What do you think module 21 will be this fall?

sandukutupu · April 2021

This is a time line of WoC releases versus CS releases.

Wizard of the Coast 5th EditionAdventures		Cryptic Studios NeverwinterModules
		Fury of the Feywild	Aug-22-2013
		Shadowmantle	Dec-05-2013
		Curse of Icewind Dale	May-13-2014
Lost Mine of Phandelver, StarterSet	Jul-15-2014
Tyranny of Dragons: Hoard of theDragon Queen	Aug-19-2014	Tyranny of Dragons	Aug-14-2014
The Rise of Tiamat	Nov-04-2014	Rise of Tiamat	Nov-18-2014
Elemental Evil: Princes of theApocalypse	Apr-07-2015	Elemental Evil	Apr-21-2015
		Strongholds	Aug-11-2015
Rage of Demons: Out of the Abyss	Sep-15-2015
		Underdark	Nov-17-2015
Curse of Strahd	Mar-15-2016	The Maze Engine	Mar-15-2016
		Sword Coast Chronicles	Jun-07-2016
		Storm King's Thunder	Aug-15-2016
Storm King's Thunder	Sep-06-2016
		The Cloaked Ascendancy	Feb-21-2017
Tales from the Yawning Portal	Mar-24-2017
		Jungles of Chult: Tomb ofAnnihilation	Jul-25-2017
Tomb of Annihilation	Sep-19-2017
		Jungles of Chult: Lost City of Omu	Feb-27-2018
		Ravenloft	Jun-28-2018
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist	Sep-18-2018
		Heart of Fire	Nov-05-2018
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage	Nov-13-2018
		Undermountain	Apr-23-2019
Stranger Things: Dungeons &Dragons, Starter Set	May-01-2019
Ghosts of Saltmarsh	May-21-2019
Dungeons & Dragons EssentialsKit: Dragon of Icespire Peak	Jun-24-2019
Baldur's Gate: Descent intoAvernus	Sep-17-2019
Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rickand Morty AKA The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy	Nov-19-2019
		Infernal Descent	Jan-21-2020
		Avernus	Jun-30-2020
Icewind Dale: Rime of theFrostmaiden	Sep-15-2020
		New Sharandar	Feb-16-2021
Candlekeep Mysteries	Mar-16-2021

My guess is they will replace either module #2 "Shadowmantle" and the Dread Ring will be erased, or they will replace module #3 "Curse of Icewind Dale" and Caer-Konig will be deleted for Rime of the Frostmaiden. Hope to see some of you online playing this weekend.

pitshade · April 2021

I picked up Frostmaiden recently and am still reading through it. I hope for everyone's sanity that they don't adapt it for Neverwinter. Not that the adventure looks bad, but it involves stopping the bad guy's plot to make eternal winter AND there is a Black Ice subplot, so for us it would be a retread of both mods 3 and 10, which would create a vortex of awfulness.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh would be nice but not unless they fix the boats (and cars) stealing our Action Points.

sandukutupu · April 2021

Since they recently remove Black Ice shaping, any reason to collect the material is virtually gone, I doubt they would bring it back. Personally living in Michigan's "Winter Wonderland" I would skip another trip to the frozen north until next spring of 2022. It is like watching a movie about people freezing to death, while you are freezing to death. Not much of an escape mechanism, if you can see my point.

You can see on the timeline, where they only synced up for Tyranny of Dragons, Rise of Tiamat, and Elemental Evil. I should have color coded my time line, I will edit it and add a splash of color. Anyways back in 2016 everyone on here was guessing it would be Ravenloft and we got Maze Engine instead. The next year everyone was thinking the Yawning Portal and we got Jurassic World leftovers. Late 2018, I thought for sure it was going to be Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Jarlaxle Baenre was talking about "friends" arriving soon Protector's Enclave. Then we got A.I.:Heart of Fire instead... after that, I never assume they will ever be in sync again. What a mess.

Personally I would like to see something original. I don't want another remake or R.A. Salavatore regurgitation of his books. Originality died a long time ago in Hollywood, why would I expect it to be alive here? I would be shocked to see an original compelling plot, good old fashion dungeons, surprises, and plot twists. I imagine most players are going to blow through part 2 as they did part 1. There is not much fun in speed run campaigns, but I give them credit on Granny's dungeon and how it is introduced in the voice overs. She is pretty creepy. Yet I had no issues defeating her, wasn't much more than fighting the Night Terror. You never see the boss in these fights feign death, and just as you go to the chest they leap up and grab you from behind. Nothing new to see here.

