Worst MMO Ever? - Neverwinter

this video is going to hurt me because neverwinter online was my main mmo for many years many difficult years and it helped get me through them i became obsessed with this game i was one of the highest ranked hunter rangers there was in fact this entire youtube channel began because i wanted somewhere to put my neverwinter dungeon guides if you saw my videos by oldest first you'll still find them and i think we've come a long way in terms of video quality hi youtube i'm josh streif hayes and this is a guide to demogorgon i'll never winter online when we get her health down to a certain level which is not too far she'll return to the middle of the arena and energy will sprout from her like that when that happens run to the edge two things we now need to deal with the ghosts flying around and the red strips of damage so the tank is gonna keep orcas facing forward i'm gonna get behind him as a dps and then do as much damage as i can as fast as i can you cannot take many hits from orcas i can take two until i die so i do not want to take any damage from this guy whatsoever see how he raises his arms there we're all about to take damage that's the big damaging attack and now we see what's happened so what he's done he's joined myself and locks together by that beam as soon as that happens you have maybe a second or two just to wait and attack him use that second when he's not doing anything to get some real dps in some of my longer time viewers may even remember the original twitch streams always opening with ladies and gentlemen welcome i'm josh streicher as an english hunter ranger and today we'll be playing neverwinter but times change games change people change and i'm far more well traveled in the mmo world than i was back then i know the warning signs of a dying game the abusive mechanics meant to keep you playing long after the fun has stopped the predatory cash shops and pricing structures meant to make you spend just a little bit more to be mathematically abusive the ability to buy power and bypass all of that pesky gameplay this video is going to hurt me and that's okay because it's not about me it's about the genre the players it's about holding what i love to a higher standard and not being blinded by personal connection or nostalgia this episode of worst mmo is going to be slightly different because while i will be able to give an impartial review of the opening and discuss the mechanics while maintaining an emotions distance i'm also then going to be able to show you one of the most pay to win predatory monetization systems in any game with examples because with neverwinter i know exactly how to break it so if you've ever been upset that i've torn down your favorite mmo sit back and enjoy some well earned revenge ladies and gentlemen welcome i'm josh drivas and this is worst mmo ever a series where i play the worst mmo games i can find so you don't have to drop a like on the video or sub to the channel for more mmo stuff ring the bell for all the future notifications and as usual a massive thank you to all the supporters on patreon and twitch who keep the channel alive more on how you can support at the end for now let's begin today we are playing the action combat mmo neverwinter it's on steam and it's free so let's give it a try the first thing many people ask is neverwinter as in neverwinter nights well no not exactly same setting vastly different gameplay neverwinter online is an official dungeons and dragons game set in the forgotten realms campaign setting but there's very little actually tying it to the dungeons and dragons mechanics things share names and there's hints for fans but if you're expecting a game which honors the rule set or the spell effects you're out of luck game starts create a character you've only got two possible character slots remember this for later first off we choose a race you've got the standard human elf half orc each race has racial bonuses but you've also got premium races like mesoberensan renegade dragonborn or the exceptionally powerful metallic ancestry dragonborn and if you're thinking hang on does this mean there's an objectively best race to play and it's going to cost you a lot of money to unlock that race yes it means exactly that in fact it's going to cost you a lot of money to be the best and we'll look at the total cost later because it is staggering along with the race you'll pick a class you've got nine to choose from your standard melee barbarian your tanky paladin stealthy rogue useless bard i'll go with a wizard because i know they specialize in battlefield control and status effects and i know that's going to be useful now we get to choose our ability score to make it look even more d and d when neverwinter released you actually got to re-roll these they weren't actually random there were about six different presets and you just rerolled until you got the one you wanted but now you just choose one of two preset boosts the face customization is pretty good you've got a lot of control and features to define i mean you'll be wearing a helmet for almost all the game and combat is action based so no one will ever see your face but it is a decent enough character creator you then choose your starting city and which god you want to worship this is purely fluff and has no mechanical impact on the game whatsoever and now we get to watch the intro movie which while brilliant hasn't changed in eight years if you played neverwinter back in release in 2013 you watched this movie and at the time all of the characters shown in the movie were the classes you could play so it was thematically tying the mechanics of the game to the intro movie the characters shown were what you could play but now it's outdated because those classes don't work like that and there are new classes that aren't featured in the film also the intro is all about valendra which is weird because they've changed some intro stuff that they didn't need to we'll get to that in a minute it's still nice to watch but it's just not connected to the storyline at least not anymore game starts wasd movement space to jump pressing shift dodges dodging