Neverwinter 2013 vs Shroud ot Avatar

I have never played a Ultima game ever.
I played console stuff like old zeldas, final fantasy, chrono trigger that was my exposure to rpg.
Later it was Elder Scrolls morrowwind, oblivion, skyrim.

Nowadays I play alot of ARPG, Path of Exile, Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn, Titan Quest.

Anyway I was brought to Shroud by the game STAR CITIZEN. Which I pledged a few hundred dollars on but have since gotten a full refund.

Now to my point, I have just started playing this MMO Neverwinter and I hope Shroud is more deep and rich then NW. I hope this is not what SHROUD will be like at all.

The PvP in NW is a lot of fun and I absolutely love the combat system. I hope Shroud can emulate NW combat.

 

Dont you worry my friend, from what I have seen Shroud of the Avatar and Neverwinter are nothing like eachother.

I do understand your concern though, the fact is most MMO type games these days follow that same Everquest-World of Warcraft model of gameplay. You start out at level one, follow the (literal) path of quests the NPCs give you so you can get the gear and exp you need to leave to the next zone/level bracket.

The goal is that SotA will have a much heavier emphasis on storytelling and exploration. There will be a main story like the older Ultima games that will probably involve difficult choices and moral dilemmas. I assume however that it will play out more like Skyrim than Neverwinter(Or other MMOs), where you are not pigeonholed into doing story quests to level up.


Without having a background playing Ultima games it will be hard to fully understand the goals of Shroud of the Avatar

You may want to read this:

http://www.portalarium.com/index.php/ultimate-rpg?id=93

If you are not turned off by old (very old) games and want to check out the various Ultimas, I would recommend Ultima IV as a great place to start, and you can download it for free off of GOG.com

 

very excited to hear that. I was more concerned that this just came out. But with the way LB sounds SotA will be veryrich. Thats what neverwinter is missing richness, there is no heart to the game, just a shell.

 

Neverwinter is terrible. This will be nothing like it.

 

Yeah I tried out Neverwinter a bit, (As I try out all MMOs)

I will say that from the little I tried, I really liked the camera and character movement, and the combat targeting style. Other than that, it feels much like other MMOs, and that is not really a good thing these days.

One thing that I found very interesting was "The Foundry"
I have not tried it yet, but it looks to be an in game user created content tool for making multiplayer dungeons and sharing them with the rest of the MMOs community.

It is a little early to see how well this Foundry thing is going to work out, but I could see a tool like this fitting in nicely with a more sandboxy game like SotA.

 

Neverwinter Online only just went into Open Beta? I'm yet to try it so I have no idea what it is like.

The original Neverwinter Nights was a singleplayer/multiplayer RPG based on the d20 system and it was excellent.

But Neverwinter is a D&D IP and it'll be tied to D&D mechanics (probably the most recent edition). I doubt SotA will resemble it.

 

@Ashlynn[Pax] From what I have seen, there is very little in the way of tabletop D&D mechanics in place (Unlike DDO). It honestly plays just like any other MMO, in fact it plays almost exactly like Guild Wars 2.

Now I only have played it to around level 10, and yes it is still in open beta, but I dont expect things to change too much...

I never played Neverwinter Nights, but my understanding was that its strengths were in its user created content.

 

Not only does it have very little to do with D&D, but it has more to do with WoW or any other cookie-cutter MMO than anything else.

There's 3 playable classes loosely based on the 4th edition archetypes, but when you're tearing through a dozen mobs a minute with 1500 HP it becomes pretty obvious that the only thing the game has to do with D&D at all is the name. Gone are any and all locations and NPCs you may have recognized from prior games and campaigns.

 

Neverwinter Nights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights) and NWN2 were fantastic games. The single player elements were very well done, but the multiplayer and ease of creating your own content was its best part. With NWN anyone could run a server and there was a DM client which allowed a very table-top like experience. Even its sequel couldn't match it and I have seen nothing else like it.

I think SOTA will have the community feel of some of the NWN servers I played on, and I very much look forward to it. Most of those used ATS (Ambrosia Tradeskill System) crafting system that was based on Ultima Online, so even with the D&D ruleset it had an Ultima feel too it with gathering and crafting.

