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Neverwinter looks set to be THE D&D MMO of choice!! Watch out competition!
dragonbane1977
Member Posts: 87 Arc User
From what I have seen of the gameplay and graphics, Neverwinter looks set to hold it's own against some of the other 'AAA' releases this year. Most notably is ESO, but since that is not til late this year, I think there will be room for both. I truly hope that this is a Sleeper hit, and takes off, for not only the health of the game, but for the simple fact that "There has NOT been a single DECENT Forgotten Realms MMORPG, EVER!'. I know DDO is now got content in the FR, but you have to be at least level 17 (which equates to level 85 in other MMOS) so you wont see anything FR related until the elder game.
I have faith in Cryptic to pull this off, which is why I spent the $200 on the Founder (Plus I have ALWAYS been a HUGE Drizzit Fan!! ZOMG!!) and anything remote to him is going to be mine!
One Request, please release with the game a decent sized PDF manual, I love Manuals, and perhaps we could get WOTC to put up Drizzit's current RPG stats - I would be interested in seeing them!
I have faith in Cryptic to pull this off, which is why I spent the $200 on the Founder (Plus I have ALWAYS been a HUGE Drizzit Fan!! ZOMG!!) and anything remote to him is going to be mine!
One Request, please release with the game a decent sized PDF manual, I love Manuals, and perhaps we could get WOTC to put up Drizzit's current RPG stats - I would be interested in seeing them!
Post edited by dragonbane1977 on
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And just quietly, I pity any MMO which has to compete against TESO and its gargantuan following.
Don't get me wrong, Neverwinter will be a fantastic game with a fantastic community and features and the Foundry will probably make it last even longer than TESO will. But honestly I can't see it being a groundbreaking smash hit. It's a limitation of the industry/genre as much as it is the game.
I have loved every elder scrolls game since daggerfall and i am sure i will pay for the online game coming up cause of the name. Hopefully it will be more like morrowind or oblivion then skyrim but i dont see how it can be anything but fun and great.
Sorry to go offtopic, but there really isn't anything about TESO that makes it a good game. The monetisation is outdated, the questing is generic outdated MMO fare, because it's an MMO it's impossible for it to have scaling enemies which means no exploration beyond your typical MMO progression (ie no TES-style exploration). Only good things about the game from the information we have is the AI, and the PvP zone. And there are plenty of things that could easily make the PvP zone go wrong.
As skeptical as I am about parts of Neverwinter, it's sure going to be better than the all-round stale and outdated TESO which will likely be carried for a little while by the IP until it goes F2P, but then since it wasn't developed as F2P to begin with the model would quite possibly be terrible.
That said... I'll still play it.
On the other hand though, just Neverwinter's Foundry makes it a superior game, or at least gives it more longevity. Combined with the fact it's developed by Cryptic which has to be one of the most underrated MMO developers anywhere, I'm generally excited. I only really have 1 major concern with Neverwinter which is the class selection and customisation. At this stage I don't believe either is good enough, but we'll find out soon enough.
The fate of the Mission Architect in City of Heroes makes me wary of the Foundry (I've not seen the Star Trek Online version so maybe they get around some of the CoH Mission Architect problems).
The beauty of a free to play game is that you can play it... well... free! So there's less burden on the game to be 'perfect'.
Even if there isn't a huge following at the start, the reality is if the game is good and fun to play, word always spreads quickly and the community will grow. And the opposite is true, if the game isn't fun, people leave for greener pastures.
The branding of your game mainly serves to hook people in to try the game, from that point forward it's gameplay and content that'll keep people from leaving.
I'd be more worried about Path of Exile and Firefall with their ability to suck in massive amounts of gamer's game time.
You'd expect that to be the case, but sadly because of the flooding of the MMORPG market it appears that these days unless you have both a flawless launch AND a fun game, good luck to you.
There are exceptions, but I can't think of any recent ones. DDO going F2P comes to mind. That was very successful but was quite a while ago, plus at the time it was one of the first games to do F2P well.
Possibly but they appeal to very different demographics. Of course there'll be overlaps but where Path of Exile appeals to ARPG fans and hardcore min/maxers, and Firefall seems to be in perpetual beta, I don't think they'd pose much of a thread.
TESO however appeals to largely the same demographic. High fantasy MMORPG players. And there's a lot more hype being TESO.
This is what I am getting at in a round about way.
With all the GOOD F2P games coming out right now, there is a convergence happening in the demographics.
You may like one genre over the other... but what F2P game is actually sucking in all of your limited time?
eg: Path of Exile has 80,000 concurrent users at any given time... that is 10x more than Diablo III, and undoubtedly there are many WoW users in that group that would try Neverwinter. (and thus heavy competition from a game in a very different genre)
Sadly by the same token it means it's harder for Neverwinter to keep that playerbase to future competition, like TESO.
