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Racial starting zones
aescleal
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Could there be, will there be, racial starting zones in Neverwinter?
In the big games like EQ2, Word of ********, there are many races, and a number of different starting areas for characters to begin their careers as adventurers. Not all races have their very own place, owned exclusively by their own race, but share it with races that may live nearby. In WoW, Dwarves and Gnomes both share the same starting location for example.
This would be a really cool thing for Neverwinter. Maybe impractical since this game is centred around a single city, but still, these are merely starting points where characters begin, not necessarily the birthplace of the race you chose to play. So, humans may start in one place, elves in another, and half-elfs can choose either or. Perhaps in many cases, humans can choose to start in 2 or three different locations; halflings as well possibly.
The fun aspect of this is for roleplay purposes. It gives your character that much more identity. I recall starting my wood elf druid in EQ, many years ago, in Kelethin (sp?). It gave me a feeling of identity with him. He wasn't just one of the nameless that all started in the same place, he began at level 1 in the tree city of his home, learned to cast and hunt in the forest hills nearby, and as his power grew, he followed the challenge curve and eventually travelled the breadth and width of the EQ world chasing one adventure after another. It was great, and after all these years, I can still recall the thrill of adventure and discovery of exploring EQ. It's funny how most memorable are the zones he grew up in though. I can recall the environmental sounds for those zones, the trails to and from this or that newbie quest, and how great it was to finally travel to Freeport to find more adventure.
He had an identity.
Can anything similar to this be included in Neverwinter?
In the big games like EQ2, Word of ********, there are many races, and a number of different starting areas for characters to begin their careers as adventurers. Not all races have their very own place, owned exclusively by their own race, but share it with races that may live nearby. In WoW, Dwarves and Gnomes both share the same starting location for example.
This would be a really cool thing for Neverwinter. Maybe impractical since this game is centred around a single city, but still, these are merely starting points where characters begin, not necessarily the birthplace of the race you chose to play. So, humans may start in one place, elves in another, and half-elfs can choose either or. Perhaps in many cases, humans can choose to start in 2 or three different locations; halflings as well possibly.
The fun aspect of this is for roleplay purposes. It gives your character that much more identity. I recall starting my wood elf druid in EQ, many years ago, in Kelethin (sp?). It gave me a feeling of identity with him. He wasn't just one of the nameless that all started in the same place, he began at level 1 in the tree city of his home, learned to cast and hunt in the forest hills nearby, and as his power grew, he followed the challenge curve and eventually travelled the breadth and width of the EQ world chasing one adventure after another. It was great, and after all these years, I can still recall the thrill of adventure and discovery of exploring EQ. It's funny how most memorable are the zones he grew up in though. I can recall the environmental sounds for those zones, the trails to and from this or that newbie quest, and how great it was to finally travel to Freeport to find more adventure.
He had an identity.
Can anything similar to this be included in Neverwinter?
Post edited by aescleal on
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Comments
Sure, I'd suspect you are right, it's not WoW. Geez I hope it's not actually, how disappointing that would be. This could be so much better. Video dev interviews have suggested it's a very large open world though. So it just got me thinking of what that could mean. Sure it's centred on Neverwinter as a hub, but obviously they have Peaks of Vellosk, and Andy laughed and pointed out when asked about how much content to expect that there was a lot already, emphasized with an exasperated sigh! So just how big is this area? I haven't gone back through everything, but I thought in one interview they noted that there were many villages and towns included throughout their world area. that leaves a lot unanswered.
But you are so right, I hope they include class starting areas. That would be awesome.
But also, please don't you or anybody else be upset it I or others compare with the likes of WoW. I'm just as likely to make comparisons to EQ, EQ2, DDO or even **** (which I thoroughly enjoyed playing as well). How can I(we) not make comparisons as that's the only way I know of to try to visualize what we might expect?
Don't worry though, I'm not expecting this to be WoW! That's for sure! I'm hoping it's Forgotten Realms D&D, all the way. The Vellosk video has me droolling...
Cheers
But I think that we will all just start in the same point of Neverwinter.
