Hi there everyone! Before I jump into my first post about the Neverwinter Foundry, I’d like to formally introduce myself as you will see some blog posts from me time to time. My name is Steve Cantu and I am one of the friendly faces that call iBUYPOWER home. A little gaming history about me, I previously worked development side in the video game industry as a UI Artist and Quality Assurance Tester. I rolled with the big boy studios on AAA projects, bumped elbows with Steven Spielberg in an elevator, shared a beverage or 8 during the fabled Beer Fridays and even was in the middle of a major studio’s closure! Hopefully I can provide an insider perspective on various video game related news or blog about something intriguing I find. Well, enough about me, let’s move on to my first blog post!

Anybody who ever played video games has thought about being a game designer. The ultimate dream of molding their ideas into a game a reality, but breaking into the industry can be a brick wall. Worrying about job security, contract positions, working 36 hour shifts and low entry level pay can really leave a sour taste in the mouth.

So, how can you put your awesome ideas into video game format and allow millions of people to play it? Enter Neverwinter Foundry.

The Foundry is a feature within the Free to Play MMO game Neverwinter by Cryptic Games. It allows you to fairly easily build and share the adventures you’ve always wanted to see, but couldn’t. It gives you the power to build dungeons, castles, villages, fantasy forests… almost anything your imagination throws at it! Customized NPC dialog trees can be as short or long as your carpal tunnel can handle. Speaking of NPCs, you can customize their look to your liking as well as customize your monsters/enemies/boss(es). Please note that this game is based in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy lore so if you have ever played the pen and paper version, you will be right at home, otherwise, it may not be your cup of tea.

The Neverwinter Foundry also features a dynamic rating system that allows other players to rate and highlight the best player-designed adventures. If you spend quality time and have a thrilling, engaging adventure, you will get recognition. Players will leave you tips in the form of Astral Diamonds that are the main in-game currency. The Foundry can help you be self-sufficient in game without having to spend real life money on nice equipment.

Neverwinter is relatively new and there are already plenty of resources to help you build your own quest. The Wiki is a good place to begin as well as the official game forums.

The game itself is a pretty standard MMO, but it has a somewhat clumsy targeting system that is hell for clerics. Instead of clicking one of your F keys to select a team member and spam heal, it has an interesting approach that forces the healer to be in the thick of battle where they can point their target at the player in need. Targeting aside, I am enjoying this game and the Foundry even more. I have yet to publish my first adventure, but I have my script planned out for when I have a large chunk of available time to crank it out.

So if you’ve been scratching nervously to dabble into game design, the Foundry is a great tool to get started and in front of millions of players to critique. As a note, you must have a character of at least level 15 to access the Foundry. That gives you enough time to understand the mechanics of the game before diving head first into your adventure!

Check out Neverwinter’s official website to learn more.