![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Anyway, the Neverwinter Open Beta is here. What is Neverwinter? It's a D&D F2P MMO from Cryptic set in the Forgotten Realms based around the city of, you guessed it, Neverwinter. At the moment they have all the races you'd expect playable: Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, plus Half-Orc (heck yeah!), Drow, and Tiefling, with more races to be revealed later. There are currently five classes playable: Great Weapon Fighter (2-handers), Guardian Fighter (sword & board), Cleric, Trickster Rogue, and Control Wizard, with more classes to be added in the future.
The combat is really fun. To me, it doesn't really play like a typical MMO, but more like an aRPG. You actually have to hit your target (and vice versa) to do damage. Movement on the battlefield is encouraged to dodge AoE attacks and charge up attacks. It's pretty engaging.
Quests do boil down to the usual go through this instance, kill X monsters, fetch this, but the game does a good job of dressing them up so they don't seem that generic and they fit into a cohesive story.
Graphics are pretty nice and there is full voice acting for quest givers, so far anyway.
I'm playing a female half-orc (because orcs are awesome) great weapon fighter named Murzush Gro Ruhm, currently at level 10, and having a blast. So far the game seems very solo-able. There are events and quests specifically for groups, but the vast majority of the content I've seen is quite doable solo. There are also community made adventures that folks can make and add to the game so others can play. It's free to download and play and of course there are microtransactions. I haven't seen the need to purchase any so far, but if I continue to have such a great time in this game I may buy some, or an expansion to the game or something just because I'll feel obligated to support the developers of the game at least to some degree.