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New Preview of Neverwinter Nights
H3resy wrote to us with a new
preview of Neverwinter Nights. The game continues to look great - and combined with its release date being right around Warcraft III, I suspect sleep will not be an option.
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how long have we been waiting? ...at least Dungeon Siege will tide me over until then... what diablo 2 should have been...
--Charlton Heston is my president
You can sign up for the beta test at betatests.net as well.
Wow, it actually looks like this game will have a user-friendly editor. I'd love to see some screenshots of the toolkit interfaces...have any been released?
mailto:<?=implode("@", array("chris", implode(".", array("php", "net"))))?>
we need more games for alternate platforms like macosx, linux, *bsd, etc.
According to the NWN faq, the box will contain media for Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
-l
I have been a Mud fiend for years now and have always wanted to have a "GUI" one. When EQ came out I was disapointed. I have always thought games will be games and the Mud will be the end all to my role playing.
I hope that all changes with this game. I have such high hopes and I know a ton of fellow Mud people who think the same. Everything looks great and the scripting and DM capabilities...WOW.
I will never sleep again.
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
yes indeed, but Neverwinter is going to run on linux out of the box! that's so awesome, no pesky binaries, no unsupported installs, no downloading other installers, right out of the box i'm not sure if there are two different versions, or one kick ass version, but either way, it's a huge step in the right direction....we don't need another loki to rise our hopes and then go bankrupt, we need a black isle (partially because they make the best games ever, period!) with the forsight to include linux versions, NOT linux ports.....
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Arg! I just registered there yesterday. Dammit, there goes my chance of being a beta tester.
:P
Thanks a lot!
You do know it's coming out for Mac and Linux as well (in the same box, no less), don't you?
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
You know what annoys me, is that when IE pops up the window saying "Do you want to install and run Flash 6.0?", there's no checkbox saying "Never ask me this again." Or, better yet, saying "NO, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, I HATE FLASH, AND IF I COULD TRAVEL BACK IN TIME AND SLIP AN ABORTIFACIENT INTO EACH OF MACROMEDIA'S ENGINEERS' MOTHERS' DRINKS, I WOULD."
(And I'd like that button for Comet Cursor even more...)
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
I didn't see mention of this in the article; just wanted to mention that a Linux version of this game will be released at the same time the Windows version does! It's nice to see gaming companies are taking Linux seriously as a gaming platform.
- Turn based - this means that you can screw any human player of the game by just taking "enough time" for a turn.
- Real time - this reduces to strategic AD&D concept to Diablo style brainless monster wacking.
So I wonder why they are so keen on providing multiplayer abilities for NeverWinterNights.And why does one play an rpg anyway ?
For the story of course ! Has anyone here played Baldurs Gate, Pools of Radiance (the old, non sucking one), Ultima or Wizardry for monster wacking ?
And don't object with "Diablo". If Diablo is an rpg then Quake is a flight simulator.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Does anyone know what the minimum and recommended specs will be for this game?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Here we have another article hyping the release of the latest RTS (Warcraft III) and latest RPG (Neverwinter Nights).
Now, I'll grant that both will probably be fabulous games, and a lot of fun, but is anyone else getting a little tired of RTS and RPG?
What I'd like to see is someone designing a new game, instead of new graphics, stories, and rules for games I've played since I was 15.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Um, first it's Bioware that makes it, not Black Isle (they have nothing to do with this game). Second, be aware that the editor will not run under Linux or Mac. Hopefully, Wine will be able to run it at some point, but as the 'creature browser' available for downoad does not, it seems it won't yet.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
The NWN site states that the game will run on windows, Mac, and linux out of the box.
Read it here.
Now that I think of it, it is probably 3d graphics, and won't run on my Pentium (laptop) or my old Mac either (it is mad old...back when Macs were Macs and came w/SCSI...hells yeah) so I will have to play it on my Athlon.
But I don't really like games anyway. Who cares.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Sort of funny considering that they are a major site. As a side note, I'll definitely be getting NWN.
