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Neverwinter: A generic D&D flavored experience at most (article inside)
magiquepurse
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Many people in the forums continually argue how this is a D&D title and you know how it goes from here. Well, I will leave the article for you to read and draw your own conclusions. From my understanding, this is first an MMO, and yes, there's a D&D-ish theme to it, but the emphasis is not on being true to D&D and its mechanics, but on a generic experience of coming together and fighting monsters and stealing their loot.
Enjoy!
Neverwinter Interviews: Keeping Current with the Fifth Edition
Enjoy!
Neverwinter Interviews: Keeping Current with the Fifth Edition
Post edited by magiquepurse on
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found the proper one .. google is your friend!
Neverwinter Interviews: Keeping Current with the Fifth Edition
Yeah I copied it incompletely. Fixed now, thanks!
This is not exactly a bad thing, because you do not NEED the actual gamemechanics of true D&D to make it D&D worthy. It is also about the presentation and lore. Both of them lack in Neverwinter also.
Just look at the dungeons. You could easily do a real dungeon with actual traps you have to disarm, puzzles you have to solve, unique encounters you have to beat while a narrator tells you the story and scripted stuff happens. This would feel not only more alive, it would feel like there was an actual dungeon master.
This would make the atmosphere so much greater. Instead we just run through boring designed dungeons and kill hundreds of copy & paste monsters.
You are not assured of a Thief or any other class.
So IMO they have worked to make it more generic
Well now you know. It's a theme park MMO game and nothing more. It has to be balanced or it will fail.
There are many others "this is D&D" arguments in these forums. I hope people read and understand how far from actual D&D this game's experience is, and now you heard it from an official interview.
Exactly. People, please read the very short article before commenting.
For example:
Dungeons and Dragons is a brand that offers a suite of products across a spectrum. They don't WANT every product experience to be the same. They don't WANT everything to mimic the tabletop experience. That tabletop experience is a unique product. The card games are unique products. The single player games are unique products. And Neverwinter is a unique product.
There's reasons to purchase and play them all, because they offer different D&D experiences, but all share the core values of the brand described above.
So every MMORPG since 1998 has been "a core D&D experience"? Do they think mmos have players going to mundane locations, facing trivial monsters, and discovering ordinary loot?
It is one of those quotes that sounds right when it is coming out of your mouth, but when you think about it...
Yeah , the argument against PVP content is usually "This is D&D, not LoL." or some other equally annoying comment.
The people who think this should be a clone experience of the PnP game obviously have no idea how the market functions.
Pen and Paper games compete in a pen and paper market, while MMO compete against other MMO. If the majority of players want to play PVP in their MMOs, then this game should compete with OTHER MMOs and add PVP content.
Of course people will draw attention to the poll that was done earlier this year stating that PVP makes up a small portion of the population of the game. This is a symptom of having no PVP content, not a symptom of people not wanting PVP content.
The majority of ONLINE gamers are in it for a PVP experience. Ignoring that and saying they should focus on PVE only is a good way to take the Shart Train To Defunctgamesville as PVE players are contantly stating that "You don't need epic gear to finish content." and as such I doubt they spend near as much on the game as people who compete against each other. ADD PVP content and see what percentage of the population is made up of PVP players then.
I swear the people who say "This is D&D, not LoL." are a plague to the game, they pay little and expect every mod to focus on PVE only. That is what is killing this game, not PVP balancing or players.
Do me a favor, reread that description of the "core" d&d experience WOTC wants: "players coming together to explore exotic locations, face dangerous monsters, and discover magical treasures"
How does PVP fit this description in any way? It doesn't. Even the most broad description given for the d&d experience does not involve player vs. player activity in any way. I'm not arguing for taking PVP out of the game entirely, but d&d has always been a pve-focused experience and the primary focus of any game wearing the d&d logo should be on a cooperative, pve gameplay.
Having the Neverwinter and WOTC tags attached also should be an indicator of an extremely high quality product. This should include PvE and PvP as well. For now this is just untrue.
Please note that nowhere does Mr. Mosiondz say "well, since Neverwinter is a MMORPG and not a tabletop game, we're just going to do whatever the **** we want". In his response he remains committed to the "abstract definition of the D&D experience".
