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Neverwinter Nights Coming in June
dextr0us writes "The apocalypse has come. Neverwinter Nights beat Duke Nukem Forever to the release floor. According to Neverwinter Nights Official Site it seems that they are taking pre orders, and the official date for the pre orders is 6/25/02. As a fan of pen-n-paper, without the geekiness, Neverwinter Nights solves my dilemma!" Update: 03/25 12:38 GMT by Hemos :Just a small note: I'm still available for beta-testing. *grin* CT: Hemos is not available for beta-testing. He
has work to do first ;)
Since the release is expected to run on Windows, Mac and Linux, be sure to tick the Operating Systems selection when you register the game. Stand up and be counted!
From the FAQ (which seems to have vanished..):
Here's hoping...
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
Neverwinter Nights
Other products by Infogrames Entertainment
List Price: $54.99
Our Price: $49.99
You Save: $5.00 (9%)
Platform: Linux, Windows 98 / NT / 2000 / Me
This item will be released on June 26, 2002. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives.
That it'll also be released for the Mac and GNU/Linux platform.
The article left that important piece of information out.
The in game dungeonmaster feature has been done before, In Vampire: The masquerade's multiplayer mode. It was touted as an "endless" storyline in that game too, but what happened (from what I experienced) was that everyone wanted to be a player, and the few people that actually took the time to create a scenario either placed hugely devastating weapons and/or creatures in it; there was no "storytelling" aspect to it. The trick isn't to just say 'Look, real people can make their own scenarios!", it's to make the dungeonmaster part of the game equally as fun for a player as walking around hacking monsters and collecting their things.
"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance." -George Bernard Shaw
Check out the following links for a taste of some of the models, according to the bioware forums they'll be releasing more models for the viewer. As it stands, they have the Flesh Golem and Bugbear, which can be added to the viewers default models...nifty...
Biowares Model Viewer Page
I have been kind of wary of computer gaming to replace good ol' AD&D, IMHO they always fell short, although netHack does a decent job in the realm of adventure story lines and thought process (ie hacking and slashing everything is not the goal). NWN, although unlikely to displace me from an old tech AD&D game might be a cool complement. Now if we could host AD&D games for our (now) geographically dispersed group that would be cool. Of course it would be different than our old sessions, but it might be fun, and change (at times) can be good.
Maximum of 64 players.
And the "levels" are of a similar type found in most FPS, ie. limited in size, whith some kind of portal between each "level".
Carbon based humanoid in training.
I believe that the release date was achieved via the game stores, and trust me they don't know as much as they seems to suggest:
"BioWare's new publishing partner, Infogrames, has just announced in their press release that Neverwinter Nights will be launched worldwide in Summer, 2002. We apologize for the delay in getting back to you during the day today - we want to try to clarify this date announcement since so many people have been posting about it on the message boards.
Please understand that we are committed to releasing games when they are finished, polished and ready for the world. For a game as complex, epic and multifaceted as Neverwinter Nights, this is especially the case. The massive scope and flexibility intrinsic in the Toolset, the DM Client and the Official Campaign will be unprecedented in the gaming world and, as a result, we must carefully test every aspect of Neverwinter Nights. With a new publisher, there is a new plan for marketing, QA, localization and distribution.
To that end, BioWare and Infogrames now feel that Summer 2002 (which could mean as early as May or June) is a good conservative estimate of the distribution date - guaranteeing a game worthy of the quality inherent under the titles of Dungeons and Dragons, Infogrames and BioWare. We are still aiming for the same development completion targets that we were aiming for in the past, but Infogrames and BioWare both want to provide a safe target window for the game to be ready in terms of the things that are covered by the publisher working in conjunction with the development team - distribution, localization, marketing and testing.
Thanks - as always as we get more information we'll update you. Our fans are very important to us.
Ray Muzyka Greg Zeschuk
Joint CEO's BioWare Corp. "
Please clarify your sources as Bioware have always firmly stated that it will shoot for a release when ready, and to them Summer is the best guess.
MAtt
NWN is fun, even without the swimming and climbing. Really, I haven't found a game where those things really added any depth. Frankly, in all the games I've played, I've kind of wished that they'd REMOVE the climbing, instead of having the poor imitation that they have (climbing ladders in Deus Ex was a pain. It was way too easy to fall off, and it was too hard to get off at the top. Gimme an elevator any day.)
I'm not on the Neverwinter team, so I can't say anything about how hard they've worked on the game, except from an outside-in view. These guys have seriously busted tail to make sure that the game is cool and fun and exciting. Trust me. When you get it, it'll be cool and fun and exciting. Building levels and dropping monsters in and watching them fight (they do it on their own! It's so cool!) is so damn much fun, I did it for a couple hours, just to see how the fights would go.
So, despite my clearly biased opinion, I think that they DID do it right. I'm constantly impressed by the NWN team. In fact, I'm so impressed, and so behind this, I'm willing to sign my name to it.
Jan Sacharuk
Programmer
BioWare Corp.
I guess most of you don't read the NWN boards. As of 10am PST, 3/25/02, THERE IS NO OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE.
& 99 229
Retailers are taking preorders, and they have to post a release date or some people won't order, so they made one up. They have been doing this for quite awhile, and many people have fallen into their trap.
A quick look at the official NWN forums will reveal the truth. Check there periodically if you want to know when an official announcement is made. The very first posting is always the Release Date Clarification:
http://forums.bioware.com/viewforum.php?forum=7
Here's a quote:
"BioWare and Infogrames now feel that Summer 2002 (which could mean as early as May or June) is a good conservative estimate of the distribution date."