Your coverage of MMO's is outstanding. You go through pretty much everything other youtubers simply dont.

Appreciate the shout out, was surprised tbh :) but humbled aswell!! great breakdown josh. Loved it

The was probably the most informative and honest review I’ve seen yet for this game. Well done.

So it's basically like WoW. "Congrats on being the greatest champion the world has ever seen and acquiring the strongest weapons ever forged. Now go kill this bear that is stronger than anything you've ever faced before and I will give you a dagger I had lying around in a dusty chest that deals more damage than your bis gear you spend half a year on." It's ridiculous.

I quit the game. The power creep treadmill is insane and demotivating.

Dude I remember playing this game as a kid and being absolutely mind blown. This was the first MMO I've ever played maybe one of my first online games period.

Josh your critique is spot on. I loved leveling in Neverwinter-it has one of the best leveling experiences in an MMO. I also love the action-orientated combat, though it felt weird to get hit by something just because I did not hit the dodge button method to avoid it. The end game is awful- the time locked campaigns are not fun past a certain point. The grind is real and I am a VIP player! The Astral diamond runs became a job, not fun. And the random dungeon sorter tends to put you in the same crappy dungeons (looking at you Cragmire). Great game to go through making different character types-just don’t expect a rewarding end game.

8:29 "Just don't say anything bad about the game". So, like every echo chamber we label a "subreddit".

If you play from a DnD players perspective and get a bit invested into the story's and things going on it can add more flavor for you. I've played games in the past just skipping all dialogue and cutscenes just to beat the game but as I got older I started wondering why I'm here and what I'm doing. Imagination is key!

End game progress is what ruins it for me. I don't want to grind for life just to get out geared by a newbie.

Love it! You covered everything perfectly, including why I had also finally quit after playing since PC release all the way through till July 2020.

Well put, I would add that recently each new mod has basically forced you to spend millions to get your character back to where you where before it dropped. Massive play style and build changes have happened and even more are to come. With that being said I loved this game and made a lot of friends in one of the biggest alliances in the PS4 version, but with the changes in content of the last handful of mods the elite players became more and more elitists and it was hard to find players to play with even though I used to run with some of the best players on PS4.

I played this i think 7 years ago and loved it. I had no friends to play with me so I just started to drift away. I loved the capture the flag game they had and had decent gear from that. Not sure I would comeback, but I;m glad the game is still alive!

I remember playing Neverwinter with my friends and hitting the endgame Elemental Evil content and discovering that wow yeah it really is brutal and we couldn't adventure solo anymore. Plus we were badly optimised and not geared for higher level dungeons (none of us felt like getting VIP status either) so our few dungeon successes were hard won and by the skin of our teeth. You really nailed it honestly, the game is most fun early on and the combat rocks. It's the bit after that that sucks.

Amazing content. Well paced, informative and straight to the point. Keep the good work

Your experience and knowledge of the genre come through in your review here. You also have a delivery form that would do you well in documentary fields. Earned a sub from this soon to be first level character ;)

Hey there Josh, I popped over from your "Why Neverwinter is Dying" video, and I have to ask if there is any news about that private server for Module 2 that you mentioned back in the day? Been looking around but can't find any trace of it. I was interested in getting into the game and figured that the older version would be a good place to start off with.

Watching your videos is almost better than actually playing an mmorpg :P Its a bloody crime that not more people know about your videos. Your knowledge and objective approach to the mmorpgs you play, is very much like a research paper... except not boring! Keep up the good work :)

Thanks for the summary mate, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for abt NW. Cheers!

Thank you. Decided not to play, but liked and subbed for the quality content.

1:45 so it's a freemium game. Like those crappy games on mobile that dont make you buy stuff. But makes everything so much faster.

man i remember being 13 in 2015 and playing the shit out of this game every day, but never being able to get into the fun cool raids because i couldn't spend the time/money to do the sheer amount of grinding that was needed to get cyan artifacts. on the plus side, the armour designs were what made me want to become a character designer lol

I really like your reviews please keep on making these.

Very nice vid again, like always. Thank you!

I loved Neverwinter. Played it during one of the most difficult periods of my life, gave me something to look forward to daily. Back then there were five classes only. Left cos endgame got a bit stale, and Icewind Dale wasn't out yet, so I gave up a gigantic stash of astral diamonds. Wonder if I can still access it if I return, haha.

