How will Magic: Legends shutdown affect Neverwinter?

kemnimtarkas

It seemed like all the best new content was being shuffled over to this new title...but now:

Magic:Legends is shutting down permanently.

Does this mean the NW team will get more resources for future development, or is this a sign that Cryptic as a whole is in trouble?

xenocide

I don't think this will have any effect on Neverwinter. The 2 games have 2 separate teams and it looks like the magic team has been laid off.

With players over there getting a refund on Zen purchases you could potentially see some of the players who received a Zen credit to their arc account come over here to check out a new game.
However I wouldn't expect many of the players over there to be very excited to play another game by cryptic since their last experience wasn't a very good one.

thefiresidecat

I thought there were a few unfilled spots on the nw team

mongol69

Well, nwo was really popular and engaging up untill mod 16 release, It survived, but every major rework and changes implemented since has been as popular as mtgo has been. Hope they learned something and improve the game, listen to feedback, something, anything really. Because the game is at the worst state I have seen it ever. Really its alot of the players that are dedicated, trying to keep this limping along with friends that keep most i know still playing.

Tomm was rewarding and has done well for quite a while regardless of how bad mod 16 was, just like codg was rewarding and kept a consistent interest. Zc, defintiley not so much. Vos chase system is unrelenting grind for low low drop rates and no real rewards for repetitive play. Lets be hones loot was the incentive to gring, like most other mmo games. It was the carrot at the end of the stick. Now, people are burnt out on vos and zc from lacknor loot, and want a new trial with real rewards. But I guess thats too much to ask for.

Honestly, slapping HC onto vos isn't much of a plan for peeking player base when incentivised for dps classes primarily, similar to how celestials have no use for tanks. And bs loot offers little replay value. The only other profitable chase were hunts, but they sure broke that spirit there, now that the favors are near impossible to grind out now. Hunts for a chest that is bis giving 25% stats, nothing else gives 25%, now its near impossible to even gain, so now playing he game has has really just become self inflicted punishment... HAMSTER grind for chase items. Lets be honest, if Ior anyone for that matter, run a dungeon looking for an item off the loot table, after 2500 rerolls, the chase is gone, I dont even care anymore.

What the what? Who makes these decisions?

thefiresidecat

mongol69 said:

Well, nwo was really popular and engaging up untill mod 16 release, It survived, but every major rework and changes implemented since has been as popular as mtgo has been. Hope they learned something and improve the game, listen to feedback, something, anything really. Because the game is at the worst state I have seen it ever. Really its alot of the players that are dedicated, trying to keep this limping along with friends that keep most i know still playing.

Tomm was rewarding and has done well for quite a while regardless of how bad mod 16 was, just like codg was rewarding and kept a consistent interest. Zc, defintiley not so much. Vos chase system is unrelenting grind for low low drop rates and no real rewards for repetitive play. Lets be hones loot was the incentive to gring, like most other mmo games. It was the carrot at the end of the stick. Now, people are burnt out on vos and zc from lacknor loot, and want a new trial with real rewards. But I guess thats too much to ask for.

Honestly, slapping HC onto vos isn't much of a plan for peeking player base when incentivised for dps classes primarily, similar to how celestials have no use for tanks. And bs loot offers little replay value. The only other profitable chase were hunts, but they sure broke that spirit there, now that the favors are near impossible to grind out now. Hunts for a chest that is bis giving 25% stats, nothing else gives 25%, now its near impossible to even gain, so now playing he game has has really just become self inflicted punishment... HAMSTER grind for chase items. Lets be honest, if Ior anyone for that matter, run a dungeon looking for an item off the loot table, after 2500 rerolls, the chase is gone, I dont even care anymore.

What the what? Who makes these decisions?

I quit back in jan other than popping in here and there for a special events (and with the removal of coupons in the last event no reason to even pop in for that) they really need a full team to revise and do another complete overhaul BACK to where they were pre mod 16.

mentinmindmaker

It really depends on how much of that investment Cryptic was funding. There could be several investors sharing that loss.

