Neverwinter Review
So there I was, running through some backwater, Neverwinter graveyard, trying to get “rubbings” from a tombstone, minding my own business, not doing anyone any harm. A pack of skeletons climbed their way out of the earth and start to attack me and my companion. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but as I savagely cut them down, I can’t help but feel that there is some special piece missing from the encounter, some elemental influence that turns the mediocre into the intense, the OK to the great, that certain Je ne sais quoi.
I haven’t played too 
many MMO’s in my time, I am definitely what you would call a “cooperative gamer” but I find that I just don’t have the time to sink hundreds of hours into a game. That’s not to say that I haven’t dabbled, I have enjoyed my time with games like Star Wars The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online and Star Trek Online, so I wasn’t a complete newcomer to the genre of MMO’s, but I am by no means an expert. One of the things that I love about the MMO’s that I’ve played is the camaraderie, the community can be a wonderful place to learn and play together, but above all else, I love getting together with a group of friends and kicking some ass.
I will be perfectly honest and in the spirit of full disclosure, I will say that I have not seen everything that Neverwinter has to offer, I haven’t fully explored the endgame but I have spent a lot of time within the Dungeons and Dragons world of Neverwinter and if you will indulge me, I would like to share my thoughts with you.
As you can no doubt surmise, Neverwinter is an MMORPG, it was initially released on the PC and has just been ported over to the Xbox One, and it is currently free to play for anyone who has a subscription to Xbox Live so we can put that one in the “PRO” column. Neverwinter begins innocently enough with what is an admittedly badass opening cinematic, before you are thrown into the character creation screen. I would say that it’s your standard fare, MMO fans will be happy with the diversity of the options available while people more geared towards single player RPG’s may find it a bit more daunting. There’s no shortage of selection and it took me a good twenty minutes just to make my first character. You begin by selecting your race: Human, elf’s, half-orc and so on. From there we move to the class selection, Great Weapon Fighter, Hunter/Ranger and an assortment of wizards and sorcerers (my favourite class was the Trickster Rogue). There is then the physical customisation, once again we see that there’s a tonne of options available beyond the dozen or so presents. I honestly can’t see anyone being disappointed by the options available, that’s two in the “PRO” column, well played Neverwinter.
The story will see you (whoever or whatever you are) wake up after a ship wreck, and this provides the games basic tutorial for movement, item selection, combat and levelling up. The early enemies are perfect for practicing your attacks on and gave me plenty of time to get used to the character class I was playing as. It’s not as comprehensive a tutorial as ones from games likes SWTOR, but an overbearing voice will chat to you throughout the game whenever it decides there is more you need to know. Unfortunately I received one of these updates while I was interacting with a character in-game and as a result I couldn’t hear what either the character, or the helpful narrator was saying. It only happened to me a couple of times so it may have just been bad timing but it felt like my TV was shouting at me for no good reason.
I was playing as a level 12 Hunter when I had my first real Neverwinter epiphany. It wasn’t the most engaging MMO that I have played, that title belongs to SWTOR, but it seems to me that Neverwinter isn’t intended to be the pinnacle of the MMORPG world, instead it is a fantastic entry level MMO, a game that lets players find their feet and dip their toes into the water rather than opening the floodgates. The downside to this revelation came to me when I realised that Neverwinter was missing something crucial, even now it’s not something that I can readily identify. It seems to me like Neverwinter is missing a part of its soul, or at least the charisma of its characters. The voice acting is, to be fair, pretty awful. All of the characters sound like over the top pantomimes, which could be an endearing quality for certain individuals, but it seems like every character in the game is attending their first ever audition. While the standard of the voice acting isn’t exactly what I would have hoped for (being a largely AAA gamer myself) I have to give Cryptic Studios credit on the amount of voice acting there was. There were no endless text boxes that I was forced to read through in order to get a quest like some RPG’s I have played, so while it doesn’t reach the expectation of quality it certainly has the quantity covered.
