Neverwinter: Cryptic's Dark Horse Rising

BillMurphy

Cryptic Studios has been quietly hacking away at Neverwinter for a couple of years now, barely showing anything to the outside world. Then this past weekend at PAX East, they came out of nowhere to shock fans and media alike with a polished, fun, and potentially epic MMORPG set in the Forgotten Realms. 

Cryptic Studios has something to prove. While both Champions Online and Star Trek Online eventually found their niche as "freemium" MMOs, each game had a lot of hype that wasn't quite met. It's not uncommon on this website to see commenters claim they'll never buy another Cryptic Studios product.  It's a good thing their next offering will be entirely free to play and published by Perfect World Entertainment.  And it's also a good thing that Neverwinter is absolutely and positively the most exciting MMORPG we saw at PAX East 2012. Polished, fun, and inventive (not to mention a D&D fan's nerd-haven) Neverwinter won our Game of Show with good reason.  Read on to learn about combat, setting, story, classes, character creation, PVP, the Foundry, and so much more.

Read the rest of Bill Murphy and Mike Bitton's Neverwinter: Cryptic's Dark Horse Rising.

kevjards

Got to say i,m quite impressed with whats seen so far.i,m a Neverwinter nights ,forgotten realms fan.so for PW to turn this into a fully fledged mmo is just a lot better than another STO ,just got to hope cryptic deliver what they are supposed to.The foundry on top is also excellent..i loved that in STO so hopefully there will be loads of stuff to do..can't wait..ever get the feeling there are too many games coming out this year.?

Ryowulf

Sounds great

DarkPony

Pretty damn awesome. We will be spoiled people at the end of this year.

I wonder what its P2W ratio will be though .. could be horendous, could be acceptable. But you can't really complain beforehand when even the game itself is free too, can you?

Looking forward to give it a shot.

BartDaCat

Originally posted by DarkPony

Pretty damn awesome. We will be spoiled people at the end of this year.

I wonder what its P2W ratio will be though .. could be horendous, could be acceptable. But you can't really complain beforehand when even the game itself is free too, can you?

Looking forward to give it a shot.

I feel spoiled already.

I've never seen so many titles that I've actually been excited about being released so close together like I'm seeing this year.

Nevulus

As a D&D fan, Forgotten Realms fan, I will support. But I was quite surprised on how well this looks. Then again we all know better than to get our hopes high before trying it out for ourselves. Can't wait to try it.

kevjards

Originally posted by DarkPony

Pretty damn awesome. We will be spoiled people at the end of this year.

I wonder what its P2W ratio will be though .. could be horendous, could be acceptable. But you can't really complain beforehand when even the game itself is free too, can you?

Looking forward to give it a shot.

This may sound stupid but when cryptic were with Atari they were under so many restrictions,money wise they were pretty much screwed when it came to STO.Atari coud,nt understand why cryptic wanted more money for content.but since PWE took over they have a lot more money to play with..crptic wont get away with empty promises this time..if they dont deliver they are pretty screwed.Has for the p2w scenario,if peeps are so desperate to do that, let them.i never worry about what other peeps are up to,i just concentrate on my own chars.but not having to pay helps me greatly.for the game i mean.unless its set out differentely than PWE games normally are.one thing for sure if its a lifetime sub i will not be touching it.

i put in another post about cryptic being crapped on by Atari..have a read if you can find it on my posts.its quite a good read.

DixonHill

I am willing to give Cryptic another chance, and i actually believe what Emmert said in Interviews shortly after revealing Neverwinter, how they want to change their design mentality, focus more on quality and stop just making "cryptic barebone game nr x - copys" for all eternity.

Since this game will be f2p, anyone who is even slightly interested in it, should give it a try as soon as it is released.

 

BartDaCat

Originally posted by kevjards

Originally posted by DarkPony

Pretty damn awesome. We will be spoiled people at the end of this year.

I wonder what its P2W ratio will be though .. could be horendous, could be acceptable. But you can't really complain beforehand when even the game itself is free too, can you?

Looking forward to give it a shot.

This may sound stupid but when cryptic were with Atari they were under so many restrictions,money wise they were pretty much screwed when it came to STO.Atari coud,nt understand why cryptic wanted more money for content.but since PWE took over they have a lot more money to play with..crptic wont get away with empty promises this time..if they dont deliver they are pretty screwed.Has for the p2w scenario,if peeps are so desperate to do that, let them.i never worry about what other peeps are up to,i just concentrate on my own chars.but not having to pay helps me greatly.for the game i mean.unless its set out differentely than PWE games normally are.one thing for sure if its a lifetime sub i will not be touching it.

i put in another post about cryptic being crapped on by Atari..have a read if you can find it on my posts.its quite a good read.

Infogrames/ATARI did this to a lot of franchises and licenses that they acquired.

I was a tester at their Sunnyvale, CA. facility when they were testing Neverwinter Nights (the first one) for BioWare, and they screwed it up so badly.  It was only through the seriously hardcore dedication of Bioware themselves that NWN made it out on time and in relatively good shape.  I was so embarassed to be a part of Infogrames when that happened.

