So..we have another D&D mmo coming to us..and yet again it is NOT allowing people to explore Forgotten Realms (probably the most popular game world) and yet again NOT utilizing the hugely popular 3/3.5 ed rules (i know ddo was 3.5ish but very limited in prestige classes and a terrible full instanced world design or goofy 'wilderness' areas..bleh)

I just dont understand.... someone please tell me... If you simply built a 3.0 or 3.5 ed dungeons and dragons mmo, and set it in any FULL game world.. (dragonlance, forgotten realms, maybe even darksun/holloworld/ anything) and made an actual WORLD, not just a city *cough Neverwinter cough*  wouldnt you have THE MOST POPULAR fantasy MMO out there?   I personally would pay for game and monthly sub to play.  Am i the only one?  Do developers have some secret info i dont understand about peoples LOVE of d&d 3.0/3.5?? 

it seriously seems like someone just wants d&d mmo's to fail.../shrug

4e translates to MMOs better than 3.5e.

In time I'm sure Cryptic will add new tile sets and expand the map, there is no reason you can't adventure anywhere in Forgotten Realms within the Neverwinter game, but art assets take time and money to make. 

D&D isn't about open worlds either, it has always been tightly defined areas and focused primarily on the adventure.

Originally posted by ice-vortex
Pen and paper rules don't translate well to an MMORPG.

It is not that the PnP rules would not translate well into MMORPG but that he big fear is that the larger player base of MMORPGs is not smart enough nor sophisicated enough to appreciate a PnP ruleset. A PnP ruleset would go against the long term trend of dumbing the games down for little kids and adult who don't use their brains. I will give a few examples.

One quirk of PnP rules is the classes and races are purposely built to be unballanced. A drow rogue would be more powerfull than a halfling theif in every conceivable way. Even with the fighting in daylight penalty the drow would still win over the halfling. There is no hint or pretense of ballance. The drow would simply be more powerful than the halfling and you just had to accept it. In PnP this leads to much richer roleplay experince but that takes a certain level of maturity to understand. It was the weaker characters that actually made the game interesting. In a MMORPG mentality everyone would just pick the stongest classes and not bother with the weaker ones. In order to prevent that they would have to put artificial locks on the more powerful classes like what SWG did with Jedi. The SWG solution was in order to unlock a powerfull class you had to play through the entire game on the weaker classes. Again this goes against the trend of dumbing everything down to lowest common denominator and players wanting instant gratification.

The second issue would be that PnP it is the journey not the destination that matters. There was no endgame other than DMs putting together their own story content. In fact there was not much set story at all. The story was up to the DM and where the players wanted to develop their characters. PnP was very much just a framework for a sandbox and you had to bring your own sand. The rule book moduals, DMs, and players were all "co-creaters" in what they wanted to experience in the world.

Overall it is not that the PnP rules cannot be adapted to MMORPGs but that the developers don't think the players could handle it. Players would complain about unballanced classes and lack of endgame while demanding instant gratification. The whole D&D universe does not go along with WoW style loot chasing.

Originally posted by Novusod

Originally posted by ice-vortex
Pen and paper rules don't translate well to an MMORPG.

 

 

It is not that the PnP rules would not translate well into MMORPG but that he big fear is that the larger player base of MMORPGs is not smart enough nor sophisicated enough to appreciate a PnP ruleset. A PnP ruleset would go against the long term trend of dumbing the games down for little kids and adult who don't use their brains. I will give a few examples.

 

One quirk of PnP rules is the classes and races are purposely built to be unballanced. A drow rogue would be more powerfull than a halfling theif in every conceivable way. Even with the fighting in daylight penalty the drow would still win over the halfling. There is no hint or pretense of ballance. The drow would simply be more powerful than the halfling and you just had to accept it. In PnP this leads to much richer roleplay experince but that takes a certain level of maturity to understand. It was the weaker characters that actually made the game interesting. In a MMORPG mentality everyone would just pick the stongest classes and not bother with the weaker ones. In order to prevent that they would have to put artificial locks on the more powerful classes like what SWG did with Jedi. The SWG solution was in order to unlock a powerfull class you had to play through the entire game on the weaker classes. Again this goes against the trend of dumbing everything down to lowest common denominator and players wanting instant gratification.

 

The second issue would be that PnP it is the journey not the destination that matters. There was no endgame other than DMs putting together their own story content. In fact there was not much set story at all. The story was up to the DM and where the players wanted to develop their characters. PnP was very much just a framework for a sandbox and you had to bring your own sand. The rule book moduals, DMs, and players were all "co-creaters" in what they wanted to experience in the world.

 

Overall it is not that the PnP rules cannot be adapted to MMORPGs but that the developers don't think the players could handle it. Players would complain about unballanced classes and lack of endgame while demanding instant gratification. The whole D&D universe does not go along with WoW style loot chasing.

Wow, you are worthy of the many stars.  That's just like, wow.  [Is NOT being sarcastic].  Makes me want to run to Wal-mart and buy pencil and paper (if it stands for pen and paper, pencil makes more sense to me).

Originally posted by bobfish

4e translates to MMOs better than 3.5e.

 

In time I'm sure Cryptic will add new tile sets and expand the map, there is no reason you can't adventure anywhere in Forgotten Realms within the Neverwinter game, but art assets take time and money to make. 

 

D&D isn't about open worlds either, it has always been tightly defined areas and focused primarily on the adventure.

