Neverwinter - "Almost ready to ship" before MMO switch

Lucky Day writes that Neverwinter was "almost ready to ship" when the decision was taken to change into a full MMO. Full story via Strategy Informer.
More information.

i must have missed that they changed this to an mmo. i just lost all interest.

Bet they're kicking themselves right now for this….whatever the hell this Neverwinter thing is. Skyrim just showed these folks that you don't have to constantly keep dumbing down or switching to MMO/multi-player to sell an obscene amount of RPGs.

It's not big loss though. Neverwinter wasn't sounding that good before they switched. KOA sounds a hell of a lot better.

Hmmm…. not sure I believe them..

Originally Posted by kalniel
Hmmm…. not sure I believe them..

To be fair it says ready to ship not ready to play.

Wish they just wouldn't have told us. I really was interested in Neverwinter. Then I saw it went full on MMO and lost all interest.

Valesquez had been doing a lot of interviews lately talking about features that could be added or are ready but would not be "available at launch" (this bizarre SI report seems to indicate they wanted to put more content in at launch).

Such features included things like user made PW's which he said could be available at launch but they decided not to (yet).

Reading the devs on the forums there is a clear conflict within the between them wanting to give the community what it wants (re: expects from a NW game) and their vision of it.

(ie friendly fire, dm's, ability to play it solo offline, servervaults, etc. vs one large community, preventing DM abuse by not having them, restricting item development to prevent exploitation and being able to sell them, etc.)

Valesquez seems to be listening to the community at least nominally for the purpose of good relations and potentially sales but other devs such as Mapolis seem to be dead set against anything other than DDO type MMOG with a toolset - basically Star Trek Online with Swords.

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I don't think I am in the minority by saying one I'm of those people that don't think restricting play to co-op and calling it an OMG made it any less of a MMOG except as a legal dodge over the Turbine lawsuit that has now been settled.

At the very least, another year gives us a way to whine to Valsquez to give us the game/toolset we want rather than shipping a game they wish they hadn't as Obsidian found out.

I'm not counting on it, however.

I really enjoy the Neverwinter series, both 1 and 2. I still think NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer was one of the most well-written RPG stories ever.

But why in fuck's sake would they make this into an MMO??

The original original (1991) Neverwinter Nights is frequently cited as the first MMO, so the series does have pedigree there. Exactly how many people remember it from 20 years ago is another question.

Simplest reason for the change is that they expect more money from an MMO than they'd get from a MOG or whatever they were calling it.

Originally Posted by Zygo
The original original (1991) Neverwinter Nights is frequently cited as the first MMO, so the series does have pedigree there. Exactly how many people remember it from 20 years ago is another question.

The one on AOL? I remember that one. It was multi-player gold box D&D and it worked quite well, actually.

and don't forget there's a Heroes of Neverwinter on FB so IMO it's come complete circle.

Also IMO, I believe it was Bio that was cashing in on the name and not Cryptic Studios.

CS is making it a MMO not out of greed but because that is what they do.

It could be that it sucked….and then realized they had to do something.

Originally Posted by Zygo
The original original (1991) Neverwinter Nights is frequently cited as the first MMO, so the series does have pedigree there. Exactly how many people remember it from 20 years ago is another question.

Simplest reason for the change is that they expect more money from an MMO than they'd get from a MOG or whatever they were calling it.

I hated seeing that ad for Neverwinter Nights in one of the goldbox games. I think it might have come with some special deal, but I had no internet connection back then and no way my mom was paying for one. Plus I had no interest in playing online. I just wanted another goldbox game.

No worries though. FRUA has provided me with tons of "goldbox-like" games so missing out on one is no big deal now, but at the time it sucked big time.

I was skeptical too but will reserve judgement til it's released, after all D&D Online is FTP and its pretty fun. As long as the community gets the toolset and they keep to their promise of not charging for extra content(only charging for potions and vanity items like pets) it might be good. All I will have invested is a download.

Originally Posted by rune_74
It could be that it sucked….and then realized they had to do something.

I think that's as good a paraphrase of the article as any - yeah.

it makes sense. I could see CS rushing the thing out the door like their prev two titles to get the revenues going but with their new Chinese Masters footing the bill for development slowing them down to make something, y'now, with some content just might be good marketing.

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On the Skyrim comment, I think its a game changer for a lot of games. I just hope these doesn't mean a dearth of sandbox games or basically bad clones of it.

Its also probable they looked at all the great games coming out this fall and said "Forget about it. We can't compete with them"

Easy to say now that no one can check it anymore (in retrospect). As far as this game as MMO I don't think I will even try it.