On the paper I like the game. In practice: I tried but never feel like coming back after a play session

Excellent review! You really did your research well for this, you hit the nail on the head for absolutely everything. Bravo sir!

You are the reason I am getting into MMOs... Now to share your videos with my friends so they can see how fun they can be.

One of the few MMOs I've played a bit in my life. Didn't catch me after a while but I still enjoyed my short time with it :)

I've started this game today and some kind soul gave me a rat pet (lvl 150 I think) which is veeery strong. Thank you whoever you are!

RIP Rothe Valley. I hate the fact that we can't adventure there anymore, it was one of my favorite locations :( .

Your reviews are really good; no bullshit, straight to the point.

I stopped playing after I couldn’t ever get a team for a dungeon.

Man I miss this game. It sucks how the developers don't really care tho. The only thing that speaks to them is $$$

Love your videos! Keep them up!!

Thank you for the end game warnings because I hate grindy games it becomes boring, but I will definitely play it and try out a lot of the classes

One thing Josh forgot to mention - back in the day (~2017) Neverwinter terminated their EU servers. So if you are living anywhere outside US, you'll be forced to play on the US servers which sometimes is fine but most of the time can be a lagfest. And that was what made me stop playing the game.

First time playing Neverwinter the game had a similar flow to BDO. It was fun leveling up to mid game but trying to get to end game is super grindy.

Josh loved the video and yes I know it's a year old... I came here from your newer video about Neverwinter. I do have a question as to what game there is out there that you grind for a super epic legendary weapon and it stays that way throughout the next expansion?

amazing video mate! Thanks for comprehensive information :)

was going to get back into this, and nearly did, was installing while watching. Then you reminded me why I too had quit, new modules making months of farming useless.

I've been hearing a lot of complaints about the "Combat Changes" they recently released for Neverwinter. I was wondering if you had a chance to try them and what you thought?

leveling up a new character is fun in this game, i am a returning player who was absent from the game for more than a year, came back and found out it had changed a lot and i struggled to play my class to start with so rolled a brand new character and started leveling up from 1 again to relearn how to play and really enjoying it so far, still not getting the hang of the new profession/crafting from the workshop though - apart from that really glad i started playing again, like some of the changes they made,

Fantastically done, thanks.

I never realized what it was I loved about neverwinter since I left to play other games... Now I realise it's the COMBAT... Oh the memories

This definitely makes me want to reinstall and check it out again. Got frustrated with the cash shop and tedious nature of mid/late game last time but definitely enjoyed the combat.

Love your vids. My friend and I are looking for a new game for play for a while. We liked the action combat of Tera, but it's pretty quiet these days. Maybe we'll give this one a try.

Excellent 👍 video mate,I can't get Tower of the mad mage runs or Zariel runs, and im so bored, but on the other hand since the mount changes I've pulled 6 mythic king of spines, 6 legendary Trex packs, 3 mythic polar siege bears, and 3 legendary polar siege bears most of which I've put in giveaways bank space.

I’m a HUGE fan of D&D and didn’t know this existed, the only problem I have is trying to play a game that came out 5 years ago, but I’m already downloading and ready to play

The English Hunter Ranger!!! I've played about 2,500 hours of this game from 2014-2019 (Including DCing in your Fangbreaker Island YT video)and I pretty much agree with everything you said here!

I’m downloading it now because of your video. Thank you

This was a game I touched so many years ago, ran a cleric and geared him out fully before any of those boons even existed (I believe I left when the first module campaign dropped). I was the good ol heal ward helping my party with buffs and keeping HP bars green. Rode a hellish horse of fire in my wake, a gift from my father who also played at the time, was a hell of a good time. Shame to know anything I'm wearing is so far behind that I'm essentially a max leveled naked :(

I remember playing this when the game launched. It was hilariously broken, with dungeons being full of jump-through-the-wall skips and other exploits, and item duping exploits. The combat was really good though.

I admit it's been a few years since I stopped playing, but I doubt they've found a way to make all the classes relevant. Also I don't know how it is now, but, back when I was still playing, each module they added wasn't a new adventure, but a new batch of dailies.

