BioWare Has Neverwinter Publisher

Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."

Comments

focus on quality of RPG's?

[wildcard023]

Is it me or have PC RPG's really gone downhill? I remember back when I was exploring the world in Ultima 6 and it was amazing. This program fit on 6 5+1/4 floppy disks and there was seemingly endless miniquests do and npc's to meet. Granted, no one that was in a recient blockbuster hit did their voices and it wasn't rendered in full 3d but it was a well -written- game.

It seems that, as technology increase, RPG's are becoming more and more linear. They look like a beautifully rendered movie where I get to play through a few fight scenes and maybe choose from 1 of 3 possible endings.

Whatever happened to exploring a world and interacting with it, not just watching it go by? Do those not sell anymore? Why not?

--
Mike
Oldsk00l W1z4rdy, b4BY! (sarcasm)

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Champaign]

I also remember the glory days of RPG with games like "Bard's Tale" (which I *NEVER* managed to beat, yanked it out for a couple of days recently). Mapping and wandering the world seemed to be a big part of the experience, which they've streamlined away to make it easier to play through the game.

Part of me likes it though, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit. It used to really *SUCK* getting stuck at a certain stage in a game and not being able to progress because I had to be in a certain tile when the moon was full, and I needed to piece together clues from 5 towns people in 3 different towns to have figured out that was what I needed to do.

Its nice to know now that its shouldn't be TOO hard to keep going and I can enjoy the nice art, better battles, watching my characters improve and a storyline which, as you say, isn't much more complicated then a movie.

Just my two copper pieces...

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Drakin]

Hmm. Have you played bioware's games? Have you read about Neverwinter Nights?

I don't consider BG I or II particuarly liniar, there's plenty of optional mini quests, and some others you can just ignore and explore onward..

Neverwinter nights is going to be interesting, as it's being relased as a game, but also as a engine for people to make their own campains for it. Some will be bad, but some will be good.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[larien]

Well, I have to agree that Icewind Dale was highly linear; do that dungeon, go to base, go to another dungeon... etc...

Baldur's Gate I was much better, and BGII follows that vein with various side adventures and other stuff. BGII adds to this with some of the side adventures being class dependant (e.g. my fighter/mage had to take on some apprentices). I dunno how Neverwinter Nights will turn out, but it should be interesting. I know of someone who played BG online and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Thrikreen]

Not just RPG's but most games I find... linear, short, not a lot of replay value, a lot of repetition (read: spending hours leveling up just to pass such and such a monster/boss). Your standard run here, push button, exit to the next level.

I wouldn't mind some non-linear games, like how in StarControl 2 (still my fav game of all time) you can accomplish certain tasks out of order (ever get the Chmmr Avatar near the beginning of the game? Makes battles REALLY easy =). Not to mention the dialog! Shame SC3 turned out to be such a let-down, you did find out more about the universe, but it lacked that entertainment spark.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[mESSDan]

It is just you, my friend.

The Baldurs Gate series is overflowing with content. The very storyline is shaped by your character (the answers to the questions you are asked, your alignment, your character's class). How is that linear? Granted, there are usually only 2 endings, but how you get there is pretty much up to you.

Baldurs Gate 2 was an even bigger addition to the Baldurs Gate series, with a huge map of places to go, extended (and interesting!) storyline that never seems to end. I can honestly say that I haven't enjoyed another PC RPG as much as I've enjoyed playing through the Baldurs Gate world.

Last, Baldurs Gate 2 has probably well over a 500 individual npcs, all with their own likes and dislikes.

Combine all of that with the beautifully rendered maps, well voiced (and amusing!) dialog, and very easy to use interface, and you will see that Bioware is an industry leader for a reason.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[thelexx]

I see your point, though BGI & II have helped lately as someone mentioned, but technically you're off topic. Pretty much the entire point of NWN is to create and or participate in user created worlds that will be differentiated mainly by the stories they present. After all, they will all be working with same basic building blocks as far as graphics, sounds, etc. (Last I read anyway) Most will surely suck, some will be beautiful but shallow, and a very few will attract the core players that will make them really shine. Hopefully! :)

LEXX

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[LadyLucky]

oh and came on a tape... none of this multi-cd rubbish)

I always wanted to write a C64 webserver. Imagine that...

GET /index.html HTTP/1.0

receives a...

100 Continue (Press play on tape)

The world's only webserver that needs someone full time at the webserver in order to service one request per minute. Baby :-)

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to exploring a world and interacting with it, not just watching it go by?

