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I just want to let Cryptic know what I'll be using as a measuring stick for this game
ozewa
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt2dQG1aZ_Q
Phantasy Star Online 2.
The combat in that game works much the way I wanted combat in champions to work, and wanted ground combat in STO to work. It is just so responsive. It outclasses almost every other action RPG I've played.
Fortunately, my expectations are pretty low based on Cryptic's previous works, but I feel like there is a few things that Cryptic could really do better on and I sort of know what to expect from a game in the D&D mythos. Even so, just based on the gameplay I've seen out of Neverwinter the gameplay outclasses every other action RPG except 2 I've seen this year (Path of Exile and PSO2). So I probably won't be ripping it apart when I review it.
I'm not expecting every enemy in Neverwinter to have its own unique drop table with at least some unique loot in there, but that would be nice. I noticed from the gameplay that nobody was jumping, and I feel that is an integral part of a 3D ARPG because opens up a lot of different ways for the designers to design encounters and levels based on platforming aspects.
I never was a fan of Faerun. Greyhawk is where its at for me. I know that Cryptic and PWE will never be able to mess up a setting as much as Turbine did for Ebberon though, so my distaste for Faerun might actually work in my favor.
All in all, Neverwinter looks pretty awesome. I'm the only dude in my fleet that doesn't have guaranteed beta access though. My own fault, as I preordered Torchlight 2 off of steam instead of PWE's website. I'm looking forward to trying this with my friends and fleeties, though I might have to go mug a game journalist in a dark alley (Justin Olivetti most likely) in order to get beta access.
What about the rest of you commentators? What games and background material are you using as a measuring stick for Neverwinter?
Phantasy Star Online 2.
The combat in that game works much the way I wanted combat in champions to work, and wanted ground combat in STO to work. It is just so responsive. It outclasses almost every other action RPG I've played.
Fortunately, my expectations are pretty low based on Cryptic's previous works, but I feel like there is a few things that Cryptic could really do better on and I sort of know what to expect from a game in the D&D mythos. Even so, just based on the gameplay I've seen out of Neverwinter the gameplay outclasses every other action RPG except 2 I've seen this year (Path of Exile and PSO2). So I probably won't be ripping it apart when I review it.
I'm not expecting every enemy in Neverwinter to have its own unique drop table with at least some unique loot in there, but that would be nice. I noticed from the gameplay that nobody was jumping, and I feel that is an integral part of a 3D ARPG because opens up a lot of different ways for the designers to design encounters and levels based on platforming aspects.
I never was a fan of Faerun. Greyhawk is where its at for me. I know that Cryptic and PWE will never be able to mess up a setting as much as Turbine did for Ebberon though, so my distaste for Faerun might actually work in my favor.
All in all, Neverwinter looks pretty awesome. I'm the only dude in my fleet that doesn't have guaranteed beta access though. My own fault, as I preordered Torchlight 2 off of steam instead of PWE's website. I'm looking forward to trying this with my friends and fleeties, though I might have to go mug a game journalist in a dark alley (Justin Olivetti most likely) in order to get beta access.
What about the rest of you commentators? What games and background material are you using as a measuring stick for Neverwinter?
President of the Amnian Illithid Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Please spread the word that the term "Mind Flayer" is a derogatory term to our kind.
Post edited by ozewa on
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Tired of the whole pissing contests between MMOs and the QQing or bashing of said MMO. The game will be what it will be, if I'm having fun that's all that matters to me. So as long as it's enjoyable from many perspectives I'll be a happy camper and content between GW2 and Neverwinter.
But one measuring stick I do have... for the love of god have decent appealing armor/race/environment/whatever in game. But from the vids I don't see this an issue at all.
Well that and grinding, if the game turns out to be the everyday run of the mill gear grind MMO then I'll be writing the game off. Sick of shallow MMOs these days that are a repeat of grinding grinding grinding.
From what little we've seen of the game, I do not see a thing that would make me think this game will be any different. Its essentially why the only tool (and prayer) this game DOES have, that may break the mold (or at least severely disable it) needs to debut in short order... the Foundry.
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Wakes up.... Yes the Foundery will be the most important part of this game.
A handful of MMOs have not followed the grind path. EVE (certainly not everyone's cup of tea) and GW2 both don't follow the grind path but put emphasis on the fun factor which most MMOs but the grind ahead of the fun but that is subjective I suppose. Few don't follow the grind path since that puts the game on the line as people will continue to play it out of enjoyment not by some carrot on the stick mechanic that is deceptive and tricks their consumers. While all games have some shape or form a grind but the shouldn't be the only thing at end game which is what most MMOs do to their players.
2. A world to create a home for my characters. Basically I'm looking for a really huge ongoing campaign. I'm looking for something more than just connected 'content areas'.
