Cryptic's Neverwinter was the belle of the ball at the recently held PAX East convention last month. We caught up with Andy Velasquez, Lead Producer on Neverwinter to chat with him about the game. Check it out!

MMORPG: How much content are you aiming to have at launch? Will there be full progression through levels 1-60, or will you rely heavily on the Foundry and player created content to round it out?

Andy Velasquez: We are excited about what our creative users will be able to make with The Foundry but that content can absolutely be a supplement to the progression of your character and will not be required for you to reach max level.

Read more of Bill Murphy's Neverwinter Post-PAX Interview.

As a D&D pen/paper player i loved almost every single game i played. Since EYE OF THE BEHOLDER to last Dragon Age II, i enjoyed till last drop. I'm a huge fan of MMORPG genre. I will be playing Neverwinter Online from day 1. GW2 got my heart too, as a GW1 with 3k hours played.

Hope that Cryptic made an AAA+ game of it. As i watched over last weeks, this seems a must have for every D&D fans and fantasy style players.

PD: Sorry for my english if something is misstyped

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

As a D&D pen/paper player i loved almost every single game i played. Since EYE OF THE BEHOLDER to last Dragon Age II, i enjoyed till last drop. I'm a huge fan of MMORPG genre. I will be playing Neverwinter Online from day 1. GW2 got my heart too, as a GW1 with 3k hours played.

Hope that Cryptic made an AAA+ game of it. As i watched over last weeks, this seems a must have for every D&D fans and fantasy style players.

PD: Sorry for my english if something is misstyped

just the mistyped part ;)

Originally posted by DOC_AVENGER

As a D&D pen/paper player i loved almost every single game i played. Since EYE OF THE BEHOLDER to last Dragon Age II, i enjoyed till last drop. I'm a huge fan of MMORPG genre. I will be playing Neverwinter Online from day 1. GW2 got my heart too, as a GW1 with 3k hours played.

Hope that Cryptic made an AAA+ game of it. As i watched over last weeks, this seems a must have for every D&D fans and fantasy style players.

PD: Sorry for my english if something is misstyped

 

given that PWE  are looking after cryptic now..i think the game is gonna be awsome..if it was'nt for PWE we would'nt be getting a full mmo..it was them that told cryptic they wanted a proper mmo..cant wait for this game.from what i've read so far it sounds great.

And we've needed a D&D MMO set on Toril for a long time... so, yay for that.

Can't wait. Seriously. First time in a long time I've gone out and bought the books for an MMO :)

The more I hear of Neverwinter, the more it seems like the game design I would have wished for GW2. GW1 was just about one of my favorite games, as it felt very RPG-ish to me (more than most MMOs I've played), without leaving me constantly "stuck" when I had a group quest or dungeon in some low-player-population zone. The heroes in GW1 were always ready to fill in where needed.

In my opinion, the heroes were the very best feature in GW1, a game loaded with great features, and yet GW2 has ditched the heroes. That, for me, was a hugely disappointing decision on their part.

In this sense, then, Neverwinter looks (in theory, at least) more interesting to me than GW2, because it doesn't try to mash players into standardized groups. To me, "LFG Hell" is the bane of most modern MMOs. Heroes allow soloers and smaller groups to enjoy content without having to find that magic "1 healer, 1 tank, and 3 DPS" class mix or give up on a group quest because no tank/healer is online or available.

I love fiddling with party composition and heroes. Neverwinter offers me, as a player, a variety of ways -- i.e., with a full group, a smaller-than-usual group, or solo -- to tackle dungeon/group content. I really like that.

Hmmm, I wonder if they're planning for Epic Tier. The powers from 20+ are pretty stupid, at that point you're forced to go up against Gods and the like because there's really nothing left for you to do. There's even flat out immortality. You also are supposed to lose your character soon after hitting 30 (depending on the GM), due to that immortality. I would love to see something like that handled in an MMO, without the losing the character part, though.

Things like group flight, reality warping, gravity control, etc....that would be a lot of fun.

