test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Regarding post-launch forward-going playable content...
sirsitsalot
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I'm kind of glad that they won't be having PvP in this game as it will make the PvE aspect that much more solid. Or so I hope. Which leads me to ask Cryptic a very important question:
If you are not going to have PvP, thus alienating 50% of your potential playerbase, Do you intend to actually focus on rolling out regular PLAYABLE content for the PvEers who will make up 100% of your actual playerbase?
I only ask that because in Star Trek Online, playable content takes a back seat to C-store and Lockbox junk, and I really would advise not copying that model over here.
One of the things that I think makes PvP so appealing for so many is that as long as there are people wanting to play against each other, there's always something to do that is unpredictable. Unlike PvE where even though there's always something to do, it becomes a boring grind.
From my vantage point, you guys are not going to be able to get away with just sitting around churning out C-store and Lockbox fluff. If you want to keep people playing, and hopefully paying, you are going to have to keep a strong live content team and keep new and exciting stuff coming. Yes, this game will have the foundry, and many will use it. But people will want official content as much if not moreso than community authored content.
You guys made the move from online RPG that was originally intended to be foundry-centric to full-blown MMO with an officially-created world and storyline. If that is what NW must be, then the ball will remain in your court to keep it alive. Because instead of attracting a crows that seeks to create and share their own adventures and won't really care too much about the overall quality so long as they have fun, you are now going to be attracting MMO players who rightly expect a professionally created and MAINTAINED game world and won't care much about the community authored aspect.
So what sort of plan is there concerning post-launch forward-going content introduction?
How about this:
Monetize it.
Put adventure modules on the C-store. It would be no different than the official adventure modules that WotC publishes for the pen and paper D&D rpg. In fact, that could be how you release additional resources for foundry quest development. Because official P&P modules introduce interesting and useful concept for DMs to incorporate in their own campaigns.
If you are not going to have PvP, thus alienating 50% of your potential playerbase, Do you intend to actually focus on rolling out regular PLAYABLE content for the PvEers who will make up 100% of your actual playerbase?
I only ask that because in Star Trek Online, playable content takes a back seat to C-store and Lockbox junk, and I really would advise not copying that model over here.
One of the things that I think makes PvP so appealing for so many is that as long as there are people wanting to play against each other, there's always something to do that is unpredictable. Unlike PvE where even though there's always something to do, it becomes a boring grind.
From my vantage point, you guys are not going to be able to get away with just sitting around churning out C-store and Lockbox fluff. If you want to keep people playing, and hopefully paying, you are going to have to keep a strong live content team and keep new and exciting stuff coming. Yes, this game will have the foundry, and many will use it. But people will want official content as much if not moreso than community authored content.
You guys made the move from online RPG that was originally intended to be foundry-centric to full-blown MMO with an officially-created world and storyline. If that is what NW must be, then the ball will remain in your court to keep it alive. Because instead of attracting a crows that seeks to create and share their own adventures and won't really care too much about the overall quality so long as they have fun, you are now going to be attracting MMO players who rightly expect a professionally created and MAINTAINED game world and won't care much about the community authored aspect.
So what sort of plan is there concerning post-launch forward-going content introduction?
How about this:
Monetize it.
Put adventure modules on the C-store. It would be no different than the official adventure modules that WotC publishes for the pen and paper D&D rpg. In fact, that could be how you release additional resources for foundry quest development. Because official P&P modules introduce interesting and useful concept for DMs to incorporate in their own campaigns.
I'm not really a John Galt,
but I play one on the forums...
:P
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Post edited by sirsitsalot on
0
Comments
I'd like Cryptic to focus on developing professional monetized adventure path content, and expansion into more regions of the Forgotten Realms. Much of the in between time can be taken up by Foundry creators.
The Foundry has a lot more potential for Neverwinter then it does with STO. D&D players are used to creating adventures, and there already exists an avid adventure building community for NWN1&2. Cryptic's task it seems to me, is to develop a game that is fun to play for it's own sake, and to make the game feel like D&D. If they can do that, then I think they can generate a large enough fan base to make the game profitable.
Yes they did. I'm glad it won't be at launch though. Hopefully that means they will build PvP around the rest of the game systems so that it won't be intrusive upon those systems.
I am in agreement with nimloh.
