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shouldnt we be further down the line?
nemesis788450
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
its very quite around the game...i know they focussing heavily on finishing it and their "round of advertisement" is kinda done for now, but why arent we getting more info? why arent there any more gameplay vids except the very limited very few there are? why havent we seen more of the classes as of now? other games / mmo's are a year from being released and throw around more information than were getting...this concerns me a bit. After all, the closed beta is supposedly less than 1 month away...i think there should be more info by now, and more videos! alpha should have been done a long time by now - what is going on?
Post edited by nemesis788450 on
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As for advertizing, again, they will slowly and steadily ramp up their promotion of the game to bring it to a head shortly before release. It only makes sense if you stop to consider it, they don't want folks screaming and yelling right now for the release of the game before they even start beta testing. They will continue to heat the water, bringing it up from tepid to a rolling boil when it's appropriate.
Mind you, I would love to see more information. I have a ton of questions in regards to the game and game play. I want to get my hands on this game more than any other game I have played in the past. But I have to wait, along with the rest of the players, while the developers continue to hone the game, building something that will capture the imagination and attention of the players, both short term and long term.
Have patience, we will be playing the game soon enough.
My Best,
Ezra Steel
Also it's not that quiet...they update the news section on the front page with something every few days.
Now, if you want to see the world's most neglected video game website, run over to the one for Marvel Heroes (a diablo-like free to play online hack and slash game with established marvel superheroes as player characters), and I assure you, you'll feel thoroughly blessed by the amount of sharing the devs for Neverwinter have done
-- Galileo Galilei
There's really only so much they can release on a day to day schedule (or month to month for that matter)
Game development is truly a slow and tedious process. It's not like they walk in and create something new and exciting every day and most of what they do really has no bearing over players whatsoever.
Waiting always feels harder while you're waiting. Think of a movie you were really looking forward to and how you couldn't believe you had to wait three years to see it. I can almost guarantee you didn't feel so anxious after the movie was released, in fact if you're anything like myself and people I know you said 'the wait wasn't that bad afterall.'
So if you're thinking back to how other games released more information or other games were more transparent I can't say you're outright mistaken. It would be nice to see a bit more into the development.
But I bet if you read back to any forums or discussions you had while you were waiting the opinions probably weren't as positive as you remember ;-)
You'll always want more than what they show you.
The game is basicly finish been development for more then a year now. They only postponed the game to polish it not to rebuild it. Stop being shy start letting more info out about the game already. Because more you talk about the same things over and over again Cryptic more you sound like a broken record.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113520-Neverwinter-Becomes-an-MMO
The finished game you refer to doesn't exist (though I'm sure they kept the quests from it, and it would be interesting to find out what those were).
Doesnt mean they started from scratch most case they just added code to handle MMO traffic with new features that goes with an MMO.
Classes are the main bulk of what has to be balanced and therefore would require the most testing.
The Foundry was definitely the biggest technical project while developing the core foundation of the game but classes are and will remain forever the biggest mechanical hurdle.
If they were to release information saying "this class will do..." and then later end up removing that feature for balancing purposes it would result in more anger and frustration than simply not discussing the concepts until they felt confident the mechanics were finalized.
If the game was done they would let us play it. Plain and simple.
From both a designer and economic standpoint they want this game to be out as soon as possible so the reason we don't have it is because it's not ready. I don't like that any more than you but there's no reason to feel they're just being selfish and don't want to share the game haha. ;-)
Different amount of content needed yes, but the game they were originally designing wasn't a completely different style of game, it was described by Emmert as an OMG (Online mutli-player game), it sounded from his description like it was going to be very similar to STO or CO, but with even less developer made content and fewer open world zones.
Clearly making the game more open world and adding more quests for each zones will take more time, but since we're getting the "early 2013" line from the devs I would say that beta is actually happening just not on a more "public" scale. I would also bet from the way Cryptic's marketing department has worked in the past that the game is mostly done, but even when the more public beta happens you won't see the entire game in the early builds and beta won't be up and running 24/7. Maybe PWE has changed some of these practices, but that was how previous betas worked with Cryptic in the past.
Just because something is almost done doesn't mean Cryptic is ready for the public to see it. They have a tendency to not reveal everything until the last minute in my experience.
There's a lot of underlying infrustracture work that the average player wouldn't understand behind such a massive switch.
Here's an analogy which may help though: I want to take a half sized school bus and make it into a full size school bus. Do they appear similar, yes. But they are completely different from the ground up. A few things could be saved but for the most part everything from the minivan will be tossed or reworked to the point they don't look anything like the original part.
Turning a co-op into an MMO wouldn't be much different. Sure the appearance may have been similar but under the hood they are nothing alike.
