Neverwinter Free MMO Guide

There are already a lot of Dungeons & Dragons games out there. From board games to card games and video games. The Lore of D&D is nothing new to most of us...
But I am excited to see Neverwinter appear as a Free game with the ability to use everything available in the game without having to spend a penny. The graphics are beautiful, the the world is huge, fight along side friends, customize your character and all the rest of the expected RPG qualities.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Neverwinter in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the downloadable version of Neverwinter. Steam and Arc versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Note: March 2017 Perfect World Entertainment ended support for Windows XP and Direct X 9. This guide no longer applies until we can pursue more testing in Wine.

Mint 17 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.8
Wine: 1.7.40

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.40
Note: Try using stable Wine 1.8 and 1.8-staging

Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

Downloading Wine

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.7.40 is installed and you can close this window

Download the Neverwinter installer here:
http://download.perfectworld.com/nw/neverwinter_setup.exe

Save in a folder on your desktop

PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name the virtual drive: neverwinter
Click Next

Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.40
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next

Wine Configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop"
Desktop size: 1024x768
Click OK

PlayOnLinux Packages (Libraries, Components, DLL's)

Check the following packages:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma

Click Next

Note: All packages will automatically download and install

Installing Neverwinter

Click Browse

Navigate to the folder on your desktop
Select "neverwinter_setup.exe"
Click Open

Click Next again

Select language
Click OK

Click Next

Click "I Agree"

Click Next

Uncheck "Create a desktop icon"
Click Install

Uncheck "Launch Neverwinter"
Click Finish

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select "Neverwinter.exe"
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Neverwinter
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Select Neverwinter
Click Configure

General Tab
Wine version: 1.7.40

Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of Wine

Display Tab
Video memory size: Enter the amount of memory your video card/chip uses

Close Configure

Launching Neverwinter

Select Neverwinter
Click Run

Login with your account credentials

Neverwinter will begin downloading and patching
In total the game is about 13 Gigabytes

Note: This process can take several hours depending on your internet speed

When its done downloading click PLAY

Long Cryptic loading screen
At first launch, this Cryptic screen can literally take 15-20 minutes
Please be patient and take a break

Sometimes the login will fail and end up at this login screen
Enter your account credentials
Click LOGIN

Once in game, select your character
Click Enter World

Optimization

Click Options
Click Graphics Tab

Adjust resolution to match your Linux desktop

Adjust:

• Screen
• Detail
• Effects
• Lights

or

Use the Render Quality (Video Card) and Graphics Detail (CPU) sliders

Go to the Advanced tab for more settings
Click OK or Apply

Note: When in-game, settings will automatically change on the screen

Conclusion:
Neverwinter runs extremely well on my Geforce 550 Ti. I can turn almost all the graphical settings to high and still get a decent frame rate. This game is beautiful for an Online MMO and its best to play on a desktop with a modern graphics card.
Normally when I first Enter World, there is a bit of lag as the level loads.

Gameplay Video:

Screenshots:

 

Yes and Cryptic best keep the old installer enabled or they might loose a lot of players.

 

Yeah, before Arc you could just install a thinclient and it would download fine.
After beta finished, Arc took over.
I don't fully understand what Arc is for (besides advertising) but I'm sure they are going to add more games in the future.
I'm sure the compatability is with IE8. You'll notice that Arc won't let you browse games.
IF we could browse, then we could search for Neverwinter and download....

 

I don't know what's worse with wine, Cryptic's Arc or EA's Origin. With Origin, the only way to get it working via wine is with PlayOnLinux's modified wine 1.5.28-Origin. Even then it works sometimes. Only when it feels like it. Arc works but hides other windows behind the main window which makes it extremely difficult to install things like NW.

 

Agreed!
At least you havn't tried Uplay from UBI soft. All of these large companies are copying Valves business model by creating their own client.
But none of them run as good as Steam.
I've even had a lot of problems with Steam.
Even this weekend Steam would not launch on my Win7 machine. I had to backup my SteamApps folder and re-install Steam.
Luckily it was super easy.

I'm not impressed with these other company's game clients.
I know we are using them in Linux which isn't their initial purpose, but geesh, do they have to be so stubborn?

I tried Origins a few times and got it to run, but downloading a game is a whole different problem.

I know a major problem is browser compatibility. We can only choose Gecko or IE8 for our games.
I would rather use Firefox or Chrome, but a Wine virtual drive doesn't support them.
So we are stuck with whats available, but they are definitely having some problems.
If only these clients didn't rely on an installed browser.
Wouldn't that be nice?

 

Downloading in origin works if you use PlayOnLinux wine version 1.5.28-origin. It takes all day and restarts several times but get a little further each time it restarts. You will have to do [ctrl][esc] to bring up the process list to kill EAproxyinstaller as it doesn’t quit when the game is installed. Then the games button will change to play so you can play it. Make sure the installation is finished before killing EAproxy installer or you will have to start over! I know annoying right?

To install Firefox: Download the Windows installer from the Firefox website. In PlayOnLinux, click on configure, Make sure the correct drive is selected then click on the last tab. Here you can click on the option to run a program in this drive. Navigate to the Firefox installer and run it. If the game allows you to use a different bowser then it will use Firefox. Good luck.