Focused on adventure yes, tightly defined areas no.

When I used to DM I created an entire globe with 3 really large continents.  I put a lot of work into it and used it for years spanning multiple characters.  Things only became tightly defined when you used accessories like Forgotten Realms.

Originally posted by Mizzmo
4th edition was the worst thing DnD ever released. So, why would they make a game out of it?

Because 4e is the best thing DND for MMOs.  3.5e simpely does not translate will into MMOs.  DDO is a prime example.  Mistake after mistake after mistake or butchering after butchering after butchering of the beloved IP is what DDO is.

Neverwinter is an ACTION RPG which is what makes 4e ideal for it.  This will be a 4e DnD INSPIRED MMO, if your expecting an literal translation then you in for disappointment and your own damn fault.

know what you mean op.  no idea why mmo companies cant figure this one out.  make a forgotten realms world, hell im not even hung up on the system although i like 3.5 more, just make a forgotten realms world, not a city, not a bunch of instances, let me explore from icewind dale to baldurs gate, to mithril hall to calimport and everywhere in betweeen and everywhere I havent mentioned.  ddo was ruined when the announced it was being done in that new crap world that wotc wanted to push.  personally I blame wotc for this, they dotn like  forgotten realms because they didnt create it, they tried to kill the world off to force dnd players to play what wotc wanted and when they realized how big of a mistake that was they finally relented.  hell pathfinder is only around because of the arrogance of wotc thinking they would forcefeed dnd players eberron and a screwed up ruleset because obviously richard garfield knows best (sarcasm) for dnd players.

just create a forgotten realms world, that is all we want.

Originally posted by Scalpless
It's based on 4e and takes place around Neverwinter. Sounds like modern D&D to me. Not that I like modern D&D.

Thats because they dont translate them  but keep them intact.

There is so much story and lore and an awesome spell and (multi) class systen in the forgotten realms that it would be the perfect high fantasy MMO IP. sadly D&D forces their D20 rules up on the MMO... they are to simple for MMo´s.  On top of that D&D p&P rules are created in such a way that characters need to rest everyday and not regenrate in between every fight.

On the other hand DDO, is quite a good game, but sadly does mis open world zones and PvP .

Originally posted by jadiusmax

I just dont understand.... someone please tell me... If you simply built a 3.0 or 3.5 ed dungeons and dragons mmo, and set it in any FULL game world.. (dragonlance, forgotten realms, maybe even darksun/holloworld/ anything) and made an actual WORLD, not just a city *cough Neverwinter cough*  wouldnt you have THE MOST POPULAR fantasy MMO out there?

Such a game will probably end up being terribly bland, with badly developed locations and nothing to do over most of the map. I think that few people want to experience a real full world. Travelling for days just to get somewhere interesting gets old fast.

Originally posted by Mizzmo
4th edition was the worst thing DnD ever released. So, why would they make a game out of it?

Because its been released.  Allegedly WOTC wont allow games to be developed in a rule set older than what is the current ruleset at the time of licensing.

4e was designed to translate to CRPGs as they saw with the success of NWN a market, the problem is NWN was successful because it allowed players freedom to truley create pocket worlds of their own.  Neverwinter wont capture this, but I am hoping its a fun game that takes me back to a setting I have enjoyed greatly in the past.

Another? Last time I checked DDO was a good game. Its purpose was to create the D&D dungeon crawl feel and it did just that. The only reason it didnt sell well is due to the simple FACT that most D&D fans dont even MMOs, heck the best selling D&D game was baldurs gate and its sales arent even close to RPGs like TES and Dragons Age games...yet, DDO is the single most populated western made F2P out there.

Anyway just because there is no "open world" that doesnt mean its a screwed up game, it means its focusing on some aspects of the D&D universe. Better to have them focus on bringing aspects of it to life, then spread themselves out and bring us just another average MMORPG not good for anything.

+1

Cryptic does not make games with real depth to any of it's systems.  They make fast paced, arcade-action orientated games.  Now, they are decent games.  If you take the ship to ship combat and even the revamped ground combat from Star Trek Online, it actually is pretty fun.  The problem is that the Star Trek IP demands sooooo much more than your basic Cryptic arcade game. 

Neverwinter is the same way.  Sure it looks good for what it is, a fast paced arcade-action orientated game.  But the Forgotten Realms IP demands sooooo much more than what they are going to bring you.

You ALWAYS play Crypitc games with one thing bouncing around in your head "what might have been".  That should be their company motto.

This isn't a real D&D game.  Just like D&D Online is not a real D&D game.  Dungeons & Dragons has devolved into your basic loot fest where you glance at your skill page, roll a die, grab your loot and get on to the next dungeon.  They are what WOW is to the 3D MMO genre. 

Once upon a time, D&D was about player creativity and problem solving within a loose framework of a ruleset.

From what I've been reading, Neverwinter's mechanics are only loosely based on 4th Edition D&D -- I think they're keeping the names of spells and the basic character stats, and throwing the rest out.  It's going to be more of an action game, as others have mentioned.

For better or worse, WotC doesn't seem interested in licensing old editions for computer games.  It makes sense really, since they have a financial interest in promoting their new version of the week.  The Open Gaming License excludes computer games (I checked) so none of 3.5's daughter systems can be directly adapted into an MMO either.

Yeah, it would be nice to see more 3.5 games, but wishing for something won't make it happen.  If it did, I would be typing this with Kate Upton on my lap.