It came back! Neverwinter Nights!

You sure talk like someone who hasn't head about Neverwinter, and poster this reply only because of the word RPG in it.
Read a little about it, specially the articlys on gamespy.com

Neverwinter is not a game, it is a platform.
If you are a DM, you can create the adventures (non linear adventures) for your mates to play in. And from what I've read, you can have a game of 16 people playing one adventure -- that the DM created for them.

Neverwinter is a great game, and I doubt you will dislike it whenever you lay your eyes on it.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[radja]

Arcanum is pretty cool, and in quests does have a little more to offer than baldur's gate, IMO.. (yes, I've played both). The mix of technology and magic is pretty good, but the game does have a bit more power-balance problems than BG. But I guess using a premade gamesystem that's been in use for more than 10 years makes balance easier between characters.

//rdj

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Rogerborg]

• Is it me or have PC RPG's really gone downhill?

It's just you. The Baldur's Gate series is old school. There are several gating points, but you're more or less free to play it any way you like. Good, bad, indifferent, press on or seek out the sub-quests, chat to the NPC's, whatever. There's a lot in there, and the content is as important as the presentation.

Maybe you should give them a try. You should be able to get Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 on budget or in a multipack by now. If you're in any doubt about the depth or care put into them, ponder the pantaloons (spoiler).

Yes, Ultima was wonderful, but so is Baldur's Gate. And Ultima never made me actually shout out loud: "What the...? Is one of my own party stabbing me in the back? He is! Stop it! Stop stabbing me in the back! Bad dwarf! Bad! Aaaaagh!".

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Squeeze Truck]

It seems that, as technology increase, RPG's are becoming more and more linear. They look like a beautifully rendered movie where I get to play through a few fight scenes and maybe choose from 1 of 3 possible endings.

That's because they're mostly made by Japanese companies. Japanese gamers like linear stories. One of my coworkers (I live in Japan) said he didn't like the Ultimas because he "didn't know what he was supposed to do."

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Squeeze Truck]

I didn't play it (I don't think).

What the heck ever happened to the Androsynths?

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[radja]

indeed, icewind dale was highly linear, and storywise wasn't much. then again, icewind dale was intended to be a dungeoncrawl, with a little story added so it makes some sense. In that respect, I think they succeeded. Just don't think Icewind dale is a good RPG.. it isn't, and wasn't meant to be.

//rdj

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[sam_handelman]

How old are you? Classic RPGs seem to me to be more fun because I was a kid when they were around.

I remember that Might and Magic I seemed really amazing. It seemed big, in terms of land area. It seemed real. I remember getting out of the first town in MMI and thinking - god damn, there's a world in here.

Well, clouds of Xeen (MM V?), even though it was a lot bigger, seemed smaller. With the newer Ultimas, they seem smaller because the outside world is on the same scale as the cities. This is a problem for me because it interferes with my suspension of disbelief. It makes the world less abstract, but also less real, because the whole Continent is only the size of Monte Carlo.

As far as non linear plots go, Wizardry 8 is pretty good. The plot could be more convuluted, but there are a fair number of sidequests and adequate NPCs - there aren't 200 NPCs, but each NPC responds realistically to unimportant questions they ought to know the answers to, which is important for suspension of disbelief. Might and Magic never had NPCs or a plot, and has continued in that vein pretty faithfully.

If you're talking about Final Fantasy - yeah, FF II had more / more interesting side quests than these latest four. FF X, while gorgeous, is a movie.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Genom]

Didn't they get eaten by the stilted-english-talking fish guys? (can't remember their name - it's been FOREVER since I've played SC2, and like you, I never played SC3)

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Genom]

Final Fantasy VII took it further, with mini games (Chocobo Racing, Chocobo Breeding, arcade games, etc.)

Am I the only one who got seriously addicted to the snowboarding game at the Gold Saucer? =)

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Kingfox]

Arcanum is a perfect example of a great non-linear game with a great overarching storyline AND plenty of room to do your own thing. It doesn't suffer from the open-ended chaos of Daggerfall, and doesn't suffer from the hand-holding linear nature of games such as the FF series. It's even more open-ended than the aforementioned Ultima VI. But I'm not surpised by that. Most Black Isle games have been open ended, such as the masterpieces Fallout 1 and 2. Many of the great minds behind the Fallout series left Black Isle, and ended up together working on Arcanum. I was doubtful of the gaming industry hype around 'the team from Fallout makes a new RPG'... visions of Daikatana flashed in my head. But I was pleasantly suprised.

