I really wish I liked this game more.
Why?
It's a mediocre at best game. I finally got around to UNINSTALLING it today. I haven't logged in for days and was only logging in to craft and pray for a few weeks there since you can level without even playing if you pray. Neverwinter just not that compelling. The hype and BS campaign for it is doing a good job.
These "reviews" are from half-assed sites and mean nothing. One says it's the best combat in MMOs…what a freaking joke. TERA has the best combat in MMOs, NW rips it off and makes it dumbed down the way FPS are dumbed down for consoles. What kind of scrub needs target assist to do already super easy action style combat in an MMO. Disgusting.
The game is D&D in name only - the game itself has nothing in common with anything D&D. The game is a very bland and very typical modern MMO - too much solo crap, too little group crap, and pvp just because every MMO has to have crappy PvP even though PvP has NOTHING to do with D&D.
The beta and "going live" were/are a joke. Cash shop has been live for weeks/months and there was no character wipe so the game has really been live for weeks/months now. There were max level players (many via exploits) pounding endgame within days of beta/live/whatever launch. There have been AH exploits during "beta" that were poorly handled.
The cash shop for NW is ruthless and the in-game economy is as lame as the economy in GW2. Tons of crap for sale to the point of it being worthless unless it's ultra rare and/or came from the cash shop. The game currency of gold is all but useless and the cash shop interchangeable currency of astral diamonds only has value because people like the minigame of "selling" AD for zen to get cash shop stuff that way (from dummies dumb enough to convert zen into AD when AD is as plentiful and easy to acquire as air).
The only way you could think that Neverwinter is a great MMO is if you have zero MMO history and zero clue about what constitutes a great MMO. Maybe if you think GW2 is a great MMO you'd like it, since it's yet another abomination of an MMO that's more geared towards solo pinheads than it is towards people who want to group.
Sadly, there's nothing else on the immediate horizon. It's always a waiting game. TESO is looking to be a dual disaster - crappy representation of ES and crappy representation of MMORPG. It sounds worse and worse all the time. A watered down version of skyrim that focuses on PvP (makes sense for one of the best PvE franchises of PC gaming history…or not) and lacks any trappings of a real MMO (no AH, no endgame gear to obtain, no real group-oriented boss fight type of content)…what moron decided to make this game?
EQNext is the next biggie on my list, and it's getting some rave comments from E3. The sweating masses not privy to private showings from E3 have to wait for august for SOE's big EQNext reveal. No idea why SOE is being so secretive if they actually have a good product on their hands since their MMO history after EQ (which they didn't even create) is spotty at best.
