Info here.
Jeez I went from zero MMOs to one and now two. Am I going to add a third? And it’s freaking free!
… how on earth can it be completely free? Is it like DDO, which is “free” unless you pay $10-20 a month for enhanced gear and content?
There are a variety of games that are free, but sell in-game items. Some sell only cosmetic changes, such as the hats in TF2 or the non-combat pets in WOW. The article linked to in the OP stated that “everything will either be cosmetic or convenience boosting items”.
As a D&D fan who does not play, and also as someone who does not play MMOs, I am excited about this game.
This sounds like the “Maple Story model.” Where yes, everything that boosts in-game stats and actual combat prowess is free, but they still have you by the balls. In Maple Story it takes a metric year (I’d say 10-15 minutes) to regenerate health and mana, even at an absurdly low level like 8, unless you plop down money for the lawn chair, which allows you to regenerate orders of magnitudes faster.
I’m not saying it’s a bad model, just that “convenience-boosting items” aren’t always as innocuous as they sound.
Lord of the Rings Online does this by selling expanded inventory, character accounts, character classes, potions (allowing you to bypass crafting and auction), XP booster, titles, cosmetics, new areas and noob-friendly gears (good for the first few levels).
I see NWN most likely selling prestige classes and races to unlock, in addition to the traditional cash ship items. DDO is doing pretty well using this model too.
ETA: Ahh it uses 4th Edition rules. Now that’s interesting, I may give it a spin. 4th edition is most probably the most video game friendly iteration of the D&D ruleset.
My rule of thumb when running a 4E campaign was that if there is something in the game system that doesn’t make any sense (fog of war, I’m lookin’ at you…), ask yourself: would this rule change/addition/deletion make it easier for them to write an online, real-time, gm vs. player virtual tabletop game? If so, that’s why.
Are you talking about line of sight rules? What did you find nonsensical about them?
(Or is that not what you’re talking about?)
A given light source extends its light to a specific distance and no farther, so somebody standing one square farther away than the light source reaches is in total darkness. Very useful for video games because it keeps artillery & snipers from completely ruling the game, not so useful in roleplaying scenarios around the dinner table.
I had to go look that up–I think I’d forgotten I was using a house rule. Sheesh.
I would have preferred a grand, mostly single-player experience like the other two Neverwinter’s.
It’s not like MMO’s are hurting for Fantasy RPG’s at the moment.
I should have mentioned that in my OP as I completely agree but if they had to make it an MMO, this seems the most single player friendly way to do it.
The original NWN was actually one of the first MMOs, funnily enough.
And no, I don’t mean Bioware’s, it was on a service whose company evolved into AOL.
Actually it WAS on AOL. I remember playing it. I used to guide noobs around to fight the dragon hiding in neverwinter wood.
::sigh::
Those were the days. Any issue we couldn’t resolve in the Red Dragon Inn chat room, we took to Neverwinter 
Huh, I thought at the time it was called Quantum Computer Services or something.