Neverwinter Previews

Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment are busy showing off Neverwinter on the show floor of E3, and that means we have a few hands-on previews to take in across the web.

Kotaku:

Longtime Dungeons and Dragons fans may be surprised to see the newest incarnation of the storied franchise. Neverwinter is a free-to-play action-oriented MMO, meaning it’s much more hair-trigger and less concerned with the detailed architecture of a character and its actions than more traditional, pen-and-paper inspired games.

Neverwinter Takes a Fast-Paced, Streamlined Stab (and Swing, and Zap) at D&D The game, bluntly, is streamlined. And in a day where I saw more than one action MMO, Neverwinter was still the most pared down. Gone are the wide-ranging hotbars and overwhelming skill sets of traditional MMO types. In the demo, the producer speaking with us explained that ultimately, most players tended to rely on the same six or seven skills in general anyway, and so the extras more or less wilted away in favor of a quicker experience.

VentureBeat:

Delivering fresh experiences on a regular basis can be a challenge for MMO developers. Often, eager players blast through all available content in record time and then complain on official forums that the game has become stale. The Foundry has the potential to change all of that by offering an endless supply of user-generated dungeons, quests, and stories.

Of course, the downside to player-created content is quality control. Cryptic has thought of that, however, and plans to implement a dynamic rating system to separate the best from the worst.

And Singju Games:

The opportunity to choose the race (Drow, Elf, Half Elf, Human, Dwarf, tiefling) and class (Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue)’s avatar before adjusting its appearance. As for roles, Cryptic has favored traditional profiles. One can thus create his character so that it is specialized with tank, DPS or heal. To do this, when you win a level the level cap is set at 60 was able to boost different characteristics: charisma, constitution, dexterity, strength, intelligence and wisdom.

Obviously, as we progress, it also unlocks different skills. On quests, play resumes the usual pattern of modern MMORPG. We talk to the NPC capped with an exclamation point, it grabs the mission they entrust to us by caring more or less what the interlocutors tell and it moves on. Overall, the objectives to be fulfilled were not at all exciting. We had to kill a given number of enemies, go retrieve that object to such a place and so on.