D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter Beta Impressions
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter, made by Atari, brings the beloved lore, ruleset and legacy of Dungeons & Dragons to the Facebook platform. This engaging mix of bite-sized play sessions, top notch RPG gameplay, viral dynamics, and extended features promises to deliver the deepest RPG experience ever seen on the platform.
Town
The town is a hub in which everything in Heroes of Neverwinter begins. Learning your way around the town is vital to playing the game.
Adventure Board
The adventure board is the place to be if you are ready to go on an Adventure and take up a mission. On this Adventure Board you can find several areas you can visit in order to gain experience to level up your character and earn money. If you have not already invited friends of people to bring along your journey you get a message that you can recruit and bring along Party Members. Instead of going alone, bringing along other people is a really big help to complete your mission. Currently there are several locations you can go to with your party, these locations all have different areas and monsters guarding the final objective and chest.
Dungeon Workshop
In the Dungeon Workshop you can create your own dungeons to test the mettle of others adventurers. Friends and other people can visit your own created dungeon to test their skills, for each hero that decides to visit your dungeon you will earn gold. This place is available when you have reached level 10.
The Beached Leviathan
Like every town or city you have visited before, there is always one Tavern that stands out and makes it a special place. The Beached Leviathan is this Tavern in the world of Neverwinter. The coarsest of Neverwinter’s taverns offers Energy-restoring drinks and food. It’s also the best place to recruit adventurers to join your party. The Energy-restoring drinks and food however is bought with Astral Diamonds which is the real money currency in Heroes of Neverwinter. For around 18 Astral Diamonds you can have your full Energy bar refueled to play even more in the world of Neverwinter. It costs $5 USD Dollar to buy 50 Astral Diamonds, so that makes the cost to refuel all your energy around 90 cents per complete refuel. In the tavern you can also hire people to bring along on your adventure. These people are real characters made by people that play the game, all the level 1 characters in the tavern are free of costs to hire and you can bring up to 3 players in your adventure.
Mercenary Arms Depot
The Mercenary Arms Depot is like you would have probably guessed, the Merchant that sells equipment in the town. At this fine Merchant you can find weaponry, armor and shields for your character.
Tarmalune Trade House
The Tarmaluna Trade House is the place to be if you need adventuring wares, magical implements, trinkets and potions for your upcoming missions.
My House
In your house you can find all of your hard earned Achievements you have accomplished in Heroes of Neverwinter. If you have made your own dungeon via the Dungeon Workshop you can visit it through a hatch in your floor. In your house there is also a Chest of Wonders; with this chest you can select a treasure once in a while to earn extra items or money. You can also use a Potion of Luck to see one of the available cards first before choosing.
Gameplay
The gameplay can be very challenging and requires you to come up with a proper strategy before taking decisive actions. Before taking a move you have to think carefully for a plan, you can only walk an X amount of steps and every unique ability has a different range as well. You have to think what kind of approach you want to do with your party and use every class you have to its advantage. Currently there are four classes in the game including the Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Rogue. These classes have all different abilities up their sleeves that will help you throughout the game.
Before taking up a mission you must formulate a strategy based on what characters you intend to bring. Do you want to fight at a range or do you want to engage in melee combat? I preferred to fight over a bigger ranger because most of the monsters in Heroes of Neverwinter that I have engaged are melee based units. This will give you a small advantage early in the game as the majority of the monsters have no counter to ranged damage and can be dispatched before they catch up to your group. Clerics in this game are incredible supports and I highly advise bringing one no matter what your tactic.
Conclusion
Heroes of Neverwinter is a fun Facebook game that brings the key element RPG to the biggest social website on the World Wide Web. I had fun playing this game while chatting off with my friends and checking their profiles but isn’t really a game you can play for long periods of time. The energy system limits you to about 30 minutes to an hour per day, which is about how long I’d prefer to play a Facebook game anyway. This game has a lot of potential and as they add more content throughout beta I’m sure it will only improve.
