Neverwinter Nights is Gold

Urthpaw writes "Neverwinter Nights, the D&D based RPG from BioWare (Makers of Baldur's Gate among other titles), for Windows, MacOS and Linux has Gone gold. The game allows players to make their own "modules", or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends. Server-linking features allow the assembly of distributed MMORPGs."

Comments

64 friends!

[Jonny Ringo]

That's a lot of friends for this type of crowd!
Its good to see that they are marketing this rpg to populuar kids as well.

Re:EBWorld

[TBone]

"Going Gold" means the Master CD's (which are, or at least used to be, gold in color) have been shipped to the publisher, who will begin to mass-produce them, along with the manuals, and stuff everything in boxes.

It has nothing to do with any particular retail outlet, other than the outlets can probably expect shipments to start arriving in 7-10 business days.

Who owns what?

[WankersRevenge]

The game allows players to make their "own" modules, or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends.

Who owns what module? Bioware? Or the consumers? Inquiring minds want to know!

Re:Who owns what?

[eddy]

This is what the beta toolset said:

Section 4(b):

"By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

I'm just the messenger.

Linux version delayed

[Nilatir]

From the press release:

"The PC version of Neverwinter Nights will ship to retailers before the end of June. Linux gamers can anticipate the online release of the Neverwinter Nights server at launch and the client program shortly afterward. Linux gamers will still need the Windows version of the game to register at the Neverwinter Nights community site (http://neverwinternights.com) and to import essential game resources into their Linux server and game."

It's a little weird

[Lord_Pall]

They went gold right as their public beta testers started to receive their cd's..

I'm wondering if they're planning on patching day of release to fix multiplayer problems..

Speaking as a long time gamer...

[sterno]

I got into role playing in middle school, and let me tell you:

YOUR MOM WAS RIGHT!

It was such a nautral progression to go from fighting dragons with my ranger to sacrificing virgins to the great dark lord. I don't play as much anymore, but every so often when I get bored with smoking crack and drinking the blood of the unworthy, I'll get some people together for a game. It's a great game and I highly recommend giving it a try sometime.

yeah, you miss out on

[Twister002]

- The endless character recaps by everyone there before, during, and after the game e.g. "Baldac has a 16 charisma and an 18 wisdom with a +2 mace of boring"

- The stench of geek BO, combined with smelly feet in the summer...ahhh...nothing like a rank basement to really bring out the geek aroma.

- The challenge of trying to :

a) figure out WHAT kind of food to get
b) trying to find someone there who has money to PAY for the pizza (usually goes to the guy making $9/hour (e.g. "the rich guy") instead of minimum wage part time like everyone else.

- Trying to herd everyone into the room so that the game can start/continue

oh yes, I'll miss that. ;)

Re:I don't get it.

[Wraithlyn]

You answer your own question, albeit dismissively.

• Play across distances. Yes! This is a great advantage.
  
• Computerized dice roller. It's more than that. It completely handles the torrential rain of rules and tables that comprise D&D. Probably the biggest obstacle to people getting into P&P gaming is all the math they have to do. (Simple math, yes. But lots of simple math can still be tedious)
  
• Pretty graphics. This is like asking why anyone would want to see a movie.. for the 'pretty pictures'?? Give me a break. Visualization adds a new dimension.
  

So yeah, I think there's some pretty sizable reasons right there.

Couldn't they have waited???

[allism]

We have to move in three weeks, and I know my husband is gonna be just WORTHLESS he actually gets a copy of this...I wonder how much it would cost to get them to delay the in-store availability to July 7--whatever the cost, it would be worth it so that I wouldn't have to pack and move our apartment alone...

Thanks, BioWare, for making my life miserable...

Re:I don't get it.

[nick_davison]

Why would anyone want DM'd games online? You loose pretty much every benefit of P&P rpgs; loose pretty much every benefit of single player rpgs; for what? the ability to play across distances, a computerized dice roller, and some pretty graphics?

That's pretty much the point of NWN - they've attempted to give back most of the features that you traditionally lose by moving to a computer.

For example: The freeform interaction that a real world DM gives is brought back by allowing the DMs to take over characters, manually trigger events, adjust the difficulty via a slider to ensure everything's always perfectly balanced for interesting play.

Where the computer gains the advantage is that it allows a lot of things to become automated. Think about those D&D games you played as a kid. Half the time the game degenerated while the DM focused on a single player, looked up a rule, etc. On top of that, they'd be dropping rules all over the place because they couldn't remember them or they took too long to figure out. Now all of that stuff's handled automatically.

So, the end result is you get a game that [ideally] handles everything you don't want to handle or don't have time to handle, giving that postive aspect of computerised gaming and yet allows the DM to step in wherever's needed, keeping the benefits of traditional gaming. Of course, that's assuming everything's ideal, but they're looking like they're pretty close.

Managing your addiction

[sam_handelman]

Gaming can take over your life, or it can be an enriching escape from worthwhile, but stressful activities. My Summer is gonna be extra stressful:

10 hrs/day Work (I'm a researcher / grad student)

ouch! Once I've prioritized that, I can use my time management skills to arrange it so that playing this Summer's hot new games doesn't become a substitute for crack.

4 hrs/day Heroes IV: Tournament of Honor
4 hrs/day Neverwinter Nights
4 hrs/day Master of Orion III
2 hrs/day Smoking Crack

all 24 hours a day are filled with stimulating activities, without displacing my drug habit. Also, by deleting wasteful food from my schedule, I'll be able to lose that weight without becoming physically active.

Re:Linux version not in-box?

[startled]

Don't worry. Given the standard computer game release cycle, you'll likely get the Linux version around the time the game finally becomes playable.

Why it appeals to me.

[Jethro]

Why would anyone want DM'd games online?

I'd much rather DM a real-life game. But since me and another guy from the The Party moved to the other side of the world, another guy got married and has kids now, one's not been heard from for about a year and one has an erratic schedule, I find the idea of setting up an online RPG module and having them all be able to play whenever they have a few minutes quite interesting. Kind of like PBM only with graphics.

Not that I think this will come to pass, nor that this is EXACTLY what the system is meant for, but it still sounds like fun.

P.S. Yes, I have tried starting something local with real people, couldn't get it to fly though.

Re:That won't work...

[Alsee]

Solution: Buy the game for him as a present :)

Either (A) Ask some little favor from him related to moving - "I just know those nasty movers are going to kill all my plants" or "break my fine glassware" or "scratch my antique whatchamacallit" - and tell him you'd appreciate him taking care of it so much you'll buy the game for him as "reward". Specifically, you'll run out to buy it while he's unpacking his computer in the basement so that he can play it "right away". Just don't forget the deal when he unpacks the plants/glassware/antique first and his computer second while everthing else sits in boxes :)

or (B) Buy it and "conviently" arrange for to to wind up at your new house.

or (C) Buy it mail order, shipped to your new address.

I'd really suggest (A), and give him a big smile and peck on the cheek when he agrees to help with your "problem".

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