Neverwinter Bringing 5 Free Expansions to Xbox One in 2015, Hits 1.6 Million Player Mark

Cryptic Studios announced that their Free-To-Play MMORPG Neverwinter has reached 1.6 million players to-date on the Xbox One. With their success they've also announced that the Xbox One version will be receiving 5 free expansions, all coming this year. The expansions will be using source material from popular Dungeons & Dragons' storylines including Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil.

[Games4Gamers]

Awesome. If it were EA they would probably increase the prices to the DLC then before and add a subscription for 14.99 per month due to its success

[ThePope]

I love comments like this. Would you rather have EA not make money and go out of business? These companies already charge to little for what they make. Games are at least (on average) 50% bigger(in either graphics, gameplay, story, or all the above) than they were in 2006. Yet here they are still charging what they were charging in 2006. Which means their getting around $15 less PER copy sold.

SO what would you like them to do? Are you ok if they start asking $70-$80 for their games?

I bet you'll pay $20 to go to a movie plus food. But gosh forbid a company who makes games that can last for hundreds of hours make a FAIR profit. These companies aren't making a FAIR profit right now so they have to do everything they can. Or they can stop making games and do something else. Would you like that?

Don't even get me started on how many people buy games used. When you do that you're basically telling the developer to close their doors. No matter how much you love the game.

[KarmaV12]

Finally someone who see's the problems I do!

[IVanSpinal]

Finally a smart gamer

[annoyedgamer]

Actually I would love EA to go out of business. It would free up the IP's and allow them to go to more reputable companies. The slaves..I mean employees that they have herded over the years will finally be free to unleash their creative power.

I would say the same for other large AAA publishers, but most of them are not known to buy out developers solely for the purpose of removing competition and shutting them down. (Maxis, Danger Close, Pop Cap, etc.)

"Games are at least (on average) 50% bigger(in either graphics, gameplay, story, or all the above) than they were in 2006. Yet here they are still charging what they were charging in 2006. Which means their getting around $15 less PER copy sold. "

I do not buy that when most of it is fluff and DLC. Nice try though.

What is interesting is you have an avatar of The Witcher symbol which is developed by CD Project Red who have managed to grow and remain profitable without engaging in any of the greedy practices that your good friends over at EA have been doing for years. They do not even use DRM and are still growing bigger with each release.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Bubbles for your intelligence. I've been telling this site about inflation and the cost of DLC for a long time now.

Many gamers seem to be under this idea that DLC is just ALL the main game cut, don't factor in that games have had post launch content since early PC gaming, don't factor in that teams are made to solely make DLC, don't factor in that games have stayed the same price for YEARS etc.

Any thing extra for an extra charge will be complained about, even if the damn game is longer then the last, more content then the last etc, it will be complained about to pay more to get more.

As if they should work HARDER for LESS money.

Do you go to McDonalds and ask for fries JUST cause you bought a burger and you see them making fries? I mean...you want them, pay for them. Why should any business give out content JUST because you want it and see it being made?

Like I say...are you buying the game for what they are offering or are you trying to buy their souls? lol, it seems many gamers want to pay for a McChicken yet want a Big Mac meal supersized.

@Annoyed- "I do not buy that when most of it is fluff and DLC. Nice try though."

??? Skyrim is many times bigger then any of the elder scrolls before it and longer, GTAV is the biggest GTA they've ever made, Smash Bros the largest, Mario Kart 8 the most tracks and cars, GT5 largest track list and car count in its history. AC Unity the largest AC, AC 2015..larger then AC Unity, Batman 5x larger then Arkham City, Dead Island 2, larger, Witcher 3, Dragon Age III etc, the list goes on and on and on.

...all before DLC. Want to prove him wrong? Link, examples etc.

Sooo saying "I don't buy that" doesn't make sense...its an objective thing, you can factually look up many game series to see for yourself. Games are more complex now then 10 years ago, lighting, physics, textures etc.

and to prove his point even further...

http://www.ign.com/articles...

[UltraAtomic]

I like free to play games but yea they got to make money somewhere.

[christocolus]

Good to hear. The game is isn't my cup of tea but its good to see it doing well.I hope Smite and Gigantic turn out successful too.

[nicksetzer1]

Gigantic looks amazing. Neverwinter is a pretty fun time killer, and love the auction house feature. Not very fond of smite so far, but it's not really my type of game.

[Bigpappy]

This game is very old school in appearance and gameplay, but it become fun and additive when you have a good group of friends to run with. I have a feeling that the more recent RPG's like The Witcher and ESO are going to pull those numbers down.

It was my first console FTP game. I completely enjoyed what I played of it, and even bought some Zen points to support the developer's excellent work. I hope they do well to encourage more MMO's on consoles, using this same formula.

[Cherchez La Ghost]

I could not stop playing this game. Felt good hitting level 60.

[Moldiver]

Im at level 60 and I still cant stop playing. Im still doing the tryanny of dragons stuff and trying to get the best and rarest gear. Painted my draconic bracers in the sexiest draconic blue and plain red dyes last night. That alone had me playing for a little longer than I intended, last night.

[gangsta_red]

A lot of games for Xbox One...going to have to try this when I get some time.

[MR_BLACKMAGIK]

This definitely seems like one of the more popular F2P games on Xbox One. I personally have a lot of friends that still play it religiously.

