@onetwothreegame: I'm sure it did. Nintendo continues to impress a strange number of fans, despite it's very limited graphics, and same handful of franchises it keeps rebooting. I guess it comes down to the power of nostalgia. Not a fan of those other games you mentioned either. CoD has no development outside of trophies and achievements (who cares). Then Assassin's Creed, God of War, and similar types of games never hold my interest because it's predominantly a $60 single player movie on rails that everyone experiences at their own pace. Graphics +10, Gameplay +10, Creativity -3. =(
I'm more shocked that there is the exact same commercial on every single video on this page, and you have to watch it every time for each of the individual videos. Terribly annoying Gamespot; especially for someone logged in with a registered account.
@raymacz1 I played the last two betas and it's exactly what you hoped for. There's no need for grinding in a game like this because it's all about completing dungeons solo or with friends. Of course you can grind your way to the end doing dungeon after dungeon if that's what you need to feel good about yourself. But people who do that usually burn out on any game they play pretty quickly, and then complain like it's everyone else's fault that they didn't take time to enjoy the content.
For the rest of us who enjoy savoring the experience of a good adventure, the pre-made story and quests gradually introduce you to the various elements of your character and Neverwinter's world, but the player-made content is where the game really shines. The development tools are so fantastic, people can recreate their favorite D&D modules, campaigns, and customize every element of them down to the eye color and outfits of individual monsters. Or if you want to let the game engine handle all the heavy lifting, you can focus on just designing the story elements, quest triggers, trap locations, monster types, and let the game engine fill in the environmental details (and it does a really great job). The Foundry tool is a very clever way to get endless free content out to players, while keeping development costs down. It's also a great way to ensure that you're less likely to be bored after you reach the end-game level cap.
If you get a chance, do a Youtube search for the "Neverwinter Foundry Demo" to see the tools in action. In short, the game and dungeon tools are like Neverwinter Nights on heavy steroids, with fast paced combat that feels like Dragon Age II with no pause button. =)
It's actually a pretty great game and the low-rez video doesn't do much to help make the combat look exciting. After 16 beta hours, it's feels nothing like WOW and thank god for that! I would say that it's VERY close to playing an MMO version of Dragon Age II and uses a bastardized version of D&D rules like the Dragon Age series does.
With the way they incorporated the dreaded "holy trinity", I was able to successfully run several hard group-only dungeons without any tanks at all. Instead my Thief held the front line vanishing and stabbing away as two Wizards and two Clerics nuked from afar. When things got tough, we just drank a health potion which healed ALOT and were on quick cooldown.
The pre-made adventures and dungeons were super fun to play and included traps, discovering secret passages, solving minor puzzles, and finding hidden loot alcoves. While you could easily immerse yourself in the story, you also could quickly fly through them quickly if that's not your thing. But the best part is that players can make their own dungeons or bring their entire old school campaign to life for anyone to play, rate, and subscribe to future releases of. I think that's a whole hell of a lot for a free to download and free to play MMO.
I thought the controls were very clunky for a PC game because you're always in the dreaded mouse-look mode. I had to change the default attacks from LMB & RMB to #1 & 2 on my keyboard because I could feel the RSI developing. Also the Q, E, R keys got remapped to 3, 4, 5, and the two dailies got switched F1 & F2 like Guild Wars 2 controls, and speaking of which, the F key is the default activate/pickup/everything key. Once I was fully remapped, I was able to enjoy the game and quickly get my attacks off without any problems and I didn't mind the mouse-look control so much. BTW, this simple game system would work amazingly well on the XBox and PS3 systems; which would be very smart of them if that's in their plan.
As for GameSpot's Jonathan Toyad and my fellow CBSi Employee, the word "Orientated" isn't actually a word in the English language. What you mean to say is "Oriented". =)
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