is an automatic animation cancel from any attack and uses up the stamina shown in the upward pointing chevron above the d20 themed action point gauge to the bottom center of the screen and i do have to admit this opening tutorial is excellent we are washed up on a beach after the draco lich attacked and now we need to fight our way out the npcs are all voiced and the quest direction is given and then there's a sparkling path leading you to your objective all objectives are also shown on the minimap with highlighted areas so you know where to be navigation is great your basic attacks called your at will powers are bound to left and right click while your encounter powers are on q e and r encounter powers are abilities with cooldowns because in d encounters are combat situations i chose the wizard because your opening encounter lifts up enemies and chokes them in mid air which is just terrific we then meet mako the tiefling from the opening movie and fight together to escape crossing this burning bridge leveling up and getting new encounters as we go the early experience is great and to this day i still judge other action combat systems against neverwinter it didn't do much right but the combat it nailed animation canceling dodges battlefield control skills perfect enemy mob sizes dangerous enough smaller swarms hard-hitting enemies aoe actually threatening early game encounters neverwinter is a brilliant example of action combat done right i think that's why i played it for so long look when you harm this skeleton knight he falls off his horse and now there's two enemies i love mechanics like this it makes sense that there would be two enemies and if you're an old player you'll remember that now private wilfred charges across the bridge and shouts valendra except no that doesn't happen it's now mako that does that but they haven't changed mako's running animation they've just put his texture over wilfred's body so he looks like he's moving differently i don't understand why they did this i liked wilfred but okay and now we take on the first elite enemy and this is another reason i adore the combat the ability to dodge out of the enemy's attacks if you time it correctly skill does matter in neverwinter at least until the cash shop gets involved finally we arrive in protector's enclave and get told to go and talk to sergeant knox the guy in charge older players will remember him being down a side street by lord neverember but no now he's head of the adventurer's guild knox orders the mount seller to give us a free mount and here's an interesting thing mounts aren't just transport based you get to keep all your mounts in your stable and mounts also increase your base movement speed your mounted movement speed and each mouse has an attack in combat and you can mix and match all these effects so if i own three mounts i can have the foot speed increase from one the graphical and riding speed increase of another and the combat ability of another it's a real free form system and it sounds great but we'll see how predatory it is soon knox sends us to complete basic training this apparently means going to space and fighting a training dummy not a huge fan of this style of story design it's not woven seamlessly into a narrative it's very specific okay this is the training bit it's taken the player away from the action it's interrupted the flow of the adventure the world the characters it's just stuck me in a pocket dimension and said hey here's a tutorial it's a very college student's first game way of getting this knowledge across to the player this is the laziest possible way you could have done this now one of my favorite aspects of the combat system each class has a different tab power pressing tab does different things depending on who you are the paladin holds up his shield to block and has a block meter the rogue turns invisible for a limited amount of time for stealth attacks and the wizard can put any encounter power onto tab and now that power gains an additional effect so instead of pushing one enemy back i now push a mob back it's a great way to help the classes feel unique your tab power is your defining feature now we're shown daily powers which despite the name aren't actually usable daily they're just names to tie him with the fifth edition of d and d the lower center d20 icon fills up as we fight and then your daily powers can be used when it's full bound to the one and two keys the wizard can create an arcane singularity which pulls in then damages all enemies which is super cool to watch and great for controlling the battlefield training done and we're off to never death graveyard there's zombies and a cult to deal with because apparently this is the dm's first adventure and they've stuck to the classics pressing m opens the city map and interacting with the gate on the edge of any map opens the world map never winter is not one huge open world it is many smaller maps connected via fast travel you've got a load of familiar d d locations the underdark the feywild icewinddale they're all here but as you level up and do campaigns you will eventually have a different hub city which is why protectors enclave seems so dead in never death we are given a quest to help some doom guides and our reward will be a level you see recently they've had a bit of an update you don't gain experience in neverwinter you don't grind mobs or repeatable quests you get given levels for following the main storyline so you kind of have to and they've squished it down so the max level is 20 which again relates to 5th edition dnd your extra encounter powers are also level locked so following the main quest line is the only way to become more powerful unless you buy a boost from the shop which we'll get to soon so let's look at where we are a free dungeons and dragons themed action mmo with decent intro sequence shoehorned in combat tutorial with fluff and flavors of d d in a top notch combat system with well-defined early game story arc i should like this and part of me still does and if i didn't know better i would probably be lavishing praise on it but i do know better i know what this becomes and i'm going to