Neverwinter Previews
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There is, of course, much more to Neverwinter than creating your own content. Combat is something a little out of the ordinary as well. Instead of the select-target systems of other MMORPGs, Neverwinter uses a blend of skill-based roleplaying and crosshair-like combat. Said Zinkievich, "We wanted a more visceral kind of combat, hence our calling Neverwinter an action RPG. We've drawn inspiration from games like God of War and Dragon Age to give the player a more dynamic and thrilling combat experience and bring that to an open world experience."
The class we were shown was the Control Wizard, with its powerful attacks and tight control on the battlefield. Instantly, we noticed a little reticle serving as a cursor to point at an enemy. Once you paint the target with the reticle, you can unleash hell.
The skills a class uses are divided up into several categories. The At Will abilities can be used more or less freely without any form of cooldown and serve as your bread-and-butter attacks. The Control Wizard shown to us had Ray of Frost as one of her At Will abilities; it slowed and damaged players who were affected. The second-tier abilities work more as traditional MMO abilities: They all have cooldowns and cast times and are interruptible. The Control Wizard can find one of her more powerful direct attacks in this tier in addition to Utility Powers like Frost Nova. The last tier of abilities -- also the most powerful -- is made up of Daily Abilities. They have a long cooldown and require action points to use. By doing damage in combat (in the case of the Control Wizard, anyway), you gain action points, which you spend once the corresponding bar is filled. Unleashing a Daily looks devastating and can effectively turn the tide of battle in your favour.
And then we proceed to MMORPG.com for a few more details:
Trash mobs, elite mobs, easy, medium, hard; you'll be able to get drow and kobolds and felspawn and goblins. If it exists in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it will probably exist here.
We're not done yet. These encounters will be editable. Want to change their clothes? Do so. There are hundreds of pre-set costumes you can choose from, all of which can be modified further. Want to move them around, rename them, and erase their existence entirely? You can do all that too. The possibilities are endless.
Once you've built it up, you'll be able to explore the world to see if it functions the way you want it to. My favorite thing about all this is probably the Dialogue Editor. I mean, I like the idea of being able to make a dungeon-crawl as much as the next girl but that's not what's making my heart beat faster here. The dialogue editor kind of works like this: Once you've made the designated NPC, you'll be able to fire up the dialogue editor and start developing his conversational skills. You could make it exceptionally simple and have the NPC do little more than inform the players that yes, they have to kill fifty kobolds before they are permitted to permit or you can make a story.