What I'm most impressed with, regarding Neverwinter Nights, is the ability to create your own world and leave it running on a server. Graphical MUD anyone? With a well-scripted huge world built by a group of friends, they can create their own MMORPG.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Rogerborg]

• • Ultima never made me actually shout out loud: "What the...? Is one of my own party stabbing me in the back? He is! Stop it! Stop stabbing me in the back! Bad dwarf! Bad! Aaaaagh!".
  What, you never recruited Saduj in Ultima V?

Read carefully. Ultima never made me shout out loud. To be honest, Baldur's Gate 2 only really made me exclaim "What the...?" to the world, but it did do that, and it does have to be said that pretty graphics and swooshy sounds do have more of an impact. If the content is there as well, which it is, in spades.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[the Man in Black]

Final Fantasy VII took it further, with mini games (Chocobo Racing, Chocobo Breeding, arcade games, etc.) and even introduced enemies that were more challenging than the final boss (anyone ever beat that giant robotic monster at the bottom of the ocean?)

Emerald Weapon, and yes, I did. Though it's nigh impossible if you haven't bred the Golden Chocobo and gotten the 'Knights of the Round' materia. Emerald was even harder than Ruby, who's ass I also whooped.

I haven't gamed that hard since. I remember back in the dorms when FFVII came out, you could walk down the hall and everyone with an open door would be playing FFVII. It became like a competition as to who could finish it fastest (then who could finish with the most stuff...like Sephiroth's sword).

I played FFVIII, but it just didn't have the same magic for me that VII did. Ah well.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[the Man in Black]

I can't believe you still have one of my all-time favorite games in this world on floppy!!!! My copies of BTI,II, and III were destroyed, unfortunately. You want to talk about plot? World immersion? The graphics meant very little to me, that game was kick ass.

E-mail me, send smoke signals, or SOMETHING and let me know if there's someplace I can get these games. I read that there was a collector's set that had them, but it went out of print (dammit!)

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[elandal]

BG I and II were good games, but Torment was the best CRPG ever made. Torment had an interesting plot, lots of dialogue, many ways to work through the game, interesting characters.. It had everything. Well, mostly everything.. Only a human GM can handle players who want to do something that hasn't been prepared for.

Fallout II was great, too. And I was looking forward to Torn until it was cancelled (and tried to be hopeful even after that), as the SPECIAL system of Fallout was IMHO very good.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[gmhowell]

I carried the damned golden pantaloons forever, and followed the saga. But haven't followed the investigation for quite a while.

Can't believe someone figured it out. Guess it's time to get Throne of Bhaal.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Courageous]

Um?

Torment and Fallout, man.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's?

[Zara2]

Yea but arcanum just sucked. The magic system was no fun to play and the technology system was just downright frustrating even with a walkthrough. Also the inability to make a mixed charachter and the fact that you NPC's would rebel agianst you (I am a different alignment than my other party guy so I wont help him) just made the game unplayable to me. It should have been a great game but Arcanum just wasnt.

Now for good RPG elements I would reccomend the japanese FF versions (5 in particular). They dont have the dumb-down part to them like the American versions do. I was/am a big fan of the BG series but I do have to admit that the games take a bit too long. I passed one but just couldnt bring myself to pass 2 let alone the add-on packs.

Well thats my 2 cents. Take it or leave it ;)

With all the bad news about Loki...

[antistuff]

its really nice to hear somthing like this. All the cynics out there need to relax, gaming on linux is still alive.

My book fell apart

[Graymalkin]

What would be really cool even though it is stretching the bounds of reality to the breaking point would be releasing all three OS builds of NWN in a single box. It works financially because you don't need to ship and stock three different packages and don't have to print three different sets of CDs. All of the resource data on the CDs in the same the only differences lie in the binaries. It isn't like they're going to somehow cut into their own sales. I don't buy a game I already own for another OS. I didn't buy a second copy of Quake3 for my Powerbook (which barely runs it) because I'd already paid for all their creative work once. I wasn't going to pay another 40$ for a 1% change in the contents of the CD. The only reason I waited to buy D2 was to see if they'd release a multi-OS package which they did. For 20$ I got D2 that runs fine on PCs and Macs. I can play at home on my PC or when I'm out and about on my Powerbook or take it over to my friend's house for some necromancing monster killifying spell casting blasting monster ass into non-existance. I'd also like to be able to import my characters from BG 1&2 and IWD with my Ankheg plate mail and Ol'Withery.

