Mod 21 Has a Name

I was starting to wonder whether the tradition to give each module a name was simply another thing Cryptic was getting rid of. But no, it's going to be called "Jewel of the North" (which is a "nickname" for the city of Neverwinter) and they uploaded a "features trailer" for it today:

Release is going to be in two weeks. Let's see how that NGE and bard class play out.

New Class + Surprise NGE!

Apparently Neverwinter is going to go live with some huge changes next week, and they announced them... only two days ago.

The addition of bard as a new class is the least surprising bit of news, as this was already hinted at some time ago, and is very welcome (though I'm surprised they are dropping it on such short notice and with no real hype). Everything else, however...

• To be more in line with tabletop D&D, the level cap will be squished from 80 to 20.
• XP in the classic sense will go away; instead you will gain a level every time you complete a set piece of content called an "adventure".
• Some existing content will be re-tooled for this, but other zones will simply be removed. Officially they might come back later, but Cryptic has a bad track record on that front, so I'd advise anyone not to hold their breaths.

And those are only the most major of the changes.

I have no idea what to think of any of this; it just feels completely out of the blue. I only know that I struggle with it when a game that I've been playing for years decides to make major systems changes like that, and it's only been two years since Undermountain turned my Neverwinter world upside down and actively turned me away from the game for the better part of a year.