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Neverwinter Wonders

A chat with Cryptic's Jack Emmert.

Eurogamer How many levels are there?
Jack Emmert

The the first 10 levels are Heroic. Right now we're sticking primarily at Heroic levels and we'll extend it from there. You'll go no higher than 10, certainly.

Eurogamer What classes are you bringing over from Fourth Edition D&D?
Jack Emmert

Right now, Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric. I traditionally have played tanks in MMOs, so I tend to go towards the fighter.

Eurogamer Are single-player characters and multiplayer characters one and the same thing?
Jack Emmert

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Eurogamer How are you interpreting the Dungeons & Dragons rules?
Jack Emmert

I would say we're being inspired by D&D, not slavishly trying to copy. Where possible we're trying to use the abilities and powers and monsters and some of their behaviours. But it's not going to be a one-to-one correspondence.

For instance, there's no two-hit roll. We've used boons in a slightly different manner. Hit-points aren't exactly the same. But, by and large, the structure is similar. It's not turn-based.

Eurogamer Oh, it's action-based? Are there discernible turns - is it all based on a dice-roll system?
Jack Emmert

There are dice rolls going on, but it's not turn-based in the sense that you can pause it. You target something, you attack, you swing. The random aspect is going to be how much damage you do, and that's affected by your feats and abilities.

It's not an action-RPG, but it's also not straight D&D where you roll a die to hit.

Eurogamer Did you play tabletop Dungeons & Dragons?
Jack Emmert

Oh yeah. Just take a look at my background: I started gaming with pen and paper role-playing games. I've been playing D&D since 1979.

Eurogamer Have you ever dressed up as a wizard?
Jack Emmert

No, no, I don't do the dressing up. I have my limits.

I am a huge gamer. If you come to my office you'd be shocked.

Eurogamer What art direction are you taking - stylised or realistic?
Jack Emmert

It's going to be a little bit stylised: realistic-stylised - ha! I don't know if that's a term. We're trying to get some of the qualities that some of the Spanish fantasy authors have done in the past: your Vallejos, etc. That has an influence which will suggest a little bit of what people can expect.

We feel that this is the finest art we've ever done. Some of the things in Star Trek were frankly spectacular. I'd rather have a smaller zone or smaller dungeon that is spectacular than spend time making a large and mediocre experience. We fully understand we've got a lot to tackle, art-wise.

Eurogamer When I'm bored of playing Neverwinter alone, how will I group with other players?
Jack Emmert

Basically Neverwinter is broken into a number of zones. There are other players in those areas, social hubs, where we plan for people to interact. There will also be various search mechanics similar to what we have in our other MMOs to allow you find your friends and what people are doing what quests and so forth.

Eurogamer How many friends can I group up with?
Jack Emmert

Five, and you can fill a group with henchmen or friends or some combination thereof.

Eurogamer What sort of content is there for groups - can we tackle story tasks or are we limited to dungeon crawling?
Jack Emmert

Everything that's part of the narrative. Everything.

Eurogamer Presumably the danger with that is that it runs out at some point?
Jack Emmert

You're exactly right. Where that comes into play is the user-generated content. We also have a full slate of content we're going to continue to bring after release. We don't think people will find themselves at a loss for things to do. Dungeons can be repeated, too - they are persistent.

Eurogamer The Neverwinter Nights toolset cheapened the game content for me. I had access to all the monsters, all the items, everything - the incentive to keep playing the game to gather the best equipment was gone.
Jack Emmert

Right now we're not sure that in our user-generated content you can make your own items and weapons. There would be very strict controls on that.

What currently the UGC is intended to do is for people to attach their quests, their stories into our world. You're right, it's possible for people to create bad content, and that's why we'll have rating systems - similar to what YouTube does - because the best stuff is just going to float to the top naturally.

Eurogamer Presumably the social hubs that you have will cater for guilds and trading - standard social MMO mechanics?
Jack Emmert

You can do all those MMO things in this particular product, yes.