That's a big question on my mind; second only to "Will there be actual rpers there?" of course.

Making a whole server will likely be out of the question, but maybe the user-generated content will prove impressive. Who knows? Only time will tell.

[Satoshi]

I'm expecting a Vindictus-style free action game, to be honest. I'll end up checking it out since it'll be free, but I'm not expecting too much depth beyond the combat.

[Snowmane]

Graphics look pretty good, the rest is meh.

Saying the rest is 'meh' is giving the rest way too much credit.

[Zoberraz]

MMORPG.com had an interview with two of the high mucky-mucks behind the New Neverwinter game. The video (its sound is kind of mediocre, unfortunately) is the first available here: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cf...12-Awards.html

It's good information. Whether it enthuses you is up to your respective tastes.

Things I found of note? Crazy damage numbers bother me, for one - I'm hoping that's a Dev-demo-character aberation so to not die in front of the camera. The combats don't look bad (though I'm undecided toward the unnatural flair of some of that rogue's more powerful abilities such as the rather ninja-like daily power), but the graphics don't blow me away (then again, my benchmark is Aion, so... I'm kind of picky). I'm somewhat bothered that the Robot dance looks the exact same as the one in Star Trek Online - we don't get anything else handcrafted to look better in Neverwinter after an extra year of Dev time given to it?

Their rendition of the game as an MMORPG doesn't bother me. In NWN1 I never got to the persistent world scene and was content in playing modules put up on the NWNVault. With NWN2, I started trying for a setting that would be as close to Forgotten Realms as possible in addition to being active and having a community of decent roleplayers.

Since I see this from a purely-player point-of-view, it doesn't bother me that a custom-curtailed setting like Sundren cannot exist in Neverwinter (at least at launch). In a way, I see it as a positive because I've sometimes felt that the way Persistent Worlds were organized divided roleplayers after a fashion... each PW is a unique flag planted on the PW scene by a founding member, and offers a unique playstyle and setting; but if communities like Sundren and The Frontier had not been divided and had shared a common vision a much stronger and more active community of roleplayers could've been forged.

That's kind of how I see how things might be, without those boundaries. To someone whom is not into worldbuilding, a persistent world community is very much like a MMO guild of people you like to hang out to roleplay with - Sundren is our present sandbox, but I don't feel it's the setting that engenders fun so much as the community so this post-apocalyptic Neverwinter seems like it could serve just as well as a medium to our familiar rain-drenched valley. The rest is DMs crafting adventures... something which seems wholly possible from the module creation standpoint, if not from the DM-animated event point-of-view (that we know of so far). But I've managed to have a great amount of fun roleplaying with other players without DM supervision, so I see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

After all, people part of my chosen guild/persistent world can create adventure series like the Dreamcatcher or Demon campaigns that I could follow this way, and live with by roleplaying through those adventures with my roleplaying buddies. That feels D&D enough to me.

[Saulus]

Since I see this from a purely-player point-of-view, it doesn't bother me that a custom-curtailed setting like Sundren cannot exist in Neverwinter (at least at launch). In a way, I see it as a positive because I've sometimes felt that the way Persistent Worlds were organized divided roleplayers after a fashion... each PW is a unique flag planted on the PW scene by a founding member, and offers a unique playstyle and setting; but if communities like Sundren and The Frontier had not been divided and had shared a common vision a much stronger and more active community of roleplayers could've been forged.

^ So we should only have one choice because of unity? Wow... sound familiar?

[Zoberraz]

Yes, perhaps all the players of games like SWTOR, Aion, Everquest 2, LOTRO, DDO, WoW and even Diablo 3 unite their playerbase under a setting much like a Borg Collective. All the players in these games, they must be like drones.

...seriously? That's your argument?

You can have whatever choice you want, Saulus, and I won't ridicule you for it - I know you have a different perspective as a world builder, and that the years working on Sundren have given you appreciation for things I am utterly blind to. Like I said, you can choose to see what's different and view it as flawed for it. I choose to see from my perspective something that is like a glass half-full, and consider what advantages there might be from that angle.

Then again, I'm not surprised. Ever since this game showed the tip of its nose on the internet, the Sundren community has been bashing it. In popular netspeak terms: "The hate is strong in this thread".