Your class descriptions are hilarious. “Just all around good guy the paladin. Long range bow and close range shenanigans” lmao

Outstanding MMO review as usual. Btw i love listening to your voice and british accent (sorry if i´m mistaken, south-eastern european here). What about Allods Online? I couldn´t find a review about it on your channel. I used to play it about 10 years ago and never got back into it. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on it! Keep it up!

I’m actually like NeverWinter. Playing Warlock at the moment and it’s really fun. My companion at the moment is a wizard and we’re just melting enemies at the moment. I’m loving these areas where they feel like dungeons.

I just started playing because i was listening to critical role. I normally always go wizard but went warlock and am ridiculously OP or i feel that way. Only lvl 10 though.

I appreciate the tips!

Man, miss this old gold back then. Best Combat mechanic I've found so far, playing as Assasin and ranger jumped around so you not die. Its hard find this type kind of mechanic combat, fast paced, dodge, stun, slowed down etc. Miss the old days so much

Still miss that life steal tho and double rough ad gain, liked it better when i could farm dungeons for gear and salvage them for rough ad

I played Neverwinter for years before Mod 16 and I actually deeply enjoyed the system of being put down to "Tier 2" every mod... It meant that there was constantly something to do, even if that thing could be monotinous at times. But as you said in another video, Josh, it's friends that makes the game fun, even if you are doing monotinous gameplay :) Mod 16 ruined it though in my opinion, as, now, every mod, if you have a specialised character for something like Critical Hits/Damage, you literally lose the ability to do critical hits/damage at the start of each mod making your entire Neverwinter persona irrelevant, you're just the exact same hunter/wizard/healer as everyone else :/ Love the video though! I just wish Neverwinter reverted Mod16 when they realised that most of the playerbase literally stopped playing because of it lmao

Hi, did u ever play or reviewed Continent of the Ninth? It has one of the most fun combat systems imo.

Great video and insights as always, Josh! I would say that you're aboslutrly right about the burn-out factor but here is my take on it as a year one player still here: it's an MMO. Nerfing, reworks, grinding.. it's due course. You just have to be smart and honest with yourself. Some love min-maxing and being on the bleeding edge. For the average player, you can enjoy endgame content without going crazy. Endgame really manifests itself two ways. First, you have the grind fest to get gear that is only marginally better at a much higher cost. The low ROI there is to be expected and the insane pursuit is reserved strictly for those who want the bragging rights and can afford the investment. For the rest of us, the second experience is this: you improve on an ongoing basis and make adjustments as you go along. The fact that items from 6 modules back is still viable or "top tier" is impressive. It's a fine balance between keeping things fresh, making sure older content is still relevant, and giving everyone a chance to remain competent, if not competitive. As for the boons, the pursuit is one of many things that will keep you busy.. but they are not an absolute must. When they implemented the new boon point system, it made things more fair and now boons are simply the icing on the cake: they won't make you a superstar but they help a bit. Like you said, it ultimately comes down to skill. Play a toon you enjoy and build up your skills and knowledge.. the rest doesn't really matter. Have fun with it and temper expectations. I think the main reason people burn out and quit is because they have the wrong perspective. MMO's are constantly evolving things...when they don't evolve you end up with a system like in BDO: where BIS gear has not changed in years so they just keep increasing quality levels.. fail at upgrading and you can lose your gear forever. Oof... and talk about grindfest: farm mobs all day and hope for profitable drops. Sure, RNG can be hell but NW is certainly not the worst in that regard. Forsaken lockbox and Delvers event has proven that. 8)

I miss the Neverwinter Uncensored Community. They had real knowledge about the game but the admin of the site quit as the game goes to shit.

I am a level 80 Dwarf Cleric Merchant. I find having multiple characters of differing classes quite fun. And you can grind for your main.

very informative, thank you

there was a major combat overall this year so you might what to revisit this video but did enjoy it

Fair analysis....resist the temptation of investing $ in it...it will offer you 1 year or so of thrilling entertainment!

Man I remember the beta of this game. I wonder if my old account is still around

Is there a page online where it shows all the items listed in the Auction? I don't know what to type to search to find those, many unseen things in there...

