Neverwinter Nights MMO. Thoughts?

[Subterranean Sun]

Well, I know it's not exactly a MMO, it's a "cooperative RPG" but hey, who the hell will care, it looks, sounds and smells like a MMO.

So all I can say is: WTF? I mean, is it even POSSIBLE to make a MMO based on 4th edition rule? I didn't see any possibility to handle those immediate interrupt/reaction shits in a real-time MMO, and a turn-based MMO sounds terrible.

Still, I don't think I will have time for that, and I favor TRPG more than MMO.

[Octopod]

Not sure what you are talking about. Is a new NWN coming out? I used to play the first NWN on a persistent world. That used the 3rd edition rules set though. It is turn based in the way that Everquest was, meaning if you wish to attack you push the attack key once and until you turn it of you make a swing every so often depending on how many attacks you get per round and attack speed. Spells also have casting times. It plays perfectly fine. Since PWs can only hold a limited amount of players at a time(it was 60 on the one I used to play on, Narfell) you get more customized content than you would on an mmo.

[BryanM]

By those Star Trek/Champions guys this time around; um, Cryptic, right? It will be fail because they are become fail, destroyer of fun.

It was so bizarre to me when whats-their-faces bought the name. The original SSI / gold box fans were so annoyed by the entire thing, it's like they took their hearts and tore them into tiny pieces. Tends to happen when you take a beloved turn based tactical rpg (hell, one of the very first graphical MMO's) and turn it into a Baldur's Gate clone.

To expand more on why it will be fail and cannot be good:

* They aren't ballsy enough to make a tbtrpg mmo. When their competition within the niche would just be, like, Atlantica Online, they could make a well budgeted game that could profit with a very very long tail. But they'd rather just dump in a lot of cash and crank out poo.

* If they make it like the Bioware (?) (Some obscure company...) version, well. What does it bring that that game doesn't already offer? Much less variety?

* If they make it like a Diablo clone, it will be awful because the D&D ruleset is not designed for that type of game. They would use a made up IP better suited for it if they planned to go this way with it also being good. Also - Diablo 3 is coming out.

* If they make a sterotypical mmo, well, it will be inferior to the thousands already in the market. Probably worse than the current dnd mmo as well. Sure they could add an NPC team so it'd be a soccer simulator like Guild Wars 1 or a "Dungeon Master" gimmick no one will want to use...

Their plan:

Step 1 - Acquire an IP
Step 2 - Crank out a game as fast and as expensively as possible
Step 3 - Release it six months before the company collapses under debt
Step 4 - If company is still on life support, goto 1. Else goto 5
Step 5 - Try to sell off game rights and run away with the money
Step 6 - Profit!

On the aside, I feel like D&D's rules have become a tangled, complex, hideous mess through the editions. Anyone serious about this style of tactics game would just create their own ruleset by this point.

[Octopod]

Tons of people still play NWN1. No one plays NWN2 and NWN3 isn't going to move people from the first one either.

[BryanM]

NO ONE plays Neverwinter Nights because it doesn't exist anymore. AOL killed it.

Silly silly.

[Subterranean Sun]

I was referring to this.

[Ed Oscuro]

NO ONE plays Neverwinter Nights because it doesn't exist anymore. AOL killed it.

Silly silly.

lol @ this, gold box forever

Anyway, from this being described as "not MMO, but cooperative," this sounds like it's following the lead of games like Diablo or Left 4 Dead (even) - just cooperative. There definitely are some MMO aspects likely involved (persistent inventory, ability to face / team with anybody - I wonder if this will have PVP?) except for that defining characteristic of MMOs, which is that everybody is in the same world at the same time (more or less).

It does sound interesting. 4th Ed huh? Hopefully they streamline it...everybody I've met has been of the opinion 4th Ed is a clusterboink and stuck with 3 and added 3.5 content as needed. 'course that's how people viewed 3rd Ed back in the day, too (a lot of people seem to have stuck with AD&D 2 and waited until the second release of 3 to get into it). I don't know much about the rules but this "instant" stuff sounds like nothing a fast 'net connection can't handle. Definitely see why people were saying they turned it into WoW though, if it has mechanics like that - they must have been planning this from the startup.

I wonder, is this going to replace D&D Online? I never got to try it out but the screens looked beautiful at least.

[No_not_like_Quake]

I like what I've played of NWN1 (not the 1991 game). I've heard of this new one but it doesn't sound like my cup of tea. People who know their MMO shit (or seem to) seem to think the developers, Cryptic, aren't uh... too good.

[Cthulhu]

NWN2's engine is so unbelievably bad that any qualities the game has (and it actually has many) are really hard to see unless you're very, very forgiving.

As far as this one goes, regardless of who the developer is, MMO = no interest from me. It's that simple.

[innerpattern]

Uhhm who cares? When Black Isle or Troika get back into D&D RPG's send me a PM.

[Subterranean Sun]

It does sound interesting. 4th Ed huh? Hopefully they streamline it...everybody I've met has been of the opinion 4th Ed is a clusterboink and stuck with 3 and added 3.5 content as needed. 'course that's how people viewed 3rd Ed back in the day, too (a lot of people seem to have stuck with AD&D 2 and waited until the second release of 3 to get into it). I don't know much about the rules but this "instant" stuff sounds like nothing a fast 'net connection can't handle. Definitely see why people were saying they turned it into WoW though, if it has mechanics like that - they must have been planning this from the startup.

Um... I am actually a 4e fanboy. Those immediate actions works like the opporunity attack in 3e, but sometimes you have to decide to use it now or later... and that's the problem.
BTW, any DDO player here? How does it plays like?