show you proof of how pay to win this is neverwinter was my twitch and youtube career for a long time i don't regret playing it for as long as i did not for a single second i had fun but this is the game which made me realize it's the systems hidden underneath the facade that matter more because they are the true spirit of the game what the developers are actually trying to get the players to experience neverwinter looks and plays great many mmos do but underneath this game is all about the money but hey look new daily attack ice knife which is great it just rams a massive ice knife through your opponent smashing them into the floor every time i start to hate the game the combat drags me back in and i have to try really try to be objective here because look the first red wizard of thai boss is actually really tough i have to use my potions to survive and the game only gives you 10 meaning consumable management in the early game matters and it will keep mattering right up until the cash shop gets involved and when that wizard dies he drops some purple loot which throws me because purple is epic and i'm level two but okay i guess this is the stat squish loop change you've also got a journal which tracks all your accepted quests and later will show your campaign progress journal is great easy to read nice layout easy to switch which quest is being tracked no problems here at all small touch i do like some of the quests are funny like here i'm trying to find a new home for a sarcastic confrontational lich's phylactery i'm basically an undead estate agent and he's rejecting homes based on the decor it is nice to see when d d games don't take themselves too seriously around the world you might find some skill checks little treasure caches which require a certain class ability to interact with so any arcane stacks i can loot rangers can loot nature checks rogues can loot trap caches or you can buy a pack to let you loot other classes specific halls not worth much in the early game get more valuable as you do play through and in the quest get some new gear gets sent out on more quests and well this is when the cracks start to show through where the weaknesses become more apparent in the actual construction of the game like how if you look you're not actually standing on the floor you're hovering above it this is the opening zone and they've not mapped the physical floor to the bridge model because the bridge is slanted in a weird way you are just kind of hovering there's a lot of small graphical touches that make the whole thing seem rushed unpolished like how this absolutely awesome fight inside a mausoleum with dodging and healing and using powers and fighting mobs and wizards and elite enemies and then you leave and the game does this strange zoom in thing like the camera stayed in the two map and had to manually catch up with me what made this happen around the world you'll also find some campfires standing in one slowly heals any injuries and you can pray to your chosen god once every few minutes generating some consumable items or weekly coins you can spend on some junk you'll also respawn here if you die hand in a few more quests and get sent to the tree of souls have to defend this priestess while she blesses certain areas of the graveyard to remove all the evil magic actually some quite challenging fights because the enemies make a beeline for her and not me so i'm trying to control the battlefield so we finish faster and then she blesses the tree and we get this lovely graphical shift in the weather from dark and dismal to sunny and happy actually a really nice transition we're now told to go to pauper's field tomb and okay this is where my long-term player bias works against me and if you've ever played this game you'll notice it too pauper's field tomb is castle never well it was castle never it's the old castle never epic dungeon map they've just used a small part of it they do this a lot kind of like how one of the nobles estates is just the guild castle map reuse or how the adventurers guild with sergeant knox in it as a reskin of one of the old tavern maps newer players won't notice and of course for them it looks great but i notice they've had the same intro movie for eight years and they're reusing old dungeon maps presented in a new way and calling it an update it's not an update it's just recycling it's like how they removed seven or eight dungeons a couple of years ago and then slowly released them touting them as new content they weren't new they just re-skinned old fighting through this sanitized neutered castle never makes me incredibly sad this map used to mean fear adrenaline mobs galore aoe spamming constant healing it used to mean excited action combat now it's a low level run when people say to me yeah but my game used to be good i know what you mean i understand i know exactly what it used to be good means i'm looking at it right now but here's the thing we can't recommend games based on how they used to be because new players aren't playing through our memories they're playing through the game's reality as it is now we have to look at it as it is now judge it as it is now so let's have a look at some reviews since its beginnings it's gone way down there's just too many things that don't work listing them all would be pointless has nothing to do with d and d never really did and the potential that was there in the beginning is now lost in a mountain of updates stories not fully developed bad matchmaking events that don't even make sense and enough this is making me sad for what it is it's a very decent free-to-play mmo the in-store content isn't pushed super hard combat is fun and engaging if a little repetitive fans of the d d books and lore will enjoy themselves with every patch game is getting worse currently it's a cash grab on life support they will sell best gear for dollars and then nerf it a few months later to sell you the new best thing it pains me to write this review over 3000 hours on record the game is awesome or to be more precise was awesome unfortunately the developers decided not to listen to the players and with the new update neverwinter online will