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Neverwinter Nights 2 Officially Announced
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Atari has just announced Neverwinter Nights 2, to be developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the same ex-Black Isle folks who are making Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2 in conjunction with BioWare. However, it's 'scheduled for release in 2006', so we've got a while to wait." A post on the Obsidian forums has a single piece of concept art, and it's confirmed that "[Original developers] BioWare will provide tools, technology, and game assets from the original Neverwinter Nights as well as lend creative input and oversight to the development process."
How ironic that the 'Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.' message showed up for me when I first tried to view this article.
;-)
To be released in 2006 + 4.
2006? you could have waited until 2006 and posted this. But they it's tech news and any chance to get posted is a plus a guess
That's a company with a far-fetched business plan !
I have mixed feelings about this. I loved the concept of NWN but it never seemed to work out quite right. And it seemed to me that the community took FOREVER to get any good standalone mods out. I hope NWN2 has better support and modeling for persistent worlds, because thats what most people wanted and NWN really didn't work out well for it.
I have high hopes though.
Moo.
This makes me wonder if by 2006, Linux versions of games will be commonly released along with or even before windows versions.
Queue the "Duke Nuke'm Forever will ship simultaneously" jokes.
-Hmm...I got a G+ invite, better remember to remove the request from my sig...-
I guarantee in 2008 it will be on the Top Ten List of "Most Waited For Vaporware".
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
That's good to hear. It's amazing that Bioware just got around to releasing the expansions for NWN1 for Mac. It's also amazing that they did such a poor job publicizing the release. I found out from my friends who only found out because Amazon recommended the expansions to them out of the blue one day.
Hopefully, it won't take as long for expansions to NWN2 to come to the mac.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
Well.. I loved playing the first nwn, and hated everything about the scripting language. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that happy about the way nwscript turned out to be. Lets hope they get things right this time around.
If this is even half as good as Neverwinter Nights, then 2006 is the new date to watch for.
I suppose the big question is, will Obsidian actually continue the sterling work that Bioware have already done for Linux, by releasing a Linux port of NWN2 at the same time as the Windows/Mac versions? Worst that could happen is that they abandon the Linux side completely.. which would be tragic, as Bioware have done a lot for the image of linux gaming.
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
"[Original developers] BioWare will provide tools, technology, and game assets from the original Neverwinter Nights as well as lend creative input and oversight to the development process."
So the storyline and gameplay will be every bit as 'good' as the original NWN?
uh oh...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
...now we can look forward to more Dead Piro Days...
http://www.megatokyo.com/
Responsibility is the punishment for compentenc
NNW2, due in 2006... have they even written a line of code for it yet? (other then NNW1)
/. front page news about software X just released a (Beta|RC[1-9]|Preview|New Deadline)
is it really going that slow that we have to see
if it ain't done, it ain't news.
i could see starting a cool game being games.slashdot.org news, but not really front page.
I already started begging for a Linux client.s howtopic= 2499
http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?
I'm a fan of NWN and all, but is a sequel really needed? I was under the assumption that Bioware's Dragon Age was going to be the spiritual successor to NWN.
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2004--Atari Interactive, Inc., Obsidian Entertainment and BioWare Corp.(TM), under license from Hasbro, Inc., have announced plans for Neverwinter Nights(TM) 2, the sequel to BioWare Corp.'s best-selling and genre-defining role-playing game set in the popular Dungeons & Dragons® Forgotten Realms(TM) universe created by Wizards of the Coast. Atari, Inc. will publish the title. Originally developed by BioWare, Neverwinter Nights has set a new standard in the role-playing genre with a deep and engrossing storyline; immersive character development; stunning graphics; and, an expansive multiplayer experience like none other.
"Neverwinter Nights is one of the most beloved RPG's of all time and we're pleased that Obsidian has taken on the challenge," said John Hight, executive producer, Atari. "Feargus and his team at Obsidian Entertainment are the best people on the planet to take up where BioWare left off and bring this great game to new levels. They are intimately familiar with what makes Neverwinter Nights special, they know what it takes to make a great game and they have the respect of the RPG community."
The Neverwinter Nights franchise has sold more than two million copies worldwide, is translated into ten languages, sold in more than 40 countries and features one of the largest and most active fan communities in all of gaming at www.bioware.com. To date, fans of the franchise, which includes Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide(TM) and Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark(TM), have created nearly 4,000 modifications to the original game using the award-winning BioWare Aurora Toolset, the groundbreaking software included with the full game that allows players to create their own universes, quests and storylines.
"BioWare and Atari created an immense community of players attracted by both the immersion of an interactive gaming experience and the ability to create their own pen-and-paper styled modules. Neverwinter Nights changed the very nature of roleplaying games," said Feargus Urquhart, Obsidian Entertainment's CEO. "With Neverwinter Nights 2, we're going to take that incredible experience to the next level by combining a huge new single-player game with deep character development and many new upgrades and enhancements to the already powerful BioWare Aurora Toolset for the modding community."
Neverwinter Nights 2 will be developed by Obsidian Entertainment, founded by Feargus Urquhart who, as the President of Black Isle Studios, was responsible for the publishing of the Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series and the development of the Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment franchises, both powered by BioWare Engine Technology, as well as overseeing the creation and development of the Fallout series. BioWare will provide tools, technology, and game assets from the original Neverwinter Nights as well as lend creative input and oversight to the development process.
