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[Bluerobin]

I think part of the dungeon abuse is toned down by the design of the system and part of it is just by manual curation. If a map becomes popular for grinding XP, it brings it to the devs' attention and it gets removed (from what I can tell). This doesn't stop people from doing it, but in the end it's free to play and other people powerleveling won't hurt my gaming experience so *shrug*.

[Shadowlord]

That doesn't really answer the question, but the comparison to STO is not encouraging. I was in its beta, and it was among the most poorly conceived and horribly implemented games I've ever played.

Have you tried it at all since then? STO is pretty much the only MMO that I have played much that I don't find terrible (but I never tried it until it went free to play). Of course, I don't actually play it that often.

[PrimusRibbus]

I guess I don't see what the problem is with people power levelling on Foundry content. One of the biggest problems in the MMORPG genre is pacing and grinding, particularly in mid-level content.

If the players have found a way to bypass the mid-level point of an MMORPG where you stop getting fast exp, and haven't accessed the crazy high level content yet, then good for them.

Sorry if I'm not hopeful that Neverwinter will somehow be different in regards to mid-level pacing; it's a fundamental genre design flaw that's present in 95%+ of MMORPGs. In other genres, if your community was attempting to mass skip most of the game, the designers would go back to the drawing board because it would be a giant red flag that that part of the game wasn't fun. If Neverwinter is fun, then players as a whole won't be "abusing" the Foundry.

[Astral]

It feels quite like Guild Wars 2 in the skill selection system and somewhat active combat, with the ever present WoW etched deep into the surface. The button layout takes some getting used to, with Q and E acting as active, cooldown based skills. DnD has very little influence on the game as a whole, with a small roster of typical classes (Rogue, Warrior in both Damage and Tank flavors, Mage, Cleric) restricting you into specific roles, rather than giving you the flexibility of being able to choose your path.

Gameplay wise, it's an MMORPG that's trying to copy success where it can find it. The Feat system is highly reminiscent of WoW's pre-Kung-Fu-Panda Talent Trees, in that they give tiny percentile increases rather than affecting your gameplay in any dramatic or meaningful way. There appear to be three "Paragons" for each class, which just mean you focus a little bit more toward certain skills and playstyles, with such great things as 10% more damage (after five points invested) from breaking stealth.

Early levels are spoonfed to you so you can adjust to the game in baby steps, as is normal for many games of this day and age. I haven't noticed a measurable increase in difficulty as I went along, and rarely need to dodge the big red circles that present themselves as anti stupidity measures for people who can't gauge the swings of enemies or the drawback time on an errant arrow.

I haven't played PvP yet, and will likely update this post at a later point once I figure out how to get through the somewhat obtuse interface to do so.

The decision to drag the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights storyline is confusing at best, as it only serves to give some background flavor to veterans of the series, and get in the way of the point of an MMORPG of this sort of caliber. That is, to level and get better numbers as your brain is rewarded with flashes of light and sound indicating a level up, or a bigger critical, or collecting fifty bear asses.

To quote Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee (regarding World of Warcraft, though it applies here as well):

I asked someone who raids,"'Why do you raid?"
"To get the best items," they said.
"What do you use the best items for?" I asked.
To which they could only answer, "To raid with!"
But it's not about items, is it. You don't honestly care if your new Crystal Nether Sword is going to clash with your Elite Boss Clogs, it's about the numbers. You want the items with the best numbers so you can use your numbers to decrease the enemy numbers until your numbers are the best in the land.

Overall, it's not different or engaging enough to warrant much attention from me. Maybe I'm simply burned out on MMOs, like a reformed con who went too hard for too long and I'm sick of the genre. But it is free to play (with Microtransactions to make your time investments come quicker!), and who knows, you might find something you like in it.

If you're expecting an MMO rendition of 3.5e, 4.0, Pathfinder or similar fare, prepare to be disappointed.

[Biowraith]

I've been playing this with a couple of friends and eh, it's ok.  But from what I've played so far, it rarely elevates above ok.  The classes and abilities, the character development (both in terms of theme, and builds etc), are all fairly limited.  The combat is faster flowing than most traditional mmorpgs, but it's also pretty simplistic, so doesn't stay interesting (to me at least) for long.  The Foundry part is the main ace up this game's sleeve, if you're interested in content creation. However, as with the handful of other games that have offered similar systems, if you're more into playing other people's content you're going to have to wade through a lot of crap and farms to find the good stuff.

