Slightly Worried...

wraithshadow13 · November 2012

Are there any active STO or CO players out there? Is any one else starting to worry about this game and what exactly we will be paying for? Even though this game is "free" to play, we all know that they'll be charging us one way or another, but just what exactly will it be? what would you find acceptable and what will be unacceptable? what's a good price range for things?

At the moment in either of the other games there have been a lot of we'll say "unpopular decisions" which have the forums for the respective game talking and raging in some cases. With the heavy lean towards making a "quick buck" over quality content that's worth paying for (lock boxes, vehicles, reducing 'cash alternative' rewards) as well as being misleading in a lot of statements lately, i have to say that i'm genuinely worried. Granted this game will be F2P from launch meaning it gets a little more leeway towards the cash shop, but still over all i have to worry about the state of the game. There's been little to no feedback that i've seen from Cryptic's side and little game information other than foundry promotion.

Does NW have a community manager like Branflakes or Trailturtle? Some one that can slip us some official information or discuss the forums wants and needs to the company?

With the state of the other Cryptic games i'm worried how much of the negative stigma this game will carry with it i wanted to post my biggest concern as well as give others a place to post theirs as well as discuss possible solutions to prevent those worries from happening. I as i'm sure many others are looking forward to hearing more about this game, but if you have any concerns you wish to discuss feel free to post here and try to keep from being negative.

valas625 · November 2012

Well sir, I believe this has already been discussed in this thread. Read through it and I believe you'll find your answers.

wraithshadow13 · November 2012

i will check it out right now then, thank you.

Edit: after reading through it, it didn't really seem to cover a lot more than just lock boxes and possible store items, and didn't address any of my other concerns. I agree that as a business Cryptic's goal is to make a profit, but there are morally right and wrong ways, and from the examples of STO and CO, Cryptic isn't really going for the "lawful good" choices.

ambisinisterr · November 2012

I'm afraid they're not discussing what exactly will be in the store or not and won't be for a while yet.
There's truly is no official information to be gained from company officials on the subject, though. Partly because they themselves don't have much and partly because what they do have is under lock and key.

However you're still free to express your concerns. I promise you they do read these forums and I hope they take it into account when developing the NW Store. Just because something sells doesn't mean it's the right thing to add afterall.

rustplayer · November 2012

Well, as long as the shop-items are not need-to-have, I neither worry nor mind.

I expect the shop items to be cool looking, maybe one or three with nice stats (but a little weaker than ingame-aquired things) and above all utility like more bagspace, XP-boosts, guild-XP-boosts (if guilds work that way), in general boosts for everything. Also vanity pets, titles, potions for everyting, stuff like that.

After all, people who pay some of their hard-earned money SHOULD have an advantage that *can* be called unfair if you argue just right. Stripping away all emotions you'll find that none of the things I mentioned *are* unfair but immensly helpful (since a free player can aquire the useful things too ingame).

*shrug* just my 2 gold-pieces.

Gridian

iamtruthseeker · November 2012

Oh and our Community Manager listed is Stormshade.

zorbane · November 2012

I'm a regular STO player. You definitely do not need to pay to be able to play. I bought a lifetime subscription and haven't paid a dime since. Some of the paid ships are a little bit more powerful than ships you can acquire for free but unless you're a min-maxer or hardcore pvper the difference isn't that big.

If you have any other questions I'll be happy to answer

ruinedmirage · November 2012

I was curious/worried about how easy it will be to exploit the loot thing when making a dungeon. I heard that the quality of the loot depends on how much time you spend on the quest. So can you just leave the game on overnight and finish the quest the next day to get the best stuff? Or are they encouraging you to finish the quest without doing any exploring? Making a single room with a single kobold enemy sure wouldn't take very long to beat. What about a long, complex 5-hour story dialog, but no enemies at the end?

gillrmn · November 2012

ruinedmirage wrote: »

I was curious/worried about how easy it will be to exploit the loot thing when making a dungeon. I heard that the quality of the loot depends on how much time you spend on the quest. So can you just leave the game on overnight and finish the quest the next day to get the best stuff? Or are they encouraging you to finish the quest without doing any exploring? Making a single room with a single kobold enemy sure wouldn't take very long to beat. What about a long, complex 5-hour story dialog, but no enemies at the end?