When you gain enough in-game money (or buy it with micro transactions) you will be able to purchase a mount. I had a standard horse as my mount but I saw players riding tigers, reptilian beasts and even giant spiders. I don’t know what circumstances brought a saddle to a giant spider; all I know is that I want one! The mount allows you to reduce the amount of time you will spend wandering the various areas of Neverwinter. It is essential for the amount of back and forth trips the game expects you to make.
By far the biggest problem I found with Neverwinter was that the economy is never really explained. There are different currencies, some can be earned through gameplay while some have to be purchased but without taking the time to hop online to the WIKI to check, I would have been completely lost. Money played such a big part in the later sections of Neverwinter that the exclusion of an explanation struck me as either underhanded (to encourage micro transactions) or poorly thought out. I would like to give Cryptic the benefit of the doubt that it was the latter.
As with other MMO’s the gameplay can be broken down into two separate sections: Combat and backtracking. The combat is a lot more involved than other MMO’s with the need to attack and dodge manually rather than having the game decide if a blow lands. I have to admit to really enjoying the combat, sniping enemies from long range with a bow, blasting them with arcane energies or splitting them asunder with a blade is satisfying in the extreme. I don’t like a game where all I have to do is press “attack” and sit back while my character does all the work and Neverwinter has made a much better experience than some of its MMO brethren. As you level up you will unlock points that are used to gain perks and abilities, as with many things within Neverwinter, it doesn’t break the mould but it does fit very well within it. One of the biggest problems that I found with unlocking new abilities was that you can only have six main attacks mapped to the Xbox One controller. It meant that once I passed level 25 and had a wide selection of moves, that I had to neglect the old to try out the new. There are obviously fewer options to hotkey attacks and items on a control pad than a keyboard, it certainly isn’t Cryptic Studios’ fault but it felt like I was being hamstrung by the hardware.
Now, I pondered on whether or not to judge Neverwinter on its server reliability. I found that I was regularly getting kicked from the game and for an entire day, whenever I tried to move from one zone to the next, it reverted back to the title screen and asked me to sign in again. While this was a pain and an annoying issue for me, it is something that I expect will be fixed as time moves on. I mean it is NeverWinter’s first week on consoles so it’s only natural that there will be some teething problems.
When Neverwinter is at its best is when you take on missions with friends. I did have a problem getting into the same game with a friend of mine but a quick Google search told me how to change the instance, which allowed us to hook up and get down to the bandit killing in earnest. Playing with a band of well-balanced players kicks the enjoyment factor of Neverwinter up a gear and the standard loot sharing system works on bidding for items based on need/greed/pass.
To take the fun cooperative gameplay a step further you can go on group missions designed to be played with a band of adventurers. Holding off waves of enemies in a hoard mode was a good test of my characters skill and assaulting an enemy tower was great fun. These missions are where Neverwinter really won me over. You don’t have to be friendly to play with other players and can take the fight into the PvP mode. I wasn’t as much of a fan of this mode but that’s not to say it’s not well rounded. Communication is the key in the PvP and as with many games, the loner player may get the most kills, but if they don’t work as a team they will lose.
As with many MMO’s, Neverwinter’s graphics aren’t great. Animations are jumpy in the extreme and issues with texture pop and latency dulls down the aesthetic. This is nothing unique to NeverWinter though, with so many characters, players and areas it’s only natural that there will be a drop in the looks. It’s the price you pay for the Massive multiplayer online game.
Neverwinter strikes me as one of the best entry level MMO’s around. It is relatively easy to learn the basics of the world, combat is intuitive and can be exciting. With a wide range of customisation options available it really does cater to the new player but has enough depth to satisfy more dedicated fans. Sadly the plot is lacklustre and the ability to choose your own dialogue and path through the game is almost completely missing. As I navigated the story I felt like a passenger, I followed a little glowing trail that told me where to go and who to talk to. Neverwinter won me over with its combat system and the amazing large scale battles of the group missions. It isn’t without its faults but I for one will be hopping back into this game, it’s just a shame that you only have two character slots.
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