The FAQ states that they are well aware of the low-ping click-fest that many real-time multiplayer games have turned into. It also states how they're using a "multilayered" approach to combat, where you default to using a basic attack unless you stack up additional moves in your combat queue.
Sounds a lot like how Star Wars: Galaxies is doing theirs. I'm interested to see how it works out.
They tried that. It was called Black and White. Booring.
How long until somebody releases the "The Ogre and the pie" adventure?
IMarvinTPA
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
It's also coming out for BeOS I think, I think what he meant was that we need more games like NWN which support multiple platforms.
Really nice if it'll contain support for all the different OSes, as I have several PCs and Macs in my house running different OSes. I think Blizzard is the only other company I can think of that makes games with both PC/Mac versions in one box. They of course release the PC version, and when the Mac version comes out they release a PC/Mac version.
rofl
you hate flash and have a big honkin swf on your user info website
Oh I agree that it will not be a MMO but I have never enjoyed Muds with more than 75 people.
I also played EQ and was disapointed. I have coded, read source and not world, on both Emlen and Diku style Muds and still think that if the scripting is good enough this will be better than EQ and much closer to a mud in my mind.
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
That sent a hearty chuckle through me.
I will have to get a new hard drive for games only. With Q3, UT, Descent series, Civ3, Empire Earth and the impending release of NWN and WC3, my 15GB drive is hating life.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
>It's also coming out for BeOS I think
No, the link I posted clearly says the BeOS version will not be finished.
-l
Quoth the FAQ, "the BeOS version of Neverwinter Nights will not be completed."
Bummer.
the box will contain media for Windows, Linux, and MacOS
And it's for this reason exactly that I'll be picking up THIS game before a lot of others. Linux support IN THE BOX. Major kudos to bioware for this!
This makes me wonder... did they use SDL by any chance? (Not being a programmer, I realize that might be a horribly silly question, but I thought it was worth asking)
The Free desktop that Just Works
because you can create your own adventures, and play them over the net with other people.....it does have single player, but that isn't what people are looking forward to. its the toolkit creation that people are looking forward to.
Instead of gathering around a tabletop and throwing dice, you can do it all within NWN, and have cool graphics at the same time.
Check out all the awards Neverwinter Nights has already won. A pretty high count considering the game hasn't been released yet, huh?
Its basicly just a jumped up baldur's gate.
Is this game supposed to look like Gauntlet Legends?
"Green Amazon needs more food!"
Tim
Um, first it's Bioware that makes it, not Black Isle (they have nothing to do with this game).
Seeing as the poster acknowledged a Linux version in the box I'm pretty certain the reference to Black Isle was that it would be nice if some other companies (like Black Isle) would take a cue from Bioware.
I'm not a gamer but I can read in context....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Here is a link to a movie (avi file) preview that was just released today. It is the best one I've seen, although the resolution isn't the best. Lots of gameplay and action.
I'm sure everyone else is wondering this, but will we be able to knit Turtlenecks of Back Hair Hiding +3? Also, will I be able to crawl into the 1024x768 world permanently? I just hate my life and want to die. That's why I play these games.
Well, time to go masturbate to tenticle hentai pornos and write Voltron fanfics while I pet my cat and cry... SAYONARA!
It is great that it's coming out for Mac and Linux at the same time as Windows. However, be aware that the toolset (which is what really sets NWN apart from, well, everything) is Windows-only.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Morrowind, which just went gold, has a chance of being a much better game than NWN. It is a true free-form RPG. 100's of hours of play time. Character options out the wazoo. I can't wait.
Has anyone heard of the plot for this game?
It seems interesting that I don't see any cinematics or discussion of unique plot elements...everyone seems to be saying "Oooh, look at the in-game graphics".
I know they can't really give away the entire plot to the game, but it would seem that we would already be getting some idea as to the basic premise of the plot from the producers...
That's a shame... oh, well. It's certainly a step in the right direction. Perhaps the toolset will come out for Linux at some point as well.