It does not works that way and this question was already answered by crypticmapolis.
link
Post #35, Foundry

ruinedmirage · November 2012

gillrmn wrote: »

It does not works that way and this question was already answered by crypticmapolis.
link
Post #35, Foundry

"-Since rewards are based off of the average completion time of the quest...."
That doesn't answer anything. Maybe I should've phrased it better. Does the loot at the end of the quest get better as you spend more time on it, or worse? i.e. Will you be rewarded better if you put more time and effort into exploring the whole quest and its areas/taking longer than the "average completion time"? Or are you just trying to finish it as fast as you can to get better rewards at the end?

Most of what I previously posted was kind of "for example".

lyfebane · November 2012

The reward will not be based of your run, but the stats collected for that dungeon. Ie if you spend far longer than required it will not make the reward better or if do as quick as posible I do not think it will decrease reward.
From what i read it sounded like before dungeons become available players who have submitted themselves as dungeon testers will test it out first, there will likely be quite a few of these testing every dungeon, so before it gets out to public it will already have stats, also I assume they will have an estimate of how long it should take too going on distance amount of mobs, which will be refined by each time the dungeon is played. This is just for the end chest reward, mobs drops will be as their normal loot tables.

gillrmn · November 2012

ruinedmirage wrote: »

"... are based off of the average completion time of the quest...."...
.

average completion time

hope that answers it. There is a discussion on this word specifically after that too.

EDIT: In details:-
average completion time(ACT) is the average of all the last completions of that quest. If someone does try to exploit by leaving the mission on (though they will probably get kicked for inactivity) they will only increase the ACT by little bit. e.g. If there is a mission with ACT 20mins and I take 3 hours to finish it, the ACT will go up by 20mins 1 sec, depending on how many people play that mission. Only way to exploit it is have all the people take 3 hours to finish it.

However once you start to exploit it, the ACT will again go down. Hence there is no point at all in exploiting it. If you are able to get a hundred people to get time up for you so you can exploit it once ... ... ...

felix1252 · November 2012

Multiple times i've read and seen/heard in interviews the lead producer and the COO say that they are trying to make an excellent game that you want to play and therefore want to spend money on not need to spend money on so the items in shop will not give any extra power only cosmetics and things like that, they have expressed enthusiastically that they do not want this game to be a "Pay to win game" and have also mentioned they have learned from mistakes made in past mmo's they have produced, therefore i trust them. :P

lorddevilkun · November 2012

F2P always use cheap methods to get money- the main thing is going to be consumables. I'm more worried about gear though.

SWTOR for example goes f2p tomorrow. Not only do you have to pay to access operations, and WZ/FP past the 3rd per week- thus limiting the speed at which you can gain gear VASTLY and putting top gear in pve out of reach (note- you cannot permanently buy it either, like how DDO does content- you can only buy temporary passes). But, also, you must spend I believe 12 dollars to unlock the right to simply wear purple gear.

It also makes you pay 3.50 to buy the option to hide helmet slot, and you have to pay for every quickslot bar beyond the second- putting this at most absurd nickel and diming for things considered standard even in f2p among mmos I've played.

