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Neverwinter's Serious Lack of Immersion
sandukutupu
Member Posts: 2,285 Arc User
For about 8 years now, I loyally played Neverwinter once a day. Even years ago, when I got sick in the hospital, I had my husband bring up the laptop to use the (low budget) wifi signal just to login for dailies. I can't say I am Neverwinter's biggest fan, but I have been here. The year 2020 saw us all go to Hell. Avernus was horrible, in my opinion, for the following reasons;
I have been working on a story module for another online game, while it is not a massive multiplayer, it allows me the freedom to once again share my stories with others, who play the game on PC, XB1, and PS4. During this time I notice my mount doesn't just poof under me in a cloud of smoke. More realistically I have to call it, the mount spawns off camera and runs to me. I bump into people and they complain about it. If riding my horse, people react to it rearing up. This type of action appears in other online games, it is more immersive, and realistic. I do not and cannot blame Cryptic too much for lacking the big budget to hire programmers to fix old games. I assume they are doing their best to repair the bugs they have, also trying to get MtG launched, with the limitations of the workforce during this outbreak.
I can blame Cryptic for poor decisions, bad plots, and just slapping a fresh coat of paint on their oldest modules, then calling "new" and improved. I fear the road ahead will greatly reduce any quality of Neverwinter, that existed before this time. This game had real potential. I hope to see all of the loyal players this fall in Barovia for our Barovia Bash 2021. Assuming it hasn't been upgraded or replaced.
Have a Great Day!
Note for edit: Thank you for telling me about my grammar! You are a real grammar socialist...
- Once again poor reasons for going there and doing anything at all for Vallenhas.
- I didn't care for the maps, not just because they were recycled strongholds, but I complained here about that orange tint, to the point my husband set my PC up with a hotkey that decreased the red values and increased the green and blue.
- The audio was terrible, I would hear demons shouting Nasher lines. Etrien was just annoying in the shield vault to the point I muted the motivational "I said, no dilly dallying!" just while having to rest 30 seconds by a campfire.
- While I found Lulu visually "cute", the audio was just sad. I never knew about hollyphants in D&D before.
- I eventually went to Avernus and finished the campaign by doing memory requests from Makos.
- Makos should have had more dialog and I have expressed "the better plot" for this hot mess.
I have been working on a story module for another online game, while it is not a massive multiplayer, it allows me the freedom to once again share my stories with others, who play the game on PC, XB1, and PS4. During this time I notice my mount doesn't just poof under me in a cloud of smoke. More realistically I have to call it, the mount spawns off camera and runs to me. I bump into people and they complain about it. If riding my horse, people react to it rearing up. This type of action appears in other online games, it is more immersive, and realistic. I do not and cannot blame Cryptic too much for lacking the big budget to hire programmers to fix old games. I assume they are doing their best to repair the bugs they have, also trying to get MtG launched, with the limitations of the workforce during this outbreak.
I can blame Cryptic for poor decisions, bad plots, and just slapping a fresh coat of paint on their oldest modules, then calling "new" and improved. I fear the road ahead will greatly reduce any quality of Neverwinter, that existed before this time. This game had real potential. I hope to see all of the loyal players this fall in Barovia for our Barovia Bash 2021. Assuming it hasn't been upgraded or replaced.
Have a Great Day!
Note for edit: Thank you for telling me about my grammar! You are a real grammar socialist...
Post edited by sandukutupu on
10
Comments
And that isn't even getting into nitpicking like wondering why Hezrou are more dangerous than Glabrezu or Nalfeshnee or why Bone Devils are are apparently not Lesser Devils now.
The remainder of that scene seems like Zariel just caved, redemption for a fallen angel is very strange indeed. Her servant kills himself to prevent serving to the dark lord and is brought back, making his role and self sacrifice absolutely pointless. I will play Avernus some day when I get very bored out of my skulls.