"From our development of Baldur's Gate(TM) and Neverwinter Nights to our engine licensure on Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic® 2, we've been working collaboratively with Feargus and other members of the Obsidian Entertainment team for years," said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, BioWare Corp.'s Joint CEO. "Neverwinter Nights remains one of the most important titles BioWare has ever created. We certainly plan to remain involved in the production and development of Neverwinter Nights 2 and we're delighted to initiate another partnership with Obsidian Entertainment and Atari," added Dr. Ray Muzyka, BioWare Corp.'s Joint CEO.
Neverwinter Nights 2 is scheduled for release in 2006. More information about Neverwinter Nights 2 can be found on the Atari website at www.atari.com/nwn2, which includes user forums, project news, development updates and more.
About Obsidian Entertainment
Obsidian Entertainment is a premier software development company passionately dedicated to creating high quality, ne
The software industry is becoming more and more like the hardware industry nowadays with the paper launches extremely premature. 2006 - That is a heck of a way off... Think that ATARI is lookign to stimulate its trailing stock price? http://www.stockhouse.ca/comp_info.asp?symbol=ATAR &table=LIST.... It wouldn't surprise me...
I didn't enjoy the single player original NWN, I did like the expansion packs though.
The concept was great, the tools worked pretty well, and the community is awesome (so many great hacks)
The biggest thing lacking about NWN has been the engine is old, it already looked a bit dated at launch. Hopefully the designers put more focus on an engine that can expand into the future, since it is one of those games that can reside on your computer for years. Also persistant world support would be awesome. For everybody who hates paying MMO subscriptions, NWN2 could be the answer (I hope)
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
With the lengthy delivery date, NWN2 seems to be allowing for design into one or more of the future game consoles.
Or they just got the storyline done now.
If it is the former then there is a huge risk in console delivery delays. If it is the latter: 'Get Crackin, dammit!!!'
They should be using XNA - they'd be done by now!!!
That Bioware will take this opportunity to design the script engine better.
I mean, I do think that Bioware made a *wonderful* job with this game. However, the scripting engine is far from perfect. As a developer, coding NWNscripts makes you feel you'd finish your game faster and easier if you'd just screw NWN and make it from the ground up in Delphi. Well, this is true if your ambition is big enough. Of course it is quick to make a hacknslash campaign, but when you try to go deeper, that's another thing.
Anyway, I didn't play nor script NWN for ages now...
Use python or something like that for NWN2. I saw that RPGMaker XP uses Ruby for it's scripting language. I didn't remotely try it or read further about it, but if RPG Maker made this, it must be possible for Bioware to make the same. Just create, huh... I don't know, a NWN API for python. Screw the idea of having your own scripting language...
perception is reality
I was wondering how I would waste all my time once I got tired of Doom 3. Now I have the answer.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
I can't help but wonder if Atari will continue and possibly expand upon Bioware's 'vision' of the intended purpose of the game engine itself.
Think about it.
Basically all BW did with NWN was release a set of tools for people/groups to create their OWN worlds/adventures/environments. From the looks of things, Dragon Age is going to be similarly engineered and even enhanced for the same use.
Granted, the single player campaigns sucked, (although HotU wasn't too bad comparitively speaking) but look at it from an Id standpoint. Come out with a great set of tools/engine and let the mod community do what they WANT to do with the game, rather than forcing them to adhere to the developers vision.
I personally think we're going to soon see a company release a set of tools only. Tileset editors, weapon/clothing/misc editors, environment. This wouldn't be a GAME release, but something for the mod community to use as they see fit to create from scratch rather than modifying an existing game. Think d20 in general without the limitations of being set firmly in a fantasy realm. Hell, there's even a mod underway to create a contemporary NWN mod!
I think things like this have the potential to change things in the gaming world far more than the advent of new rendering techniques. Changing the game experience for the end user is one thing, allowing US to change the way we play those games is another entirely.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
uh.. they already have a linux client for NWN.
Linux VersionAhh dont say that. I know they never made a true dedicated linux build. Maybe they will this time.
..or else... Cedega 4 ...
Anyway, I hope you are all signing the petition to make a native World of Warcraft build. Its at ce. 5000 last time I saw. The plan is to get it up to about 20000!
Maybe we should start a petition for NWN2 on linuxnow while we have time.. : )
Ok. So Obsidian is doing KOTOR II, and now also Neverwinter Nights 2. Besides finishing up Jade Empire, what is it exactly Bioware is doing for Bioware?
What do they think they're going to improve by creating a new game? They still don't have all of the bugs worked out of the current neverwinter!
I'm more than a little leery of this announcement. Obsidian Entertainment has been in existence for less than a year, yet they are already trying to develop sequels to two of the best games to come out in the last three years. This seems to me at least as another instance of publishers demanding sequels to known brands and outsourcing the work when the original developer is occupied with other titles.
Moreover, NWN2 is scheduled to be released in late 2006. That's less than half of the time Bioware had to develop the original title, and Bioware had both more expertise and more manpower.
