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Free-to-Half-Play
lukeborgman
Member UncommonPosts: 36
Half the game is free. They should call it "Free-to-Half-Play". If you want the other half, be prepared to pay more than $15/month. If you don't give Perfect World plenty of cash:
- You will have half the inventory space you need, particularly the runestone and enchantment fusing system (at least 7 rank sets of 4+ types each of 2 kinds of stones) stacked to 4 to fuse to the next rank, which is a huge inventory sink. Just getting up to rank 4 green runestones and enchantments uses 20 - 30 inventory slots which is most of what you get for free. You can't use or even sell what you can't keep.
- Return to Enclave scrolls would mitigate some inventory issues, but they aren't available for in game gold either. See how fun it is to try to fight your way back out of the deep end of a zone you're not done with yet because your bags are full.
- You will have very tiny bank space.
- Your companions will only go to half level (Rank 15 of 30).
- Your crafters will be limited to common. I've not gotten high enough yet to see if full profession leveling is even possible for free.
- Your mount will only go the slowest speed.
- You will only be able to identify some of the green items you pick up since you'll find too few identify Scrolls in game and have to use Astral Diamonds for more Identify Scrolls. Identify Scrolls should be available for in-game gold.
I made 2 big mistakes:
- I bought the Founder's pack. The mount is good. The pet is lame. The bag was a joke (tiny; < half the size of the $10 bag in the Zen Store).
- I got 4000 Zen and blew a bunch of it on 30 keys for Nightmare Lockboxes which are grab-bags that usually give enchantments or runestones that I then blew my Founder Astral Diamonds pulling out of my equipment as I leveled. Don't waste your money on Lockboxes unless you're a gambler ( = like to throw away money). I just discard them now.
I went out on a limb and lost on this game. Pay big or be limited; 50% limited. It can be played free. I doubt few will do it for long. I'm fine paying $15/month for a good game. Neverwinter has a lot going for it. But the Zen Store and Astral Diamond prices are just too high to get to full strength for even $15/month.
Neverwinter is a premium game at a premium price. It's the most expensive game I've played, and I've played plenty and almost always paid about $15/month.
Comments
1) I find the bag space fine, personally, just using the free bags you get via quests at lvl 7 and 30. I have 5 characters, varying between 25 and 48 and none of them have ever run out of room or even used the free Bank slots. I ruthlessly sell looted items every chance I get to get rid of clutter and as a result I don't NEED more bag space.
2) I also don't have a problem getting out of zones and I won't be buying teleport scrolls, either. I don't need them.
3) See 1)
4) As regards Companion levels, they will be introducing the items to level them over 15 in the near future.
5) Not really into Crafting in any MMORPG, to the extent I don't bother with it, so I can't comment on this point.
6) I bought one of the basic mounts in the Zen store, which is account-wide anyway, and I find that mount perfectly adequate. (It saves my Gold for other purchases, gets me a mount the moment I ding 20 and cost a pittance in Zen.)
7) I also see no problems in topping up my stocks of ID Scrolls using Astral Diamonds, either, since AD are so easy to come by - even my lowest level character has 24,000 of them. Keep those Leadership missions running.
In point of fact I have had to buy very few... maybe 10 or 15 of them on my lvl 48 and a handful on the rest of my alts.
Founder's Packs are pretty much a con in any game, and give very little of actual worth though they trick them out to make the perceived worth appealing to the rubes. Also, I'm not daft enough to be lured into buying Keys or removing Enchantments - those little ploys have "Slippery Slope" written all over them.
Honestly, just don't be a mug and fall for the old smoke and mirrors routines that try to hit you in the wallet.
I'll counter/add input. I have a 59 DC and a 30 GF.
1. I agree with the response poster here. Inventory space has not been an issue. I sell everything I can't use, only AH blue quality items/crafting items or higher. Though I do keep a bag and a half full of runestones waiting for pairs to progress them up to the next level. I've only gotten enough to get one runestone to level 5.
2. I also have no issue fighting back to the zone of an area. There are some rather congested zones that I wouldn't mind being able to run back without having to fight everything on the way back, but it's more effective in my opinion to fight and not spend the extravagant amount of AD for 1 teleport scroll.
3. Agree with OP;Bankspace is garbage, I've used it for dyes and to hold my level 60 pvp gear as I buy it leveling up. I've found most everything else doesn't need to be saved. Those useless bounty items you get in each zone. AH house those things until you get to the max level gear areas, you won't ever get enough to buy a single piece of gear worth your time as 40=1 token and the cheapest items I've seen are 15-20 tokens. I've made most of my AD on selling these and crafting mats.
4. As a cleric I use the mage companion. I never not have agro, it's rather irritating, but my companion has only died 3 times throughout leveling play. It is odd the game soft launched without the ability to level these guys further. Assume it's a push to get people to buy zen.
5. Highest ranked crafting I have is 10, I can make some blue items as the "dailies" pop, but crafting levels so slow that again I outpace the gear I can make. I have encountered crafting quests that require an item from a zen store kit, but have not felt required to complete those quests to level crafting - yet.
6. Everyone runs away in pvp anyway, I have a horrible habit of standing and protecting my node. My horse speed does not bother me. Though it does give advantage to those racing to the nodes as the battle start - not a massive one though.
7. I started getting few of the ID scroll drops around level 34, from that point on I've bought probably a hundred ID scrolls with AD, a stack of 15 59 below scrolls costs 675 AD, a piddly amount I can replace in a hour by praying.
--
I've spent money on character slots, only two, I'm agitated that I am not able to try each class without buying more slots, personally there should be a slot per class, want more, buy more. I also have alt-itis and while I have paid for nothing else in game, the 5$ for two more characters wasn't a massive loss.
AD to zen conversion rates blow atm, you can make decent AD on the AH, though it is rumored those who bought the deal with the 2 mil AD trashed the AD economy basically before the game started.
Advice on nightmare chests, if you want to open one, wait until 60, but personally just sell them on the AH or trade them with other players for other things.
I don't have the edge, but I am having fun - though pvp is a horrid mess, between NWO issues and players who still haven't figured out that to cap a node you have to stand/fight on it, and while guarding node 2 is good, standing at node 1 or 3 to "make points tick faster" doesn't work.
You can get to max crafting without buying anything with real money, but it will take you a VERY long time.
Best thing is to make multiple free accounts and level 6 or so characters to L10 so that they can all do trade professions. Then spend your life logging in and out of all these accounts/characters to reset their crafting tasks...
Creating your first crafting worker takes 5 seconds. Every additional "worker" takes 18 hours to make, with no possibility of reducing that crafting time.
Your basic (T1) crafter is good for tasks up the crafting L7. Then you have to make a T2 worker. Making 1 T2 worker requires 4 T1 workers, which are consumed in the process. So 4x18 = 72 crafting hours to make each T2 worker. You need a minimum of 1 worker per profession slot.
At crafting L14 you will need to do all this again to create T3 workers. It takes 4 T2's to make 1 T3 of course, so each T3 worker represents 4x72 = 288 crafting hours.
The XP requirement for levelling crafting doubles every 2 levels from L4 onwards.
L4-5 = 300XP each
L6-7 = 600XP each
L8-9 = 1200XP each
and so on... with L20 requiring 76,800XP
My highest crafting level is Leadership L15 atm, and it needs 9600XP (L16 is going to need 19,200XP).
By the time your character reaches L30, you will have 3 profession slots opened easily.
You can run the same crafting task in 3 slots simultaneously, but that is the MAXIMUM. After you have loaded the same task in 3 slots, it disappears from the crafting menu.
So don't think you can unlock all 9 profession slots and run the L20 Leadership task 9 times simultaneously to earn 9x1600 AD per cycle ! Not gonna happen...
I'm so glad that I didn't pay much for this game...
Me and my friends have a pretty decent 2 weeks playing time, and then suddenly we found ourselves strangled by the game's business model XD The Zen store items are overpriced imo and it's extremely inconvenient and insanely grindy to keep playing the game if you don't want to spend more then 10$ a month, well that or 10 hours a day...
With that been said, I don't think this game is bad at all. It's freaking free for everyone and you can drop the game whenever you want! In my experience, you won't feel the need to use your hard earn money at least until you're over lvl 55, after that it's a totally different story though.
I hate to call any game pay to win, but people should be warned before they dive into Neverwinter...
Welcome to PWE. It has been and always will be like this. Everthing you can get around for free = time. Or there is a trick. PWI is the flagship game and all examples of all their games should be seen in this title. The cash shop is so intrusive it becomes like a "mini" game if you will. How to beat, or work around it. Soon your time vs money is the big question. They take great concepts of any game and turn it into an UNBEARABLE grind fest (unless that turns you on).
Or they mechanic the end game content to where you would have to cash to squeeze out that extra stat.
The only counter argument, and it is a lame one, "oh but they need to make money so just suffer or cough it up". Ok, let's say I play along, I pay, the amount to pay in a PWE cash shop to keep up with the jones and have "normal" experience, is not at all equal to a VIP, gold tier, or subscription game. I prefer tiered options than Cash shop manipulation.
