Neverwinter Nights MMO Rumour

[Holy Smokes]

There is room for smaller, or more specialized/differentiated MMOs. EVE Online and LotR seem to be doing fine; Warhammer Online also looks like it has some legs, and may escape the burnout fates of Tabula Rasa and Conan.

 

[avin]

The only thing that can compete with Wow is Wow.

Lot has been said about Age of Conan, Warhammer, etc and Wow has 10 million+ players.

Bioware hasn't made anything decent since BGII (edit: oh, Kotor I is fine).

 

[Mad Mac]

I am not sure. Just like with the new Star Wars Old Republic MMORPG - my problem is I don't really want to play an MMO. I want to play offline, in my dark room, listening to dialogues exposing a complex and surprising storyline and tactically managing my party or my PC.

Oh I agree, I don't play them either, which probably adds to my puzzlement. Still, Cryptic is apparently a developer who specializes in MMO's, (They did City of Heroes, and apparently have opcoming MMO's based on Champions and Star Trek) so there is really no reason for Atari to acquire them except to have them produce an MMO at some point.

I'm still guessing they have Obsidian working on a new Baldurs Gate game, since they've got kind of a connection to the franchise already. (Obsidian=Black Isle, more or less) Obsidian seems kind of busy these days, though. They're still supporting NWN 2, last I checked, they have their own RPG coming out (Alpha Protocal) and I believe they were tapped by Bethseda to create a new Fallout game.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance I and II were published by Interplay and the second part, which was a vast improvement in my opinion, was developed by Black Isle.

Heh, two companies that no longer exist. Well, Obsidian is sorta Black Isle, but I don't think they've done any console games recently, much less creating a new console engine rather than working with an existing one.

 

[Frostmarrow]

If the DIY-suite is a strong in the MMO as in the original game even I could be lured into the MMORPG fold.

It should be possible to build your own setting and setup portals (like links) to other gamer's settings, creating a vast ever changing world.

 

[Dire Bare]

It could be neat....but, without Bioware, I'm not sure how likely they are to succeed. Has Atari successfully pulled off a D&D game?

Atari doesn't *need* Bioware or Obsidian to pull off a hit MMO, but the more fan confidence they can generate will make a huge difference, of course.

To say nothing of the fact that's going directly against WoW at this point (if the rumor is true).

If they plan on upsetting Warcraft, they don't have a chance. But you don't need to dethrone WoW to have a successful MMO. As others have mentioned in the thread, there are a small handful of "second-tier" MMOs that are going strong and making money . . . and offer no real competition to WoW.

I'm more interested in the competition with Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron! Will two D&D licensed MMOs be able to survive?

 

[Dire Bare]

Depends on if they set it in the 4e / post-Spellplague Realms. If they do, I'm simply not interested (literally any other Realms time period and they have my money though). And wasn't Neverwinter destroyed completely in 4e?

They will. It wouldn't make any sense to go "backwards" with a new game. It will be based on the 4e ruleset, and it will be set in the 4e version of the Realms.

If it's a good game, I could care less about which ruleset or timeframe they base the game on.

 

[Remathilis]

Um... isn't Neverwinter destroyed in the new 4e Realms?

SWEET! the NWN MMO will be 3.5 (or earlier!)

 

[RangerWickett]

I will be very impressed if a Neverwinter Nights MMO includes the same style of 'do it yourself' that the first NWN had. If there were a user-made content-filled MMO . . . and if there were a way to make that work without massive suckage . . . I might actually get interested.

 

[Shemeska]

They will. It wouldn't make any sense to go "backwards" with a new game. It will be based on the 4e ruleset, and it will be set in the 4e version of the Realms.

Well, BG2 and its expansions were based on 2e rules even during the 3.x era, and while I'd have to check on it, I think they took place, time-wise prior to 3.x (though there wasn't a time jump or massive changes to the world between 2e and 3e, so not much difference really as much as a 3e to 4e transition).

 

[Shemeska]

Will two D&D licensed MMOs be able to survive?

Given recent developments, I think the question might be: can the current one manage to survive?