The Penny Arcade guild, What A Nice Guild, is on the server Beholder.
What is it?
An MMO set in the classic Forgotten Realms, the Iconic city of Neverwinter, setting of D&D and using 4th Edition rule set.
How is it structured?
It’s pretty much a spoke and hub design. The main city of never winter is broken up into little open world hub that have quests that are both open world and instanced.
Why would I want to play it?
Do you like high fantasy, D&D, Action combat, the Forgotten Realms, or making your own stories for other to play? If the answer to any of these questions is yes there is something here for you to enjoy.
Here's the trailer:
Combat:
Combat is run like an action game with some hot bar MMO elements. It has a non standard control setup with the mouse look enabled.
Abilities are broken down into categories like so:
- At-Will powers: These can be bound to the left or right mouse button. They can be used as much as the user wants and are the basic attacks of the game. They often have some little bonus to them in the tooltips.
- Encounter powers: You can carry three of these at a time and they are bound to Q,E, and R. these are your standard cooldown type skills. These pack more punch and have more secondary effects than the At-Will powers.
- Daily powers: You carry two of these at a time and are bound to the 1 and 2 key. They are the most powerful skills in the game and are activated by gaining action points. Whenever you perform an attack and one other condition based on class you fill up the D20 gauge in the center of your bottom HUD. When this is full you can use a Daily power.
- Tab Skill: The Tab skill is tied into the class mechanic of each class and is unique to each. You gain this skill at level 10.
Foundry:
The other reason to play it is the foundry. The foundry is the place where intrepid storytellers go to build quests, dungeons and even long quest lines for other players. The hope is that this will give the game longevity. I plan to update this section with information on how to use this system in the future.
In-Depth Producer's Video Walkthrough of the Foundry
Races:
Pretty standard starting set of races here.
There are Human, Elf, Half-elf, Wood elf, Half-Ogre, Dwarf, Halfling, Tiefling, Drow (only available to founders until 60 days into the game)
I’ll add the racial bonuses to each class and give some flavor text soon.
Classes:
- Guardian Fighter- Guardian Fighter has a secondary role of a leader and is a warrior who fights with a shield and heavy armor, thus able to fight with a high degree of survivability and control the battle around him or her. Placement and tactics are very important for a guardian fighter. Guardian Fighters are proficient in Plate armor.
Would I enjoy playing it? Here we have the standard threat tank of the group with an active block skill to boot. Don’t like to take damage? Be this guy.
- Great Weapon Fighter- A Great Weapon Fighter has a secondary role of a striker. They are warriors who eschew shields in favor of large two-handed weapons. They rely on a strong aggressive offense, and yet are still durable enough to serve as a defender in a pinch. They are proficient in Scale armor.
Would I enjoy playing it? This is an off tank with AOE DPS. They start off slow but ramp up mid levels. This class does need more work but if you like AOE and are willing to stick it out for the first 15 levels it get’s better.
- Devoted Cleric- A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve. Devoted clerics wear chainmail for protection.
Would I enjoy playing it? Do you like lasers? How about healing? How about AOE? Did I mention lasers?
- Trickster Rogue- The Trickster Rogue’s unique combination of skills sets up this Rogue build to have a secondary role of controller. It is a damage-dealing class specializing in stealth, speed, precision with a pair of two sharp blades and a store of daggers which can be thrown to distract the enemy. Rogues usually wear leather armor.
Would I enjoy playing it? Making things dead is the name of the game for this class. They take advantage of combat positioning and have some stealthy tricks.
- Control Wizard- Control Wizards focus foremost on their primary role harnessing arcane energies to control the battlefield and helping the party to not get overrun by a swarm of monsters. Apart from that, they are able to dish damage very well and hence their secondary role is that of striker. They crush, restrain, and debilitate their foes. They wield a magical orb and are capable of unleashing torrents of damage on enemy parties. They can only wear cloth armor.
Would I enjoy playing it? A lot of CC here with a nice smattering of utility. Also does decent damage with their powers
Companions:
You can pick up a companion to fight alongside you. These are pretty much soulless beings so no getting to know them like in SWTOR but at least you’re not alone out there. You can only have one active at a time but own many of them.
Feats and Powers:
Power points are gained each level. You can spend them on powers as you see fit but be aware that you will not have as many points as you would need for you to max all of the powers. Be prepared to drop 2-3 of them if you wish to not need to respec later for a costly 600 zen.
Feats are separated into two tiers. They make a certain aspect of your character stronger. Feat respecs cost Astral Diamonds.
- Heroic: These are the feats you pick from level 10-30. They are arranged in two rows and the games pretty much asking you to pick between one or the other.
- Paragon: Here the trees branch off into role trees with each role giving unique choices to change how your class works.
Crafting:
Crafting runs in a queue like system. You set up the jobs and walk away. Each job will tell you how long it will take and what it requires to run. There are five trade skills and they are Leadership, Mailsmithing, Platesmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring.
They do what’s pretty much advertised on the tin except leadership which gives XP and different forms of currency.
You can work on crafting (and use the auction house) from a browser by going to gateway.playneverwinter.com
Economy:
There are many types of currency in this game. Knowing what each does will be pretty important as you move along on your journeys.
- Gold: A base currency that is obtainable only from playing normally. This is used to buy standard items from the vendors. Health potions can be bought with this as can some level of gear.
- Zen: this is the cash shop currency. This buys things on the cash store such as boosts and cosmetic mounts or companions.
- Astral Diamonds: these are sort of a middle ground currency as they can not only be gotten through some in game means but they can also be converted to and from Zen. The auction house also only uses this currency.
- Seals: There are many seals throughout the game with different names like Lion or Gryphon. These are level range currencies and can be used mostly for armor and weapons.
There are also two currency that are gained by invocating at an alter after you reach level 11.
Courtesy of Arch:
- Ardent Coins: You get one of these coins per day, the first time you do an Invocation. These are permanent coins, unlike their counterparts, and can be spent in the Vault of Piety to gain seals, potions that give long buffs, or saved to purchase mounts, weapons, and even a Guardian Angel companion (although this takes 360 coins)
- Celestial Coins: These are temporary, fleeting pieces of currency that you can use to buy rare crafting materials and enchantments for your gear. The catch? You get one per day, to a maximum of seven...and they disappear if you forget to pray daily. Sorry atheist cleric roleplayers, none for you!
Server:
We play on Beholder.
Guild Info:
What A Nice Guild is led by CorriganX. The best thing to get in is to just add him to your friends list if he’s on. Information of other people to add to get into the guild is forthcoming.
Teamspeak Info:
Digital Syn has been a very gracious fellow and provided us with a TS server:
“Don't forget the General PA TeamSpeak Server is available for use:
Server: finalack.com ( or 74.207.227.159 )
Port: default - leave blank
Password: PA's Usual Password for these things
I've already created some channels for the game. Please let me know if there are any issues.”