So I had a first look at the endgame in Neverwinter

Epic weapon, shield, plate armor... I think I'm getting there! :)

After finally reaching the level cap, I had a chance to take a closer look at the endgame pvp and the 'epic dungeons'. While the former should be pretty obvious, the latter means you're replaying all of Neverwinter's dungeons on a higher difficulty for epic item tokens. A bit like grinding heroics on WoW, except once you're done, you're done. You're not gearing up for any super challenging raids. Some might cringe at that, personally I'm glad the game won't force me to team up with 9-24 morons for all the best stuff... yet.

The dungeons are split in two tiers, both of which require a relatively humane 'gear score'. "You must be this awesome to enter." I could queue up for all of the T1 dungeons the moment I dinged 60 and was eligible for many of the T2 ones, as well. The game really isn't very restrictive here. Having no idea what to expect, I queued up for the epic version of the Cloak Tower. Access was pretty much instant (yay for being a tank!) and the whole thing was a faceroll of Lich King proportions. People didn't talk, let alone greet one another, everyone just rushed ahead like crazy, the whole thing got roflstomped in about 15 minutes and I got my first ten or so tokens. The most "expensive" items, such as the plate armor, cost 60 tokens, so it's entirely possible to grind the full T1 set within a day or two. T2 items require 2-3 times as many T2 tokens.
Of course I cannot say how much more difficult the second epic dungeon tier may be in comparison to tier 1. However, there are no lockout timers or anything, meaning you can cherry-pick your favourite (or the fastest, easiest) dungeon and just farm it all day long, get all the tokens you need, gear up, done.

As an alternative to gearing up through dungeons, you may also farm glory points in pvp and earn your epic gear that way. Now, if you're expecting (somewhat) balanced pvp gameplay and varied battlegrounds the way you may know it from the more popular MMOs out there, you're in for a bit of a dissapointment. All you get is a handful of 5on5 domination-style (capture and hold) maps. Which, of course, isn't necessarily a problem in itself, if the actual pvp is fun, but in its current state, it really isn't. Neverwinter seems to be balanced around pve - which I like. Unfortunately, this also means that tanks can charge an infinite amount of times with no cooldown in pvp, certain damage dealers can two-shot other classes, whilst combinations such as tank vs healer are absolutely atrocious. It doesn't help that, for whatever reason, people crash and disconnect on a regular basis (only in pvp, what's with that?) or simply go afk and refuse to help when they're on the losing side. And sadly, it's relatively easy to tell you're losing straight away - your team might start with 0 clerics, the opposing team has 2. In most cases, this means certain defeat.

On the plus side, the amounts of glory gained are very generous, the required glory points for gear are very low. A day's worth of farming can easily net you the whole pvp set.
So, both endgame pvp and T1 dungeons are a quick and easy affair when it comes to gearing up. T2 dungeons? Gimme a day or two to find out.
I'm not entirely sure what to think of all this just yet. On the one hand I'm happy it's so easy to get all my stuff, because I HATE having to spend countless weeks chasing after stupid virtual crap, which gets outdated with the next content update, anyway. On the other hand... what am I gonna do when I'm done? Foundry? What for? Yes sure, players tell fantastic stories, blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day I'm just hacking and slashing my way through a dungeon full of monsters which drop useless loot and reward no more experience points. And reroll? With a 100% linear story and no alternative starting zones? Not that great, either.

I fear for Neverwinter's longevity.

-Cat