Great Question, i love to see some sort of documentation showing the changes, areas kept ect ect, after the game launches.
However, I too am very excited and anticipating the release of Neverwinter - even though I'd rather have it continue in development for as long as Cryptic and WotC feel necessary. I like it better when the Developers dictate when a game is ready rather than a publisher or the potential player base.
Update: Google has a handy search tool that lets you search topics between specific dates.
Here is a custom search I plugged in about the shift from C-OP to MMO, just as an example with some relevant findings. Adjust the search dates as needed.
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MMOs are fundamentally different from their Single-player or Co-op counterparts.
It's not a case of just adding netcode, they had to redo balance, game systems, maps and countless other things, on top of adding a ton of extra content and fully redoing the progression curve.
They are not saying anything specific because they don't have anything specific to say yet. The game is still in development, and practically everything is subject to change. They do not want to show people a bunch of stuff and then a few months down the line remove or change half of them. They only show what they're sure will remain the same to avoid false advertising.
And we are not entitled to any info at all. They can release WHATEVER info when they want, IF they what and WHEN they want.
I respectfully disagree. Keep in mind, while we, the player base are chomping at the bit, there is also a parent company that answers to investors. Investors must be kept informed of delays in productions, it is not something they are likely to attempt to hide. If they are intending on slipping the release date, then it would be prudent for them to inform those same investors. This has not happened, but it certainly still could occur. Until that time, we have to assume (yes, I know how that can be broken down) that they are on track and meeting their internal development goals.
My Best,
Ezra Steel
"weren't they going to be content light turning a co-op RPG into a MMO?"
I was told that all content (storyline, mid-game/end game) was and is being expanded significantly (he really made sure he emphasized the word significantly) and that they were not relying solely on foundry content to give payers things to do, he said that adding content and polishing what has already been created has been the main focus even before the switch was officially announced.
The rep finished up by saying he thought we were going to be surprised at the sheer amount of content they had for us and how much they planned on adding in a short period of time after launch.
Aside from what's been said here these guys should know since they are part of the dev team. My Husband asked a few questions about it as well I'll ask him about it and will post again later.
Good code is determined by it's usefulness. Even if it works for a Co-Op gaming set-up it doesn't mean it will work for an MMO. They are different from the ground up and I assure you the decision to switch the game from a a Co-Op to an MMO was more akin to saying "Ok it's time to start over," than you would typically think.
If any co-op game could be turned into an MMO by changing a few variables then it would have already been done for games like NWN. An MMO and Co-Op game, code-wise, are apples and oranges. The way you program the core of the game is COMPLETELY different because you're really building with different limitations.
Factors which effect stability and efficiency are far more important to a multiplayer (especially MMO) game than a single player game.
To add just one more level of visual representation. The first thing built on a house is the foundation. The house is completely limited by the foundation and any changes made to the house must first be done to the foundation. However, unlike a house, when you change aspects of an computer programming's foundation things stop working. Beams catch on fire when you drill holes into the foundation.
Anybody with even the mildest computer programming knowledge can tell you that.
They didn't start with a finished game and simply add content to make it an MMO. This game will be reminiscent of the initial game development but it's NOT what they made with stuff added on. It's all new. And much broader as Mosnacky01 stated.
i dont see it as such a big issue
a) i think most people are looking at the game as rather a casual / arcade oriented coop game within an mmo framework and not as much as a "sandbox longterm mmo" as other games...therefore i would assume that a large part of the player crowd just wants to go in there an play a little without to much of thinking and building and cookie cutting etc...
b) there is the foundry which will quickly bring new content - i am very confident that there will be players who will actually get the game to create content from the very first minute rather than even playing it themselfes
Wow, if I quoted more, I'd run the risk of having no characters left to reply!
The game is NOT guaranteed a CBT on December. If was once suggested by Craig and once mentioned in a third party article, but never confirmed since either of those times. That's all they are, suggestions, not hard guaranteed releases. When the word "planned" is used, it's still a guideline, not a promise. But I cam empathize the feeling of "Duke Nukem Forever" fears after a second delay announcement. However, seeing what they have finished so far based on the releases, I think it's not going to be like that. Delayed yes, quagmired no.
Secondly, it's planned to be released early 2013. Even if you've heard "first quarter" somewhere, it's not guaranteed (although they plan and hope it will be so,) to be in the first quarter. Looking at the history of other games from this and other companies, it's on par with or even now ahead of development release information. Don't let "nostaliga" fool you with other games' release information. Aandre I think can do an excellent correlation with DDO and with GW2 I believe in the number of YEARS it took for its release schedule when that was just one game track (and not a limited watered down social Co-Op game to full featured not watered down MMO.) Am I right on this Aandre?