The Free desktop that Just Works
No kidding I've been playing NWN in the bat cave since it came out on my Nintendo 64!
I've got the SEGA Genesis version too!
These guys are so slow.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Might as well mention Morrowind, which went gold last week and is expected in stores late next week. According to the many previews out there, Morrowind looks to be more open-ended and immersive than any other RPG to date. It's only single player, but given the joys of many multiplayer RPGs, that's probably a good thing. In addition to the official site and forums, there's a good RPGPlanet site that collects most relevant information. Look for the water screenshots; they use pixel shading to get some truly impressive effects.
My understanding of the situation is that they made the toolkit using Borland C++ Builder. So they need builder for Linux. I thought I remember Borland anouncing this but no idea what came of it.
Q.
You obviously aren't a gamer and therefore in this case CANNOT read in context. Go back and read the parent again with the knowledge that in baldur's gate both Black Isle and Bioware had their logos on the opening splash screens.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Oh, and yay for supporting Linux too </appeals to the Linux friendly crowd>
Comet Cursor is even worse. I hate flash sites, but, I have it installed. At least it doesn't mess with things, and if you want to uninstall it, you can. The one time I accidently installed Comet Cursor, I couldn't find a way to uninstall the sucker. Yeah, I was able to "uninstall" it by deleting the files, but, for some reason it kept coming back. I want to find those people and break their fingers. Or, uh, do that time travel thingy with the mothers and the drinks.
Extra points for knowing the word "ABORTIFACIENT." More points yet for spelling it correctly.
- Have a picture
They really are..
Aside from developing great games, every summer they take the time out to send reps to the big lan party in Edmonton (where bioware is based) Fragapalooza(.com). And they don't just send PR people, they send the real developers.
I first saw NwN summer of 99 when they brought a demo of the early stages of the game to the event, and since then they've brought reps to the LAN every year. Really interesting to see how the game is progressing over the years.
The game will be nothing short of revolutionary once it's released, the control is awesome, the inventory and fight systems are perfect, and the graphics and environments are STUNNING.
As a side note, I had the chance to take a personal guided tour of the Bioware studios, fantastic company, really forward thinking, great staff, etc.
Bioware is going to make huge waves in the community and should expect strong sales of NeverWinter Nights. Due in part to it being: 1) a fantastic game, and 2) supported on multiple platforms.
Props to a small Canadian company with a very big heart.
-adam
What?? You don't have that checkbox?? I thought everyone had that. Bummer.
I would not be surprised if the turns are exactly six seconds long. That would be quite satisfying to me.
For those not aware, D&D3E rules have 10 rounds in a minute, and normally you can take one action per round (more as you gain higher levels and get multiple attacks and similar things). Six seconds would mean that the animation would be a reasonable approximation of what you are supposed to believe happens in those six seconds that actually take about 3 or 4 minutes to arbitrate in pen and paper gaming.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
wow, we could have a never ending stupidity loop here, dumbass... I guess whoever is stupidest will post last... go for it
I never played Baldur's Gate, which this Neverwinter Nights seems to be related to (being written by the same company and of the same game genre), but I did play Icewind Dale, which got rave reviews as a great RPG.
... but then when you go to actually assign skill points, and strength points, intelligence, etc, you can just move any number of points from any column to any other. So you can create a dwarf that has the exact same characteristics as an elf. What is the point of having character races if you can just arbitrarily change stats any way you like? It really takes the fun out of designing a character. There is no challenge, and in fact the race becomes nothing more than a name.
Only, I thought Icewind Dale sucked. Badly. So badly that I never got beyond the first mountain pass. Here is why I thought that Icewind Dale sucked:
1. The graphics were not that great. The characters you get to select from look like they were all scanned from an airbrush that was copied out of the back of some dungeons and dragons magazine. The characters, monsters, architecture, etc, drawn in isometric view were very good either.
