The developer says Neverwinter will be closer to a game like Nexon's Vindictus, where combat is controlled by mouse clicks, and where pattern recognition and reflexes are the keys to successfully murdering hordes of monsters. Vindictus is also session-based, with each action foray designed to last about twenty minutes (Rusty Hearts, mentioned above, also follows this pattern). It's entirely possible that Neverwinter will follow this session-based structure as well, though it's worth remembering that both Vindictus and Rusty Hearts were developed for an entirely different market.
Neverwinter is being built with a modified version of the same engine used for Cryptic's two most recent MMORPGs -- Star Trek Online and Champions Online.
Content specifics such as which classes will be playable aren't being talked about at this point, though there is plenty of time to hear about them before Neverwinter launches. The switch from more traditional game to MMO has resulted in the projected Neverwinter release date being pushed back to the end of 2012. Cryptic has a habit of rushing MMOs out the door a little sooner than perhaps they ought to.
How free is free-to-play?
Not all content will be free, though. The developer will be charging money for consumables, [...] vanity pets and cosmetic items. [...] Cryptic plans to avoid making any content premium-only in Neverwinter.
MMORPG.com: How does the game cater to players who want to make their own instances or scenarios?
Andy Velasquez:
User Generated Content is a big part of the NWN franchise legacy and we are creating a system to continue that tradition in Neverwinter. The UGC toolset is called The Foundry and is being developed to allow players to quickly and easily create content like what they would experience in official Cryptic releases.
The Foundry editor itself, the content browser, the ability to review other user's custom content, and the ability to launch UGC content are all accessible from within the main Neverwinter client, in-game. So, players won't have to worry about maintaining a separate executable for content creation, or going to some forum to find out what the good content is, or trying to figure out where to save certain files to be able to play someone else's content. The Foundry is seamlessly integrated into the client and quests created with The Foundry can be seamlessly integrated into the world.
MMORPG.com: Why has the team decided to take Neverwinter from a CORPG format to a true MMO? And what does it ultimately mean for the game and The Foundry content and all of that? Is anything sacrificed?
Andy Velasquez:
The change from CORPG to a full action RPG F2P MMO is a change that just made sense for us. Perfect World wanted to go big. Expand everything. Do more. Do better. Take your time. Really blow it out. Pushing into 2012 allows us to make these changes. Transitioning into a full-featured action RPG, free-to-play MMO allows us to reach a whole new audience of people. Never underestimate barriers to entry. With a free client, anyone can play. Try it. Where's the harm? It's better for the game, better for us, better for D&D and infinitely better for fans and gamers. With Neverwinter, we're going to prove that F2P does not describe a type of gameplay - it only describes the fundamentals of a business model. We're going to deliver what could be the first AAA Western-developed action RPG MMO. No after-the-fact transitions. We're building it right from the ground up.
That being said, there is no sacrifice. Everything we had planned to do for the Foundry is going in. More than we ever had planned for the game is going in. If anything, focusing on a free-to-play experience pre-launch allows us to do more with the game and The Foundry than we had previously planned, as we have more time to make more environment kits, more monsters, more traps, more... everything.
As Eliot previewed, the game gives you a basic attack, three regular moves, a dodge/block/utility move, and two "daily" moves (no, you can't just use them once a day, and this term may go away). It's not much, but to be honest, I find that, these days, I'd much rather have a few strong, meaningful, basic moves than an eight-button rotation.
I could also dodge (in real-time, not because of a lucky dice roll), but the cooldown was at least 10 seconds, meaning it wasn't abusable. This gave the controls a feeling similar to the controls of Guild Wars 2, and probably partially due to the longer dodge timer, I didn't feel as all-powerful. While GW2 does have restrictions on dodging, it still gives melee characters the impression they can get away from most fights. And even though my character in the demo was buffed up a bit (we were doing the dungeon with only three people and no healer), I learned pretty quickly that the monsters in the dungeon hit a lot harder than the ones outside. Even in the alpha, there was a good sense of balance between not only the classes but the mobs versus the players. Nothing just rolled over and died.
I would say that if you like DDO, you're going to love Neverwinter because it seems as if it could just be called DDO 2 at this point. And that's a good thing.
Pros
Strong focus on player-driven content
Gorgeous art style
Events are well-organized and easy to join
Extensive currency system
Exploring is rewarded
Puzzles and hidden rooms!
Cons
Clunky combat
Dated character models
Linear default storyline
We've got some great news for you! While we've been working hard to address the majority of critical bugs and exploits, we've also been working on some fun stuff based on your feedback! Throughout Open Beta, we've been listening very closely to your feedback and hope to have some updates going live very soon.
At this very moment we are putting the final touches on a build that incorporates a ton of improvements to the various systems in Neverwinter. Thanks to all the helpful feedback we've received from our community, we've got updates coming for PVP, the Queue System, the Auction House, Gateway, the user interface, and game performance. Additionally, we've got tons of fixes coming regarding quests, Dungeon Delves, and rewards.
That's not all! Every class will see big changes in regards to their mechanics. Aside from fixing many of the bugs associated with class powers, we've done a considerable amount of rebalancing across the board. Expect a high volume of changes to damage, mitigation, cooldowns, stacking, power synergies, durations, and knockbacks, interrupts, threat, bonuses, and pretty much everything else!
But, we're not there yet! After we deploy this patch, we'll still need to collect feedback to ensure that we've met our goals and performed the updates that our players have asked for the most. Once the Patch Notes go live, feel free to comment on the thread to let us know your thoughts!
Thanks again so much for your helpful feedback. We'll see you in Neverwinter!
We believe that having all players in a single game world provides for the best user experience because it allows players to play, interact and trade with others without having to worry about which shard they are on. Launching a new online game is an exciting time, where new hardware and new software meet a large user population for the first time. Hence, we decided to launch Neverwinter with three shards, to reduce the risk of players having a negative experience due to servers overloading. Since launch we have continued to optimize our software and hardware so that we can merge the three shards into a single seamless game world.
