Games Neverwinter

Massively.com reports on another Free-to-Play game.

been watching this for about 18 months since it was first announced
glad it survived the cryptic-being-bought-out, for a while it was going to be cancelled

have high hopes for it

Something:

Interested in this. Will keep an eye out but won't get too excited until there's something substantial to show. Then possibly a full-on geek-out. Maybe.

Interview...

Want

A 2012 turnaround... can something awesome be conjured so quickly?

Guys, just keep in mind it's Cryptic that makes the game. The company behind Champions Online and Star Trek Online....

Take a good long look at both of those games and keep your expectations on a tight leash....

Cryptic is awesome at hyping their games, but for the love of god don't trust them...

In this case it's better to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised...

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Combat...

That actually shows a tad of promise...

I still expect Cryptic to botch it up but maybe not so bad...

Wow, it's like they butchered the Faerun lore and made a Michael Bay movie out of it. That does not look like D&D gameplay to me.

Am I the only person who is less than enthused by yet another fantasy themed mmo based around 5/10 man raids and boring as fuck chain killing of the same bosses over and over again?

CMON MMO developers, wheres the innovation

It's like the millions raked in by drab asian grind titles is luring them away from any kind of interesting mechanics. It makes me wonder why none of them are amazed at how much attention GW2 is getting -
Executive A. - Creative, innovative systems?
Executive B. - Why dat poplar?
Executive A. - Me no know.
Executive B. - Go! Copy more Asian grind - dat make many bart, we be much rich!

I guess the only reason is that nobody wants to take any risks in this economic climate. I think they are in denial - whether they make an popular or shit, they'll still get sacked once it's made. The guy who cleans the cups gets kept on to do bugfixes. When they want an expansion, they outsource that on temp contract again. Sadly, they don't seem to understand that games should be supported properly - I think it's called "streamlining" or "efficiency" or something. Stupid capitalism!

Having said all of this, I like the fantasy genre, but I think it would be more interesting to remove magic and invisible-style stealth. Make stealth into an darkness-oriented thing where taking into effect different factors makes it more and more difficult to spot someone, for example:
are they sneaking instead of running or walking?
are they in dark corners instead of in lit areas?
are they in very light armour?
is that armour made of black material?
Of course, if someone walks over with a torch, they become much more visible. Surely this must be possible instead of magic stealth?

aye, im well up for a good DnD game, but apparently this is going to fail aswell

As far as I can tell, this could be any number of titles from the far east...

Apparently the game uses 4th edition rules but hell if i could see it...

So Thief 3 style MMO? I would play that tbh

There is only so much innovation possible in fantasy MMOs. This will fall flat on it's face like the rest of them.

Give us a fallout MMO and I would be happy with that.

There is only so much of anything in anything, but seriously, nobody's really tried THAT much to be innovative. It's all about $$$, and innovative doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. People like familiarity.

For example... where is the ability to climb a rope? Or leave something on the floor? Anybody? Seems pretty basic.

There's a lot more that COULD be done for fantasy (or any genre), but they're not interested.

no you wont
nobody will
it will get picked to death by various groups of people, be released to mediocre reception, and then fail / go F2P and people will bitch and moan about it

the "communty" is killing MMOs, then complaining about it afterwards, its pathetic, and yet you can watch it happen every time

Like what though? Kill this, kill that. Level up. Get gear. Kill more powerful stuff, run out of content. There is a reason why there hasn't been a long term successful MMO since WoW and that is the genre has run out of ideas. People who think X MMO is any different are fooling themselves. Once you have got past the levelling (which was first class) in SWTOR (for example) it is just another gear collection exercise but in space. Rift, Aoin, Warhammer, Conan etc etc, they are all the same but with a different interface.

While I enjoy WoW I have no particular affinity for the side I play (Horde) I couldn't give a tuppeny fuck about the lore. I only play it because I happen to be in a guild of people that I like and have been guilded with for 6-7 years now and we raid together, I like the mechanics of the raids but I couldn't really care less who is the latest bad guy or why.

In DAOC I cared very much about Hibernia, it felt like home and the players in it felt like a community, the land was well designed and it was never just a means to an end. As a player you were always returning to previous zones, either to travel through them or for supplies or even just because you felt like it.

Every recent MMO has had pointless, lazy environmental design. Every zone is the same tedious paint by numbers crapfest (including WoW) I couldn't give a fuck about the zones or what they have in them because the designers obviously don't care either, you are never in them long enough to give a shit. You do your 10 levels then move onto another equally drab zone, never to return unless alting.

MMOs need living, breathing, player driven zones. Not boring fields of soloers ignoring each other, killing 15 fairies or collecting 10 plants until they get to max level then having nothing to do.

WoW is the best at hiding the fact that it is totally without soul.

How many MMOs have you played for longer than 6 months recently?

completely agree with Raven's post, well put.

