Neverwinter Preview and Gnolls Profile
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The skill sets follow rules from 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons which breaks it down to At-Will Powers (skills you can use indefinitely), Encounter Powers (skills you can use after a small cooldown), and Daily Powers (skills that you can use only after filling up your action points). Knowing when and who to target is essential when getting into the harder fights.
As of right now I felt the skill choices were limited as I only really had one path to follow. However, I will admit that I didn't get a character past level 25 so I imagine there is more customization through your feats and Paragon paths that you can follow. Also, it is only in beta at the moment and the development team has plans to add in more classes and I would imagine refine the classes.
One of the other things, that maybe is necessarily a (fresh idea) was their use of Neverwinter itself and its place within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons and Dragons. While I've never actually played a game of Dungeons and Dragons (a deprived childhood that I am already aware of) I do know a little of the Forgotten Realms through reading of some of the books. It's exciting to see the city of Neverwinter take shape and makes me want to read more or maybe play some of the video games surrounding the Forgotten Realms (i.e. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Icewind Dale) just so I can study up on the lore.
However, that brings me to another feature that Cryptic Studios is playing with. If anyone has been keeping up with news on Neverwinter then you probably already know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't, two words for you: The Foundry. This feature the development team is trying to implement is to give the tools of level design to the players so that they can be able to create user content for the game.
This will allow players to create a never-ending supply of unique quests and campaigns to play through. In essence, I feel like this can drastically reduce the boring routine of grinding that many players find themselves doing within a MMORPG. Not only that, but I think it will bear some really interesting quests that may be well-driven into the lore of Forgotten Realms. Especially once the Foundry community gets to be experienced with it then that's when players will be able to muster out some rather impressive works.