Let us play most of the game- I don't mind one time purchases for things like endgame dungeons- but please don't make UI and the ability to wear things we've earned in game a part of the store model. Keep it to cosmetic stuff, xp buffs, special looking mounts, etc... stuff that for the most part doesn't make the game experience considerably different.

zebular · November 2012

Keep in mind, STO, CO, SWtoR, DCUO, and the like are not Free To Play games. They are Hybrid Games with a Free to Play option. Neverwinter is being designed, from the ground up, as strictly Free to Play with no Hybrid Subscription Model. There is no "Gold membership," there is no "Lifetime" membership. It truly is "Free to Play."

felix1252 · November 2012

If you guys just watched and read the interviews available all your worries about paying wouldn't be necessary as they explain the only things they are selling in the cash shop is cosmetics and utility and nothing that gives you advantage over other players, also they have said nothing is going to be restricted to paying players everything will be available free to play.

vindicon · November 2012

You can simply see from the rest of PWE games that were designed from the ground up as f2p to see how they tend to do their monetisation. Which is mainly through costumes, pets, mounts and minor boosts.

Do not try to use SWTOR, STO, LotRO etc to judge f2p games - they are fundamentally different in that they were not designed as f2p. F2p is not something you can just stick to a random game - you have to build the game around the business plan itself. If you plan to make money through boosts, you have to design the progress curve accordingly. If you plan on making money through costumes, skins and other fluff, you have to make sure that the camera zoom, intance/persistant area ratio, visual effects etc are such so that they actually carry a decent amount of "showoff factor", so that people actually buy them. If you want to make money on upgrade charms, you have to tune the upgrade system accordingly.

You can't just change this things in the middle of your game's life - you'll just end up breaking everything. Thus what you more often than not see them doing is lock down certain parts of the content and put them up for sale. It's not free to play, it's more of a very expanded free trial.

So, don't have STO or CO in your mind when trying to theorize what they will end up doing with NW. They may be from the same company, but they're apples and oranges when it comes to what really matters - monetisation. Instead try compairing with things like RaiderZ. Or rather, try to see how their cashshops evolved from PWI to their most recent games (which will also cover the whole "pay2win" arguements that arise every time f2p models are discussed).

@lorddevilkun SWTOR's model is not really bad. It's certainly infinitely better when it comes to actual f2p-ness (is that a word? well, it is now) from the likes of DDO and LotRO.
What it is is extremely stupid. The game was from the get go described as having a very good story, but being sub-par in all its MMO parts. And what do they do when they launch it as f2p? Give away the good parts for free and charge for the parts that noone liked. Dumb. Very good for the actual player, but dumb as hell.

gillrmn · November 2012

vindicon wrote: »

... but they're apples and oranges
...

I would like some raspberry. Thank you

But what I want to say is that each f2p model is individualistic to that particular game. For example, in same game, crafting is not that important but in other crafting can be a prime feature of the game. So even if a game has X thing free like another game, it may still be grapes and not blueberry ... I mean watermelons.... ... ... ... gaaahhhh which fruit was that???!!!!

iamtruthseeker · November 2012

ruinedmirage wrote: »

"-Since rewards are based off of the average completion time of the quest...."
That doesn't answer anything. Maybe I should've phrased it better. Does the loot at the end of the quest get better as you spend more time on it, or worse? i.e. Will you be rewarded better if you put more time and effort into exploring the whole quest and its areas/taking longer than the "average completion time"? Or are you just trying to finish it as fast as you can to get better rewards at the end?

Most of what I previously posted was kind of "for example".

gillrmn wrote: »

average completion time

hope that answers it. There is a discussion on this word specifically after that too.

EDIT: In details:-
average completion time(ACT) is the average of all the last completions of that quest. If someone does try to exploit by leaving the mission on (though they will probably get kicked for inactivity) they will only increase the ACT by little bit. e.g. If there is a mission with ACT 20mins and I take 3 hours to finish it, the ACT will go up by 20mins 1 sec, depending on how many people play that mission. Only way to exploit it is have all the people take 3 hours to finish it.

However once you start to exploit it, the ACT will again go down. Hence there is no point at all in exploiting it. If you are able to get a hundred people to get time up for you so you can exploit it once ... ... ...

