Heroes of Neverwinter

I just read about this on another forum. Facebook game, coming to open beta September 15th, party based dungeon crawler, 4e, users can create their own adventures and dungeons. I saw a couple of youtube video's and it is surprisingly better looking then I expected.

Did I mention it is turn-based?

But it's Atari, so can't be good, right?

(beta forums are open to all by the way: http://forums.atari.com/forumdisplay.php?f=689)

It almost looks more like a TB strategy game to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJspR7jCt2c&feature=related

Too bad it's Facebook though... I pretty much despise anything related to that company.

Not bad. What happened to the attack of opportunity, though?

Might be ok but the last thing I want to do is collect friends for a game in order to do stuff. I may look at it if I remember.

http://www.oldboardgamers.com/2011/previews/this-game-may-cost-you-your-job

Click to expand...

Here is a pretty good article summing the game up.

I don't think you have to have friends to play, its just that the aspect is there if you want. The energy bar that permits playtime is an interesting facet, but it looks like dimaonds do drop in the game that will refresh it. After all, 30 minutes to wait for it to fill up is hardly a deal breaker especially for a casual game. I think the user made levels will give it some life and hopefully they will raise the character level and add classes and races.

Oh and yes I hate facebook games as well but plan on giving this a look.

Some beta keys available via eurogamer if you like:
http://gamers.eurogamer.net/giveaways.php?id=87087

Today they opened 1000 slots for the beta on the official facebook page as well. I managed to get in that way.

I played through the tutorial and one quick newbie dungeon so far. It's a stripped-down version of 4E rules but seems like you can get reasonably tactical with it. The first dungeon was very linear, but that is to be expected. I'm hoping the complexity rises later on. Anyway, its been fun so far.

And bugging your friends to play is not at all required. You can recruit random heroes to join your party at the tavern. They are free for 1st level and after that I guess you have to pay gold to recruit them. So there is an advantage to having friends that play - but its not required.

I was to late for the new batch of keys but managed to get one from Eurogamer(thanks kalniel) It's been pretty fun so far.

If it's like most facebook games then the energy pool will probably get longer and longer with time, and energy costs for quests with also increase, but energy will regenerate at a somewhat fixed rate. The end result is that you can usually only play a couple times a day, which is fine….it spreads things out a bit and keeps it more fresh when you do play. Limited play time is not an area of facebook gaming I object to at all.

What I do seriously object to is when they make you pester your friends. For example if they add a new dungeon but you can only enter it if you assemble all 50 key pieces, each of which has to be sent to you by another player. Sadly it would not surprise me too much if they eventually add something like that.

Diamonds seem to be the pay currency, which most games allow you to find in very limited quanties as you play. Usually you can exchange them for things you would otherwise have to pester your friends for, so for example you might be able to spend 50 diamonds to enter that dungeon instead of collecting the 50 key pieces from your friends. Often you can use them to buy power as well, ie spend 50 diamonds and get a +3 sword, which will usually be more powerful then anything you can find playing the game (though again you may be able to save up enough diamonds through game play).

Anyway I'm interested to see the game, sounds more advanced then most FB games and hopefully it won't have too many of the annoying things I mention above.

Beta is now open:

http://t.co/VmeR5FJi

Post feedback here:

http://bit.ly/oDLJTK