The server is
Beholder.
We are on
Beholder.
here is a
Beholder:
So let's talk a little about this upcoming game, shall we?
From Wikipedia:
Neverwinter is an upcoming co-operative online role-playing game in development by Cryptic Studios for the PC platform and is currently scheduled for a "late" 2011 release.[2] Based in the fictional Dungeons & Dragons city of Neverwinter, the game will be released as a crossmedia event coinciding with the release of an upcoming trilogy of books by fantasy author R.A. Salvatore as well as an upcoming tabletop game from Wizards of the Coast.[3] Neverwinter was announced on August 23, 2010. Neverwinter is a standalone game in the Neverwinter Nights series.[2]
What do we know about Neverwinter?
It' set 100 years after the Spellplague, and during Neverwinter's rebuilding. Neverwinter had a nasty run-in with a volcano that pretty much kicked its arse. A lot of Neverwinter has been rebuilt, but it's still ongoing. And nasty things are conspiring to take advantage of that, as is the way with Dungeons & Dragons. Oh and the Lord of Neverwinter is dead. Things are a bit hectic because of that. Factions are vying for control. The dead are rising to attack the city they once called home.
It's being developed by Cryptic Studios. The game is in the hands of the developers of City of Heroes/Villains, Champions Online, and Star Trek online.
It's not your run-of-the-mill MMO! The official site pins it as a co-operative, online RPG. Cryptic Studios Chief Operating Officer Jack Emmert had this to say of Neverwinter:
"It's not an MMO in the sense that there aren't zones with hundreds-and-hundreds of people. You are not fighting for spawns. There's a very strong storyline throughout the game. So it's more of a story-based game closer to things like Dragon Age or Oblivion, which we really try to follow."
It's a game where you play with your friends, the AI, or both. Yup, you can team up with pals, or give commands to NPC characters and work together to attain your goals.
It's an MMO where you can make scenarios! So there's the Foundry. And using the foundry, you can make your own quests and dungeons and shit for you and your friends to enjoy. And then you can share them with the rest of the game's community.
It's got five classes and uses modified 4th Ed rules. Warrior, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger. And it's the first Neverwinter game to use 4th ed rules.
It's slated for 2011. So it should be out by the end of the year. Hopefully.
Want some screenshots? Well here you go:
Want a trailer? We got that too:
Neverwinter trailer
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Glorious days spent as a cheerful halfling cleric burning emo kids as they roleplayed dark, moody (but sexy and cool) vampires. This, even before the era of the Twilight books!
I might never again have the opportunity to ruin someone's (dark, brooding, but mysteriously cool and edgy) day with a smile, a "Hi there!", and the blinding pain of a Searing Light spell...but this game still looks like it might have potential.
Knowing that it's Cryptic gives me pause, as I didn't really enjoy their previous offerings...but hey, it's Neverwinter. It'll probably be worth a look.
Ditto.
As a RPer, this game could be the holy grail. I have doubts, (its Atari after all), but the game has serious potential to be extremely unique and deliciously creative.
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Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Then you've got yourself a conundrum.
Heh, heh, nice! This made me howl.
But of course, this is a tradition that I'm glad Atari won't fuck with. I mean come on, my Blue Dragon has been spitting lightning since 1980. If you don't like that, get off my fucking lawn.
But, I'll also say WOTC's redesign of several dragons (the blue in particular, it looks like a fucking rhinoceros), is pretty dreadful.
Another problem with WOTC's style, is they've bought into the PC argument about sexism. Uh, its fantasy, sexual archetypes are one of the bastions on which fantasy is built. Still, the 3rd edition female Elf, looked like a gender-neutral librarian with a 24-inch chest. I love Gloria Steinheim, I'll gladly attend her lecture and agree with her, but I can respect feminist causes and still leer at cleavage in my stupid fantasy book/game.
WOW and EQ gave us cleavage...in the "Succubus, Monster Manual" vein...and were richly rewarded for their homage to the human mammary gland.
A new Faerun D&D game?!
... from Cryptic :x
I remain cautiously optimistic. I was just recently pining for an actual 4E D&D game and it sounds like hopefully they are trying to make a faithful reproduction of the tabletop experience rather than some adulterated Dark Alliance type thing.
