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D&D Next & the future of Neverwinter?
trickshaw
Member Posts: 497 Arc User
With D&D Next projected for release within the next year and a half, is Cryptic nervous that they may see the same situation they did with DDO? Releasing a game based on a rule set no longer supported by WotC. Would this affect Neverwinter's popularity? Especially considering that, I would guess, a good chunk of players are D&D followers?
Would it be feasible for Cryptic to upgrade Neverwinter based on the up and coming new generation of D&D?
Would it be feasible for Cryptic to upgrade Neverwinter based on the up and coming new generation of D&D?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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And again, given that Neverwinter isn't simulating the tabletop experience of D&D, I imagine the D&D players who would straight up not play Neverwinter because it's not using D&D Next are likely the game people who aren't going to play Neverwinter in the first place.
And finally, D&D Next may really suck, regardless, and turn off a huge number for D&D fans in general. It seems like every time they release a new edition, the D&D community becomes more fragment and hostile.
According to Andy Valasquez, Lead Producer, they actually do not have the licence for "Fourth Edition" D&D but rather have the licence for the brand. They can, with permission from WotC of course, take inspiration from any Edition of D&D they want whether it's First, Fifth or (far into the future) Tenth.
So in theory they could expand the game and take concepts from D&D Next to fit the game. Maybe the results of the last MMO, DDO, getting locked into 3.5 Edition shortly after launch is what spurred this change in development ideology more than anything else?
While I can't say I love all the changes they have made it certainly allows for better future expansion compared to DDO which will always be tied to following 3.5 rules.
Thus far D&D Next is getting exceptionally popular reviews. I believe this is because of WotC's unprecedented development this time around. It's essentially an open beta play test and every new iteration contains changes that the community inspired through their play testing. I'm predicting this will be a widely popular edition. Moreso than any previous edition which left, as you said, the community polarized.
When it takes 5 or so years to make an MMO with that version in mind.
Seems like a bad idea from a design standpoint.
Likely why they didn't licence for Fourth Edition.
DDO is stuck. Neverwinter is not.
I am not sure if it was Wizards of the Coast's idea, afterall if any game they licence succeeds they succeed, or if Cryptic/Atari/PWE pushed for this change in concept but in the end it spells good things for Neverwinter in the long run.
Threads like this are more a sign that people are spinning their wheels in frustration waiting for the game to come out than of any real issue.
FYI this is not correct DDO can also draw inspiration from any edition also limited to approval of WotC. Whether people choose to disbelieve, there are 4e elements already in the game.
Haven't seen or heard of any Fourth Edition mechanics in there myself. *shrugs*
Not really important to the topic at hand, though. Merely stating where Neverwinter stands and that information I do know with certainty.
DnD next. . .
A ruleset so bad fans can't wait for the "next" one. . .
The past live active feats are named after 4E multiclass feats, and Prestige Enhancements are a lot more similar to Paragon Paths than to Prestige Classes in how they work.
Epic Destines are obviously named after the 4E mechanic, but don't really work much like any DnD mechanics at all. Shows that DDO isn't limited to 3.5 rules, though; they aren't "stuck" to 3.5, it's just that's how they originally built the game, so there's naturally going to be inertia.
They do need to get approval for deviations from PnP, but WotC seems to give them a pretty wide berth.
Don't expect overhaul to the major design precepts of the game, especially the base narrative. It just does not happen much at all in MMOs especially one of NWO's small budget (at least relative to most major MMOs).
This is just a reality. We're stuck here, in really one of the worst D&D cosmologies ever devised and a really AWFUL period in FR's history where Greenwood was put on the sideline so that Andy Collins and Bruce Cordell could rip up stuff and try to reinvent FR as "gritty" and "turbulent".
I fear for D&D's future too. D&D 5e isn't really much of an improvement mechanically and the D&D brand has lost a lot of bright minds over the years. WOTC as a whole hasn't had a genuine hit for a long time, in fact, it's had a long string of failures in game design. If it weren't for Magic being a juggernaut still, WOTC would have gone bankrupt years ago.
BUT...that said...NWO is still a great tool to RP in. It's still FR underneath the hood and the Foundry allows you to customize the experience well enough that a lot of the hateful parts of 4e design and narrative can be avoided.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
However they have plans for Waterdeep. Moonstars, Khelben, Renault ftw!
