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

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?

[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: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

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: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: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."