Aesthetics, Ergonomics, Versatilty and Maintenance.
1. For me, Neverwinter Nights 1 was the most aesthetic game ever. They used simple 3d polygons, but the way the artists put these few polygons together to make up a smoothly animated 'toon was pretty good. 2. Then they had movement and action controls that are still better than some modern games i have played (full zoom). 36 action slots, all hotkeyed. 4. I played a character with customized spells that could use both arcane and divine spells (theurge they called it). it had an amazing selection of 250+ different spells. I sure wish to see that on nwo.
4. I havent seen any game that was more poorly maintained after publishing than nwn1, and thats almost more important than any other criterium.
For me it will be mostly a way of comparing nwo to nwn1.
mke
b:cute
Alrighty. I hear grindiness being a big thing. You also say that this is a pissing contest.
It isn't a pissing contest, but I do believe that its prime competition in their target audience is going to be PSO2.
PSO2 is essentially the same game as PSU, PSP2, and PSO, and PS0. The reason I keep playing the games is probably... all the loot. Also they have consistently added things to the games over the past decade.
PSO2 content delivery timeline, posted yesterday, promises new things basically every 6 weeks. New missions, new storylines, more enemies, more loot, more abilities, new weapon types, more spells, more awesome mags (also, mags are pretty boss and I hope that familiars and animal companions work somewhat similar in Neverwinter).
That is how the game remains fresh. That is what keeps people coming back.
You bring up the foundry, and I do like the foundry. I feel like it is a great content generation system, and if they take the time to integrate a content delivery system into it that it will be among the greatest innovations in gaming ever.
Why do I say that? Well, in STO and Champions the foundry missions feel quite disconnected from the rest of the game. Aside from the foundry spotlights which manage, just barely, to drive me toward that content... there isn't much reason I would want to go play those missions.
If there was a foundry in PSO2, I imagine that it wouldn't involve much other that setting what enemies will spawn where, and that is because the maps are mostly procedurally generated, but that would be fine because the loot tables are based on the enemies and not the map or the player's level. So for example... a cardassian would drop different loot than a hirogen would drop different loot than an orc.
All of the loot is cosmetically distinct, or at least cosmetically distinguishable from eachother, so different enemies will drop different models of stuff. That is how PSO2 reenforces its player aethetics.
it has that huge ongoing campaign, and even through the steep language barrier (PSO2 is all in japanese at the moment), I am still able to feel as though my character is part of something and part of the community.
So we have a content driven system that provides players with aesthetic choices which is very well maintained and a lot of fun.
Also, chat. CHAT CHAT CHAT. Champions and STO's chat interface makes me want to punch a kobold. I've been trying since the launch of STO to display only the most minimal of information and I have no succeeded to this day. Admittedly I think my perception of what a chat display should do and how it should work may have been forever spoiled by the WoW ADDONs that I used when I was playing that game. I used Prat and I used WIM. Prat turned chat into a HUD for everything I needed to know about a player, and WIM allowed me to actually keep track of and carry on my conversations in a very real and very useful manner. I'm not really expecting them to do anything crazy like hire one or both of those mod developers to revamp their chat system (though it would be nice because they are both very minimalist and very useful), but lets just say that Cryptic could use some consulting work.
Now, somebody brought up NWN. I hope that Cryptic listens to that guy more than they do to me. He has very real expectations, and I feel like he might be let down a bit more than me if this game doesn't live up to his expectations, especially on point 4.
Even so, this isn't a pissing contest. I was curious if anybody else was going to be using a measuring stick on this game, and how they were using it.
I feel like I and the rest of the people so far have said, and resoudingly, "Is it fun?" and we've all been able to describe what we've found fun and what we have not found fun. Also, why we found it fun.
So, while my complaints were "Update schedules, chat engines, and loot", hippyo has said "Versatility. I want to be able to do a lot of stuff that a rougue should be able to do, like use magic devices and stuff". The important part is that we're talking about the game. Hopefully we both are pleasantly surprised.
Neverwinter Nights 2, I'd say.
Though admittedly, compared to other non-MMO games, that franchise got a helluva lot of patch support.
And I guess in this regard we're on the same page. I want it to be well supported. I'll put up with bad stuff if I know the team behind the game is comitted to a living, growing title.
That said, I wouldn't say it's the measuring stick because they are quite honestly two pretty different games. They are both "action-y" and both are RPGs and such; but they really are quite different in tone, style, approach, setting, etc.
That said, I was/am quite astonished at the level of polish in PSO2 and the complexity/fun of the combat system, the character creation system, and other aspects of it. But overall, they are two different games. But after playing/seeing other F2P games, it seems to be more and more common to see this high a level of polish. So, take it as you will.
