test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The Good, The bad, and the Ridiculous.
powersoul
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
To begin, this is obviously a very long post with the purpose of giving my initial impression of this game. I do it with every MMO I play and with the hope that developers see my reasoning and make changes to improve the experience as a whole.
This is not a rage post, this is a fair first impressions review. At this point I have a level 20 Guardian Fighter which I am enjoying.
I would like to take the time to thank the community moderators and devs for their time on these forums. More often than not with most MMOs there is an unacceptable lack of communication with the player base about problems and timelines. So it is a breath of fresh air to see you in most threads answering questions for new players.
I am no newbie when it comes to PWE games. Since PWI I've probably spent over $2000 in their collective cash shops over the years. It might seem like a lot but over a period of time it really adds up, and I know I am still not near that 5% that has spent well over $10,000.
What I have come to believe is that PWE has always pushed the limit that is player consideration of the free to play model. I mean to say that before any concept or idea is put into motion, a price goal is set. I'll talk more about this in the third section of this post.
The Good.
The first thing that hits me as I play this game is nostalgia. Sure, this isn't really D&D. But I was a huge fan of the Neverwinter RPG games and to be back in Neverwinter, seeing the city map with travel icons, really hits home for me.
The tutorial area is very short. This is a HUGE plus for me. With games like TERA I simply couldn't make alts because it took way too long to get through the starter area. Neverwinter throws you straight into the city's story as soon as level 4.
The combat system is good. You can tell that any limiting factors are intended, giving the impression that a lot of consideration was put into it. It may not feel as "fluid" as GW2 but it is just as satisfying none the less.
The environments are spectaclar! The music and design of the dungeons are really well done and immersion is no problem at all, completely effortless.
The game does have a few bugs but nothing that I've found game breaking. The log-in queue error on the first day is sadly the one thing keeping people from raving that this game has had the smoothest MMO launch in history.
The Foundry is obviously one of the strongest points to Neverwinter. Giving players this tool will keep this MMO popular for a long time.
Lastly I'd like to point out that the story so far is actually pretty interesting. That is saying a lot coming from me. Over the last few years I've been less and less interested in quest dialog in MMOs and have found myself just clicking through them quickly. But Neverwinter has me slowing down again to read/listen to what's actually going on.
The Bad.
Well, for most people the first thing they'll notice is the lack of... good customization with the character creator. Sure the design isn't that great but I mean to say that I had spent a lot more time making characters on the old Neverwinter RPGs than here. Slapping in a custom biography box that most people wont care to read is no good substitute either.
There is not enough variety of equipment models in the game.
I realize the auto group tool is really convenient but I find that it hinders community interaction. I tried it a few times already and find myself yet again spamming through a dungeon with people without a single word being said between anyone.
The loot system needs to give need priority to items only usable by certain classes. Especially with the auto group tool. Players can need everything and don't have to worry about any community labeling for their bad manners at all.
The Ridiculous
I immediately want to point out that this game is crowned as having the most obvious and silly cash grabs ever attempted by PWE.
First lets talk about the Founders packs. If I were to put myself in a publishers shoes and came up with the 3 options PWE did for paying into the game, I could only imagine it happening like this.
First I would think of the $19.99 and $59.99, and how I could make them reasonable. Now before I would even consider what I'd offer to players for these two prices, I'd understand if people simply wanted to pay $59.99 out of sheer appreciation for a good game. That is totally reasonable. That is also why I am a Guardian of Neverwinter.
But then this $200 comes into play and throws a wrench into things. $200 to say you love a game and you think it deserves it? Why not? That is totally fine. But the moment you add special benefits to players that wall off the rest of the community, is the moment you cross a terrible line. I am talking about the queue dodging system, and the Drow race being a privilege only to these buyers.
The queue dodging system is no longer a factor yes, but it still annoyed a lot of players none the less. Especially those who paid for the $59.99 pack.
But the Drow lock is the equivalent of the new and VERY CRITICALLY HATED practice that is day one DLC. With every game that releases a new game and charges more for content on the same day, there is a massive backlash from the community that leaves a clear burn mark on every review for those games.
It is very clear to me that the Drow was purposely made unavailable to the rest of the community for the sole purpose of getting more people to buy the $200 founder pack. I don't care if it's going to be available in 60 days anyways, that doesn't fool anyone into some sense of appreciation for it. Not when it only takes a few days to hit level cap anyways.
The next ridiculous topic I want to talk about are the Nightmare Boxes. Ok PWE, we know that your beloved scam lottery boxes have always been your biggest income. When you release a mount that is a flat $20 dollars and seems expensive... and that same mount as a possible reward in a lottery box worth only 50 cents! Except people open hundreds of the things and still don't get the mount.
