Neverwinter - Preview @ Hooked Gamers

Dhruin

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Hooked Gamers has a preview of Neverwinter, although it doesn't offer anything new. A snip on the Foundry toolset:
Not only will creating modules be easier using The Foundry, uploading and sharing them will be as well. A quick button press will upload your mod to Cryptic’s server, which will host all of the game’s content, and finding it will involve simply browsing for it through a built-in search feature. Velasquez promises that when the game launches there will be enough assets available (monster packs, environment packs, exteriors, interiors, etc.) to create a whole bunch of adventures. The developers also plan on supporting the game post-launch with even more tile sets, monster packs and player classes, although there is no word yet on whether these things will be available through free updates or paid DLC.
More information.
 
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Ditching pause and play combat for a real time but still tactical combat system. You've got to be kidding me.
 
Is Neverwinter just Neverwinter Nights 3? Or is this an entirly different game with a different kind of gameplay?
 
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Ditching pause and play combat for a real time but still tactical combat system. You've got to be kidding me.

Pause and play was ditched in persistent worlds way back in NWN (1). This isn't anything new, nor does it prevent tactical combat.

Is Neverwinter just Neverwinter Nights 3? Or is this an entirly different game with a different kind of gameplay?

What aspect of NWN? It's certainly not NWN3, but the gameplay shouldn't be too dissimilar to what fans of NWN were doing with some persistent worlds.
 
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Is Neverwinter just Neverwinter Nights 3? Or is this an entirly different game with a different kind of gameplay?

My guess is that it's Star Trek Online with swords and a non-Reverse the polarity of the Particle Of The Week magic system whilst stranded on planet medieval. They've been rolling out iterations of their mission editor in that game for the last six months, have currently got a whole ground combat overhaul in testing, and have been doing the release of 'seasons of weekly episodes' (think modules) in that game for what must be more than a year now, and have just started doing the same in episodic thing in Champions.

That implies it's running on the same server cluster as Star Trek and Champions, with party based combat similar to whatever Star Trek is running at Neverwinter launch so you use your own party of characters you've built up, unless you're grouped with another player, with a time-limited pause designed to be used *rarely* and a switch between a more shooter style mode, and a more rpg style mode with individual party member placement and stuff.

Main competitor would be Dungeons and Dragons Online, so assume a combination of the pricing scheme for that game and the one for Champions — yeah a variant of the named by marketeers MMO 'Free to Play' model — with the key selling points being 'a party you control', 'design your own adventure', and a new mission from Cryptic a week whilst a module is running, with downtime between modules.

Looking at that it could be a pretty fun game — but then I have the poor taste to actually like Star Trek Online — but whether it's D&D, or Neverwinter, the Droids anyone is looking for, or even strictly speaking an RPG at all, is quite another matter matter.
 
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Pause and play was ditched in persistent worlds way back in NWN (1). This isn't anything new, nor does it prevent tactical combat.

Never played persistent world so this would be very new to me. All of the nwn and nwn 2 single player games had pause and play. I have no interest in the multiplayer. So unless you only control 1 guy (which would severely limit strategic game play imo.) controlling a party in real time would be almost impossible.
 
I tried out a few persistent worlds in NWN and to this day I am puzzled by them.

It was like playing in an extremely rudimentary world of warcraft. Or a chat room with very elaborate avatars. I don't understand the appeal... But as I say, we're all just moving pixels around a screen, so to each his own.
 
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I mostly played NWN 1+2 offline. I never got into the persistent worlds so I have little interest in this game. Bottom line is if you like cryptic's past games you will probably like the game.
 
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I tried out a few persistent worlds in NWN and to this day I am puzzled by them.

It was like playing in an extremely rudimentary world of warcraft. Or a chat room with very elaborate avatars. I don't understand the appeal… But as I say, we're all just moving pixels around a screen, so to each his own.

The most recent dungeon and dragons based CRPGs have generally seemed to be, in part at least, products of a misunderstanding of what critics meant when they said great games like Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate II "captured the essence and feel of the pen and paper experience." Any sane person with more than 8 brain cells would infer they were probably talking about the idea of choice or at least the idea that the player's growth and actions could have epic meaningful impact on the story; or really anything else even remotely along those lines. SOME of those behind NWN 1 and 2 as well as this completely different team seem to have assumed that sort of praise was talking about how these games recreated the rules and spread-sheet-like character systems from the pen-and-paper games. This is what happens when people born to be tax attorneys are allowed to make games.

This concernhinges on how seriously they desire to remain as faithful as possible to the rules of the DnD edition du jour. DnD rules systems are not well suited for multiplayer video games despite some of the splendid single player games that have used them. And yes, I realize the irony that a rules system specifically designed for "multiplayer" pen and paper rpg sessions turns out to be awful for multiplayer CRPGs and great for single player ones.
 
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This game doesn't look very good, its most likely going to be a pass for me as I don't really like Multiplayer games.

It will sell well though since its got the D&D name on it. Old time D&D players probably wont like what they get from what I have seen.
 
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there's been a number of interviewers asking about the SP game and though its played online, there is efforts being made to allow the player to play it solo with companions.

If pause and play were implemented on a PW (and sometimes it accidentally was) you wouldn't hear the end of it from the screaming players.

In fact, Timestop was so poorly implemented that the native script affected the entire game regardless what area the player was in. It was largely turned off because the the user made fixes were either poorly implemented or too controversial.

If you have any questions on the PWs, I ran one of the most successful ones for years.

check out the playneverwinter forums because right now, every topic is being brought up including discussions on the development of Foundry using STO and the SP vs MP debate.
 
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