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Why Neverwinter Will Succeed
noolidnerd
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 151 Bounty Hunter
Neverwinter will succeed because of it's ability to learn from the mistakes of other online games!
League of Legends
I appreciate the free-to-play model that Neverwinter has adopted. Playing the game is free, while cosmetic and novelty items these paid-customization items are just what people with disposable income love. While being broke won’t take away from your experience either, just like League of Legends. Games like LoL and Team Fortress 2 show us that people with expendable income love variety, cuteness and novelty, and that’s what funds its constant content updates. And much like Champions in MOBAs, I’m looking forward to some of the most popular character-builds from D&D history making an appearance in Neverwinter, like the Druidic Monk, Preserving Invoker, or Figher-mage.
League of Legends
I appreciate the free-to-play model that Neverwinter has adopted. Playing the game is free, while cosmetic and novelty items these paid-customization items are just what people with disposable income love. While being broke won’t take away from your experience either, just like League of Legends. Games like LoL and Team Fortress 2 show us that people with expendable income love variety, cuteness and novelty, and that’s what funds its constant content updates. And much like Champions in MOBAs, I’m looking forward to some of the most popular character-builds from D&D history making an appearance in Neverwinter, like the Druidic Monk, Preserving Invoker, or Figher-mage.
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Post edited by noolidnerd on
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I AM SORRY.
PvE Enthusiast.
Everquest
But even here, the beginnings of a terrible practice started to manifest: Everything took forever, which is a godsend for a game with a subscription fee.
Everquest 2
It copied everything that World of Warcraft was. Which is a feat considering it came out before World of Warcraft. It essentially abandoned the fans of the first game to produce a perpetually out-of-date experience. Plus it looked like butt. I actually preferred the stylish polygons of the original Everquest to the weird, uncanny valley monstrosity that happened at Sony when Shadows of Luclin and Everquest 2 came around.
(People have pointed out to me the erroneous and bitter observation that League of Legends is apparently “Play2win”. So if you feel this way just tell yourself this bulletpoint is titled “Dota 2” instead.)
World of Warcraft
Giant Primordial Monsters! Undead armies fighting Undead armies! Panda bears! I love that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. And no one is surprised that WoW has been king of the MMOs for a very long time. But beneath its shiny amalgamation of all things fantastical crept a sinister rationale. While World of Warcraft might be the paragon of challenge and philosophy (and stealing innovations from other games) its core philosophy is still flawed: Time-wasting first, Enjoyable gameplay second. I was enjoying my time in Pandaria when I realized; I was spending all my free-time jumping through repetitious hoops to be an asset to my guild, meaning I was spending 8+ hours a week not having fun to have 4 hours of fun later. When you have that realization, you (me) cancel your subscription immediately.
Guild Wars 2
Reflex based controls for a reflex based game? That’s good. And in that way, Neverwinter plays the same way (As so I’ve seen. I’m not in the Beta.)
As for Guild Wars 2’s world, which feels more like an amusement park than a realm of danger and adventure, or that the customization controls are so loose that everyone drapes themselves in Day-glo mithril, I’m pleased that Neverwinter went in the opposite direction.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
When SWTOR went free-to-play they made many ease-of-use items cost money. You could pay a fee or you’d have to wait till level 15 if you wanted your character to run, in zones that were originally designed for speeder-bikes. This made the PvE experience annoying at best. Beyond that, people could just pay for powerful, end-game gear. Which is a lot like paying to avoid playing a game you’re paying to play. It makes to happy to see Neverwinter is sticking to only monetizing cosmetic and customization elements.
The best slogan Neverwinter could possibly use is: “It doesn’t do all that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> you hate.”
Also I think gaming communities are rabid and at times have a superb effect on a game's evolution, or can also pull it into bad, hasty decisions (especially right after launch, *cough* SWTOR *cough*).
I think gamers are the most fickle consumers of all. Truly, we seem to either love games or hate them and we seem to turn on a dime between those two conditions at a moment's notice. I think that makes gaming a volatile and often unpredictable market.
I'll say this, it appears NO is doing just about everything right and I agree with the OP it is clearly avoiding some of the mistakes previous launches made. BUT...NO also has a long way to go. I'd say, if the game released in its current state, it would not succeed. That's why I firmly believe the actual launch is more like late-May, early-June, rather than say early April, because there's still so much this game needs to fully ensure its success.
I'll say this, the early signs are good.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
Depends on how fast Cryptic gets it's <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> together and makes the Foundry able to do more than create single player content. If it isn't by a month or so after open beta starts I for see......trouble.
People love fantasy RPGs, casting spells and swinging swords, and if you feed them a steady stream of content to cast and swing at, they'll stick around.