Re:My book fell apart

[uXs]

The plan has always been and still is to release all 3 versions in the same box. What has fallen through unfortunately is the Linux and Mac version of the toolset - that will be Windows only.
The actual game however will be for all 3 systems, and in the same box.

uXs

Re:My book fell apart

[jgerman]

Ummm, that kinda sucks. Last time I looked into NN the toolset WAS the game. The video I watched the narrator, I forget who it was, was saying that the great thing about NN was that the toolset was the actual game, that an adventure was being shipped with it and that it was created with the same tools that the gamers were recieving. I was looking forward to a high quality version of the software that let you create SSI Goldbox style games. Not that I'm above booting to Windows to use the toolset, it would be cool to be able to work in Linix though.

I'm hoping the user base exceeds that of the "Gold Box" creator though. It had a large number of people creating mosules and it wasn't overly popular. I'm expecting to see user created adventures created from old (A)D&D modules pop up all over the place pretty quickly following the release, like the Half-Life mod scene on steroids. I wonder if Bioware plans on setting up a db for use created games so that there's a central place for gamers to d/l them,... CPAN for NN.

Re:My book fell apart

[Graymalkin]

I sort of wondered about NN's multi-platform plans because I got so pissed off at what happened with BG1&2. I bought copies of BG1&2 (and ToSC) for the PC but I never had the option of JUST getting Mac binaries if I registered with Bioware or something. I already had the media resources, all I wanted was the binaries to play on my Powerbook. They wanted me to fork over even more money to get CDs that only varied from the ones I had by about 1%. They wouldn't be losing any money by giving me a free binary for Mac because I wasn't about to buy the game a second time. I've given Bioware alot of money over the years because I really like playing their AD&D games and have felt before that they were unappriciative of that fact. That's where my query comes from.

Re:My book fell apart

[Graymalkin]

To expound on the Half-Life route I think it'd be pretty rad seeing Bioware package the most popular modules/adventures onto CD and sell them to registered users for a couple bucks like how CS and such have been marketed. I always thought a good RPG would send you CDs every couple of months for a few dollars so you could keep playing the game for a really long time. BG2 acted sort of like an expansion for the original BG, you could take your old character you've probably put mass amounts of time into and keep playing with it.

Squeaky wheel gets the kick!

[1%warren]

- Minsc.

Is it me or have PC RPG's really gone downhill?

Planescape: Torment is what you're after.
Fallout, Fallout 2, & All of the Baldurs gate series are good too.

Re:Squeaky wheel gets the kick!

[FatOldGoth]

To be fair, Torment is a pretty linear game. There are a few locations you can visit in any order, a couple you can skip, but on the whole it's very predetermined.

It more than makes up for this, though, by having a genuinely compelling storyline, great characters, imaginative locations and a wonderfully sick sense of humour. This all adds up to make it the best RPG I've played to date.

Re:Squeaky wheel gets the kick!

[startled]

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[FastT]

Part of me likes it though, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit. It used to really *SUCK* getting stuck at a certain stage in a game and not being able to progress because I had to be in a certain tile when the moon was full, and I needed to piece together clues from 5 towns people in 3 different towns to have figured out that was what I needed to do.

These sorts of puzzles were fun when you were a kid and had all the time in the world to mess around figuring them out. But, what toasts my nuts these days is developers like BioWare who build games that take hundreds of hours to complete. BGII was something like 200+ hours, and if you're a careful or slow player (like me), probably more like 300. I'm an adult with a day job and a family, and I can't spend all those hours playing a pointless game, no matter how fun it is.

I'd much rather see things go the way Serious Sam has, releasing smaller "episodes" that are half the price of other games. I'd like to for once start a game and be able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time (20-30 hours), while the developer cranks out more expansion packs and improvements. It seems like this would be much better for developers too, as they could drastically reduce their time to market.

Registering or buying properly

[michaelsimms]

If you want to make sure that, if you buy it for Linux it is registered AS a linux version, please do one of the following:
REMEMBER to send in your registration card and tick the Linux box (or as is more likely add on a Linux box because they forgot to put one on
Buy it from a Linux retailer that has pledged to report all sales of the game to the publisher AS Linux sales. We at Tux Games are doing this, and you can preorder here.
Please do not forget to do one of these things, or the vast majority of Linux sales will just be written off as windows sales, and that will NOT help to get us the greater recognition by game developers that we all need.

Re:Registering or buying properly

[Kartoffel]

12345 is a real zipcode in Schenectady, NY. General Electric's Schenectady plant uses that zipcode exclusively. It's not residential, but I doubt the marketroids care.