Don't you think Ghosts of Saltmarsh would just turn into another remake of Sea of Moving Ice?

armadeonx · April 2021

I'm guessing it'll be 'The Fall of Whytesyde'

too soon...?

lantern22 · April 2021

Yes, too soon.

Unknown · April 2021

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odanobunaga · April 2021

I thought most of the devs were working on this Magic game, so I'm sure Neverwinter Mod 21 will be another simple grindfest due to a lack of developer hours.
A nice campaign with a good story, well-written dialogues, captivating music, diverse missions and the like would be warmly welcomed. And throw in some new dungeons just to add variety to the random queue lists.

blargskull · April 2021

As we should all know, I am guessing it will be Return to Stardock, the Quest for Missing Spelljammer Parts.

Wendy, module 21 is already on its way, drafted and written months ago. Maps, dialog, voice overs are on the cutting room floor now. I don't believe for one minute, we will get anything new, no new maps, no new creatures, and if the creature is "new" it will just be a composite of an existing model with a new skin and sound effects.

I know what I would like to have, but no matter how much I ask or plead for it, it will never happen. Barovia is but a small landmass in the middle of Ravenloft. I understand many players don't realize that Ravenloft is another dimension and not really part of the Swordcoast.

In this high resolution map you can see Barovia surrounded by toxic mist just south of The Shadow Rift. There is a book "Secrets of the Dread Realms" by Wizards of the Coast 2001, that details each land surrounding Barovia and some that have attempted to invade. I have a lot of respect for the ruler of Falkovnia, Vlad Drakov appears to have no magic or supernatural means to dominate his land, he just has a massive army at his disposal. Meanwhile Dr. Victor Mordenheim (Frankenstein), rules the land of Lamordia with his creature Adam. There is tons more material they could pick through, since they all seem to have writers block.

mentinmindmaker · April 2021

The first question to answer is: Will there BE a mod 21?

There are a few indicators of
* NW income to Cryptic falling(Slow ZAX, very thin mod 20, less people playing all around, much unhappiness on boards, reduced player activity on boards)
* Less dev focus on NW(Less dev presence on forums, the new Magic game, patches coming much more seldom)

So at some point it will be the rational company decision to stop making mods and let game burn out.

Since announcing a stop to mods will create a general exodus from game they will not do that. They will just not announce mod 21 and try to bleed the game as long as possible. Never forget NW is a business, and their rational behavior is to make money.

armadeonx · April 2021

As they are in the middle of a mod rollout it's probably a bit too soon to say they have already placed a stop on development. Also, why would they have bothered with a combat rework?

I believe they intend for it to keep going, but have made a series of bad decisions over recent years that most certainly will have cost them a lot of money so they'd probably have to do a good job of convincing PWE that they can turn it around and that increased investment would be worthwhile.

cracklepants · April 2021

Would be interesting to see them do an LMOP or Frostmaiden. For all that is holy, DO NOT REMOVE CONTENT!

mentinmindmaker · April 2021

cracklepants#2252 said:
Would be interesting to see them do an LMOP or Frostmaiden. For all that is holy, DO NOT REMOVE CONTENT!

I'll second that: DO NOT REMOVE CONTENT!!!

wilbur626 · April 2021

> @mentinmindmaker said:
> The first question to answer is: Will there BE a mod 21?
>
> There are a few indicators of
> * NW income to Cryptic falling(Slow ZAX, very thin mod 20, less people playing all around, much unhappiness on boards, reduced player activity on boards)
> * Less dev focus on NW(Less dev presence on forums, the new Magic game, patches coming much more seldom)
>
> So at some point it will be the rational company decision to stop making mods and let game burn out.
>
> Since announcing a stop to mods will create a general exodus from game they will not do that. They will just not announce mod 21 and try to bleed the game as long as possible. Never forget NW is a business, and their rational behavior is to make money.

Based on communication from the developers (dev streams for example), we know that M21 is already in development and that one specific dev was not that involved in M20 development cause he was/is busy creating the big news for M21 launch.

I’m 99% certain Magic/Neverwinter are made by two completely separate teams within cryptic, so Magic beta should not affect NW development at all.