As far as their promises timeline I call bull**** on. Name one game where reliable timeline was given and adhered to. WoW, SWTOR, DDO, Age of Conan all had "projected" timelines but were never adhered to. WoW was somewhat pretty reliable but they are an exception.
Also take into the context of pissing contest, that means the reference is the measuring up thing. A good game that is fun is all that matters.
Gameplay - Vindictus, Rusty Hearts, CoD
Party's use - DDO, C-St
Stat and power customisation - DDO
Graphics - PW
Roleplay - pnp D&D
Crafting - don't really care
Pets - don't really care
Foundry - NWN1
To be frank; I play PSO2 partly because of the nostalgia factor. I played quite a bit PSO1, and PSO2 is just an improved version of PSO1.
Phantasy Star Online is really just a Japanese equivalent of Diablo. Both games consist of grinding the same missions over and over in small groups to find consistently better gear. The Boss fights are really the highlight of the game as well as finding rare weapons and armor. Not to mention PSO has MAGs which add a new element to building your character.
Over-all, its a fun social action game. But it is definitely geared toward JRPG fans.
Admittedly PSO2 looks like a good game, but we must take into account Sega's latest blunders, namely almost every game that has come out between Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Sonic Colors. With very few exceptions, the Sega games that came out in this timeframe were not that good, especially the sequel to Phantasy Star Online, Phantasy Star Universe. PSU was supposed to be the next PSO, the next great amazing-yet-before-its-time MMO from Sega, and it was not that good. We can't forget that hype isn't everything, and there is not really much outside of rumor that PSO2 is coming to America. Lets not measure Neverwinter to a game that not only is still in development, but might not be available to American players.
I understand the "But that game is an orange and this game is an apple" stuff, but different games are fun for different reasons. PSO2 is fun, I'm sure Neverwinter will be fun for different reasons. I've been having a lot of fun with PSO2 despite the language barrier. DevoteofTempus has thrown around "But that is an asian thingy and we don't like asian thingies around these parts".
The core gameplay is fun universally.
To clarify a bit on the "But PSO2 is just an upgraded version of PSO", and well... that is true. But PSO was fun, and the bits that SEGA threw in from PSU, PSP, and PS0 really did help a quite a bit. So it is fun, pretty, and polished. Also, SEGA has done everything but announce that they'll be localizing PSO2, what with restructuring SOA and a few other things, but the time isn't quite right for them to announce it.
I'd also believe their timeline, but we'll know for sure in 5 more months.
But yea, Neverwinter. Looks good so far.
but I play one on the forums...
:P
Using this game as a measuring stick is honestly unfair to Cryptic, and to Perfect World. They have considerably fewer resources, and likely haven't been working on Neverwinter for nearly as long.
Furthermore, although we have some videos of the Phantasy Star focused active combat, we do not have details regarding the rest of the game play. There doesn't seem to be an custom content of note, and character creation is likely to be very minimal. In other words.. apples and oranges.
Exactly right. Except that you can go play PSO2 right now. The language barrier isn't that steep. We do have details regarding the rest of the game.
There isn't any custom content currently (there is some speculation that the smartphone version will have a dungeon creator), PSO2 has one of the best character creators I've seen, and you can find details on the rest of the gameplay on youtube, livestream, or simply by asking somebody that has played the game.
Anyway, literally 50% of the content of the game has been announced but not released yet. Except they have exact dates when all the content is coming out, so i know they have their stuff together.
But back to the topic, whether you like it or not the base idea of PSO2 is really similar to NWO. Doing dungeons in small groups over and over again to get better gear. Both have action combat, and have pretty good character customization.
Now what separates the two games is NWO's editor which will provide hand crafted dungeon experiences instead of stale and confusing randomized dungeons. Also NWO stresses more team work from what I've seen.
But the real reason why I like NWN/D&D over PSO (or any other RPG game for that matter) is the depth of content. To put it frankly, NWN/D&D is a higher IQ game than many other games. I'm not really sure how else to describe it. The only other game I can really think of would be EVE Online.
Toon Design: City of heroes has a VERY good model to work from, not that I want to see superheroes in NeverWinter, but I liked making choices that were easy to see and had a wide variety. Many toon designers these days have TONS of details for making unique chins and noses that nobody ever sees. Our toons are small, they need to have big features.
Character Development: DDO has fantastic variety with multi-classing, which works VERY well for characters up until RAID level dungeons. I'd prefer even those levels have a wide variety of useful specs.
Spells: The DnD spell resource pool from DDO is AWESOME, and attention should be paid to making a wider variety of spells situationally useful. Gust of Wind blows out fires, fogs, and rains. Glitterdust blinds. The more of this the better, I want to need to think more about my spell choices as a Wizard, just as a fighter needs to think about gear.