What I would like to see done to PvP is have it made into a system that isn't just about killing other players' characters. But rather seeking to achieve meaningful goals which other players happen to be in the way of. PvP in an MMO should be more than just team-based deathmatch. If a battle is being fought, then there needs to be a reason for fighting it, and that reason can be steeped in PvE plotlines which overlap. In other words, Let there be places where groups of players from opposing factions are sent to accomplish a specific goal. The goal is PvE in nature, but because enemy factions are both after the same goal (or at least a related one), finding themselves in the same place at the same time would result in a logical conflict.
Actual battles can and should occur, where factional groups meet on the field. Common goal: Everyone not of your faction must die. But there should be PvP activities that are more than just one side against the other. Many of them should really make a great effort to explain WHY.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
One of the things that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth in STO is the flooding of those lockboxes everywhere, especially after I capped and yet am limited in dilithium (rare t2 economy item) and have to spend months just getting 8 K a day in F2P dil and it's 330 dil per c point (the cash shop's economy) and those end tier ships are 2000 cpoints. Having those lockboxes come up again and again with no way to use them without spending 800K to 1 million energy credits (the main currency or t 1 currency) for cruddy items is not my idea of fun. Having something to do like those Pve and PvP reoccurring or daily max level cap missions help.
Yes indeed.
Content is king. And by content I mean PLAYABLE content. Not different styles of clothing for your character, or different breeds of horses to ride, or other cosmetic fluff that will surely be in the C-store. That's all fine. But what I want out of an MMO is meaningful stuff to DO not fanciful stuff to WEAR.
I'll PAY for new official gameplay modules. Gladly. The game itself is going to be Free to Play after all.
There's a thread going on on the STO forums now about the possibility of taking what would ordinarily be found in lock boxes and including them in DOff packs. The DOff minigame is quite popular, and the fact that some assignments are high risk resulting in loss of DOffs, there is reason to purchase more. And it sounds like DOffs are going to be a commodity in the up-coming starbase system. So there is reason to buy them. By tagging the random reward currently present in the lockboxes into DOff packs, they will increase the sale of items that are already useful within the game in their own right.
I do hope that there is a DOff-like system in Neverwinter. Perhaps if our character earns titles and political standing, we can command troops and control the movement of resources within the realm. It would be a great way to simulate political intrigue. as an extension of PvP. If I have a shipment of goods going between one city and another and someone else deploys bandits along the road, then there is a chance that the goods will be lost along with the traders carrying them. If I deploy soldiers along the road ahead of the traders, though, the other person would likely lose their bandits...
Just a random thought there...
but I play one on the forums...
:P
But Doff's are one of the things I like in STO and constantly use. A real pain to grind to T4 diplomacy though.
I agree, the only thing keeping me playing STO now is the DOff system. I absolutely abhor the dilithium system and it has made it so I can no longer progress in the game unless I spend USD on Dilithium or spend months and months farming for dilithium just to afford a ship that I have already out-leveled. There just aren't enough missions in STO that award dilithium. IMO, all missions should reward dilithium.
Edit: oops, sorry for my sto rant there.. as you can see, I have strong opinions about that game too.
I hope to never see PvP in Neverwinter but I know that it is inevitable. As for PvP being 50% of their player-base, I have to disagree. Dungons & Dragons has never been about PvP, unless you count the Dungeon Master. Dungeons & Dragons is all about Role-playing and that is, or should be, their target player-base. Beyond friendly duels, I see no reason why PvP should have any focus in Neverwinter.
I do like how the OP and Nimloch suggested an avenue for content:
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
The quote is, if I recall correctly, an edit of one of Elminster's quotes. I don't recall the exact quote but what I use is my adaptation, "Listen closely, young spellslinger, and ye will hear the sweet words of wisdom from the Lady of Mysteries."
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
If this was only going to be marketed to the D&D crowd, I would agree. However, by taking Perfect World's advice and converting their plan to a full-blow MMO, it is now going to be drawing MMO audiences as well. And 50% of the MMO audience is made up of PvPers.
Like I said. It is a full-blown MMO. And PvP is expected.
Thanks. Solid adventure modules designed officially will be sought after. the MMO audience is not going to accept community authored content. Over on STO, there are people who refuse to touch a foundry mission because the developers didn't make it. They swear up and down that foundry missions are all a bunch of poor quality badly written wastes of time. They ignore the fact that many consider some Foundry missions to totally burry cryptic's work by comparrison in terms of writing and detail. And STO's foundry is loaded with bugs and has severe limitations.
