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Neverwinter (p)review;


Vindekarr

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I've recently made my way into the beta program for Neverwinter, and despite one of the worst first impressions an MMO has ever made on me, it's grown on me a lot-here's my editorial of how it stands;

 

So let's break it down. For me, the number one issue you're immediately confronted with is the menu design. It's really kind of bad-clearly translated and translated badly. The menus for character creation are probably the game's first warning sign to the player that it's a beta, they're really not good at present. Not only do you have to select your attributes by mashing a randomiser(there is no other option) until a workable set comes up, but the character creator itself doesn't seem to support widescreen monitors-when I did it, the character was horizontally stretched in a way that suggested an aspect ratio failure. In addition to that, the menus themselves are badly designed. There's far too many sub-menus, most of which only contain a single setting or slider, while in each screen another contains 30-80 sliders. Thankfully, it's still beta so it's fixable.

 

Character customisation here is pretty solid for an F2P in that it gives you a truckload of options, but it's unfortunately a far cry from the stunning character art in Guild Wars 2-no matter what your character WILL look absolutely terribly by modern standards. Graphics are Neverwinter's Achilles' heel, and they do hurt it very badly. For a game released in 2013, it looks for all the world like either an Indy game, or a PS2 title. Seriously, the graphics are about on a level with City Of Heros in some places and even lower in others, they're really not impressive at all, and animations are even worse-choppy, stiff and awkward, and making it abudantly clear that the animation skeleton is atleast a decade old. There are prettier games on iPhone.

 

So, big 'ol wall of negativity so far, DOES IT DO ANYTHING RIGHT? YES IT DAMN WELL DOES!

 

Alright, so Neverwinter. It's too easy, the graphics are crap, but what about the game itself, is it any good? YES, yes it is. Beyond the horrible graphics, this is NOT a bad game. The GAMEPLAY is actually pretty solid, but more than anything it's got two features I'd really really like to see come to all MMOs. One, community content. Two, a totally new targetting system that makes even Guild Wars feel a little old-world.

 

Let's get to the community stuff first. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN DUNGEONS. Re-read that. You're back? good. This is a moddable MMO, and they've done a very good job of it indeed. Foundry is easy to use and fun, it's also easy to pick up and use well. Basically it lets you make your own dungeons FROM SCRATCH-this includes making your own quests, designing your own dialogue, writing stories, and looking at a few of the ones out there already, a few are well and truly better than what came with vanilla. If this keeps working as well as it has so far, hopefully it'll catch on with other mmos.

 

The other really solid feature is the combat. It's not bad. Not only for an MMO, but it fairs well against some RPGs too. It's cooldown based, and used an innovative smart-reticule targeting HUD instead of tabbing. Basically, you target whatever's under your cursor. Simple as that. Sounds tricky to get used to, but believe me it really works. Combat itself feels decently play-tested; you need to come up with a plan and execute it, success is based on how well you do that. Unfortunately it's also really kind of easy.

 

Cryptic should have learned their lesson with Champions Online-make it hard, because people will adapt. Unfortunately they haven't. As with Champion's Online, this game is very much aimed at the neophyte mmo'er. Any Tom, Dick or Harry will have a very easy time here-a child would literally be able to play it successfully, and with a well geared character, it becomes something of a farce. You. Will. Not. Die. Ever. And call me a Dark Souls fan, but I like dying every now and then, especially if I did something stupid. Guild Wars proved that there is a very large market for a hard MMO, it's sad to see so few going for it, let's hope ESO follows that route.

 

And finally, how's the F2P handled? The currency system is a little confusing here, but honestly, I really like their F2P model. There's no pay to win, and there's no need to microtransact at any point. Cash shop stuff is aesthetics and account related stuff-this, like Guild Wars, is one of the few free MMOs that really are free-and that can be played, for free. And THAT is probably it's biggest strength/

 

So in review, this is a game that, for me, will either go one of two ways. Either they'll fix the issues and it'll turn out great. Just a *SLIGHT*(as in microscopic) upscale in difficulty and some slightly higher resolution support, and you'll have a winner of an F2P game, and one that nearly anyone can play and enjoy, for free. Or if they wait too long, sadly it may just be a little bit too old-school. TIme will tell.

