Gone are the days of table top role-playing, where you and your friends got together to explore a scenario created by the dungeon master. Why are these days behind us? Because Cryptic Studios, along with Perfect World Entertainment, have created Neverwinter, an MMORPG that brings the adventures to a new level. However, one question still remains about the game; is it a true representation of the Dungeons & Dragons experience or does it feel more like a generic MMO? Let’s grab our dice, roll for initiative and find out.

Starting off with character creation, you have a nice selection of different races and classes to choose from. You can pick from the nine different races: Dwarf, Human, Half-Orc, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Tiefling, High Elf and Drow. These all come with their own unique bonuses and stats. Next you get to choose from the six currently available classes: Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric, Control Wizard, Hunter Ranger, Great Weapon Fighter and Guardian Fighter. Every class has its own preferences towards armour, weapons and abilities. An added bonus is that every class can be built in any way you can think of. Crowd control mages, tank fighters, DPS (Damage Per Second) warriors and many more variations on MMO classics. One last thing to note about your character is that you can decide where they originate from and have an optional panel to write about your character’s back story. This is great for any players who want to have a role play experience more familiar in the classic table top DnD.

After your new adventurer has been created, the storyline reveals itself. You are a survivor of a ship wreck and are informed that your vessel was taken down by a dragon, under the control of the witch Vallindra. You are then tasked to go on an epic quest to prevent the witch from destroying the land and reshaping it into her own image. The story line is solid with some great interaction between NPC’s. Every single quest giver in the game is fully voiced, allowing you to immerse yourself into the world a lot more. The quests also vary from simple fetch missions to figuring out puzzles and slaughtering enemies. The variety of different quests are a nice touch but it gets better than that.

Since Dungeons and Dragons prized itself on the idea of player-created quests and scenarios in the table top version, Cryptic Studios have created an in-game variant. Players can create their own in-depth quests that can take other adventurers on challenging alternate journeys. This experience is an interesting addition to an MMO and it works well. With the availability of a world builder or a scenario builder, this mechanic can be taken to the next level with user created dungeons and items.

Neverwinter’s combat is simple, more so than other games in the genre. Left click acts as your standard attack which changes depending on what your class is. Right click, Q, E and R can all be used for different abilities that require either a cooldown or a channel time. You can mix and match different skills in diverse slots to cater to your play style. As you may expect, every class has a vast array of spells and abilities. Some passive and some active. On top of this you also have your most dominant skills known as Daily Powers, similar to that of the original DnD experience. On top of your ability window you will have a D20 (twenty sided dice) that will gradually fill up as you combat enemies. When it is full you can unleash an awesome attack that can either devastate enemies or even buff allies.

Early on in your experience of the game, everything will seem pretty well-balanced. Items drop on regular occurrence, stats are reasonable and damage outputs of both you and your enemies are nicely curved. But as you reach end game, you begin to see some true signs of pay walling.  This is mainly seen in high level crafting where you can create the best armour and weapon sets. In order to construct this gear you need resources that can be obtained throughout the game, however it is not the availability of items that is the problem. The situation lies with the time it takes to create such items of power. You will be averaging out 3-6 hours an item when you hit the later levels. This is where you can pay to get better artisans or crafters to build your items faster and bring down the time limit from hours to minutes. Luckily this is optional, but the diehard players of the MMO will want to construct these items. Too bad you could be waiting a week to get your ultimate set.

The music in the game is great, with some background tunes that can fit the situation perfectly. However, there is a lack of variety. There is only a small amount of music in Neverwinter, as you are constantly listening to the same dungeon, field and boss themes over and over. This is where most players will just mute the games music and play their own, which is a true shame for the game. As well as lack of music, there also seems to be a lack of true enemy variety. As you progress you will start noticing the same enemies appear. They are literally palette swaps with very little model differences. This may frustrate you throughout the experience as you continuously struggle against the same mages, warriors, undead, kobolds and other races.

One of the most important parts of the game, which is a blow to serious Dungeons and Dragons fans, is that the only true link the game has to the table top version is the name. Although there are many links to the original with enemies, spells and dice, there is a lack of detailed links between this MMO variant of the table top classic. When playing DnD on the kitchen table skeletons cannot normally be killed by piercing weapons and must be defeated with either magic or blunt weapons. Clerics can have the ability ‘Turn Undead’ that has the chance to immediately kill any undead in the area. Lastly, daily abilities are normally only useable once every twenty four hours. This may put off the DnD fans but you must bear in mind, it is a video game adaptation. In order for there to be a sense of flow, progression and balance, things need to be changed. Overpowered abilities such as Turn Undead would make clerics too good against skeleton hordes. The weapon weakness traits would only work in specific instances and would mean that crucial inventory slots were occupied with different weapons for specific enemies. Quite frankly, if the game played like the kitchen table version it would not work. Keep that in mind if you are a fan of DnD.

Overall, Neverwinter is a fantastic Free-To-Play experience for casual players. One of the better FTP MMOs that are out there. The art style, character creation, customisation options and the general feel of the game is great. However there is a lack of real depth and immersion when it comes to the music, enemy variety and late game content. Definitely worth trying out and worth investing into if get into the game. However if you want the true Dungeons and Dragons experience, there is only one way to have it. Grab some friends, sit around the table and get ready for some classic role playing action.