Yes I know tons of people are getting the Nightmare Mount, but that is not the point. The Nightmare Mount never had a value to begin with. They've come up with a better way to get money from players by flipping the system to be more of an inconvenience for them. Before in PWE games, you would simply buy lottery boxes from the cash shop and right click them if you wanted to test your luck. Player driven masochism that only they could be blamed for.
But now instead, these magic boxes drop randomly off mobs and fly right into your inventory. Now you have to look at these boxes all day because you can't discard them. You only have two options, to buy keys from the cash shop to open the boxes or list them on the Auction House, where only people buying the keys are willing to buy the boxes from you.
GW2 got away with it because you could discard the boxes. By design that makes perfect sense. So either they need to be discard-able, or PWE needs to get rid of the keys and add the boxes back to the cash shop again.
I paid about $2000 to this company total in a few games where it was always my choice to spend the money. I was never required to pay into new content either. This is something new and it goes over the line for me.
So yes, I've given my $60 in total appreciation for the gaming experience, but it stops there until these new practices find themselves out the door.
This is not a rage post, this is a fair first impressions review. At this point I have a level 20 Guardian Fighter which I am enjoying.
I would like to take the time to thank the community moderators and devs for their time on these forums. More often than not with most MMOs there is an unacceptable lack of communication with the player base about problems and timelines. So it is a breath of fresh air to see you in most threads answering questions for new players.
I am no newbie when it comes to PWE games. Since PWI I've probably spent over $2000 in their collective cash shops over the years. It might seem like a lot but over a period of time it really adds up, and I know I am still not near that 5% that has spent well over $10,000.
What I have come to believe is that PWE has always pushed the limit that is player consideration of the free to play model. I mean to say that before any concept or idea is put into motion, a price goal is set. I'll talk more about this in the third section of this post.
The Good.
The first thing that hits me as I play this game is nostalgia. Sure, this isn't really D&D. But I was a huge fan of the Neverwinter RPG games and to be back in Neverwinter, seeing the city map with travel icons, really hits home for me.
The tutorial area is very short. This is a HUGE plus for me. With games like TERA I simply couldn't make alts because it took way too long to get through the starter area. Neverwinter throws you straight into the city's story as soon as level 4.
The combat system is good. You can tell that any limiting factors are intended, giving the impression that a lot of consideration was put into it. It may not feel as "fluid" as GW2 but it is just as satisfying none the less.
The environments are spectaclar! The music and design of the dungeons are really well done and immersion is no problem at all, completely effortless.
The game does have a few bugs but nothing that I've found game breaking. The log-in queue error on the first day is sadly the one thing keeping people from raving that this game has had the smoothest MMO launch in history.
The Foundry is obviously one of the strongest points to Neverwinter. Giving players this tool will keep this MMO popular for a long time.
Lastly I'd like to point out that the story so far is actually pretty interesting. That is saying a lot coming from me. Over the last few years I've been less and less interested in quest dialog in MMOs and have found myself just clicking through them quickly. But Neverwinter has me slowing down again to read/listen to what's actually going on.
The Bad.
Well, for most people the first thing they'll notice is the lack of... good customization with the character creator. Sure the design isn't that great but I mean to say that I had spent a lot more time making characters on the old Neverwinter RPGs than here. Slapping in a custom biography box that most people wont care to read is no good substitute either.
There is not enough variety of equipment models in the game.
I realize the auto group tool is really convenient but I find that it hinders community interaction. I tried it a few times already and find myself yet again spamming through a dungeon with people without a single word being said between anyone.
The loot system needs to give need priority to items only usable by certain classes. Especially with the auto group tool. Players can need everything and don't have to worry about any community labeling for their bad manners at all.
The Ridiculous
I immediately want to point out that this game is crowned as having the most obvious and silly cash grabs ever attempted by PWE.
First lets talk about the Founders packs. If I were to put myself in a publishers shoes and came up with the 3 options PWE did for paying into the game, I could only imagine it happening like this.
First I would think of the $19.99 and $59.99, and how I could make them reasonable. Now before I would even consider what I'd offer to players for these two prices, I'd understand if people simply wanted to pay $59.99 out of sheer appreciation for a good game. That is totally reasonable. That is also why I am a Guardian of Neverwinter.
But then this $200 comes into play and throws a wrench into things. $200 to say you love a game and you think it deserves it? Why not? That is totally fine. But the moment you add special benefits to players that wall off the rest of the community, is the moment you cross a terrible line. I am talking about the queue dodging system, and the Drow race being a privilege only to these buyers.
The queue dodging system is no longer a factor yes, but it still annoyed a lot of players none the less. Especially those who paid for the $59.99 pack.
But the Drow lock is the equivalent of the new and VERY CRITICALLY HATED practice that is day one DLC. With every game that releases a new game and charges more for content on the same day, there is a massive backlash from the community that leaves a clear burn mark on every review for those games.
