[Review] Neverwinter: An Astral Diamond in the Rough

SBFord

 Neverwinter is one of the first blockbuster titles to arrive in 2013. With over a month of game time, we are ready to present our official review. See what you think before heading to the comments to discuss your own experiences in the game.

Cryptic Studios released Neverwinter just over a month ago. While publisher Perfect World called it an “open beta”, the company had no issues taking players’ money for Zen used to purchase virtual items in the shop. Whenever that happens, the game is, in our mind, released. And so, today’s review culminates our month-long journey in and around the Sword Coast, most notably in Neverwinter and its immediate surroundings. Tag along with us as we synthesize our four Beta Diary articles (linked below) into our official MMORPG.com review of Neverwinter.

Read more of Suzie Ford's Neverwinter: An Astral Diamond in the Rough.

Randayn

I've played since closed beta and think you hit the nail on the head.   It's wildly fun, but frustrating when looking at the pricing on things (not just zen shop but astral diamond purchases as well).  

That's my only complaint though and i've had tons of fun without purchasing anything from the market other than a few bags for extra storage.

Doogiehowser

I agree with your final assessment and the score. Personally i give it 8 and even though i am having a blast in the game the prices in cash shop do irk me occasionally but not enough to ruin my game experience. After all i know i don't need that expensive flashy mount or purple companion to play the game.

It is disappointing a bit because i want to support Cryptic but at current prices i just can not open my wallet.

I actually sometimes feel too cheap for not spending a dime on the game and having two maxed out characters. But when i look at the prices of items i slowly put my credit card back in my pocket.

 

mcrippins

Agree with the overpriced cash shop. I actually use it. I'm really enjoying the game.. but $10 for a large bag is kinda rough. 

uller30

I must say that I agree with your idea for NWN. It's good some glaring issues and also it needs more work to live past the current iteration of the game. A 7/6.5 is well deserved but its good and fun and free at the end if the day save for cash shop items so out if wack. It's crazy.

marz.at.play

I agree with the score. Good review. 'nuff said.

Battlerock

I agree with your score but for different reasons. The cash shop and zen exploits bring it down to a 7 imo. If this would have been buy to play and didnt have the exploit I would have rated this a 9 +

Combat is addictive and I too draw the diablo like feeling only with much much better combat and mmo action controls instead of mouse clicking. It doesnt hurt that I play a dwarf guardian fighter either and all the fire gives it a diablo feel but with action combat.

They could have adopted the gw2 pay model easily here and minus the exploit Neverwinter would have been top dog easiliy until ESO or Wildstar drops.

I have to say a few things about my perslective as well. Number 1 I do not pvp in this game because I refuse to pvp in a p2w atmospherd so all things considered I do not pvp keep that in mind. Number 2 I g r anted myself immunity to the zen exploit. In my shoes it didnt make a lick of difference. I am a casual player I level at a very slow pace and I havent spent one dime "yet" on a f2p game including this one. This game may very well be the icebreaker for me to accept f2p.

Overall great game, sorry if you got burnt by the zen exploit but if you can look past that and the pay model, Neverwinter is a solid game that is addictingly fun.

rodingo

I would say it's a fair score of the game, considering it's still in "beta".  I know, I know.   I think in time Cryptic will eventually make some good improvements to the game like in STO, and if you look at the low points in the review you can see it's very doable.  I think the Neverwinter we see now will be greatly improved in 6 months or so.  The good thing?  You don't have to keep a sub current to check in on the game every now and again.

SBFord

Originally posted by rodingo
I would say it's a fair score of the game, considering it's still in "beta".  I know, I know.   I think in time Cryptic will eventually make some good improvements to the game like in STO, and if you look at the low points in the review you can see it's very doable.  I think the Neverwinter we see now will be greatly improved in 6 months or so.  The good thing?  You don't have to keep a sub current to check in on the game every now and again.

Exactly. I plan to keep a close eye on the game and will publish an update once the game hits "official release". We will also keep an active column going that will focus on any changes/additions that Cryptic makes over time.

 

Panzerbase

Wildstar and/or ES are basically going to toss this into the garbage dump, it had a great deal of potential but alas greed and stupidity did NW in.

red_cruiser

Forgot to mention the terrible PWI customer service.  It's been well over a month now and I still haven't gotten help with some of the issues that I've come across in game.

When that involves things like "Why can't I log in and play?" and "What happened to my ZEN?", I unfortunately will not be playing anything released by PWI ever again. 

Nekky_Fate

Everyone I know has already quit this game. I had 40-45 members in my guild and maybe 2 or 3 still log in. Same with some other guilds I know. They had a lot of potential but did a terrible job with this game.

veccon

I have to say the PVP is hardly a "glaring issue", nor is it a critical one. This game screams PVE, with the Foundry and dungeon-crawling and what-not. There are no factions, and the entire city is at war with the undead. Honestly, if you're so interested in fighting each other, go play a PVP game, and let my PVE game develop unhindered by tacked-on PVP.

mmobootsy

I found the graphics good too, that is to say, how the game world is crafted. Indeed quite atmospheric, and certainly not to the game's detriment.