Just for examples: Wizards, for example, could start near a Mage's Guild while Rogues start near a Rogue's Guild base of operations, somewhere in the city. Clerics and Paladins would start in or near their god's temple or shrines and while Fighters and Bards start in a Tavern. Rangers and Druids could start out near the Neverwinter Wood or in some park area of the City devoted to nature.
I do agree though, one unified starting area for all races and all classes does seem a bit dull, for lore/rp reasons. While racism does exist in the Realms, the general populace within settlements of mixed races (such as Neverwinter, Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate) is more biased towards or against a person's class and social status, more-so than their race. You generally tended to see racism more apparent in smaller settlements or settlements that have more of another race other than human, such as elven settlements and cities.
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I expect a single starter zone, but will be quite happy to be proven wrong.
How is that racist?
Its out of context - the term was "racist in origin" and refers to having different origins for different races.
But imagine if it could be that because I'm a half-elf rogue, I get a choice of which village I want to start from (say, any one of maybe three choices), and then within that village, maybe because I'm a rogue, I begin my journey speaking with a trainer located down a dark alley or in a sewer below the streets. Or perhaps I'm a half-elf druid (I know, druids are not announced), then I could start in a private grove just on the outskirts of my starting village where I'm initiated into the Druidic life with a quest.
There is so much flavor there. It doesn't even involve a lot of storytelling. Not a lot of imagination needs to go into that to make it fun and personal. Just one of those nice added touches.
Most because tieflings and half-elves don't really have that, period, since they're outcasts, and I wouldn't be surprised if drow didn't have a cultural area... unless the world's more utterly different than I thought.
Class starting zones on the other hand makes considerable more sense. A temple for clerics and pallies, that starry cloak tower or some mage academy for wizards (I vaguely recall those from NWN and NWN2). Barracks for fighters, some park or something for druids and rangers. A tavern or safe house for rogues and bards. etc....
I'm not sure if it'll be the same 'fight goretusks in this zone for 10 levels before you move onto zone two for 10 levels' type deal we get in mmos like WoW though. Frankly, I think it would be curious to know if they plan to go with progressed zones- D&D doesn't really support that idea- frankly, many adventures at level 1 might take place in the same area a level 10 and 25 one would take place.
Anyway- I imagine it'll all be one starting zone- but if they do the split, I imagine class would be the way they go.
I've always thought that race starting zones were pretty common b:puzzled off the top of my head, PWI, FW and RoM all have different starting zones depending on race.
lorddevilkun brings up an interesting scenario. Tieflings, Half-elves, and Drow are all outcasts, so where do they start? Just because they are outcasts, doesn't mean they themselves even feel they should start next to one another. Low level Half-elves, are in all likelihood terrified of Drow elves. No?
Now I'm beginning to hope Cryptic will adopt racial starting zones. Remember, a starting zone doesn't have to be a far off land (or Underdark), it could be as simple as a designated area stashed away in the woods, or a cave some place relatively close to Neverwinter. Bandit or Gypsy camps, Drow raiding camps. There are lots of options there.
You see, unlike human history in real life, humans in dnd are very tolerant of other races compared to any other race. Neverwinter may be multi-cultural city, but it is afterall mainly a human city controlled mainly by human lords.
So both elves and drow(s) are kind of outsiders and guests. Even if the elf hates the drow, he can't kill or fight him as he can't break the laws. The guards will catch him as much as they will catch drow or any other. And probably drow has better chance because (s)he would be more proficient in bribery skill.
But if everybody must start in Neverwinter (which is ok), it would be nice to have some kind of "cultural background" that determines starting area and maybe some "connections". A character from Waterdeep may have some ties to their Lord's interests, also starting in certain zone. While a drow with background related to Bregan D'aerthe, would start with some ties to Jarlaxle's interests and start in a different zone (like certain campfire).
I'll remark the "cultural" part. Race has nothing to do. Neither class. Altough having those two to also have some impact would be sweet. Immersion factor ftw!
Warriors should start in the Neverwinter baracks. Rogue-types would make sense to start in a tavern
And it would be good if each class has its own tutorial quest series in and around their starting area.
Once, when I thought I was going to have time to write a module for NwN1, I had planned to put waypoints for every class's starting point, even the prestige classes. I wanted to have it where when the player started, he or she would be in a location that made sense for the type of character they were playing. Then life started happening so I never got around to it...
but I play one on the forums...