become probably the only mmorpg where you actually get punished if you improve your gear they call it scaling who in their right mind plays an mmorpg only to be punished for their success it feels not very rewarding as always cryptic studios and perfect world entertainment having disgusting monetization system the game is enjoyable for the first time you play it however after you achieve the max level you either need to dump huge amounts of cash into it or you won't be accomplishing much therefore you are in a dead end if you play it you either screw yourself to pay for it and stay relevant or you don't buy anything and remain a noob forever found myself getting bored of wow so moved over to neverwinter and i must say i have not had this much fun in a long time highly suggest i love the game for what it is the gameplay and story keep me entertained however i really really hate how expensive everything is the most interesting customization options are all locked behind very expensive paywalls if what you're looking for is a fun end game experience neverwinter is not the place for you leveling until 70 is genuinely a lot of fun it's a romp inside the dungeons and dragons world you can play as a bunch of fun classes and it's all around a good time that is if you have friends to play with and don't plan on trying to keep up with the veteran players like ever unless you're a wallet warrior even then good luck this review was written when level 70 was still the maximum but the sentiment still applies to level 20. if you think i'm being unfair and have just cherry-picked the bad reviews go to steam and sort by most helpful and then scroll down you'll see players with hundreds or thousands of hours of game time all saying stay away it's not what it once was it's gone from fun action game with grindable in-game currency and rewards to loot boxes campaign completion tokens and paywalls if anything i had to dig deep to find the positive reviews my love for neverwinter runs deep i even went out and bought the novel the game is based on it's a trilogy starting with gauntlet grim which actually used to be a major part of the game guild battles 20 vs 20 in an underground dwarven city which again was removed pretty early on and many years ago i even made why neverwinter is dying and watching this video back is bittersweet because everything i said was going to happen happened i just really wish it hadn't i genuinely wish that i've been wrong so let's get to the pay to win side because this is one game i can actually show you step by step why a free game will often cost you the most money you've seen the little pop-up adverts on the right-hand side of the screen showing 30 off double currency boost happening now neverwinter is packed with various currencies almost a new one for each map but there are only two that matter zen and astral diamonds zen is a cryptic studios thing their other games such as star trek online also use zen it's a universal cross game currency and then astral diamonds are specific to neverwinter you can find unrefined astral diamonds in the game and then refine 100 000 a day or you can just sell your zen to other players for their astral diamonds so you can literally just buy astral diamonds by converting zen which you buy with money remember this once you level to 20 following the main story you'll start work on the campaigns which are several month long grind based content islands with time gates based on how much you can progress a day and progressing through a campaign awards boon points which you can spend on permanent buffs so progression equals power now for what it's worth the campaigns even though self-contained are pretty enjoyable if you go to the chult campaign you'll be killing dinosaurs and getting weapons that do more damage against dinosaurs but then when you go over to borovia and kill vampires all your dinosaur stuff is useless that's why i call them content islands they're fun if a little tedious well they were until they removed a whole load of them remember sharon dar the dread ring the temple of elemental evil yeah enjoy the memories so these boons matter in pvp 2 although the pvp scene is dead for reasons you're about to see what if you are busy and you want to progress through the campaigns faster well welcome to the zen shop your one stop shop for buying power join me as i literally show you how to buy your way to neverwinter end game in one fell swoop you need to finish campaigns to get the boons but you can buy campaign boost tokens which unlock the rewards early or give you bonus rewards for completing them there are two in the shop right now for 700 zen each and there's a full completion token for the third campaign for 1700 zen you don't even need to play it you just get all the rewards so let's add those to the basket now we don't need to spend as much time grinding campaigns oh look a holy vorpal enchantment to imbue a weapon with holy damage and hit loads more that sounds pretty good that's only 700 zen let's throw that in and remember the locked races well the dragonborn race pack is going to set you back 3500 zen but don't worry it'll make you more powerful than the other races oh and don't go thinking you could save money by just buying the dragonborn pack on its own because look at the cost 3500. now look at the denominations they sell zen in the 3 000 zen pack comes with a bonus of 450 so you're still 50 zen short you'll need to buy the higher pack or multiple smaller packs because it's just not enough but oh what if you wanted the even better metallic ancestry dragonborn well you can only get that in older lock boxes and you'll need the keys so we'll buy some keys later don't worry there's no guarantee you'll get this though no matter how much money you spend you might never actually get this we'll also want a mount but we'll sort that in a pack later because remember mounts have passive buffs and combat powers so we're basically buying power with this because there's no level restriction and oh we'll need some companions ai fighters to help us and because your companions work in a way like mount of having passive buffs you can mix and match the