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How To install Neverwinter Nights on Linux

Joe Barr writes " As soon as I saw the news that BioWare released a beta of a Linux client for its popular and successful Neverwinter Nights title, I downloaded the beta (registration required) and went shopping for the prerequisite retail Windows version of the game. Before I proceed, let me offer this brief warning: Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so."

35 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Finally.... by shoptroll · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally... Not a post regarding the new RFC and IP stuff. Thank god 4/1 is over! (And this could be 1st post, i doubt it though)

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    1. Re:Finally.... by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Have to agree there... April 1st is a pain in the ass. I mean sure, post one story (the whitespace one was cool), but to post them all day, and ostensibly the same idea? Sad.

      Anyhoo, on topic, given how long the poor saps who bought NWN (because of it's promised Linux support down the line) have waited, for Bio to provide NO kind of installer or, by the looks of things, no information either... The word "afterthought" comes to mind.

  2. I'm scared by forgetmenot · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm scared to read the article. Is April fool's over yet?

    1. Re:I'm scared by t0ny · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Why BioWare can't provide an installer is evidently something they choose not to discuss beyond a vague mention of legal restrictions. The word on the street -- unconfirmed by any primary party -- is that the license between InstallShield and BioWare prevents BioWare from providing another installation tool. That may or may not be the case, but I note that InstallShield offers a multiplatform version of its installer and that it runs on Linux. Perhaps that is what BioWare will use when it offers the retail version of the game for Linux.

      Seriously, the guy writing the article has no idea how much stuff costs. The Linux InstallShield license would probably cost BioWare more money than they would make on the Linux port.

      Just be happy it runs at all.

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  3. Best April Fool's joke yet by XaXXon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Haha. Like the Never Winter Nights Linux client will ever come out.

    What's next? How to install Duke Nukem Forever on Linux?

    1. Re:Best April Fool's joke yet by CAIMLAS · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's April 1st at 8:40PM Central. Why have I not seen a, "Duke Nukem Forever Released" slashdot header?

      I wonder if somoene in the Taco Gang is deathly ill? I can think of no other explaination myself.

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      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    2. Re:Best April Fool's joke yet by FPCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      Won't, Jesus Saves... And takes Half Damage be more appropriate here?

  4. Really? by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks.

    You're kidding right? You're posting to slashdot claiming that some game is the mother of all timesinks? Hah!

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    1. Re:Really? by boola-boola · · Score: 5, Informative
      ...in related news, Gentoo now has an ebuild for NWN, though you will have to manually unmask it to install. :-)

      /* end shameless plug */

  5. Timesink is right by Winterblink · · Score: 5, Informative
    This is very true. Even if you're not a D&D type guy (and really, who on /. isn't), the game will eat away at all available free time you might have. Couple that with the near-infinite replayability of the thing and you've got something worth getting (even if you gotta buy the Windows CD for the data).

    A quick check of the NWN modules section on Bioware's site shows over 2000 player created ones. Carry on then. I don't anticipate I will be seeing you around here much from now on. :)

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
  6. Yeah... by phrogeeb · · Score: 2, Funny

    I believed "President Bush's War on Iraq is incredible hoax culminating on April 1st with a Soldier's Ball open to Americans and Iraqis in Baghdad hosted at the Jewish Community Center" before this one.

    --

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    "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" --George W. Bush, in Jan. 2000

  7. In the words of the Duke: Not Hardly! by CAIMLAS · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you think NWN is a huge timesink, then you've obviously never played the original Baldur's Gate. We're talking about a magnitude scale of at least 4 here.

    At the end of Baldur's Gate, after having thuroughly explored every nook and cranny of the world, I'd accumilated 212 game days of play. That's approximately 2 hours per game day: 424 hours. (If I recall the conversion properly.) That's 17 and 2/3rd days, straight. Now, consider your average person sleeps 8 hours a night, it equals roughly 26.5 days of gameplay, not taking into account things like bathing, eating, and work.

    And that statistic doesn't even begin to take into account the many hours spent saving, loading, and replaying sections of the game that are all but impossible to perform well. I'd say that, realistically, you can easily double or triple my figures.

    In contrast, it took me less than a week to beat NWN while going about school, sleeping, eating, and other various activities.

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    ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    1. Re:In the words of the Duke: Not Hardly! by moonbender · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nice calculation, but you're probably quite off: the number of game days includes the time your characters spend resting. IIRC, the minimum time your party sleeps is 8 hours, and more, if your healing capacity requires it. How much of your total time is spent resting I couldn't say, but chances are it's a significant amount. For me, it is.
      Of course, there's no doubt the original Baldur's Gate was an incredible time sink. I played it daily for two months, too. Same goes for BG2, I think. Took me one or two weeks to play through NWN with a friend. However, I have not yet touched on any of the expansion modules, although I intend to: many are considered to be better than the original campaign, which was already good but did not come close to BG's drama.

      (On a sidenote, neither of these games is the ultimate timesink. If I was to name one, I'd name EverQuest - or any other MMRPG for that matter. We're talking months of actual in-game time here - not me though.)

