Neverwinter Online first impressions.
I was not initially very impressed with Neverwinter. But I've since discovered that's probably because I initially rolled a Great Weapon Fighter. If you're not already a fan and just curious about trying it out, by all means, roll a GWF. It's like training weights - only instead of weight, you're training with tolerance for awfulness.
When chugging potions like an addict and stopping for a breather every few seconds, all of the game's flaws are highlighted in stark relief. Writing from a 12yr old who just discovered fantasy novels, voice-acted by his mum and dad's 'improv group', who are only capable of doing campy (and awful) caricatures. The amateur hour casino floor show impression is reinforced by the continuous spam of messages telling you that some lucky punter just gambled their way to epic toys, and wouldn't it be great if you spent some money on gambling too?
There's a skill/talent/power tree of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because any semblance of freedom of choice is a heavily-locked-down illusion, with the game staunchly refusing to let you have any actual agency in your build because it's worried you'll break something. "Here. Here! Point goes here, thickhead! What's wrong with you? OK. No more points for you until you put that point there. NO. It's a USEFUL skill and you WILL use it, dammit!"
No I fucking won't.
However. Once you get past all of that and threaten to uninstall out of frustration (whether that takes you five levels or ten), go re-roll a cleric. All the tedium of the quests will be shortened partly by your advance knowledge but mostly by the fact that as a cleric, you can now see the Matrix and fly like Neo, and the Gods themselves will literally shower you in buffs and money.
With all that spare time you have from effortlessly brushing aside the bosses that turned your GWF into meat-paste, you'll be able to try the Foundry, where you can indulge your schadenfreude in watching people who DO actually know how to write wrestling with the fisher-price toolset they've been given to try and craft something at least vaguely D&Dish out of what is essentially 'D&D Lite - Combat Edition'.
When chugging potions like an addict and stopping for a breather every few seconds, all of the game's flaws are highlighted in stark relief. Writing from a 12yr old who just discovered fantasy novels, voice-acted by his mum and dad's 'improv group', who are only capable of doing campy (and awful) caricatures. The amateur hour casino floor show impression is reinforced by the continuous spam of messages telling you that some lucky punter just gambled their way to epic toys, and wouldn't it be great if you spent some money on gambling too?
There's a skill/talent/power tree of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because any semblance of freedom of choice is a heavily-locked-down illusion, with the game staunchly refusing to let you have any actual agency in your build because it's worried you'll break something. "Here. Here! Point goes here, thickhead! What's wrong with you? OK. No more points for you until you put that point there. NO. It's a USEFUL skill and you WILL use it, dammit!"
No I fucking won't.
However. Once you get past all of that and threaten to uninstall out of frustration (whether that takes you five levels or ten), go re-roll a cleric. All the tedium of the quests will be shortened partly by your advance knowledge but mostly by the fact that as a cleric, you can now see the Matrix and fly like Neo, and the Gods themselves will literally shower you in buffs and money.
With all that spare time you have from effortlessly brushing aside the bosses that turned your GWF into meat-paste, you'll be able to try the Foundry, where you can indulge your schadenfreude in watching people who DO actually know how to write wrestling with the fisher-price toolset they've been given to try and craft something at least vaguely D&Dish out of what is essentially 'D&D Lite - Combat Edition'.