If the slow ZAX is to be used as an indicator of anything, it is that there is far too much AD in player hands. Using it as an indicator of Cryptic income requires use of a crystal ball and some tarot cards to make sense.

blargskull · April 2021

Not to get off topic too much, I can see Neverwinter has no wind in its sails. However Cryptic Studios has 4 games now. I think if you were to look in on Star Trek and Champions they will tell you, it is business as usual on there. While Champions exists on PC only, STO is on both XB1 and PS4 as well. It is like someone looking out the window of the plane and saying "The engine on the wing is on fire!". The pilot responds, "Don't be alarmed, we still have two more and another will be installed shortly.".

Back on topic, whatever they have cooking will not be that good in my opinion. The reasons are, they are making a new class, this will bog down production. Adding a new class in the past has broken other classes and even the whole game before. They need to make certain the new class will not do this, but I am thinking it will be a matter of rolling it out, and tossing it in the deep in of the pool. Also there was a lot of work put in on module 20 with new models and graphics, mechanics rework, and 3D maps. This is akin to module 16 Undermountain in workload. Does anyone recall what module 17 was about? No? Well it is called Stardock, it takes place in outer space... NOT! I think module 21 will be about the same as Stardock, maybe a repeat of history. They gave us a new race (Gith) and told us Stardock was coming. Most people thought spelljammers (spacecraft) would be in the zen store.

I don't expect much from mod 21 at all. I am going to leave it here for now and go back to my Champions Online.

flyball · April 2021

I would hate for them to do a repeat of this expansion and remove the old content. It would end up putting more separation from long time players and new players with the number of boons available. Certainly all the maps for IWD Avernus and Under Dark have plenty of expansion space for new content

chaderickrax · April 2021

I started playing Neverwinter over Christmas of 2020, and I had a choice -- play Sharandar for two weeks when my character was high-enough level, and then watch the campaign vanish before I could finish it...or never play Sharandar.

My wife started about a month earlier, and she LOVED Sharandar. I watched much of it over her shoulder and got a sense of the caliber of exploration, plot, and story.

What we have right now cannot compare.

If Module 21 replaces ANY old content, recent actions indicate that they will be replacing genius with disappointment.

Whatever they do, I echo those above who said, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T REPLACE EXISTING CONTENT.

Unknown · April 2021

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admiralwarlord · April 2021

Icewind Dale: Rime of theFrostmaiden since in VOS 2 of the bosses are the Prince of Frost and Queen of Air who claim to be also the Queen of Winter. In addition with the release of Dark Alliance that seems to tell the same adventures of IWD and SOMI, which leads to believe that soon these will be replaced as was sharandar.

pitshade · April 2021

With Whiteside gone, hopefully there won't be any more content removed.

treentbail21 · April 2021

I want to see a new iwd campaign with pve and pve in one zone with a world boss in it that drops expensive items and rewards.. Imagine fighting for a world boss against another faction.

greywynd · April 2021

Boring.

armadeonx · April 2021

treentbail21#9864 said:
I want to see a new iwd campaign with pve and pve in one zone with a world boss in it that drops expensive items and rewards.. Imagine fighting for a world boss against another faction.

That could work - but hopefully not with an unpredictable spawn time where players have to wait an hour or more in the hope it'd pop - and tied to a major task for weeklies, meaning you have no choice but to wait for it...

sagakaiyume · April 2021

The world boss idea, going against another faction, won't work in NW... With the typical instance capping around 20 they can't do anything fun there. I've played exactly one game with a good world boss mechanic, where its in a pvp zone that had over 1k players trying to get last hit on the world boss. This was done right, it took everyone there to work together and strategize how to turn the odds in their favor. 20 people on a map? This is going to be just boring as heck as people will just get their people into an instance and instance hop once done.

evemj · April 2021

pitshade said:
With Whiteside gone, hopefully there won't be any more content removed.

With them working on content ahead of time, chances are it's already gone; you just don't see it yet... or still can, whichever.

lantern22 · April 2021

pitshade said:
With Whiteside gone, hopefully there won't be any more content removed.

