Neverwinter: Cryptic's MMO

[theMannequin]

I've played both closed and open Beta and finally got my character into game (I was sidetracked by Dilithium mining in Star Trek Online, as well as farming Romulan Marks to get Impulse Engines and Deflector Dish for my Defiant Class escort vessel).  My initial thoughts are that the game is fun, the combat is very dynamic, the crafting system is different, but it is lacking a few things.

There's about seven classes right now, with one still being teased.  Weapon Master, Trickster Rogue, Wizard, Devoted Cleric, Guardian Fighter, and a couple of others which I can't recall at this time.  But, there's no paladin, no bard, no sorcerer, no barbarian (though it can be argued that a Guardian Fighter is a paladin without the spells).  I made Shani.



As I said, the combat is very dynamic.  There's no tab targeting, you attack what's in front of you by using left and right mouse clicks for you upclose and ranged attacks.  Characters have only one weapon type they use.  Trickster Rogues, for example, only use daggers.  They can't swap to a bow or some such thing.  Weapon Masters all use two handed weapons, Guardian Fighters use the old "sword and board" technique, though the sword can be a long sword, short sword, battle axe and so on.

Leveling is fast.  In the span of a couple of hours, I had Shani up to level 21, which is great because I wanted to get her riding mount.



Increased speed makes for fast travel overland.  Unfortunately, you cannot fight while mounted.  Activating an attack automatically dismounts you from the horse (or worg, or winter wolf, or nightmare, or armoured bear).

Customization is pretty good, with the exception of armour.  You can make your currently worn armour appear like a really good set you like by changing the appearance (right click, select the option) and even getting coloured dyes to change appearance.



Throughout the game, you'll have the opportunity to add companions to help you out.  A Guardian Fighter to head into the fray, a Devoted Cleric to keep you healed, or even dire wolves, fire hawks or other creatures.  These companions can level up, which you'll need to do and they go away for a while and you can't summon them.  You can also upgrade their abilities and equipment if you wish.  I went with a devoted cleric because I have the nasty habit of getting hit a lot.



You can make a guild, but you need five players to start the guild.  Same as what Cryptic did with Champions Online for supergroups and Star Trek Online for a fleet.  This can be a drawback, but if you have the people to do it, it's easy.

Currently I'm playing on the Dragon server that's been set up.  As posted, I have created Shani Wennemein.  Currently the game is pay to play, but give it time, it'll go free to play eventually.

[Sakes]

It's a fun game and the action elements make it more fun than most MMOs... the problem is they really went overboard with the Pay 2 Win model, from what I understand it's nearly impossible to play functionally without forking over cash for things.  Technically you can earn everything in game but it's so expensive and needed for so many things it's effectively impossible.

Still, it's a fun game and worth playing at least a little bit but I don't think I'd personally invest a whole lot of time into it.

[theMannequin]

Yeah, I was gonna mention that, but I was writing it up before work and had to dash.

Cryptic seems to have found this thing that they really like.  They did it in Champions Online to a lesser degree, but ramped it up in Star Trek Online.  In both you can get lock boxes as random drops from missions or mobs.  These boxes offer all sorts of goodies.  In CO, they can be hover bikes, hover tanks, fighter jets, mods to improve the vehicles, maybe some costume pieces or enhancements to improve your toon's fighting ability.  That's not bad, considering that you're better off fighting as a tank with Mighty, Beastial or even a martial arts expert than flying in a fighter jet.  The vehicles' capabilities are subpar compared to the abilities of your character.  Then again, you are supposed to be a superhero.  In the actual C-Store it's mostly costume and base pieces for quality of life aspects, though they are selling crafting mods to upgrade mods from one level to another.  It isn't that important that you need to get those, so far I've found that the biggest deal is getting up hitpoints to an insane amount (I have recreated Fadra in CO as a Beastial tank with Regen, her hitpoints sit at about 18,000 while the average is about 8,000).  You can get other impressive abilities, but you don't need to buy them through the C-Store.