If Cryptic was funding Magic Legends all by themselves it obviously is a major financial setback for Cryptic. It could mean less money available to fix NW.

It could however also mean NW now retains its place as the major Cryptic money maker, so there could be an increased focus on keeping NW alive.

Hard to tell. Not many games terminate as late as in beta. The game must have been really sucky.

thefiresidecat

regardless at this point nw is their top money maker. it would behoove them to fix it. I think what really needs to happen is nw 2.0. let people port some things over. but other than that fresh start on the economy. build the game from scratch using the things that were proven to have worked with the original game that they completely borked over the last couple years. focus on economy, progression, fun game play. focus NOT on the holy trinity but go back to the buffer classes and just go with additive overy multiplicative from the start (or is it the other way around? whatever.. lol) Nw is a proven solid game of it's genre and fairly unique. if they went back to their core foundation of what it was pre mod 16 there is no reason it wouldn't be at least as popular as it used to be. at this point it sounds like the code is too old to work with. so scrap it and start fresh.

autumnwitch

thefiresidecat said:

regardless at this point nw is their top money maker. it would behoove them to fix it. I think what really needs to happen is nw 2.0. let people port some things over. but other than that fresh start on the economy. build the game from scratch using the things that were proven to have worked with the original game that they completely borked over the last couple years. focus on economy, progression, fun game play. focus NOT on the holy trinity but go back to the buffer classes and just go with additive overy multiplicative from the start (or is it the other way around? whatever.. lol) Nw is a proven solid game of it's genre and fairly unique. if they went back to their core foundation of what it was pre mod 16 there is no reason it wouldn't be at least as popular as it used to be. at this point it sounds like the code is too old to work with. so scrap it and start fresh.

Whilst I totally agree with this, it would appear that powers that be are looking at games like Fortnite/Apex and seeing all that money rolling in and want to get on the gravy train. But so did Marvel, Anthem, Dark Alliance and so on. The market is totally saturated with these types of colour by numbers games that are mostly failing. What they need to do, as you pointed out, is remember that NWO is unique and has solid money making potential if done well but no matter how well done, it will never be Fornite. Once they set their expectations to a more modest goal NWO could really soar. I hope they do.

thefiresidecat

autumnwitch said:

thefiresidecat said:

regardless at this point nw is their top money maker. it would behoove them to fix it. I think what really needs to happen is nw 2.0. let people port some things over. but other than that fresh start on the economy. build the game from scratch using the things that were proven to have worked with the original game that they completely borked over the last couple years. focus on economy, progression, fun game play. focus NOT on the holy trinity but go back to the buffer classes and just go with additive overy multiplicative from the start (or is it the other way around? whatever.. lol) Nw is a proven solid game of it's genre and fairly unique. if they went back to their core foundation of what it was pre mod 16 there is no reason it wouldn't be at least as popular as it used to be. at this point it sounds like the code is too old to work with. so scrap it and start fresh.

Whilst I totally agree with this, it would appear that powers that be are looking at games like Fortnite/Apex and seeing all that money rolling in and want to get on the gravy train. But so did Marvel, Anthem, Dark Alliance and so on. The market is totally saturated with these types of colour by numbers games that are mostly failing. What they need to do, as you pointed out, is remember that NWO is unique and has solid money making potential if done well but no matter how well done, it will never be Fornite. Once they set their expectations to a more modest goal NWO could really soar. I hope they do.

they could always add a battle royale to it...

(hahahaha) no, but seriously fallout tried that. it doesn't work. people who play this style of game aren't really interested in pvp. it's been shown over and over again.. they're sunsetting the battle royale in sept in that game.

yes just sticking with what you do well and doing that instead of reinventing the wheel is the way to go.
part of their problem with monetizing this game is they did it wrong. the store is stale and they failed to listen to the audience about what the audience wanted to spend money on. it was repeated over and over.. fashion... but deaf ears.