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    2. Re:In the words of the Duke: Not Hardly! by StarTux · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yet another person who missed what NWN is all about; The single player is not the main part of the game, unlike Baldur's gate (really great game too)...And I managed to also finish the Official Campaign within a week, but something I found:

      http://www.neverwinterconnections.com

      And then

      http://www.layonara.com

      There are some amazing modules and even semi persistant worlds available, even with different rules and game items/monsters.

      Yes the Official Campaign is kind of short, but still very good. Would be nice to end up on the side of evil for a change, something that was not part of it.

      The new expansion is supposed to add a lot more feats and spells to the game, along with a longer more involved Official Campain. Its called Shadows of Urentide.

      Oh I forgot the toolset, which partly thanks to Borland's floundering around won't be natively supported in Linux nor Mac...Buit openknights.sourceforge.net are trying to create their own tools to cover this omission.

      Overall, the wording still very very much stands as it is: Huge Time sink.

      StarTux

  8. Re:But on GENTOO, it would be...! by damiam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    On Gentoo, it's exactly the same as any other distro. Debian and Gentoo both have great package management systems, but for applications that can't be packaged, they're useless.

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    It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  9. I'm not a linux user but . . . by sixdotoh · · Score: 2, Troll

    isn't this kind of stupid to post instructions for how to install a game on /.? aren't we supposed to be nerds capable of such?

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  10. Where to play by Winterblink · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Having played NWN to death on the Wintel platform, just a helpful hint to some. Playing multiplayer on public servers which allow client-side characters to be imported, I find, is utterly boring and pointless. It's WAY more fun to go old school and get you and a group of your buddies with the software together on your own server and play. For best results, obviously you'll want to come up with your own maps and adventures, something the packaged toolset is absofuckinglutely fantastic at doing.

    The reason I speak out against these kinds of public servers is that, first and foremost, you'll be playing against the biggest most idiotic cheaters ever. That and nine times out of ten it's just the servers admin fucking around and killing everyone because he's made his character into a dragon. So play with your buddies, you'll have a more enjoyable experience and it's easier to track a cheater down and punch him in the face.

    Just my 2 gp.

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
    1. Re:Where to play by startled · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree with everything you said, except about coming up with your own adventures. The high-rated modules at planetneverwinter (or bioware links to them and, um, someone else-- nwnvault?) are great, and much better than what you're likely to make your first few times out.

      Aside from that, yeah. Private servers all the way-- the pubs are only for when your buddies aren't around.

  11. Re:Well.. by FPCat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hmmm... Linux, D&D, can it be any nerdier?

  12. Just run Windows! Do it now! by Infonaut · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You're right! Just roll over. Give in. Do what they tell you. Don't try for something better. Give your money to monopolists. Vote with your dollars! Tell the world that it's OK to just become one with the Borg!

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
    1. Re:Just run Windows! Do it now! by pseudochaotic · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you don't you may be a terrorist!

      Using Finnish software instead of quality American engineered software...

      --
      And the l33t shall inherit the 34r7h.
    2. Re:Just run Windows! Do it now! by cerberusti · · Score: 3, Funny

      You mean there are actually people who PAY for windows... wow. ( =

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      I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
  13. Very pleased with nwn by Vicegrip · · Score: 2, Informative

    Installed flawlessly and took me about 15-20 minutes to copy stuff around. I've already logged countless hours playing my dwarf and monk....

    I wonder how hard it would be to re-write their game editor in qt..

    Thanks Bioware! My rebooting time has been drastically reduced.

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  14. Now everybody gets the benefit of... by Jiles · · Score: 2, Funny

    Aribeth's 'jiggly bits'. Wheeeeeeeeeee!

  15. Not an April Fools Joke! by Colin+Walsh · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unfortunately this had to be posted today of all days...

    Anyways, the Linux Client really exists (you can even check the packets coming from Bioware, the 'evil bit' is set to 0! :) and the game is a blast. It's also good to see that news of the installer is getting out, as there are many people who don't know about it.

    -Colin

  16. Strait to the point by dark-br · · Score: 3, Informative

    As the article fails miserably to do that...

    Where to download the Linux NWN instaler:

    Here or here or here.

    MD5SUM for the files: b72d9ec2b9c43e7e3cd39bec22afbe7c

    You will need to download these extra file to play in your language:

    French
    German
    Italian
    Spanish

    Unzip into your nwn directory and move the files to their correct case. ie.

    mv dialog.TLK dialog.tlk
    mv dialogF.TLK dialogf.tlk

    Notes:

    This installs the 1.29 English version by default. See above to play in your language.
    The beta2 binaries are included.

    CDROM Mount Point

    If your cdrom mount point is not listed below, you will have to set an environment variable first.
    These are the mount points: /mnt /mnt/cdrecorder /mnt/cdrom /mnt/dvd /media/cdrecorder /media/cdrom /media/dvd

    If your mount point is not listed here, before you run the installer, from a shell, type export SETUP_CDROM=/path/to/cdrom/mountpoint.
    Replace /path/to/cdrom/mountpoint with where your cdrom gets mounted.