Half of the dungeons were removed long before CW. But I agree, hope they don't remove content.

pitshade · April 2021

Yes, more content was removed in mods 6 (old dungeons) and 16 (skirmishes) but in those cases the intent wasn't to remove them forever. Whitesides 'Evolution' idea was apparently going to be constantly removing content.

sandukutupu · April 2021

pitshade said:
Yes, more content was removed in mods 6 (old dungeons) and 16 (skirmishes) but in those cases the intent wasn't to remove them forever. Whitesides 'Evolution' idea was apparently going to be constantly removing content.

That was Scott Shicoff at the wheel. He was the brainchild of module 6 where we ended up here with Dungeonless & Dragons. The situation was inexcusable and they still have not returned the following to their original place in the game;

Cloak Tower (epic)
Frozen Heart (epic)
Caverns of Karrundax (epic)
Lair of the Pirate King (epic)
Throne of Idris (leveling and epic)
Lair of the Mad Dragon (leveling and epic)
Dread Vault (leveling and epic)

What I mean by original place, Throne of Idris back in Ebon Downs so the story makes sense again! Lair of the Mad Dragon is NOT new content for Tales of MOLD or The Grand Reselling, it was meant to be a level 35 dungeon in Helm's Hold. That is where they belong, not in downtown on the event platform.

evemj said:

pitshade said:
With Whiteside gone, hopefully there won't be any more content removed.
With them working on content ahead of time, chances are it's already gone; you just don't see it yet... or still can, whichever.

You make it sound like the man is a game glitch or bug, Chris Whiteside is an executive producer who tried to use Guild War 2 "Living Worlds" formula on us... I hate and despise Guild Wars 2. I love Guild Wars, but ever since they cranked out the sequel, they stopped making new content for the original. I wish he would have said something earlier, I would have told him it will not work here. I don't think we will be placing his name on any landmarks real soon. If by any chance to read this, I don't have any resentment to you or anyone at Cryptic Studios. I assume all of you did, what you thought was right. Everyone at some point, must make a decision, you are going to move on eventually. It might not happen today or tomorrow. You will need to find the strength to say, "I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.".

lantern22 · April 2021

sandukutupu said:
I don't think we will be placing his name on any landmarks real soon.

Maybe, not sure about anyone else. But I wonder how much resourcing and Magic: Legends affected things. I think some crappy cards may have been dealt. But all conjecture, no actual knowledge.

greywynd · April 2021

sandukutupu said:

You make it sound like the man is a game glitch or bug, Chris Whiteside is an executive producer who tried to use Guild War 2 "Living Worlds" formula on us... I hate and despise Guild Wars 2. I love Guild Wars, but ever since they cranked out the sequel, they stopped making new content for the original. I wish he would have said something earlier, I would have told him it will not work here. I don't think we will be placing his name on any landmarks real soon. If by any chance to read this, I don't have any resentment to you or anyone at Cryptic Studios. I assume all of you did, what you thought was right. Everyone at some point, must make a decision, you are going to move on eventually. It might not happen today or tomorrow. You will need to find the strength to say, "I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.".

He asked. We answered. They didn't listen to us.

argentaegis · April 2021

lordmanshoon said:
I'm thinking new mod will be: City of Heroes

Good lord I hope not!! Cryptic already killed CoH once and some good fans did a Lazarus on it. Now City of Heroes on the various rogue servers (in particular Homecoming) is what the game should have been while being run by the people that should have been running it originally. Fantastic, truly free and play to win, responsive developers, and an amazing community. I played there for a lot of years. Needed a break from superhero play and wanted to try more D&D. That is why I am here. Now I am considering re-visiting Paragon City again. And maybe checking out ESO for more of that D&D development/player based feeling that I am not really seeing here.

I started NWO late 2020 and the game seems to be Swiss cheese with content that was removed and item based. Still enjoyable as I have spent some free time here, but not as satisfying as I was hoping. Like going to a favorite pizza place from your youth that later went franchise and not experiencing the same level of enjoyment. Sure it's decent...but it's not the same.

admiralwarlord · April 2021

IIt seems even that the content that was removed (Old Sharandar) was super frequented by the comments of some. Apart from Dread Ring, all other pre mod 16 content is only frequented by players who perform the legacy campaign quests, and only. Who here really likes to fall into SVA on RTQ? I hate it myself, just knowing that I have no chance of winning anything but RAD since i don't even farma the keys to the chests of this content.

So in the process of removing new content, it's necessary to replace old content, you can remove it, the story needs to keep unfolding.

What do you think module 21 will be this fall?

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