~Tirinal
You know the game is going to be good when the new developers' website is slashdotted within 15 minutes. Obviously game stability will be very important to NWN2's development.
How could folks get those "+5, Funny" mods without a Slashdot cliche or three? We've got to start looking now for a replacement cliche to be ready for use in 2006, else it wouldn't be a cliche by then. Lord man, it's only 16 months away.
I spent many many hours in front of my computer using the toolset and getting my head around the nuances (and bugs!) in using nwscript. It is very powerful, but to do anything really cool you needed to experiment a lot besides having decent knowledge of OO programming as their was very little documentation from Bioware.
4 05953.shtml
t a/10335193 10550.shtml /pimp
Furthermore Bioware would somtimes break modules with patches by changing the behaviour of the scripting engine. The big one was the 1.62 release whereby they changed how ordering in the action queue behaved and so scripted events in many modules simply stopped working.
Hopefully NWN2 will have better scripting documentation and more versatile tilesets.
pimp/
BTW, anyone interested in a module with lots of custom content set in the Forgotten Realms should try out: http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1069044
also my first module based on Tomb of Horrors:
http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/da
(there are more faithful versions to the PnP version on the vault though )
I just hoping that they flesh out the single-player game better, and allow for more than one party member. I was really disappointed with the gameply when I played the 1p version of NWN#1, however, the graphics kick Icewind Dale's clean elven arse, and make Diablo I & II look like Mario Brothers on SuperNES.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I can see those dropout slips pouring in to the school registrar's office now.
Okay, I find there are Four distinct elements to NWN:
1) The game play rules. These are primarily set by Wizards of the coast. D&D has specific character building rules that NWN follows. NWN2 can't call itself "based on D&D" without following most of those rules. There are some rules, about 1%, which don't translate well to an online vs paper game, so there is play allowed, but not much.
2) The editor. This is already pretty sophisticated. New features added should be added as an update to an already feature rich application, since you can't add much more to it already.
3) The graphics. These could be updated, but that's little more than "prettying up" the game.
4) The scenarios. Okay, you worked hard on it, so make us spend money to reward your efforts, but why not release it as an expansion of the original NWN? It will be cheaper for us, and even if you don't release the damn thing for Mac on time (grumble) at least the mac community knows how to make the PC expansions work without needing a fully native installer.
Basically I see no reason for a brand new engine other than to force people to pay more money than they have to. The other thing is that I see a lot more people's names on this NWN2 than NWN1 so it might be a licensing thing, but frankly that's hurtful to the NWN1 community. You sold the app, but you haven't really let the community milk it as much as it could be.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Activision releases a mega-hit and Atari announces vaporware.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Come on essreenim, at least post a link:
SIGN HERE
Anybody who's interested in Linux gaming should at least make an effort to "sign" this.
Feh. At least it didn't CTD on me. Most of the games I've played in the last couple years, including games from reputable developers like Civ 3, took several patch releases to stop crashing every few hours. I'd rather have stable game play than left-handed animations. You're welcome to write your own game with perfect grammar and art and animations for every conceivable scenario. You can make a website for it, get lots of fanboys in your forums speculating on how it will be the greatest thing ever, and every year or so post a fresh screenshot showing an early 90's UI and promising to definitely ship within the next year.
You hate the game, and think they should never develop another, because of a gramatical error, and no left handed characters? Better yet, THIS gets modded "insightful".
You are a serious tool. I think the BioWare reply was overly kind, and much more in-depth than any I would have given you. Try "Fuck off and die you left handed, small pricked, wanker. PS, your sister called, and asked that you please stop sneaking into her room and giving her rim-jobs while she sleeps, it interferes with her quality time with dad."
You are the kind of nerd that people enjoy beating, just cuz your such a jackass.
Left-handed animations too difficult? Couldn't they have just mirror-imaged the 3d models and be done with it? Good grief, talk about lazy!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Anyway, my biggest complaint about the original NWN was that the game was far too easy, even with traditionally difficult chars like the wizard. Yes, I know I could have artificially inflated the difficulty by adding HP, but this seems more like being a glutton for punishment than seriously seeking a greater challenge. I like games that are easy to start, but hard to beat!
Anyway, I hope they can speed up that production before it becomes Never-ventured Nights!
...will NWN2 support the pen and paper D&D 3.5 edition changes? (Of course, by then pen and paper will be up to 4.0, so NWN2 will still be behind!) :)
Thanx ; )
I hope you signed. As someone who includes links, Im sure I dont need to tell you to spread the word if you haven't already..
This is probably the only reason why I paid for NWN, and both expansions, twice (one as a gift). Besides multiplayer being pretty nice, running in Linux was vital since it's a long game.
If it runs on Linux, I can use my laptop as a second monitor to display KDE on it while I play (it's not powerful enough on its own, P200, 64MB RAM). If I was stuck with having to use Windows then it'd be much more annoying, as I'd lose the ability to do some things I need.
So, if it runs on Linux well (I can live without the movies, there's BinkPlayer, and they weren't too impressive anyway), and plays well of course, it's almost certain I'll buy it.
I doubt this will happen, but it'd be nice if the dedicated server could support SMP. By 2006 my current SMP machine will probably replace my server, and I suppose it should work quite well for hosting games.