2. When generating a character, you get to choose from lots of neat races, like elf, half-elf, human, dwarf, etc
3. The gameplay sucked. Lots of clicking around, trying to select the correct group of people and make them do the correct thing. They're always doing something stupid - running back and forth trying to stand on the spot that you clicked on rather than fighting back against the orc that is pummeling them, or getting all clogged up at an entranceway, or stopping altogether because someone else who was trying to go the same way they were was in the way for a moment. It was just frustrating and annoying trying to control all of my party members and trying to make them do something reasonable all of the time.
4. Fighting monsters is way too hard and gives way, way too few experience points. I played forever waiting for any member of my party to get enough experience to gain a level. I needed like 2,000 experience points to get to level 2, and was getting like 10 for each monster I killed. And finding creatures to fight, and then finishing them off, took forever. So after hours and hours none of my characters had even advanced a level. How lame.
5. Stupid quests. All of the tasks that I was asked to complete by the townspeople in the first town were just uninteresting and dumb. They were all of the form "go get this thing and take it to that person." Lame. And then the amount of experience I would get for doing that was low anyway. Although, at one point I was walking around in a basement and I opened a door to find a boy who was afraid to go back to town or something. I didn't have to do anything at all, I just randomly happened to open that door, and the kid went back to town and I got like 500 experience points for each character. WTF?!?? Opening a door at random gives me the same experience as killing 50 orcs? It's no fun to try to build up your characters when fighting hard against monsters gives you almost no experience, but randomly happening upon lost children gives you tons.
6. Bugs. The game would slow to a crawl and then crash every so often.
Eventually I gave up and realized that the game was a total waste of my time. It had to be one of the worst games I had ever played. And yet I read all over the place about how it was such a great game.
Needless to say, I am extremely skeptical of the entire RPG genre, especially anything from BioWare.
If it weren't for Fallout 1 & 2, which were two of the best games I have ever played, I would probably write off the RPG genre altogether.
It wasn't mentioned in the article but I am curious as to how MP options will work? One of the downfalls of DS is that characters are stored clientside and games are hosted by individuals. This leads to massive cheating and laggy games for my 56k using friends. Does anyone know if NWN is going to be any different? I sure hope so.
Also, incase anyone doesn't know, Gamespot is running their own review/preview of NWN here.
and they're already popping up.. prepare for *gasp*
[Team Fortress Neverwinter Nights]
I have to disagree. What was UO? A graphical MUD. Granted, it didn't have the same feel as DikuMUD. But then, I don't believe the definition of a MUD is limited to previous MUD implementations.
Having said that... true, NWN night servers will be limited in the number of players they can handle. But they can be linked. Imagine a network of servers ran by admins who keep tabs with each other to ensure continuity, but manage their own environments. Imagine 12 provinces of a sprawling city. Or perhapse several wilderness servers that link to various servers that are dedicated to a single city each. I'm sure there are plenty of other scenarios to be done.
Given enough inginuity (and assuming the tools provided are stable enough), end users will generate MUD/MMORPG environments.
The game continues to look great - and combined with its release date being right around Warcraft III, I suspect sleep will not be an option.
I hope this doesn't mean Hemos intends to buy a game from Blizzard, and means he plans on doing like Largo and getting a copy from someone on IRC. Because he couldn't actually read Slashdot and send money to that company.
Right?
For the graphics they are using OpenGL, which is already multiplatform. They may be using SDL for the non-graphics aspects (Input, Sound, Etc), but I've not seen any verification of that fact.. They may just be using custom code for each platform (As the quake games do).
Good God, has there ever been a single company that has executed so many cool game ideas so badly? After the Daggerfall Debacle, it should have learned a Great Deal about making games but didn't. Their last chance with me was Battlespire. The patch history for their products tells the story. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
It's not. BG (like any other instance of entertainment) isn't for everyone, but was good fun for many. A 'jumped up version' will be well received.