STO ramped up the lockboxes quite a bit.  In them you can get lobi crystals to buy stuff from the Ferengi (in some cases costumes, in others very rare ships), duty officers to fill up your duty roster ranks, rare (purple) weapons for your star ship or ground actions, and even the possibility of claiming a ship.  Such as a Ferengi Marauder, Cardassian Galor Class vesse, Jem Ha'Dar Destroyer, and so on and so forth.  Sadly, if you want some really good stuff, like getting your hands on a Defiant Class Escort Vessel with a cloaking device, then you need to buy one through the C-Store.  Want the Galaxy Class star ship that the Enterprise D was complete with saucer separation?  Need to buy it through the C-Store.  Want the Prometheus Class Escort that had multi attack modes, basically separate into three ships?  Need to buy it through the C-Store.  You want to play one of the two feline species in Trek (Caitian for Starfleet, Ferasan for the Klingon Defense Force)?  Need to buy them in the C-Store.  That can total up a lot.  And while some of the ships you buy are then available to every character you make (depending upon faction), you still need to drop real world money in order to get them.

I see this being no different with Neverwinter, as after one night of playing I picked up five Nightmare lockboxes.  Yeah, I've got a chance to pick up a Nightmare as a mount, but to be honest, I've already got a mount because I preordered the game.  But what other junk is in there?  I don't know.

There is a good thing that Neverwinter (thanks to Star Trek Online) has, and that's the Foundry.  The Foundry allows you to make your own story missions.  You can go as intense as you want, and you can either make them private or publish them to the general public at large.  Many people use Foundry in STO as a way to tell a story surrounding their character.  I'm currently working on one where my Ferasan captain (yes, I bought one) and her crew steal a Klingon Puyjaq Rapto Class Escort and become pirates.  Shooting, stealing, evading and escaping.  But it's a really cool way to set up an rp story that someone wants to tell.  Foundry won't be easy to use to start, it takes a bit of time to learn (depending upon how resourceful and patient the creator is).  So far, in STO, I've seen some really, really good missions that use Foundry, so there are some really, really good story creators out there.

Champions eventually got super group bases into the game, Star Trek Online eventually added Fleet Docking Yards, so it's only a matter of time before Neverwinter adds Guild Halls.  And they way Star Trek Online went with Fleet Docking Stations, you can imagine there will be projects that guild members can do to improve their guild halls.  For example, in STO, starbase projects include adding duty officers, dilithium, energy shields and fleet marks in order to get different tiers in shipyards or military or embassy in order to improve the overall look, feel and functionality of the starbase.  One can only imagine they'll do something similar that guild members can do to help improve their Guild Halls.

If anybody here does play, and they'd like to get a guild together, give me a holler in game.  I've only got Shani Wennemein as a character and my handle is @HawksScream.

Oh, one other thing.  Cryptic's chat window is... different.  All three games players can talk to each other.  If you're member of a channel in Champions, another in Star Trek and one in Neverwinter, you can see each channel in your chat window no matter which game you're playing.  Your friends on your friendlist can see you log into game, even if they're playing Star Trek and you log into Neverwinter.  Which can make for some odd conversations about asking if you want to join in on an attack on a Borg vessel while you happen to be sacking the Cloak Tower.  And then someone asks for help with a Nemesis Confrontation and wants you to meet them at the UNTIL Building in Millennium City.

[Tails1879_]

My main and great concern is Perfect World's decisions on the pay model. One of the more nasty examples of it that happened lately was with another game named Blacklight: Retribution.

Some context on that... There used to be the ability to rent equipment for a short amount of time (1 day, 3 days, etc). There were plenty of games that used the same renting system, though usually were 7 or 31 days, and used in game currency to get them. In Blacklight, though, it was common and popular to rent for a small amount of time, since you'd lose out less for not playing. This could also be done using the in game currency.

Unfortunately, Perfect World decided to remove the short rentals completely, causing a bit of a ruckus in the community (Understatement here. People were furious). It was enough that Perfect World responded and decided to add them right back into the game. Even more unfortunate, however, was how they did it...