Because their concept art "is experiencing difficulties at this time."
Get me a meat pie floater!
2 days ago or so -- I've been on slow saga recently to go revisit RPG's I'd missed (or quit)... First Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal, then Star Wars KOTOR, and now to NWN...
:) ) the similarities are amazing. The way henchman/party members have stories which expand (and are only accessible as you gain levels), the way dialog is handled, to the engine itself - though KOTOR is certainly prettier and in a few ways cleaner, its obvious its the same thing. While KOTOR has better graphics, and far more voice acting (I am somewhat thankful NWN switches to just reading more often - the sheer amount in KOTOR had me reading and skipping the voice acting shortly into the game anyway - it just took waaay too long to actually listen), both are 3rd edition D&D (KOTOR stripped down to appeal to console gamers), feats and skills to match (although in KOTOR, skills are laughably useless). NWN is certainly a lot more in depth... but really the two games are remarkably similar.
:).
First let me just say those who disparge NWN and praise Star Wars KOTOR just have their Star Wars fanboy blinders on. Having started NWN just a day or two after finishing KOTOR (yes I know, backward Chronologically, but I wanted a switch from fantasy after plowing through BGII+Throne of Bhaal for Weeks
I am only partway into Chapter 2 in NWN and so far have found it to be really good. I don't quite get where people who enjoyed BG I and II are coming from when they say they don't like the game -- you start of rather slow (just as your first level character in BG I was very weak), but things pick up quickly and the loads of quests, dialog is everywhere, and ala KOTOR, your alignment can shift during the game (though to more useful/desirable effect in KOTOR it seems). Anyway just the first of four chapters in NWN took me forever, and I have so far throught it was great. It seems to have at least as much story and oomph as BG II, and I haven't yet dabbled playing online. I imagine that might be a disappointment given I have played pen and paper RPGs forever (though not many recently), but who knows with as much time as people have had to develop modules and develop communities by this point.
Anyway the single player campaign in NWN to me is so far, so good, and I look forward to seeing some "amateur" work once I complete it, as well as begin dabbling in multiplayer. In comparing BGII+Throne of Bhaal, KOTOR, and NWN, so far I'd say NWN is my favorite, though I enjoyed them all... those that find large differences aren't really looking too deeply at the games, though - NWN is far more expandible and multiplayer friendly of the three
Bioware's next big PC game is going to be Dragon Age. What exactly is going to be so great about this game? It will have all of the toolset goodness of NWN and the story telling of a Bioware game, without the clunkiness of attempting to implement D&D on a PC. It also allows Bioware to do what they want without having every piece of content triple-approvded by Hasbro/WOTC.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
For those of you wanting to see the ULTIMATE NWN Persistant World, head over to the World of Charun and get a load of the customizing done to even the mechanics of NWN.
Somewhere around 500 areas, dedicated DM staff and it's apparently been up for a couple of years now and still going strong with new content added daily.
Check out their forums at WoC Forums
Pretty impressive for a private endeavor.
FF7 had nowhere near the individual character depth that 6 did, in terms of individual skills and abilities. Materia made them modular and consequently, the game boiled down to the three characters you favored getting all of the xp. No reason to use the rest.
:-|
Mana is still my favorite adventure RPG- I absolutely love the menu system. My biggest gripe about NWN is the fact that their character menus are about the CRAPPIEST implimentation of the Mana menu concept I've ever seen. Takes too long to drill around to what you want.
They look nice, but fall down on combat use.
No, it isn't an "art form." No, it's not "competitive." It's escapism for total losers with shitty lives and addictive personalities. End Of Thread.
Go ahead, mod me down. You'll only make me stronger.
Bioware has a pretty strong pedigree to it now. They probably want more control over the game, and more royalties then the publisher cares to part with. Part of the reason for Jade Empire and Dragon Age is to make Bioware less reliant on external IP. By cutting Wizards / Lucasarts out of the picture, Bioware can keep a bigger part of the profits.
Having Obsidian do the follow ups probably makes the game cheaper all around. Expect NWN2 to be very much an incremental improvement over NWN1. More polygons / lights / spells and the like. I seriously doubt that Bioware would want Obsidian to completely re-implement more then 30% of the engine anyway.
END COMMUNICATION
I suppose you completely ignored the ability to obtain hirelings? You could fill out an entire party with them...
I've written a number of mods for NWN, including Penultima, Penultima ReRolled, Elegia Eternum, and Excrucio Eternum. And... I'm very leery of NWN2's prospects.
Are they seriously going to support the modding community to the extent NWN1 did? NWN1 was basically a pile of resources for you to build your own adventure; the game that came with it was so-so. Is NWN2 going to do skimp on the resources in favor of the more profitable single player adventure, or will it focus on toolsetting?
Also, regardless of how in-depth the toolset is... you're still saddled with D&D and all the baggage that comes with it. NWN had too many corporate overlords dictating how the game rules must work in order to make them accurate to the pen and paper game -- even when it made no sense on a computer! (Paladins are weak because the game couldn't replace P&P systems with more computer-saavy ones, for instance.) Many of the flaws in NWN arise from all the multi-step lawyer based approval processes to allow for any deviation from the D&D standards. I don't want that mess following me into my next platform.