I agree with a lot of your points, and would conclude that MMOs have become, by genre definition, soulless vacant games where mobs stand around and wait to be farmed for 10 fangs etc etc we all know the stereotypes. I was especially disappointed to discover that SWTOR had gone with the "aggro mobs standing around in small groups" formula. I feel this is the most dated of all MMO concepts. I think there's more to the problem that I have with MMOs than that, in particular the issue with lore that you bring up.

I think lore is a huge waste of time, but only in it's current form. Lore could be woven BY the players, rather than at or for them. As though they make the world instead of playing in a pre-made playground. I think that would help generate the type of (I hate the clichéd term, but here is it) realm-pride you describe. And this is why I keep my idea of a politically dynamic world close to heart and half-hope that someone copies it.

I wonder, though, how much of your realm-pride was down to DAoC being one of your first MMOs. People chilled out back then. Took it easy. Didn't feel the need to run around all the time doing things. They used to hang out and mess around. Maybe it's the community that has changed.

I would be interested to hear your views on GW2.

I won't be playing GW2 - For the simple reason that your enemy changes depending on some ranking system. For a PvP game you must have the same enemy. You build a relationship with both your realm mates and your enemy.
Despite never speaking to 95% of my opponents in DAOC I built a massive respect for some of them (and I hope it was reciprocated!) being a soloer that was very important, a mutual respect that meant we wouldn't be cuntish to each other and knew that if we came across each other fighting we would not "add" - however, we would use every tool at our disposal to win.

While we were enemies in the roleplaying sense of the game we understood that we had the same philosophy, we wanted to try ourselves against each other without outside assistance. Without wanting to get into the whole red its dead bullshit, we took what we wanted from the game and didn't care much for the instant gratification of zerging. I actually took great pride in Hibernia and would be one of the first heading to the relic keep when it was under attack (talking old frontiers here)

One of my greatest memories of DAOC was when the Albs were attacking one of our relics. Riding past Parth farm and all the level 15s asking what was happening. Then upon finding out, they were wishing us luck, cheering us on. It felt like it actually meant something, more than a random bunch of pixels, realm pride was at stake...it turned out the server crashed as the albs hit the doors but meh. The realm pulled together, 8v8'er, soloers, zergers. Everyone was at the relic keep and everyone had the same goal, to stop the Albs taking our relic.
The same with one of the relic takes, my guild (Pagan Death Cult - a pretty small, social guild) was tasked with putting the first rams on the enemy relic keep, we were worried about it for hours...would we fuck it up, would we even make it to the doors. In the end we did the job absolutely perfectly (I actually carried the ram and got it set up). I was massively proud of my guild mates then, we had done what we were asked to do and done it without fault, it was a massive confidence boost to everyone involved - it may seem small to a lot of people but we had played with each other for a long time. I joined the guild at level 8 and never left in all my years. I think I am now the only member left of PDC, I even took the guild to the US servers and made sure that it still lives...I have an alt that is a GM of PDC and until the servers close for good it will survive.

...anyway...The relic was taken and it was then smuggled through the realm wide instance (I forget it's name) while we hit the frontier gates to try and fool the enemy that we had the relic. We died horribly but managed to keep the enemy (Dirty mids!) occupied long enough for the relic to get back to Hibernia. That high lasted for weeks and for nothing more than a few more % damage.

You just don't get that any more.

I honestly believe if DAOC was polished up with a new engine, re-released and re-marketed and maybe a bit of work done on the PVE side, it would absolutely stamp on the opposition. No game since has given that sense of belonging.

This is quite interesting...
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/17/mmo-blender-larrys-roleplay-sandbox/
Okay, it's about sandboxes (like DAoC's RvR). Regarding lore, he states that players should have the means to produce their own content. That's good, but what if that means was part of the game itself, rather than a mission/level/quest design program/tool? So the devs are making the game another layer higher than they would normally. They are hands off the finished product, and every server ends up with a different situation on it (if it's a multiserver game).

I remember PDC very well, good bunch of people that were in there.. the like of Brack and such if memory serves?

I used to enjoy those aspects of DAoC and I don't think any game has replicated it since. I'm sure I remember that raid, was it not dropped at least once on the way down causing a mass panic ?

Alliance of Power was probably the best bunch of people I have ever had the experience of gaming with, great bunch though I didn't join the guild until I'd long been 50, but they welcomed me in and I never left since, still (the same as you) keep the guild name alive on Ywain. Just wish those old names would come back.. what I wouldn't give to be running a good ole small man again.

I'll be trying GW2 purely for the fact of trying something new, which I have been waiting for several months. I don't think it will or anything can compare to how DAOC was, and I can't see myself playing it for more than a few months casually. Uthgard gives an aspect of how DAOC was, which still no other game I have played does - I can log on, search, find a group and go exp together & meet people etc. Having RVR'd so much on different server types, the RVR on uthgard isn't really the selling point.

Its strange tho, people say MMO games lack innovation yet barely anyone praised DDO (mentioned since neverwinter is D&D) itself, which did away with most of the things people have whined about here. Was it the lack of pvp that put so many off?