If Cryptic thinks that they will fare much better in NWO with the same minimalistic approach to playable content development that they apply over on STO, they will find that they are sorely mistaken.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Though Mystra is dead btw ... (unless some new publication said she was revived?). So I don't think there would be a choice to choose Mystra as a diety, if there are deities in the game.
From Greenwood's Elmeister novels, yes she was, but this isn't GAME cannon in 4e.
(The term, "Mystryl" used by myself everywhere, refers to the very being that all incarnations of the Goddess of Magic has taken form as through all known Time.)
The entity known as Mystryl can never die, even Ao himself feared the power of Mystryl which is why she had to bestow mortals with her divine power, or "Spellfire." Each chosen of Mystryl (or Mystra), has the very essence of the goddess within them. When they die or when they use Spellfire, it slowly goes back into the Weave of Magic and then reforms into Mystryl. Even if the vessel that housed the majority of Mystryl's essence were to die, like it has, she will be reborn again in Time. Remember, she also held the portfolio of Time which she used to prevent her utter annihilation from the Karsus Avatar spell as well as during the Time of the Troubles when Midnight became Mystra. Ed Greenwood knows this and I am sure will work this into future novels.
So, as long as any Chosen remains and as long as Mystryl's astral form remains, she will never truly be dead. Keep in mind also, it can take hundreds if not thousands of years for the spellfire to return to the Weave once it is used. This was another safe-guard put in place by Ao, as well as that a Chosen cannot be forced to give their chosen power back to Mystryl. In order for Mystryl to gain her power back immediately, it must be given freely.
Also keep in mind, there are quite a number of blueflame items that hold small parts of the very essence of Mystryl as well and Elminster and the Simbul know this could be a way to bring Mystryl back quicker than she could on her own.
In short, barring some great calamity of Ao's doing, the being that is Mystryl can never truly die.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
No, she can actually die and it will be very logical because she is just the cast off power of Selune. She was born when Selune threw a part of her power at Shar in frustration. (Though Selune and Shar may turn out to be the same in the end).
As she was born, she can very well die. She was indeed powerful thus her power was controlled but power often shifts. So it all depends on writers, they can kill her permanently or bring her back.
p.s. btw, tyr is also dead but I can't gather enough courage to tell my guildies(its name is tyrs paladium).
Indeed, she can. As I said though, it would take a monumental feat akin to something only Ao could do to round up all the scattered essences and vessels that currently still contain parts of Mystryl's very being and then do the more monumental feat of destroying them before they coalesce back through the Weave and into Mystryl. One of the current things that is being sought to bring her back by the Simbul and Elminster are magical items known as Blueflame items. These magical items contain a part of the Goddess herself, just as a Chosen does. This is why those two are currently seeking these items, to resurrect the latest incarnation of the Goddess quicker than she would normally by just relying on the Weave of Magic to do it.
I do not know the specific circumstances of Tyr's death, but as a Forgotten Realms deity, you might take solace in knowing that as long as a Realms deity's astral form remains, there is a chance they can be reborn through numerous methods. One being by simply regaining enough followers.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
What I was trying to say was that this game won't have Mystra, also known as Mystrl v-4.0 or Tyr v2.0 as a choice of diety. Even if revived, it will be 5e and not this game.
On a relate note, my money is on Elminster, despite his current predicament, succeeding to becoming the new incarnation of Mystryl if she doesn't reform on her own. That or one of the other remaining Chosens, like the Simbul or Storm.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
Exactly my wish. I want to make a character who worships He Who Was and goes after chalice, but if I have to select a living deity - that would break my RP.
I hope there is a way to do such a thing but if there are god related paragon paths (like e.g. Selune has one paragon) then the game might force us to choose. I so wish they let us name our deities whether dead or alive...
Indeed, if I *had* to choose, I would then of course choose either Selune or Corellon Larethian (I haven't decided if I want to be human or elf yet), as they are the two remaining deities that have any sense of the essence of Mystryl still tied to them. It is too bad Azuth is gone, I rather liked him also. I'm just thankful Shar and Cyric were not able to assume Mystra's portfolio.
Developers, please allow us to choose a deity that has been "slain" in recent history as our deity. Doing so would coincide with the history and lore of the Forgotten Realms. If you do not believe me, then please do some research on all the many Forgotten Realms deities that have died, yet continued to have followers whose power was granted to them by a successor deity or eventually was reborn through various circumstances. Even Ao, the Over-power that doesn't acknowledge mortal followers, has mortal followers.