Frankly, NWN2 does nothing that Dragon Age isn't already doing. DA is going to have massive toolset support, a design philosophy that's learned from NWN1, and Bioware's name behind it -- and it's independent of all the corps watching over the D&D franchise. When it comes to picking a platform to move my game authoring work to, I'd rather go with what feels right.
NWN2 feels like Atari and Hasbro wanting to cash in on the property. Unless new info arises to show why NWN2 is superior for me to develop my own original game worlds within, I'll stick with Dragon Age.
I would rather a company aims for greatness and comes out with a few nitpick-worthy bugs, than have it aim for mediocrity and succeed.
I think many people would disagree with your charge that BioWare has poor support. Their developers post frequently (around 5 times or more per day) in their forums, discussing everything from plot points to scripting to technical issues. They are very friendly and quick to answer questions. Do they sometimes have a messed-up priority list for bug fixes? Perhaps (the shield-wielding monk bug comes to mind), but overall these are minor points when you take into account how ambitious they are. And they are willing to tell you repeatedly (as opposed to just ignoring you) that they believe your bug is not important enough to fix yet.
An example of BioWare's excellence is the NWScript language, which, though largely undocumented and requiring a little bit of adventure to get working, is very flexible and full of features. No other $30 game building tool has that kind of complexity. It is powerful enough that very sophisticated creature AIs have been built with it in the user community.
As far as single player games go, few RPG fans would deny the excellence of the writing in BioWare's RPGs (those that do deny it, though, do so with fervor). Both KoTOR or the Baldur's Gate saga offer a satisfying and deep single-player experiencee. Some may bring up Black Isle's Planescape: Torment as a game that exceeded those two in depth, but remember that Torment would not have been possible without BioWare's Infinity Engine---another great technical innovation on their part, one that (uselessly) made Interplay a good fraction of their profits.
And now, Black Isle Take 2 owes its existence to BioWare---both with KOToR 2 and NWN 2. Six years ago, Black Isle gave BioWare a chance---and now the tables are turned. I think it's great to see a friendship like that, even from a distance.
And yes, the NWN single-player experience wasn't up to par with the BioWare storytelling standard, though they claimed it was. Let's hope Obsidian does a good job with respect to that.
Simultaneous Mac playability to come out in 2015.
That's why I never bought and played NWN. It had been out for over a year and already disposed of by my friends before it was even out for OSX.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Will it have first person perspective?
There was a hack out for NWN that allowed you tp put the camera in a position so that you where looking through your characters eveys.
This added so much to the game. Instead of seeing the monster coming, you turned a corner and you where staring it in the face! The game was much more tense.
Naturally Bioware released a patch to not allow thats. Bastards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seiken Densetsu 2 (aka Secret of Mana or just SD2) is a great game! I still own my copy. It had some balance issues... for example, magic was extremely over-powering. The Sprite character could repeatidly cast drain MP, until the enemy lacked MP, and then drain HP until the enemy was dead.
Hence the Sprite was completely self sustaining because she never ran out of hit points or magic points.
Also, because there is no delay inbetween casting spells, the Sprite could easily blitz (i.e. spam) any enemy with a series of spell attacks before the enemy could do anything.
Seiken Densetsu 3 fixes those problems by enforcing a delay between the time when a spell is selected and the time in which it is cast. Hence you can't SPAM spells like in SD2.
Spell spamming was kind of fun, but it really killed any sense of challenge. Of course, its not like the Sprite starts out with all of the spells... but it doesn't take long for her to become a demi-god.
Warning, shameless advertising :)
If you like NWN with more roleplay than mechanics, check out Glorwing my persistent world of choice.
It runs on a dual AMD 2800MP Spindlet3p Blackbird server, for those of you who remember such things. It needs all that horsepower to make up for the horrible scalability of the bioware engine, but it's darn fun and we've got a great community.
Those greedy fuckers want to charge money for adding flowing robes and vertical walking staffs? Hang them by their thumbs! Why do all these companies persist in the delusion that they deserve to be paid for adding features? Why can't they just sell a box for $5 and then support that for free forever? That sure would be convenient for me and my freeloading friends.
Hence the Sprite was completely self sustaining because she never ran out of hit points or magic points.
Err... The Sprite was a *boy*.
Yeah, it's a great game. I just downloaded it off P2P this morning. They are getting pretty fast about posting new stuff before it's released these days...
P.S. Go up to the first orc you meet in willowriver, and say, "Lucas" to him. He has a great little easter egg speach about how Episode 3 turned out.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You know the guy you responded to... the one who JUST SAID HE WAS ENJOYING NWN? Yeah, I mean the guy WHO JUST WROTE THAT HE DISAGREED WITH EVERYONE WHO DOWNED THE GAME BECAUSE HE THOUGHT IT WAS FUN?
Uhm, I think he's sorta enjoying messing with it.
Don't worry though... I think I see a small child with a balloon just right over there... you can probably run over there and pop it if you'd like too.
Expansion packs seem like good value since they cost less than a full release. But generally expansions get done within a year or two of the original game. I can think of two reasons for this; expansion packs don't have as much content as the original and game engines age pretty quickly.