First time trying a MMO RPG before this sure does help! 🙂👍

You hit the nail on this one dude! It's the combat system in the game and hooked me on the game. No other MMORPG have similar combat experience which is both fun and satisfying to do both casual and on high level content. Been playing NW on PC for almost 4 years now and have 6 toons all close or above 30k item lvl. The game have its flaws but overall it's a good game and if you're looking for chill MMORPG this is the game for you.

Sounds perfect for someone who just wants to play casually or if you feel like the best part of a game is the leveling experience with different classes/builds. Thanks, going to check it out.

Hey Josh, speaking of D&D games to play in 2021, would be great if you could make a video about DDO! I am starting to see some of the flaws you pointed out with NWN, but they are also pretty different games. Seeing your parameters in evaluating games throughout videos I'm reeeally curious to see what you think about DDO. At this point I'm not really advocating for the game or against it, just really curious.

Well damn. Just started playing for a week. Absolutely LOVE the flow. But If thats what the end game is like...welll. Guess I'm just gonna drop it now and not waste the time. I'll keep my eye open in hopes the end game gets overhauled.

I'm fucking sold man! Shocked I never seen this game before, downloading now.

You are right the combat was/is epic, however I quit.. When you start feeling like the cow that is being milked it is time to go, Mod 21 NEW combat "rework" killed it for me. ESO is my game now, it's combat is not as fun or responsive, but it feels more like an mmo and less like a farming simulator!

I’ve been playing GW2 for a few months now as my first ever MMO and enjoying it a lot, but this series has inspired me to download more MMOs for an auditioning binge over the hols... 6 so far and counting. Loving Neverwinter so far... exactly what I want from a game. I’m more of an enjoy the journey than the destination kinda guy, so the issues with the end game aren’t going to bother me much. Neverwinter is definitely a keeper, with BDO and WoW probably heading for the reject pile :)

I've never played Neverwinter but I did play vanilla WOW all the way to Cata and the way gear is structured in this game sounds exactly like WOW. One of the reason I stopped playing that game was because I couldn't take grinding gear for a couple of months and then with a new expansion came the realization that everything I had was useless. It was very frustrating. I like GW2s gearing system for that reason. The gear in that game is very balanced from exotic, to rare to ascended/legendary.

Not worth playing the game if they keep changing the end game with every new module. Soooo no. I had enough of their horrible monetization, small inventories, horrible grind for the in-game currency, and abysmally low drop rates for gear.

The game developers just love to piss all over the players whenever they find a way to make progress while also having the tiniest shred of fun and are quick to nerf them to the ground, while leaving big glaring bugs and balance issues unaddressed for months.

LOL! I remember grinding in JD years ago and then waking up the next day to check what my progress only to find out that I was booted out from the server.

I agree with your comments about end game play, i pretty much quite the game when MOD20 came and they practicaly changed everything as it was changed a year ago, the prospect of going through all the grinding we had to do in mod 18 and 19 was not something i look forwarded to

"you can access every content in the game without paying" is such a non-helpful, throwaway phrase that, in my opinion, does not belong in a review, especially not for MMORPGs. Of course you can grind out all the content, it is not worth mentioning at this point. And yes, the game is absolutely pay to win, because you can pay to reach a specific goal faster (i.e "win"), that would otherwise require you to play the game. there is no gray zone here, or in any other example for that matter, that lets you pay to skip play time and would not be "pay2win". it's not "somewhat" pay2win, it is, by a very easy to understand definition, a 100% pay to win.

I have 6,000 hours in this game. It was once a beautiful game. Amazing combat, party synergy, classes were unique and fun to play. Recent changes in the last year or two have absolutely bombed this game. You get punished for all the time spent in game when you are end game. You get nerfed. You get the hard worked for stuff smited into the ground and have to rebuild over and over. They did 2 combat reworks all which have made the game worse. Boring and uninteresting by over simplifying everything. Worst of all the game is ridden with bugs like you wouldn't believe. So many bugs with every patch and so many bugs left unfixed. If they do bother to fix something it takes months. It's went into such a massive slump from what it use to be. The developers are some of the absolute worst. They don't like player feedback and anything that is fun will be taken away at some point. They have committed the biggest mmo sins time and time again. Even the most positive of people have had their spirits broken. Not to mention they have the nerve to put packs into the cash shop for 200$ for exclusive in game content. Yes free mmo needs money to survive i know. But the greed the impose is absolutely barbaric.

