Dungeons & Dragons fans likely rejoiced at the news that they would soon be jumping back into the Forgotten Realms city of Neverwinter (where it is assumedly always warm), but we've now learned that the title will be delayed, and the structure drastically changed. You might recall Perfect World Entertainment acquiring developer Cryptic a while back . Cryptic's new owner — or "Sugardaddy" as I like to say — has had a lot of experience in the free-to-play world. They also primarily develop and publish MMOs, like the recently-launched Rusty Hearts.
This new home for Cryptic has allowed the developer to continue their MMO-development tradition with Neverwinter. That's right, Neverwinter is shifting from the co-operative multiplayer game that was announced last year and into full-fledged, free-to-play MMO territory. In fact, it's shifting towards the action end of the MMO spectrum. Transferring a Dungeons & Dragons universe into an action setting might sound strange to D&D veterans, but it's been done before with some of the Baldur's Gate games. The 4th Edition of D&D also has some new rules that lend itself well to action games, which is exactly why Neverwinter is using 4th Edition as its ruleset.
The developer says Neverwinter will be closer to a game like Nexon's Vindictus, where combat is controlled by mouse clicks, and where pattern recognition and reflexes are the keys to successfully murdering hordes of monsters. Vindictus is also session-based, with each action foray designed to last about twenty minutes (Rusty Hearts, mentioned above, also follows this pattern). It's entirely possible that Neverwinter will follow this session-based structure as well, though it's worth remembering that both Vindictus and Rusty Hearts were developed for an entirely different market. Neverwinter is one of a very small number of games designed for the Western market to be free-to-play from its very inception. This is probably going to have and an effect on leveling curves, character designs, questing, skills and, well, virtually every aspect of the game.
Neverwinter is being built with a modified version of the same engine used for Cryptic's two most recent MMORPGs — Star Trek Online and Champions Online. Both of those games have gone (or are going) free to play, and have given Cryptic a lot of useful feedback around what should and shouldn't be charged for. Noticing that for basically every game currently on the market, every new piece of downloadable content sells less than the last for the same title, Cryptic has decided to make every content pack for Neverwinter totally free as well. Not all content will be free, though. The developer will be charging money for consumables (special potions, temporary items to increase experience gains, etc…) vanity pets and cosmetic items. Unlike the current trend of ex-subscription-based MMOs that lock out portions of their content to free players, Cryptic plans to avoid making any content premium-only in Neverwinter.
Content specifics such as which classes will be playable aren't being talked about at this point, though there is plenty of time to hear about them before Neverwinter launches. The switch from more traditional game to MMO has resulted in the projected Neverwinter release date being pushed back to the end of 2012. Cryptic has a habit of rushing MMOs out the door a little sooner than perhaps they ought to. Hopefully this delay has that extra polish time factored in.