NWN 2 is scheduled to release in two years, which means Obsidian is going to have a lot of time to develop new content. Dozens of artists working for two years cost a lot, so it won't be feasible for them to release a value-priced expansion pack. But in two years NWN will look like ass compared to the newest titles. So Obsidian will need a new engine for their new content. Therefore the scope of this project demands a new release rather than an expansion. QED
I have mixed feelings about D&D computer games. The fact of the matter is that PnP RPGs and CRPGs have different strengths and weaknesses. What works for one does not necessarily work for the other.
For example, the strength of PnP RPGs is that you have a human being running them and can handle all the social interactions that a computer simply can't, not until we solve the AI problem anyway. On the other hand, computers laugh at the more bookkeeping heavy PnP RPGs. Computers can handle incredibly complicated mechanics and keep track of thousands of numbers without trouble.
Frankly, I think Bioware is heading in the right direction. They really need to do a game with a ruleset that from the ground up takes advantages of the strengths and avoids the weaknesses of CRPGs, instead of dealing with the legacies of a PnP RPG.
For me, I was hoping NWN2 would ditch the existing graphics engine completely and start over with proper 3d engine, and provide much better persistant world capabilities.I somehow dont think I am going to get that this time around.
NWN's true success today is its development into the persistant world arena. For the first time game players were given a game that allowed them to create their own game world. NWN is still running strong today because of the persistant worlds that are created by people who wanted something more imaginative and evolving than pretty much all the commercial MORGs out there.
Personally, if someone wants to make an aweful lot of money and become a legendary name in the gaming community, develop a game with serious persistant world capabilities using a proper 3d graphics engine for full first person emersion.
I hadn't played NWN in a while (my copy is out on loan for months now) so I hadn't been visiting the great Bioware forums,and hadn't heard of DA. I had heard they were going to do there own thing. Good for them. Never liked them having to clear everything through the Wotc and having Atari as a distrubuter. Atari really didn't seem to care about customers at all.
As big a DnD fan as I am, I am a bigger fan of Bioware. These guys rock IMO. Go DA go!
Now I have to go read the previews...
Here's another one for Pariah that Digital Extremes said they'd port if there's enough demand:
PLEASE SIGN UP
I would actually just be satisfied with a linux binary, and they can improve by NOT using that aweful cab install, that left linux/BSD users(at least me) to download the whole 1.5 gig resource files from a remote FTP.
The toolset for NWN was nice. I hope NWN2 has a toolset and is more robust and error free then the original toolset for NWN is. I personally hated seeing array index out of bounds errors crashing my toolset every time I worked with adding and removing custom content. You'd think they'd check their arrays properly. I nearly lost a 95 area module to the toolsets inability to handle custom content properly and correct errors.
Take a page from iD and deliver NWN2 only when it's ready and not when it's marketable. If it's a great game with excellent content, the marketing people can sit and wait.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Then you missed out. I'm playing through the Hordes of the Underdark expansion on my PowerBook at the moment, and it's excellent (yes, you can install the PC NWN expansion packs fine on the Mac with the free OpenKnights installer). There's plenty of user-created modules to start on once I've finished, and then I'll start looking into visiting the persistant worlds people are hosting.
I don't like the way the term "original" NWN is being used for BioWare's NWN 1. The true original NWN was created by StormFront Studios, for SSI. And it was released on the AOL network from 1991 to 1997. It was shut down shortly after AOL went flatrate.
Lots of info on the original NWN can be found at the bladekeep site
IMO, the original NWN was one of the best games I've ever played. Perhaps the best. This was a great game that will never be forgotten by the people lucky enough to have played it during its time.
Many of the players of the original have gone about creating a clone of the original called Forgotten World. I just recently found out about Forgotten World and have been browsing the forums there. Its got alot of the old guilds and names I recognise. ITB, MECH, KEF, GOC.. Man the original nwn was great. PvP in the sewers and lost hills. Feebing kwusses. Ahh, sweet memories.
Anyway, if anyone played the original NWN you should check out Forgotten World. It'll bring back memories.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
Wonder if they'll tell us all that the game will ship for three platforms in one box again to get us all to preorder?
Oh wait, or maybe they'll just keep the Mac prices jacked up to $50 when you can find it for PC for $30!
Or, maybe they can give away the linux version free again for people who have Windows too, and still screw the mac user!
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Use the 3rd-party installer at http://icculus.org/~ravage/nwn - extracts from the CD nicely, without any problems. But yeah, would have been nice if they'd included such a tool with the package.
Best RPG for the PC is TES3:Morrowind. There's no debating it.
Obsidian is mostly like BlackIsle in that they only provide content, not development. So it seems fair to assume that the NWN2 engine will basically be the same as NWN1. Or rather this will be a longer, better, glorified expansion. I don't have any faith in this actually furthering the engine any at all. If anything I think it will break it by possibly breaking backwards compatability. But Obsidian does have a good record for damn good story lines. Look at Planescape, a sheer masterpiece they carved out of the Bioware's Infinity Engine (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale).
So my analysis: The game will rock your socks, just don't throw away your copy of NWN1 if you like mods.
