Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter

So Cryptic has Neverwinter out on Steam, which I thought was a perfect opportunity to jump in and play this F2P MMO. Now, Neverwinter does not play like Champions Online, though I wish Champions played a little more like Neverwinter!

I'm not very far in and haven't gotten a companion yet. Here are my impressions thus far.

A) Quests auto-update and change as you go through them

This is a big plus for me. For a long time, in older games, you would have all the objectives as is already on there, and you would finish a quest and get a new one added.

B) Dialogue trees

Even if they don't lead anywhere, the conversations are nice.

C) Voice acting on the main plot

This is becoming more common as MMOs continue. This is nowhere near lets say, SWTOR, but feels more than I remember from WoW.

D) Player created Missions and stories

I suppose people who played City of Heroes might know about player created content. The Forge lets you create a series of events and combats for the player to deal with. I haven't explored it much yet, but I've played one level, and the amount of things that they did, were nice, and I can see a great deal of possibility in this game.

E) Dynamic, action based combat.

I feel that the game's combat is similar to videos I've seen of Wildstar. You see where enemies will attack, and you dodge those areas, while playing an almost 3rd Person Shooter. Very fun.

F) Group Events and Beatdowns, ala Champions Online

These like mini-instances. Go in, fight off waves with a team, and take down a big bad. Your involvement decides your reward.

G) I haven't felt the pressure to buy yet

10 levels in and I haven't felt any restriction to my game play. Not saying it won't happen eventually, but they have a game that is more than fun enough on its own, and they give you space for profession materials, and I've earned one extra bag so far (which I haven't even needed yet).

NWN - Without Roper

After two years, Chief Creative Officer, Bill Roper has left Cryptic to pursue something else (apparently to start a new company).

Now, for the past year, they've been working on Neverwinter Nights, and since they are starting to do interviews, I'm guessing that its starting to reach fulfillment. Now, Bill Roper was heavily involved with Champions Online, but he said he only barely touched on Star Trek Online. So how much involvement did he have with NWN, and if not enough, could that be why he left? Was he suddenly feeling stifled by it all?

Depending on how involved he was with this game, will decide for many people how much they feel they will like or dislike this game. Now, apparently I'm a big fun of Bill Roper (I may be the only one!?), so how sure can we be about the quality of this game? Who is involved?

So, I found an interview that Gamespot recently did with Jack Emmert (chief operating officer). Some points from the interview are as follows:

The game is not massively at all. It is simply an online multiplayer game. Imagine logging into (unmentionable MMO) and only using the Dungeon Finder. Some zones will be public, and some will be for teammates only. But not in the concept of a "hub world".

They are translating D&D4e rules into computer lingo, so, even though the starting classes are only five or so (fighter, wizard, rogue, ranger, cleric), we can expect that many can be showing up further down the line.

With how they break down the abilities, they translated D&D4e's, at-will, encounter, and daily powers into any-time, each encounter, and every few hours. This means that you would log in, play through a session, and log out for a few hours.

They are investing in including flanking, positioning, and tactics into the gameplay (not sure how it will be implemented, but in D&D4e, flanking makes it easier for you to hit).

The character editor, will be similar to CO and STO, and they will have Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and a few mysterious others (Drow, Eladrin, Warforged, Teifling, what? Honestly, being mysterious about this now is just stupid). It might mean that they are currently incomplete.

The storyline is tied into R.A. Salvatore stories (though not necessarily written by him). The adventures will occur within Neverwinter, and just outside of it, at least in the beginning. They have plans to expand after release. The game will take place 100 years in the future.

Players will be able to create stories, maps, and create quests for the map. Emmert specifically made the effort to point out that people will easily be able to tell they are using User Generated Content versus in-game content. So, that is almost a guarantee that "Forge" (their ingame creator) will be pretty lame.

It is set to be released in tandem with the R.A. Salvatore book, Gauntlegrym, which is being released October 5th, 2010.