Neverwinter: Jewel of the North Interview on Bards

Jewel of the North, the latest module for Cryptic Studios’ D&D-inspired MMORPG Neverwinter, added the Bard class to the game. And if you wouldn’t mind learning a thing or two about the origins of this fan-favorite class, its Neverwinter incarnation, and D&D storytelling, you should check out this massive The Hollywood Reporter interview with the game’s developers.

A quick excerpt to get you started:

I’ll start with the most obvious question, which is why did you decide to roll out the Bard class now and why specifically this class?

Matt Powers: We’ve been wanting to do a new class for quite a while, and when we looked at all the opportunities of what we could add — from what Dungeons & Dragons already provides for us as an IP and what we do at Cryptic, where really we think we bring a high level of customization and player expression — there wasn’t a better class to really tap into in our mind than the Bard in terms of capitalizing on player expression. Whether it’s choice because it really is a jack of all trades or even just self-expression in terms of our added free performance mode, we thought that that was an important aspect to build on for our game.

Randy Mosiondz: We were looking at a bunch of the potential new classes that we could add to the game. We were looking at Bard, we were looking at Druid, we were looking at Monk. I really think a clincher for us was the amount of creativity that the Bard brings to the game. And it was popular amongst our player base that were asking for a new class and even just talking with [game studio and publisher] Wizards of the Coast. They said Bard was one of the popular classes in the last few years.

Powers: Admittedly, I’m a total fashion diva. So this game was like we can completely dump all kinds of new outfits and other stuff for the Bard. Then we’ve also been playing with this very kind of swashbuckler-like fighting style with rapiers. It just seemed to fit in nicely with what we’re doing here.