Much of my weekend was spent playing Neverwinter Online as part of their closed beta. I have been looking forward to getting a deeper hands on experience with this game since playing the demo at PAX Prime back in August. Personally, I was not disappointed by what I found. It is not, in its current state, a complete game by any means, but what is there really put a smile on my face. So, my friends, gather around the camp fire and I shall share with you the tale of a tricky rogue known as Quinn Fallcrest. His was a brief, but entertaining life.

So many dungeons, so little time

I decided that if I only had a few days to play, I was darn well going to go nuts and roll a striker. I have played in several 4th Edition D&D games and I am a fan of doing all the damage. Things looked great right up until I got to the stats. Rolling for stats? I’m pretty sure we’ve had something to say on that very subject here on Dorkadia. So I was less than thrilled about that part, but I did enjoy the amount of optional background information that could be put into character creation. Of course it is worth mentioning that this isn’t an exact emulation of a 4th Edition experience. For that, you would most likely want a tactics game of some sort. Neverwinter is, however, very much in the spirit of that most action and oriented edition of D&D.

Once you’re in game, you start to see exactly how this whole translation comes together. You receive two at-will abilities that you will spam endlessly when other options aren’t available. Your three encounter powers will have small cooldowns as you would expect from powers in most MMORPGs. Your two daily powers will be tied to action points that you generate in combat and which are visibly represented by a filling D20. When that puppy is full, it’s time to unleash some crazy shit. I found the keyboard and mouse layout to be quite user friendly. Using WASD to move is pretty standard, so your enounters are conveniently bound to QER and at-wills are on the mouse buttons. That little touch made the game feel like it flowed perfectly to me without having to make any UI changes on my end.

Mechanically, I would like to see a slightly more responsive or intuitive use of defensive powers. I don’t necessarily want to double tap a direction or hold shift while pressing a direction to tumble out of harm during a heavy fight. I would much prefer to just hit shift and automagically dodge backward. That may be a bit of a nitpick, but I think it would make combat feel more reflexive.

Shouldn’t I be rolling dice?

Neverwinter managed to push my D&D adventure buttons consistently as I made my way up to level 15 over the course of the weekend. My boat was sacked by a dracolich which left me stranded on the shores of Neverwinter? Cool. Go perforate some undead and make my way to a castle? Yes please. Now proceed to fight thieves trying to steal the crown of Neverwinter, take out a warren of kobolds, track wererats through a sewer, and then go fight bands of orcs? Clearly someone has been peeking at the DM notes for every campaign I’ve been in. What I’m saying here is that I absolutely dig the flavor of this game and I can’t wait until it’s ready for public release.

Questing and leveling were as smooth as I could have asked for. The thing that I have been encountering lately in the free to play world is the lack of continual questing to level up. Perhaps I was spoiled by subscription games that didn’t make me engage in grinding specifically toward the end of gaining a level to get my next set of quests. There are a couple absolutely fantastic things about Neverwinter to help alleviate that whole grinding problem. Firstly, the game has a screen that pops up to suggest various activities when you log in such as a level appropriate skirmish or dungeon. Skirmishes are short instances focused on combat where a party will face down waves of enemies and try to remain standing. It’s a welcome change of pace from standard dungeons as far as I’m concerned. Sadly, I did not dive into any full multiplayer dungeons this weekend and so can’t describe their potential excellence.

Even if you don’t want to skirmish or go dungeon crawling with others, the Foundry system of user created content should be sufficient to keep players entertained between story quests. The only complaint I will mention about that system was that the first quest I picked up was quite painfully obviously made by a user and not a game designer. The quest story made absolutely no sense and much of the text was riddled with spelling and grammar issues. However, there is a rating system for Foundry quests that should help sort the good from the bad as more players participate in the system.

You know that dream where you’re raiding a crypt and forgot your pants

Certain things were not present in beta weekend three; things like pants. Yeah, no leg items were sold by vendors, looted from chests, or awarded from quests. An odd choice to omit from a beta test to be sure. Let me reiterate – amazing system that allows for users to create, and share their own content; no pants. Seriously. Also missing were professions, though the interface for them is present and I look forward to seeing it implemented in the future.

Yes, there were bugs and not everything was available in the game (pants), but it’s a closed beta so that’s to be expected. Overall, it was a great experience that leaves me wanting to delve deeper into the dungeons and caverns of Neverwinter. I am, quite certainly, a very biased person to have chime in on the virtues of this game by my own admission. I bring my love of past D&D experiences with me and they definitely enter into my final judgment. That said, I will be sitting here at my PC and stabbing away at demonic hordes when Neverwinter becomes available for public consumption and I hope to see you all in there with me.

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