Yeah, if you plant and wait, it will kick you for inactivity. And those employing methods to disable that inactivity are on the road to banville per the ToS. Thus the average completion time does work even with the exploiters' attempts mentioned above with the quoted post's mentioned conclusion.

zebular · November 2012

Also, in STO, the foundry author's characters that made that mission do not count towards rating or average play-time - so Authors are unable to spoof their own works unless they use multiple accounts. If they do the latter they risk getting all their accounts banned for exploiting game mechanics.

ruinedmirage · November 2012

Okay, thanks everyone for clearing the loot thing up a little for me. As a DM, simply having people give feedback on your missions is reward enough, as well as playing through an enjoyable quest.

syfylis · November 2012

I'm worried about lack of critical view on this forum. So far developer didn't show anything "AWESOME" (i know game is aplha) but they keep repeating that game is good and so people after them. It's hard to find people on this forum that can forget about name of the game and write about what they really see.

I'm not trying to be "against" just to be "against", but really part from good graphics there is nothing so far... Only thing that keeps me here is memory of first neverwinter and Baldurs Gate.

iamtruthseeker · November 2012

syfylis wrote: »

I'm worried about lack of critical view on this forum. So far developer didn't show anything "AWESOME" (i know game is aplha) but they keep repeating that game is good and so people after them. It's hard to find people on this forum that can forget about name of the game and write about what they really see.

I'm not trying to be "against" just to be "against", but really part from good graphics there is nothing so far... Only thing that keeps me here is memory of first neverwinter and Baldurs Gate.

And if somebody claimed somethng "Awesome" some other people woud say they are exaggerating and critisize that. I'll let these do the talking:

Awards and Nominations:
PAX Prime Awards from MMOHut and OnRPG September 7, 2012
PAX Game of Show From MMORPG September 4, 2012
ONRPG/MMOhut?s Award for Neverwinter September 4, 2012
Neverwinter earns "Best MMORPG" at Gamescom! August 30, 2012
MMOBomb Awards for Neverwinter August 24, 2012
Neverwinter An International Hit July 19, 2012
E3 Wrap Up June 18, 2012
PAX Best of Show on MMORPG! April 24, 2012
PAX Gameplay Trailer April 24, 2012
Neverwinter Dazzles TTH April 23, 2012

Your (plural) opinins may vary.

aavarius · November 2012

zebular wrote: »

Keep in mind, STO, CO, SWtoR, DCUO, and the like are not Free To Play games. They are Hybrid Games with a Free to Play option. Neverwinter is being designed, from the ground up, as strictly Free to Play with no Hybrid Subscription Model. There is no "Gold membership," there is no "Lifetime" membership. It truly is "Free to Play."

You're right, of course, but I'm still slightly disappointed. I'm a lifer for STO and CO both and in my opinion there's a huge amount of value in those memberships. I'd be more than willing to entertain a lifetime-something for Neverwinter considering the previous return on investment I've had with the others.

syfylis · November 2012

These awards are more a promotion than a review. It's more about what seems to be good in future than what good already is.

aavarius · November 2012

syfylis wrote: »

These awards are more a promotion than a review. It's more about what seems to be good in future than what good already is.

That's not an unreasonable view, either. However, I don't think we'll really know for sure until the rubber meets the road at release day.

syfylis · November 2012

aavarius wrote: »

That's not an unreasonable view, either. However, I don't think we'll really know for sure until the rubber meets the road at release day.

Thank you.

I also want this game to be great but if any of you were to think now about how many things we didn't see. We didn't see a single quest, nothing about crafting, pvp, not much about foundry, interface, not much about skills, nothing about guilds etc. etc.