    Temp Directory

    This installer uses close to 1GB of space in /tmp during installation.
    If you have limited space in /tmp, change your temp directory to somewhere where you have more than 1GB free.
    eg. from a shell, type export TMPDIR=/home//

    If any of these apply to you, do them otherwise Neverwinter Nights will not install.
    If any of these do not apply to you, then you can just run the installer.

  17. Gentoo one step ahead by doktr+thunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    *just in case you were wondering, portage already has an ebuild for NWN server, for all those people getting their nwn running in lin

  18. Bah! Timesink? by carambola5 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Try minesweeper.

    "I almost got it last time. It was down to one or the other!"

    --
    IWARS.
    People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
  19. Gentoo can even wrap "impossible" programs by Jerf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .rpm, .deb, and .ebuild (gentoo) are AFAIK all script-based, or at least have scripting capabilities, so there's no such thing as an "application that can't be packaged". If the app couldn't be packaged, then you couldn't install it by hand, either. (Debian even supports asking the user for input as part of the install process.) .rpm and .deb, by convention more then anything else, are supposed to be binary-only packages. There's nothing technically stopping them from compiling source code (except perhaps that you aren't supposed to need a compiler on such systems).

    Ebuilds, on the other hand, embrace compiling source to the near exclusion of all else, so for those packages that can't be wrapped into a nice binary that will work for everyone, an ebuild can still be created. In fact it is common practice to make such wrappers, and ebuilds for other uncommon situations as well.

    For instance, Sun no longer allows automatic downloads of its Java distribution, so Gentoo has an ebuild that asks you to download the Sun-provided tarball and put it in a particular place, then proceeds to open the tarball and put it in the correct place, also allowing you to have full packaging system support for uninstalling it. This is harder to do with .rpm and .deb, if not essentially impossible.

    Ebuilds are a superset of binary packages, such that they can package anything you could install by hand, simply because they are a higher level. (This is where the sandbox support comes in real handy, since you don't have to specify what files were installed and what files to uninstall; the sandbox picks it up automatically and I expect all packaging systems to pick that up eventually.) Of course, there's a price to pay for that in compile time, since virtually by definition it's impossible to have this flexibility and still distribute binaries*, so it's not like it's a absolutely superior method in all cases. Tradeoffs just like anything else.

    *: People keep talking about having a "package repository" for Gentoo which would function as a giant multi-person cache of Gentoo compiled packages, which you could then grab instead of compiling. Nobody AFAIK has made any progress beyond suggesting it, because even with just the obvious configurations (the four or five main processor types, the three or four good optimization settings from conservative to ultra-aggresive, the three or four obvious USE settings from conservative to everything) mulitplied by 10 or 20 gigabytes for a pure install means that nobody can afford to host it, and people would still find it too limiting.

  20. You know, there are other reasons to run Linux... by jobeus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not just cuz everyone's an MS hater. Personally, I don't really mind MS, with the exception that it's a pain in the ass to get infected with Code Red, Nimda, etc etc.

    I run Linux on my laptop and Windows at home. Why? Because it's different, it's interesting, mainly. And because I have a higher control over my system and as a Computer Scientist, I can actually see some of the things we talk about in those stupid classes in action. As I watch the kernel compile, I see mutex functions and remember the operating system course I took 2 years ago. I see gcc compile and I remember that class I took on assembler.

    It's also kind of neat to have a fully customizable desktop, with weather conditions and wireless network link quality displayed in the 'panel'. Litestep with Windows used to be neat for this kind of thing, but for me, it never quite seemed as stable as explorer was.

    Also, what happens when you've used Windows for 10 years straight and you get a job at some company that uses some form of Linux? I'd think it'd be nice to be able to sit down and get to work without having to complain to IT you don't know how to use this non-Windows crap.

    So geez, get a grip. We're not all MS-avoiders. :)

  21. See I told TSR this would happen by geekoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let non humans be paladins, and they crumble at the first temptation. Stupid traitor Aribeth... ;)

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  22. Re:Bah! Timesink? by geekoid · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mine sweeper tourmants where big a a certian bank I used to work at.
    IT was pretty funny, every time a new record was set, I maged to beat it by 1 second. hehe, they eventually wised up to the .ini files. then I created my own minsweepr, it had only 2 buttons. I called it the "Cut to the chase" minesweeper.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  23. Re:Well.. by geekoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, play a Monty Python module.

    "The palandrome for Bolton is notlob"

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    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  24. remind me of Zelda by jeepee · · Score: 2, Funny

    did you see this screenshot of the game,

    they have stolen those hands and coming out of the wall from zelda 1 on the nes :-)

  25. Re:Timesinks by motorsabbath · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Multiplayer between the Windows, Linux and (vaporware) Mac versions should work fine. Several have already gotten it working in the fora. I was able to connect to a friend's win32 NWN server but didn't have time to hang out and beat on it.

    --
    The heat from below can burn your eyes out