If that first NWN was any indication of their committment to providing for Linux gamers, then I'm going to refrain from any further BioWare purchases.
The whole !@#$ reason i bought NWN and both expansion packs was to play on my gentoolinux box. I mangaed about 60 hours of gametime before giving up on the lack of offical builder tools, history of saying "well just use WINE and don't bother us," also the tone that us Linux consumers should praise god anyone would go out of their way to port the game for a platform other than Win32.
This is not to mention the lack of cooperation between ATI (i have an r250 radeon 9000 pro graphics card) and BioWare. Graphics quality was a joke at its best, and unplayable at worst.
I had a similar experience in practice when I purchased Savage (RTS/FPS hybrid game). The differnece there is Linux was a supported platform, and the company made an enthused effort to harass ATI for better drivers and information. Savage never turned out to be playable, and though not a total waste of money (i got it to sort of work exactly five times), probably not the 35 dollars i'd hoped it'd be worth when i paid for it.
So, the US Army can create a game (America's Army) that works flawlessly under *nix. ID games can pump titles out all supported on *nix. Unreal Tourny 2003 works like a dream on *nix
What in the hell does Atari want from me?
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Remember Unreal 2? I wouldn't be surprised if NWN 2 and KOTOR 2 end up being little more than tech upgrades with the sort of fundamentally similar content usually reserved for expansion packs.
NWN's linux support was done by a single programmer. if Obsidian doesn't have such a person, I doubt we will see a linux version at all.
Atari wasn't interested in the linux version in the first place, causing several month of delay to it, according to what bioware said on their boards.
Yup I was gonna mention that.. These guys have the most phenominal track record of any RPG designers anywhere.. They totally put Bioware to shame. People really need to freakin relax, these guys are gonna make the NWN franchise world class.. And I doubt they'd be dumb enough not to make a linux port since a lot of the work is likely not gonna take a whole lot.
-taosk8r
^arena.
I'm sorry, but I'll take the storytelling of a Black Isle game over a Bioware one any friggen day.. Planescape Torment is unqualifiedly THE BEST RPG EVER. I don't know that there will ever be another quite as good, but I am looking forward to KOTOR 2 and now an Obsidian NWN2 for everything found lacking in the original.
-taosk8r
^compatability.. If you wanna play NWN1 stuff leave the friggen thing installed! Its not like HD space is all that damn expensive these days. I sincerely hope that if they do advance the engine that they dont spend two seconds worrying about backward compatability..
-taosk8r
Or for that matter any other of Black Isle's games? Jeez.. There is no way those guys could make a game w/o a mind blowing story!! I'm somewhat confident it'll be no Torment, I mean the whole Planewalker thing is the ideal setting for an RPG and it highly surprises me that nobody has managed to make anothe RPG set in the planes (I'm still crying over TORN), but I'm sure it won't fail to make Bioware look like sub-par storytellers, and I'm quite confident that KOTOR 2 will prove this..
-taosk8r
Because you'd have to a) double the animation data which adds up the memory usage, b) add a LeftHanded field to the character file, c) add a "Left Handed" checkbox option on character creation (and modifying the GUI is difficult), and d) probably have to modify the inventory GUI as well because someone will complain about being confused by the hand slots or at least have it notice which one is the PC's favoured hand.
As any sort of benefit gained is handled by say, a simple +1 attack bonus feat or something, they're right in saying that all that work for what amounts to essentially a cosmetic look that has no bearing on the game itself is "too much work for not much in return."
I agree that I don't think the Official Campaign, which I've heard people just fall over themselves raving about, is really all that great. But I'd also say that you shouldn't discount the D&D franchise.
There's still something intrinsically *cool* about the fact that, under the hood, a lot of the math in NWN is 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, it lends the game an air of authenticity.
In analyzing the gameplay of a computer RPG, the biggest thing to keep in mind is that the numbers are all arbitrary. The same basic concepts and mechanisms have all been reimplemented dozens of times in countless games. Everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Wizardry to Might and Magic to Final Fantasy and beyond are all, on some level, reimplementations of the same thing.
But D&D has the advantage of being directly translatable to real-world players, and Neverwinter Nights was the first game, of ALL the D&D tie-in games going back to gold-box, to get the mixture of pencil-and-paper and computer RPG modes mixed right, to be a "general-purpose" D&D game. Dungeons and Dragons has had so many people think about it over the decades it's been available, had so many adventures written, monsters made, magic items created, campaign settings made, that it's very difficult to create, out of your own head, something comparable in complexity. Even if you just take 3rd edition all by itself, D&D's still an infinitely richer game environment than just about anything else out there on computer.
That's what attracted me to NWN. I played a little of the official campaign before I tossed it out, and got down to the "real" game, making my module Neverogue, which hasn't achieved even a hundredth of the popularity of your modules.
But I still like it, and that's what Neverwinter Nights, at the core, really is to me, and what puts it above things like Morrowind and Dungeon Siege, which each contain their own content creation tools: a system for making D&D adventures for online play. I consider the game itself to be the content creation tools. It's a lot more fun looking through all the options, deciding on what should go into the game, designing maps, creating encounters, even writing scripts, than actually playing it.