I'm ~not~ sure how I feel about their version of the level system, though. I'll take a wait-and-see approach to that. The gain in power in DnD is already pretty subtley spread over 1-30; except for a few level intervals scattered here and there, you never really gain a level and suddenly hit a new plateau...you sort of look around one day and realize, "Oh...cool, I don't suck anymore." DnD 3.5 made that come sooner than its prior versions but, still. Spreading that out over 60+ levels would go from gradual to downright sluggish, unless they're ditching the DnD stats and leveling system for something more typically MMO, which would be just as unfortunate, IMO. But, like I said, I'll wait. They could surprise me. They have, so far. 

I'm glad PWE forced them back to the drawing board. The models, graphics, gameplay, etc., are all sounding far better than when they first debuted info about the game.

So they'll have their 4th edition D&D CRPG out right about... what? When D&D 5th edition launches?

Awesome.

Originally posted by Velocinox

So they'll have their 4th edition D&D CRPG out right about... what? When D&D 5th edition launches?

Awesome.

 

 

Honestly, 4th ed is about only one DnD edition that can be properly "ported" to MMO gameplay. 

Originally posted by Ambros123

Originally posted by caged9087

Originally posted by tmr819

The more I hear of Neverwinter, the more it seems like the game design I would have wished for GW2. GW1 was just about one of my favorite games, as it felt very RPG-ish to me (more than most MMOs I've played), without leaving me constantly "stuck" when I had a group quest or dungeon in some low-player-population zone. The heroes in GW1 were always ready to fill in where needed.

In my opinion, the heroes were the very best feature in GW1, a game loaded with great features, and yet GW2 has ditched the heroes. That, for me, was a hugely disappointing decision on their part.

In this sense, then, Neverwinter looks (in theory, at least) more interesting to me than GW2, because it doesn't try to mash players into standardized groups. To me, "LFG Hell" is the bane of most modern MMOs. Heroes allow soloers and smaller groups to enjoy content without having to find that magic "1 healer, 1 tank, and 3 DPS" class mix or give up on a group quest because no tank/healer is online or available.

I love fiddling with party composition and heroes. Neverwinter offers me, as a player, a variety of ways -- i.e., with a full group, a smaller-than-usual group, or solo -- to tackle dungeon/group content. I really like that.

 

You're kidding me right? Have you played GW2 that you're sprouting this nonsense? GW2 allows you to play with anyone you want or solo, there are no healers/tanks/dps there, in stories you get npc's with you which is the same as heroes. 

I don't get why everyone are excited about Neverwinter. Player crafted dungeons?????? Sounds like they are too lazy to make their own so they let the players do the job for them, which means lame repetitive dungeons, no voice narration or any special loot, couse  everything will most likely come from the same preset dungeon builder. 

If it's about the D&D part, DDO has been out for way more time, has alot more content, over 10000000 possible character builds and generally much more established

 

DDO has so much content that the vast majority is forgotten or how it takes em months n months just for a few trivial amount of quests?

Yeah that 10000000 possible character builds which 99999975 are not even viable.

DDO isn't really D&D, all it is is a typical grind fest MMO that is D&D "inspired," many features of that game are non-existant in D&D or how many core features in D&D are not even evident in DDO.

So established that they had to merge the EU servers with the NA servers or how going to F2P was a ploy to save a sinking ship?

Obviously you never really ever played PnP nor know anything about the toolset in the NWN games with a your ignorance on player crafted dungeons skepticism.

 

If DDO is a grind, it must be really well covered couse you hardly feel that when you play. The objective of each dungeon is different and diverse, unlike "Go there, slaughter 3 pigs, gg" or "take this, run to that guy and come back". Content is never "forgotten", people Reincarnate, make new characters, new people join the game. Each quest they come up with has story, presents a new part of Eberron into the game, new equipment (and its not just some stupid Great Sword +5, Attack 113-1333534 like some other games *cough* SWTOR WoW *cough*, items actually have interesting d&d like effects) and especially alot of replay value. Another thing you mentioned is DDO not following DnD rules, well guess why? It's an MMO not a board game and I bet this game won't be any different on following DnD rules couse this isn't PnP. DDO was P2P for 3 years before it had to go F2P (more then you can say for alot of other games). 