 

I found the combat (at least as a Great Weapon Fighter) quite repetitive; it's button mashing basically, until the action power bar is filled, hit that, return to button mashing, and so on. Not as interesting as I'd hoped, the only other dextrous part is getting out of the way of AoE attacks by mobs. That too is hardly enough to keep combat fresh and exciting.

 

Lastly, and this is more of a personal preference, I like open world games. Neverwinter is basically all instanced, except the main hubs. And here it's ridiculously crowded. This makes the game feel disjointed to me, which is a shame, because I am a D&D (and Forgotten Realms) player of 25 years and would have liked to be able to roam Faerûn freely, not hopping from cage to cage, so to speak.

CyclopsSlayer

7 seems fair, if a bit generous.  PvE play is fine for the most part, but the limited class selection, restriction of build paths (1 Paragon??) Those are all down checks to me. You see so many skill choices, only to find that many if not most are vastly inferior leading to one-true-path builds.

Add in the PvP balance, exploits, TINY contained world, cost to assemble end-game Enchantments ($10 or a 1% chance per step???), and it would be lucky to get a 6 from me.

Unknown

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by rodingo
I would say it's a fair score of the game, considering it's still in "beta".  I know, I know.   I think in time Cryptic will eventually make some good improvements to the game like in STO, and if you look at the low points in the review you can see it's very doable.  I think the Neverwinter we see now will be greatly improved in 6 months or so.  The good thing?  You don't have to keep a sub current to check in on the game every now and again.

Exactly. I plan to keep a close eye on the game and will publish an update once the game hits "official release". We will also keep an active column going that will focus on any changes/additions that Cryptic makes over time.

 

I suspect we will all be bored of it by the time it "officialy releases". The critical must be added stuff can't come soon enough imo. I'm already just logging in once in awhile just to queue leadership tasks.

Caldrin

Not a bad review but i would not call the combat system addictive unless iam totally missing something i find it pretty boring after a bit..

BigCountry

"Neverwinter is not a particularly social game, though it has potential. There is little reason to group with others, though progress as a solo player, even at the latter stages of the game, is much slower than it is with at least one other player."

 

I give this game 2 months tops before it collapses. If your not going to create a socially centric game, your not really creating a mmorpg. All your doing is creating a single player game with multiplayer content.

 

atuerstar

Every review you do is 5+. So if I remove your baseline bloat we have a score that is 2 out of 5 for Neverwinter.

 

In this light it is reasonable, a below average game whose saving grace, the foundry, is slightly outstripped by the horrific greed of the monetization model. Yep 2 out of 5 sounds right.

theniffrig

Yeah it's about a 6 or 7 in my opinion. I think the greed of the cash shop is one of the games biggest problems plus the balance of the game is totally out-of-whack in both pve & pvp. The exploits with the AH & astral diamonds & how it was all handled  turned off a lot of people, and rightly so.

Cryptics hardware and frequent maintenance's with Neverwinter & their other games since it's launch is another problem the company seems to be having. As I write this, all 3 of their MMO's (NW, CO & STO) are in maintenance for the next few hours. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!

Anyway, the review score is fair & correct in my opinion.

Septdeez

Played this game like crazy till level 41 then I realized that the cash shop was an exercise in extortion and I stopped playing and moved on. If they fix the cash shop I would come back for sure as I really enjoy the game.

Xarnthal

Good review IMO. I'd give Gameplay an 8, Innovation a 5,  and Longevity a 7. Foundry only goes so far. There needs to be points docked for their failure to detect the exploits in the Astral Diamond market that *still* exist. 

The cash shop is horrendous and the inventory management system is even worse with how they restrict your bag space but force gems/runestones/enchants into your bags.

 

Overall I'd give it a 6, maybe a 5.5, but not a 7. It's got potential, but you consistently feel the greed of the company while you're playing due to the need for bags, mounts, etc.

 

 

kakasaki

Good review overall. My opinion of the game is that it is a shallow but fun casual game. It''s like candy: great in small doses, sickening in large. 

Prayr

Great review, I for one have pulled out for some of the very reasons you say the game lacks. Being a founder, I did give the game every opportunity to be a hit in my eyes. I think that its PWI that has ruined it for me.

DrDwarf

How is the detail "amazing" when it is repeated all over the world becasue they reuse the same skins and models ?

How is the detail "amazing" when we compare it to what has come before in similar MMORPGs ?

 

 

JudgeUK

I would not have scored Polish as high. To me, polish is the overall quality - which includes Class bugs, quest bugs, dungeon bugs, level and significance of any exploits.

To say that this is one of the most bugged and exploitable games recently launched may be a bit harsh. But would it be that inaccurate?

Having bugs, and in this case specifically exploits, is one thing. How the company deals with them is another. The stand out one of the AHAD exploit resulted in a rollback of a few hours - when it had been happening for weeks. It was only that it blew up on the 19th that forced PWE to do something about it. In fact the same negative bidding exploit was in STO, the same exploitable AH model was just blindly carried across.

Mention is made of the need to introduce new classes - I would ask them to focus on sorting out the current ones before bringing more unfinished ones into the game. Sweep up behind, before moving on. Something is not right when groups can ignore having a tank in the group, just running with Clerics and CWs.

BUT, by far the biggest issue for me is this Open Beta tag. As you say, if the cash shop is open then it is launched. But this Beta tag is just used in some cases, as a tawdry excuse for countess bugs and exploits.