My darkest fear for this game, and I can see the writing all over the wall with how they're dancing around the pricing, is that they're going to be using some kind of bullshit unending stream of paid DLC or freemium/subscription fee on this, and force you to buy all of the content with cryptic fun bucks or feel like a peasant. I can just see it now, 1 month after release, now you can buy the special "Druid" premium class for $6.99! Subscribers get updates for freeeee!
The user-generated content creation sounds like it has potential though. Spore for big boys plus the aurora authoring tools.
I think The Foundry makes it a completely different experience. I'm wondering if there will be some sort of meeting lobby/community or if you'll have to go out of your way to find friends to play with. Built in VoIP would be nice too.
Same people who have Torchlight it looks like.
This makes me a bit more optimistic.
Do we know if Atari is taking charge of this now, or Cryptic? Or are the two going to work in tandem but with Cryptic as a separate private partner in the development?
What does that last line even mean?
Why would Turbine suing Atari stop a game by Cryptic?
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Like I said earlier, it was this move that pushed Adkinson out of Wizards and led the brain drain out of WOTC since.
We go from a brilliantly tailored 3e, to that cluster that is 4e. We see D&D's revenue shrink to half of its former self and we see WOTC squander millions on clusters like "Gleemax".
Honestly, it's really sad. Given how massive fantasy is right now (and fantasy gaming in particular), its sad to see the Grandfather of them all limp along with such terrible representation.
Let's hope this is all settled and that Neverwinter brings D&D back to the stature it deserves.
In the meantime, I'll be running my Pathfinder campaign and hoping for a brighter day.
All I want is NWN 1, with 4th Ed. rules and shiny graphics. Not a quasi-MMO that's being created by Cryptic.
http://www.vivox.com/press-releases-detail.php?id=59
Cryptic Studios Find Its Voice with Vivox
Vivox to provide HD voice chat for Cryptic's award-winning online video games
Vivox, Inc. (www.vivox.com), the number one integrated voice platform for the Social Web, and Cryptic Studios, a leading developer of massively-multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) and a subsidiary of Atari, Inc., today announced a platform agreement that will integrate Vivox Voice services into all Cryptic titles.
Cryptic, the creators of City of Heroes, City of Villains, Champions Online: Free for All and Star Trek Online, has been an innovator in the gaming industry with the creation of a proprietary engine for the development of MMORPGs. Cryptic will also be expanding its portfolio with the launch of a new co-operative role-playing game, Neverwinter, in 2011. Vivox plays an integral role in the feature sets of Cryptic's upcoming games, as well as upgrading existing titles with in-game voice chat functionality.
Vivox Voice chat is a critical component for online games and has driven the adoption of many top-tier titles. The ability to instantly collaborate with fellow players - be it while taking down an enemy fleet in Star Trek Online or teaming up against an evil super villain in Champions Online - is irreplaceable during online gameplay. With the integration of voice chat into its games, Cryptic is providing its community with the most personal and social in-game experience available.
"We pride ourselves on bringing the best possible gaming experience to our players and community and are constantly evaluating options to improve our offerings," said John Needham, CEO of Cryptic Studios. "We've seen Vivox in action in other titles and knew it would be a fantastic feature for our community. With the addition of voice chat into our portfolio, we know we are delivering the best communication option in the market, and are confident we are providing our players with the most immersive, exciting experience we can."
"The opportunity to integrate Vivox Voice into titles with the reputation of Star Trek Online and City of Heroes is not something you come across everyday. To say we were excited is an understatement," said Rob Seaver, CEO of Vivox. "Together with Cryptic we will work tirelessly to bring our best-in-class voice services to all of the studio's titles and ensure their communities the ability to easily communicate while in-game. We look forward to building on this relationship for years - and many more games - to come."
4E is selling poorly? I would be interested in the citation on that!
But I wouldn't bet on Neverwinter being anything more than a rush job that flounders with a buggy initial release and never recovers, just like most MMOs.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
And I can't remember the last large MMO that released recently with major bugs. Which ones do you refer to? The most recent fantasy MMO (Rift) went extremely well and is extremely popular. Launches aren't the clusters they used to be. DCUO had some issues with chatting on their console version, that's about the most major launch bug I can think of in the last year or so.
