Neverwinter Nights Online. (Cryptic Studios)

[jakonovski]

I started playing, got to level 10 or so. When does this become an mmo, it's all been janky single player crpging with mmo mechanics this far.

You mean like every MMO has done since WoW showed it was more popular than EQ's forced grouping?

I phrased it badly, I meant how the gameplay has been almost all single player instances so far. I got into something that resembles a shared zone (the slums with black sludge), but it's not exactly top tier material. But it's free so I shall persist for a while.

[Phred]

I got into something that resembles a shared zone (the slums with black sludge), but it's not exactly top tier material. But it's free so I shall persist for a while.

That's the first of many shared zones. Everything up to this point has been basically a tutorial. However the crown instance was sharable it just didn't need 2 or more people.

[koro]

You actually won't run into too many people in any given instance of a zone. I think the cap for players in an area before it spins off a new instance of it is something like 10 or 15 or something really really low.

Even in the 30s and 40s I rarely see anyone unless a couple people in the same zone and instance happen to be on the exact same series of quests I am at that moment.

Edit: The reason for this is almost certainly the shift in direction that Perfect World mandated. NWO was originally supposed to be a small-scale solo/coop kind of deal, but Perfect World said "No, expand it to a full MMO" two thirds the way through development, so Cryptic had to convert it all. What you see here is probably the bare minimum effort they did in order to please their overlords.

[Hoax]

You can actually turn something on in options that lets you pick what instance you join every time you zone, then if you want you can join crowded or empty ones. The game isn't a MMO though if by MMO you mean virtual world, there is no world and no community to this game. Its a game for small statics and small guilds where people play same TZ as you. If you are expecting to naturally meet randoms and get to know them and talk to them while you guys work through content and whatnot. That doesn't happen. You join a queue, get randoms, say zero words, roll on everything if you feel like it and bounce when its over. Its a business transaction.

Instance + queues for everything are fine with me but its not mmo anymore either in games like NWNO, it has all the community of a lobby + game room pvp only game like Exsteel, MWO, Rumble Fighter, Infinity Online etc.

[Stormwaltz]

Got past that problem mission and made it to 51, only to get blocked by another un-soloable beat-down. It seems to be a failing of this game that at higher levels, missions are not completable unless you are a "top 10% player," or 3-4 levels over the intended audience.

Back to Foundry missions until the final(?) mission of Icespire Peak is possible. Fortunately, I left off in the middle of a Drow campaign. I do enjoy slaughtering goth/emo/bondage elves.

[jakonovski]

You can actually turn something on in options that lets you pick what instance you join every time you zone, then if you want you can join crowded or empty ones. The game isn't a MMO though if by MMO you mean virtual world, there is no world and no community to this game. Its a game for small statics and small guilds where people play same TZ as you. If you are expecting to naturally meet randoms and get to know them and talk to them while you guys work through content and whatnot. That doesn't happen. You join a queue, get randoms, say zero words, roll on everything if you feel like it and bounce when its over. Its a business transaction.

Instance + queues for everything are fine with me but its not mmo anymore either in games like NWNO, it has all the community of a lobby + game room pvp only game like Exsteel, MWO, Rumble Fighter, Infinity Online etc.

This is really well said, and exactly what my question was about (couldn't express it properly for whatever reason). A shame, but I think I like the Forgotten Realms fluff enough to readjust my expectations.

[apocrypha]

Seeing rumours of an AH exploit - people winning auctions by bidding negative values. Apparently it also works on the Zen/AD exchange....

I can't log on right now to see what's going on but someone just said that the AH has been completely shut down.

[Kanglor]

Yeah it's true, there is a guy streaming right now who is giving away the Cat pet to anyone who asks him, and the Zen/AD Exchange has zero Zen atm, all bought out.  Not sure how they fix this without a rollback.

[Cheddar]

Damnit.

On another note, I completed the clock dungeon place this morning.  Tons of fun.  I cheered at finding my first mimic and geletonous ooze!

[Tannhauser]

Glad I wasn't the only one to do that. Yeah, I'm level 41 and have only seen that one Gelatinous Cube.  A little surprising but there seems to be a good variety in mob skins.  Too bad there isn't for gear, I have the same shield pattern I've had for twenty levels.

[Soln]

Just chiming in to say game is fun.  Got to 20 in 3 play sessions with no frustration and minor confusion .  They've done a lot right.  Free and fun makes me wanna keep playing and give them monies for more bags and the like.  PUGs work and Foundry is impressive that it works.

[tmp]

Seeing rumours of an AH exploit - people winning auctions by bidding negative values. Apparently it also works on the Zen/AD exchange....

Rotfl, guess someone wasn't cautious about the int/unsigned int mixng/casting...