Arguably in PWI you can get end game totaly free. But have you seen the toll it takes to your body?
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Skeleton-at-computer-tingling-in-arms-and-hands.jpg
Perhaps he meant that they will charge higher prices than anyone else has ever dared in the MMO industry ?
They are not the only one. Check Aion US cash shop prices.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
OP is blind or dumb, you get tons of astral diamonds for free if you do dailies, and you dont need to be max level to do them, level 15+ is plenty high to get them.
astral diamonds buy anything you need, thats right ANYTHING IN GAME. you may have to sell some ad to other people for zen, which is easy and fast via the market tool that people post their buy orders on, and then spend the zen on items, but it still didnt cost you a fucking cent.
Hmm, let me see. FREE TO PLAY
I have the client - free
Can play any time for any length of time - free
Last I checked there was no gun to my head telling me to spend cash on zen.
If someone lets you have a car to drive, free, and puts $5 worth of gas in it every day, free, it seems a bit petty complaining you have to put more fuel in it if you want to get somewhere quicker.
"tons of astral diamonds", eh ?
How many "tons" do you make in the average 2-3 hour play session ?
made by nonny
and
made by Braggi
thanks both u guys
That's what The Gateway is for! All your characters trade tasks (and more) can be done from the website.
ID Scrolls are plentiful in the Foundry. Also, identifying anything that isn't for your class (or anything at all at level 60) is worthless. As before, gold is plentiful and worthless.
I'm sorry, but that is a complete lie. You can play the game comfortably without paying a cent. Aside from spending other peoples Zen for fun with AD that I earnt in game, I had no compulsion to spend any money in the Zen store. If they sell new classes later on, or some cool appearance gear I will probably buy that. But there is zero need for me to get more bag slots. I have gotten enough Tier 7 runes from normal play to know not to bother with coalescent wards.
I guess a fool and his money are easily parted though.
Doing T2 runs, about 200-300 per hour. Back when PvP was profitable... about the same.
I have made well over 5 million AD since starting 2 weeks ago.
Yeah, which is why I prefer B2P, F2P brings out the worst kind of moochers. But still, I think Neverwinter has one of the better F2P models.
Lol, using the Gateway makes very little difference. I use it regularly though, during my lunch hour every day. Using it allows me to earn about 25% more XP per day, so I'll max out my crafting in 6 months instead of 8 !
If you try to maximise the crafting of 6 characters on 3 accounts, you WILL spend your life doing it...
Because wherever you are, every 15mins or 30mins or hour (or some combo of those), you will have to stop whatever your doing to quickly change your crafting in NWO.
You will notice that the crafting system is designed so that the average player cannot use it optimally. In Leadership, the shorter the job duration, the higher the crafting XP. The jobs that run for 6 or 8 or 12 hours give much less XP than running 6 or 8 or 12 one-hour jobs.
I guess you were one of those cheating AFK bitches huh...
made by nonny
and
made by Braggi
thanks both u guys
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you're probably not an "average player" that spends 2 to 3 hours playing NWO every day.
Sure you've earned 5M AD in the first 2 weeks or so. You were probably at L60 a week ago already. Which means all the high-end loot you sold on the AH went for very good prices.
But that's not going to last, because if the average player cam earn 2.5M AD per week in NWO, then PW/Cryptic have a major problem on their hands.
NEVER. Pre-order, pre-purcharse or buy founder-packs. Never. You put yourself into a lose situation there, basically gamble your money on output you cannot predict. Same with Lockboxes, never do them and avoid games with them.
It's good that at least you realised that and had cut your losses by stopping playing / paying. Everyone makes mistakes in life - but it's ok if you can learn from them and don't repeat them - it's seems like you did so grats !
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
I feel the same way many do about the OP. Locboxes are a scam in any game. I have never purchased keys or tokens for lockboxes in any game. The boxes I have opened have all been opened by obtaining keys in-game. If you get boxes try to sell them on the AH or just discard. Im finding I can play this game without spending any money really, so I agree it is a fairly decent free to play model. Maybe since Ive played many other free to play schemes, I immediately notice the money sinks and how to avoid them. I have more than 50 Identity scrolls currently. They seem to drop plentifully for me. DO NOT IDENTIFY NON CLASS ITEMS. These drastically cuts down on scroll use. I also have at least one bag that rarely even gets used. I have the basic mount which is adequate. I'm enjoying the hell out of this game at the moment!
Sorry, realized there might be some confusion when I mentioned "obtaining keys in-game". As far as I know keys do not drop in Neverwinter for these lockboxes. I was referring to other games, not Neverwinter.