Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
I think you're seeing an MMO (loosely) based on Neverwinter and Faerun lore, but without any close adherence to any of the rule sets. This doesn't surprise me, actually.
They're making narrow "stovepipe" classes with few development options so that it can be somewhat balanced for both pve and pvp. If there are only a few builds there can't be any surprise! trick-builds that are OP. If there were, even very modest ones, an MMO player base would rapidly find and focus on those builds.
The DnD rulesets work really well in a table top or pseudo turn-based game like NWN1, but I can see where the NW MMO developers would throw it all out almost immediately in favor of a more real-time model; it's what the majority of their customer base will demand, and those who're more rule-set purists aren't present in large enough numbers to push the financial scales of an MMO around significantly. I'm sure they'll pay lip service to the foundations; names of powers and weapons and all that, and maybe even you'll see vestiges of dice rolls in the combat logs; but that would be it. Point your targeting cursor and click your mouse fast. Now, I play Tera these days, and that system can work, even for less skillful players like myself. I'll withhold judgment until I play it.
What I'm more concerned about is the amount of support for roleplay features. Clothing, emotes, environment interaction, walking, sitting, standing, housing, rp-prop objects and so on. And also chat control. As a roleplayer in an MMO, my ignore lists usually gets long. How long can it be? How are custom chat channels, if any, supported? How about guilds and guild facilities? To me, these issues and similar ones outweigh the mechanical rules&powers&spells questions.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
I've been playing the beta, and have been enjoying it. I haven't noticed many actual bugs, though the design of the game takes some getting used to. I'll put together a more full review after this weekend. However, one thing I've found is what looks like a full class list.
Presently, only a few classes can be played: Devoted Cleric, Guardian Fighter, Control Wizard, Trickster Rogue, and Great Weapon Fighter.
Others (might?) include: Iron Vanguard, Hellbringer, Divine Oracle, Spellstorm Mage, Master Infiltrator, and Swordmaster.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
The classes are narrowly focused; but they do leave some freedom in them.
That being said, I've made it a ways into the leveling, and the customization of powers is very limited. There is choice of which powers to have available at any given time -- you only have a handful of UI powers slots, and so you have to choose which to keep ready.
Another gripe I have is that very quickly the equipment drops overshadow your build choices. If you build badly, but pick up good equipment, you'll hardly notice the bad build. This is probably on purpose. I'm looking to see if I can specialize my character through equipment choices, and still be viable. Other MMO's I've played had one best item for a given equipment slot for a class; and if you went off that, you would suffer severely relative to those who just followed the herd.
The combat is okay; it started very slow and robotic seeming; but now that my character has a few extra powers, it's more varied and fun. It is sort of action-y, but as I play Tera a lot, I have to say NWO comes in a distant second to it. In Tera, if you're quick and watch for the tell-tales and patterns of enemy attacks, you can dodge, flip, interrupt, teleport, backstep, and so on, to avoid it or gain even better positional advantage. You can do a little of this in NWO, but ... server and client timing isn't managed nearly well enough to pull it off. You can appear to get out of the way of an attack, and still take damage -- that rarely happens on Tera, even to my friends there with hundred+ ms pings.
In comparison to a grinder like Tera, NWO's quests are fantastic. They're still kind of linear and they do pigeon-hole one into a heroic storyline.
On the other hand, I have played a few "Foundry" quests made by other players, and the integration of user-generated content into NWO is fantastic. That will make the game endure even if the built-in content of the game never improves past where it is today. I expect the Foundry will make the otherwise passable NWO into a solid choice for a roleplayer's MMO.
The community is the usual ass-hattery beta MMO crew at present. Since there's a random name generator, the creatively challenged people haven't swarmed in with lore-inconsistent names so badly as they could have. Also, while there's a single server, it has dozens of separate channels (or whatever they're called) where one can find a respite from the crush of non-roleplayers.
The armor and costuming isn't all that impressive visually, but certainly does the job. Female armor seems pretty plain to me; but then again I'm jaded by Tera's combat-lingerie armor styling. A few people in the forums have complained that armor is too revealing, and as God is my witness, I hope those people never log into Tera, or they'll need medical attention.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
Appearance is initially tied to equipment, but there's a remodeling system in place, but I haven't been able to work with it much. There's provision for altering the form of an item to match another item of the same type, or to use a dye to change the color. There's also options to suppress the visuals on certain pieces of gear, such as helmets.
There's a town-clothes system too, and the basic outfit looks pretty decent. Just plain peasant gear, but not embarrassing to wear.