It is very clear to me that the Drow was purposely made unavailable to the rest of the community for the sole purpose of getting more people to buy the $200 founder pack. I don't care if it's going to be available in 60 days anyways, that doesn't fool anyone into some sense of appreciation for it. Not when it only takes a few days to hit level cap anyways.
The next ridiculous topic I want to talk about are the Nightmare Boxes. Ok PWE, we know that your beloved scam lottery boxes have always been your biggest income. When you release a mount that is a flat $20 dollars and seems expensive... and that same mount as a possible reward in a lottery box worth only 50 cents! Except people open hundreds of the things and still don't get the mount.
Yes I know tons of people are getting the Nightmare Mount, but that is not the point. The Nightmare Mount never had a value to begin with. They've come up with a better way to get money from players by flipping the system to be more of an inconvenience for them. Before in PWE games, you would simply buy lottery boxes from the cash shop and right click them if you wanted to test your luck. Player driven masochism that only they could be blamed for.
But now instead, these magic boxes drop randomly off mobs and fly right into your inventory. Now you have to look at these boxes all day because you can't discard them. You only have two options, to buy keys from the cash shop to open the boxes or list them on the Auction House, where only people buying the keys are willing to buy the boxes from you.
GW2 got away with it because you could discard the boxes. By design that makes perfect sense. So either they need to be discard-able, or PWE needs to get rid of the keys and add the boxes back to the cash shop again.
I paid about $2000 to this company total in a few games where it was always my choice to spend the money. I was never required to pay into new content either. This is something new and it goes over the line for me.
So yes, I've given my $60 in total appreciation for the gaming experience, but it stops there until these new practices find themselves out the door.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by powersoul on
0
Comments
The bags, 10$ for a virual bag even games that are f2P have crafted bags, so why is this game an exception. This game has way to much currency, seals, traiditioinal gold which other than a few items is next to useless, Astral Diamonds, which are easy to get, but unless you are a founder or guardian getting the 600,000 need for something is a bit much. I loooked at zen today to trade my AD for, and 1300 zen for 1.6 million AD, yeah right. I guess we have to wait until the economy dies and the founders and guardians spend everything.
I do not mind the drow being locked to buy --- coming from both turbine mmos (lotro and DDO) I am used to races and classes being locked behind a paywall. That is the least of my concerns. The shard only AH is worse IMHO, unable to auction items or buy items without buying currency or reaching a high level ?! You can't even sell gear under level 15 for 1 shard BO price if 99.999% of the players are free to play folks with 0 shards, can you? Its not a big deal as you can get your shards after a day or 2 of play (if you focused on one toon anyway.... doh) but the existence of a way around a bad system does not make it any less of a bad system.
The lockboxes and keys are idiotic, as noted. I guess you could sell them in the AH.... if anyone had shards ....
Not all "freeloaders" stay freeloaders. Many give in to the cash shop options once they get closer to end-game levels in F2P MMOs. In the case of this game, I have to say that I'm not inclined in the slightest to give them money yet. The fact that the Drow race is basically a 200 dollar purchase at the moment is a very big turn-off. However, the non-paying customers support the game long-term. Much longer than the 200 dollars each Founder contributed.
This post is a good post, and honestly, I agree with the changes needed. The only thing I think would benefit PW more, is offering something akin to what SOE offers with its games (Everquest, Planetside 2, etc). Having the option to sub monthly for 2-4 more character slots, minor stat benefits, maybe something like a basic mount immediately (horse or worg or whatever) and a base monthly income of Zen that equates to 1/3 or 1/2 of the subscription cost might be more suitable for long-term profit, on top of a cash shop (For example Planetside 2 offers 500 Station Cash per month for a $15 dollar recurring monthly subscription).
From my experience, playing F2P grind games almost always encourages the non-paying customers to buy something at some point in time, and from what I've seen, many of those "freeloaders" will subscribe when given the option if they like the game enough and the perks give them an edge--but not necessarily hand them all the aesthetics or the greatest things available in the cash shop. 15 dollars tends to look a lot more viable than plunking down 20 or 60 or even 100 to get some awesome gear, and if it provides a monthly income of Zen, players will remain committed to the subscription to get more cash equivalent items.
Really like the emphasis on the cash grab part. That, along with how easy Dungeons are, are my two main problems with this game currently that need to be resolved.
In all the games I play there are various skins with various looks. GW2 had really good themed skins around special events that could be bought or won in a lottery style... but other than those there was still plenty of other looks. I am only lvl 11 so far but even though I have put on 3 different sets of armor I still look the same, and that is a look shared by everyone around me in my class. I really hope they have time to develop more skins for armor and weapons.
I want to wait to see where the market goes with this. I don't see how adding in a restrictive currency like AD is beneficial to PWE in terms of getting players to buy more Zen.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
You're right, PWE is greedy and so are almost all corporations. They're all trying to extract as much money from their consumers as possible. This is how the business world operates and has nothing to do with PWE in particular.