active buffs based on which companions you own so we'll need to buy four companions to get the best individual slot buff and they're 1050 zen each that's a total of 4 200 zen for companions might as well throw in some extra character slots while we're at it because if we do get lucky and pull an ancestry metallic dragonboard we'll need to start a new character so 175 zen for two more character slots here's the mythic mount unfortunately it's inside a pack which will set us back ten thousand five hundred zen but it's okay because the pack comes with a load of insignias to make the mount even more powerful so you're getting your zens worth although we will need to buy another mount if a better mount attack power comes out in the future which it definitely will so we're not buying our forever mount we're probably buying the most powerful right now that will last us about a year we'll need to redo this every year or so we'll also need to hold all the loot that we pick up while soloing dungeons and our inventory is limited so we'll need a 60 slot bag and that'll cost us 350 zen and this will be locked to whichever character uses it so if we run more than one character we'll need to buy more bags in the future remember those lock boxes with the metallic ancestry dragonborn well the chance of getting one is less than one percent but we'll buy 10 keys because there's a 10 key bundle for 787 zen so throw that in the basket as well we don't want to waste time leveling through the story so we'll buy a boost to 20. that's another 3 500 zen remember that's just above the threshold so you're forced to buy the larger pack if you try to buy it alone by now we'll want a weapon and if we check the market board we can find someone selling a rank 14 wepa or armor enchantment choice for only 11.5 million astral diamonds if we check the zen to astral diamond exchange and see currently players will buy one zen for 750 astral diamonds that's the maximum the game lets you set it so we'll need to exchange 15 300 zen to buy that rank 14 pack it's important and it's doable but hey look while i was browsing the auction house i found a forge hammer of gond artifact maxed out artifacts are powerful items anyone can equip and give passive buffs and that's a really good one it's only 15 million astral diamonds that's a nice round 20 000 but it's worth it for the power at least until something new comes out so now we pretty much have our shopping cart a max level boost a full complement of companions a mount for now a weapon enchantment our choice of armor enchant and a decent artifact along with a new race and some bags everything we need to dominate right out the gate all for the nice affordable 64 962 zen price tag and remember this is during a time when some of the items we've chosen are 30 off so this is cheaper than it should be so how much is this going to cost us well the biggest zen pack you can buy is 24 000 and that costs you 166 pounds so we'd need to buy this pack three times to get all the zen we'd need so if i spent 498 pounds or 663 dollars right now i could start the game at max level with high level companions mounts artifacts an exclusive overpowered race 10 lock box pull attempts more inventory space with campaigns either already completed or boosted for me if we both started this game at the same time but i spent half a thousand pounds on it i would instantly jump months ahead of you and there is nothing you could do about it but it gets worse what if even with all my power i still die to a boss not a problem you can spend zen and buy a scroll of life which just gets you back up like putting another coin in an arcade machine you can buy 500 zen for five dollars so in a boss fight you can basically pay a dollar to get back up whenever you want but don't worry the boss you're fighting doesn't heal meaning you can literally throw money at this game until you win but what if that's too selfish how about a scroll of mass life which gets your entire team back up so if you have a whale on your team you can never lose does this mean you could throw an undergear team at the most powerful boss in the game and just keep using scrolls of mass life until it died well yes because many years ago i did exactly that but we're not done yet weapons armor artifacts and weapon enchantments need to be refined and refining points drop very slowly in the game but don't worry you can just buy some refining points but be careful when you refine anything it might break and you'll lose your expensive reagents so why not buy a coalescent ward for 700 zen which guarantees the refining process will succeed you'll only need to refine about 20 items or weapons or enchantments or gems or artifacts about five times each when you get to the really low chances of success that means we'll need about 100 coalescent wards to max out a character that's only 70 000 that's over 500 pounds again but don't worry about it it's worth it well it will be until the new expansion releases and makes your max level armor irrelevant because the uncommon items from the newest expansion are often better than the mythic items from the previous because of power creep but we're still not done because after spending over a thousand pounds you should probably grab the monthly vip upgrade this is a prestige system and for every month you buy you'll advance one rank important to note it doesn't matter how many months you've been a vip it's how many months you buy so if you buy the 12 month vip sub right now you will start the game and remain at rank 12 until the sub runs out so let's see what you get for the vip ranks shall we remember the higher ranks get all the benefits of the lower ranks as well they add up if you're a rank 3 vip everyone in your party gets plus one percent total hp and this stacks another reason having a paying player in your party literally makes you more powerful at rank 4 vip you can open the world map and just fast travel from wherever you are instead of having to do that pesky adventuring thing and find the edge of the map you're currently on like a loser at rank 7 you're completely immune to injuries normally setting off a hidden trap or