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I agree with pretty much everything you said. Especially on combat difficulty. Combat is way too easy, meaning combat encounters are often more tedious than they are engaging.

 

The class differences are very good, though. In many other MMOs classes of a certain type (melee, ranged, magic) often play very similarly, whereas in Neverwinter each class is a very unique experience.

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Yes indeed, I particularly like what they've done with the Rogue. It's well, a good old fashioned rogue, and they've done it right without unbalancing it by either making it so squishey it's a bad joke or so stealthy it's invincible. I played a rogue in Guild Wars and in that game literally most groups refused to let them join-the class was so overcomplicated that 90% of players couldn't get anything out of it-they got one-shotted before they did any damage and then cried about it. The remaining 10% were almost invincible hyper-DPS monsters. I know I could do more damage in a single crit than most DPS classes could do in five seconds. And anyone good with stealth would be untouchable.

 

My one complaint are the graphics. It's a shallow complaint but they really are just plain awful. There's a special place in gaming hell for games which look like they're over a decade old at the point of release. Not good enough. Seriously, on max settings it looks like an EARLY PS2 game.

Edited by Vindekarr
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I looked into this and the one thing that turned me away from it was that stealth is not a toggleable mechanic. For example, in DAoC, you put on stealth and stayed in it unless you attacked or were detected by someone that had a better stealth detect range and in turn attacked you first. I don't understand why MMOs today don't use that. It was a very balanced mechanic.

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I looked into this and the one thing that turned me away from it was that stealth is not a toggleable mechanic. For example, in DAoC, you put on stealth and stayed in it unless you attacked or were detected by someone that had a better stealth detect range and in turn attacked you first. I don't understand why MMOs today don't use that. It was a very balanced mechanic.

Because within a MMO it ends up being a completely imbalanced mechanic due to the fact that you usually have players of multiple levels or talents within a common space. Having to balance it becomes an absolute nightmare in those situations since that detection threshold is the difference between a class that can sneak up and stunlock everything, or a class that is utterly worthless in a stealth role due to being detected so easily by anything around their level range. The all or nothing nature of stealth just doesn't work well in a MMO.

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One nagging and particularly obvious issue with this game is the disparity between male and female characters. Female characters animations are far more rudimentary, but one thing that really did nag at me was the fact their spines are locked in this ghastly somewhat disarticulated posture that no flesh-and-blood woman could replicate without suffering permanent spinal-cord damage. It occurred to me there was a medical condition strikingly similar and I found it on an unrelated news bulletin today. Lordosis.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Lordosis.png/708px-Lordosis.png

 

As you can see, Lordosis has exactly the same symptoms as shown by Neverwinter's female characters-an extremely acute involuntary spinal curve. It's supposed to be sexy in Korea, but it just looks painful and unhealthy.

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I looked into this and the one thing that turned me away from it was that stealth is not a toggleable mechanic. For example, in DAoC, you put on stealth and stayed in it unless you attacked or were detected by someone that had a better stealth detect range and in turn attacked you first. I don't understand why MMOs today don't use that. It was a very balanced mechanic.

Because within a MMO it ends up being a completely imbalanced mechanic due to the fact that you usually have players of multiple levels or talents within a common space. Having to balance it becomes an absolute nightmare in those situations since that detection threshold is the difference between a class that can sneak up and stunlock everything, or a class that is utterly worthless in a stealth role due to being detected so easily by anything around their level range. The all or nothing nature of stealth just doesn't work well in a MMO.

 

Like I said, it worked extremely well in DAoC. They balanced it quite nicely there.

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