It's probably one of the better free-to-plays I've come across, doing it all in a pretty competent manner, but for my non-money, it's still not really doing anything special or interesting.

[Jelle]

Early levels are spoonfed to you so you can adjust to the game in baby steps, as is normal for many games of this day and age. I haven't noticed a measurable increase in difficulty as I went along, and rarely need to dodge the big red circles that present themselves as anti stupidity measures for people who can't gauge the swings of enemies or the drawback time on an errant arrow.

I'm going to have to disagree here, while solo content sticks to a rather easy pace I've found dungeons really start ramping up in difficulty around lv 30. In fact I've needed half a dozen attempts on this last dungeon because the party keeps failing on the final boss (Mad Dragon), and I don't consider myself a bad player. It's a rare thing to find an mmo with real pve challenge these days, especially a f2p one. I imagine the foundry also lets you make content as easy or hard as you desire, but for that I really should try it out more extensively.

[Neonivek]

I should correct you the dragon is an anomaly and every boss afterwords is much much easier.

[Jelle]

Ah I see that is unfortunate. Not leveled past that dungeon yet, but I shall soon see for myself I suppose.

[Neonivek]

Ah I see that is unfortunate. Not leveled past that dungeon yet, but I shall soon see for myself I suppose.

It is mostly a poorly balanced boss fight who takes advantage of certain party set ups.

Mind you another major problem with the game that isn't immediately obvious is that it tracks DPS. Why is this a problem exactly?

Well for example a while back I fought a pirate boss and his gig is teleport attacks and constant pressure, so I drew him and dodges all his most deadly attacks giving my allies solid hits. It killed my score.

It is a game where not getting high damage may be an asset but it actively encourages the DPS mindset.

[Ogdibus]

.

[Jelle]

Mind you another major problem with the game that isn't immediately obvious is that it tracks DPS. Why is this a problem exactly?

Well for example a while back I fought a pirate boss and his gig is teleport attacks and constant pressure, so I drew him and dodges all his most deadly attacks giving my allies solid hits. It killed my score.

It is a game where not getting high damage may be an asset but it actively encourages the DPS mindset.

Honestly that's more of a problem with the average gamer's mindset then the actual game. All it does is give you the tools to gather information on combat performance, what players do with that information is up to them.
Much much better off grouping with like minded individuals instead of missing out on useful features because idiots will act like bigger idiots. Gamers these days, am I right. 

Anyho, finally got that darn dragon down, only took about 9 parties. 
This next dungeon was a fair bit easier indeed, but still wasn't a breeze. Apparently later on you can play these same dungeons on increased difficulty levels also, should be interesting.

[Jelle]

Well this thread died fast. I suppose I should have taken the hint when I saw no mmorpg anywhere near front page.

Not to worry, shant bump it up again if there's no interest. I just wanted to show a bit more of the foundry as I've been toying with it for a bit. I've no idea how these similar creation kits in other games work, so maybe this is old news to most of you. At any rate, here's some quick and dirty map creating.

Here's what I made:
Took a barren empty mauntain valley

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

added some things here and there, bit of folliage here some trees there

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and voila, instant wooded mauntain lake.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Took just over 40mins to make. I mostly placed everything fairly random, only a tiny bit of fine tweaking. You can potentially put some crazy amount of detail in this thing, if you've the creativity and time.
Might have gone a little overboard with the folliage, looks more like a jungle at this rate.  Haven't tried making a quest objectives and monster spawns yet, maybe I should try it out on this map. Any ideas?


Edit: Bluh server down. I was thinking of putting some spidies in there and testing out the quest system.
Okay, added some spidies and made it into a quest. Just for shits and giggles I published it, look for a quest named 'Venom Hunt' if you're interested. Just something I patched together real quick, not a serious quest.

[Neonivek]

Ohh don't become a Foundary Reviewer... they don't give you the tools to do it properly.

[Ultimuh]

So I have a Halfling Trickster (or whatever that class is called)
called Edward Silvertongue.
On the Dragon Server.

Anyone in/near the Europe/Scandinavia area actually playing this game?

[Azated]

So I have a Halfling Trickster (or whatever that class is called)
called Edward Silvertongue.
On the Dragon Server.

Anyone in/near the Europe/Scandinavia area actually playing this game?

That reminds me. Does anyone know where the servers are based? I get random spikes of up to 2000 ping and my average is 300-500, so it's hard to determine where they are based on those numbers. I'm guessing it might be somewhere in France, considering the abundance of french players.