Topic: Neverwinter Closed Beta Thoughts

I've been playing the closed beta all day today. I just thought I'd share my thoughts with you guys.

If you're a fan of MMO's, you will probably like this. I was actually surprised by how smooth it feels and well the controls work. It's a lot to take in at first with the limits that a controller can provide with a MMO type game, but you get used to it after a couple hours of playing. The combat is fun and I haven't played anything like it, at least not in an MMO. It's not the typical select target and auto-attack. Your two-main attacks are on your triggers and then your other spells on Y and a combination of RB+X or RB+Y and so on. The grouping systems nice because you can use your microphone and talk with people, only problem is I've only come across one other person that would talk.

Sadly, the closed beta ends tonight. No idea when there will be another beta or the game will release, but figured I'd share so maybe you fans of MMO's will have something to look forward to on the Xbox One. It's free to play with microtransactions. That doesn't bother me at all, seeing as I've had nothing but fun with it.

Its ends tonight? Cool, I downloaded it last night. /facepalm.

Yeah, that's a shame. I didn't have enough time to play the game either. It took me two days to download it because I have a terrible connection. Funny thing is, it's like 10gb or somewhere around there. I only got to play it yesterday and played as much as I could.

What I did play had me hooked though.

@MegaKillScreen The controls felt really weird at first, yeah. It was really weird using the RB+D-Pad buttons to get to the items and map screen and I had trouble with it for probably the first 3-4 hours playing. Then I turned the game off and gave it a break, once I came back I think it gave my brain some time to except the weirdness and let it soak in, lol. You can also press the start button to get to these same menus and many more, which is probably more accessible as a new user. It makes navigation much easier. The interface is a bit strange as well. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to leave a group, in fact I had to ask someone, lol.

Just wanted to add more to my original post about the game. Talk about Crafting and the Classes I played.

I played about 4 more hours after I made my original post and dabbled in crafting a bit. It's also different than I've played in other games and it's actually kind of nice. You hire people to work for you and you send them on missions to get supplies and materials which takes about 10 minutes. Example: I did Leatherworking. I sent my guy to collect pelts, then had him cure them and sent him to make me a Tunic. It's definitely a different way of crafting. I LOVE a good crafting system and in a MMO I've actually been quite disappointed with every crafting system I've come across since playing Dark Age of Camelot. I wasn't really disappointed with this for some reason though. It was just so different that I found it too interesting to dislike it, even if it's not very hands on. I just liked the idea of sending these guys out on missions to do it for me while I'm out questing. You can do it from anywhere, too.

Classes I played.

Cleric - Really fun class. I wanted to see how healing would work in an aim-to-target game like this and I have to say it was done pretty well. I had spells that would make it so when I shot the monster, it would be marked and whoever hit that monster would be healed for a small amount. I also had a spell that was a big cone-type AE line that would heal everyone in it's path and put a heal-over-time on them that you could stack. The Clerics offensive attacks were pretty strong, too. In fact I was at the top of the damage charts in one of the instances I did, not by much though. Beating out some mages and another cleric.

Rogue - This is usually my main in MMO's. He was a pretty fun class to play, I didn't get to mess around TOO much with stealth, but from what I did, I liked. I also really liked the PVP with him. They can deal some serious damage with them as well. I topped the damage charts in an instances by like 9k higher than everyone else. I'm always in competitive mode though so that's the only thoughts in my mind when playing online games.. top score, top damage, top heals.. so yeah. I'd be disappointed otherwise.. like I was when I saw my score after PVP matches.

The PVP map that I played was a typical king of the hill - Domination map. Good stuff though, I had fun with it. The "instances" that I did were basically just fighting off a couple of waves of monsters and then it was over. I'm sure there are much more interesting ones, but I only got each of my two characters to level 12. Can't wait to play more. By peoples comments in the game and the forums some people seem to think that this game will be coming much sooner than expected, stating that the devs got everything they needed to know from the first day of Closed Beta. Possibly could have this game as soon as much.

And that concludes this wall of text. Thank you for your patience.

TL;DR: I like this game.

I really wasn't keen. Preferred it on PC and defo preferred ESO to this. As it's going to be FTP (as is ESO) it's going to be an interesting head to head. I will definitely download both but how much time they will get from me.....

I've got a titan so will probably plug that in and go Kb/mouse to get a layout I like. Wasn't really looking to set up a profile for a demo.

I don't know many people that have played Elderscrolls online personally and have yet to play it myself. One of my favorite reviewers panned it in one of his reviews saying it was one of the worst games of last year. That being said, I was kind of looking forward to trying it when it came to Xbox One. Yesterday, while I was playing Neverwinter, I met a guy in a group early in the day and we practically played the rest of the day together and he was going on about how much he liked the way this game feels and plays compared to Elderscrolls which he had been subscribed to since release. He said Elderscrolls is a great game up to level 50 when veteran levels are introduced. He made it sound like they cater way too much to the single-player fanbase of Elderscrolls Online when they should be focusing on endgame multiplayer. They did everything wrong PVP wise.. this turned me off to that game. It's an MMO, there shouldn't be any forced single-player stuff. I'll still try and keep an open mind for that game. The difference here is that I won't have to pay $60 to play Neverwinter. It's F2P. Neverwinter is free to download and play and you have the option to buy certain things. It's not play to win either, from what I'm hearing. So that's nice.