Thirdly, the decision when more support is given and more funds are released, is to develop the game right over fast. Considering the track record of the...former distributor before PWE, I'd absolutely rater see a complete and un-rushed game compared to the...other distributor's history of games released by Cryptic and other companies. (Now mind you, if you feel games like Dungeons and Dragons Online, Age of Conan and Star Trek Online were released in an "unfinished" state for example, this is what I'm referring to.)
Fourthly, as the other posts have already demonstrated, porting over from a limited co-op to a full-featured game is not simply plopping in a few quests. The whole thing has to be redone even when you have storyline basic framework and graphics/engine implements done. That bus analogy is excellent. The search engines that show the articles that update process no matter what game make their points also.
A year was a good guideline, but since the announcement of adding PvP and even more polish was decided, add three more months to that estimate is a good guideline. And while some things are done to allow the "casual" gamer to do stuff in an hour or a few hours at most, it's still a full featured MMO with a full main storyline and support for Foundry and PvP included now at launch. It's not simply a "shoot 'em up action game with linear only quests."
An early 2013 release is thus the conclusion. Think about it: We've been told it's still in a PR-ALPHA state. This means feedback from internal employee testing on basic components still refine the workings of the game, the characters, the areas and even the quests, plus a huge number of other things I'm not thinking of out of guessing what that means based on previous experience and my limited development experience. Even if we were to go to the next phase-I guess that would be Alpha-right now, the "polished" refinements that were set would need to be retested and new feedback would have to be done, (and a mini stress test would likely have to be done) before opening it to the beta public (also to handle the new public load outside the closed internal testing.)
Finally, this is based on my previous experience, not any crystal ball or announced secrets. My opinions are just that. Even if I try to base them on fact and experience.
It is not the word from any mountaintop. Please don't quote me in the future and say "but truth promised us...."
Sadly it wont be available on 10/31 as I was expecting. You can swear at Hurricane Sandy for that! ;(
PS: I believe Truth is 100% correct. This will be nowhere near the Duke Nukem experience for us, this is more or less a "take the time you need to get it done right" thing.
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Aww, sorry, thought it was coming out this Wednesday Aandre. Well, he WILL explain it in a short upcoming period (I too am wary at the overused word "soon" here even if it is true.)
The Phantasy Star Online analogy is a little interesting, but since there were no plans for an Offline mode, I don't see it as 100% accurate. I have no reason to believe that the man hours poured into that original game and the foundry, which was the key aspect of Neverwinter at inception, have been lost.
Do I think that means the game will come out in three months, probably not. I wouldn't be surprised to see a late Feb/early March launch though April is where my bets lie. It could always get delayed more, but I doubt that. Cryptic is actually really good about supporting games post launch, so they have no need to launch with every little feature they hope to put in.
Later when Atari pulled out, we were told that devs always wanted to make MMO (an obviously open secret) but Atari wanted them to go Co-Op. Now that PW has said yes to MMO, devs are happy as that is where their expertize is in.
So it would have been easier to make Co-Op MMO because devs always were wanting it and keeping 'MMO' in their perspective when making it. Maybe they planned to make Co-Op in such a way that it would be possible to extend it as MMO.
*conspiracy theory time*
Also, in my opinion, there is a definite possibility that it is all part of the plan of devs to make this game an MMO - that company selling cryptic to PW and all. Afterall they seem pretty smart and perhaps capable of something like that
I have re-read that several times to try to grasp what exactly Jack Emmert was trying to say and after so many times of reading it my concluding opinion is he describes a Co-Op.
It seems like all he said was that NW wouldn't be an MMO but it would support more players than the typical Co-Op. Take for instance the NWN PW worlds where we often only had 20-40 players on a server maximum.
In those instances there may be 3-4 parties on each server doing their own thing but for the most part everybody knew each other.
I feel he was more alluding to using modern technology to make a co-op more capable of supporting 100+ player servers so that there would be a lot of interactions, more so than NWN, but not truly breaking the boundary of having thousands of players on each server with hundreds of people in each area.
In a nutshell he said the game was to go into the gray area between co-op and MMO. Just because he wanted to make a distinction that the original plan for NW was to not limit Co-Op to 5-20 players doesn't mean it's an MMO or capable of handling MMO Demands.
The OMG he discussed is nothing more than a Co-Op capable of handling a lot of players.
EDIT - in this case my bus analogy would be:
Co-Op = Minivan
OMG = Small School Bus
MMO = Full-size School Bus
It's still a complete restructure of the original work.
The quest storyline is still there. Art is still there. Most of the coding can be exported.
However I am glad that they took time to make it slowly and carefully instead as they really care about it. After all we don't need another daggerdale...