Neverwinter Nights Online. (Cryptic Studios)

[Scold]

Remember, I have no spawn to spend my pocket money on.  

Have you been to Istanbul, Tokyo, Beirut, and Tel Aviv?  If not, I can basically guarantee you that is what you should be saving up your spending money for, in terms of value to your happiness. This $400 Drizzt pack is literally the bulk of the cost of a round-trip ticket to Istanbul during winter, and Istanbul is frickin' amazing in winter. Not to get all weirdly serious, but when we're talking "srs business money" instead of just "lol gaming" money, these sorts of trade-offs start to present themselves.

(Yes, I just talked myself down from buying the +4 tome of supreme ability in DDO with roughly this logic)

[Merusk]

While avoiding playing the Dawnguard DLC last night I went to the official forums and browsed around a bit.

Turns out you DO NOT have to spend $200 to play Drow.  You don't have to pay a damned penny, they'll be a F2P race.

The $200 is only buying you a unique look and the "Drow Renagade" background/ race - whatever the fuck that means.   So that $200 package is a hell of a troll to get some extra cash. 

[Zetor]

All they need to do is block names that start with "D" and have all of the "r", "i", "z", "t" characters in them... unless you bought the $200 pack. Instant moneyhats?

[ezrast]

Bloodworth's was two weeks ago.

[Bzalthek]

Bloodworth's was two weeks ago.

Surprise!  New Meta!

[Riggswolfe]

While avoiding playing the Dawnguard DLC last night I went to the official forums and browsed around a bit.

Turns out you DO NOT have to spend $200 to play Drow.  You don't have to pay a damned penny, they'll be a F2P race.

The $200 is only buying you a unique look and the "Drow Renagade" background/ race - whatever the fuck that means.   So that $200 package is a hell of a troll to get some extra cash. 

Yeah the $200 actually loses value in my opinion with all of the blatant Drizzt crap. I think all the renegade thing gets you is maybe some different racial passives and some tatoos.

[Lantyssa]

I'm not paying $200 for a tattoo unless it's real.

[rk47]

But a robe that creates useless junk when invoked sounds very useful to me. 

[Riggswolfe]

But a robe that creates useless junk when invoked sounds very useful to me. 

You can get that in the $60 version too....

[Merusk]

2nd beta weekend starts at noon PST today (GMT -8) 

[Ginaz]

The Control Wizard isn't much fun to play IMO.  It feels very weak and underpowered.  The class seems to take a lot of damage while not dealing out enough to compensate for it. 

[Lantyssa]

It feels like a budget GW2.  I like a world that tries to copy GW2 rather than WoW.  Now if we can just work on improving the product rather than copying it...

[Zetor]

The only reason I'm remotely interested in this title is because of the Foundry, which is looking to be a pretty good user-generated content system. As a veteran of the COH Mission Architect (not to mention MUD builder way-back-when), I'm a sucker for stuff like this!

I don't like ARPGs much and never played Tera, but apparently the gameplay is sort of similar. It DOES suffer a bit from consolitis (I know, right), and I don't know why they think it's such a great idea to root players during each and every ability animation... yes, even the basic 'autoattack' ones.

[Merusk]

The Control Wizard isn't much fun to play IMO.  It feels very weak and underpowered.  The class seems to take a lot of damage while not dealing out enough to compensate for it. 

How high have you gotten?  I only took one to 5 and had the same concerns but figured it would be different as you leveled.

Been playing the guardian fighter this weekend.  I think I have a hang of blocking now.  I think my initial problem was after playing a cleric I thought I was failing by having to drink so many potions.  Guess not!

[Ginaz]

The Control Wizard isn't much fun to play IMO.  It feels very weak and underpowered.  The class seems to take a lot of damage while not dealing out enough to compensate for it. 

How high have you gotten?  I only took one to 5 and had the same concerns but figured it would be different as you leveled.

Been playing the guardian fighter this weekend.  I think I have a hang of blocking now.  I think my initial problem was after playing a cleric I thought I was failing by having to drink so many potions.  Guess not!

I got the Control Wizard to 10 or 11.  It doesn't get much better than it was at 5.  And yeah, I find myself drinking many more potions than I was with the Devoted Cleric.

[kildorn]

It feels like a budget GW2.  I like a world that tries to copy GW2 rather than WoW.  Now if we can just work on improving the product rather than copying it...

It doesn't even feel like that. It feels like a really half assed attempt at actiony combat without being actiony, with extremely limited skills and builds, and nothing unique about it.

I'm not sure how this thing ended up as is. I was hoping for another DDO (which was actually pretty fun). but this doesn't seem to try to be better than anyone at anything.

[Malakili]

I'm not sure how this thing ended up as is.

"How can we use this Champions Online engine for another game?"

"Well, that Neverwinter franchise was built on modding and user created worlds, maybe we can jam our builder into that IP"

"Ok, good enough"

[Stormwaltz]

I'm suffering terrible horizontal tearing when I turn or move. It's disorienting and distracting. I've never seen anything like it before - is anyone else seeing it? (I have a 2GB Radeon HD 6950 and run in 1920x1200.)

