Surprisingly enough I am having an absolute blast in Neverwinter. There are queues but as far as stability I think this was one of the smoother “open beta” launches I’ve seen in quite some time. When the servers were first opened to the public there was some incredible lag and “rubberbanding” which is where your character seems to fling around backwards after you’ve moved, like a rubber band snapping back into place, but that issue was solved quite early on (and they even let the public know it was due to a bad firewall at one of their data centers). There are still queues and they are still annoying BUT they’re the lesser of two evils I like to think. I don’t mind doing something else while I’m waiting to log in, it isn’t as though I’ve dedicated any money to the game (yet).
Which brings me to the next great point. The game is free. There’s apparently no moment where you will be stopped because of not paying. I asked that in specific this morning because I couldn’t see where they’re going to make any money from. So far I’ve reached level 10 and haven’t felt an urge to spend any coin at all. I have two bags and there are enough merchants around that I can sell before either of them fill up. I’m crafting without any issues and I don’t mind waiting for the crafting to complete instead of spending gems to quicken it along. I do have some Zen on my account, I’m guessing this carried over from STO where I have a lifetime subscription because I’ve never purchased any.
I can see where appearance gear is going to be a nice money maker. It doesn’t seem to matter what class everyone is playing, we all sort of look alike. Above is Blesse, my guardian fighter. I had to inspect two friends to see what classes they had chosen because we all looked very similar. I had a shield. They didn’t. That was about my only indication.
This morning the queues are longer than they were last night. There’s also down time starting shortly for a number of hours. Still, I’m excited and can’t wait to start playing again. This one certainly caught me off guard.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.
I downloaded it last night and created both a half-elf cleric and a tiefling wizard, but queues said they were in the 7000 range and I didn’t have time to wait around for that. I may be able to give it a go on Thursday night (my designated ‘game night’) or perhaps this weekend. Looking forward to it!
Although STO has a sub option, they have a BAZILLION things in their cash shop. They’re not necessary items. 99% of them are purely vanity, like uniforms from the different ST shows and movies, advanced starships and starship “skins” (the adv ships aren’t unbalancing in any way), and starship bridge layouts. They also have other “nice to have” things.
If Neverwinter stocks their store in this manner, then I think they’ll have a steady stream of people buying all the shiny items. I know a few people who dump cash into the STO cash shop on a pretty regular basis. The idea is to make the items in the shop compelling enough to as wide an array of potential spenders to widen that “whale” demographic beyond people who just want convenience (buffs, respec tokens, etc). Cryptic seems pretty good about knowing how to do that, IMO.