Adventure Zones

psychotichamster

I see this tossed around a lot in videos, but what exactly is it? I know dungeon delves are essentially dungeons, so are these just the names of the areas where you quest in such. Are these instanced areas like DDO's adventure zones?

crypticmapolis

Adventure Zones are large persistent maps that contain open world quests, events and contests, as well as instanced content and 5-man dungeons. Each adventure zone has its own special story arc, gear, and Foundry content as well.

ranncore

Can you give us some other info on game mechanics? Things like:
What happens if you die?
Are we going to see videos of the cleric class any time soon? Or any new videos?
Can you make named loot in the foundry (even if it has random stats?)
How big are adventure zones? Is it a largely instanced based game, or can I spend hours running from one side of the world to the other without seeing a load screen?
How's that beta testing coming along?
Can you dual-wield?
Are there proficiency feats, or can anyone equip anything?
I'm sure there's lots more questions here if you care to look around the forums, it's been a long time since we've heard from you guys. It would be pretty sweet if someone did a website overhaul with all the newest info, or even just made a thread with some of it. It's nice to see you and thanks for popping in!

syfylis

Can you guys give us some picture from game sometimes? Even Blizzard give community more info than you guys.

crypticmapolis

Sure I'll answer what I can.

ranncore wrote: »

Can you give us some other info on game mechanics? Things like:
What happens if you die?

See the death penalty thread.

Are we going to see videos of the cleric class any time soon? Or any new videos?

Yes to new videos, but I don't know specifics. Those are made by PW staff in a different building than Cryptic.

Can you make named loot in the foundry (even if it has random stats?)

You can make named quest items but nothing equippable. We would like to create a real gear item editor, but that would probably happen after Neverwinter ships.

How big are adventure zones? Is it a largely instanced based game, or can I spend hours running from one side of the world to the other without seeing a load screen?

They range in size but most are very big and provide hours of open world content. You can't travel seamlessly between zones however.

How's that beta testing coming along?

The beta start date is dependent on some internal milestones, but we will announce it when it is concrete and unlikely to change.

That's better than "soon" right?

Can you dual-wield?

If your character meets the requirements, yes.

Are there proficiency feats, or can anyone equip anything?

Most gear is class based and level restricted at the moment.

ranncore

That's better than soon Okay only one more question puh puh please.

What do you mean gear is class based? Can you be a little more specific? I understand if a wizard suffers from arcane spell failure while wearing plate mail, but... can't equip it at all?
My newness to 4e might be showing.

denkasaeba

ranncore wrote: »

That's better than soon Okay only one more question puh puh please.

What do you mean gear is class based? Can you be a little more specific? I understand if a wizard suffers from arcane spell failure while wearing plate mail, but... can't equip it at all?
My newness to 4e might be showing.

There is no spell failure in 4e. You "just" get a major penalty to... basically every roll if you use an armor you're not proficient in. I think that in the game they've just thought that each class should have his own armor, which is not a dumb solution.

ranncore

denkasaeba wrote: »

There is no spell failure in 4e. You "just" get a major penalty to... basically every roll if you use an armor you're not proficient in. I think that in the game they've just thought that each class should have his own armor, which is not a dumb solution.

Anyone who wants to be a spellsword or battle cleric might think it's dumb.

denkasaeba

ranncore wrote: »

Anyone who wants to be a spellsword or battle cleric might think it's dumb.

Why? You just get proficiency by class features and you're done, as in WoW (for instance).

pilf3r

ranncore wrote: »

That's better than soon Okay only one more question puh puh please.

What do you mean gear is class based? Can you be a little more specific? I understand if a wizard suffers from arcane spell failure while wearing plate mail, but... can't equip it at all?
My newness to 4e might be showing.

My guess is that it will be like in many mmo where you get a nice shiney purple armor piece then see it says "rogue" on it in the corner or cleric or fighter etc and this means only that class can equip it.

I don't want to speculate on what this might mean for the stats and prefixes or suffixes etc

ranncore

denkasaeba wrote: »

Why? You just get proficiency by class features and you're done, as in WoW (for instance).

Huh? If gear is class based that means a wizard can't equip fighter armor. That means no spellswords.

ranncore

pilf3r wrote: »

My guess is that it will be like in many mmo where you get a nice shiney purple armor piece then see it says "rogue" on it in the corner or cleric or fighter etc and this means only that class can equip it.

I'd hate to see it that way. I understand if classes are granted automatic proficiency in armor varieties but players should have flexibility to overcome those restrictions. Like feats.

denkasaeba

ranncore wrote: »

Huh? If gear is class based that means a wizard can't equip fighter armor. That means no spellswords.

"spellswords" may be able to use both kinds of armor as a feature. I don't see gishes coming so soon, though.

ranncore

The point is that there is no such class as a spellsword in my player's handbook and certainly not here in NWO yet, but the flexibility of the rules (in the handbook, and hopefully here) allows me to take an existing class, like wizard, and make it into what I want.

