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Neverwinter Nights Tidbits
WWWWolf writes "The fine folks at Bioware have opened a new For Developers section, aimed for people who make external tools for the game. At the moment they have a forum and description of one of the crucial file formats, used for packaging data in the game, with more coming." This looks pretty cool. It's been several months since I loaded up the Aurora Toolset. I might have to get back into it again. In related news, Apostata writes "It seems there's even more steam under the lid of the NWN Linux community now: the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink. Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game." Apostata also notes that the Aurora toolset also won't be ported.
From what I can piece together, "licensing/porting problems" means
(a) There is no Bink codec for Linux, and
(b) Bink's license w/ NWN forbids BioWare from converting the cinematics to any other format.
While this sucks, it should be said in BioWare's defense that a Linux port was not originally planned. Bink was a fine choice at the time--it's not BioWare's fault that they're pioneers in the Linux retail gaming market. Instead, fault Bink for not having their shit together.
the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink
:), that rules out a lot of proprietary, vendor-locked solutions.
So much for adopting proprietary movie format while they had choices. 'Vendor-locked' is a curse for many existing legacy system nowaday and whenever we design a system we put openness in high priority(next to budget
Just as I speak we ruled out acrobat for our electronic form submission project and seek some pure Java solutions.
Let's hope that when Bioware makes Neverwinter Nights 2, they take these issues into consideration.
For once I'm glad I didn't grab the game as soon as it came out.
Keep cool.
If we blow our collective tops about this, what do you think that will accomplish?
I seriously doubt it'll encourage them to develop for Linux when they are planning the next game.
I hope they have learned a lot from this and will realise that the proper way to go about multi-platform support is to do so from the beginning.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
I understood the lack of the toolset. I understood the beta being so late. However, I am extremely hacked off at the fact that the client is still incomplete. Movie playback is missing because of their choice to use Bink instead of a non-proprietary format, and they don't have the guts to port Bink themselves or pay someone like icculus to do it.
I really want to know how Bioware could possibly claim they were going to provide a native Linux port, when it's very obvious they were using non-portable libraries like Miles and Bink. How did they expect things to work at all? Were they just hyping things hoping that community good will would help sell their game better because they were going to have a Linux port? Bah.
The point is, I demand a full client. They said it was going to be there, and it's very close, but it's not quite there. They have done so well, and it's absolutely shameful that they've decided to do this.
As it is, they might as well call the Linux port the "Neverwinter Nights Multiplayer Special Edition", since it doesn't include a toolset, and without movie playback the Single Player experience has been greatly diminished.
"While this sucks, it should be said in BioWare's defense that a Linux port was not originally planned. Bink was a fine choice at the time--it's not BioWare's fault that they're pioneers in the Linux retail gaming market. Instead, fault Bink for not having their shit together."
t ic leID=2195
This is completely untrue. They had mentioned and "planned" a Linux port, years before the client came out. Look here:
http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?Ar
They mentioned it as early as 2001!!!
The Linux client at Bioware's webpage requires you to first install the files with the windows installer and replace some files, not sure which ones.
If you don't bother all this you can download a graphical GTK+ installer from here, make sure you have support for Joilet.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Well, I guess that has kind of fallen through... Guess I'll be trying out some RPG's on my PS2 instead.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game"
Sure, there's a places for cut-scenes, storylines and cinematics. But, believe it or not, some of us don't care about the story line; we'd rent a DVD if we wanted that.
Some of us have always enjoyed exploring interesting dungeons, killing cool monsters, collecting useful treasures, going on challenging quests and upgrading our characters without pondering the deeper meaning of *why* our character does this.
I mean, does anyone really read the storybooks that come with the game? I'd be surprised if 10% of gamers even bothered.
Plus, it's interesting for D&D fans to see the 3rd Edition rules engine applied to a video game format.
Considering how popular Nethack is, I don't think a game-only version of NWN for Linux would have any problems with popularity.
Please quit your bitching for one minute -- NWN is a top-flight game and now Linux users can enjoy it.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
They claimed they were building Mac and Linux versions simultaneously with Windows. They reported that all three versions were "coming along nicely".
When the Windows version was released and they had to go hire someone else to start the Mac port, it became clear that they were lying. Furthermore, I bet they're going to demand that Mac and Linux users pay full price even though we won't get any of the DM tools.
Well, screw that. The main reason I was interested in NWN in the first place was the ability to run campaigns. If all they're offering is another RPG, I'll go play one by a company that doesn't lie to me and try to rip me off.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/29/134020 3
So as you can see you are very wrong.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Do you know how many times I've actually even SEEN an in-game movie in the almost YEAR I've been playing NWN on the PC?
Once, MAYBE twice.
NO ONE USES the ability to put them in a game. With the exception of Bioware and their 2 minute intro you won't miss much. This rage over the lack of a movie player is stupid and juvenile. If you're looking for something to be pissed-off about (wait, of course you are, this is about a Linux port) then be mad because the promised port is almost a year late. I agree that they not only dropped but buried the ball on that one.