[Ginaz]

I'm suffering terrible horizontal tearing when I turn or move. It's disorienting and distracting. I've never seen anything like it before - is anyone else seeing it? (I have a 2GB Radeon HD 6950 and run in 1920x1200.)

I haven't had that happen but my overall performance has dropped a lot since the last beta weekend.

[Goreschach]

I'm suffering terrible horizontal tearing when I turn or move. It's disorienting and distracting. I've never seen anything like it before - is anyone else seeing it? (I have a 2GB Radeon HD 6950 and run in 1920x1200.)

No idea if there's an option ingame, but if your gpu software allows it you can try forcing vsync through the control panel.

[Zetor]

I'm not sure how this thing ended up as is.

"How can we use this Champions Online engine for another game?"

"Well, that Neverwinter franchise was built on modding and user created worlds, maybe we can jam our builder into that IP"

"Ok, good enough"

Pretty much. Sad thing is, the fact that it has an (improved) Foundry is a big enough draw for me by itself... though having actually played the game a bit this weekend chipped away at that draw. Them making the same damn mistakes COH did with the MA and STO did with the Foundry rating / browsing / search interface doesn't bode well, either. (protip: relying on a 5-star rating system does not work when there are 600000 player-made quests. Neither does selecting a handful of lucky stories every month or so.)

The Foundry beta should start Soon™ (they were taking applications last weekend), and if I get in, I'll be able to make up my mind once and for all.

[Goreschach]

(protip: relying on a 5-star rating system does not work when there are 600000 player-made quests. Neither does selecting a handful of lucky stories every month or so.)

The Foundry beta should start Soon™ (they were taking applications last weekend), and if I get in, I'll be able to make up my mind once and for all.

There's absolutely no reason why it can't. Unfortunately, 99% of the time any online rating system fails to normalize the results based on expected variance.

Of course, I've tried to convince a number of sites to use such a system. It'd be a one-afternoon fix, and would offer far better and more fair ratings, but nobody ever listens.

[Merusk]

I don't see the GW comparison, mainly because I hate GW and find it tedious and boring as fuck.  Tastes vary.

As for the limited skills thing, I don't know 4th ed well enough to blame that or the game designers.  Doesn't feel bad to me either way.  My only gripe is they throw a lot of AOE mobs at you but not enough AOE abilities.   

Oh, and keeping mobs in front of you as a fighter is a bitch.  They like to surround so your blocking is nullified.

[Zetor]

(protip: relying on a 5-star rating system does not work when there are 600000 player-made quests. Neither does selecting a handful of lucky stories every month or so.)

The Foundry beta should start Soon™ (they were taking applications last weekend), and if I get in, I'll be able to make up my mind once and for all.

There's absolutely no reason why it can't. Unfortunately, 99% of the time any online rating system fails to normalize the results based on expected variance.

Of course, I've tried to convince a number of sites to use such a system. It'd be a one-afternoon fix, and would offer far better and more fair ratings, but nobody ever listens.

Well... I admit I'm no statistician, but how does normalizing ratings solve problems like
- most of the content being crap, but everyone having a different opinion on what 'crap' means (is Salvatore a hack or the greatest writer ever?)
- players of at least 4 fundamentally different playstyles trying to grade really different content using an 'objective' 5-star system -- people who look for story-heavy missions will downvote hack-and-slash missions, people who look for farming missions will downvote everything that gets in their way, etc
- players only playing the first 200 or so quests that are displayed in the UI, and ignoring everything else, causing a positive feedback loop with those same quests getting lots of momentum and even more plays / ratings as time goes on
- authors late to the party needing to get eleventy billion 5-star votes to even have a chance of getting noticed
- anyone whose quest falls below a 5-star average may as well forget about it ever getting played again
- voting cliques (either mass-1 or mass-5 votes)... ok, I can sort of see where it'd help here.

There are a lot more problems, these were just off the top of my head... there were some proposed solutions in the COH Mission Architect community over the years, but they were never implemented because Paragon Studios was short on manpower and had to focus on things that made a more tangible profit instead.

IMO what needs to happen is to allow players to find the content they specifically want via tagging, automatically generated "if you liked this, you may like" recommendation lists, sharable favorites lists, weighted ratings, maybe even personal ranking, etcetera... these all exist in other platforms like Amazon. As it is, the search interface is borderline useless in NW, just as it was in STO and COH; in fact, the Cryptic COO flat-out admits this in a GDC talk.


edit: I definitely agree with you that this is an area that's basically ignored... mostly because its effects are fuzzy long-term stuff, and Foundry questions like "can I make pvp maps" and "can I give custom loot as quest rewards" interest a far greater portion of the player- and author-base. Also, don't take my skepticism the wrong way -- I just don't believe in a silver-bullet solution, 'sall. In fact, there's a high probability I'll mention rating normalization as part of that mega-post I'm preparing on the subject to unleash on the Foundry forums if/when I get in the beta 

[Ingmar]

I don't see the GW comparison, mainly because I hate GW and find it tedious and boring as fuck.  Tastes vary.