 

What a pain! Geesh...
I've tried installing Firefox in a virtual drive, but there is no way to make it the default browser. It installs and runs fine, but with game clients like Arc, Origins and Uplay, they still look for IE compatibility.

I've addressed that a few times on the PlayOnLinux forum, but no one had an answer yet...

 

Which is why I said above: "If the game allows you to use a different browser then it will use Firefox. Good luck.". I haven't tried this yet but maybe asking on winehq.com How to make an alternate browser the default might help get these games to use Firefox.

 

Good idea.
Its hard to tell if Wine needs to address the default browsing situation or if its the game developers.
I'm sure by now developers have stopped making interfaces for IE only, but I'm sure they are all IE compatible, but also Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc

Check this out: Gecko
Firefox is made from the Gecko layout engine. So this means Wine's Gecko is the same engine as Firefox.

 

Thnx for the link to the installation files! at least now we can play the game, how did you go about finding the file? maybe we can install more games that require arc now?

 

The problem is Arc in Wine. If Arc ran properly you would be able to search for games and then install them, but that currently doesn't work.
Arc will install one game at a time as long as you launch the exe from the games website. I have been able to install Star Trek and Neverwinter this way... but it seems this is hit-n-miss with other people.

 

I know this booman, but thanks for the headsup what i was wondering is where in the perfectworld(pun intended) neverwinter.exe was found and if we can find it for other arc games. Im installing neverwinter from the installer over the virtual disk ive made for arc, but i dont think i really need arc anymore, time will tell.

 

I found it in this thread, http://techsupport.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=34231
I have no idea if we can find other pre-arc installers.

 

ok thanks again!

 

Dude, if you figure out how to launch Neverwinter without the Arc client, please share.
That would be GREAT!

After reading graywolf's post at perfectworld forum, looks like there is a launcher just for Neverwinter: Neverwinter Launcher

But who knows how long it will be supported?
Honestly, Arc works for me, even in Linux. So I can't imagine it being a problem in Windows where its tested.
I don't see Arc as spyware because the installer tells you that you are installing Arc and there is a license agreement. You can always choose not to install.
Not to mention Neverwinter is free-to-play. So who are we to complain?

 

i thought you knew... it installs and launches without arc, and also automagically integrates with arc if you install it to the same virtual disk... but Neverwinter now hangs at the loading screen, but thats a different issue all together funny thing that i got neverwinter working perfect the first time i installed

 

Nope, I went directly to the Neverwinter website and downloaded the installer, which of course installed Arc. But after Arc installed and launched a pop-up for downloading Neverwinter appeared. It was the same with Star Trek Online.
I have experienced the problem where nothing pops up when you launch Arc. So I would just re-install it.

What distro are you using?
Check the debug output and post in the PlayOnLinux forum here so we can figure out what the problem is.

 

Its working now, it was just a matter of waiting really long at the loading screen..
Im on Minimal Lubuntu, with xfce installed over it.. but mainly use lxde for gaming.
Playonlinux 4.21 wine 1.64rc doublebuffer...

But i think you are missunderstanding me at somepoint if you are not thats great.

My issue was that of Arc not being able to install any games, and no pop-up window even after minimizing with taskmanager(wine)...

Well now after the Neverwinter standalone installer, i can run neverwinter(i thought it was stuck but it was not). I can also use Arc if i want to launch it from there.

or have POL make a shortcut directly to the neverwinter launcher...

You guys are great!! thanks for all the help.

BTW no arc is not all that bad, but if we could upgrade to maybe a newer version of IE, there might be more functionality....

If anyone wants to meet me in NW jiangxi is the name.

 

I do understand, but didn't have that problem originally. I'm guessing after you have installed Neverwinter at least once, it will always be in your games list when you login.
In my Arc screenshots you will see Neverwinter and Star Trek with an "install" button.
I have not been able to figure out your problem yet...
But now that you have the launcher working, I guess this is the work-around.

I hate that long long long load when you launch Neverwinter. It can take up to 20 minutes and then you find that it never logged in.
I'll keep checking out Neverwinter because I really love this game and see the demand for Linux gamers.

 

Yes you are so right, like i said, the first time i installed arc i had no problem.
but then i wanted to install JadeDynasty since i had played that years ago..

And ended up not just deleting POL, but reinstalling Ubuntu.. twice.

So yes ARC will work and will install games the first time, maybe even second time, but after that at least for me it was a no go. I believe that if Neverwinter has a standalone installer, most of the other games must too, since this is probably what Arc calls to install that game. We could maybe find the files if we sniffed for what address Arc used to download the exe... or a sitescraper, but i dont even know if that would be legal... Happy gaming folks!! Neverwinter is working Grrrrrreeaat!!

 

Thank you for your help and confirmation too!
Its good to know that my Guides actually work for everyone else besides me.

Dang client installers...
I'm getting sick of Steam, Origins, Arc and Uplay...
Hell Desura has a Linux client but still only limited games like LinSteam.