Bad news mate. On preview (test server for those who don't know) they made sweeping changes to combat, companions, scaling, etc... Now if you have say a level 10 character in a level 10 zone it takes quite a few hits to kill them. The worst part is scaling. I put a few lego mounts and pets on that same level 10 toon and their was no difference in damage out put. I feel bad for all the players in game since this will kill their progression. A new level 80 player will only be about 5-10% damage lower than a maxed toon in every zone and dungeon. Great video!!

Any chance you could do one for Star Trek Online? I bought a Lifetime membership couple of years ago and was wondering if it's worth the comeback. Awesome videos, all the best.

That moment when you watch the same youtuber over and over again and realise you never subbed... Luckily it was an easy problem to solve :)

Been playing for about 3 years. I completely agree with what you said. It's incredibly fun and the combat system is a masterpiece. HOWEVER, this is coming from a very endgame player. Endgame is both very fun, and not very fun. As much as that might not make sense basically its somewhat exciting and fun grinding out the new gear and it's incredibly rewarding eventually getting it BUT it does take a hideous amount of time to get the gear. The moment a new module comes out BOOM the 'old' gear most of the time is completely outclassed. But if im being completely honest although I've spent quite a large sum of money on the game (for an 18-year-old lmao) and when I see my wonderful precious gear get completely outclassed by new stuff its demoralising and a bit sad. Seeing and playing a new module is incredibly exciting and I do like grinding out new gear as it's pretty much what the game is all about and its an MMO. I've never seen or played an MMO that isn't grindy. So yes id advise playing it but just DONT rush it. Otherwise, you might end up A. Getting bored of the game when you enter endgame and B. Spending real-world money that you probably don't need to if you just spend more time on the game.

I wanna start a game like world of war craft but on PlayStation with a friend. Looking for something where we start as nothing and build up our stats and find sweet items and then prepare builds to go fight big bosses. I guess a little like runscape also. Is this game like that ? What would you say is the best game on PS for that ?

You hit the nail on the head with your end post comments. Biggest problem with NW is the lack of seperation between new players with money, and old players with thousands and thousands of hours of playing time and game experience. A lot of veteran players have and are leaving due to how easy it is to play end game content if your new but rich. If I was new to NW, I wouldnt expect any end game content until atleast 6 months of avid gaming. One way to fix this is to greatly improve the boons you get for finishing campaign content. The boons now are ridiculously low, no incentive for new players to play older content. Veteran players need to have an advantage over new players when playing epic dungeons. Hard work needs a payoff. If no payoff, than why stay, pay and play........ But I digress.

That "135k daily players" is soooo false lmao.

The game is fine, all content is free, but customer support is one of the worst among all online games. Do not pay a dime, once you paid enough they have 100 reasons to ban your account without proper reason

Not played the game. I was looking to see if it was worth it whilst waiting for other newer games to release. This review was awesome and has inspired me to give it a go. Thanks

Hello,just played Neverwinter to lvl 5,I see the cap is 20 now. I love the world and everything about D&D ,I currently play GW2 and love it...but NW just has this appeal..I'm not enjoying it as much as GW2,but I'd like to give it my time. Does it get more intense? More things to do? Right now it kind of feels empty and dull to an extent. I ask because I know you used to play ALOT. Do I have much more awaiting me? Or is this it pretty much?

Been playing since 2016, these new mods have killed any love for the game.

Left ESO for BDO... Leaving BDO and trying this. The endgame grind is fine by me. The BDO grind starts your first day and never ends. Wasted so much money on BDO and ESO is just bad, the combat sucks and I crash every 30 minutes lol hopefully this game can get me through until I can find something else or maybe fall in love and stick with it. Won't be spending any money on this game tho I've learned my lesson with p2w and it's never worth it.

Hm. Sounds interesting. I may try it? Though I don't know if the laptop I'm borrowing could handle playing and streaming it at the same time xD Regardless, thanks for the video. It got me interested,

It’s been years since I had a pc capable of playing this, I think I’ll give it a try again.