Fallout does a rotating package thing that seems to work well for them (artificial rarity and these are not things you can sell to other players) along with an ability to build player housing. there are all kinds of ways to make money. it may not end up being the biggest thing ever but it could have done loads better than it did.

the keys to success are looking at the competition and seeing what they're doing well and what they're not doing well at and trying to replicate the doing well part. and listening to your customer base instead of figuring you know what is best for them. or because there is a short cut you would rather take. imo the top down isometric thing they did with magic was stabbing themselves in the foot. yes there are people who don't mind it but I think many more do. it's like stepping back to 1996 and there is already a glut of that on the market so it would have to be pretty amazing to get the numbers needed and nothing about what they've done says amazing.

blargskull

mentinmindmaker said:

...
Hard to tell. Not many games terminate as late as in beta. The game must have been really sucky.

The game is still active until midnight Oct. 31st. You can rate it for yourself. They are refunding 100% of the cash spent to the users on it. Later they will even drop the Zen store and make it so you can use in game currency. I don't know if any assets will get transferred to the remaining games. I doubt we will see any planeswalkers here in Neverwinter, but they might be able to salvage map, models, and textures.

As for the cost, wages are not free, someone paid to make the HD teaser trailer, I could guess the project cost if I knew the exact size of their team. Only 10 programmers, in that part of the US annual wage alone is $750,000. Thomas Foss was lead on the project, any news on where he is hanging his hat now? I imagine he has job security, but I envision there was a massive layoff to cause this to happen.

I have job security, my job is security, it isn't like people plan to start behaving anytime soon.

thefiresidecat

blargskull said:

mentinmindmaker said:

...
Hard to tell. Not many games terminate as late as in beta. The game must have been really sucky.

The game is still active until midnight Oct. 31st. You can rate it for yourself. They are refunding 100% of the cash spent to the users on it. Later they will even drop the Zen store and make it so you can use in game currency. I don't know if any assets will get transferred to the remaining games. I doubt we will see any planeswalkers here in Neverwinter, but they might be able to salvage map, models, and textures.

As for the cost, wages are not free, someone paid to make the HD teaser trailer, I could guess the project cost if I knew the exact size of their team. Only 10 programmers, in that part of the US annual wage alone is $750,000. Thomas Foss was lead on the project, any news on where he is hanging his hat now? I imagine he has job security, but I envision there was a massive layoff to cause this to happen.

I have job security, my job is security, it isn't like people plan to start behaving anytime soon.

from what I've seen they pay their people far below the industry standard and that's probably a big part of why they end up with subpar games

autumnwitch

thefiresidecat said:

blargskull said:

mentinmindmaker said:

...
Hard to tell. Not many games terminate as late as in beta. The game must have been really sucky.

The game is still active until midnight Oct. 31st. You can rate it for yourself. They are refunding 100% of the cash spent to the users on it. Later they will even drop the Zen store and make it so you can use in game currency. I don't know if any assets will get transferred to the remaining games. I doubt we will see any planeswalkers here in Neverwinter, but they might be able to salvage map, models, and textures.

As for the cost, wages are not free, someone paid to make the HD teaser trailer, I could guess the project cost if I knew the exact size of their team. Only 10 programmers, in that part of the US annual wage alone is $750,000. Thomas Foss was lead on the project, any news on where he is hanging his hat now? I imagine he has job security, but I envision there was a massive layoff to cause this to happen.

I have job security, my job is security, it isn't like people plan to start behaving anytime soon.

from what I've seen they pay their people far below the industry standard and that's probably a big part of why they end up with subpar games

Also keep in mind, the gaming industry pays their devs less than other industries because you are supposed to be grateful for being able to work in your "dream job". There is a HUGE brain drain the SF Bay Area now (where Cryptic is) and if you are an even just ok dev/programmer you can pretty much work where you want for way, way more than the game industry wants to pay. So you are talking about a company who wants to pay lower wages/benes than their peers who are already paying less than other industries. It's a recipe for disaster.

liquin

tbh, I would love for them to use the Magic assets to make more NW content & improve character creation.

rjc9000

thefiresidecat said:

regardless at this point nw is their top money maker. it would behoove them to fix it. I think what really needs to happen is nw 2.0. let people port some things over.