The first thing I think of when I think about the Forgotten Realms are its deities. They play such an integral role in the Campaign Setting, whether "dead" or "alive." Please do not dismiss this!
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
I'm not familiar with "He Who Was." Can you elaborate?
This was the deity that was slain by Asmodeus the Angel when he rebelled. This deity is also (allegedly) the one who created the race of humans, but that last part is in contention.
It is a 4e explaination of Asmodeus's origin. For more info, you can read paladin's paragon class - knight of the chalice, plus the asmodeus section of demonicon, Astral something named book.
Basically he was some overpowered diety who created the human race. Asmodeus was his arch angel. He was too merciful so asmodeus had a lot of problem in war against demons (primordial demons) to defeat them.
He punished asmodeus hoping that asmodeus would become more humble but asmodeus became more spiteful. So at some oppurtunity Asmodeus backstabbedd him. He had underhand dealings with other gods so they didnt interfere. What he didn't realise was that he who was was still too powerful. So he cursed asmodeus and that turned his whole realm to nine hells, and asmodeus to a devil. But asmodeus tricked other gods to get power of souls later.
So he is still afraid that he who was is still too powerful that he kills anyone who takes his real name. Now that nobody knows his real name, his power is limited to chalice. It is said/rumoured that chalice is capable of revealing the true name which in hands of a powerful devotee(who survives asmodeus) can be used to revived he who was.
EDIT: He was so powerful that I am curious to know what will happen if he and Lady of Pain meet at full powers ... cant say for sure who will win.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
I totally agree with u truthseeker, cryptic should rly be aware of that. Many people will probably try the game since is F2P and many will be hardcore playing style which means they can reach the lvl cap rly fast and finish all campaings and PVE content pretty fast.
That said, and as i already show my worries about this matter in other threads, i rly hope cryptic is aware of this matter and dont commit same errors like others AAA MMO's *cough*swtor*cough* that seen they player base drop alot duo lack of content and many other small mistakes which makes a big diference at the end.
Have you seen how long neverwinter nights 1 was able to stay?
Also, I would like some major war events like siege of neverwinter or something in which hundreds of players fight hundreds of monsters... and include PvP.
Enemies can thus be monsters as a playable race controlled by players or there can be a limited option to get your hands on dark/evil/corrupted powers so that limited players can come back like luke to destroy the city and fight those who chose not to betray the city (or were not chosen for those limited darkside package).
And I would really like Rainbow. I would like to climb that bridge.
A game should always end with a grand war causing wanton destruction ... and ofcourse the bridge to a land of Valhalla for drink and fights.
Indeed I have. A very impressive run. For myself, Foundry will be fine. However, the people who will be coming into Neverwinter from other MMOs will be expecting the developers to make content. Pop over to the Star Trek Online forums sometime and look for threads about the Foundry. You will see how many people actually loath it and cite it as an excuse for Cryptic not to make playable content.
They won't even try a single foundry mission. It seems stupid, I know. But they are adamant about it. Just be prepared. If Cryptic goes with a content-light approach to post-launch gameplay, people will complain. And they will talk down to you like you are an idiot if you suggest the foundry.
Even if you say, "Dungeons and Dragons is about community-told stories," which is 100% true, they will tell you, "Well MMOs are not!" and will start namecalling.
Of course, a Cryptic/Perfect World rep could always pop in and go "This one IS!" and the resopnse will be, "then I'm not playing it!" But they won't leave. They'll sit on the forum and bash Cryptic, the game, the foundry authors for "validating Cryptic's excuse to be lazy".
By making this into an MMO at the core, MMO players will come. And many will bring their notions of entitlement with them.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
I was also impressed by Zeb's banner, nice work!
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Exacly sirsitsalot, beside i didnt tryed foundry in STO or even play the game i have the felling foundry wont be enough for some type of players game style.
Beside i play pnp D&D for some years im also an MMO fan. Although im not MMO an hardcore player i understand who like to play that way and i also understand people who dont but making enough content for hardcore players will be even better for casual ones coz they will have "infinite" content to explore even if they want to start a new character or keep playing at lvl 60.
Ill keep my opinion that foundry wont be enoufg for some players game style but it will be enough for others....