Get Proxomitron. It rewrites the HTML of incoming web pages before it reaches your browser to delete tags dealing with pop-up windows, banner ads, and anything else annoying. Set it up and write a simple custom filter to eliminate any embed tags with a file that has an extension identifying it as flash animation. I just went ahead and eliminated all embed tags since they're only used for evil.
Thanks!! I'm downloading it now.
I'd mod this up if the very fact that it was a response to my post didn't make that impossible.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
I'll be waiting a couple of months for everyone to figure out how buggy it is before I decide whether to give it a try or not. Given their track record, this is not a game to rush out and buy. Let the fanboys be the guinea pigs and wait for reviews and news on bugs and patches.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That's been their plan all along. Nice to see they haven't abandoned it.
It'll also be nice to have a game I don't have to boot windows for.
I really don't want to hear how good Dungeon Siege is, because I'm not going to be able to play it ;)
i'll tell you anyway
we checked it out at a lanparty (no big event, just a cosy weekend in the basement) and some of us didn't get any sleep that night. it really was fun (maybe we should have accounted that to beer comsumption).
we didn't finish it in the ~two days we played it, so we tried to continue the following week via dsl-dialups. you cannot begin to imagine the annoying directplay issues we faced then. clients disconnecting as another was joining the game. random disconnects of a certain player. inability of others to join at all. sub10 fps in combat (well, had that during lanplay too...). i've since read postings from msces who could not resolve the connection issues either.
only my stubbornness made me finish the game with a dorm friend, i couldn't bear the issues anymore. too bad there isn't a proper ending to the poorly narrated singleplayer campaign when played in multiplayer mode. rm -rf dungeon_siege
Sadly, that's not true. There were gameplay-destroying bugs in both BG2 and ToB. Fortunately, most were fixed fairly early. Unfortunately, I still can't start a new multiplayer game of BG2 (to get multiple PCs in a single-player game) today, because of something that's changed on my system since I first played it. No idea what, have tried reinstalling just about everything, but no joy.
I love BG2 and ToB, played them both several times already, and would love to play them again. But let's not pretend there weren't (or aren't still) very serious bugs.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
For all you people planning on purchasing NWN (for Linux or otherwise), give some thought to supporting vendors like Tuxgames (http://www.tuxgames.com/) and other Linux Vendors. I've already pre-ordered mine from them
As a user of both the 'other' platforms that the game is going to be released for, I keep feeling shafted that the tools are not coming out for either and that they don't look to be promised, from the bits I've read.
What really steams me is that when they came out with this announcement (builder toolkit was Win only), they kept saying things like "[sic]... but we're really making a game here. The editor is just a bonus." Then a week later, they went back to their typical PR/press quotes, every one mentioning how unique this game will be *because* of the ability to create adventures.
All I have to say is, if you buy this game, let's put some serious pressure on them to get the whole job done for all three platforms. I'm so tired of false advertising and super hype from these game companies on *any* platform.
mh
...we don't need another loki to rise our hopes and then go bankrupt, we need a black isle (partially because they make the best games ever, period!) with the forsight to include linux versions, NOT linux ports.....
OK. There's the text. Because the poster mentions Loki does that mean they think Loki brought the came in question to Linux? Probably not, since Loki is down the tubes. As I read it, the poster expresses the wish that a company like Black Isle would step into the gap and start dishing out Linux games (not waiting for a third-party to contract to port their game). The reason the poster mentions Black Isle is in the text - because they think Black Isle makes the best games. While it's possible the writer is confused as to who makes what game it doesn't come through in the text. Perhaps it is the knowledge that the two logos appear together that allows you to read into the text something that isn't there.
You obviously aren't a gamer and therefore in this case CANNOT read in context.
I am not an MD (I don't even play one on TV!) but I can read articles in medical journals in context. I am not a stock analyst but I can still glean information from the financial pages.
I stand by my earlier post.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I remember seeing an ad floating around about a MMORPG Creator kit a little while back. Anyone tried that or know what Im talking about, or have I ingested to much Peruvian Beaver Cheese?
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi