Neverwinter Review: Welcome to D&D Infinite
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The only problem with this game is too much damn wow, not enough dnd. By a long mile. Does this article need a sponsored by tag? 
Yeah, the cost to respec is rather annoying, especially while in a beta state. It means players won't be able to try different builds to see what works and what's bugged/OP/UP. It's fun but character progression takes a hit from this, especially since there's only one Paragon path for each class so even fewer choices to be made.
the banner image for this article on the escapist main page is from elder scrolls online *facepalm*. who's in charge of this place?
Being an old time sto player, i have a hard time seeing why they swung so far out with the respecs, other than sheer greed. Used to get a respec every rank up in sto they go "free" to play and now you do not get any at all.
Other than for greed, they should give at lest one respec hell i might even argue 2 of them over the course of leveling up. Especially with their habit of nerfing stuff at whim leaving peoples builds out in the cold.
Other than for greed, they should give at lest one respec hell i might even argue 2 of them over the course of leveling up. Especially with their habit of nerfing stuff at whim leaving peoples builds out in the cold.
Must of been a different game I played... the Neverwinter I played had like 5 classes with very limited skill and spell selection, a pretty generic tank and spank PvE, and standard DPS is OP PvP with AFK farmers galore.
It was a pretty game and reasonably fun initially but it quickly showed its greedy side ...
... want to change your pets name : 5000 diamonds
... want to remove a jewel from a slot : xxxx diamonds
... want to buy some scrolls to id items you found : xxxx diamonds.
To be fair everything, including the real money currency ZEN could be earned in game so it is totally possible to earn everything via gameplay, its just that literally every action had a price tag slapped on it and earning diamonds , marks , seals , celestial coins , etc etc etc was slow and quiet frankly very repetitive.
You also had to ensure you did your daily invocation to your deity or you would lose you deity coin (whatever) ... damn things would vanish with 24hrs of your last invoke.
Game itself is not bad but very repetitive, a typical run through the dungeons is much like a WoW dungeon finder run for epics... race through the trash mobs so fast you cant see the scenery, tank and spank the bosses, fight over loot (typical need / greed system but no limiting need to the class... so basically everyone just needs everything).
Single player PvE has its moments especially in the instances where you aint getting dragged about by a party of farmers, the Dungeon creation system is decent and the devs do deserve some praise for the effort of encouraging players to use player created dungeons.
Short ver. a decent but grind ridden repetitive MMO lite with limited customisation and a whole lot of paywalls, the paywalls do however have means and ways in game to legitimately bypass the walls if you are willing to really hit the old grind hard.
I would of given the title 3 ... 3.5 rather than 4 stars.
It was a pretty game and reasonably fun initially but it quickly showed its greedy side ...
... want to change your pets name : 5000 diamonds
... want to remove a jewel from a slot : xxxx diamonds
... want to buy some scrolls to id items you found : xxxx diamonds.
To be fair everything, including the real money currency ZEN could be earned in game so it is totally possible to earn everything via gameplay, its just that literally every action had a price tag slapped on it and earning diamonds , marks , seals , celestial coins , etc etc etc was slow and quiet frankly very repetitive.
You also had to ensure you did your daily invocation to your deity or you would lose you deity coin (whatever) ... damn things would vanish with 24hrs of your last invoke.
Game itself is not bad but very repetitive, a typical run through the dungeons is much like a WoW dungeon finder run for epics... race through the trash mobs so fast you cant see the scenery, tank and spank the bosses, fight over loot (typical need / greed system but no limiting need to the class... so basically everyone just needs everything).
Single player PvE has its moments especially in the instances where you aint getting dragged about by a party of farmers, the Dungeon creation system is decent and the devs do deserve some praise for the effort of encouraging players to use player created dungeons.
Short ver. a decent but grind ridden repetitive MMO lite with limited customisation and a whole lot of paywalls, the paywalls do however have means and ways in game to legitimately bypass the walls if you are willing to really hit the old grind hard.
I would of given the title 3 ... 3.5 rather than 4 stars.
Not sure I entirely agree with this review. When I played the beta, I came away with a resounding feeling of 'ehhhhh'. I honestly spent twice as much time creating a mission in the foundry than I did in the game itself.
"Neverwinter may be linear, but brutal combat and great group mechanics make every minute enjoyable."
Wait.. since when was cryptic under EA, i thought only games like dragon age 2 would get these sort of reviews.
Honestly I wonder if the reviewer has even played the game. Well I have let me set something straight its dull weightless story with no sense of engaging the player. Futhermore the combat is even worse since it is repetitive and unimaginative. It lacks any sort of punch or strategic in it, in truth it is the most pure meaning of the word button masher. Not only that but it also manages to take one of the coolest settings NWN/forgotten realm and turn it sterile and meaningless. It spits on the franchise, it has laughable nonsensical DND mechanics shoved into it, in the hopes that it will trick its user into thinking that it has anything meaningful to offer. Like randomly rolling for stats which was already canned by the 3. edition randomly put into a 4. edition game.
I rarely get offended by a game but this game manages to take something that is beautiful and wonderful and completely destroy it. The game makers should be ashamed, it is an abomination of a game one that should have been killed in its infancy but has been allowed to grow and fester into this mess of game. The worst part is that the game had so much potential but it had no guts no will of its own, it was directionless and wasted all of its potential on designing really stupid looking casting animations.
Wait.. since when was cryptic under EA, i thought only games like dragon age 2 would get these sort of reviews.
Honestly I wonder if the reviewer has even played the game. Well I have let me set something straight its dull weightless story with no sense of engaging the player. Futhermore the combat is even worse since it is repetitive and unimaginative. It lacks any sort of punch or strategic in it, in truth it is the most pure meaning of the word button masher. Not only that but it also manages to take one of the coolest settings NWN/forgotten realm and turn it sterile and meaningless. It spits on the franchise, it has laughable nonsensical DND mechanics shoved into it, in the hopes that it will trick its user into thinking that it has anything meaningful to offer. Like randomly rolling for stats which was already canned by the 3. edition randomly put into a 4. edition game.
I rarely get offended by a game but this game manages to take something that is beautiful and wonderful and completely destroy it. The game makers should be ashamed, it is an abomination of a game one that should have been killed in its infancy but has been allowed to grow and fester into this mess of game. The worst part is that the game had so much potential but it had no guts no will of its own, it was directionless and wasted all of its potential on designing really stupid looking casting animations.
I can't really agree with this review much, if at all. Here's what I think (because, clearly, that's far more important! ).
Well.... in short : Unimpressed. Uninstalled. Too many other things that I'd rather spend time on (I'm so far behind atm, that I'm only just picking up Dishonored and Skyrim now!).
In long:
Intro
Overall, it isn't a bad game, it really isn't. It's just not for me. The gameplay is interesting, the action-y stuff is better implemented than GW (haven't played GW2, so can't comment there), and the combat is significantly more engaging than the facerolling, button-mashing of WoW and all the various clones thereof. The story is relatively interesting and the Foundry is the same as player-created content everywhere (i.e. nuggets of awesomeness buried in seas of trash). Unfortunately, I doubt that it'll be able to maintain that same level of immersiveness, I found the game overall to be fairly shallow, and I utterly despise the particular F2P model they've clearly built the game around.
Pro's
The action combat is more engaging than most other MMO's (Eve excluded). You can get a nice mix of abilities, twitch/reaction skills are helpful and you can avoid damage by the simple expedient of not being there when it arrives. Depending on your class, you can stack various combo's and effects to make yourself more powerful, meaning that there is going to be moderate differences in the quality of teammates based on the knowledge and experience of the player behind that character.
The world is good looking and the graphics are well up to Cryptic standards (although that could also be a Con, depending on your opinion of Cryptic graphics - I know their art style doesn't appeal to many). Still has the whole "most of the world is just pasted onto polygons" problem though. Most of the stuff is non-interactive fluff.
Fairly faithful to D&D and the Forgotten Realms as a whole (if you're a lore-buff who cares about such things). Although there are a few jarring disconnects here and there, it quite clearly picks up after NWN2 (sorry folks... looks like there will never be a NWN3 ).
Con's
a.k.a. the stuff I like to talk about because con's always play a bigger part in my gaming decisions than pro's - something I can't stand has much more power than something I want!
The game is based on 4th ed D&D and, as such, character creation is significantly less versatile. Each class has a "role" that it fulfils, and if you play anything but that role, you're going to be drastically less effective. Compared to WoW (where a mage could be pure DPS "flame" spec, control "ice" spec or utility "arcane" spec) you get "The Control Wizard". Who does crowd control. You can try for DPS, but you're basically gonna suck. Instead of allowing classes to choose their focus, they've implemented the various roles/kits as completely separate classes, hence we have the Guardian Fighter (tank) and the Great Weapon Fighter (DPS), so you can't even respec if you want to switch role. And they only have 5 classes - Guardian Fighter, Great Weapon Fighter, Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric and Control Wizard. Hope you like one of those roles, 'cause that's all there is for now. Shallow.
Some of the race selections are a bit... odd. They have Drow (for pre-orders, everyone else can purchase it in like 3 months) and Tieflings, but no Aasimar or Gnomes. Seriously... who leaves the gnomes out?! Shallow.
A lot of D&D's dungeoneering aspects have been watered down. Most traps are visible if you're paying attention. Who needs rogues/trapmonkeys. "Secret" areas show up on the map - you just need to find the lever that opens them. Who needs elves/dwarves. Non mission-specific loot has been watered down into 1-2 class-based nodes scattered throughout the dungeon. Who needs Spot / Search. When you run a dungeon, the only things you can interact with in any way are enemies (who drop coins and the occasional item), reward chests (after each boss/miniboss), the "puzzle" items (but since they're the only things you can use, it's more hide'nseek than puzzles) and your 1-2 class-specific supply nodes. And the "dungeons" are basically more like "corridors". Shallow.
Actually... I could point stuff out individually, but what my biggest problem comes down to is this : The game model is actively designed to make you play more and play more often. I'm OK with that, but it's also designed to punish you if you don't. This is the kind of game that I'd be quite prepared to play very casually (like, once a week, tops), dropping a bit of money on it every so often when something cool is in the store. But since playing like that will actively gimp me, I honestly can't be bothered to play at all.
From the crafting (where you have a certain number of slots and you can start a new project every few hours) to the in-game stores (where certain currencies require you to log on every day or you lose them), from the payment models (which either require you to pay significantly more than a normal sub, or to be logging on every day) to the quest system (many, many daily "activities"), it's absolutely clear that this is a game which tells you to play every day, for hours at a time. HTFU or GTFO.
I don't like my games to tell me when, where or how to play, so this game simply isn't for me. If you're OK with that, most of the major concerns I've got will go away (apart from normal issues that most MMO's have - which, if you want an MMO will be irrelevant anyway).
Conclusion
Neverwinter looks OK. Regardless of the action-y combat, it's still a pretty standard, WoW-style, MMO-grinder. If you're going to make it your main game, playing it every (or almost every) day for an hour or two, it might be alright. But given the relatively shallow aspects of the game, I can't see that it could sustain that level of play, and the design of the rest of the game actively penalises casual play. Neverwinter is not for me. Maybe it's for you. Give it a shot... it's F2P after all. If you enjoy it, drop some money on the devs and have a great time!
).Well.... in short : Unimpressed. Uninstalled. Too many other things that I'd rather spend time on (I'm so far behind atm, that I'm only just picking up Dishonored and Skyrim now!).
In long:
Intro
Overall, it isn't a bad game, it really isn't. It's just not for me. The gameplay is interesting, the action-y stuff is better implemented than GW (haven't played GW2, so can't comment there), and the combat is significantly more engaging than the facerolling, button-mashing of WoW and all the various clones thereof. The story is relatively interesting and the Foundry is the same as player-created content everywhere (i.e. nuggets of awesomeness buried in seas of trash). Unfortunately, I doubt that it'll be able to maintain that same level of immersiveness, I found the game overall to be fairly shallow, and I utterly despise the particular F2P model they've clearly built the game around.
Pro's
The action combat is more engaging than most other MMO's (Eve excluded). You can get a nice mix of abilities, twitch/reaction skills are helpful and you can avoid damage by the simple expedient of not being there when it arrives. Depending on your class, you can stack various combo's and effects to make yourself more powerful, meaning that there is going to be moderate differences in the quality of teammates based on the knowledge and experience of the player behind that character.
The world is good looking and the graphics are well up to Cryptic standards (although that could also be a Con, depending on your opinion of Cryptic graphics - I know their art style doesn't appeal to many). Still has the whole "most of the world is just pasted onto polygons" problem though. Most of the stuff is non-interactive fluff.
Fairly faithful to D&D and the Forgotten Realms as a whole (if you're a lore-buff who cares about such things). Although there are a few jarring disconnects here and there, it quite clearly picks up after NWN2 (sorry folks... looks like there will never be a NWN3 ).
Con's
a.k.a. the stuff I like to talk about because con's always play a bigger part in my gaming decisions than pro's - something I can't stand has much more power than something I want!
The game is based on 4th ed D&D and, as such, character creation is significantly less versatile. Each class has a "role" that it fulfils, and if you play anything but that role, you're going to be drastically less effective. Compared to WoW (where a mage could be pure DPS "flame" spec, control "ice" spec or utility "arcane" spec) you get "The Control Wizard". Who does crowd control. You can try for DPS, but you're basically gonna suck. Instead of allowing classes to choose their focus, they've implemented the various roles/kits as completely separate classes, hence we have the Guardian Fighter (tank) and the Great Weapon Fighter (DPS), so you can't even respec if you want to switch role. And they only have 5 classes - Guardian Fighter, Great Weapon Fighter, Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric and Control Wizard. Hope you like one of those roles, 'cause that's all there is for now. Shallow.
Some of the race selections are a bit... odd. They have Drow (for pre-orders, everyone else can purchase it in like 3 months) and Tieflings, but no Aasimar or Gnomes. Seriously... who leaves the gnomes out?! Shallow.
A lot of D&D's dungeoneering aspects have been watered down. Most traps are visible if you're paying attention. Who needs rogues/trapmonkeys. "Secret" areas show up on the map - you just need to find the lever that opens them. Who needs elves/dwarves. Non mission-specific loot has been watered down into 1-2 class-based nodes scattered throughout the dungeon. Who needs Spot / Search. When you run a dungeon, the only things you can interact with in any way are enemies (who drop coins and the occasional item), reward chests (after each boss/miniboss), the "puzzle" items (but since they're the only things you can use, it's more hide'nseek than puzzles) and your 1-2 class-specific supply nodes. And the "dungeons" are basically more like "corridors". Shallow.
Actually... I could point stuff out individually, but what my biggest problem comes down to is this : The game model is actively designed to make you play more and play more often. I'm OK with that, but it's also designed to punish you if you don't. This is the kind of game that I'd be quite prepared to play very casually (like, once a week, tops), dropping a bit of money on it every so often when something cool is in the store. But since playing like that will actively gimp me, I honestly can't be bothered to play at all.
From the crafting (where you have a certain number of slots and you can start a new project every few hours) to the in-game stores (where certain currencies require you to log on every day or you lose them), from the payment models (which either require you to pay significantly more than a normal sub, or to be logging on every day) to the quest system (many, many daily "activities"), it's absolutely clear that this is a game which tells you to play every day, for hours at a time. HTFU or GTFO.
I don't like my games to tell me when, where or how to play, so this game simply isn't for me. If you're OK with that, most of the major concerns I've got will go away (apart from normal issues that most MMO's have - which, if you want an MMO will be irrelevant anyway).
Conclusion
Neverwinter looks OK. Regardless of the action-y combat, it's still a pretty standard, WoW-style, MMO-grinder. If you're going to make it your main game, playing it every (or almost every) day for an hour or two, it might be alright. But given the relatively shallow aspects of the game, I can't see that it could sustain that level of play, and the design of the rest of the game actively penalises casual play. Neverwinter is not for me. Maybe it's for you. Give it a shot... it's F2P after all. If you enjoy it, drop some money on the devs and have a great time!
It is most certainly pay to win:
You can level up your henchmen to level 15, then the only way to go forward is to buy higher grade henchmen for zen and that's it. Grinding for hours just to get 6 or so inventory slots is not appealing too. Hours and hours spent on gateway.planeverwinter to develop your crating skills so they're 20 levels or more behind stuff you can use is horrible.
You can get around this with money but I won't bother because it's a very bad way to artificaly restrict players and I don't support trash business solutions like these.
You can level up your henchmen to level 15, then the only way to go forward is to buy higher grade henchmen for zen and that's it. Grinding for hours just to get 6 or so inventory slots is not appealing too. Hours and hours spent on gateway.planeverwinter to develop your crating skills so they're 20 levels or more behind stuff you can use is horrible.
You can get around this with money but I won't bother because it's a very bad way to artificaly restrict players and I don't support trash business solutions like these.
warhammers, clubs, staffs, maces, shields... These are the things I think of when I roll my cleric.
Not a ranged fighter. Never a ranged fighter. You get in, mix it up, and heal when needed. Turn when needed. Sometimes call on Deity power when needed... You're not a freaking Medieval SAW.
Stripped down weapon choices, bland-ish story, weird idea for clerics (didn't pick the other classes because they never interested me).... D&D was always about choice. Did not feel that when I was playing.
Not a ranged fighter. Never a ranged fighter. You get in, mix it up, and heal when needed. Turn when needed. Sometimes call on Deity power when needed... You're not a freaking Medieval SAW.
Stripped down weapon choices, bland-ish story, weird idea for clerics (didn't pick the other classes because they never interested me).... D&D was always about choice. Did not feel that when I was playing.
I spent $60+ dollars for the guardian pack of this game....played it in the beta weekends, and about 4 hours once it launched. I did get to see all the levels of characters through alpha play as well (so got to see mid and high level chars of each class, and all the areas).
The problem with the game is it is impressive when you first start playing it. The combat, at first, is action packed and new....and at least initially you don't notice how set in stone advancement is....or that equipment does't really change how your character plays etc.
After playing 10+ hours though, the combat doesn't change and starts to get stale. Once you play the higher level areas and see that it's all pretty much the same.....that feeling grows. In addition, the fact you can't change how your character progresses at all, or even alter it's combat style etc with equipment.....makes it almost pointless to play the game at all. Your just basically walking through a set path. Once you have walked through that set path with any character...there is no real reason to do it with another.
I walked through the entire games "set path" with more then 1 character in the Beta weekends and Alpha tests. Even though I had tons of astral diamonds from my pre-order....and all 5 character slots (bought the other 2 with zen from trading in my diamonds)....I couldn't bring myself to play more then 4 hours or so once the game went live.
Total waste of $60.
I love to support D&D games. I'm a long term fan of D&D online for instance and have given them thousands of dollars...paying for a monthly sub for many, many months when I wasn't actually playing. That game....even with it's flaws...is well worth supporting.
Neverwinter Online though is just plain and simply a dissapointment...and is NOT D&D in any shape or form...at least not the D&D I love. I have not played 4th edition, but I can't imagine that all equipment is the same in it, that all characters progress the same way, and that there is no way to differentiate your character from any other of the same class/archtype whatever.
I tried to help shape the game in the Alpha and beta...I posted about the fact characters needed to have some form of customization etc. Sadly it didn't help and to me, the game is just a waste of $60....and another dissapointment. I have not had much luck with games that I have been waiting a long time and pre-ordered in the last year or two. I was very sad how D3 turned out...and now NO also underwhelmed greatly. I hop hope hope, that Shadowrun Returns is good to great...as I am starting to get very discouraged.
The problem with the game is it is impressive when you first start playing it. The combat, at first, is action packed and new....and at least initially you don't notice how set in stone advancement is....or that equipment does't really change how your character plays etc.
After playing 10+ hours though, the combat doesn't change and starts to get stale. Once you play the higher level areas and see that it's all pretty much the same.....that feeling grows. In addition, the fact you can't change how your character progresses at all, or even alter it's combat style etc with equipment.....makes it almost pointless to play the game at all. Your just basically walking through a set path. Once you have walked through that set path with any character...there is no real reason to do it with another.
I walked through the entire games "set path" with more then 1 character in the Beta weekends and Alpha tests. Even though I had tons of astral diamonds from my pre-order....and all 5 character slots (bought the other 2 with zen from trading in my diamonds)....I couldn't bring myself to play more then 4 hours or so once the game went live.
