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NWN - Hordes of the Underdark in Stores
morcego writes "BioWare has done it again. Another expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights has been released. This time, it's Hordes of the Underdark, in case you haven't been following. Reviews are already available, including it being rated 4.5/5 on GamesDomain.
Atari (the publisher) also have a press release about it."
Personally, I thought NWN was a great game, and Hordes of the Underdark looks like a worthy expansion. I'll certainly be getting it - I loved the original, and it is one of the only recent games to provide a native Linux version (I run Gentoo, so it's either Winex or native Linux for me) I'm happy and proud to support Bioware provided they keep producing Linux versions of their games. I know they were a little late with NWN, but at least they were true to their word, and if we show them there is a demand for Linux games they will surely take notice and improve their linux support even further.
where does bioware get their quality from? their KOTOR is just amazing. (although i can't compare it to any other RPG, since it's the first one i've ever played)
it just goes to show that quality can still be found in new games, as opposed to crap we find in sw:galaxies, enter the matrix, or deus ex 2.
my hat's off to bioware...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Personally, I thought NWN was a great game, and Hordes of the Underdark looks like a worthy expansion. I'll certainly be getting it - I loved the original, and it is one of the only recent games to provide a native Linux version (I run Gentoo, so it's either Winex or native Linux for me) I'm happy and proud to support Bioware provided they keep producing Linux versions of their games. I know they were a little late with NWN, but at least they were true to their word, and if we show them there is a demand for Linux games they will surely take notice and improve their linux support even further!
Not necessarily. MMORPGs, at least for me, and a lot of people I know, only hold interest for a couple of hours, after which meaningless hack n' slash becomes incredibly dull and you simply socialize with everyone...Which can easily be done in a chat room. Plus, every MMORPG is essentially the same as every other. There is little to no story to set them apart from others.
To each his own, but Non-MMORPG roleplaying games will always have their large market, as storytelling is what many people look for in a good game, not hack n' slash.
The last expansion pack for NWN was a bit of a let-down (it averaged a 79%) but this pack seems to have much better chances.
Does anyone have any statistics on how the intitial release and first expansion pack fared at retail? I am looking forward to a full-blown sequel, but the publisher seems here more willing to issue a "Gold Edition" than to invest in a new full game.
wouldn't that actually be something like tesseractic?
That is a debatable point since the ammount of actual role playing going on in MMORPG's like Everquest is actually quite minimal. In truth, the whole MMORPG paradigm is just not suited to telling an involving story. It is especially unsuited to telling a story where the player gets to play someone particularily interesting as opposed to yet another "adventurer" out to whack a few snakes and move on to higher levels and bigger snakes.
MMORPG's are certainly highly addictive, but so far, have not really progressed much beyond being a skinner's box wraped up in some fantasy and garnished with ample opportunity for socialization. (not entirely a bad thing) Single player RPG's, on the other hand, are a lot like interactive novels. Games like NWN that provide robust development tools to end-users are essentially interactive novels which encourage fan-fiction.
MMORPG's and games like NWN both have their distinctive niches and, while they may be based around the same sort of fantasy universes, are completely different animals which are both unlikely to go extinct anytime soon.
Not only that, but I believe the company has totally raised the bar for computer game standards. An auto-updater is included, support for Mac and Linux, standalone servers, tons of downloads on their server (they even host a fan-made movie), etc, etc.
I hope they come out with more mods, or at the very least keep improving on a really fun game.
Anyone have any idea why NWN stories always hit the front page? Isn't that what the games section is for?
I mean the odd one or two I could understand, but every bit of news about the game turns up here... pretty much the only game with this honour
Well they had that spat with RAD where RAD had claimed that they would have Bink support ready for Linux and then wanted to charge Bioware a SIX figure sum for the pleasure. Then they had Borland release a version of Kylix so anemic that the toolset couldn't be ported. Then they had WotC make them jump through all sorts of hoops to get clearance for the 'new' platform. Trust me it would have been MUCH easier for Bioware to just give up and drop Linux support since it brought in so little additional revenue and cost them tons of time for lawyers, management, and developers. Not only that but they got HUGE negative vibe and communications from a vocal minority of the Linux user base. Overall I think they showed some real tenacity in eventually getting the port out.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
For those who didn't think the bundled game was brilliant (which to be honest it wasn't) try the Shadowlords and Dreamcatcher campaigns. The author has created a very long continuing story that is vastly superior to any of Biowares releases (other than hordes which I don't have yet). They are also free.
/.ed out of existance. You can find the modules on the nwvault.com.
I won't post a link to the the authors homepage as I don't want the guy
Warning! This post may contain a pun!
Funny thing is, I borrowed the CDs from a friend and installed it on my Gentoo box. When I saw how great the game was and that they had done a great job porting it to Linux, I immediately went out and purchased my own copy. This game is worth it because it's so much more than other games that offer no replay value.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
Well, I never even finished playing the initial scenario beyond chapter 3. I bought the SoU expansion and never played its campaign. I'm gonna buy HotU this weekend and to be honest with you, I don't even intend to play it's campaign either anytime soon. Multiplayer is where its at. Remember that Dungeons and Dragons was originally a social role-playing game? Neverwinter Nights actually re-creates this when you play online. Get your butt online on some PW server like the Nordock one that guy mentioned in the post above and you'll see what I'm talking about. You can't beat a party of 4-5 real humans on your team for total and complete chaos and D&D goodness. Add a DM who is invisibly making it rain monsters on you and you will be having the time of your life.
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