Atari - Neverwinter Nights MMO?

If you follow our MMO news, you may know Atari recently acquired MMO developer Cryptic (City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online). According to Variety, Atari and Cryptic are working on a Neverwinter Nights MMO, for release in 2011. No evidence is supplied beyond an unnamed source, although it would seem Atari does control the appropriate rights and Cryptic is a proven developer:

Details about the project are unavailable, naturally, as it is an unannounced title. But this reportedly was the primary reason Atari was interested in acquiring Cryptic late last year. (The developer is currently working on “Champions Online” and “Star Trek Online”.)

Interestingly - albeit coincidentally - Turbine today announced D&D Online will soon include a free-to-play option. Cynics may consider this evidence D&DO is in trouble, which might open the door for a new D&D MMO.
More information.

That would make Cryptic a VERY busy place. Champions and Star Trek Online are both using the same basic engine to run the games. Maybe a new Neverwinter would use that engine as well?

Also remember that a heck of a lot of Cryptic's original team stayed behind in City of Heroes.

It seems like a pretty reasonable fit. Low interest for me, but seemingly good potential.

I see no reason to place an MMO in the "NWN setting". Might as well make it a D&D MMO where Neverwinter is one of the cities you visit.

Of course, the NWN brand might give it some free marketing, but the value of the brand is much higher in the hands of BioWare/Obsidian.

I'm undecided. I didn't like D&D Online for a few reasons (lack of 1st person view and prevalence of 'twitch' being the 2 most important ones). Cryptic would probably add 1st person view, but I don't see them making it any less twitchy, in fact, it'd probably be even more so.

In other news, D&D Online is now free to play, apparently. In case anyone's interested…