The armor pieces and weapons have very good levels of detail, and don't look silly. The artists tried for a more serious, realist style, and I think they achieved it without being too dull. The character models seem a bit heavy, even when body models are set to thin, but that might just be my Tera experience showing, where all humanoid races are rockstars or supermodels.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
I've played a decent amount of time now, using two classes. I've played Great Weapon Fighter up to level 25, and Control Wizard to level 15.
GWF is what you'd expect; a greatsword-wielding fighter with high DPS output and medium armor. The class is fun, but had a very slow start. At first, it seemed I only had one attack with exactly one animation. It seemed like that because it was that. As I slowly leveled up, the monotony of the resulting fighting style improved. I had a lot of difficulty adapting to the dodge mechanic, but eventually worked out how to make the controls perform for me. The class burns through healing potions; or it did until level 16 and the arrival of the companion (henchman) I chose a cleric, which really helped balance my play out. You can choose from among a number of companions, including animals and what-not; and even have a variety of them on-call. It's not enough to pair a companion up and expect to do the party content, but it makes the solo content much smoother. By level 25, fighting with the GWF felt very smooth and tactical; choosing from the attacks to sequence them for effectiveness and finding the best tactical positions.
The Control Wizard is a gem. It's a combination of crowd-control and DPS that just works, right from the first levels. Once one gets the teleport dodging down, it's very capable, and feels very magical in the spells and animations. I soloed a level 16 boss at level 14 over the course of ten minutes while out of potions. It was hectic, crazy, nerve-wracking, painstaking, and fun. The class has one big gripe from me -- the casting animation looks weird when one is leaving combat mode and then walking. It looks like ... the crab-doctor from Futurama walking. The Zoidberg Effect. Minor gripe overall; really. And enough people have called them out on it, I expect it will be changed for the better by Launch.
I felt both classes leveled too fast, and that the main quest-lines were too limited. I ran out of quests at my level a few times; which in a MMO like Tera, meant that some painful grinding was at hand. Not so in NWO; I turned to the Foundry system (by talking to Harper agents who give tie-ins to the player-made content) and was able to catch back up to the built-in content easily and without grinding at all. I hope they reduce the quest reward XP somewhat by launch; getting to level 25 in a dozen hours just seems too fast to me. Of course, with a level cap of sixty, and with sixty supposed to map to the normal D&D level 20, making it to level eight in a weekend of heavy play doesn't sound so bad. Maybe it slows down more at higher levels; I don't know, I didn't get that far.
The game has quite a few systems which seem to be well integrated, with a sensible UI that's meant to be both capable and approachable. You can get help on things, or ignore the overly helpful parts. The Foundry system of player-content is fantastic. Character customization is there, and has a lot more too it that I had expected. Likely not so much as in NWN1, or pen-and-paper D&D, but it's a good fit for an MMO. One can make characters that are different and even unique, and still be viable in the level ranges I got to. There's a lot missing from this point, as it's still just a beta; for instance, crafting. What I could see of it looked promising. Also, gear appearances all seemed pretty generic, and some gear was even mislabeled.
Overall, the game's client was stable and functioning very highly -- it shows a lot of polish and attention to detail. I don't like the character models and animations, but the rest of the graphics are very good. The mechanical rules the game follows are recognizably D&D, but modified for the MMO environment and action-combat system. The action-combat system grew on me, and I've come to appreciate it more since starting. It's still no Tera, but NWO offers a lot more content wise that Tera does.
One more gripe; the explorable world is limited. It really is just pockets of 4th Ed. Neverwinter city and a few areas around it. And yet the game works, because I didn't expect fifty huge areas like Gw2, and the areas that NWO are filled with environment and content nodes; most or even all of which can be hooked to for player-content.
I'm excited; the Foundry system means a group of roleplayers will be able to develop and follow their own story-lines in ways that MMO's without player-content systems just can't provide. There is no live-DM'ing capability. But, a Foundry author can achieve "DM" badges by creating player content.
Considering this game is going to cost nothing but the download time for basic play, I can't see a reason to skip it. There are two levels of paid in advance premium memberships, which basically give out fancy titles, a few unique bonuses, and a load of cash shop items as a steep discount. What I'm calling basic play is advertised to be the entire game system; as there's a way to acquire their cash shop currency via in-game means. Except for the handful of unique premium items and unlocks, the whole game ought to be there.
[ The Island of Thain ]
Neverwinter MMO
