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Was testing out the new Neverwinter MMO just to see how it compared to Guild Wars and initial tests are that it is very different indeed, but better depends upon your play style. One thing is for sure, there is more lag on the system and the graphics of the characters aren’t as nice as Guild Wars though the more interactive terrain where you can slash and see bushes and trees move in response (minor interaction) are a nice touch.
The game is much more click attack based almost like a cross between Diablo style of play with some hotkey interaction. Combat is much more target focused, you don’t select an opponent and always stay targeted you have to keep your reticule on the target at all times. The ability to dodge area of effects by sprinting is a nice touch and adds some feel of control in combat instead of just letting skills recharge and hash back and forth damage without any ability to block or dodge.
The inventory system and item management feels a little outdated and more like World of Warcraft with equipping items from inventory instead of weapons/armor/gear showing up on the gear screen separately from the day to day inventory which I like. Played through to the tutorial and into the first town, when you add players to a party you do have the easy ability to map to their server so you can join together, but the lag gets dramatically worse with only about 30-40 players on the same system. It overcame my son’s Lenovo Z575 laptop to where the game locked up and crashed due to lag, whereas Guild Wars does a better job with handling number of players visible to help reduce lag when playing on very busy servers.
It still is a system like any other MMO, and so far haven’t really seen anything special that I would say this is a must have. One interesting thing so far is that there is no archer character, even an elf only has wizard, guardian warrior, great weapon warrior, rogue or cleric. I haven’t seen that the warriors can use bows, and I think it is an oversight to not have an archer class right off the bat for a game where you can be an elf.