[XanderZane]

I'm actually enjoying the game. I'm at Level 21 right now and have been playing for about 3 weeks. I still haven't learned everything in this game yet, but there is a lot to do. I still have to learn crafting and how to improve my companions. Still need to get mounts and find enchantment keys. It's like a single player RPG with MMO thrown in all around. There's even some PvP to be had as well, which is very fun. I still haven't paid anything to play this game. It does hound you to buy ZENs when you first sign in and when you pick up some loot, it'll be a special offer for in game items that you purchase using ZENs currency. I would gladly purchase ZENs if it wasn't such a ripoff. $10 for 1000 Zen won't even give you a decent mount. It should be $10 for 4000 ZENs. $20 for 12,000 ZENs. Then maybe I'd bite. Right now, it's not even worth it. They need to change the pricing and they will get some sales.

[rpgenius420]

You earn Astral Diamonds then you buy ZEN with the Diamonds! Just do daily skirmishes and dungeons from Rhix and you will be buying your enchanment keys for those special chests in no time!

[Eldyraen]

Time consuming but true. Then again it's an mmo so its to be expected.

The chests drop like crazy so can't really keep up with them that way alone if you play a lot. But then that's why they are so common--for the people that have to know what's there all the time. A couple compulsive players will throw money at it now and again.

[XanderZane]

I'm getting the diamonds daily through skirmishes and raids. Where do you go to buy the ZEN with diamonds? Haven't found that yet. Where do you go to buy the Enchanted Keys with diamonds? I can probably just Google it I guess.

Eldyraen: Once you get a lot of diamonds you can buy bags at the Auction House. They are like 10,000+ diamonds.

[Dewitt]

Go to Astral Diamond Exchange under store, current rate is 170 diamonds for 1 Zen.

[Moldiver]

Level 60 hunter ranger here...crazy thing is... there is still so much to do! Its was pretty obvious to me how popular this game is becoming on XBL, just by the dense amount players hanging around in the enclave! Its pretty awesome when over thirty people show up to help kick a dragons ass. I am completlty smitten by this game. It came out of nowhere and its DAMN good. Best F2P game I played on consoles bar none. Its going to bonkers on XBL when smite, gigantic and elite dangerous turn up....I see hawken and firefall in X1s future aswell. Quote me on that one.

EDIT: 92 players have killed over 1000 dragons...Dat dedication! lol

[Eldyraen]

Their pricing really is ridiculous but I bit the bullet and bought in a little.

Besides pricing my biggest issue is bag space but that's mostly as I spend a lot of time running around exploring and collect from every chest I can (some requiring kits you carry on you making it more annoying). If you sell continuously and don't worry about kit chests so much it isn't as big of a deal but could still be better (I love my summonable merchant though--a must for me).

Overall I enjoy the game which is all I care about and not spending money wouldn't had made a big impact in the long run if you don't want to do so. It's much less of a p2w mmo than many actually as you can speed things up by unlocking things early but don't think it feels like you have to buy in as much as some other games can.

[Ashlen]

Your right about Zen, it's very expensive, and the amount of product you can buy per $ is very limited.

The thing is people on Xbox have only been playing a few weeks and they don't fully understand the investment required by refinement, and haven't realised how the game works when you reach endgame.

The PVE content starts to get locked by needing to be able to do certain amounts of DPS to beat the content. And the way to get that DPS is to pay, the free route will take so long that newer better things will become available way before you finish the old stuff.

And PvP is really the biggest P2W arms race because it's not like most games where paying gives you a small benefit like 5-10%. In Neverwinter a person who pays can do can do five or more times as much dps (and have equally improved defense) as a free to play or even small investment player. So you end up with PVP thats like punching babies when people start making pre-made groups where the only people invited have spent thousands of dollars are battling in the same queue with F2P or casual spenders.

[Clown_Syndr0me]

I tried this. But after WoW, GW2, LoTRo, FF14 and even TERA, it felt terrible!

[Bolts]

This is a classic case of a good console fit. There is simply zero competition on the Xbox One. If you never played a MMO before then this game is the best ever. On the PC there dozens of more established options. TERA for example absolutely crushes this game.

ESO when it comes out will huge on the console.

[Clown_Syndr0me]

I guess you're right. If I had never played PC MMOs perhaps I'd feel differently.
I'm looking forward to ESO, played briefly on PC but it didn't feel quite right - hoping it's more suited to consoles.

[creeping judas]

So let's say hypothetically that all of the 1.6 million players paid a minimum of $10 for some kind of content, that would mean the game earner $16million dollars in a month. Not too shabby. And I only say $10, as some will spend nothing, and some will spend quite a lot. personally I have only spent $10 and just reached level 60 last night with my hunter.

[akurtz]

Fix the horrible frame rate

[pandehz]

Im having an unusual amount of fun with this game.

[Fixay]

Games really fun with lots too do, whether that be quests, dungeons, skirmishes, weekly events or the Tyranny of Dragons Campaign.

Personally I've spent £7.99 and just from selling loot from dungeons I've managed to make almost 400k Diamonds, worth around £20 in game currency

Frame rate does suck though, and the constant time outs lol can't deny that

[stormswrath]

Wish this was on ps4.