So to put my point clear. There is so many areas that we know not much or nothing at all so it's too early to call it a good or bad game. I understand everyone get excited but if something doesn't feel right we should say it loud.

wraithshadow13 · November 2012

I think another big worry of mine is that Cryptic seems unable to finish things. CO is a great example with things like hideouts, side kicks (although that's "possibly" back in the works) the new vehicle system is horrible(imho), and the nemesis system. Sto is just as bad with things like the entire second faction, ship interiors, skin models (don't get me started on this one), and PvP. These are just a few examples. They bring the idea to the forums, promote the idea, hype the idea, and when it's put out you pay for it even though it's only half finished since anything else is "coming in future updates", but then after a month or two it's forgotten and never talked about again.

CO has gear and vehicles that you can only get if you buy them or lock boxes, STO has been making you grind for gear that doesn't even work as advertised, and i worry how much stuff like that will make it here? I know they're really working hard to make Neverwinter a great game, and at launch they might keep to what they say, but judging by the other games they're running, i'm worried that they will start doing the exact same things here.

valas625 · November 2012

wraithshadow13 wrote: »

I think another big worry of mine is that Cryptic seems unable to finish things. CO is a great example with things like hideouts, side kicks (although that's "possibly" back in the works) the new vehicle system is horrible(imho), and the nemesis system. Sto is just as bad with things like the entire second faction, ship interiors, skin models (don't get me started on this one), and PvP. These are just a few examples. They bring the idea to the forums, promote the idea, hype the idea, and when it's put out you pay for it even though it's only half finished since anything else is "coming in future updates", but then after a month or two it's forgotten and never talked about again.

CO has gear and vehicles that you can only get if you buy them or lock boxes, STO has been making you grind for gear that doesn't even work as advertised, and i worry how much stuff like that will make it here? I know they're really working hard to make Neverwinter a great game, and at launch they might keep to what they say, but judging by the other games they're running, i'm worried that they will start doing the exact same things here.

IF PWE and Cryptics pushbacks of release/beta are signs that they're working to make sure things like this won't happen, I think we'll be in the clear of most issues you have Wraith. Although all those things sound freakin' terrible. I don't understand why they'd send out half finished content and forget about it. That's just sloppy work. Then again, was this all before or after PWE bought Cryptic? That might be a step up in itself if before the buyout.

iamtruthseeker · November 2012

wraithshadow13 wrote: »

I think another big worry of mine is that Cryptic seems unable to finish things. CO is a great example with things like hideouts, side kicks (although that's "possibly" back in the works) the new vehicle system is horrible(imho), and the nemesis system. Sto is just as bad with things like the entire second faction, ship interiors, skin models (don't get me started on this one), and PvP. These are just a few examples. They bring the idea to the forums, promote the idea, hype the idea, and when it's put out you pay for it even though it's only half finished since anything else is "coming in future updates", but then after a month or two it's forgotten and never talked about again.

CO has gear and vehicles that you can only get if you buy them or lock boxes, STO has been making you grind for gear that doesn't even work as advertised, and i worry how much stuff like that will make it here? I know they're really working hard to make Neverwinter a great game, and at launch they might keep to what they say, but judging by the other games they're running, i'm worried that they will start doing the exact same things here.

valas625 wrote: »

IF PWE and Cryptics pushbacks of release/beta are signs that they're working to make sure things like this won't happen, I think we'll be in the clear of most issues you have Wraith. Although all those things sound freakin' terrible. I don't understand why they'd send out half finished content and forget about it. That's just sloppy work. Then again, was this all before or after PWE bought Cryptic? That might be a step up in itself if before the buyout.

And I hope this is what learning from the previous experiences is all about.

Or, quite cynically, there simply wasn't enough buyer interest and they abandoned it. Again, hope this is what they can learn from what not to do.

adamantium1 · November 2012

I still play CO. While i am not a fan of some of the new changes since perfect world took over there not game breaking and some of the new content is quite fun. Having a life time account i always seem to go back and make a new toon and level the toon up. While i have only been a casual player of CO over the years i do have 4 maxed toons and many others in the mid range.

Slightly Worried...

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