Hordes of the Underdark Goes Gold

MattW writes "Bioware announced that Hordes of the Underdark has gone gold. This is the second expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights, and the first to be developed in-house by Bioware. It's also the first CRPG to feature 3rd Edition epic levels. Looks like it will be fun. Some of the biggest requests from the custom content community are in, like custom talk-tables, that should allow for a much better level of customization for the game." I can't say enough good things about the Neverwinter Nights titles, but if this game is anything like the last couple, it's going to steal a lot of my time. I hope I manage to make it home for the holidays.

Comments

Re:Good news

[InceptionOS]

It's just as well you can type, for if you had to speak your mind, you'd
be speechless. Generally, there is nothing wrong with having nothing
worthwhile to say - unless you insist on saying it. A long period of
non-posting would be most welcome on your part. How true is Stanislaw J.
Lec's famous remark: "Every now and then you meet someone whose ignorance
is encyclopedic."

When god was handing out personalities, you must have been holding the
door. You're so boring, even a boomerang wouldn't come back to you.
There's nothing wrong with you that couldn't be cured with a little
Prozac and a polo mallet, or, better yet, suicide. Maybe you wouldn't
come across as such a jellyfish-sucking mental midget if you didn't have
that botched back street lobotomy that left you that crisscrossed
shoelace scar on your forehead; if your weren't so fat that when you walk
down the street, everyone yells "Earthquake!", or if you didn't have a
face so ugly that your mom had to get well-and-truly drunk before she
could breast feed you. Who am I kidding? You would.

In closing, I suggest the next time that you feel an urge to embarrass
yourself and bore others, that you summon all your might, and resist.

NWN's shortcomings

[Jugalator]

I think I best summarize what I think about this game with a pro/con list:

Pros:

- Highly flexible modding tools that are fairly easy to use.
- Available in a Windows, Mac and Linux version.
- Good availability of custom campaigns of varying quality.
- Many implemented D&D rules.

Cons:

- Very outdated game engine already when NWN went gold. Almost back to Doom II with a sort of pseudo-3D. Sure, the 3D is "real", but the feature set doesn't make it look like that. No swimming, no flying, no jumping (!), no crouching. What happened with the Z axis!? You can barely design campaigns that have slopes, much less rolling hills. Wha..!? Also, forget about any spells or monsters that involve levitation of any kind. Like Dragons. Yes, there are those in NWN, but they can't fly, just take a walk! Laughable for a modern game. Why didn't they just leave them out instead of banishing them to a life on ground?
- Poor and shallow built-in campaigns both in NWN and SoU using cliche stories.
- Modifications usually look similar to each other due to rather large tiles. Some custom tilesets are nice, and others amateurish. All campaigns using custom tiles grow considerably in download size.
- Almost completely lacking the proper RPG "feeling" in worlds composed of undetailed polygons and monsters with poor AI.
- Still many missing D&D rules or improperly implemented spells, etc. Mordenkainen's Sword is a monster (not a sword) for example. :-/