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1 Month Review - Because any longer would have been insanity!
fistorm
Member UncommonPosts: 868
Let me tell you first about the games mechanics, then then the good and bad. For me the bad outwieghed the good, but I hope you find this review helpful in your decisions to play this game.
1. Zones - Zones in this game are set up as instnaces with a decent amount of play area in each zone, there is 20 or so zones on your path to max level (60). The zones all are differant looking, with all of the same basic merchants in them and base npc's to them, such as consumables, faction merchants, and campfires (for praying and healing). Each zone has a chain of quests with a main questline to each zone.
2. Gameplay - The gameplay is pretty cool with feats, and paragon trees. Alot of resemblance to World of Warcraft and Rift type of gameplaying. Enemies use speical attacks which project a red target area on the ground you have to move out of fast or you'll end up taking huge damage. Roles in this game are pretty strange in the fact that sometimes you see Rogues and Clerics tanking most of the time. Some guilds even run top dungeons tankless. Some guilds have used nothing but clerics, so its not very tank/ healer dependant
3. Chat System - The chat system is a love/hate chat system. Players have been able to silence other players for 24 hours if they dont like what someone said. Thats right, you read that right. Other players who hate you can have you silenced for up to 24 hours at a time. The chat system allows players to report someone as spam, which was originally set up to fight gold sellers, but has now evolved into silencing players who talk in zone chat for malicious reasons. They also have an ignore feature and a friends feature. Once someone has been silenced they go onto your ignore list and are not able to speak in party chat, guild chat, say chat, and zone chat. BEWARE OF ABUSE OF THE CHAT REPORT SYSTEM.
4. Currency System - There is differant types of currency for differant things, the top four currencies used are Zen, Astral Diamonds, Glory, and Gold/Silver/Copper
Zen - is used to buy things from the zen marketplace such as bags, and beyond two 12 slot bags that are quested, WARNING: THE ONLY PLACE YOU CAN GET BAGS is off the zen market for $6-$10 dollars, this is probably one of the biggest turn offs to many people in the game.
Astral Diamonds (AD) - Astral Diamonds are the main currency for buying stuff on auction, all items on auction can only be put up for astral diamonds, WARNING: YOU CANNOT TRADE ASTRAL DIAMONDS WITH ANY OTHER PLAYER, the only way to trade astral diamonds is from putting an item on auction and LOSING 10% AUCTION HOUSE FEE. There is a Zen Exchange that you can trade your Astral Diamonds for Zen, which is 1 cent per zen. Currenty 380 astral diamonds are required for 1 Zen (1 cent).
Gold/Silver/Copper - This currency is used to buy consumables such as potions, Kits for locked chests in dungeons, and Wound/repair kits, and Crafting supplies like Coal. You'll constantly run out of this currency, MOBS DROP ONLY THIS CURRENCY NOT ASTRAL DIAMONDS.
5. PVP System - WARNING: PVP HAS ALOT OF AFK MEMBERS, AND OTHER PLAYERS CAN MALICIOUSLY KICK YOU OUT OF PARTY. The system is set up to take three control points long enough to gain 1000 points in time controled. There is usually your home point, a middle point and enemy base point. It can be alot of fun but also very horrible if you are kicked by a malicious player or have afk members on your time ensuring a loss.
6. Dungeon System - WARNING: PEOPLE CAN NINJA LOOT YOUR STUFF. People have been known commonly to roll on your class item. If the leader kicks them, they automaticly get the item during a roll. DO NOT KICK A NINJA LOOTER DURING A ROLL OR THEY AUTOMATICLY GET ITEM and after you fight one boss AUTO JOIN FEATURE DOES NOT ACCEPT ANOTHER PLAYER. So youll have to run the rest of the dungeon short a player which can be not impossible but almost impossible.
7. Customer Service - Non-existant, it will take you days to get a response and at times you wont recieve one at all, so your on your own, this can be extremly fustrating when your silenced for 24 hours or have a bigger problem then that. BEWARE: BETTER BUISNESS BUREAU HAS GIVEN PW AN "F" RATING.
CONCLUSION:
So there it is in a nutshell. People who dont talk much in zone chat wont have to worry about abuse of the chat system, if you dont pvp much you wont have to worry about afk players or being kicked maliciously, and if you run dungeons and dont mind everyone rolling on your stuff, not being able to trade astral diamonds with your friends or other players to avoid auction fees, or dont mind paying $10 dollars for a bag then this game is something you should try. Because is the fun that matters in a game and not all the bad things you can live with.
I enjoyed most of the game till the end of the month. Unfortunatly for me I could not live with the hassle of being silenced and a few other of the bad features, so I'm off to find the next game to review and make my home. Good luck if you decide to play this game and I wish you all well experiances.
Comments
I found it childish and arcade like.
You destroy an mmorpg when you can make your own instance and grind to level 60 without having to talk to another player or visit 99% of the game world.
When you are met by neon sparkles and huge bright red target markings, a ruined economy design that feels nothing like an open world.. this isnt worth spending $$ on and barely worth your time for a few weeks just to see what it is all about.
Perfect summarization, so you can imagine the frustrations felt by the founders of the game that paid for pre orders and perks. Total waste of money. Too bad too, was a great IP.
~I am Many~
Spot on m8.
Just taken a Cleric and a Rogue to 60 with 9.3k Gear Score each (high enough to get you in all 'Epic' instances), looking at playing something else even though I spent around 55 Euro's on it (mainly on respec's) as end game is very (IMO) boring due to similar fights and poor balances.
1 - Far too many currency types in addition to the ones mentioned by the OP there is also Tat-something Bars. Grinding gold at 60 is slow, very slow and you will need gold for Injury Kits and Pots.
2 - The crafting system is clunky and verrrryyyyy sloooowwww
3 - PvP, once you have ground your basic starter instance set, it is just ride around in in the figure of 8 trying to hold bases against Control Wiz's and rogues.
4 - Boss fights are very similar, Boss with special attack and large waves of ads with no real chance of threat/aggro management.
5 - Cleric healing/threat is broken, even with 46% reduction in threat generation on my cleric tanks cant hold threat off of you add Point (4) can be pretty expensive in Injury Kits and Pots.
6 - Creating a build is full of holes (on the cleric at least) the (main) power descriptions are just completely wrong in places. You pick a power thinking "yeah I can see how that will work healing" and it doesn't work that way then you have to PAY RL cash to respec, currently $6 a pop.
7 - The Auction House interface is a joke. Use the external to game web client, which works, on the whole.
8 - Queue systems are basic, I won't queue on my cleric due to extreme lack of tanking and on my rogue I've ended up in 5 man DPS groups.
The fun for me in this game is the leveling, some of the Foundry runs (Bill's Tavern is a 'scream') and early level PvP. The first two thirds of the maps are good fun getting progressively harder, as in you are OP at the start and at the later third you get a hard fight now and again. I did on my rogue all the quests, the 'mini' instances (solo), some PvP which gives good XP some full instances and skirmishes and I found that at 38 there was a gap till 42 in quest levels. The last two areas are a bit stiff, Mount Hotenow, second last is a rude awakening, mobs agro much further away and they hit hard, too much of a jump IMO but that alone I could excuse in a beta, however with all the rest too many rough edges, more an Alpha as far as I'm concerned.
And there lies one of the many glaring problems, one of the most glaring in any case. They marketed this game being D&D when it can't be further from the truth. People wanted and came to Neverwinter on the false pretense that this will be a D&D MMO, not a WoW clone typical themepark on rails. Sure we are the few since a mob appeared when open beta started and the game is F2P but we were the vast majority when the game was in development.