This is hot news! The original plan for Neverwinter, based on the popular Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dragons, was for it to be a cooperative online role-playing game. However, now that Chinese MMO company Perfect World has acquired Cryptic, the game developers behind Neverwinter, the project will now be turned into a full-fledged free to play MMORPG.
Neverwinter MMORPG: Release date 2012
Title: Neverwinter
Developer: Cryptic Studios
Setting: Traditional fantasy Dungeons and Dragons RPG
Release date: late 2012
Pricing: Free to play
Once a bustling location, Neverwinter has faced a great many disasters in the past hundred years. Rule of the city remains unclear following the unfortunate demise of the last Lord of Neverwinter and factions still battle for dominance after the all-consuming Spellplague took a high toll on the population. Even Neverwinter’s dead are beginning to rise from their graves and march upon the city they once called home.
It seems that Neverwinter is being built with a modified version of the same engine used for Cryptic’s two most recent MMORPGs – Star Trek Online and Champions Online.
Cryptic has decided to make every content pack for Neverwinter totally free as well. In other words, unlike a lot of Western MMO games that have switched to free to play, Neverwinter will not be selling content packs. Instead there will be an item shop for consumables (special potions, temporary items to increase experience gains, etc…) vanity pets and cosmetic items that can be bought for money. This is the same type of revenue model that Perfect World uses in their other MMORPGs.
“The developer says Neverwinter will be closer to a game like Nexon’s Vindictus, where combat is controlled by mouse clicks, and where pattern recognition and reflexes are the keys to successfully murdering hordes of monsters.”
Source: IGN
The official teaser website is available at http://www.playneverwinter.com while the RPG game D&D:Heroes of Neverwinter is already live on Facebook if you want a taste of what the setting of the Neverwinter MMO is going to be like.
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Who cares? People that post “first” are morons
The game was never meant to play under the restrictions of a MMO model. The story, quests, and gameplay will likely suffer due to this incompatibility. This is a terrible idea and it’s a shame they are digging this great game out of the grave only to defile it with a MMO model. To many compromises will have to be made, your choices will have little to no effect on the game world, characters will lose all depth, and story progression will turn in to the status quo MMO grindfest.