Can't tell if it's funny or sad that the best way to fix Neverwinter ... is to nuke it from orbit and restart from scratch.

And

thefiresidecat said:

just go with additive overy multiplicative from the start (or is it the other way around? whatever.. lol)

Pre Mod 16 had multiplicative buffs for as long as I can remember (Mod 5/6).
Buffs became additive after asterdahl's kerfluffle with buffs in Mod 17.

liquin said:

tbh, I would love for them to use the Magic assets to make more NW content & improve character creation.

Already happened.

The zone loading screens and the server select status on PC resemble that of Magic: The Deadening.

lantern22

I can't see them rolling back NWO to pre mod 16 and I doubt MTG failing will have any positive effect on NWO.

I haven't played MTG but let me guess, they created a game that wasn't fun to play, felt like working a second job and expected you to pay $$ for some HAMSTER RNG chance at getting something.

A game should = fun to play. I think they have forgotten that and instead think its smart businesses to ram HAMSTER down ppls throats that they don't like

thefiresidecat

lantern22 said:

I can't see them rolling back NWO to pre mod 16 and I doubt MTG failing will have any positive effect on NWO.

I haven't played MTG but let me guess, they created a game that wasn't fun to play, felt like working a second job and expected you to pay $$ for some HAMSTER RNG chance at getting something.

A game should = fun to play. I think they have forgotten that and instead think its smart businesses to ram HAMSTER down ppls throats that they don't like

it basically hasn't been fun to play since mod 16 happened. a lot of people had fun with tomm but that was more hanging out with friends than the actual game play being "fun" in and of itself I think. the drama that went hand in hand with it was serious. other than that it's all been meh and getting more so as time goes on and their changes make it more and more dead. I don't think they can roll it back at this point. that's why I think it needs to be nuked and they need to start over with priorities that their population wants to play. Right now it's a game no one wants. at least that I've seen. this game is in it's death throes.

datarider

I just hope FOSS is fired and dont come back to NW

jules

They don't really understand what their customers want, which in it's own is already quite a problem...
I remember the interview about Sharander Ep 1 (or 2? forgot already) about how great HEs are and all that HAMSTER and it was basically a whole interview celebrating what most people kept disliking for mods upon mods.

It's probably the management tho - the management seems to have forgotten that they are providing a service and thus somehow in need of players actually liking the content.

thefiresidecat

jules#6770 said:

They don't really understand what their customers want, which in it's own is already quite a problem...
I remember the interview about Sharander Ep 1 (or 2? forgot already) about how great HEs are and all that HAMSTER and it was basically a whole interview celebrating what most people kept disliking for mods upon mods.

It's probably the management tho - the management seems to have forgotten that they are providing a service and thus somehow in need of players actually liking the content.

I've had the impression it's willful misunderstanding. I think they know what we ask for but then say no.. that's not what we want to do and go on to do what they want to do regardless. they totally ignore suggestions of people testing for them. it seems like they purposefully seek out those who are willing to parrot whatever they say and then say.. see we gave you what you wanted because they found a fanboy or girl or two to go yeah.. that thing you said. that's what we want...

the cdps... pointless. the things we asked for in the end were turned around to be like what one submission out of a thousand asked for because it already fit the vision they had.

wilbur626

If the Magic : Legends shutdown will have any impact at all in Neverwinter, I’m certain it will be a positive one. My uneducated guess is that quite a lot of resources were moved from Neverwinter to Cryptic’s flashy new game. Now the Neverwinter team will most likely be joined by quite a few of the developers from Magic.
More developers will mean more hours spent fixing bugs 👍

thefiresidecat

wilbur626 said:

If the Magic : Legends shutdown will have any impact at all in Neverwinter, I’m certain it will be a positive one. My uneducated guess is that quite a lot of resources were moved from Neverwinter to Cryptic’s flashy new game. Now the Neverwinter team will most likely be joined by quite a few of the developers from Magic.
More developers will mean more hours spent fixing bugs 👍

the problem is, it needs a lot more than bug fix to save it now.

wilbur626

> @thefiresidecat said:
> the problem is, it needs a lot more than bug fix to save it now.