This is something many people are complaining about and rightfully so given the fact that previous Cryptic games all had very in depth character editors. What those people forget, however, is the fact that the engine has to be capable of rendering 40 unique character models simultaneously with lots of particle effects going off at the same time. This is not a single player game but a MMO. Without these limitations Gauntlgrym open world PvP/PvE or Protectors Enclave wouldn't be possible.
This is true unfortunately. But again, not a sign of bad game design but a problem with MMO communities in general.
Most people don't know it any better. I agree that the current loot system leaves a lot to be desired. Class restricted loot tables would be much better.
While it is true that the cash shop prices are too high, you got to realize that this is a F2P game and as such prices need to be higher than in b2p or subscription based MMOs. I think a limited 50% off sale like Sony did with their Station Cash after the release of Planetside 2 would be a good idea and give fans and players of this game the opportunity to get the stuff they want for a reasonable price.
As for the guardian pack, I think the price is reasonable. The guardian pack costs you 60€ that's 60€ for a Tier 3 mount and companion, 600k AD, a blue starter weapon, additional character slots and respec token. Were you to buy the same items from the zen store, you'd pay a lot more than that.
I agree that this wasn't the best decision. The drow race should have been available for everyone from the start.
Not being able to discard them is annoying indeed, but I don't think it was intentional. The game is still in beta, so stuff like this should be expected.
I don't understand how this game is any different from other F2P and even B2P games. Sure, there's a lot of stuff you can spend money on but to be perfectly honest, the only thing you really need is a Tier 3 mount to compete in PvP and 2-3 greater bags of holding to not run out of inventory all the time. That's about 60€ or the price of a B2P game... No one forces you to buy lock boxes, companions, clothing or AD.
Yeah like this is the only F2P in existence, and like a lot of those are not just blatant cash brabs... Next. This model is inexcusable, I won't give them a cent because of it. Looking a Cryptic's games all they do is find big existing franchises to make cash cows out of. Marvel, Star Trek and DnD can be added to the list now.
I see. I'm going to have to learn in detail about all the uses for AD.
Well that's not true. Quite the opposite, actually. Every character in this and all other Cryptic games is bound to an @account. There's an option to enable @handles in chat..and if you mouseover people it shows their @handle. If anything, that makes it -easier- to deal with the bad apples as you can not only avoid every character they play in this game, but in CO and STO as well.
I do agree the loot thing needs dealt with, though. I still find it ludicrous to have a Need/Greed/Pass system on unidentified items. How am I to know if I Need it if I don't even know what it -is-?..
These arguments are, themselves, ridiculous. All three packs were listed for months showing all of the features available to them. Preferential queuing is not a new mechanic exclusive to Neverwinter; many F2P games have it for those who choose to pay. The only difference here is that a great number of people who purchased the Guardian pack didn't read or ignored the listing for the Hero pack...and then they viciously whined about how unfair it is that people who paid for it received it.
One might as well whine about how unfair it is that they don't have a Ferarri when there are people who do. -_-;
As far as the whole "Drow is Day-one DLC" analogy, it doesn't hold water.
The criticism of Day-one DLC is that it is content in a full retail game that is in game, but intentionally removed in order to force people to pay more than the amount they paid already. This is a situation where, yes, Drow are in game...but they will be released -for free- to everyone eventually. The bonus to Hero purchasers is simply getting to use them first.
How are you supposed to avoid these players using the auto group tool? Lets say for example that you can put an @handle to a block list and the auto group tool will never group you with them again. Is the problem solved? Absolutely not, because the auto group tool will just group them with other players who have not had the pleasure of dealing with them yet. The tool itself gives players the ability to abuse the system all they want since people have no way of avoiding them till after they are burned. If you honestly think it's good enough that you will have to run 300 times to find all the people who steal your class preferred loot, after getting 300 items stolen, then you really don't understand the problem with this system at all.
I've made my points on this more clear than you seem to be understanding them, so I'll just agree to disagree. More than enough people agree with me to reassure me of my opinion.
*shrugs* You leave the group if you see them again and find a new group? I agree that the group tool needs some updates if it indeed groups you with people on your block list...but you were talking about the ramifications of loot mongers to the community and a perceived inability to paint them with the appropriate scarlet letter. I, in turn, explained how you could.
lol - These thinly veiled slights are distasteful and unwarranted. I believe the issue is not that I am not understanding what you're saying, but that I'm not agreeing with you. Surely, if I understood then I'd be agreeing with you, yes?...
Perhaps, though, I did misunderstand something. I, albeit foolishly, thought you might be engaging in discussion and that reasoning would temper your distaste. In fact, it would seem you're looking for validation of your beliefs.
*bows* I'll leave you to it, then.