Neverwinter – Worth a Look

Neverwinter is a Free to Play MMO published by ARC Games. Lately I’ve been looking for something to play in the evening that’s less intense. Something different to try between sessions with FFXIV and GW2.

I remember trying Neverwinter years ago and being so unimpressed that I only made one character, got it to about level 4 and gave up. Well, a lot has changed since then.

Neverwinter is not a modern game. So be prepared for some nostalgia. But it’s not a clunker either. It’s a real 3D Game. Not a TOP DOWN ISO camera game. It is WASD movement. Those are requirements for me. I need to be able to look at the sky and move around with my muscle memory that I’ve trained after years of playing.

  • The graphics is better than the old parts of World of Warcraft, but not as nice as Tera or GW2 or FFXIV.
  • But the combat is very nice. It’s Action Combat, not TAB targeting. So you need to place the little circle on your target.
  • There are a ton of Races and Classes to choose from. Follow the Wiki link above.
  • All of the classes I’ve played are completely survivable, at least through the tutorial and first few instances.
  • There are only a few buttons to push. Unlike Wow and FFXIV, the goal for skills has not been to fill the entire keyboard with skills. 5 or 6 will do you.
  • As a minor downside, no Hot Key mapping is provided. So you need to manually edit some ini file or other to change Inventory to Bags if you want to do that. I haven’t bothered yet. But they keyboard layout is well designed and works fine with my Left Hand game keypad. This game works on consoles too, if you are of a mind to play it that way. Update: Keybinds do exist. I just missed them.

Keybinds

Here are the dialogs to change the keybinds. Looks very complete.

First Impressions

The tutorial is quick and quite easy. And you get and learn your first 3 or so skills there.

The first few instances after that are not bone crushing either, but they do require some care with healing and dodging.

I’ve not tried to party up yet, but I think you can party up for the instances. They don’t really call them “Story Quests” and you sort of need to find the quest givers yourself. But once you do, glowing sparkles will lead you through the quest you have highlighted as your active quest.

Travel is instant to any place you have been before. I didn’t see a cost mention. Maybe travel is free.

Death is not a big deal. You go back to the nearest campfire you passed along the way, and they are frequent. And Healing injuries is free at a campfire. Healing in combat is with potions, but you’ll find plenty along the way. Healers can heal themselves and others of course.

You get two character slots to start, but new ones are only about $2.50 each. Very reasonable, esp since you’ll want lots of toons to experience all those Races and Classes. Sorry, no “Child Like” races. Small ones, but no children. Dwarfs and Halflings are shorter, but more like Dwarfs and Hobbits really than Elin or Lalafel. I’m not a D&D expert, so I don’t know how many of these are from D&D lore and how many are game specific.

This is an old style MMO with some modern touches. Lots of fiddly bits – Power points to spend, Feats – Traits? – to set, Enchants to do, etc etc. So if you like fiddly bits in your game, this is gonna be fun. Sometimes they fiddle for you and sometimes you need to fiddle the settings yourself. Personally I’m not a big fan of fiddly bits to tweak, but if it doesn’t get too down in the weeds, I’ll enjoy it for the action combat and nostalgic feel.

There is some examples of all the fiddly bits that you have to mess with as you level up your toon.

They have been updating it with “Quality of Life” and I’m not interested in going back to a “Classic” of “Vanilla” experience, personally.

Mounts Early and Reasonably Priced

Account wide mounts are either $14 +80% speed or $24 if you want the really fast ones +110% speed. 30% faster for $10 more? But they are account wide.

A free mount shows up in a quest at level 10 or so, but it’s pretty slow +50% speed. Store mounts prices sounds pretty reasonable for a Free To Play game actually.

The horse is free and the Tiger is $14 for your account. There are lots of other choices. Actually those are introductory prices. After the first mount it’s more.

NVW_2019_03_18_09_05_windyplaye rmount pricesx.png

Minor Glitch with Screenshots

There are some minor glitches with Screenshots. Screenshots taken during cut scenes are saved in the old TGA format, which nobody understands any more, but in the normal game they are saved as JPGs. Not sure why this hasn’t been fixed. I’ve reported it and maybe they will fix it soon. At other times, “Print Screen” is just ignored. For example when you open a dialog to view your mounts or the store. But if you use Irfanview or another image editor, you can paste the screen into that and save it, since Windows 10 has grabbed it. Of course if you are using Fraps or another screen cap program then you’re all set too.

Actually, it’s a real pain. Screenshots don’t work if you are looking at any dialog. In that case you need to use another program. Sigh. The whole screenshot thing with this game is totally messed up.

Early Days

I’m just starting. So far I’ve played:

  • Wizard
  • Warlock
  • Paladin
  • Cleric

Up to level 9. All are survivable and fun to play. But obviously I’ve just started. Level Cap is 70 and I see quite a few 70s around in town. A new expansion is coming soon – this month I think – that will take the level cap to 80 and add a ton of new content. So the game development is still active. And unlike most other games, there is not any fighting with the player base.

I’ll report back when I know more. But this might be a long term casual gaming experience for me.

:ww