Elaborate plz?

sjl3

wilbur626 said:

If the Magic : Legends shutdown will have any impact at all in Neverwinter, I’m certain it will be a positive one. My uneducated guess is that quite a lot of resources were moved from Neverwinter to Cryptic’s flashy new game. Now the Neverwinter team will most likely be joined by quite a few of the developers from Magic.
More developers will mean more hours spent fixing bugs 👍

According to what is posted on reddit they laid off 44 developers so it's unlikely that there are many going to move to NW

arcanjo86

jules#6770 said:

They don't really understand what their customers want, which in it's own is already quite a problem...
I remember the interview about Sharander Ep 1 (or 2? forgot already) about how great HEs are and all that HAMSTER and it was basically a whole interview celebrating what most people kept disliking for mods upon mods.

It's probably the management tho - the management seems to have forgotten that they are providing a service and thus somehow in need of players actually liking the content.

they are not making the game for us, they are making the game to attract investors

greywynd

wilbur626 said:

> @thefiresidecat said:
> the problem is, it needs a lot more than bug fix to save it now.

Elaborate plz?

The ship is on fire and they're bailing it out because it is sinking.

thordet91

Saddens me that people are losing their jobs, but hopefully the higher ups have learned something about the importance of bug fixing and rewards. If sharendar was a new game it would have shut down to.

greywynd

thordet91#6067 said:

If sharendar was a new game it would have shut down to.

It needs to be.

jules

> @arcanjo86 said:
> they are not making the game for us, they are making the game to attract investors

Nothing that is currently happening (including Magic) is attractive to investors either.

armadeonx

jules#6770 said:

> @arcanjo86 said:
> they are not making the game for us, they are making the game to attract investors

Nothing that is currently happening (including Magic) is attractive to investors either.

Very true - you kill a game's population and rating and you scare off investors.

xcessiveforce40

My honest hope is that the developers and producers for NWO heed the lessons of Magic The Gathering, Legends. Which is, please stop pushing changes the players aren't asking for. Focus on MORE CONTENT. Not removing content. Publish and MAKE PUBLIC a plan to get players returning to the game. 2500 or less concurrent players daily on PS4 is nowhere near acceptable. If I was Wizards of the Coast and this was my licensed content I would be making it clear theirs a huge concern and we expect results. I know Cryptic has the capability to produce an amazing game. And in all rights this should be the best/largest MMO with all the history, literature and creativity of the Forgotten Realms / DnD universe at your fingertips. It's time to commit to making this the best or simply set to cruise control to slowly sail into the sun.

blargskull

I find it very weird the main topic of conversation is about another game that is in the process of being shutdown.

I just came in to check on my ZAX thread, still no movement there. It won't surprise me to be two or three weeks before we get another "Hey! I got some Zen!" posting in there.

BTW I don't know when Cryptic got the new Neverwinter developer? I was out stalking my usual prey and I stumbled across this YouTube video of Neverwinter's Lead Game Designer, Salim Grant. At 4 minutes a viewer asked, "How can I make a game fun to play?" His answer should be pretty obvious... instead he says, "Fun is super subjective, but ... I don't know... you gotta ... (laughs) that's tough, whatever your design is you got to define what it is and break it down into its core components and execute on that."

No offense Mr. Grant, you never had fun a day in your life... ever, have you? This is man is the future that is soon to be Neverwinter. Best of luck to all of you!

After watching the entire video, please Mr. Grant, stay away from Champions. Thank you and best wishes to you too.