Can't wait

[Diabolical]

Can't wait to get my hands on Neverwinter for Linux... This would certainly be a game in which i'm interested.

I also noticed that they were going to release a Star Wars game... would that be coming out on the Linux platform as well? Because that would be great news if it did.. this would mean that there is a good chance that the games industry is getting geared up on Linux. With the demise of Loki this would be a welcoming change...

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[FastT]

Are you smoking crack?

Not today, but I remember reading that figure on BioWare's site. Of course, that includes doing *all* the quests, and all the little details that make the game immersive.

BG2/ToB was downhill/linear?!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

BG2 was one of the most immersive, enthralling and entertaining games I have ever played. The only part I really question is the "replay value"; since I played most of the optional quests the first time through, there is less appeal to creating a new party with a different make-up, and going through all of it again just to see the few that I missed. Apart from that, the storyline was well thought out, both the main arc and the side quests (particularly the personally relevant ones for NPCs who join your party). The main arc is somewhat linear, but that's only 1/3 or 1/4 of the game time if you go for the side quests as well, and even then, there are some serious branches (like the whole of chapters 2-3). On top of the playability that generates, it also has great graphics and sound, reasonably smart AI and good UI for a game of its day. Throne of Bhaal was more of the same, and an incredible expansion for the cost.

Comparing this with, say, the Eye of the Beholder series from a few years earlier... Well, there really is no comparison. I liked EotB at the time, but that was the linear story, limited interaction version. BG2/ToB is in a different league. I just can't see where the "downhill" and "linear" ideas you've got are coming from...

Re:Medieval American accents...

[jgerman]

Americans don't have accents, it's the rest of the world that does :)

Seriously, it is a fantasy game, medieval setting or no, it's not our world so how can you justify any existing accent? All accents are equal in a fantasy game.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[Jaysyn]

And if you would like to add another 30 or so hours to BG2, go to www.teambg.com. They have the best (and only that I know of) Mods for BG1 & BG2, and a resonably full set of editor so that you can make your own. They also have a lot of info on editing Planescape: Torment & Icewind Dale.

Jaysyn

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[nzhavok]

I'm an adult with a day job and a family

I hear you man, sucks when real life gets in the way of your serious gaming doesn't it? And when you finally do get a vacation your wife/girlfriend usually expects you to spent it with them, it would be nice to be unemployed with no friends or family for a couple of weeks per year.

One of my friends takes two weeks off every 6 months to go camping and fishing alone, he likes the change from city life. Me I'm content with the city so mabye I should take a couple of weeks off for a gaming convention ;-)

Re:Medieval American accents...

[jgerman]

Cool, Bob and Doug Mackenzie do dungeons and dragons, with cameo by Red Green.

OOO

[thesupermikey]

This is really good news. Now its going to take about another 4 year before the game comes out. I cant wait! I'm going to start camping out at EB right not! WOOOO!

Re:Medieval American accents...

[ShavenYak]

I'm aboot to take your head off, eh?

Ye olde hoser.

Re:Medieval American accents...

[GypC]

Personally, I find the Pythonesque British accents to be far more annoying. It is not medieval Earth, it is an entirely different universe. There's no need to sound like Oliver-fucking-Twist.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[Archfeld]

the dark side Mods are awesome, possibly BETTER than the original.

Saduj

[slaker]

I could never figure out how to advance levels far enough to beat the dungeons and survive the underworld in Ultima V... Demons and Dragons pretty much always kicked my ass.

And I spent hours trying to find a way to NOT have to kill Saduj. For some reason I was convinced I had done something wrong... then I realized that his name is, well, Saduj.

Ultima V was one of the great frustrations of my gaming life.

Re:Linux? You're kidding, right?

[LMCBoy]

These web stats might explain why Bioware doesn't necessarily feel the need to put "Released for LINUX!!!" on their front page in large, blinking letters...

eh, maybe the slashdotting this story produced will change their minds :)

wonder if this delay will improve release quality

[Yarn]

It may actually force them to do proper QA, although I admit that BioWare is one of the better game developers out there....

CAAN do attitude?

[StandardDeviant]

Centralized Adventure Archive Network? :-) Yes, I can see that as being a rocking project. I don't think that it would be all that hard to build from scratch if need be. Taking the maximal features implementation route, you could provide something like sourceforge for the module creators (homepage, file management, maybe a mailing list, bug tracking, yaddayadda). Taking the minimal features implementation, you could have a categorized listing with links to where-ever the module developer is hosting their stuff (geocities, yahoogroups for mailinglist, sourceforge, whoever) with maybe a local cache of their latest version. The latter route I could build from scratch in a weekend (openbsd, apache, perl, postgresql; those are the ingredients I'd pick).