One word of caution I want to offer is that City of Heroes content-generator provided all kinds of new content, but much of it was loathed, and worse, much of it was designed to produce fast XP for minimal effort. This usually meant, 90% of AOE content was a big square zone, with massive clusters of easy high/reward mobs, set far enough apart to avoid adds. They were BRUTALLY dull, but because people could grind them for super-fast XP, they dominated user-generated content.
In the end COH nerfed the XP AOE produces, which only meant AOE quickly became a wasteland.
I know the Foundry is smarter than that and I know STO's content generator solved many of the issues AOE didn't address. But one challenge with massive amounts of user-generated content is quality-control goes out the window. You'll play massive amounts of quests that are riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or incomplete conclusions, or worse, outright bugs. Sure you can avoid this by only playing high-rated modules, but you'll be amazed how quickly that limits your content. You get a pyramid structure, the only modules that continue to get lots of good ratings, are the modules that already have lots of good ratings (because nobody is playing anything new, because so much new content is pretty terrible).
NOBODY is a bigger advocate of user-generated content than me. My guild practically LIVED in AOE when City of Heroes unveiled it (which creates another problem, user-generated content can really segregate communities). But don't assume the Foundry assures success. There's pros and cons to user-generated content. Personally, as a RPer, I love the trade-off, but I think you'll find the Foundry will be very much a RP tool and not really so good at solid PVE content. I could be wrong, but in the end, most content-generators in MMOs tend to be beloved by RPers, while the rest of the community prefers to just hammer away at the end-game content the game provides by default.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
this is pretty much what nw is for me.
should be fun looks good so far.
Is the foundry designed for single player only instances at the moment???
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The Older Gamers (25+) - Never too old to play games
At the moment, yes.
Players can join the scenes as a group but you can't create 5 man difficulty content, you just add a lot of mobs in a small space.
However, as death mentioned below, five man content will be available to be created post-launch.
PvE Enthusiast.
Actually we discussed it in NOCS episode 2 currently content is not 5 man only, it is designed as the single player instances, which can include upto 5 people, but later on(after launch) we will be able to make content which requires 5 people in a party to play.
Anyone still searching for guilds you can check out HCG Hardcore Christian Gamers.
NW FAQ | HCG NW Host Site
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We do know this. It has been stated by Cryptic many times. They have said they are trying to get group UGC into the Foundry but it is not there yet. This does not mean that 5 people can't enter a adventure that is created by the foundry, it just means that the extras that a 5 man or party dungeon that exist in the game right now can not be duplicated. Just like you can have 5 people enter a solo quest by grouping up and entering you can enter a UGC "single person" mission. However it is still not 5 man content. Yes you can make an adventure so hard it takes 5 people to complete it, but that doesn't mean it is going to give you 5 man dungeon loot or have the other (whatever they are) 5 man benefits for completion.
After launch is one of those vague sayings that could mean 2 years "after launch". Within the first quarter or so, or 2 or 3 months, or anything is more telling than "after launch".
and it will attract a metric ton of asshats that like to run their mouths.
They won't give an ETA incase they can't meet it and the community gets disappointed. It'll be implemented when ready.
PvE Enthusiast.
Anyone still searching for guilds you can check out HCG Hardcore Christian Gamers.
NW FAQ | HCG NW Host Site
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That is an excuse not an estimate. Yes people get pissy when MMO miss goals, but that is in the future. Why definitely <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> people off now instead of maybe pissing them off in the future? If we did this to the customers where I work they would tells us to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off and move on. However being that MMO customers will just take the BS of developers and mostly stick around they believe they can get away with it. I have defended Cryptic quite a bit here and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on many things, however not this kind of asshattery.
the thing is that if you give a community a date, they will hold you to it. In any creative process, it is hard to know how long something will take. You work as hard as you can on it, and will screw up the schedule anyways
I am not trying to be a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, but this is another excuse. I work for a software company, we have to give estimates to our customers all the time and meet them. It is no different, except that game companies can treat their customers this way because, you know, they are only making a game after all.
For me, I felt that TOR focused on one thing and failed to deliver on other things like Guild Functions. WOW has some of the best Guild Functions in an MMO with simple things like a Guild Calendar and chat. STO's fleet functions are a good step in that direction except that Cryptic seems to focus on putting out the cosmetic or quick-buck rather than fixing bugs unless it is a game-breaker. That is the one thing that worries me, is Cryptic will have dev support for the first six to seven months and then content will come in a form of lockbox and certain events will forever remain extremely buggie (STO's Borg and Tholian Fleet Alert System). The Foundry is a very underused item in STO (Dev-wise not player) and if you putting your hopes on that, you will be disappointed with long-text walls, hour-long missions, poor spelling, poor grammar, and when new items are introduced in game, in foundry, they take quite a while to be implemented. This story is pretty repeated from Champions, except for the PCC, but CoH's content builder was named and so it sounds very similar.
I want Neverwinter's Devs not to look at other MMO's failures, but their successes, and to stop the repeating cycle. I love STO, and I cannot to wait to start playing Neverwinter.