On another note you're hanging your hopes on a company owned by Perfect World and you dare talk about grind games? haha

Cryptic eh?

Get ready for some serious financial bleeding... on your end of course. Can't wait to see the Cryptastic casino shop they have planned for this one lol.

Originally posted by caged9087

Originally posted by tmr819

The more I hear of Neverwinter, the more it seems like the game design I would have wished for GW2. GW1 was just about one of my favorite games, as it felt very RPG-ish to me (more than most MMOs I've played), without leaving me constantly "stuck" when I had a group quest or dungeon in some low-player-population zone. The heroes in GW1 were always ready to fill in where needed.

In my opinion, the heroes were the very best feature in GW1, a game loaded with great features, and yet GW2 has ditched the heroes. That, for me, was a hugely disappointing decision on their part.

In this sense, then, Neverwinter looks (in theory, at least) more interesting to me than GW2, because it doesn't try to mash players into standardized groups. To me, "LFG Hell" is the bane of most modern MMOs. Heroes allow soloers and smaller groups to enjoy content without having to find that magic "1 healer, 1 tank, and 3 DPS" class mix or give up on a group quest because no tank/healer is online or available.

I love fiddling with party composition and heroes. Neverwinter offers me, as a player, a variety of ways -- i.e., with a full group, a smaller-than-usual group, or solo -- to tackle dungeon/group content. I really like that.

 

You're kidding me right? Have you played GW2 that you're sprouting this nonsense? GW2 allows you to play with anyone you want or solo, there are no healers/tanks/dps there, in stories you get npc's with you which is the same as heroes. 

I don't get why everyone are excited about Neverwinter. Player crafted dungeons?????? Sounds like they are too lazy to make their own so they let the players do the job for them, which means lame repetitive dungeons, no voice narration or any special loot, couse  everything will most likely come from the same preset dungeon builder. 

If it's about the D&D part, DDO has been out for way more time, has alot more content, over 10000000 possible character builds and generally much more established

 

DDO has so much content that the vast majority is forgotten or how it takes em months n months just for a few trivial amount of quests?

Yeah that 10000000 possible character builds which 99999975 are not even viable.

DDO isn't really D&D, all it is is a typical grind fest MMO that is D&D "inspired," many features of that game are non-existant in D&D or how many core features in D&D are not even evident in DDO.

So established that they had to merge the EU servers with the NA servers or how going to F2P was a ploy to save a sinking ship?

Obviously you never really ever played PnP nor know anything about the toolset in the NWN games with a your ignorance on player crafted dungeons skepticism.

Originally posted by Velocinox

So they'll have their 4th edition D&D CRPG out right about... what? When D&D 5th edition launches?

Awesome.

 

Ohh that edition thats years away?  That edition?

4e has incredible potential in the MMO gaming industry, much better than 3.5e.  Actually read the article and you will see that it is 4e "inspired."  This is no direct trastlation but they will take waht fits their design.

Considering the EPIC, and ongoing fail that is STO in the hands of Cryptic and PWE, there is no way I'm getting anywhere near NWN.

Originally posted by C_Carmichael

Considering the EPIC, and ongoing fail that is STO in the hands of Cryptic and PWE, there is no way I'm getting anywhere near NWN.

 

But, blowing tons of cash on horrible (and undisclosed) casino odds are teh cool these days!

I played a ton of Neverwinter while I was at PAX and I honestly think Cryptic has a winner on their hands. The combat is tight, easy to learn, yet has just the right amount of variety and hack and slash elements that it kept feeling fresh even after I'd played through the short demo they had multiple times. I actually had to remind myself at several points that I was playing an MMO and not a single-player game.

Having player-made content and DM'ing options available at launch is what I think is gonna really put this game on the map. Anyone who's played games like Neverwinter Nights knows that some players can create truly spectacular content when given the right tools.

I hope the extra year+ that PW gave Cryptic to re-tool this one is worth it but given Cryptics track record, I will not be standing in line for this one.  I'll wait for others to try it and see what the reviews are before I waste any more time on a product from Cryptic.