That being said, I have no idea how the endgame of Neverwinter is. I don't know how the PVP will be, if there is open realm pvp or just matchmaking. I don't know. I might look that up and find out, but might just wait until I get there. I'll be disappointed if it's limited to a lame matchmaking system. The best MMO's I've ever played are Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. These games had the best PVP I have ever experienced. The battlegrounds and the taking of keeps was just awesome, especially in DAOC. Manning and building siege weaponry and fighting against three factions.. yeah, there is no beating that. No game has matched it since. At least no that I've seen.

Most definitely ESO is marmite and the whole end game content issue is one that needs to be addressed (for some). I would say that it does play out as a single player experience in an environment where others are present that one can cooperate with temporarily or on a more permanent basis. I, for one, am quite happy with that. I treat the game as a game and bought it as such, one that I would play up to the point of completion/boredom and then leave alone until such time as additional content comes along that appeals. I'm really not into the whole raid/get better gear/raid - oh hell they've introduced a new piece of gear so someone will be better than me at MP so I need to raid again scene. Some are and if that's what floats their boat then fine, we are all different. Graphically, ESO is good, storywise it's average. Those who panned it, I feel, panned it for the wrong reasons (they panned what it wasn't, not what it was). As to veteran ranking, that's gone and has been for a while. I haven't tried it since (I played for six months post launch). How one handles post main game ranking is quite difficult and I agree, VR was not the way to do it but I couldn't say whether the new method is. They advertised it as ESO, your way and I feel that they failed (up to the point I left) to achieve that. If a game can be played (successfully) your way then what you want to get from the game should be achievable that way and with ESO it pointedly wasn't (you defeated a dungeon and got Xp, run it again, almost zilch) you had to play the WHOLE game to be successful and lots of people didn't want to do that, they wanted to JUST do MP wars or JUST do dungeons or JUST do the storyline(s). To that end, it was 5 games in one, 3 storylines, wars and dungeons. It tried to be all things to all people and didn't quite make it (so far), that doesn't make it a bad game, merely one that was too ambitious in the beginning and is evolving. That is what was panned, the fact that you couldn't just do what you want. Funnily enough, the current main asking point is more Storied content (the mainly single player/temp coop content). It is kind of like a Bethesda game with other people around and a lot of people don't like others wandering around in their fantasy. If you are a big endgame player, it's probably best left alone. If you want a bit of both then it's ok.

As to Neverwinter being free to download, not sure if that's true or not. You might have to buy the game, I don't know. ESO goes free to play in April (I think) but obviously you still have to buy the game. Mine will cost me 20 bucks as I had the PC version and it's a nobrainer for me.

It does have taking keeps in multiplayer and firing trebuchets etc and that stuff, at launch, was awesome. Within a month, you were running into VR players who had played 18 hours a day, 7 days a week and who were invulnerable to almost anything you could throw at them. They then moved on to dungeons and the game settled down again. Dunno where it is now. When it goes FTP, I will log in again and see.

Well, I'm still open to the game. I'll be paying close attention around release, I loved Skyrim and Oblivion so I'd like this game to be good it just never really grabbed my attention when it released on PC. It will be released during the dry season as far as games go so that might be in it's favor.

As far as Neverwinter being free goes, it's free to download on the PC and I'd like to imagine it will be the same for the Xbox One, not sure why it wouldn't be. There are different packs you can buy like Dragonborn, Heroes of the North, certain classes/races I think.. yeah, you get the idea. Some of the packs are actually pretty expensive, one is $199.99.

Yeah, I looked. It's not that it will/won't be, you just never know when stuff is released on console, they follow different models. I found at least one 'how much would you be willing to pay' thread. If it's FTP fully, I will definitely give it a go as I didn't play enough to get a real impression. I might just give the PC version a go meantime but I've just got so many games to get through.

When you say ESO will be FTP, you know they'll still be charging for the game? There was supposed to be a subscription payment every month of about £10.00 to play online, they've only ditched that apparently. I'm already "take my money" about Elder Scrolls, but then saying that I felt the same about Destiny and even forked out for the AWFUL dlc

From what I understand, ESO is free to play in a very basic form. Like The Old Republic on the PC you can play the majority of the game for free (story, trading, side-quests, raids) for free. The new model then introduces a Premium feature (like World of Tanks) where if you spend £x a month you get access to exclusive mounts and weapons, you can trade for better stuff in auction houses, increase the vault size and recieve a small amount of in game currency for each period.

I was always very sceptical of ESO when it was announced, especially when the made such a hash of the payment system (we are going to charge you money ON TOP of your Gold sub (but if you have Silver you only have to pay the monthly charge) yet I am a fan of The Elder Scrolls franchise. I will pick this up but probably when it's really cheep.

t be honest Des i might do the same. £47.99 is a fair wack to pay out only to have the "basic" game.

I played this to death on the PC and will get it for xbox as if you had it on PC it's really cheap for the Xbox. As for its FTP status, you get all of the game, all of the Pvp/pve and everything that's been released for pc up to now. Anything past that will be released, I guess, as dlc.
As far as the game goes you get several games in one as each faction (3) has its own storyline so you can either play through all 3 storylines as one character or play each of them as a separate character. On the PC you could have up to 8 different characters but don't know what will happen once it's FTP. Then there is Pvp which takes place in Cyrodil and is fun but you'll get caned if you enter too early. There are also PvE dungeons in each of the zones then high level raids (dunno about those as I never played any).