Adventures In F2P - Neverwinter

                                                     "You don't have to pay to adventure"

            Neverwinter cliff-notes -

• Developed by Cryptic Studios and published by Perfect World
• Released in Jun 2013
• Uses in game currency ZEN
• Several F2P titles preceded Neverwinter at Cryptic Studios
• Featured content packs for purchase offer obvious enhancements that might not be available to those only playing for free.
• $200 for access to exclusive playable race
• Pay your way to front of load queues 

         Games like Neverwinter give free to play games a bad name. Aside from huge hit titles like League of Legends and Team Fortress 2, the free to play genre is generally laughed at because the selection of titles in unplayable. When you have an influx of games like Neverwinter, it buries the few gems that populate the landscape. So why pick on Neverwinter? Because beneath the awful slowdown and load times sits a pretty fun experience, though rare in its availability.

         Neverwinter likes to boast that "you don't have to pay to adventure," and while that may be true at the most basic of levels, you have to pay if you want some semblance of a grand series of quests. Once you pick from the varied selection of classes and races(one of which costs $200 to unlock) you have to sit through a completely unnecessary cut scene that gets you nice and prepared for the absurd amounts of lag you will encounter. You do the generic MMO beginner stuff for a few minutes before you are unleashed into a hub world that seems to be frozen in Jello. The trail of sparkles that seemed so helpful in the tutorial sent me off in 20 different directions and laughed maniacally as I circled endlessly around my quest markers. Despite my best efforts to enjoy myself and play the game, the slowdown I endured in the hub town made the simple task of selling items or finishing a quest nearly impossible. The few quests I was able to complete were completely user made and were quite impressive in their quality. I actually managed to get myself into a queue for an instance while struggling to get through the town. The instance was full of allies and monsters that were in my experience range. Surprisingly, instances seem to be completely free of lag, so my advice is to get a group of friends together and start running instances as soon as possible. That will alleviate most of the frustration that I unfortunately had to endure.


       After being used to how smoothly World of Warcraft ran, it's so disappointing that Neverwinter fails to keep my experience as smooth as possible. Turning my graphical settings down to minimum only made the lag uglier. Fair warning to anyone that turns their graphical settings to maximum, your screen will be full of sparkly crap that you can't get rid of, enjoy.

      There are good free to play games out there, and I'm determined to play them. But after my experience with Neverwinter, I'm feeling seriously discouraged. But my experience wasn't all bad. If you are a seriously huge fan of D&D or have always wanted to design and create your own quests, Neverwinter can provide moments of great enjoyment. But for anyone looking for a smooth and fun MMO to play in your spare time, you shouldn't put yourself through the frustration.