:P
With class, you can also group the divisions based on power origins or roles.
e.g. All defenders start with a single player tutorial to hold a monster till npc casts a big spell. This will explain their role.
Similarly, a controller can be with a party of npc (probably including drizzt) where he/she locks the monsters at place so that strikers can kill them.
similarly for leader it would be making sure whole party survives. If all die it can become redo the tutorial.
And for striker, you have to kill monsters frozen by npc, as the npc party has no striker.
--OR--
All classes with Martial origin (Fighter|Ranger |Rogue |Warlord) start in barracks where they have a single player tutorial for their exploits.
All classes with Divine origin (divine assassin, divine warlock, cleric and paladin) start in temple where they learn to use prayers to help people.
All classes with Arcane origin (wiz, sor, bard etc.) start in a tower where they have a single player tutorial for their spells.
Similrly for Primal, Psionic and Shadow classes.
That will be much less content to develop while keeping the variety of choice. Which is I think is the main point - less time to develop varied content applycable to all races.
Sounds a lot like what DDO did in its original "new player" tutorial, for better or for worse. Only the devs can say how they pan on starting characters, but I do hope something like what was mentioned before and/or here could be integrated.
Just sayin', I hope it's the best of both!
^ What they said. Besides Evermeet is leagues away.
For those who are not familiar with D&D at the very begin of the game u build ur character, make a background, buy ur gear and start ur adventure where ur DM said.
My point is that in D&D MMO u cant never have a starting race area coz they can simply came almost from everywhere u want all over fearun. Since Neverwinter will be played in a very small area of fearun theres impossible to having starting race area or city.
IMO, all characters should start at the gates of neverwinter, with their background build in character creation (where u came from which can give u some extra skills or languanges), also all players should have a starting gear like pnp where u have a small amount of gold and buy whatever u want. The story of the game is all about neverember call heroes from all fearun to help him rebuilding neverwinter so in theory u should be rdy to start ur adventures.
Ofc at the begin we are not familiar with the game so they should add areas where u learn ur basic figthing, like gillrmn said have mage tower for wizards, arenas for fighters, thieve guilds for rogues and temples for clercis so u can learn the basis.
That said, i think neverwinter should start like D&D pnp.
Why would they start off a Drow Elf at the same location as a Dwarf? Unless you are Drizzt and Bruenor, you aren't going to get along at all. Maybe that's where their 2013 installation of PvP will come in.
Besides, Cryptic has said that their open world is huge. And they've indicated the number of quests will be enormous. One has to figure from interviews, and gameplay that you are not just stuck in Neverwinter. So why can't there be a number of different contacts, or perhaps emissaries of Neverember, who could launch characters from all different races and classes, onto the same quest chain to save and rebuild Neverwinter City?
It's not a killer if none of this happens, but the flavor of this post was meant to get a pulse for what people would want to see. I say give us class & racial starting points as in EQ/EQ2, WoW, Dark Ages of Camelot.
DDO messed with this and it's produced a game that as much as I try, I don't feel connected to any of the characters I build. There's no sense of "me", no hstory of my own, just a toon I use to run around and kill/loot with. It's missing that ... something.
*** aah, that feels better.
However the devs have said the game isn't hub based which the Dragon Age approach would be (but I would accept the newbie area as a violation of that).
Sry but as a D&D fan starting races areas dont make any sense to me even in a MMO, maybe class starting areas but not definly races...... this is not world of ******** world....
"And as the sun (Lathander's fluff) rises you find yourself still groggy from the encounter with monsters yesterday. Many people in your camp were killed. But you remember a few adventurers stepping up to aid and protect the people. You do remember burning the carcasses and drinking whole night in the spirit of your victory..."
And if anyone was elf or drow, he stayed up all night and was groggy and this way the party started somewhere of nowhere.
So I was thinking that perhaps neverwinter can also use something like that - we just spawn somewhere at random campsite with random lines like these where there can be high level monsters but they wont attack if you stick to road (or they are avoidable). And you meet with a few or no people around you. This way everyone will be free to make his/her own backstory - can even skip travelling to neverwinter and just start with foundry missions - if someone wants to.
And after waking up at campsite you can walk to neverwinter which is nearest city.