falling in battle gives you an injury a small stat debuff and you need to use an injury kit or weight at a campfire to heal but nope rank 7 vips just don't get injured you've paid more money you don't need to be inconvenienced by things like immersion or mechanics and at rank 12 you get everything no posting fees on the auction house discounts in the astral diamond store and oh you can summon your bank from anywhere so storage is never ever an issue because returning to the bank is such a poor person thing to do you have transcended the need to be anywhere everything comes to you you can open a shop immediately you can open a bank immediately so how much is this going to cost you well a six month vip upgrade is going to cost you 3570 zen which wouldn't you know it is just only very slightly more expensive than the 25 zen pack meaning oh no you've got to spend a little bit more than the preset packs you may as well go up to the 42 pound pack but you'll need to buy that twice if you want 12 months if you're watching this and thinking yeah but you could just grind for astral diamonds in the game and get all that stuff legit through gameplay yeah i know you can i did it for three years i completed every single campaign i got almost every mount every companion i upgraded all my artifacts i was at the top and then every new expansion reset me to the middle i made an entire video about how this works and i had to grind and pay again you spend six months refining your best in slot weapon only for a new dungeon to release and then you discover the trash mobs in the first room drop a better one that was the neverwinter experience but let's be thorough remember how there's a zen to astral diamond exchange this means you can grind dungeons get astral diamonds as rewards and exchanged them for zen in the game so there is a way to get zen by just playing the game right well kind of right but let's look at the practicality first remember there's an in-game refining limit of only gaining 100 000 astral diamonds a day so let's imagine you managed to play the game and you earned 750 astral diamonds and you put an offer on the exchange to buy one zen how long would that offer take to be fulfilled well a while because there's a bit of a backlog at least on pc currently there is a 65.8 million zen by request backlog meaning even if you did put an offer in to buy zen for the maximum price you would need to wait for all 65.8 million previous requests to be fulfilled to put that into perspective this means right now on pc in order to fulfill the entire 65.8 million zen backlog you would need to buy the 166 pound pack 2742 times which would cost you 455 000 pounds the better part of six hundred thousand dollars and earn you 49.3 billion astral diamonds if you are still going to defend neverwinter and still say it's not pay to win consider this no matter how long you've been playing or how skilled you think you are i could spend enough money to be more powerful than you within the hour and i could beat you in pvp even with my aging reactions because of pay to win look i love this game it holds a very dear place in my heart and i'll always smile whenever i think about it and i still think the journey from start to finish is one of the best action combat mmo journeys you can go on it's worth playing for the main adventure alone but i don't like what it has become it saddens me to see the laziness in development become so overt and it angers me because i remember knowing not thinking but knowing that this game could be so much better if they stopped being so greedy neverwinter used to have possibly the best thing i ever saw in any mmo something called the foundry it was a player driven creation kit players could make their own dungeons or stories or levels and then upload them and then you and your friends could play through them together and they were some of the best experiences i've ever had online i remember when someone made a lovecraftian cthulhu inspired haunted mansion one that took you to the other world and then the level tired of being the hero where you betrayed your friends and kept the ancient power and fought through the good guys coming to stop you it was inspired even the dumb jumping ones like trying to join the goblin special forces or becoming a spy and traveling deep down into the world going through assault courses they were silly but great which is what d d is if anyone ever says to you i wish there was an mmo where you could make your own adventures and go on them with friends there was it was called neverwinter it was fantastic and they killed it because this this today this isn't what it was this isn't a shadow of what it once was neverwinter is like having a great d and d group for a few years and going on some great adventures then as it goes on the dm starts asking you to pay a little bit more and a little bit more then your equipment gets worse then they wreck on old adventures then they reuse a map you've already explored and insist it's new and you stay because you remember it being good but if you were to take an objective step back and a look at your group as it is now you'd never even start i love you neverwinter and i always will but i can't support this part of me hopes this isn't goodbye some naive part of me hopes you can change and return to your former glory with player made maps multiple campaigns earnable currency balance pvp fun but another more grounded part of me knows it's probably best if i move on probably best i forget because holding on to the memory of when you were good just makes it even worse when i look at you now you've been great neverwinter but i think maybe it's time for me to gather my party and venture forth away from you so to end this review i will award neverwinter this review school will cost you 3500 zen out of 10. thank you for watching thank you again to the supporters on patreon and twitch who keep the channel alive you can support from only one pound a month check the video description for links to the patreon twitch twitter discord and the second channel josh strife plays where i replay old games voted on by you and as always have a great day you

Channel: Josh Strife Hayes

Views: 863,514

Keywords: mmo podcast, mmo discussion, mmo design, mmorpg youtuber, mmo news

Id: AyzfF9sJ-rc

Length: 36min 5sec (2165 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Alyassus]

That's PerfectWorld for you. Everything they touch turns to ass. And not the good kind of ass.

[u/Leeroy42]

I remember playing Neverwinter because it was the only f2p MMO on Xbox at the time. It was extremely pay to win and all the best things were locked inside loot boxes. I’m glad I was able to buy a PC and play some actual good MMO’s.

[u/sylva748]

One day we'll get a proper D&D MMO. The IP has so much potential. D&D Online is fun but requires you to know 3.5 edition D&D rules to play it comfortably and it is old now. So it's way past it's prime.

[u/Pliskin80]

Useless bard lol

[u/Clbull]

Never really got into Neverwinter. It caught my eye when somebody used the custom dungeon tool thing to recreate Scarlet Monastery.

Sad that it got fucked by predatory microtransactions.

[u/TheRealDestian]

Neverwinter could've worked as a sub MMO: the combat and systems were good enough that people would've definitely paid but they filled it with enough P2W garbage that the game was absolutely hopeless.

[u/teor]

the abusive mechanics meant to keep you playing long after the fun has stopped

That's a long way of saying New World.

[u/KvBla]

I remember getting into a spending frenzy with this game after getting a proper paying job for the first time, would go home everyday after midnight (er...evening shift? 3pm till 12), log in, look around, see some cool shit, swipe, repeat.

It naturally and eventually got stale once i finished the current story (was undermountain iirc, the mad wizard thingy, upgraded all my shit to max too, which was even more swipes) so fortunately i stopped.

Was on a ffxiv break recently and bored out of my mind, decided to dip back in, black-screened me twice and had to hard restart my pc on 2nd time (first time i have to do it in years), uninstalled right after lol. I suppose i could call it divine intervention?

[u/leeverpool]

Man I remember this game. When it first launched I was having so much fun with it lol. I had a spell that pushed mobs over the edge in dungeons. It was hilarious. I remembered I took that strat from Kripp I believe lol.