Neverwinter MMO: What is it like?

[TheMyffic]

I can't play it because it's banned in my region. Any information on that would be great, but that's not my main question:

What is the game like? Is it play-to-win, or can you do and enjoy everything for free? Too linear? Anything else?

Thank you kindly.

PS. I'm more concerned with the core game concepts than bugs because it's new (bugs are expected).
PSS. First time as OP!

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

I can't say much since I only played up to level 20 something. But I will answer what I can

What is the game like?

it is third person, real time hack and slash.
if you played any of the D&D games before(I assume you are according to your badge.) - prepared to be surprised. It uses 4th D&D edition rule instead of 3rd.
My personal opinion is that it is good hack and slash rpg but it is not a good D&D game.

Is it play-to-win?

Ehh. Well, They sell keys to open the item boxes which is occasionally dropped from your kills.
They also sell mounts. At least they are not selling items directly like those soul sucking bastards nexon.
But I digress.

Everything in there are free to enjoy as far as I know.

Too linear?

I can't answer that but what I can tell you is that main quest consists of "Go there and kill stuff" and "Go there and talk to people". Usual bread and butter of MMORPG.

However I can't say that it is too linear since NW also consists of foundary which allows users to create their own quest.(for a fee of course.) Lots of quests to be done if you know where to look for.

Anything else?

Let's see. (This is personal opinion.)

I think number of skills are lacking.
Slightly unbalanced.(I did slightly more damage as 2 handed warrior than a duel wielding rogue. and rogue has a roll move. Not so sure if it is fixed now.)
Only able to create 2 character per account - which isn't very good considering that there are 5 classes.

I think that's about it.

Edit:

Wait. I grasped that lingering feeling in my mind.

It goes back to the "What is the game like?". Background is largely re-written. The previous NWN series were treated as if it never happened.(Only thing found was "Deekin street". But it could've been fluke.)

Combined with the fact that is uses 4th edition rule, it gives me the feeling that it is only wearing the skin of the Neverwinter series. Sure. Same city name, races and background but change those and you might as well as create new game. If you can suck that part up or if you never played the series, you can ignore the edit rant.

 

[xefaros]

Guild wars 1 PVP with very limited arenas and extremely PVE focused game. Also incomplete and buggy, gamebreaking buggy.The Company is incompetent and dont give a rats ass.The game's economy already crashed once by a bug that was reported several times.Graphic wise is decent nothing great but lacking optimazation

If you play solo or not interested in endgame PVP it is possible to enjoy its repetition.The world seemed repetitive and uninspired to me.Most high end gear is dropped on end-game dungeons or come from keys or by bug killing the bosses(1hit kill).There was an over saturation of high end gear cause of the bug killing endgame bosses.

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

It's a monotonous and extremely linear hack and slash, I got a few days play out of it before giving up.

The combat is more dynamic than in most MMOs, but to be honest I think it's a prime example of why other MMOs haven't used it. Using "actiony" arcade hack and slash moves can make a game really interesting and fun, but in an MMO where you repeat the same moves endlessly it just makes PvE feel like you're working in a really boring data entry job or something.

Also, where are all the 4th edition player races? There's no variety in starting area so it's not like they had to make racial cities, and a lot of the base models they'd need to use are already in the game as mobs. I'm not saying they should have all of them, but a dozen or so of the most popular ones would have been nice. Maybe they'll shoehorn them through the cash shop for $50 a piece or something.

Oh yeah, the cash shop is ludicrously expensive for what it offers.

Gear also doesn't have anything impressive looking about it, it's got that cheap old trick of recolouring textures and calling them different gear sets. Maybe it's changed in the meantime, but I didn't see any gear sets that screamed endgame to me, either. It was all just the same, bland, recoloured rubbish that made everyone look the same.

One positive note is that they have biography pages you can write up for your character, which show up when people inspect you. It's hard to give them points for it though since they essentially copied it from their pre-existing MMOs.

Maybe I'm just cranky because I expected a more traditional Neverwinter-esque experience, but this just feels like a generic MMO with the D&D theme pasted on at the last minute. I respect a lot of Cryptic's work, I've got lifetime subs for CO and STO after all, but I guess I just expected something better with this one.

 

[5ilver]

The economy is really, really bad. You can trade astral diamonds (the gold of the game) for zen (the pay-real-money-for currency) but the amount of time it takes to farm a decent amount of AD and the amount of zen you can get for that is hilarious. Even worse, there have been times where the entire economy of the game went to hell and the servers had to be rolled back a WEEK.

As far as P2W- this is what you need to know: http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/1dry0g/neverwinters_f2p_model_what_you_need_to_know/

TL;DR: If you're only interested in leveling, paying customers get a better experience but it's not mandatory. If you're interested in serious PvE/PvP, get your wallet ready.

As far as enjoyment- I personally hate 4gen D&D but that depends on the person more than anything. There are imbalances between the classes etc obviously but the game can be enjoyable at times.

The graphics are alright, if nothing to blow your mind. The combat and gameplay were actually surprisingly fun for me.

There's a "make your own dungeon" tool (called a foundry) and if we ignore how much people abused that, it has a lot of potential.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Everything said so far above is accurate. It's an action RPG with almost nothing in common with D&D. The gameplay is fun if repetitive, most of the Forgotten Realms races and classes are missing and its so heavily monetised you can't play without being constantly reminded of it.

Also, my old thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.408674-Neverwinter-MMO-and-Perfect-World-International#17117494]will give some insight into Perfect World and their incredible (lack of) support.

 

[TheMyffic]

Thanks for all the info and opinions!

I'm hoping the game will become available in my region when it's past its initial phase or gains popularity.