This is sort of old news, but Cryptic (the folks that brought you, City of Heroes, Champions Online and Star Trek Online) have just announced their plans to release their next big MMO, Neverwinter.
What is particularly interesting is that this seems to be the first video game attempt at using the 4E ruleset. I expect it will be a trimmed down version of the rules, but they are getting a bit of input from WotC on the game system. This appears to be set in a new vision of Forgotten Realms, tied in with the launch of R.A. Salvatore’s new books.
I have to admit a video game version of the 4E rules has my interest tweaked. Sadly, I think Cryptic has done some ho-hum work with their previous games (save for CoH that was fantastic, but I think most of the developers responsible for that game jumped ship to NCSoft when they bought it up). I guess all the naysayers of 4E can finally laugh at us when everyone stops playing around the table and jumps into this new MMO. After all, 4E is just a PnP game of WoW….
I KEED! I KEED!
August 26, 2010 at 8:28 am
I didn’t think it was going to be an MMO. They made it sound more like an instance based game, where you can play alone or with friends but it’s not persistent.
August 26, 2010 at 12:04 pm
@Thadeousc – much of Star Trek Online is instanced. each planet is an instance that you enter when you beam down. Persistent territories are all non-combat areas and some special combat instances (think raids in WoW). I assume it’ll be similar, but with a private / public instance. Interestingly enough, STO just rolled out a similar “challenges” feature that lets you invite friends to duels / 5-vs-5
August 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Okay, some things I picked up make this sound a tad interesting. Looks like they will have set of editor tools much like the PC game. Given how mechanically balanced you can make encounters, this might mean you could make a lot of player content that would not result in a farm factory.
I expect it would be a heavily instanced game. Sounds like they are going for several social hubs, with the meat and potatoes being instanced content.
This might work for a pretty cool PnP experience through a computer interface. The possibilities are there, but I’m unsure of the market. Likely Cryptic/Atari will go the MMO route with gameplay. Still, having tons of player generated dungeons and content might give this game a slight edge.
August 26, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Here is a link to an interview with Cryptic studios http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwinter/news.html?sid=6274162&mode=previews
They say right up front that it’s not an MMO,
“I wouldn’t say MMORPG at all–Neverwinter is a cooperative RPG.”
then they go on to make the saddest statement I have ever heard:
“We’re trying to create new sorts of games that we call “OMGs” (online multiplayer games). ”
Hi, welcome to 1995 when online multiplayer games began. I hope some one breaks it to this guy that they have been around for a long long time. Reading that statement alone gives me a small amount of fear about the outcome of this undertaking.
August 28, 2010 at 8:19 am
Yeah definitely not an MMO, looks like they’re taking the formula Bioware started with the first 2 games and mimicking that. Problem is they *aren’t* Bioware – Cryptic’s previous releases leave a lot to be desired. I was excited when first hearing about this but not so much anymore. I think Matt James pointed out they even screwed up some of the lore when explaining it, which is sad.
Here’s to holding out for Diablo 3 or torchlight 2 to get my co-op computer based kill-shit-and-steal-it’s-loot fix.