Cryptic may have been sold, but nothing has changed

I was reading a news article on IGN about Cryptic’s Neverwinter — normally I pass over anything that has to do with Cryptic — when something caught my eye.  Then another thing.  Then another.

Neverwinter is shifting from the co-operative multiplayer game that was announced last year and into full-fledged, free-to-play MMO territory…

The developer says Neverwinter will be closer to a game like Nexon’s Vindictus, where combat is controlled by mouse clicks…

Neverwinter is being built with a modified version of the same engine used for Cryptic’s two most recent MMORPGs — Star Trek Online and Champions Online.

I can’t imagine how anyone would ever think those are good ideas. Free to play? Like Vindictus? Once again cutting and pasting the engine? Someone is actually being paid to make those decisions.   Absolutely no surprise to me, though.

  • I was keeping a very distant sceptical eye on this one just because of the ip. Horrible ideas, I mean… just… really? I can’t see many people being excited by anything in this article.

  • That Cryptic are using the same engine on Neverwinter as they do for their other titles shouldn’t surprise anyone.

    Perfect World obviously wanted a D&D MMO developed, hence the shift (or: Cryptic now has the money to develop a full D&D MMO since being sold by Atari).

    Cryptic make casual MMOs, so it fits with their experience. STO at launch showed improvement over ChampO at launch, so hopefully Neverwinter is another step above STO. How Hasbro’s suit versus Atari over the D&D IP is another interesting area that could impact on what launches though.

  • DDO also has click-to-swing combat and a free to play business model (probably the most consumer-friendly in the business). Somehow, I’m not sure I’d be going out of my way to be the new kid on that particular block.

  • How they survived after those two flops is beyond me. The Trekkies must have been willing to give money to Craptic for them to have enough for a third flop.

  • How to take a strong brand and turn it to pisswater in 3 easy steps.

    If I want to go into gaming I need a marketing degree and a MBA it seems. Then I’ll be able to sell the masses different colored vials of my vanity urine as well.

  • I’m already guessing now that the Facebook Neverwinter game is better than whatever Cryptic are “planning”.

    At least while they keep the same name we can spot them coming a mile off.

  • @Thomas

    What makes you think Cryptic games are flops.They have been using the same engine in all of their games.You think Cryptic is spending 100 million or 80 million to make their games.I will put you in a ball park Allods cost 12 million to make how much more do think it takes to make a game with a game engine that you have been using since City of heroes.

    Good IP + Cheap game + MMO launch hype = Success

    If you make game that is suppose to grab 100k customers but launch hype grabs 400k and pays for your game.Do you care when game drops to 100k.

    My only problem this game is going to be market as MMO(large open worlds and interaction with lots of people in that open space).When it is going to be more lobby MMO which fine with DD setting which lot of dungeon crawling is part.I could be wrong Cryptic does know what a mmo is they could be changing it to real mmo.

    Either way the game is free to play unlike CO and STO from beginning,So you don’t lose money figuring if you don’t like it.Plus Crytpic has push the back release suggesting that it has learned something from its past releases

  • STO started to get really good, up until they got sold. Now new content has been shelved for the F2P change. I was a little interested in Neverwinter, until I read this.

  • I thought Neverwinter might be a cool game to keep an eye on. Now that I know that Cryptic is doing it, I’m adding it to my “Ignore!” list.

  • Neverwinter deserves better than a F2P “clicky” game. I really do miss the days of Baldur’s Gate/Icewind Dale.

  • In all fairness, Vindictus is actually a pretty good game for F2P, even if it isn’t open world.

    But yes, wow at these decisions, it boggles the mind.

  • Yeah, I think we need to approach this news differently. If we assume they’re trying to create a good game, we might be disappointed – however, they’re not. They’re trying to make a quick buck and for that, reusing an existing engine and going F2P from the start (with a good old-fashioned P2W cash shop) is ideal.

  • I couldn’t agree more. I was so dissapointed when I heard about all of the changes to Neverwinter. I was really looking forward to it… in it’s original proposed form at least. Now it just sounds like another dumbed down free to play title that will be rushed out the door by Perfect World. I wish they would just drop the ip and make it some generic fantasy themed mmo. D&D deserves something better.