After reading some of the complaints and general bitcheness that comes out of the Linux community (and I belong to both the Linux and PC communities) I can totally understand why NO developer would even bother porting something over to Linux in the future.
Talk about petulant children. Shit happens, deal with it or go cry to your mommy.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
I just can't figure out why they're locked in. Surely OpenDivx doesn't have licensing fees and is patent unencumbered? They have the masters of the movies, unless they purchased a license with the artists only to use the movies in a particular format...which seems fairly unlikely.
It seems like they could just compress the things into Divx format and ship 'em. I think most folks could live without extensive Q&A, especially when the alternative is no movies. Just add an option to disable cinematics to the game, and you're gold.
Or MPEG2, even if it's lower quality, and use smpeg, which Loki used for its movies.
I mean, I do think that Bioware is going to catch *some* undeserved flak for this, but OTOH, the decision to use Bink or nothing for the Linux client seems just plain *dumb*. There aren't any phenomonal features that Bink provides that another format can't provide, and using something like SMPEG can't possibly be more than a week of development time for a single developer.
May we never see th
If you've read the bioware site and message boards, they never promised that they'd port Aurora. In fact, I remember them saying a LONG time ago that they would not port Aurora, as it would require them to strip many of the useful features out of both versions of Aurora, and rewrite the toolkit from scratch. NWN for the mac will also not include the toolset.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Who cares!?! This is a fantastic game regardless and the fact that they are trying is a hell of a lot more than what you can say about many other companies.
I've used beta 5 and it works well, however I still spend more time in my windows partition playing this game. It is well worth the reboot and disk space to play this game.
Don't get to caught up in what PR blunders Bioware may make. They build great software, try new things and should be rewarded for their efforts.
Even though this has turned into the "Screw Bioware because they didn't give us the Linux support we wanted" thread, you can't deny that what they are doing to support the NWN community is commendable. They could very easily have turned their back on the community and said, "We gave you all the tools you need, go use them." Instead they continue to add more tools as well as, in this case, get into the nitty-gritty details of how part of the game works.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. -Plato
I've played the game and I can tell you right now that these "cut scenes" (fade in/out images with voiceover) are no big deal. I was shocked that the WarCraft III between-battles scenes had more action.
All I want is some honesty at this point.
I have been very quiet and patient at this point. I was upset when no linux support was given out of box. "I'll wait", I said. I felt confident that I would not be long for a release because Bioware had been very good about keeping linux users up-to-date as to the "status" of the linux port. I was not shocked when it did not come out right away, because I figured that it was indeed not the highest on thier list of priorities. But I never suspected that I was lied to. I never felt that they were stringing me along just to get my purchase.
Now, I feel offended. I am upset because I was _Blatently_ lied to. I'm happy about the current status of the game in linux (it runs, its being tweaked). But never have I been this offended by the PR dept of a company. At this point, yes, it has become painfully obvious that they had no intentions of releasing the game for mac/linux concurrently with the windows version. In fact they had done little to no work at all on these ports. Yet they continued to tell us that they were. I hold honesty in high regard, and had I been told that linux support had ceased and that they would work on it post release, I would have been fine with that. I would have gone out and purchased a copy right away. The only thing I demand from a company is honesty. I will not purchase any more bioware games (and I own all of thier D&D games) and will be asking my friends to do the same until they release an apology for having been so dishonest in this matter. I love the games Bioware produces. I play them and replay them all the time. But I will not condone a company that lies so terribly to its customers. If they never put out another linux game, I can live with that (dual-booting works for me), but I will not tolerate such behavior.
I think NWN is great. I think their port to linux is awesome. I dont care if they cease development. But I care if they continue to lie to me. It makes me wonder if they could be sued for false advertising or something (misrepresentation?).
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
Yes its kinda hard to follow, but when you wathc those cut screens you're really not missing much.
Now wish radgames would pull their fingers out of there a$$ and make a codec for Bink and Linux...
Perhaps Bioware will make the moral choice and drop radgames for future games, I am sure they can find alternatives.
StarTux
Okay, so the Linux NWN client won't do cutscenes. Big deal. Very few mods use cutscenes anyway, and the only thing I remember from the cutscenes in the official campaign is that the playback was quite choppy. =)
But the developer section is huge news. Yeah, the obscure file formats Bioware has developed have been reverse-engineered, but this stuff is still a little bit spotty here and there so official documentation is definitely a nice thing.
Yeah, the toolkit won't be ported officially, but this file format news and the developer support in general is good for people like OpenKnights who work on Linux/MacOSX tools.
Could be worse. Could be so much worse.
Nuff said.
(but because enough is never enough)
The cutscenes were interesting in that they added to the back story, but scrolling text would have worked just as well. I *really* like in-game cinematics. Going to Bink just serves to dissrupt my suspension of disbelief. The cutscenes were jarring and broke up the continuity that hours of play had built up.
I'm certain that going with Bink is a mistake that Bioware won't be repeating. (and hopefully, they'll switch to in-game cinematics or at least use an open format)