Restricting armor to certain classes takes away a vital part of the dungeons and dragons experience. The ability to make what you want out of what you're given. To play a class successfully outside of its intended role. I don't mind having an armor penalty, I can weigh costs and benefits myself. But taking away the option completely? That's taking away the DnD.

pilf3r

ranncore wrote: »

I'd hate to see it that way. I understand if classes are granted automatic proficiency in armor varieties but players should have flexibility to overcome those restrictions. Like feats.

I am hoping the same thing, same way I am hoping you can twf with any class as long as you have a "feat" for it. The thing that worries me is how C says "requirements" as that can be taken in many ways both good and bad lol

iamtruthseeker

Alright, folks, be happy Mapolis popped in and shared this info. Don't take a mile from a given inch if you will.


The topic of this thread is "Adventure Zones" so we're sticking to that. Of course thank you very much for your contributed answers Mapolis!

If users want to ask other questions, they are either free to make more broad threads covering it, or ask directly on the renamed Ask Stormshade (Devs) now called Ask Cryptic/PWE about Neverwinter

Edit: But I'll close out the questions here. In follow up (checks to see what is shown,) yes it's MMO-class assigned. So if you are a listed class, you can use items that are assigned to that class only. If there are other "qualifiers" needed for items is unknown but it hasn't been shown in videos yet.

ranncore wrote: »

The point is that there is no such class as a spellsword in my player's handbook and certainly not here in NWO yet, but the flexibility of the rules (in the handbook, and hopefully here) allows me to take an existing class, like wizard, and make it into what I want.

Restricting armor to certain classes takes away a vital part of the dungeons and dragons experience. The ability to make what you want out of what you're given. To play a class successfully outside of its intended role. I don't mind having an armor penalty, I can weigh costs and benefits myself. But taking away the option completely? That's taking away the DnD.

Edit: Spellswords are in the FRPG. No indication has been made that this has been ported over to this MMO or on any wishlist. If it is done, no video has ever shown a paper doll slot item for multiple classes, so items very likely would be made exclusively for the Spellsword and not available for other characters.

syfylis wrote: »

Can you guys give us some picture from game sometimes? Even Blizzard give community more info than you guys.

I believe you mean gives the community and not gave the community? Did you go to the Home Page and check the drop down Media Section? Have you looked in the News Archive for things listed elsewhere? 64 items in Media before the News Blog and Archive links to other things is not shabby for something all but completely redone a year ago in 2011, having a completely new link up to PWE, and then a new forum software upgrade (as well as them working on the game too!)

Comparing a #1 mufti-year bestseller released game to an Alpha-state game is unbalanced. Unless you can literally show me the Alpha State of their site and released amount of content pics/vids, it's not a fair comparison. So, let's bring up some MMO Alpha and Pre-Alpha state games that have not entered Beta and see what they show.

• Serellan's Takedown is in Pre-Alpha and has a few pics and vids. They haven't responded in 16 days where our news update by Trailturtle now are several days at most. (See Dev Tracker for comfirmation.)
  
• Doctor Entertainment's Gear Up is in Alpha and has a video and a few screenshots, but that's it.
• Above and Beyond Technologies' The Repopulation has about 5 videos and a scattering of pics (but what is there is superb) as well as a neatly organized forum in Alpha second phase. Their info section appears to be a patch notes made public most of the time.
• Dominating Studio's Critical Point: Incursion has several videos and a lot of screenshots but it's hard to say what's next as it's suggested the community will "vote on it" but not sure how well that will work if they don't "like it enough on Steam first."
• EA's Crysis3 is the exception to the norm with ridiculously high pics, vids, info on specs and openly stating they are in Closed Alpha (like Friends and Family,) but they are one of the top funded gaming companies in the world. But don't state I didn't include a big mega title. Even they have problems with long-running titles like NBA Live 13 being canceled.
• Wildfire Games' 0 A.D. HAs been in Alpha for over 2 years and has released it's 11th Build, and is an Independent Open-Sourced Game. They have about 170 concept and game screenshots, a very nice Text FAQ, a number of community and interview links, but I could not clearly find a single video clip for all their years on their site except on the developer's report here and here. Youtube however is another story,
• We're ending these examples with Inovae's Infinity which has been trying to develop this since 2004 to give thanks for these companies and their funding and their crew like Cryptic while people bemoan "two long years." Be grateful they have the funding and support other companies just never get or struggle for years for a single update to their development step. That written, the site's details are amazingly incredible and I personally thank all the volunteers and part time workers who managed to make it what it is.

And finally, as to whether anything should or shouldn't be released to test at a certain phase, Gamasutra did a bang-up article explaining that.

That should cover it but if any of you want better examples on Alpha/Pre-Alpha find your own then...on another thread please. This is Adventure Zones.