As the headstart phase of Neverwinter draws near, there's a certain amount of paranoia going around on the forums and among the members of my guild. 40 bucks for a mount on the cash shop? Five bucks for a respec? The pricing we've seen in the final closed beta weekend was the highest I have ever seen since the early stages of Allods Online.
That said, a closed beta is exactly that - nothing is set in stone. And since I've already mentioned Allods: Thanks to the once ridiculously overpriced item shop in Allods Online, people ran off as quickly as they came and the game has never quite recovered from its bad reputation, even though Allods is now very enjoyable if you pay very little or nothing at all. This isn't 2005, you don't get married to a single MMO and put up with all the bullshit they throw at you. If people disagree with certain game mechanics, balancing, content (or lack thereof) or outrageous pricing policies, users will move on. And that's exactly what's gonna happen to Neverwinter if people feel that they're getting ripped off or if they cannot get what they want without shelling out substantial amounts of cash. One would assume that the guys at Perfect World Entertainment, the publisher, have enough common sense to be aware of that, so it's a bit early to doom this game based on a few not so "micro" transaction examples taken from a closed beta event. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt - for now.
Some smart people on the official forums were kind enough to do some maths for me. Neverwinter allows you to earn a certain amount of item shop currency each day when you take part in certain events and quests. Using the cap and conversion rates of the most recent closed beta weekend, obtaining a $40.00 mount without spending any actual money would require you to farm for 84 days. Not a happy thought. That said, this example is only accurate if we assume that the pricing for mounts and the daily cap of cash shop currency you may earn are both final.
Here's another interesting fact to take into consideration: You may earn unlimited amounts of item shop currency* by using the auction house. Granted, you play enough to find plenty of stuff to sell and people are willing to buy all your stuff, you may sell as many things as you want each day and earn a theoretically unlimited amount of cash shop currency. Of course this also works the other way 'round: You could spend real money to buy whatever you want right off the auction house. Let's hope that the most powerful gear will be bound on pickup, because otherwise we're looking at some seriousy pay2win right there. That said - if a player spends real cash to buy my items, said real cash goes straight to me. Why would I complain about that?
*The auction house uses a meta-currency, 'Astral Diamonds', which may be directly converted to 'ZEN', the currency used in the item shop. Daily events reward players with raw Astral Diamonds, the amount of which can be refined and traded for ZEN is bound to a daily cap.
Potential risks and ripoff mechanics aside, it looks like it will be very possible to afford some of the goodies you want, simply by playing the auction house if farming is not your cup of tea. And that's a huge plus in my book.
If you're not familiar with Cryptic MMOs, then you might be surprised how naming characters and server shards work.
Duplicate character names, i.e. two different players naming their character 'Bob', are entirely possible. This works because not only are players identified by their character names but also their Perfect World account names. That way, the game would identify me as Bob@Berserkerkitten and the other Bob as Bob@RandomPerfectWorldHandle. Don't worry, the character is still just going to be labelled Bob.
This is great news for everyone who is paranoid about having to reserve their favourite nickname and/or being unable to get into the game from day one. Of course this also means you'll have to brace yourself for entire legions of Drizzts, Sephiroths and countless rogues named Shadow, Death, Ripper, Raven and any combination of the above. But without silly accents and shit. Yay!
For the launch phase of Neverwinter, the server will be split into three seperate shards: Dragon, Beholder and Mindflayer. According to the FAQ, they're doing so to keep login queues and other problems one has to expect with the launch of any MMO to a minimum. Once the initial surge of players dies down a bit and the launch phase is over, all three shards will be combined into just one server. There is no EU server, no US server, no localised server - it's all just one (!) server. Star Trek Online (STO) works like that and they're doing so with mixed results.
By my own experience, STO has its laggy moments, where my avatar would rubberband all over the place and combat would become somewhat problematic. This doesn't happen a lot, but saying it doesn't occur at all is simply not true. Seeing as Neverwinter uses a fast-paced realtime combat system similar to GW2, I'm a bit worried that the servers may not be able to provide a lag-free experience during the peak hours.
Another problem is language. On STO, the language in all public chat channels is English. I've been called a Nazi, a Kraut and all kinds of other nice things for speaking German in public chat, be it on accident or to respond to some other player, who asked a question in German. Players get the possibility to create their own custom chat channels where they may speak any language they want, but this solution is messy at best. Not every new player on STO knows about this feature and the German community is spread over a half dozen channels (#German, #Deutsch, #STOGerman etc.) which makes staying in touch with the whole community a pain in the ass. Neverwinter uses the same chat infrastructure. You won't give a shit if English is your native tongue, but otherwise... ew. Not fun.
Oh, speaking of public chat: Since there is only one world-wide server, which has players from the US, Europe and pretty much everywhere around the globe, be prepared for endless public discussions about religion and politics. People argue about these things on STO all the time, with the occasional talk about Star Trek - and people defend their favourite Trek generations, novels and captains just as passionately as their religion. Get ready for a whole lot of D&D nerds doing the exact same thing! ☺
One positive way to look at this is how it makes a nice distraction from all the chat re: your mother and the occasional [anal] and Chuck Norris spam. For the sake of your sanity, it is still highly advised to stay the fuck away from global public chat.
-Cat
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