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AH one example of jamming an mmo into what was originally a single player game
mightyqu1nn
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 61
SO this is a bit of a rant and I realize the devs are busy putting out fires created by the scum bags out there exploiting. That being said there are a few things that make it patently obvious that this IP changed hands mid development and the original design was not intended to be an MMO. The in-game AH interface is utterly useless, what limited filters they do have dont work at all, and it is clear that the AH was jammed onto a framework that wasnt originally mean to support AH. Another example is the single mail box that only exists in the enclave, and lets not even talk about the lack of classes some of which were already developed but could not be put into a multi-player setting due to the fact they were not designed for that.
I am having fun still and will continue to support the game for the time being but some of this stuff is just really frustrating in a game that quite frankly should never have made to an "open beta" stage. I have a bit of experience in this realm, and apparently the definition of a gold release candidate has changed a lot, and unless I miss my guess it is another example of MBA's that only see dollar signs pushing a product out the door before its time.
I am having fun still and will continue to support the game for the time being but some of this stuff is just really frustrating in a game that quite frankly should never have made to an "open beta" stage. I have a bit of experience in this realm, and apparently the definition of a gold release candidate has changed a lot, and unless I miss my guess it is another example of MBA's that only see dollar signs pushing a product out the door before its time.
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Neverwinter is an evolution of the same game engine as STO and CO. To say that it's somehow not designed to be an MMO is nonsensical.
Yes, historically, it started out as a co-op multiplayer, but it's been an MMO for a long time now.
It's not just a graphics engine. It's a game engine. There's a whole lot more to it than just hanging textures. The AH itself is almost exactly the same as STO's, for example.
My point is that the AH is just run-of-the-mill bugged. Some interface developer screwed up. It happens. It's not evidence of some deeper issue where the core was meant for one type of game than shoe-horned into another.
What limitations in the engine are you referring to?
A bad bug, to be sure, but a very simple one. Someone didn't sanitize the input for negative numbers.
And the exact same thing happened in STO (not surprising since Nevewinter has the same AH), and that was never anything other than an MMO.
I'm not denying that Neverwinter is buggy. It certainly is. Just that the bugs aren't particularly indicative of its history, which is largely irrelevant at this point.
OK, I don't disagree with any of this.
Again, I only disagree with your analysis of the AH bugs as being a result of the non-MMO origins of the game. That doesn't make sense, especially when STO was bugged in similar ways.
The saving grace here might just be the recent resurgence of "indie" games, and perhaps the publishing behemoths will realize that in the long term better games mean more profits which perhaps sadly is the emphasis that drives them.
The day Cryptic fixes it, everyone will be able to buyout all the good items.
Haha, well thats all well and good but... having to use "tricks" in what has essentially become a staple in a game ostensibly created as an MMO is part of the issue.
Stuff like this happens on even polished auction houses with tens of millions of dollars behind it. The more obvious example would be all the exploits with the D3 AH. The whole caturday thing means lazy or inexperienced coding, not broken at the core. Where do you people come up with this stuff?
The search engine is subpar at best, it can't even " do what the query says" "55 and above rare items" ok go.....why am I seeing level 18 rares!!
Ohh lets seach for Armor enchantments, ok there is a drop down for that, and hit GO. No results.
Ok let me rephrase, Epic only on enchantments,mmmm as I sift through the varies amount of purple items I find ohh what is this Armor enchants!!... Neat query system you got there.
And don't tell me its beta, that is programming 101 how to form a searchable query form a database.
It would be one thing if it just did not work all together but when it brings you results that you did not select, that has to fall on the database people at what ever company they call themselves now.
Do you not see that this very thing is part of the problem? If this stuff has happened before with as you say "fully developed AH's with 10's of millions of dollars behind them" (which btw tells me you have no idea how a development process works) Then why do they still occur. In and of it self it is a fairly straight forward coding process as far as search function and filters go. It just smacks of "oh HAMSTER we need an AH!" and then just throwing HAMSTER coding at it so they can say they have one.
They probably had to explicitly disable the AH in the early versions of the game that weren't MMOs.
They got the AH, already implemented, from STO, because they started with STO's code. They tweaked the interface to fit in with Neverwinter. Bugs happened.
Straight forward coding processes go wrong constantly, all over the place. Mistakes happen even on the simplest tasks.
Where do you get that it was not an MMO, you realize the Neverwinter IP itself in the video game section is not only now and was intended to be now an MMO but was also the first graphical MMO ever.
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They didn't take an AH from another game and jam it into this one. The AH would have been in the code base from the start.
They took the whole code from another game, as a basis for this one, and modified it into the game we have now. It was an MMO engine from the start. If anything, the original co-op design was the one where one type of game was being shoehorned into another.
So not sure where you are getting your info but unless I am misunderstanding you, you are incorrect. This game in specific was originally being designed as essentially a single player game with an expanded co-op multi-player capability. PWE aquired the IP from Atari which was the publisher for Neverwinter Nights and its subsequent expansions. Actually sorry, thats not accurate the D&D IP is currently owned by WoTC who bought out TSR and then licensed said IP to Atari (which used to be Infogrames but I digress..)and now is licensed to PWE. To my knowledge this change occurred well into the development cycle of the original game and as one might expect, sweeping changes were made and design direction changed. Whether you view this as good bad or indifferent is mute, my point is some of the issues we are seeing seem to me to be a direct result of changing gears mid-stream. That being said I truly am still enjoying the game and I have hopes that the improvements we all want to see are in the not to distant future, however in todays gaming market the "next big thing" is always right around the corner and the player bases for these games seem to be more fickle year by year.
As far as Neverwinter being the "first graphical MMO" you are way off. Arguably the first graphical mmo was UO in my opinion, some would say there were others just previous, but in essence the grand daddy of what we now consider MMO's was a creation of "Lord British" and based on his popular single player Ultima series. When I stated in my original post earlier that I have some experience in this area I was not referring to the fact that I have been playing these games for a long time but to work experience. I no longer work in the field but as an avid gamer and student of "gaming history" for lack of a better term, I find the overall trend of it being all about profit margin's depressing to some degree. Many IP's through out the years have been have been killed by pushing titles out the door to cash in on the current gaming zeitgeist.