I am soooo looking forward to this game. I'll even spend money on hardware to play it if my current desktop isn't brawny enough (celeron 450 with a tnt 1, hehe it was a rocking game machine about three years ago).

WRT module development that's not on win32, does anyone think that the community could come up with tools? By that I mean, if BW could release the "specs" on how to do this or if it's something more intricate than knowing how to write a particular file...

The Prep Job

[The Spie]

I'm very happy that the legal problems have been wrangled out (and I'm even happier I predicted to gamer friends that it'd be Bruno's Bunch Of Happy Fascists who'd get the distro rights; yeah, obvious, since they own the AD&D computer game rights they bought from Hasbro). I'm really, really happy because I'm not wasting my time.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I'd actually do some prep for Neverwinter Nights by leading a character through BG1 and BG2 and importing it into NWN when I pick it up. So now I'm playing through BG1 with TeamBG's terrific Dark Side of the Sword Coast , and I already have BG2 prepped with The Darkest Day replacing Throne of Bhaal (sorry ending, which David Gaider and some of the other guys at Bioware have redone out of dissatisfaction as the Ascension mod). That should get me through to NWN quite nicely (and get me a damn powerful character from the get-go). My only regret is that I'm going to lose the ability to mutate the pantaloons.

I have no idea why this series is being knocked. As a role-player of over twenty years' standing, I think that the BG series is an admirable effort to bring a tabletop feel to a CRPG, which is where the Ultima series falls slightly short. And to the guy who said that he finished BG in forty hours, how about doing some of the side quests? Right now, I've put in over forty hours and am still in Chapter Three, with only about half the maps done.

Bring on Neverwinter Nights.

Re:focus on quality of RPG's? - OT

[MattW]

I hope you're in the minority, because I'd much rather have BG2 than a bunch of smaller episodes. The game would just lack its epic feel without its enormity -- although it should be added you can complete BG2 in 40 hrs or less if you stick to the core path. In fact, if you picked the right NPCs, you might be able to finish it in a single sitting if you know exactly how to shave time off. (Buy Balduran's shield to decimate the beholder caves, etc, run the trademeet quest to get your gold for the shadow thieves, etc)

Anyhow, you're in luck -- NWN has an official campaign broken into 4 parts, and then the variety of user-created content is likely to be astonishing. Whether you want a 3-hr vignette or an 80-hr epic quest, you'll get it. It is probably the best idea to hit RPGs EVER, and I hope they continue to release new content/tile sets/etc to keep it fresh.

Not related except for the name and D&D

[arthurh3535]

That's pretty much it.

Betrayal at Krondor

[maxpublic]

Betcha this game still won't measure up anywhere close to Betrayal at Krondor, either for gameplay or story.

So far as I can see, the only advance in 11 years has been graphics. Everything else has been dumbed down to the stupidest, most violent player.

Max

Re:Morrowind

[Explo]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Morrowind [morrowind.com] yet... :)
If you want a non-linear rpg with "seemingly endless miniquests", you would want to check it out. :)

Or the Daggerfall (actually Morrowind is its offspring), which was released around 1995/1996. When I saw it a few weeks ago, I was pretty much stunned how game with relatively low requirements (486, 8 megabytes of memory etc.) could have about every feature that most modern games only dream of. The only thing that truly shows its age is less-than-spectacular visuals, although even those aren't too bad. It's also a bit buggy (no doubt to its unbelieveable size; it must've been a nightmare to hunt bugs in something of that size...), but even that doesn't make it bad.

Re:I have my doubts about the Linux release

[Explo]

So far every "commercial" game I've tried on Linux has required some obscure or non default
library and/or X windows extension module to be loaded before it'll even give you the time of
day.

Hmm? I've installed Jagged Alliance 2, Heroes of Might and Magic III and Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire to my machine and I didn't notice anything 'nonstandard' as needed.

Re:Medieval American accents...

[geekoid]

I can see it now, games released inperiod accents, and dialog. Talk about painfull. Wan't to play a game that takes plece in rome 1500 years ago? better learn latin. Otherwise it wouldn't be authentic, which is pretty much your "complaint",no?
How many games would someone sell if they had to understand Elizibethian dialog? about 6.