Mechanics aside, there's absolutely nothing stopping Cryptic and WotC from advancing the current FR story line via Neverwinter. A story and setting are rule agnostic.
In fact, if Neverwinter is a hit, I would expect WotC would want to find someway to hook Neverwinter players into D&D Next.
EDIT: Take a year or two to play out the "current" FR setting as planned. Then there's no reason to not release a free content expansion that fast-forwards the story (if necessary) up to the most current timeline.
It starts with sundering which changes things. So there has to be a big event like spellplague. For more information on D&D:Next, read Zebular's Grimore of Time in Art section of forums.
I agree with ironzerg. It's not the ruleset that makes this game fun, it's the action combat and the depth of the environment/lore. It's Cryptics game, and it's there child to raise. If they want to update the lore and the story going forward, I don't think the ruleset will stop them. In fact, I hope they do evolve the game as time moves on. How cool would that be?
Well snap, how cool would that be to be playing, when suddenly the sundering begins? Play some new environments, chase some new stories. I'd love if they could pull that off. Hard to do with Foundry content though, so I suppose it won't happen. Unless they give content owners a heads-up and time to make new changes to their materials.
Still, cool to dream about.
2) Expecting major changes to mechanics or game background because a later edition of D&D comes out is not realistic, major changes cost major amounts of money (I know, bringing up budgets and money make most gamers eyes glaze over, they hate it when real world considerations get in the way of their hopes and dreams).
For example, any expectation that Cryptic will roll out new game mechanics based on new editions, which would require a new UI, major changes to gameplay (and associated play testing and balancing), and would force established players to change their characters over to a new system and upset a lot of the players who don't want their characters messed with, is utterly unrealistic. How many years did it take to get this game ready, and how many more would it take to utterly change over the mechanics to a new system? By the time you accomplished the change over we would be looking at the release of D&D6 and a whole new way to play the game.
People get invested in the game and while some might want to see the date advanced and the background changed (which of course would require more money to redo quests and background information), others will want it to stay the way it is. It makes a lot more sense for whoever gets their hands on the license next to do a new D&D game in a few years based on the new story and new mechanics.
4E has been out for 8 years?
Agree with everything above. Single player/co-op would make a lot of people very happy.
I'd settle for a proper NWN3.
That would be pretty sweet. Did you ever play the Matrix online? They had big server-wide events to develop the (canonical) storyline that took place after the movies ended. Mostly they were a disaster, because as usual they wanted to be super-secretive about the details and so did very little testing out-of-house, but it was still pretty awesome to be a part of an evolving world.
Spoiler:
Morpheus dies.
Played that game from beta up to server closing. The events where really cool when the game launched and latter on the RP community made huge efforts to keep people playing. Something similar could be done here and made even better.
The good news is that people who can't bear to let go of D&D4 will probably find that NeverWinter Online is a good place for people to huddle in shock. So the release D&D Next would probably give this game a boost.
In case NeverWinter does change to D&D Next the first episode of The Order of the Stick covered the in-game consequences of an Edition change (from D&D3 to D&D3.5) on in-game play.
A Prootwaddle is one of the weirder player-character races in "The Fantasy Trip", Steve Jackson's first published role-playing game.
Hyperbole. You and I can speak for ourselves but no one else. Unless of course you have a poll of sorts in which case I yield the point to you.
I keep reading posters refer to NW as "loosely based on 4e". If it's so loose than that would be the opposite of "major change".
As you said, the name of the game is $$$. The question would be, is it cheaper to redesign a current product than it is to release a completely new one? It's not unheard of for MMO's to undergo drastic changes in gameplay & story.
Essentially NeverWinter Online is something like D&D4 restricted by the superhuman MMO it is based on, namely Champions Online (CO).
From what I have seen of the Beta Weekends they have tried to maintain the D&D4 flavour, and a superhuman base is probably closer to the spirit of D&D4 than a fantasy one, but to get things exactly like either the tabletop or NeverWinter would be very hard to do. Note that people have recognised the some of the recent changes as being close to what is currently available in Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
I suspect that the die is cast - NeverWinter Online will remain based on D&D4 because it is more cost effective than any other option.
A Prootwaddle is one of the weirder player-character races in "The Fantasy Trip", Steve Jackson's first published role-playing game.
Also, no I never played Matrix, but that sounds really cool.