Skills: Please make all the skills matter. SO many skills are never used.
Tanking: I honestly think the best tanking system is the WoW Rage Bar. If tanking could be more than just DPS button mashing that would be great.
Healing: A fantastic element of WoW was the Dark Priest talent tree that had priests vampirically sucking life from opponents to give to allies. This gave those priests who desired a different play style besides health-bar watching.
Environment: Well WoW has the most beautiful Universe out there HOWEVER it isn't interactive...it's more like a movie.
I want more complex and interesting dungeons. Traps from DDO are fantastic, please make more disarming processes more complex than a simple trap-box. The more interactivity required of me, the more pretty pictures I'm willing to sacrifice.
Dungeon and World variety: Some dungeons should be puzzle environments, some should be nuke fests. DDO has, again, the best variety of environments.
Loot and Crafting: TwoWorldsII, an otherwise buggy mess had two awesome components: Really useful and engaging crafting from early levels, and loot that made sense. Wolves dropped fur, skeletons dropped bones, orcs dropped swords they carried. Things could be converted to raw materials and crafted and recrafted. It solved a lot of loot inflation problems for auctioning and item trading. I hear Everquest had a good crafting system, though I never played it. EVE Online, of course, has the best crafting in terms of sophistication.
Thanks for reading
Honestly I don't really agree with the whole generating aggro concept. The NPC mobs should have target priority just like players do, but depending on their intelligence level.
I'm not sure what you mean by your first question. I was discussing the mechanism of a character taking specific actions to get the attention of a monster. These mechanisms include hitting the monster and doing damage, healing party members, or taunting a monster to attack you (the armored tank) instead of your squishy wizard friend.
In WoW, a fighter's ability to taunt a monster, or make a big finishing blow, was limited by a rage meter, with more rage generated as the fighter took more hits from a monster. It sort of worked like a wizards mana bar, but it always started at 0 and went up as the combat progressed.
It's a mechanic that I thought was unique and fun to play with.
I disagree for games with monsters and toons with blocking abilities. Jump becomes a very useful tool for allowing you to jump over the first row of warriors to reach the casters behind. It allows for multi-level combats, and it allows for more complex navigation of 3D environments. I recently played an RPG (Two-Worlds II) with realistic jumping and while it looked and felt real, the mechanics of combat were severely limited.
It's limited beacause no one has 10 feet verticles considering the size of some of these Neverwinter monsters. The reason some monsters have blocking abilities it is because it's not letting you get past them to the squishy mages in the back. However, there can be dodging and moving around the enemy to get to the guys in the back like in NWN2.
You know some of my fondest memories of my early MMO life were of grinding camps of mobs in EQ and Dark Age of Camelot (the abbreviation of which turns into **** lol) with a good group of friends. Did we just not know any better back then because MMOs were still relatively new and felt magical? Or have we all become spoiled by the "NOW NOW NOW WHAT'S NEXT??" mentality that's developed over time?
Yeah I do agree, those fond memories of camping for iskar beserker club in EQ for 2 weeks in that dumb tower was great memory of early mmo. Ever since then really MMO's been losing their magical touch for me. I also agree that there shouldnt be the grind like i encountered in Linage 2 but there should be real difficulty to getting the good gears not even the great ones. If it might involve some rediciously challenging and brain wrenching puzzles or extremely tricky mob situation that's unpredictable or just plain mysterious like a hiden door that u need true sight for that spawns at random at 2%.
I understand what you mean, and I used to think the same. However, jumping is very fun when actually done right. After I played DDO, using jumping in combat and all, I found that jumping especially in combat and running away, is quite good when done right.
I agree with you that many/most MMOs can do away with unrealistic jumping, also from what I see in video, the jumping in NW is not exactly to my liking as well; but I would hold back until I try it out for myself. If done right and realistic, jumping can actually be fun.
I think the few reasons why I give Neverwinter any thought at all are F2P nature (or is it B2P?), foundry, and because Cryptic is great when it comes to character customization. Add the more action-like combat and it actually looks like a game that is good enough to hold my interest.
Still I'm not sure if Neverwinter will be exactly my type of game because I tend to enjoy games that mix (player) skill based gameplay, fantasy theme, and great questing and story system that doesn't involve reading walls of text and static enemies/environments. I don't have particular attachment to the D&D part myself so the system behind it doesn't matter to me.
However if foundry is sufficient enough to give tools for me to build environments which stress player skill then it's all fine. If it's similar to the mission architect in CoH that basically takes all control away from the creator then not. Static boxes filled with hack and slash are not really my cup of tea. However to be honest I'm pretty sure I expect a lot more than what it can deliver.
(on a completelly unrelated note: they still haven't gotten rid off of those hideous carebear smileys?)