Sadly, I feel like the same thing is happening to them again with EA, but I digress...

I'll definitely give Cryptic another chance.  I like what I'm seeing so far with Neverwinter.

marz.at.play

Release date?

kevjards

Originally posted by marz.at.play

Release date?

in the video he says end of the year with pvp coming in ,in 2013(early)

BillMurphy

Originally posted by marz.at.play

Release date?

Mentioned in both the video, and the article itself.  Later this year, with PVP in 2013.

Yuui

Originally posted by marz.at.play

Release date?

 

If you listen to the video in the article it says that beta is  "possibly" somewhere mid 2012 and release in late 2012, with PVP content "expansion" In early 2013

Pyuk

It's Cryptic - they'll find some way to screw it up. I'll wait until after the game ships and see what the reaction of the player base is before I get even remotely excited about this one., given Cryptic's track record.

Hedeon

hm cant believe am getting hyped on this game, considering it is from cryptic/PWE, havent enjoyed a single game from them....aiint much Ive seen or read about it, but that looked awesome

Beiloch

5 man raiding = no raiding. How can this possibly qualify as an MMO when the biggest multiplayer thing you can do is 5 man content? I mean it looks good otherwise, but looks and sounds terrible to be an 'MMO.' I guess 'MMO' is just for marketing buzz now.

 

Yuui

Originally posted by Beiloch

5 man raiding = no raiding. How can this possibly qualify as an MMO when the biggest multiplayer thing you can do is 5 man content?

 

5man parties is pretty much staple of DnD campaigns. They did say that they will have BIGGER things with more people, but the focus isto polish and put out the content indicated by title.

 

David_Lopan

This really is Cryptic's last chance and because of this I believe they will not drop the ball. To much riding on this one with the epic IP and all. We shall see.

Loke666

Originally posted by BillMurphy

Originally posted by marz.at.play

Release date?

Mentioned in both the video, and the article itself.  Later this year, with PVP in 2013.

Wow, they actually moved it back even more then. That is actually great news, originally they said summer 2011 and that would just have been another STO but here they might actually make a game worth playing.

I am glad Atari is out of the MMO business.

Yuui

Originally posted by Aquazen

This really is Cryptic's last chance and because of this I believe they will not drop the ball. To much riding on this one with the epic IP and all. We shall see.

 

I'd say this is Cryptic's first real chance at all.

Champions was decimated by Bill Roper (of Hellgate fame)

Atari has been known on "making fast bucks" and in that way killing game franchises. AT least 3/4ths of Age of Conan debacle rests of Atari investors forcing FC to rush the game out, for example. So STO was screwed from the start. 

From the details available, Cryptic folks have been VERY limited under Atari's thumbs, with pretty much non-existent budget. 

 

PWE it seems pretty much came to them and said "here's a buttload of money, make and polish game greatly and develop it as long as you want" (as indicated by Neverwinter getting delayed by a year last year)

 

I will judge Cryptic by Neverwinter. Its their first real chance to prove that they can make great games. 

Anireth

I like what i see. Wouldn't buy it just because of this video, but as it's F2P, if it still looks promising in half a year or so, i'll definively try it -unless i'm pre-occupied with some other game(s) that come out this year..

StoneRoses

Wow, this would redeem Cryptic in my book. Looks amazing!

Kyleran

OK, I confess, I was one of those who said I'd never support Cryptic, but I'll keep my eye on this, especially since it will be F2P.

Lobotomist

This is exactly the problem that mostly killed dnd as video game franchise.

For some insane reason known only to retarded investors they insist taking deeply tactical pen and paper game (with bigger fan base than starwars) and making it dumbed down arcade game. That appeals only to people that care nothing about dnd.

This was the reason,othervise good DDO originally tanked.

As for this, obviously reviewed by people with no knowledge of dnd, and with no knowledge of Cryptic

Vorthanion

Is slower paced RPG gaming a thing of history?  Are those of us who are sick and tired of action combat out of luck as the last genre is swallowed up whole by action junkies?  Every single RPG releasing this year is action oriented and it makes me really sad that players like me are being completely written off by the gaming industry.

BillMurphy

Originally posted by Lobotomist

This is exactly the problem that mostly killed dnd as video game franchise.

For some insane reason known only to retarded investors they insist taking deeply tactical pen and paper game (with bigger fan base than starwars) and making it dumbed down arcade game. That appeals only to people that care nothing about dnd.

This was the reason,othervise good DDO originally tanked.

As for this, obviously reviewed by people with no knowledge of dnd, and with no knowledge of Cryptic

 

I just have to disagree.  Both Mike and I play D&D (though maybe not hardcore as some), and as a fan of 4th Edition because of its innate MMO-feel, I think it translates really well to the action-based combat they have here.  

I also stated right at the beginning that Cryptic has something to prove, and the general feeling on the show floor with fans and media alike is that they're doing just that.

Be reserved if you will, dislike the direction sure, but don't knock it until you've tried it.