[apocrypha]

Yeah it's true, there is a guy streaming right now who is giving away the Cat pet to anyone who asks him, and the Zen/AD Exchange has zero Zen atm, all bought out.  Not sure how they fix this without a rollback.

Oh dear, that's bad news. Launching an AH that has an exchange with a real-money currency and letting it be susceptible to this kind of simple (sounding) exploit is about as clownshoes as you can get.

I can't see any solution except a massive rollback either. If proceeds are being distributed then it'll quickly become impossible to track down and target them, but a rollback will piss a lot of people off too.

[Ginaz]

Glad I wasn't the only one to do that. Yeah, I'm level 41 and have only seen that one Gelatinous Cube.  A little surprising but there seems to be a good variety in mob skins.  Too bad there isn't for gear, I have the same shield pattern I've had for twenty levels.

You don't really start to notice a difference in equipment appearance until around 30.  Its disappointing but it does look better eventually.

[Hoax]

This game has been exploited to the point where a rollback might be warranted enough times (3 or 4 by my count?) that they really need to start a fresh server.

[apocrypha]

Fresh server wouldn't help.

By using the AD/Zen exchange you can transfer Zen to the overall account and thus straight onto a new server, so the economy-wrecking billions of AD and free Zen that people have thus obtained would just flood right in again.

[koro]

Yeah it's true, there is a guy streaming right now who is giving away the Cat pet to anyone who asks him, and the Zen/AD Exchange has zero Zen atm, all bought out.  Not sure how they fix this without a rollback.

Oh dear, that's bad news. Launching an AH that has an exchange with a real-money currency and letting it be susceptible to this kind of simple (sounding) exploit is about as clownshoes as you can get.

I can't see any solution except a massive rollback either. If proceeds are being distributed then it'll quickly become impossible to track down and target them, but a rollback will piss a lot of people off too.

I will be shocked if there's a rollback.

If there is, great. If not, then the game is going to be pretty much fucked for months until the people who were smart about laundering their billions of ADs have filtered theirs out of the system.

Welp:

Update 12PM Pacific: We are still investigating the situation. There is a high likelihood that we will be performing character-specific rollbacks on any accounts that were found to be utilizing the exploit. Additionally, we are investigating the extent of what can additional steps can be taken to remove any illegitimately obtained Astral Diamonds that have entered into the economy. At this stage, the possibility of performing a shard-wide is unlikely.

So I assume anyone who successfully laundered their diamonds by turning them into zen or spending them on as much in-game stuff as they could will pretty much get off scot free.

[Cheddar]

Sonuva, possible shard wide rollback.

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?262972-Astral-Diamond-Exchange-and-Gateway-Offline

[Xanthippe]

How many major exploits have been found so far? I've heard of two, but I haven't been playing since the beginning, and the first I heard about wasn't rolled back.

[Draegan]

I know of only two as well. This AH one and the GF one.

[koro]

Via a commenter on Massively:

As a Neverwinter closed Beta tester and current HotN founder, let me share all the exploits this game has had.

Let me fill you in on ALL the exploits and when we found them.

1 - AH exploit - This is what all the current fuss is about. Too bad it was discovered and reported in closed beta, only to still make it in. Through this exploit one can earn unlimited AD and simply clean out the AD vendors, as well as buy up all the Zen they wanted. I knew about it and reported it on the day that I logged in. My ticket was closed and marked as resolved. Upon reading it further, I noticed that a GM told me the ticket was lost and to resubmit it. I did and kept playing. The second ticket was closed and "lost again". So I gave up reporting it.

2 - Quest sharing exploit - This allowed you to reach level 60 in about an hour of playing. It also allowed people to farm unlimited bags, assets, and materials. It was discovered and reported in closed beta, but still made it in to the open beta. Once again, I made a ticket about it only to have it closed. My follow up ticket was also closed.

3 - Foundry bugs - Were used to gain max level and farm gear. Although I knew about this bug, I did not report it because I thought the other two were more important.

4 - The CW set bonus bug allowing them to hit for millions points of damage. This was a very minor bug, but it still allowed a team of two or more CW's to farm end game content. I did not know about this bug, but plenty of people in my guild did.

5 - The GF set bug - Yet another set bug that allowed the GF to almost instantly kill any mob in the game. A lot more consistent than the CW set bug, and caused a lot of damage to the economy. I knew about this a few days into the game, but decided not to report it since my other tickets kept being closed and "lost".

6 - Chest farming exploits - These are still in the game and allow people to farm easy money, as well as gear and ingredients.

7 - There is already a bot out for Neverwinter that members of Tault Unleashed have been using. Currently it can be made to level or exploit chests. They are working on having it take care of professions and auto pray for you as well.

8 - TR DC bug - this was used mostly in PvP to instantly disconnect anyone the TR targeted with certain abilities. It allowed all TR groups to quickly win matches in the least amount of time possible.

