D&D Raids Facebook with Old-School Neverwinter RPG
Atari has launched an old-school Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter-based RPG with social elements on Facebook.
Social games on Facebook have come a long way since the early days of Mafia Wars and Farmville. Now members have titles like Order & Chaos Online which is a full-blown MMORPG that's tied with the popular iOS version, NOVA Elite which was an actual FPS before Gameloft pulled the plug on Friday, and EA's just-launched The Sims Social. Unfortunately, great gems like these may get overlooked simply because Facebook lacks any kind of app directory showing what's available to use or play.
That said, many RPG fans may miss a new Dungeons & Dragons title that launched on Monday. Called D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter, Atari's new entry looks and feels like an old-school turn-based RPG. Players can recruit other player characters for a small fee to form a party of four, or click on a friend's portrait on the Adventuring Band below the main game view to recruit their characters for free. The latter option means that friends will earn extra gold when their characters help in a quest.
"Heroes of Neverwinter delivers a high level of depth, polish and authenticity that will fundamentally change the way players think of RPG gaming on social platforms," said Jim Wilson, President and CEO of Atari, Inc. "Existing fans of the D&D franchise will find the translation compelling in all areas of the gameplay experience, while more casual gamers will find the adaptation accessible and intuitive."
According to Atari, the RPG features over 50 dungeons, over 40 unique monsters and over 30 unique skills. Classes include the Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard, and races include Dragonborn, Eladrin, Halfling and Human. Players can pick from four pre-generated characters, or create one from scratch by choosing a race, class, gender, and distributing 22 points across Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma attributes. 3 character slots are available form the start, another 2 can be unlocked by completing certain Achievements, and an additional 3 can be acquired using Astral Diamonds.
So far all characters have a level cap of 10, but to keep things alive beyond that point, Atari has implemented a Dungeon Workshop when any one character reaches level 10 (or Astral Diamonds are used). This unlocked Dungeon Master role allows players to create an adventure for anyone to play. By default, players can create 2 adventures, but additional adventure slots become available through achievements or purchase. Players can also visit their friends' houses to view their heroic Achievements and leave special gifts behind in their Chests of Wonder. They can even click on a friend's Chest of Wonder to select a gift for themselves.
To check out Atari's new social Neverwinter RPG, head here.
I'm stealing that word from you. This is, perhaps, the best description of what happened there.
At any rate, I hopped on to check this out, and it is amusing, but it makes me miss the Dungeons & Dragons Tiny Adventures they had on there last year and before.
Agreed. 3.5 FTW. I'm such an ignorant bastard, I haven't even downloaded 4.0 edition rulebooks yet and I'm already flaming it
Yeah, except this isn't based on the more recent NWN, it's more closely based on the old-school gold box neverwinter dnd game but uses the modern ruleset.
Yeah after 4e came out I switched to Pathfinder and couldn't be happier with my choice to do so.
Yeah after 4e came out I switched to Pathfinder and couldn't be happier with my choice to do so.
What is that old-school gold box Neverwinter?
Why not just stay on 3.5? That's what I did... ignore 4e for a time being...
Oh I don't know... they just SUDDENLY decided to disrupt the whole Forgotten Realms purely for the hell of it and changed the ability scores (what did they kick out? Wisdom?) - again, for the hell of it. I'll look into it some day; for now 3.5 totally suits my needs.
That said, you actually buy rulebooks?
It was an online version of the old school gold box DnD games by SSI some of which were loosely based on the books at the time (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc). They used a mix of 1e and 2e rules, but were primarily 2e. I spent way too many hours of my childhood playing those games (along with Wizardry/Bard's Tale). Combat was grid and turn based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Box
I moved on to PF instead of staying with 3.5 because PF had a few nice fixes, clarifications, re-balancings and various other improvements. Combat Maneuvers no longer require a spreadsheet and slide rule to figure out (granted it wasn't that hard compared to 1e and 2e stuff, but it's much simpler in PF). Paizo is also releasing a lot of nice stuff for PF providing further incentive (Kingmaker is a pretty great adventure path). The other nice thing is PF is very compatible with 3.5 material, with just a few tweaks and all you really need is just the one book.
Another strike against 4e for me (other than, you know, the whole 'WoW-ificaiton' of DnD thing and the 'episodic' release of basically incomplete rulebooks business plan) was a few weeks ago Weis just said Cook and WotC are currently working on 5e.
The 'old school Gold Box Neverwinter' was the original Neverwinter Nights, which could be played by subscribers to America Online back in 1991-1997. It was really one of the very first graphical MMOs, with 115,000 players in 1997 when it was shut down due to a disagreement between TSR and AOL.
Because of this, when people call Bioware's game the 'Original NWN' it makes me cringe. Bioware didn't even exist when the original NWN was released.
Because of this, when people call Bioware's game the 'Original NWN' it makes me cringe. Bioware didn't even exist when the original NWN was released.
Ah yes, I've read about this AOL game on Wikipedia once. Well, I don't care what was the original original, NWN by BioWare was absolutely great, and NWN2 isn't bad, either (though it's RIDICULOUS how the spell graphic effects became worse while the landscape became better and lots of content was cut). It makes me very sad that the next Neverwinter game will be online. I want another single-player epic adventure!
That said, I wanna see how they'll handle instant death magic in that upcoming MMO. I bet that many, many players will be pissed when their party will be insta-wiped by a Circle of Death
Are you serious?
Besides, you can't even buy rulebooks in my country