I guess my prediction would be a good launch for Neverwinter, then a significant drop off after the launch of TESO, but while Neverwinter will plateau in a sustainable state, TESO will leak subscribers and go F2P somewhere between 9 and 18 months after launch. Of course I'm not a business analyst so I could very well be wrong, but I do work in the games industry and know a good amount of the history so I know some stuff. ^.^
Its a monopoly.
Watch out for anti-trust charges Neverwinter!
If TESO is b2p with no sub that will help it- but, ultimately, a following only gets you a boost at the start- if you either don't deliver or introduce an NGE mess up patch, your game can plummet like a rock.
That said- Cryptic and PWE are going to be fighting an uphill battle in the West- Cryptic because of STO, and PWE because of its general reliance on grindy games with lots of flash but no depth.
Honestly I very much disagree. DDO was far closer to D&D. Its mechanics are far closer to the PnP mechanics, while Neverwinter has talent trees instead of feats, classes are templates, no multiclassing etc. DDO was also more adventure-focused while Neverwinter is more like a typical open world MMO with open zones and whatnot. Neverwinter is more of a D&D-themed MMO than it is D&D in an MMO.
I do agree that DDO feels very dated now though.
Every game will have it's flaws. But I have liked what I have seen so far in Neverwinter. I lost interest in DDO primarily because I wasn't a fan of Eberon. (Actually Athas is my favorite D&D setting.) Neverwinter is not my favorite part of Abeir-Toril, but I still quite enjoy the setting. I do not think it will be the "D&D MMO of choice" necessarily because the play style is different enough to make it an orange instead of an apple. (I liked the active block/dodging in DDO. The traps and healing were fun also.)
Crying and moaning about somebody spending their money on a game, so the game is more likely to be successful, and your more likely to not have to spend any money on the game makes you emo.
Let's take a look at some of the titles already available (excluding older titles like DDO, STO, DCUO, and Lotro) and some to come in the months ahead.
Hawken
Mech Warrior Online
Ghost Recon Online
Firefall
Tera
Path of Exile
Planetside 2
SWTOR
Blacklight Retribution
Tribes Ascend
Marvel Universe Online
Neverwinter
Elder Scrolls Online*
And those are just the "mainstream" titles that come to mind without looking anything up on google or Steam (also the list of games I have installed currently with exception of Marvel Universe, NWO and ESO...yet!)
*As for ESO, to my knowledge they have yet to decide if it's going to be F2P, B2P or Subscription Based, If they have announced this please correct me.
It's a wide open market that companies are pretty much on the forefront of nailing down a solid F2P model that works to both keep players interested and profits up enough to keep it alive.
It's a great time to be a gamer that is for certain. So the success of this particular little gem will depend on how they handle the F2P cash shop and the content, as is the case with most other games.
Finally someone who isn't crying...Have my Babies!!!
Actually I'm just kind of snickering up my sleeve. Why up my sleeve well......not sure I won't be joining you by spending some money myself on this pig in a poke.
Wrong. You, sir, are incorrect. Nobody has a good idea about how the questing in The Elder Scrolls Online is going to be, which makes you wrong. It may turn out to be generic mmo fare, and it may not. And yet we know about ESO than we do about Neverwinter, which is a little strange considering the time frame in which they plan on releasing Neverwinter. I'm not saying anything bad about Neverwinter itself, merely pointing out how you're making points with zero facts.
DDO's graphics are outdated, it's an incredibly old game. But as for your "traditional MMO" comment. DDO is far from it.
I will probably buy a pack next week, the haters toward paying players can kiss my ...
Some of the haters probably subscribed to wow for 5 years, cranking out $1000
Haven't seen anyone hate paying players. Have seen lots of people upset because they think Cryptic ummm didn't quite keep their word that the cash store would be fluff items only. But I could be wrong about why people are posting.
I honestly, can't see how DDO can begin to compete, it's version of the realms feels very tacked on and uninspired, and it still isn't a open world it's a lobby game for all practical purposes.
From the most recent videos we all can see that the gameplay in NW seems to be fun, but many MMO's these days battle with keeping the players entertained for more that just the intial month or two.
NW will have the same issue. Now the 'The Foundry' could be something unique that might give NW the edge over other MMO's out there.
Yes, I know, the idea of 'The Foundry' isn't new and we have seen it in STO, but it's rather limited there.
Should the NW Foundry turn out to be a powerful tool, than Cryptic might have solved an issue that so many other MMO's have.
To produce new content fast enough to keep people happy and playing (even WoW is struggling with that).
Regarding TESO. The Elder Scrolls games have a huge fan base, but so did SWTOR and it didn't do it much good beside the first few month.
Besides many Elder Scrolls fans are not really happy with the new game being an MMO.