So, make no mistake, the MMO industry is booming, that's why everyone is investing in them. Sure, so few ever reach the scale of WOW, but WOW's bar is astronomically high. Blizzard is a billion dollar industry because of WOW, D&D 4e is about a 10 million a year industry now. How sad.
So its the paper and pen industry that is reeling and 4e neutered the brand, because it essentially split the few customers it had into two groups, one that embraced open source and the other that went along like lemmings with a system that made you pay extra for books just to get Gnomes, a D&D staple for decades.
Neverwinter has potential. It will never ascend to Blizzard's numbers, but it could settle in as a comfortable niche-MMO and thrive at that level. Games like City of Heroes have occupied this kind of space for seven years. One advantage is the content-creation is a unique offering, it will attract a type of player for that alone.
If you want to insist 4e is booming despite all evidence to the contrary, but then insist Neverwinter will suck, despite no evidence this is true, then go ahead and stick close to your preconceived notion. But I wager, Neverwinter will probably survive as a legitimate niche product. Why do I think this? Because other games that don't offer their unique feature-set and don't feature an association to such a highly recognizable brand.
There will be bugs (there always are, even in highly controlled, tested releases like Cataclysm), but I doubt it will be anything that paralyzes you from playing or accessing major feature sets. Those days are largely over, most MMO releases have kinks, but the days of major server outages or complete dysfunction are largely over.
MMOs are winning for a reason. And I wager Neverwinter will be a viable option in this booming industry.
Er, Paizo has a one-off pre-painted minis set, where you get 4 static hero characters for about $15. They have no plans to continue the line, sticking with their PF-branded metal minis.
D&D is still coming out with novels. The prepainted minis are gone, true, but they're releasing monster tokens, instead, with the Monster Vault, and some really solid map products (usable in just about any edition).
They've also released three *fantastic* D&D board games in the past year-and-a-half or so (which come with a whole lot of minis, each).
Look, your bias is really, really apparent here. The 4E split in the fan base is no worse than the 2E->3E split; it's just more vocal and visible on the web.
And, for the record, I'm currently playing PF, so that should head off any sort of attacks from that direction.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
You have a short memory. 3E received pretty much the exact same complaints from 2E die hards. It's the ciiiircle of Grog~
Any talk of 4E neutering the brand is a narrative constructed from whole cloth. I could point out that 4E has a significant advantage in terms of number of books in Amazons top seller list over Pathfinder, or that it's regularly cited as a best seller in the NYT (which Pathfinder has not been), but even then I would be constructing a narrative from incredibly limited data points. Which, by the way, you've provided none at all. You've made some broad claims that a thriving 4E and a thriving Paizo are mutually exclusive, a claim which needs significant citation to be treated as actual evidence.
The simple fact is that WotC has released no sales figures and that all of us are speculating wildly. The Pen and Paper industry is almost certainly in decline to one degree or another simply on grounds of the economy. Anything beyond that, specifically with regards to D&D? We don't really know.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
Except Cryptic has been pumping out a ridiculous amount of content for it's two games so far, with Star Trek Online in particular literally getting entirely new features bi-monthly. So your comment is kind of ill conceived and lacking any indication of you actually checking up on the games past release.
MMO's tend to release half finished. This is a fact. It's what they do with the MMO in the months after that that matters. Not every MMO developer has the budget of EA or Activision to fall back on. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.
Not too thrilled that they're converting NWN into a MMO. But i'll hold off on the doom-saying until I see evidence that it isn't going to have the flexibility of NWN.
And for what it's worth, they are stating pretty emphatically that Neverwinter is not an MMO.
It's not really an mmo like most are used to. From the way it sounds, they're banking on players generating enough new and interesting content (most likely searchable through an interface with a robust rating system) to keep players subscribed. The benefit of being like an mmo is that all characters are made and use the same ruleset, same gear / loot / abilities and can freely go between all the user generated content instead of the thousand different shards created by NWN1 and NWN2.
There's so much crap you have to download between each PW server for NWN1/2 and you can't take your characters from server to server. So you either find one or two you really like or you lose interest in the game overall. D&D : Neverwinter won't have that problem.
But I guess I'll give Cryptic a chance first.
I'm hoping for some nicely done recreations of classic modules from the 80s.