Also the idea that a game that is coming out this close time-wise to GW2 somehow had time to copy it is pretty  .

[kildorn]

The only GW2ish thing I saw was the active dodge/stamina thingy, and I'm 99% sure that's not a GW2 thing.

[Stormwaltz]

The only GW2ish thing I saw was the active dodge/stamina thingy, and I'm 99% sure that's not a GW2 thing.

STO had it at ship.

[kildorn]

The only GW2ish thing I saw was the active dodge/stamina thingy, and I'm 99% sure that's not a GW2 thing.

STO had it at ship.

I try my hardest not to remember what STO had at ship in ground combat <3 (actually, I liked it. Pirates of the Burning Sea however...)

[Zetor]

I thought you were going to make a pun with the entire "STO" and "ship" thing... crisis averted. 

Anyway, pertaining to the earlier discussion about rating user-created content, I finally posted my mad bomber manifestodebate piece on the NW forums about the (many) problems with it along with some possible solutions. If anyone has an interest in this topic (unlikely) or is really bored (more likely), check it out here

[Merusk]

url=http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?82881-Changes-coming-to-the-Control-Wizard!&p=1237861#post1237861]Control Wizard changes coming: [/url]

Changes coming to the Control Wizard!

    We've heard your feedback about the Control Wizard's lack of control. We're going to be working on several changes for him over the next few weeks. Most notably, the first change will be a pretty sizable increase on the duration for all of his control powers. This change will not affect PVP, so in PVP your control powers will still be at their current duration. I look forward to seeing you all in Beta Weekend 3!

[Xilren's Twin]

I thought you were going to make a pun with the entire "STO" and "ship" thing... crisis averted. 

Anyway, pertaining to the earlier discussion about rating user-created content, I finally posted my mad bomber manifestodebate piece on the NW forums about the (many) problems with it along with some possible solutions. If anyone has an interest in this topic (unlikely) or is really bored (more likely), check it out here

I read your, um, lengthy   posts and i think your points are quite solid. The creation stuff is really my only interest in this game, so i will be very interested to see how your points are addressed, as well as the general "ingredients" of the toolset itself to see what different mission types, reward levels, etc can actually be created well.  Having categories for "story heavy" vs "farm" may not matter much if the story type has inferior tools to work with....
Hopefully some of the folks here are int he foundry beta and get give us the reality of it soon.

[Zetor]

I thought you were going to make a pun with the entire "STO" and "ship" thing... crisis averted.  

Anyway, pertaining to the earlier discussion about rating user-created content, I finally posted my mad bomber manifestodebate piece on the NW forums about the (many) problems with it along with some possible solutions. If anyone has an interest in this topic (unlikely) or is really bored (more likely), check it out here

I read your, um, lengthy   posts and i think your points are quite solid. The creation stuff is really my only interest in this game, so i will be very interested to see how your points are addressed, as well as the general "ingredients" of the toolset itself to see what different mission types, reward levels, etc can actually be created well.  Having categories for "story heavy" vs "farm" may not matter much if the story type has inferior tools to work with....
Hopefully some of the folks here are int he foundry beta and get give us the reality of it soon.

Yeah.. there's still time until release. I still believe those problems MAY be fixed, but my cynical side tells me they won't. After all, it's putting effort/resources on a problem that doesn't directly affect Cryptic's bottom line, considering that most of the playerbase is probably going to be content just playing the 20 top-rated stories + the weekly pick anyway. The authors... pff, who cares about those guys making content in our game for free, anyway?! I hope to be proven wrong, though.

As for the beta, AFAIK they only let in a really small sample of people in so far -- some NWN1-2 vets, some STO Foundry vets, and some of the more vocal community members (like the NOCS folks). Maybe there'll be another invite wave later?

[Stormwaltz]

I still haven't had time to read the wall o'text, but it seems to me that they need two things I've seen in other search systems. You probably either discussed these, or discussed why they wouldn't work.

Tagging: I want to search for a Story or Puzzle based mission in an Urban setting involving Halflings that's suited for Rogues. I should be able to flag or checkboxes or search for those boldfaced terms.

Reviewer weighting: The greater the proportion of "extreme" reviews (1 and 5 star) that a reviewer hands out, the less their reviews count for in the average.

[Zetor]

Yep, both of those are included... imo tagging is the most crucial one (there should both be author-specified and automatically-generated tags).

I also suggested reviewer weighting, though I figured it'd be an Amazon-esque system -- all of your reviews are public, and there is a "x out of y people found this helpful. Did you find this helpful? y/n" box next to each of them. This 'helpfulness' rating both adjusts the weight of  the review, and the weight of ALL your reviews. Of course there needs to be a way to deal with alt accounts used to pad votes and downvote good reviews / upvote bad reviews, since it's a f2p game...

[Ginaz]

More beta keys available from MMORPG.com for this weekend's beta.  Only about 7k left so get them fast if you're interested.

http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/428/Neverwinter-Beta-Weekend-3-Key-Giveaway.html