9 - Potion exploit - Basically you can have unlimited healing potions - not much of an exploit since you can accomplish the same thing easier by using any other AD earning exploit and buying potions.

10 - AutoHotkey - Macro software that allows you to easily max your crafting.

11 - AFK PvP groups - creating a few accounts and making an AFK group (managed by AutoHotkey or the Viper bot), you can quickly earn XP and gear while you sleep.

12 - Their support site has not worked since launch. That's right, you can't even request a refund or report bugs through that thing! it gets stuck in an infinite loop after you log in to submit a ticket.

I believe there are a few more I am forgetting about, but every single one of those is game breaking and has been around since closed beta.

[Threash]

So this is bad right?

[Cheddar]

So this is bad right?

Cheating does not hurt other players.

[Threash]

So this is bad right?

Cheating does not hurt other players.

Crashing the AD market hurts the players that sold zen for AD a whole lot actually. 

[Cheddar]

So this is bad right?

Cheating does not hurt other players.

Crashing the AD market hurts the players that sold zen for AD a whole lot actually. 

You missed my sarcasm.

[Phred]

So I assume anyone who successfully laundered their diamonds by turning them into zen or spending them on as much in-game stuff as they could will pretty much get off scot free.

Seems like a rather poor assumption to make that they wouldn't track the records of converting diamonds to zen or any diamond spending for that matter.

[koro]

So I assume anyone who successfully laundered their diamonds by turning them into zen or spending them on as much in-game stuff as they could will pretty much get off scot free.

Seems like a rather poor assumption to make that they wouldn't track the records of converting diamonds to zen or any diamond spending for that matter.

Considering that folks have been reporting alt accounts who generated tens of millions of AD this way have been banned, yet the main accounts they sent the things they bought with those diamonds to haven't been touched...

Not to mention that this same exact exploit happened in STO and was fixed, as well as being reported numerous times during NWO's closed beta, but still went live regardless, I wouldn't put an overly large amount of faith in Cryptic doing the sensible thing.

[Phred]

Sigh can never overestimate the stupidity of MMO companies.

[Ginaz]

Looks like theres going to be a rollback to 5:20 AM PDT the morning of May 19, 2013.  

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?266921-FAQ-AD-AH-Exploit-Follow-Up

[apocrypha]

Hmm, not sure a 7 hour rollback is anywhere near enough to undo the negative effects of this. If it really has been going on for weeks (months?) then even if that constitutes "a fraction of a percent of total impact" that still leaves a small number of people with a potentially economy-distorting level of currency, given how far it's likely been spread.

The fact that it took so long to shut it down, and the claims that it'd been reported multiple times previously in closed beta make me glad that I decided not to spend a single penny on this game at this point.

Putting this into the "keep an eye on" category of games now. Not interested in playing something that's this badly done right now.

[Draegan]

The game is pretty fun as long as you don't really care about the game long term. It's worth playing through and the only thing messed up is the end game economy. Of course, this depends if there are still fucked up things that force another rollback.

[Threash]

Hmm, not sure a 7 hour rollback is anywhere near enough to undo the negative effects of this. If it really has been going on for weeks (months?) then even if that constitutes "a fraction of a percent of total impact" that still leaves a small number of people with a potentially economy-distorting level of currency, given how far it's likely been spread.

The fact that it took so long to shut it down, and the claims that it'd been reported multiple times previously in closed beta make me glad that I decided not to spend a single penny on this game at this point.

Putting this into the "keep an eye on" category of games now. Not interested in playing something that's this badly done right now.

I imagine there is also a ton of bans on top of that.

[Xanthippe]

Wouldn't it be entirely possible for people in the know to make real dollars off exploits like this?

I can't imagine why else known exploiting bugs would make it into an open beta stage when they've been reported for months. Nobody is that incompetent; malevolent, more likely.

Edited to add: this assumes that those claiming the bugs existed for a long time are not mistaken or lying.

[Threash]

Well the bug existed in STO, it was reported in early beta and it has been live the entire time the game has been running.

[Goumindong]

So I assume anyone who successfully laundered their diamonds by turning them into zen or spending them on as much in-game stuff as they could will pretty much get off scot free.

Seems like a rather poor assumption to make that they wouldn't track the records of converting diamonds to zen or any diamond spending for that matter.

Considering that folks have been reporting alt accounts who generated tens of millions of AD this way have been banned, yet the main accounts they sent the things they bought with those diamonds to haven't been touched...

Not to mention that this same exact exploit happened in STO and was fixed, as well as being reported numerous times during NWO's closed beta, but still went live regardless, I wouldn't put an overly large amount of faith in Cryptic doing the sensible thing.

Its also easy to get around by listing things on the market with high buyouts and then finding your item that you listed and buying it out. "I just put it up there and someone bought it". Easy enough to shuffle the money through a few accounts so that it would be hard to trace back to the end user.