To be honest, I think one of the weakest elements in the game that's being offered, though, is the brand name. I honestly think they might have drawn more interest and less stigma from the Neverwinter Nights 'fans' by patterning it less of Forgotten Realms and more like the 'core world' they built for 4th edition D&D. That shapes expectations, and draws the kind of seemingly close-minded response just brought up. On the chance that this game might actually become wildly successful, they could've gained much more by creating an IP rather than borrowing one but dragging it below expectations of its fans.

For now, I choose to believe that even though it might be different, that there's the potential to have fun in such an offering. I've enjoyed my share of D&D games; this one could be one of them.

[SeekerofKnowledge]

4E used MMO balance anyway. It was only a matter of time. 4E felt stagnant when I tried it, everything was the same.

MMOs have a bad type of mechanical balance to them. All classes are just themed versions of simple tasks. I kinda like the difference in ability older D&D had standard.

This game won't have many options. You'll find that it's hard to differentiate characters mechanically. Different isn't always bad, but I find that less options is usually less fun.

As always, the RP will blot out mechanical failings. I just think it will limit what characters can exist because it channels them into cliches.

[Saulus]

Yes, perhaps all the players of games like SWTOR, Aion, Everquest 2, LOTRO, DDO, WoW and even Diablo 3 unite their playerbase under a setting much like a Borg Collective. All the players in these games, they must be like drones.

My thoughts exactly as those games are nothing like NWN2. The personal experience and storytelling of DnD and PWs is not captured on a large MMO.

It's not like Cryptic studios has this amazing track record of enthralling storyline based RPGs.

[Zoberraz]

I can't disagree with that.

Maybe, on some level, I'm hoping to see Cryptic Studios rise out of its funk. They started pretty well with City of Heroes and the Devs I've been in contact with over the years sound like talented and passionate people. What seems to be their downfall thus far is how their production schedules and marketing efforts have been pretty ham-handed.

I mean, few developers go out of thier way to make a bad game - not to mention it's simply not in their interest to do so. Circumstances, statistics and budget are often what crimps development more than anything because budget-allocation has taken more precedence in the industry over creativity or innovating on what worked and ensuring it still works.

With an extra year of development time on this, perhaps Neverwinter can actually be a good online game that offers content, but also puts content in the hands of the player. Hopefully, they'll expand and add DM-client functionality as well. The demand for making persistent worlds is too great to just be ignored as well; I'm wondering if to some degree it won't have some sort of tie in with the present starbase/territory-building implementations that are being worked on for Star Trek Online fleets.

[Silas North]

My thoughts exactly as those games are nothing like NWN2. The personal experience and storytelling of DnD and PWs is not captured on a large MMO.

This depends entirely on what MMO you are playing. On a typical MMORPG, there are no REAL rp elements and this statement is quite true. However, on the few MMOs that have a sort of gateway into roleplay, the end results easily reach the capability of personal experiences and storytelling you find in a PW.

On these games, there are various RP guilds with a different set of quirky characters, goals, ambitions, and territories in some cases. It's much like the factions in Sundren and some other PWs. In many cases, the guilds aren't even necessary to have some rp fun. The approach to rp and the breed of rper in itself is different between the two, but after playing influential characters on BOTH mmos and PWs, I can attest to having a great deal of fun in both. In fact if I was forced to choose, I'd probably lean toward the mmos for the best rp experiences I've had in my storytelling career. Luckily, I'm not forced to make such choices.

The thing about MMOs breed of rpers is that they rely entirely upon each other, rather than a combination of each other and some higher authority. Independence and dramatics run more smoothly, and the desire to be vindicated by some force other than yourself is far less than in PWs. This has it's drawbacks of course, but everything does.

Where I find the potential in the upcoming Neverwinter game's user generated content is that it brings the possibility to combine the best of both worlds. Designers can make a mission/area/etc and the players can band together and dive right in, while having the possibility of a 'base' of sorts to come back to with hopefully everyone still alive and in one piece. The designers do their thing and the players do theirs'. The idea of playing a well-made combat (and hopefully non-combat) system with only the setting and the talents of players like Zob, Verrath, Narse, Peridan, Doubt, Blankstare, etc. to rely upon to make everything entertaining rp-wise, sounds like a half-step away from Heaven to me.