State of the Game by Andy Velasquez

sominator · May 2013

Read the Neverwinter State of the Game by Lead Producer Andy Velasquez! http://nw.perfectworld.com/news/?p=896631

thufirhawat · May 2013

I think most serious gamers welcome communication with developers, so, if you're going to keep this up, I for one salute you! I started playing this game on my two-year-old iMac 21.5 using Parallels Desktop. It was ok, but the controls were not great. I now play it on my Windows 8 laptop and it's excellent. However, it still has a way to go in classes, professions etc to reach LotRo, which of course has had many years of development. I'm just about to choose a profession and I feel kind of constrained. The other thing is that my trickster rogue seems far too much of a frontline fighter and not a sneaky backstabber - I can throw her at anything and with an occasional potion she survives. Never mind, I'm really enjoying it, it's great!

PS My comment directly to the blog page was refused - after it invited comments. It then said comments were closed!!

ordensmarschall · May 2013

I wanted to leave a comment on the State of the Game, however it is locked from commenting. Thanks for taking the time to write up the State of the Game. I enjoyed reading and getting an idea of where the developers are headed. I am looking forward to the future updates and Module 1 being released. I would say prior to class balancing, finish the paragon paths, as these may allow players to counteract what are currently seen as balancing issues. Once again thank you for the informative post, I for one would not mind seeing more of these on occasion.

viledeeds77 · May 2013

Keep these awesome Dev team updates coming! I love it!

iamrune · May 2013

Speaking of systems which negatively affect the game population, how about the auto-chatban 'feature' built into ignore? Makes perfect sense with "Report Spam", but not Ignore.

ambisinisterr · May 2013

Thanks for writing that up Andy!

It has a lot of great, interesting and much desired information in it.
I'm loving all the teasers of future content!

roningamer · May 2013

I love seeing open talks from developers and State of the Game's bring about a good summary of what has happened recently as well and what is to come, I always like seeing a new light appear for games that will lead us to a better game experience. New fixes, new content, new features, etc. brings new players to the game which both benefit the game financially as well as evolves our community.
Thank you.

Unknown · May 2013

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faid1n · May 2013

Thank you for the update - I always appreciate news as to where the game is heading and what is being planned for the future. This is something Mythic did well in Dark Age of Camelot - their Herald was wonderful. I'm excited about the new class and the Paragon paths too - I'd really love to see a Necromancer, Psion, and/or a Druid in the future - though I can anticipate the new class will likely be a ranger (or something that utilizes a bow). Again, I'm enjoying the game - thank you for all of your work.

xcammi · May 2013

I loved reading this, and feel a lot better about where the game is headed. Instead of wondering if anything will be done, I now have an idea of what's to come. Please keep these posts coming! Once every 3-4 months would be perfect.

ksho · May 2013

Wow, first i start with this that before i dont have much hope in you guys(how you will be care about your own title after open beta release), but i'm suprised (at this point, let's see how words make happen

).
You adressed some important issues, plan to address more, like :
"Monitoring the economy to ensure that appropriate actions are taken to remove any remaining illegitimately gained currency and items." which is important because harm what that "BUGS" do to the economy is nothing to be ignored.
Adding new content in a "few weeks", repairing classes and balancing them, more stuff in the future (which is important cause if you want Neverwinter to live then new "stuff" must be) and the rest about everyone can read in the articel.
Again, i'm impressed about your approach to you own title, many maintenances with fixes (many but personally i understand why), this blog with bunch of informations.I take part in many f2p titles and never seen such engagement from the devs, ofc it was but not that "frequent" and quick, which is nice.
Last words---Keep up the good work, as for me i stay with you and answering the Andy question about seeing updates like this i answer:
Yes sir, as you guys have some this kind of news on the deck i want to see the updates about this here ASAP xD

Sry for bad en.... x.x

sominator · May 2013

Hey everybody! Comments were accidentally left unflagged on the blog post. They're enabled now, please feel free to share your thoughts!

imivo · May 2013

Lots of good information in there, thank you!

I'm especially looking forward to the public test shard, and hopefully we can respec there to get some proper testing in.

psendaron · May 2013

Thx... updates like that are really nice to get. The work done on the lag and rubberbanding issues have made a huge impact on my game. Before patch 30 that was a problem that really bugged me and I kinda lost interest in the game due to those issues but after patch 30 I'm not experiencing any major problems like that anymore.

I hope at some point the dev's will find occasional time for chatting with the community for feedback and ideas and maybe even show up in PvP for a friendly contest. So far I'm amazed with the overall feedback and updating from dev's. Thx a lot for taking your gamers seriously. You're doing one heck of a nice job here.

(And btw: I really hope you give sominator a nice long vacation at some point. I see his posts here all the time and am thinking that guy most be working 24/7. He's earned a week on some tropical paradise island IMO)

jjb828 · May 2013

Atleast one thing you have down is appearing to care and to acknowledge the community. On the other hand, you seem to have a problem with running the game at least decently smooth

lariandesalver · May 2013

I liked the information you gave very much. One of the most important things I wanted to hear about was the state of economy and im glad to hear that youre doing a great job on that and eliminate all those ill gotten stuff we report and which you find. Second most important was balancing, which you are working on, too. So thumbs up, good work!

prometheusen · May 2013

Good read

It's nice to see developer communication to the community-- especially since a community like Neverwinter is definitely interested in what they have to say. I know that I'm excited about the details of the State of the Game and am looking forward to what tomorrow brings!

aislingi · May 2013

Address concerns with the ridiculous zen shop prices, the fact that you removed content to force cash shop companion purchases, and the fact that you're charging six bucks for respecs.

