http://www.playneverwinter.com/about_neverwinter

But the thing I'm most interested in is this.

http://www.playneverwinter.com/foundry

So, what do you think? Does it have potential?

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Anastasia McLaren - 4th year Slytherin
Anna Daljera - 3rd year Gryffindor
Shizuka Matsuri - 2nd year Ravenclaw

Hmm can't say much just based on what they have up there. I see that it's done by the same group that does Perfect World though, which is pretty standard mmorpg style. I've been assured that it's "really good" but I wasn't overly impressed when I tried to play it once. Perfect World is non-subscription based, but nickles and dimes you with an extensive shop...yes, it's one of those, or at least it was years ago when I was persuaded to try. The game is tedious to play, but by buying items from their shop you can make it go faster, to the point where you'd actually have fun. Which is why I so rarely have fun on that sort of game. I'd rather pay an up-front subscription a la WoW, rather than have the cost snuck in through a backdoor.

Of course, there's no guarantee that this mmorpg would be in that same vein, but as it's by the same company I'd say the odds are in favor of it being based off of the same business model, especially since it says "free to play". No mmorpg released these days is actually free to play, if you want to have any fun.

I do think it's funny that they've got a second D&D mmorpg coming out, since we already have D&D Online.

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Karen Bonoa - Ravenclaw Alumni
Madeline Ingleman - 2nd Year Hufflepuff
Niven McLaren - 1st Year Slytherin
Sam McKinnon - 6th Year Ravenclaw

Jabari Nwosu * Joshua Tannerman * Lenora Hollings * Lillian Stewart * Maria Bonoa

I'm rather curious how this turns out. Going on what Yendys said, I'm hoping that'll take a LOTRO-approach instead, where you had the full game, you could just buy extra contant that, while added to the experience, didn't make you progress (much) faster than everyone else, and the pace was fun. Of course, as with most online games, I suspect it'll have a lot to do with who you play it with. Playing online by yourself tends to suck.

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Local Lurker and Knower of the Unknown and Unknowable. Also a bit full of itself, and an occasional prick.

Inb4 the MMO becomes F2P, but Foundry costs $25 per month.

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My guess is that it's going to suck. For starters it doesn't look like there'll be an option for people to create their own game-worlds and settings, so the community will be restricted to playing whatever the developers throw at them; it's worth nothing that NWN survives to this day because of the user-created content.

I don't really like the style of the graphics either but I suppose that's a matter of personal preference. They look too cartoony, almost like caricatures of characters walking around instead of actual characters... there also seems to be too much "flash". I know there's an audience out there for this type of visual but I myself prefer things simple, gritty and realistic.

The biggest turn-off is of course the fact that this game's going to follow the generic MMO format, which isn't an attraction to me; but then again, it might be attractive to others. I'm just not interested in killing monsters over and over again so I can get items to turn in for a reward. I simply can't get into MMOs (with the exception of Uncharted Waters Online that I played a few months back with a few friends, but only because ships and pirates are awesome).

I'm fond of creating storylines between my character and other people's characters, that's the only reason I play online. I don't want to be roleplaying while "FuriousBob" and "MadJoe36" run around leveling as fast they can; just not my style of play and MMOs usually cater to the wider audience, which (un?)fortunately I'm not a part of.

I'm a bit sad that this game's using the "Neverwinter" name, it appears to be trying to cash in on the success of the Neverwinter Nights franchise, but has little or nothing to do with the games we know.

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Ricardo Santos

I'd like to blame the drastic changes to Dungeons & Dragons and The Forgotten Realms brought about by 4e.

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Well, with this game officially in Open Beta, I have gone forth and tested these new waters. My first observation: This is definitely an MMO. It was, during early trailers and such, presented a bit different (in my eyes anyway). Anyway, being an MMO isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. I like it alright so far, but I haven't gotten all that far into it yet (level 19, max level is 60). It's still being expanded upon, and it seems like they've left a considerable amount of options open for further patches and such, namely in the option of classes and races, but of course also actual IG content.

Anyway, if anyone feels like trying it out, I'm personally playing on the Mindflayer server and you can add me to your friends list (although I have no idea how). I think you add me as KivanSilverkin@badger08, but don't hold me to that.

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Local Lurker and Knower of the Unknown and Unknowable. Also a bit full of itself, and an occasional prick.

MMO = BAAAAD.

At least for me. I have darn near no interest in MMO.

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-Calan

Liss Crest, Slytherin
Kalara Crest, Hufflepuff
Elizabeth Finley, The Moon

I think that MMOs are just marketed wrong? Generally I agree with you. They tend to be too small for the amount of players, leaving you with a ton of people standing around and yelling like idiots. I think that the right MMO could be brilliant, but it needs a sense of immersion I have never properly seen in one.

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Local Lurker and Knower of the Unknown and Unknowable. Also a bit full of itself, and an occasional prick.

The MMOs that I have seen are overrun by people who have no concept of IC or OOC. It's all OOC and playing the "game." Which is fine for some, but it's not RP- which is what I'm personally interested in.

MMOs are attractive to corporate execs because they see $$$ when they think of things like hundreds of thousands of players logging on and paying a monthly fee to play. WoW was very succesful, and because it was, everyone attempts to model after it. That's great, except they don't seem to understand that all they are doing is competing with WoW. Yeah, at some point WoW will be unseated, but it may not be another MMO that does it, but rather a completely different method of gameplay. Perhaps something that isn't even on the scene yet.

For me personally, I prefer pretty much exactly what NWN has to offer. I was greatly anticipating it before it came out because it was able to provide the flexibility that was unheard of before NWN. And while it didn't absolutely top the chart, my guess is that over the life of the game it probably did pretty damn well.

Games will always tend toward what's #1, with rare exception. Unfortunately, it's completely unnecessary, and leaves huge gaps in game styles. For example, NWN is ten years old. And it has yet to be properly replaced, anywhere in the market. NWN2 was just closer to WoW, and Neverwinter is even closer. I have yet to see anywhere that provides even a fraction of the RP-able gaming environment as NWN1 does.

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-Calan

Liss Crest, Slytherin
Kalara Crest, Hufflepuff
Elizabeth Finley, The Moon