Today, Atari Europe and Cryptic Studios have announced their release date of a new online roleplaying game, based on Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons franchise and the fictional city of Neverwinter.

Neverwinter Online is being published alongside a book trilogy by R.A. Salvatore and a tabletop game published by Wizards of the Coast.  These are to be used to lay down the core story and lore before the “Online RPGs” debut at the end of next year.

The first novel is called Gauntlgrym and is set to release by October 5th of this year.  The trilogy of novels are said to be going to offer the reader glimpses into the characters, locations and monsters from the PC game, as well as details leading up to the game’s release.

From the press report, this game is nothing to write home about so far.  The lack of any mention of solo content does not look promising and the press release states that they are only releasing five classes out of the 25 or more that have become canon from Dungeons and Dragons.

Its like they just hit 1-2-3-4-5 on the ol’ RPG machine and called it a day.   You have your standard Fighter, Wizard/Sorcerer, Cleric, Rogue and Ranger.

It seems that someone in Cryptic is longing for the days of Diablo 2 again.

Cryptic Studios, known for the mediocrity that is City of Heroes/Villains and Champions Online as well as the lack of success of Star Trek Online is now applying their touch to a revered and ancient (in game terms, that is) franchise such as DnD. The thought makes my inner nerd shudder.

Also, surprise surprise, player generated content tools! One might say this reflects the success of the dungeon set tools from Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 in yet another Neverwinter game, but judging from the blatant cut and paste from City of Heroes to the slip-shod graphics and gameplay of Star Trek Online, it sounds more like a rehashing of the less-than-impressive facilities offered by City of Heroes.

The game is scheduled for release by the fourth quarter of 2011. This seems like an awfully long time for something that smells rather pungently of templated work and recycled ideas from more successful games.

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On August 18th, Sony Online Entertainment and EverQuest released information on the “buffed-up” editions of popular dungeons becoming available in game.

From August 18th to September 6th, Cazic and Blackburrow are accepting groups and from September 1 through September 13, Lower Guk and Unrest will be open as well.

SOE has said that the new difficulty of the dungeons are being released as content because the previous releases of Hardcore versions of dungeons were so popular with the player base.

The upcoming Lego Universe MMO has been stirring some pots as of late. While the game is geared more towards children and young teens, I have a feeling adults will be elbows-deep in their own Lego fantasies as well. Centering around a core of creativity, Lego Universe seeks to provide an accessible, streamlined approach to building. What to build? Just about anything, says Scott Brown, President of NetDevil. The Lego Universe “Building and Behaviors” video shows that, with three modes of production (ranging from automated to brick-by-brick), the player can really bring his/her imagination to life with pieces and skills that may not be available in the real world.

Read more…

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On August 19th, Sony Online Entertainment released Everquest 2 Extended.  This version of the popular Everquest 2 game allows players to have access to five years worth of content, previously only considered pay-to-play, for free.

Everquest 2 Extended has been set into motion in parallel with the original game’s paid subscriptions model, and is a first in the MMO industry to do so.  The game will have a four-tier membership plan offered to players and users can choose just how deeply they want to experience all that Everquest 2 has to offer.

Currently, only Bronze, Silver and Gold membership plans are purchasable, with Platinum becoming available on August 31st of this year.

This release comes at a time when older games like Everquest 2 are starting to have their membership bases fall to newer, more impressive-looking games, in terms of graphics and gameplay.  This gambit for a player population revival is an interesting move for SOE and we’ll see how it works out for them in the long run.