He is speaking most particularly about the adaptation of the particular D&D tabletop mechanics to an action MMORPG. Yes, we get to use "Daily" powers more than once a day. Yes, the combat is action-based and not turn-based. Yes the level cap is 60 (plus additional boons!), and not 20 as in PnP D&D. Those I think are reasonable deviations from PnP D&D because they revolve about technical details of the implementation of the game, rather than attempting to change the core philosophy behind the game. Basically, just because we get to use "Daily" powers more than once a day doesn't justify throwing out all of D&D in its entirety. It remains the case that tabletop D&D is the raison d'être for Neverwinter, and that PVP is just a sideshow tacked on as an afterthought in order to attempt to be competitive in the wider MMO marketplace. That's all.
Then go back to WOW, which doesn't have the D&D baggage behind it.
I wasn't commenting one way or the other on balancing or not balancing, merely replying to a poster who seemed to be suggesting that Neverwinter needs to focus more on PVP than PVE.
I agree with you that if PVP is offered in the game, it should be a quality experience. But I also firmly believe that in any game wearing the D&D logo, PVE is the primary focus (as is suggested by WOTC's description of the "core" d&d experience) and should get the majority of the developers attention.
Even if you look past the whole part of the article where it clearly says that D&D is not about the rules and mechanics and more about the concept. And the parts where it says that WoTC is clearly approving everything. Its rather hard to say its not D&D enough when its been blessed by the source itself.
So even if you ignore all that, its still rather hard to claim something is or isn't D&D. For me, for example, when I think D&D. I think of the 80's cartoon. To me that is D&D, and brings back all kinds of wonderful and silly memories. And yet, in all honestly, It had almost nothing at all to do with D&D. It took place in an unknown setting, with unknown lore, it wasn't the realms, it wasn't Greyhawk, it wasn't Kyrnn. Half the classes in the show didn't exist in the game at the time, none of the weapons or items did. Heck the kids didn't even slay any monsters or really do anything all that adventurous. By any definition, of what D&D should be, it failed. But you would be hard pressed to find any real D&D fan who didn't love that silly cartoon.
So, what we have here are clear examples of how hard and how personally subjective something being D&D is. When this game is claimed a failure, even with the blessing of the very company behind it. And other sources are seen as nostalgic pure examples of success, that have little to nothing at all to do with any source material. It clearly must be something that is either impossible to define or so personal that definitions really don't matter. Making these whole discussions kinda pointless.
I find all of the unnecessary acronyms funnier than hell. They're all just games, either single-player or multi-player, and almost all are RPGs...unless one has managed to insert themselves into the game itself, like Tron.
MMOBAs, NSRPGAs, BlahBlahBlahs, lol
Leader of the Packs
How does that matter? If MMOs with PVP make more money and get more customers. Then ANY successful game has to have PVP.
I never said it all had to be about PVP, but that players that play PVE think the game should only focus on PVE. Which , no matter how you slice it will lead to a smaller market share. Successful games have large PVP customer base. Only to focus on PvE is not a good strategy in ANY MMO.....D&D based or otherwise.
It matters because a very large number of Neverwinter players are only here because of the game's connection to D&D. You claim to be worried about the risk of alienating one specific demographic (PVP players), yet you completely dismiss the concern of alienating this game's primary target demographic -- D&D fans. My point is simply this: the more the game distances itself from its D&D roots, the more it will struggle. Regardless of PVP balance or no PVP balance. I am not against changes being made in the name of PVP balance -- but I am very against compromising the PVE experience in the name of said balance.
Here's the bottom line. Neverwinter is D&D. It's supported by and has the full blessing of WotC. There's a lot of close collaboration between Cryptic and WotC to ensure that certain standards for quality and consistency are met.
People can argue all day long about what they think is an isn't D&D.
But as long as this game carries the D&D badge, it's part of the D&D product line.
And PvP exists in tabletop D&D. Don't tell me you've never been at a table where two party members decided to duke it out over something. Yes, D&D is a collaborative experience at it's heart, but that doesn't mean player versus player combat NEVER occurs.
And heck, at some tables, it's a regular part of the game. But just because it's not at YOUR table, doesn't mean it shouldn't be a part of the experience.
+1 to this.
This is the first MMO that I have ever played.
The only reason I even considered it in the first place was because of D&D.
My personal opinion. I care little about D&D, I like WoTC though, and I like this games combat control/mechanics. Its what drew me in and has done a pretty decent job keeping me here.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
For my part, I love the D&D lore, artwork and setting. That is enough for my personal enjoyment of a video game.
Tried it a couple times. Wasnt for me. I think it was the "pathfinder" version. I like other table top like Warhammer, but I found that more strategic which I guess I prefer.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Every time we played
in response to thebriman
Adding pvp content will not alienate PVE players.
Not adding PVP content WILL alienate PVP players.