Total waste of $60.
I love to support D&D games. I'm a long term fan of D&D online for instance and have given them thousands of dollars...paying for a monthly sub for many, many months when I wasn't actually playing. That game....even with it's flaws...is well worth supporting.
Neverwinter Online though is just plain and simply a dissapointment...and is NOT D&D in any shape or form...at least not the D&D I love. I have not played 4th edition, but I can't imagine that all equipment is the same in it, that all characters progress the same way, and that there is no way to differentiate your character from any other of the same class/archtype whatever.
I tried to help shape the game in the Alpha and beta...I posted about the fact characters needed to have some form of customization etc. Sadly it didn't help and to me, the game is just a waste of $60....and another dissapointment. I have not had much luck with games that I have been waiting a long time and pre-ordered in the last year or two. I was very sad how D3 turned out...and now NO also underwhelmed greatly. I hop hope hope, that Shadowrun Returns is good to great...as I am starting to get very discouraged.
He means character progression. The characters in 4th edition tend to grow into a set form that is put before it, so one person's wizard is going to be very similar to another person's wizard, as opposed to earlier incarnations of the game where it was a little more customizable. It's basically the difference of this:uguito-93 said:
and this:
I know those two games have nothing to do with D&D, but the differences in their character progression hopefully get across what I'm trying to say.
Hey Klaynexas3,klaynexas3 said:
Thanks for the illustrative example. That's a great side by side comparison of part of how I see the problem. The other major problem that I see with 4th- at least in terms of linearity - is that the 'encounters' mechanism defeats what I understand to be the classic dungeon-crawling experience. I'm much less interested in a string of encounters tied together with narrow hallways than I am in a multi-level, living and breathing complex that the players have the opportunity to explore and attempt to understand. Some great D&D blogs have written about this subject [http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon] as well. I find this game-structuring to be a weakness in the system, as I find it to be destructive to exploration and role-playing. That said, I have played in many games involving, and know of many players who prefer to use this style of play. Ultimately, it's a player and designer content choice, and while this is a preferable model to some, I get the feeling that it will ultimately lose out to a more open, sandbox-style game.
The main thing I want from a D&D-based game is freedom to explore a character concept within a growing and changing world environment. Unfortunately, Neverwinter isn't that experience, but I find it to be a really enjoyable railroad game in a setting that I've been in love with for years. I have enjoyed my game time until this point, and look forward to continue enjoying it with friends.
Played over 80 hours since open beta started as a big D&D fan. And that's it. There's just no more than 100 hours in this.
And the environments are all samey, brown and grey grit.
I still login regularly, but this is pure pay to win.
Except, there is so little content, you are done before you really need to pay up if you are wise.
All the quests are the same, boring stuff.
Bottom line: Play for free for 2-3 weeks straight, then forget it and move on to something with color and personality.
P.S.
Worst thing; combat with more than 1 player (events, PVP, dungeons) is SUPER chaotic.
Everyone flashes about the place and looks the same.
And the environments are all samey, brown and grey grit.
I still login regularly, but this is pure pay to win.
Except, there is so little content, you are done before you really need to pay up if you are wise.
All the quests are the same, boring stuff.
Bottom line: Play for free for 2-3 weeks straight, then forget it and move on to something with color and personality.
P.S.
Worst thing; combat with more than 1 player (events, PVP, dungeons) is SUPER chaotic.
Everyone flashes about the place and looks the same.
Would you have a recommendation of an MMO that might emulate that sort of freedom in character progression? I've been stuck on the look out for a good MMO for the past few years, and the idea of getting to make a bit more of a unique character seems like it could be a good footing for getting me to stick with a game.Three21 said:
Unfortunately, I have not. Other games that look like they will grant this kind of freedom are WildStar (to a small extent), and Pathfinder Online, which looks very promising. Though the game is still 1-2 years at least from release, the Pathfinder team has released some exciting initial content, but as always, we will need to wait until more information is released. I have heard good things about Tera, but have not played it myself. RIFT has a very popular multi-class system, but I do not know what people think of it now that it is free to play.klaynexas3 said: