IGN - The Next Neverwinter

There's a reason Cryptic's Neverwinter isn't called Neverwinter Nights 3. According to Jack Emmert, CEO of Cryptic, "Neverwinter represents a different style of game than the others. This is an online, co-operative RPG with a large focus on the online aspect. Therefore it is different than the other two. Also, I'm a big believer in simplicity. As far as I can figure, Neverwinter Nights games were about Neverwinter -- I have no idea why it was night time. So why not just call it Neverwinter."

A majority of the game's action will take place within and in the sewers below the city of Neverwinter, and occasionally bleed out into the nearby environs. Andy Velasquez, producer at Cryptic, explains the story setup. "It's about 100 years past what most players are familiar with from Neverwinter Night and Neverwinter Nights 2." Things have been hectic around Neverwinter, as they tend to be. A volcano blew up, taking most of the city with it. Foreign powers then entered the city to try and put the pieces back together. It's in this period of rebuilding that the game begins, where there's a clashing of interests as those who cling to the old ways of the city lock horns with the newcomers. Emmert added, "To sum up, you're going to kill monsters and get loot."

Since Cryptic is primarily know for MMOs like Star Trek Online and Champions Online, it's reasonable to assume Neverwinter might also fall within the same category. From what's been said so far, it sounds more like an action-RPG with MMO-like elements built in. There will be an auction house, for instance, a bank, and open spaces within Neverwinter to wander around and interact with others. A majority of the content, though, is more straightforward and follows along with a story. 

Dragons confirmed.

"There is a main campaign thread that you can follow," said Velasquez, "but you can also work your way through the dungeons at your leisure. They'll unlock at certain points but it's not mandated upon you to do them at that time and only at that time." Chatting with non-player characters won't all be about questing, either. "We absolutely plan to have lore context, people sitting at the pub that you can chat with and find out more about any number of things, from the main villains to weird and random facts that hardcore D&D fans will get a kick out of.

When the game is ready to ship, Cryptic is planning on having at least five playable classes (Wizard, Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric), though that number could change. "We're kind of waiting and seeing," said Emmert. "We want to identify what's absolutely necessary for the game to be fun and make that as good as possible before we start turning the crank and creating dozens of different classes."

Post-release, it sounds like there'll be a number of classes will be made available. "We're pretty psyched about doing as many [classes] as possible," said Velasquez. "We've looked already at some of the player handbooks like 2 and 3 and started picking out like the Artificer and even the Beastmaster Ranger. We plan on doing as many as we can down the road."

If you can't manage to find players to help out on your travels, non-player controlled henchmen can be picked up to fight alongside you. "You'll have control [of them], fairly simple stuff, just like 'go over here' or 'attack this target' or 'defend this target.' Those are all available right now with the henchman controls. In regards to what types and classes they fulfill, to start we're going to focus on the classes that round out the player classes. We're making sure we have a tanky man-at-arms that can protect you if you're the Cleric, a DPS-y war Wizard in case you're playing the tank. Those aren't necessarily the classes that we have, but they fill out the roles that you may need based on the classes that we have available."

The main quests in the game will be soloable with henchmen help, so no need to find others to reach the end, though there will be certain objectives that only a group will be able to take on. "We have scaling encounters based on how many players are on your team," added Velasquez. "If you go into a mission with just yourself and some henchmen, it'll be set to be the appropriate level of difficulty for you. But if you add in two or three other player characters, it'll scale up appropriately."

Those who remember the established style of combat in BioWare's Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate will find a different, more fluid style of gameplay in Cryptic's game. "There's no pause-timing," said Velasquez. "We are interested in maintaining the tactical D&D experience but it is not a pause and calculate and watch it unfold kind of gameplay experience."

Tangle with deadly dangers, then trade with players in town.

Neverwinter fans no doubt recall how integral the ability to create and share content in Nights was to extending the experience beyond official quests and story. With this version, Cryptic is focusing on making and sharing user-generated content as painless as possible. "We have striven to make it as intuitive and accessible as we can for people to make missions, maps, contacts, etcetera. We'll provide a set of kits you can use, imagine the caves or the dungeons, and those come with a bunch of rooms. You just go to the library tab and drag them over and it's in the world. Similarly, placing mission objectives or enemies is just that easy. You go to the properties tab and look through the monsters section and you can drag a set of Gnolls over and then tie them to a mission objective that you made. In general the philosophy is easy and simple for players to get into and use. There's a lot of added depth there once you start getting into things like the trigger system, detail object placements, you can do some really interesting things with dialogue trees and all that fun stuff. It's having a simple solution for some people and a really in-depth version for others that really want to get in there and do it."

To browse and access all this content, there'll be a way to search, sort and rate within the game itself. That means no scouring message boards to find out what's good. "It'll be really easy. You'll just pop open a window. You'll say, 'What's hot today? Oh that one's been reviewed really well? Let's play that.' And then right from the main persistent world you're playing the Cryptic content from, you can quickly and easily hop into someone's [user generated content]."

There's also the possibility, at some point, that there'll be a way to profit off of content you create. "We're not quite sure yet exactly how we'll want to make that work," said Velasquez. "That's something we're still discussing internally. There are a lot of ideas in terms of whether it's like an iTunes-y-like model or something like where they're paying for big packs. That' something we're still deciding as we go. We'll figure that out over the months to come."

For now Neverwinter is scheduled for release on PC only, and there's no specific release date.