This: http://www.neverwinter-online.com/

Um no.

 

Lets not forget the awesome original Neverwinter MMO either.

Neverwinter Nights MMORPG on AOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(MMORPG)

 

If you want to see what it was like, I believe a version of it is still operating, with most D&D elements removed due to licensing issues.

Primitive, sure. But it was fun in its day when it was jam packed full of players since it was basically the only graphical MMO available.

http://fw.perfectworld.com

 

If you want to experience a Lord British production but don't want to go back to tile graphics (though I suspect you have some love of them thanks to Zelda), check out Ultima V: Lazarus, or the Ultima VI project (just completed). These are lovingly made reproductions of the games, with some expansion, that are made to run as modules of Dungeon Siege. You will need to acquire a copy of Dungeon Seige in order to run them.

I'd recommend playing any Ultima game to get some feel, but especially number four and up, because the world becomes really palpable and they really go beyond the hack & slash. Pagan is a really great single character game with pretty modern graphics, though it takes place in another world.

With any of them, do a web search for the documentation that came with the games - the spellbooks and histories are important to the game and you may need to refer to them. Personally they are a big part of immersing in the world, the mythology and folksy details. Most have been scanned and posted for free by fans.

 

Neverwinter online, well lets just say I really don't like it. No matter what race you play and how much you customize it you can't help but feel like you look like everyone else. It's really horrible.
The game is based on D&D 4E rules which suck to start with and then they take away what little customization was left. They added some new things that make it a little more tolerable but I'm not giving them a cent. They suck!

I'll probably dabble in it till I get something on here to do but it is by far the worst free to play or sub MMO I've ever played.

 

@Hempy considering that all of the elder scroll games are indirect descendants of the early Ultimas in the freedom of choices, paths, behaviors, interactivity and exploration it should give you a good indication for what play style and environment SotA will likely be.

Neverwinter(s) games are more akin to the old D&D play style, where the story is more focused on the immediate quest(s) and everything else is accessory. As such, it behoove play to be serial and guided.

Day and night, really. Have faith.

 

@Grimkor 4th edition D&D was turned into WoW

You have abilities (you gain more as you level up) and they have cool-downs... less dice rolling, more ability using.. very very different from the advanced D&D i played growing up. just roll your d20, follow the instructions on the card..

So.. I read neverwinter online was based off of 4th edition, so that could explain why it feels like WoW

 

@Sir Mishri that's actually 100% true. The majority of 4th edition mechanics come from the WoW PnP ruleset. I remember flipping through the WoW manual one day a couple years ago and putting it back pretty quickly because of how absurd it seemed at the time. Then the 4th edition "preview" books came out and I saw that it was the same thing and realized that D&D was finally dead.

Sad day.

 

It's not even an exaggeration. There are magic items in 4e that are literally the minimap you see in the corner, and a stone that shows status/buffs/debuffs on enemy monsters, sadly. I was not fond of 4e.

But I lean more to games like L5R anyway.

Still, I might just see what Neverwinter Online is like as it is in open beta and it is best to be equipped with first hand knowledge before drawing conclusions. Not that I'll stick with it. I am not really an MMO person - UO (and hopefully SotA) being exceptions. I'm also pretty sure it'll be much different to SotA.

 

I also started playing NWO a few days ago and actually find it a fun game to play. Yes it's far from perfect and questwise it's linear as hell but there is a lot to do and it's set up well for casual gamers. I'm not a fan of F2P model since i hate the swarm of micro transactions but if you can get past that, there is pretty fun fighting system underneath + player created content. .

However, as many of the others stated, it's nothing like SotA will be and i'm happy for that. While i enjoy NWO i'd trade it for SotA in a blink of an eye.

 

I'm quite sure, that Neverwinter and SotA will be different enough to coexist ;-) .

 

Which one do you think will have the less micro-transactions?


SotA all the way! My list is as long as Richard Garriot's concept of the ultimate RPG.

In my book Neverwinter doesn't deserve be around these forums. OH and it only runs on Windows.