Obviously, you've never played Cryptic games before, are a little too hyped up about NWO or are incredibly naive (or maybe a combination of those).
YES! Let the customization freaks carry all the weight of financially supporting the game. Its the way of the future and obviously they're all of made of money and nobody cares about them anyway so its all good. Plus that way competetive players that don't generally care about fluff or need it as an integral part of their play experience* won't cry the oft regurgitated and meaningless anthem of MMOs "NO Pay-to-Win! No way! But customization is ok!" and pretend like cosmetics and fluff are the only things that are acceptable to charge money for, since "it doesn't affect anyone's play experience" and that way the company won't shift some of that financial burden on to them.
So its all Win-Win!
/Sarc
PS: Sorry, but I'm sick and tired of people pretending that all cosmetics is ok and the only acceptable way for a F2P game to make money, while other playstyles and interests get to play almost entirely for free. Or pretend that this is somehow the "best" way for a game to sustain itself--with a small portion of the game population paying for everything while everybody else gets to play mostly for free, except on the rare occassions when they do decide to pay for the minimal amount of fluff they're willing to buy.
Good luck seeing a game grow like that because game companies have NO incentive to develop things they aren't going to sell/get pay for (who wants to work for free anyway?). Cosmetics as the only (or primary) means of a game making money are not only unfair to the people that prefer that type of content (yes, there are people like that, and its not just something "rich" people with "disposable" income love to blow their money on), but also ultimately detrimental to the game's development. So cosmetics and fluff as the only means of a game making money lead inevitably to stagnation.
Want to see this game grow? Start telling Cryptic that you want to pay for races, classes, content expansions, extended features and a bunch of other things that isn't fluff because that's the only way you'll get a consistent dose of them. Just check Champions Online and its history, and see how much non-fluff, playable content that game has gotten lately.
PS-2: NWO's success will ride on the effectiveness of the Foundry as a storytelling and UGC tool, since its the only thing it really has on other games. Including its ability to be adaptive for various playstyles, including casual leveling, end game content, RP and PvP.
*yes, cosmetic items are an integral part of the play experience of customization-focused players, RP'ers and people that like to play dress up. Its not "unnecessary", they (we) need it to enjoy the things we like about the game.
It's true and it's not just Cryptic, gaming companies are terrible for promising things, then not even coming close to delivering them. Doesn't anyone remember the "we'll have a new planet every month" promise from SWTOR? Gaming companies develop superb technology but their marketing and PR departments are still WOEFULLY behind. They still market their product like the guys in Glengarry Glen Ross and eventually you just tune them out and politely ask them to leave.
If I were a gaming executive (and thank merciful Allah I am not), I'd study hard how and why SW:TOR failed, and make no mistake, it has failed. It has within the tale, just about every mistake you can make designing a game and then launching a game. Saddest of all was the squandered opportunity, because SW:TOR had the potential to be a truly great game, a real blockbuster, but the ball was fumbled, many times, and eventually the fans grew tired of it and walked away.
Many gamers here will howl, but WOW is an excellent design, managed by a smart, agile company. A company that knows how to make a lot of money and have their game thrive. It's metrics, at its peak, were ASTRONOMICAL. They took FRPGs and made them so mainstream they began to be embedded into Pickup truck commercials during Monday Night Football.
If you study SW:TOR to learn what not to do, study Blizzard and learn what works. Sure, Blizzard has flaws, WOW's product launches are seamless, (at least compared to many other MMOs) and they are still making bank with a game that's now 9 years old. That's just unprecedented in MMOs and may never be duplicated.
This is, unfortunately, very much the case with user-generated content. There's just 10 weeds to every tulip. The trick is NOT to play only highly-rated games (that list tends to get static really fast, because of the pyramid structure that develops in the ratings), but rather to learn which producers of content suit your styles.
BEFRIEND those who make quests you love, encourage them, even send them the odd reward. The key to enjoying user-content is to find a guild that matches your play style and then find authors in that guild that generate the content to complement it.
Similarly, as a content producer, my advice is don't worry too much about getting a module "liked" by 1000 gamers, instead find a small audience that appreciates what you do and cater to them. You'll get far more encouraging feedback and much more praise and inspiration to make more.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
Impressive rant, I totally approve. Nice
"The power of the IP is great" sayeth the the overlords.
"But it does not always work just look at the galaxy far far away" sayeth the naysayers.
"That is why we are only spending a tenth they did" sayeth the overlords.
"But we cannot build a game that will give the same experience as the pen and paper game for the faithful" sayeth the naysayers.
"True no one can. But we can give them a good game based ish in the world they love and that will be enough" sayeth the overlords.
"Are you sure?" sayeth the naysayers.
"Aye we are sure. Just look at Star Trek Online" sayeth the overlords.