First of all, the MMOUnion.hu and the Hungarian community is welcome for you and wish you
great success the “Neverwinter” title! Well, see the questions!

Answers by: Andy Velasquez – Lead Producer.

1. Neverwinter was not meant to be an MMO at first. Are we going to get a full MMO experience after the modifications?

Absolutely! Our partnership with Perfect World has allowed us to really expand what we had been working on and make it into the full featured MMO that we always wanted it to be.

2. Are we going to see familiar places and people from the universe of Forgotten Realms?

Yup! For those that have brushed up on their Forgotten Realms lore, there has been a ton going on in the city of Neverwinter since the Spellplague and Mount Hotenow’s eruption.

Players will really get to explore the city of Neverwinter as they visit places like the newly repaired Protector’s Enclave area, brave Neverwinter’s large graveyard: Neverdeath, and battle through the yet to be reclaimed Tower District. Players will also be able to venture forth from the city walls to various places along the Sword Coast, delve into the Neverwinter woods and make some trips out to Mount Hotenow itself. So while you won’t be traveling across the entire world of Abeir-Toril, there is plenty to see in and around the city of Neverwinter.

We have been working closely with Wizards of the Coast and are tying in the themes, characters and locations that fans of the Forgotten Realms universe are experiencing currently with its RPG products and novels. We also plan on continuing this relationship in the future. As the Forgotten Realms storyline progresses, we will continue to incorporate the major players and events that are shaking up Faerun.

3. (besides the city of Neverwinter) Like a "well-known dark elf"?

Whoever could you be referring to!?!? .

Whether or not you actually encounter the heroes of The Forgotten Realm’s they leave large imprints on the world which players will be interacting with.

Also, although players won’t be able to officially play as the “well-known dark elf” you refer to, I recommend fans check out our offerings for the Neverwinter Hero of the North Founder’s Pack. There’s lots of cool VIP perks and in-game extras, including access to the Menzoberranzan Renegade. Like Drizzt Do ‘Urden, you can play as a Drow exiled from the dark elf stronghold of Menzoberranzan, City of Intrigue. We’ve been calling this hotty “Menzo” for short internally.

4. Will there be mounts in the game?

Yup. Expect tons more details about mounts as a feature in the game over the upcoming months.

5. How complex will quests be? Will we get puzzles or dynamic events?

We are all about variety with our quests. So there will definitely be some that are simple and straight forward and others that will require teamwork and problem solving.

Also, we do have an events system which will help shape the user’s gameplay experience from day to day. While the majority of these won’t be “dynamic” in the way that certain player behaviors will trigger the events; our hope is that there will always be a new event, Foundry quest, contest or dungeon available at any given time to give the player something fresh to do when they log on any given day.

6. Would you tell us a few things about the skill system and battle system of the game?

Our combat system is one of my absolute favorite features of game as it really addresses one of my major problems with MMOs. When I play MMO’s I love advancing my character and questing with my buddies but the actual act of fighting mobs and doing the quests has always been, lacking for my tastes.

With Neverwinter we took a lot of queues from really great action RPGs that you’d find on PC or consoles and made a combat system that makes the actual killing of enemies and going on quests for the lifetime of an MMO character really enjoyable.

The difference is easier seen than explained so check out some of our class videos to really get a feel for how the game plays: http://nw.perfectworld.com/media/videos

7. What in your opinion makes your game unique?

There are a lot of nice twists to standard MMO conventions that we do, which makes us unique. However I feel our take on Action Combat really sets us apart the most.

Certainly there are many other MMO’s recently that have been touting Action combat but we feel like our moment to moment gameplay is a step above when it comes to realizing an action combat gameplay system in a persistent world MMO.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that we are Free! Neverwinter has the quality of traditional pay MMO’s for Free.

8. Besides Neverwinter, will there be other known accessible areas?

Yup! Like I mentioned earlier you will be traveling all around the sword coast to see a wide variety of locales.

9. Will the game have a night and day cycle, or weather effects?

There will be areas of the game that are in the bright light of day or covered in the darkness of night; but those characteristics will be specific to that map and will not cycle. This was done mostly so we can really capture the mood that we want for each area.

Same is true for the weather effects. For example, when you climb up to the top of the Icespire Peaks we absolutely want to make sure you feel the cold with swirling snow falls, gusting winds and other environment FX.

10. What pvp modes will the game have? Will there be opposing fractions or guilds?

There are a few PVP game play types and modes; one of which has the players allying with a given faction to gain supremacy over the others.

More details about PVP will be coming out very soon!

11. A few words about The Foundry - how do you intend to prevent the game from being flooded with disagreeable maps and farming-intended personal content?

We have released the Foundry in a beta state in Cryptic’s other MMO Star Trek Online for a while now and we have a peer review system in place to address these types of concerns.

In practice it has been very effective at making sure the good content rises to the top and bad content doesn’t get propagated.

12. Will the most popular Foundry contents/creations be added to the game?

All Foundry content that passes the minimum peer reviews gets added to the game! Any user can go up to a job board or well informed bar maid and see all the approved Foundry content directly in their game.

We also have plans to Feature the best of the best user generated content with n game promotions, better rewards and in game fame for the authors.

13. Will it be possible to follow alternative and/or branching storylines?

For the launch game, we are really focused on making one really great story line. There will be side quests and smaller vignettes to explore but there won’t be larger branching storylines.

14. The last question: when do we get to play? :)

We just launched our first of three Neverwinter Beta Weekends from February 8 to February 10 and are preparing for Beta Weekend 2 running from March 8 to March 10 and Beta Weekend 3 from March 22 till March 24.

For the chance to be selected to participate in the Neverwinter Beta Weekends, just head to www.playneverwinter.com and register an account. That being said, players can guarantee access to all three beta weekends.

Check out nw.perfectworld.com/founderspack for more details.