Wendy and I talked at her place about the better plot to some detail. Vallenhas is just a castle and land, rulers should be concerned with people and it just looks dumb to have injured lay there when Makos has an open portal nearby. We came up to the idea, that a scene could have shown some injured exit through the portal but died on the other side. Makos comes to the conclusion that only people not teleported there by the demonic forces could come and go. Healers from Neverwinter arrive but Neverember is unwilling to send soldiers as they could weaken Neverwinter's defense. This would explain people being treated by healers near the portal and not returning to the Swordcoast.
We also said a great dungeon / skirmish was lost on module 18 and 19, as you could have been challenged to a race with war machines. The actual battle would just be a small arena and not really that tough to employ. As Berion pilots the machine, you ride topside and assist Alric and others repel the competition. It could have been much better than what we got. Meanwhile it seems like they are carbon coping the stuff from module #1 with the whole 3 gates. But instead of finishing quests we are time gated to just wait a few months. I have my fingers in too many games to care much at this point.
Just killing time...
There are a lot of constraints to write something appealing in a F2P MMO, with all the time-gates, repetitions, and tight release budgets. But still, with all the respect to these constraints, whenever I see people who recommend NW for the story, I can't help to think that either they just didn't play a good narrative driven game or didn't read a good book. It's just worlds apart.
Which is more disappointing with the strong IP that suppose to help with exactly that, but instead seems like a limitation. Or worse, an addon manual that people should consult to enjoy the game.
Neverwinter has weaker and stronger aspects, unfortunately the story is not one of the stronger. There was hope that with the movement into episodes there will be more focus on story telling.
In any case, NW is (or was) a relatively (very) casual friendly MMO that is at least connected (in whatever which way) to DnD and thus somewhat (I assume) attractive to people that actually enjoy lore, story, roleplay. That NW is so severely lacking immersion IS a big issue that is only getting worse, and the biggest reason why the game is still attracting new players IS the DnD/WotC link. They should be careful to kick their only (I could agree on the combat system as a second depending on the version of NW and what one would consider this term entails lol) USP around too much.
To be honest, the potential is far bigger than what they are doing with it.
There are no restrictions on telling a story. No profanity filter but they do insist you are +16 to play. While children exist in the game, they limit character design to adults only, so you won't have anything paedophile popping up. The editor is used through any web browser, this way when I do publish it, the consoles have it to play as well. Unfortunately there is no 3D preview on the editor, which is something I am use to, as I learned the 2D beta version of the Foundry on Star Trek first.
Dialog editing is wonderful, as I get a large box to type in, and spell checker via the browser. There are all sorts of tasks, not just go kill X of monster Y type. Objectives include, escorts, kill, talk, destroy, go to area, free captives, and loot specific items. I haven't explored all the options either such as wait timers, set variables, group objectives, etc.. There I go getting all spammy again.
My story will be playable late summer or early fall, but I plan to place it on YouTube as well.
There are other games I have found more immersive as well. Not saying everyone needs to follow me to another game, just wish people would read more books instead of burning them.
See you all in Barovia this October?
Contrast that with something like Lord of The Rings Online, which I only just started playing, and the non-stop story telling is thick as weeds. You can't jog five minutes without running into another story. I picked up some off hand side-quest today that was really moving - and a real to goodness story: no plot, no moral, just a nice little tale. and it made me think of this thread.
Josef Linkletter and Dorothea Nacht met in Neverwinter six years ago in 1473 DY. A journeyman stone mason and architect, Dorothea came to the city at Lord Neverember's behest to help the rebuilding. She was one of the main designers of Seven Suns marketplace and the Manycoins bank.
This was found here on the wiki.
I would caution about shouting too loud about 'Immersion' without clearly defining what you want. When Mod 15 revised the professions, some developer thought it would be immersive to create a little workshop and storyline to accompany the tasks at hand. The story is ok, but the outright inconvenience of going to a physical location several times a day and the endless clicking to clear confirmation pup-ups just makes the whole implementation a total disappointment. Layered menu panels that don't display or retain their scrolled state without clicking one extra time are just poor design. Quests that are given by multiple NPCs often without any indication that they have a quest (no diamond exclamation point) reveals real lack of editorial oversight to meet the standards of the rest of NW. The immersion has become an encumberment.