Neverwinter's Open Beta Live - Help Start The RPS Guild!

Update: Well, that was a disaster. It turns out the silly game only lets you start a guild if all members of your current party are over level 15, or bought a Founders pack, or transferred Zen into the game. So it didn't happen tonight. However, if those who tick any of those boxes want to email me either via above, or in the game (jennifer@bothererer), we can try to organise something soon.

Sorry I wasn't able to respond to everyone's questions in game - that tiny little chat box and the sheer volume made it impossible.

Cryptic's Neverwinter has just gone live into open beta, not half an hour ago. Which means that now all and sundry can return to the Sword Coast to swash, thieve, bludgeon or feyly dance through it's grrrrr-based adventures. And so it is that it only seems appropriate for there to be an RPS guild within. If you're interested in joining, we'll need some help getting it going - details below.

I've been playing all weekend, and I'm almost bemused to report than I'm hooked. I'll have some much more detailed thoughts on the game tomorrow, but I can tell you that it's superbly well made (which shouldn't be a surprise, since it's Cryptic), while quite surprisingly generic. Everything's within the canon of those Forgotten Realms, and the story takes place after what I am told was a large even in the D&D tales called the Spellplague. While it's packed with dungeons, which are the highlight, there's also a really rather silly volume of "Kill 10 of them" quests, far more than I remember from my first encounter a few months ago. But despite that, it's worked for me, which is the first time I can say that about an MMO in many years. And since it's free (and it's remarkably free - I've played to level 28 and haven't needed to spend a single virtual-penny), I'd certainly say it's worth a look. And that's before I even mention The Foundry, which should be ha-uge - more on that tomorrow.

So, why don't we all stick together, eh? If you're interested in gathering with other RPSers, you'll find us on the Dragon server. And my character is called Jennifer, because she's a girl, and no one else had taken it yet. The reason I tell you that is because to create a guild, we're going to need a party first. Is that normal? I've no idea. But it's what it wants. Thus, the plan:

If a group of interested people want to turn up this evening at 10pm BST (9pm GMT, 2pm PST), add me as a chum in their friends list, then when I've got enough for a party I'll start a guild. And publish the results for everyone else in this post, and in tomorrow's feature.

So friend jennifer@bothererer at 10pm tonight, and we'll be away! If you're likely to be there, let me know in the comments below, so I don't just stand around like a sadsack with no one coming to my party.

(If the servers go titsup because of the influx of new players, I'll post here cancelling, and we'll try again soon.)