Cryptic Studios is bringing our readers an exclusive look at how the studio plans to monetize Neverwinter. Penned by none other than CEO Jack Emmert, it's the world's first look at a groundbreaking new system of "free to play". Read on and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

Though we've done several MMORPG's in the past, Neverwinter is distinctly different than all the others we've made. Yes, it's fantasy and we've never done that before, but that isn't what I mean. Neverwinter is 100% from launch a free-to-play MMORPG. No box. No subscription. No mandatory purchase. Nothing. It's just a great game you can download and play as you like.

Read more of Jack Emmert's Neverwinter: Get Everything You Want By Playing.

Originally posted by Kilrain
This is what I was hoping for and wish more game companies would do the same. The only thing I have to say is, I want to play a Drow without paying cash. Hey, he said I could do anything without paying, right?

 

You might have missed this...

"And please note that last sentence -- you can get everything you want by playing. Everything. This includes mounts, costumes, etc. Why? How? Because you can put your Astral Diamonds up on an auction house and sell them for micro-transactable points. Then you can purchase anything you'd like in our micro-transaction store. "

It looks like we might be able to purchase the Drow using that method. Assuming the Drow will be in the store eventually. I hope so.

It's a similar system to Guild Wars 2 - you can choose to invest immediately or farm your way up to get what you want by 'trading' currency.

As long as they don't go nuts and have the best endgame gear purchaseable with diamonds, it'll be fine.

I've seen systems like this before and sometimes what happens is you can choose to farm 200 hours and hope you get the best gear or invest 5 dollars for it.. sure, you can achieve it without paying real money but the system is engineered in such a way to make that task so daunting you'd sooner get your wallet out.

Originally posted by Falcomith

Originally posted by Kilrain
This is what I was hoping for and wish more game companies would do the same. The only thing I have to say is, I want to play a Drow without paying cash. Hey, he said I could do anything without paying, right?

 

You might have missed this...

"And please note that last sentence -- you can get everything you want by playing. Everything. This includes mounts, costumes, etc. Why? How? Because you can put your Astral Diamonds up on an auction house and sell them for micro-transactable points. Then you can purchase anything you'd like in our micro-transaction store. "

It looks like we might be able to purchase the Drow using that method. Assuming the Drow will be in the store eventually. I hope so.

 Drow are available for free at launch. You are thinking of the 'Menzoberranzan Renegade’ which is a Drow backstory with a unique tattoo and racial skill.

I doubt you will be able to get the unique items from the founder packs in the store, everything else though seems to be fair game.

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by Falcomith

Originally posted by Kilrain
This is what I was hoping for and wish more game companies would do the same. The only thing I have to say is, I want to play a Drow without paying cash. Hey, he said I could do anything without paying, right?

 

You might have missed this...

"And please note that last sentence -- you can get everything you want by playing. Everything. This includes mounts, costumes, etc. Why? How? Because you can put your Astral Diamonds up on an auction house and sell them for micro-transactable points. Then you can purchase anything you'd like in our micro-transaction store. "

It looks like we might be able to purchase the Drow using that method. Assuming the Drow will be in the store eventually. I hope so.

 Drow are available for free at launch. You are thinking of the 'Menzoberranzan Renegade’ which is a Drow backstory with a unique tattoo and racial skill.

I doubt you will be able to get the unique items from the founder packs in the store, everything else though seems to be fair game.

 Fair enough.

Originally posted by allumo666
i like to read some of the stuff posted here but regarding this fellow´s interview i must say what a bunch of junk speach. talking only on how free this game will be when they do the opposite regarding beta. i agree they have to get some sort of revenue but charging for beta is just wrong. beta is to put the game to test and get as much feedback as possible. trion worlds did that with defiance and they even gave keys everywhere. on the nwo foruns theres a thread for beta testers to answer ppl questions theres only one guy apart form the moderators answering. so if they make this sort of stuff for beta i can only imagine how it will be when game goes live 

I think its fine, they have their internal closed beta on going on to pof that. The public beta this daysa re notthing more than advertisement.

Originally posted by allumo666
i like to read some of the stuff posted here but regarding this fellow´s interview i must say what a bunch of junk speach. talking only on how free this game will be when they do the opposite regarding beta. i agree they have to get some sort of revenue but charging for beta is just wrong. beta is to put the game to test and get as much feedback as possible. trion worlds did that with defiance and they even gave keys everywhere. on the nwo foruns theres a thread for beta testers to answer ppl questions theres only one guy apart form the moderators answering. so if they make this sort of stuff for beta i can only imagine how it will be when game goes live 

the REAL closed beta has been going on for more than a few months already ;]

It's nothing new, both STO and CO working this way - except the 'no subscription available' part, which is more like 'no monthly stipend to you for free' ;)  and it also means no gold benefits and no veteran rewards either.

It could be a successful system, working fine in the other two games as well, in the sense that you won't need to even touch the in-game store during the way to level cap. But for playing beyond that for free... well, that would take a serious amount of grind. Khm, I mean playtime. :) Since they can easily control the amount and the demand of the "time currency", they can honing perfectly their income from Zen sales to their liking.

For the reference, in STO the dilithium / Zen exchange rate in the last year danced in the range of 85 - 290 dilly for 1 Zen. Luckily in some cases it's easy to predict what will happen, so it's safer than the regular real world exchange :) for example it was obvious that the S7 dilithium changes will bring a massive dilly demand and shortage, that's why a lot of people bought truckload of dilithium for cheap before S7 (around 160 per Zen), and then sell it back during the winter event around 80, doubling their Zen balance for free. Or so I heard. I didn't do such thing. :) Anyways, it's a rare thing, usually players need to buy Zen from PWE every once in a while, I think that wil be the case in Neverwinter as well.

Originally posted by Thorkune
I had zero interest in this game. But, I will definitely try it out now since they are utilizing the totally free model.

Same here.  If they indeed follow the same setup as current f2p STO, then yeh I'll give the game a shot. 

Is it really necessary to sell advantages to get people to support a MMO? :/

Originally posted by Foncl

Is it really necessary to sell advantages to get people to support a MMO? :/

 You use the word advantage loosely...