[PAX Prime 2012] Neverwinter

[UWCrash]

If you’re a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, there’s a lot of nostalgia to be drummed up at the mention of the name Neverwinter (perhaps you played it online back at the height of AOL?) For their time, the standalone PC Neverwinter Nights titles featured some fantastic steps forward in their genre: great graphics, solid story-telling, and tools allowing players to bring their own D&D content online. Fast forward to today where a new title, simply named Neverwinter, has been announced for just over two years. It’s travelled a shaky road to be sure, originally planned as an online co-op title to be published by Atari in 2011. While the developer, Cryptic Studios (Champions Online, Star Trek Online), hasn’t changed, it’s now a F2P MMORPG expected out next year from publisher Perfect World.

At its core, Neverwinter’s is an action RPG with an over-the-shoulder 3rd person camera. Abilities use a slotting system, similar to Guild Wars 2 or Diablo 3, where you have a limited hotbar in which to place your abilities. The ruleset is now 4th Edition D&D, versus 3.5 in the standalone PC titles, which actually meshes quite well with the limited hotbar. At-Will abilities, those with no cooldown, are mapped to the mouse buttons while Encounter and Daily powers are mapped to keys. Cryptic wants to keep the emphasis on the action and keep the moment-to-moment decisions more meaningful, and from playing it on the show floor, Cryptic has done a great job to that end.

Gameplay mechanics have been released for awhile however, and what Cryptic was focusing on behind closed doors was the Foundry toolset for creating User Generated Content. Many level editors and content creation tools can be a pain to use; I still have harrowing memories of trying to use a level editor for the original Descent. They’ve recognized this, and the Foundry tools have a massive emphasis on accessibility. All of the tools are run from within the game engine, so there’s no separate executable to run when you want to play as Dungeon Master. This also makes it very easy to jump in and test your own content as a player before you publish it to the rest of the world.

Almost all of the tools use a simple drag-and-drop interaction, whether it’s adding quest objectives, creating NPC dialogue trees, or designing a new dungeon to explore. The majority of NPCs and objects in the game world are available to use as quest components, and you’ll be able to customize the text for the mission tracker and for the dialogue of NPCs flagged as part of your quest. Building dungeons is as simple as picking rooms and dropping them next to each other, with the connecting walls immediately being replaced by doors. You can also choose to have the rooms immediately populated by theme-appropriate objects (furniture, bookshelves, etc.) to fill out the atmosphere.

As you’re designing the content, the Foundry tools will give you feedback on everything you’ll need to make it a valid mission from start-to-finish, and how much customization you want to provide after that is at your own discretion. For those that want to dig into the nitty-gritty, there are more advanced modes available for almost every component. As previously mentioned, you can customize all of the dialogue on NPCs flagged for your quest, and you have the opportunity to make huge looping dialogue trees if you so desire. Dungeons can be redecorated down to every piece of furniture and wall styles. Also, Critters dropped into your dungeons generally come from templates, such as “Easy, Drow, Melee”, but advanced options will expose a huge array of sliders to tweak them just the way you want.

Once you’ve created your content, or if you’re just a player looking to pick up someone else’s missions, there are several options available. If you want to jump into UGC fast there’s an in-game menu which will allow you to search and sort missions based on your own criteria (location, author, level, rating, etc.). Those who want a little more immersion can head to a job board at the local tavern, or better yet, talk to the bar keep who will only hand out missions relevant to the player’s current location. Authors will have to label their content with a suggested level, although it wasn’t clear if that restricts them from filling a level 20 quest with kobolds or a level 1 quest with ancient dragons. However, loot and experience is determined by the critters in the content to maintain balance in rewards (you can’t force a pack of rats to drop Vorpal swords, sorry). Players will have the ability in-game to rate and reward authors for content they enjoyed, and every author will have an in-game blog to post updates about what they’re currently working on.

I’ll admit Neverwinter had slipped off my radar, but it’s very much back on it after seeing and hearing about it at the show. It will be free-to-play from the ground up, with the usual pay-for boosts found in other F2P titles. No official release date has been announced as of yet, but they’re currently shooting for early next year (mostly like 1H 2013).

[Ghostbear]

I had a really great time playing this at the show. I'll definitely be playing this upon release.

[Lint of Death]

I had no idea it had changed to MMO or F2P. I just want to get my 4E on, dammit! Sign me up.

[Deadend]

So if it's sticking close to 4e rules, Cryptic can't nerf everything into oblivion, right? right?

[UWCrash]

To be fair, a lot of people would say that they've already nerfed it by USING 4e rules.

[Shieldmaiden]

Thanks for this. It had definitely dropped off my radar (repeatedly) but it does sound interesting.

[torrefaction]

I've actually been super hyped for this. I was just talking about this to a good friend the other day.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk 2

[Deadend]

Originally Posted by UWCrash

To be fair, a lot of people would say that they've already nerfed it by USING 4e rules.

but in 4e, everyone is powerful.

Based on Champions, I expect the game to start with shooting magic missiles and blowing up a dozen Kobolds at a time as a wizard, then a patch to come out and Barbarians have to run away in fear from 2 lv1 rats.

[Panthera]

We all knew that 4e was better suited for an MMO than P&P anyway.

[Goronmon]

I like how they are trying to set this up. Will definitely be checking this out when it gets closer to release.

[Chaos Machine]

Originally Posted by Panthera

We all knew that 4e was better suited for an MMO than P&P anyway.

I agree and have no issues with them using 4e for an mmo. Personally I love 3.5 for pnp but even that is pretty damn broken if you are a minmaxer. I mean you can build a Centaur WarHulking Hurler that can literally throw mountains.