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[Jimmy]

So for those not following the latest news in the MMO world, there's going to be a new kid on the block soon. After a long and troubled history, the latest in Dungeons and Dragons themed MMORPG games will apparently launch this year.

To sum up some of the history behind this game:

In 2003, Atari and Turbine team up to launch a MMORPG themed on the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset by Wizards of the Coast. With Atari as publisher and Turbine as developer, the game launched at the end of February 2006 as Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach.

The game fares poorly after launch. Several key developers within the Turbine group leave the team to work on other projects. The game rolls along until October 2008, when a long drought of content updates begins. Turbine remains tight-lipped on their plans until announcing in June 2009 that the game will convert to a free-to-play model with a micro-transaction store providing the game revenue. Meanwhile, Atari buys Cryptic Studios in December 2008, the publisher of City of Heroes, Champions Online (to be released 2009) Star Trek Online(to be released 2010) and a third MMORPG game as-yet unannounced (to be released 2011).

In August of 2009, Turbine launches a $30M lawsuit against Atari, claiming Atari is sabotaging the company in various ways and alleging Atari is undercutting the company in preparation to launch their own D&D MMORPG. Atari counter-sues Turbine claiming they're withholding money owed them in game revenue.

Atari announces in August 2010 that Cryptic Studios will release a Neverwinter game in 2011 that will support between one to five players questing together, but not in the traditional MMORPG sense.

This of course agitates the lawsuit with Turbine, which drags on until an out of court settlement shortly after Turbine is acquired by Warner Bros in April 2010 (the theory is they actually wanted the company for their MMO of the Lord of the Rings, which WB owns all other rights to, and didn't really care about their D&D franchise). There's also another shitstorm between Atari and Hasbro over partnership with Namco Bandai, resulting in them getting slapped with another lawsuit, the result of which mean Atari cannot create any further D&D games. Cryptic Studios posts net losses of $18M and $7.5M for the last two financial years, prompting Atari to announce it as a discontinued operation in May 2011 and seek someone to buy it off of them. The release of Neverwinter gets delayed. Atari ends up selling off Cryptic Studios to Chinese MMORPG company Perfect World less than a month later for $50M.

Cryptic announces in October 2011 that they will actually publish Neverwinter as a true MMORPG using a free-to-play model right from the start, similar to many of the other titles in the Perfect World franchise. The significant changes this will entail mean the game release is delayed, first to 2012, then to 2013.

In February 2013 Neverwinter hosts its first beta weekend. A second beta weekend is held in March. A third is planned at an unspecified point in the future, with signs that the game is nearing launch.

So, now that the history of the game is out in the open, what's the verdict on this one?

[hemmingjay]

I have played it since Alpha and it's very good for a F2P. It's a bit limited in character creation and class roles, but that makes group dungeons fun like the old days of D&D with some action combat. The content created by the dev team is good, but the real gem of this one will be the user created(FORGE) content. The company worked out the kinks on Star Trek Online(ugh) and the FORGE is pretty fully realized now.

This will be a pretty decent F2P option for many but I don't expect it to be one of the years top games. I am confident that it will outlast Marvel Heroes though.

[Therolyn]

Been keeping a casual eye on this for a while now. I'm curious to find out how it turns out, but as a long term dabbler in the NWN community, I feel that Neverwinter will not scratch the same itches that NWN ever did.

Overall, not really expecting anything fantastic but I feel that some of my mates opinion on things related to Neverwinter aren't really justified.

[Jimmy]

Here's a beta video from one of my favorite YouTube game reviewers.

http://WTF Is... : Neverwinter (Beta) (Hyper WTF Edition) ?

Overall the gameplay footage seems pretty smooth, though certainly not anything amazing. One of my dislikes is rooting the character during attacks, reducing the options for kiting and moving ranged combat. I'd also be interested to see if there's going to be inbuilt voice chat support for parties or if this will only be available through third party clients like TeamSpeak. I found the lack of voice chat profoundly reduced my interest in Guild Wars 2.

[Rilder]

Just a bump to let people know this is in Open Beta now, wasn't really following but might try it out for a few minutes.

http://nw.perfectworld.com/

[shadenight123]

playing on Beholder as Shadenight123
can say that it's a nice game, with maybe a limited set of skills per character, but it doesn't make the game any less playable.
I'm playing as a Guardian fighter, so I don't pretty much see any difference with D&D rulesets, but I suppose a mage would scream in horror at the lowered spells.
IT's not a Neverwinter sequel or anything remotely similar though, but if the user content is kept in a good way, and events and what-not are inserted, it might keep on being fun to play until capping, and maybe for a bit afterwards.

[Neonivek]

with maybe a limited set of skills per character, but it doesn't make the game any less playable

If anything it seems to make the game more playable. By focusing on a few skills rather then an entire keyboard of them it means that the game is more about using the few skills you have very well.

There is a sizable difference between the players who treat the game like a standard MMO and those who grasp the action oriented aspects.

[intense]

I`ll make it easier for you guys. There is no neverwinter in neverwinter online. It is a trap and a wow clone. If you remotely like dnd you are stuck with ddo online or your fat buddies for now, If you prefer the latter this is actually a decent clone.

[Rilder]

If you remotely like dnd you are stuck with ddo online or your fat buddies for now.

Nice job ruining any sort of credibility with your opinion.

[Bikari]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gunna be honest, I wasn't expecting cryptic to pull this together. But they made a decent, playable game.

And combat is mostly skill based, rather than 'right click spam hotkeys' I can very easily fight on par with things above my level because my tiefling can teleport out of the way. At the very least, it's a small download and free so if nothing else it's worth playing.

And thus far, in no way have I seen it even graze WoW-Clone, DDO-clone maybe ( The intro was almost carbon copy ) but WoW... Ahahahahano.

If I was going to sum it up. DDO is 3rd edition, Neverwinter is 4th edition and they've streamlined the game into something playable for people of varying knowledge of the D&D system and world without DDO's massive list of feats and skills. My only gripe however is that character creation doesn't have pointbuy, it's random rerolls.

[shadenight123]

It is more action oriented than Wow most certainly.
Few skills, but using them well (as well as the Block feature for the Guardian) makes for quite the way of survival.
Only randomly slashing will get you nowhere, while knowing when to block and avoid circle-areas will make even difficult fights somewhat 'I can manage it if I'm careful'.
Even playing alone, against two 'Enforcers' of Nasher, I still managed to hold my ground and eventually win. Plus there isn't much difference I'm seeing (at present) between 'paid content' and 'not paid' content.
And the lore as well as 'bonus treasures' are a nice thing to find out. (like sewer area)
Furthermore since quests aren't repeatable dungeons, it gives off a more nice 'levelling up' field than the DDO 'rinse and repeat dungeon for EXP'
And man, do I love the satisfying popping up of damage I'm doing, like Shield Bash+Griffon attack that goes all "SLAM! SLAM-SLAM!" (double charge, so double attack)
Love it.
And the 'Charge' with the Q... "Hey there! Running? Lol no!" *charge!*

[Rilder]

Have to say its a pretty fun mmo, especially like the combat which is rather nice for a mmo.  Can definitely tell its the same engine as Star Trek Online and shares a few nice features from it but its definitely its own game.

I can't help thinking they could use the starship combat from STO to add some naval combat to the game.