The short rentals were back... But could only be done using Zen, the same real money currency used in Neverwinter. Needless to say, people are still pretty mad about it.

I might try it at some point, but it won't be now. That's for certain. I also felt like they were baiting people heavily with the $200 founder package to have the privilege to play a Drizzt, complete with a panther. I know it's a bit of a cynical take on it, but I've seen enough of this going on before. At least I can't be disappointed so much if it turns out to be good! 

[theMannequin]

Cryptic (and Perfect World's) system for Champions, Star Trek and now Neverwinter is exactly the same.

Buy different packages to get different things.  Right up to and including a VIP Lifetime membership which ensures you get monthly Zen Points for your account.  I think it's some paltry sum of 400 or so.  Which is pretty meaningless, considering that a large chunk of the really interesting things in the C-Store are over 2500 Zen.

Right now, Neverwinter is monthly pay to play, but wait until it goes free to play (which it will, bothy Champions Online and Star Trek Online have gone free to play).  As long as you can find a good group then you don't need the C-Store stuff or the monthly Zen credits to your account.  Which also seems to be the only difference between subscribers and free to play players.  Subscribers get monthly Zen and a couple of Prestige options (Champions Online has Free Form characters where as free to play has an archetype of set powers for a character that activate as you level, Star Trek Online I really haven't seen much of a difference).  Even if you do drop some money to get something in the C-Store, that item will be available to you (if it's cross account available) no matter what, you won't have to buy it again.

I should add this one part in, because on the one hand, while I like some of the aspects of Neverwinter (along with Champions and Star Trek Online), Cryptic as a company has some really sad issues.  They've gone downhill a lot from a company that developed City of Heroes/Villains.  Comparing Champions to City was like comparing apples and oranges; the former two are supehero MMOs, and beyond that there's no comparison.  Cryptic even went out of their way to drop digs at other superhero MMOs within Champions, slamming DCU Online and City of Heroes (which is ironic, considering they created City).  Cryptic also has a poor track record for fixing bug issues.  There was a bug in Champions about three years back when it was just released and it stayed there for about three months.  There was a problem in a mission, but players found a work around.  The bug was still aggravating, however, because sometimes the work around didn't work exactly the way it needed to.  So for three months I played, then went back to City for a bit, then LotN.  A year later, I went back and the bug was still there.  It was there for almost a year.  Admittedly, that was during a time Cryptic was going through some restructuring, Atari had basically given up on them and they were about to be sold to Perfect World.  And, Star Trek Online was about to be released as well.

Champions as a game has really suffered, which is to be expected seeing how it's a third class pen and paper game when compared to Star Trek and Neverwinter.  Both the latter two are owned by companies that could buy and sell Hero Games ten times over in a day.  So Cryptic focused all their attention to Star Trek and Neverwinter.  Which is fine if you're a STO and NW fan.  But, don't expect customer service from them.  Cryptic has no knowledge of what customer service means.  They also have a major problem with downtimes in their games.  A prime example came down at NW's launch.  The load was so much (because while Champions, Star Trek and Neverwinter are all on different servers, there's only one gateway to get into the block, think of it like one door to get into three buildings) that all three games crashed and were down for eight hours two days in a row.  One can only hope that something is fixed before Cryptic releases Legacy of Romulus for STO, or else all three games are going to have downtimes again.

I like the games, they're enjoyable, rather dynamic and kind of fun.  They're not serious competitors for other MMOs, but something good for casual play.  Leveling is easy.  But the company that runs them is not the greatest in the world.  Cryptic has been doing this since 2004, and the only game that has lasted a long time is City of Heroes (which NCSoft shutdown last November).  There's good start up in all three games, but replayability is really bad.  You play through it once or twice (three or four times in STO due to Fed and KDF factions) and you know every mission and can do them without thinking.

This turned into a rant, and I apologize for that.  I guess it's one of those situations where a game can be really good, but the company that makes it still needs to grow up a lot.

Unless of course, it's keys for lockboxes.  Then either drop 125 Zen per key, or 1250 for ten keys.