Like most of you, I’ve had my silent preconceptions about Neverwinter. After all, we’ve had two past releases from Cryptic to look at and base our assumptions off of, and I’m happy to say that most of them will be proven wrong. I enjoyed Champions Online when it launched and, seeing as how I have the progression speed of a dead opossum crossing the road, by the time I’d gotten bored of the game (around level 40), I never hit that wall of no content that many people complained about. My biggest complaint, and arguably the deal breaker, with Champions Online was, and still is, how clunky and unresponsive the controls are. I’ve always felt that the game could be best explained as someone else was controlling your character and you were speaking your commands to them, and they had taken three or four Oxycontin. Star Trek Online was an improvement, but is still pretty clunky.

Let’s get one thing out of the way before I proceed: Neverwinter is not Dungeons and Dragons Online. Not one iota of the two games are similar to each other, and as such they will no doubt appeal to completely different tastes in gaming. To put it shortly: Dungeons and Dragons Online is a slower, more methodical and strategic MMO: Closer to the earlier versions of the pen and paper D&D where small groups of adventurers take on stories and quests in a modular, instanced environment surrounding non-combat hubs. Neverwinter is more in line with what you might expect from a game like TERA, an action-oriented game set in the D&D universe with open worlds surrounding frequent solo/group instances.

Combat in Neverwinter is something of a mixture of several other MMOs. You use the mouse to aim your reticle and attack with abilities set to the left and right mouse buttons, as well as Q, E, R, with two “daily” abilities and a side bar for potions other other items. Many of the creatures that you fight will have special attacks that will either need to be dodged or blocked, and are indicated either with markers on the floor or distinct animations leading up to the attack. What makes Neverwinter’s combat so impressive isn’t so much its innovation, of which it doesn’t do a whole lot, but rather the responsiveness of the system. As I said, I had very little confidence that Cryptic’s engine could deliver a powerful action-oriented game, and I’m happy to say that Neverwinter has blown my expectations away so far.

There is a ton of content in Neverwinter, even if not all of it has been implemented for the beta. As you travel through dungeons, you’ll come across various skill plots which require either an appropriate skill or kit in order to open. The plots are essentially just extra treasure chests. There are always events going on every half hour, encouraging players to participate in everything from skirmishes, dungeons, pvp, training professions, and more to gain extra rewards. Then of course there is the player foundry, where players are able to create quests for others to play.

Since this is a beta, I tend to be more forgiving when it comes to bugs, although it is rather reassuring that the “top bugs” list in the report tool is quite empty. I’ve become stuck in an instance after the reward chest at the end refused to spawn and the game refused to allow me to leave until I looted said chest, but other than that Neverwinter seems to be in pretty good shape. Knowing Murphy’s Law, that could all go down the toilet once the game launches and the influx of players trigger yet-unseen bugs and crashes, but for now all is pretty hunky dory.

The only part of Neverwinter that has genuinely frustrated me so far lies within the group instances, in several respects. First off, there is apparently no role check in place for the dungeon finder. In most other MMOs, the dungeon finder has a specific set of requirements: one healer, one tank, generally one or two DPS, and then usually a wildcard slot. In Neverwinter, you can wind up in a random group that might have no healer, too many healers, no tank, too many DPS classes, etc. At this point, especially in cases where the group doesn’t have a dedicated healer, the players are better off just quitting since the dungeon is going to be virtually impossible, especially once you hit level 15+.

Another fundamental problem with dungeon grouping lies in the need before greed system. Players roll for higher value items, but these items drop in an unidentified state. You can tell if the item can be used by your class (incompatible items are shaded red), however there is no way of knowing if the gear is worth rolling for since the stats are hidden. I’ve also seen a demand in the forums to prevent players from rolling on items that their class cannot equip, either by not allowing them to roll “need” or not allowing them to roll at all. Every group seems to have at least one greedy person who will roll need on everything, often by waiting to see if the rest of the group rolls greed, thus ensuring the item for himself. I would rather see a simple requirement of having a compatible class to roll need on an item.

There is a LOT of content still not implemented in Neverwinter, from a considerable number of those half hour events I mentioned earlier, to the crafting system, and much of the game’s story mode. One thing I will say is that this isn’t so much an attempt to bring the pen and paper game to the gaming audience as Turbine attempted to do with DDO, but it’s an action MMO based in the Neverwinter universe with stuff from D&D. If you start making comparisons to the pen and paper game, or if you were looking for a more current version of Turbine’s DDO, I feel I need to make it clear now that you are likely going to be very disappointed.

I will have more to discuss in the future, but I have to say my first impressions have been very positive. There is no nondisclosure agreement in effect for Neverwinter, so feel free to drop us a comment on your experience or send an email to contact[at]mmofallout<dot>com.