Fixing problems that you were warned about back in CBT, isn't an amazing feat. While I appreciate the work put in, it is work that could have been avoided had you listened to your testers sooner.

sominator · May 2013

Hehe thanks! :cool:

psendaron wrote: »

(And btw: I really hope you give sominator a nice long vacation at some point. I see his posts here all the time and am thinking that guy most be working 24/7. He's earned a week on some tropical paradise island IMO)

s3pt · May 2013

aislingi wrote: »

Address concerns with the ridiculous zen shop prices, the fact that you removed content to force cash shop companion purchases, and the fact that you're charging six bucks for respecs.

Fixing problems that you were warned about back in CBT, isn't an amazing feat. While I appreciate the work put in, it is work that could have been avoided had you listened to your testers sooner.

Was hoping they would address that, or even acknowledge it but nope just the usual PR spin skirting the real issues.

lanessar13 · May 2013

I have some mixed feelings about the state of the game, honestly. Developer feedback of this sort is much appreciated, and while I laud your effort, a few of the things I have major concerns about are simply not addressed properly (mainly exploit fixes for Foundry which actually cripple the desire to do that content). Additionally, the bugs which were found in alpha-beta becoming exploits live... definitely skirted that issue by saying they were found in open beta. True, but at the same time, false.

I do like the direction you are taking with class balance (getting everything working first, then address balance) and I believe that, if they follow through with this approach, it will be much better than just straight tweaking. So that's a bright light. And, no matter how I feel about the content of the message, the message itself is better than many of the other F2P games are doing currently.

kwsapphire · May 2013

From article: And hey, if you enjoy seeing updates like this, let us know in the comments!

Yes please! This is great, and very much appreciated!!! (three !s for emphasis!)

nymbyl · May 2013

sominator wrote: »

Here’s a short list of some of the top things our team has been working on lately — things we hope to have updates on very soon:
•Network performance and overall connection stability
•Queue system issues (wait times, teleportation issues, group composition)
•Party Loot issues (better allowing players to win the items they legitimately need)
•Making gear progression feel more visually and mechanically meaningful
•Improving the PvP system to better reward participation
•Aggro and threat balancing
•Auction house bug fixes and UI improvements
•Monitoring the economy to ensure that appropriate actions are taken to remove any remaining illegitimately gained currency and items
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clerics rejoice! possible agro balancing coming, really, really hope they get the gperfect balance of agro to keep the dungeons, etc, still challenging, but not have the cleric running all the dps around like he is so much bait

Still loving playing the game, really cant get enough, never thought I would go back to fantasy, but somehow, your game pulled me in, GO NW

damatsu · May 2013

a game so buggy doesnt need a public test realm. gwf and gf need significant changes. NO BOSS IN THIS GAME CAN BE LEGITIMATELY TANKED SO WE DO WE HAVE A TANK CLASS EVEN? Really poor endgame boss designs all just ADDS and MORE ADDS. No wonder people feel the need to just drag along CW wizards to knock them off the ledge. Why wasnt ranger included in the open beta it shoulda been a must..... Engame maps monsters deal ludacris dmg even smaller filler monsters(obviously to warrant buying potions from cash shop) This game is all P2W its not Free2play there is a huge difference. Endgame gear should be Bind on account; never should be able to buy the best gear on an Auction house totally moronic decision there but then again this is Perfect World. The PVP imbalances are so staggering its mind boggling. TRs can practically remain untouchable, GFs can be unkillable, control wizards can pin people down almost infinitely. A really good cleric yet again can be unkillable in some situations. And then there is the whole AFK pvp leveling thing. JUST REMOVE THE EXP FROM losing problem solved. And im sure we could keep goin on and on and on; on the problems with this game.

zombieelvis · May 2013

So is the test shard coming while the game is still in "beta" or after it officially launches?

Also (not being rude here, honest question) what exactly is the point of a test shard when all my tickets are auto replied and closed without any resolution, acknowledgement, or human contact? Just the "... due to the incredibly high volume..." automated messages.

wurmian1 · May 2013

Is there anyway you plan on finding out what exploits players will gain from test centre and not report them?
Most test centre on any given game have this problem.
Player A and B do nothing but try find ways to screw a game over and never report it, till its to late and its live.
By then damage has been done.
You have a way to monitor someone or some event being repeated often in a short amount of time , as a warning something is up?

fallensbane · May 2013

Please get some of these foundry updated out please. I mean seriously not having animations for animal creatures is something I would have expected in an ALPHA stage of testing, not open beta. Also, are we ever going to see the sound in the foundry fixed?

johnloucks · May 2013

Appears to be a DNS hack (not sure if it is a local or domain level issue) Crafting Gateway captures username password and then redirects to Chinese Character URL?

looks like the neverwinter domain is affected. go change your account password on perfect world account server.

Thanks.