NT
I got equal graphics quality under both Win98SE and RH9 Linux (with 2.6 kernel). Therefore, the problem is likely to be the ATI card/drivers (I have a Geforce2MX).
Now, as providing graphics card drivers is clearly the responsibility of the graphics card manufacturer and not a game company, why are you blaming BioWare ? What kind of "cooperation" should BioWare engage in to fix someone else's buggy drivers ?
As an ATI user, shouldn't you be the one to harass ATI for better drivers ? Or simply purchase from another company when next updating - NVidia has good drivers, even if they aren't open source.
And if another program refuses to work too, then isn't this clearly a driver issue ?
NWN works flawlessly in my machine under Linux. So does every other OpenGL application I've tried.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Right, the /. story is here.
-- Qu'est-ce que la propriété intellectuelle? It is thought control.
An unidentified fluid was found on the grave of the Baldur's Gate series. Urine suspected...
- It had a native linux client
- It was modable
I did NOT know that the two were mutually exclusive (no building tools on linux). If it wasn't for a portable hard drive that let me run it somewhere that I spend 7 hours a day on an XP box doing relatively nothing, I'd be out $70. Atari and Bioware won't see another cent of my money until I get a working linux toolkit.My other problem is that, since I've started playing with the toolkit, it occurs to me that WAY too much stuff is hardcoded for something that's supposed to be modular.For example, the "shadow" spells, or "shade" spells, or whatever the hell they are called, apparently have hardcoded modifiers in the ENGINE that depend on what LINE in the spell database they are on (this info comes from George something, one of the developers who posts on the official forums). That's not a deal-breaker, but it does stick in my craw a bit.
From here on out, I'm going to stick with console games again (last game I purchased for PC was FF8, and that was on clearance) until I can mod in linux freely, and preferably without kludgy hardcodes.
NWN's Aurora is a nice tool, but with a decent learning curve, it can take considerable time to create a solid module. And there are some really nice mods out there, that would look great with a new engine
So it would be cool if the tool/scripting was backward compatible so that existing modules would still function, or at least would with minimal effort.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
In the face of Eberron, it seems like WotC will either go one of two routes with the FR(as the Forgotten Realms would be the only property in contest, as the rules are OGLed already):
1. Drop the FR as a Campaign Setting, and hand it over to a D20 publisher for game releases(see: Ravenloft, 3e, Dragonlance, 3e)
-or-
2. Drop the FR as a Campaign Setting, and hand it off to a community site for game releases(see: Dark Sun, 3e, Spelljammer, 3e)
No matter what happens, WotC won't drop the FR as a novel line-Drizzt is too much of a cash cow for them to do that.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Savage was made with NVidia in mind, ATI cards suck with that game no matter what, get a damn Geforce 2 and quit bitching, in fact, that game runs smoothly with a Geforce.
Hopefully this should assuage some of the fears many have expressed about whether Obsidian could do justice to the series. I have ultimate confidence in them. They made the best RPG EVER: Planescape: Torment (and I'm still holding out hope, however unlikely that there will be a sequel. It just felt like the end game was a big TO BE CONTINUED to me). I have every confidence as I've said before, that Obsidian will make Bioware look like incompetent storytellers both in KOTOR 2 and in NWN2.
Neverwinter Nights 2 so rather than just the hardcore builders, the normal builders can make a module that's more tuned to them, even if they don't have time to place every creature or place every item," Feargus explained. "We're coming up with different levels of Wizards that people can use to create modules, so they can go, 'Hey, I want a dungeon-based module that starts at level five and goes to level 15,' and it will create the module for them. Then there might be another level of the Wizard where they can name the bad guy or go in and have more control, but they still don't need to go in and fine-tune everything. And then, of course, we'll still have the tools in the game where you have control of everything." The Wizards are something that BioWare had in the original game, but it wasn't working exactly how they wanted it to by the time Neverwinter Nights was released, so it's something that Obsidian wants to explore and finish for the sequel.
In addition to making user-created modules easier to produce, the Obsidian team also wants to make it easier for players to download all of the great content that the community creates. There are thousands of user-created modules available for download, but you have to go searching for the content now with the current game interface. "There's this great system in Neverwinter where you can download patches and get updates and get newsletters and all this great stuff for the game," Feargus told us. "Wouldn't it be great if a part of that menu provided instant-access to the top ten voted modules or something along those lines?"
From Gamespy:
GameSpy: Where are you drawing inspiration from? Are you looking to any classics?
Urquhart: We've been talking a lot lately about older games and how games have evolved since then. We have particularly been looking at some of the Ultimas -- how they really made the world almost a character in the game. When you played games like Ultima IV, you got to really know the world and you had things you wanted to do in it that weren't just making your next level. We'd really like to return to a bit of that in Neverwinter 2.
GameSpy: How important is user-created content going to be to the sequel?
Urquhart: Just like with the original Neverwinter, we think player-made content is as important as having an amazing single-player game. What we are looking into here is to make it easier for people to get the player-made content into the game and possibly linking in the top modules into the game's auto-run, so that players can easily download them.
GameSpy: Did you look to the community for any feedback?
Urquhart: We've been lurking on the boards for a number of months, and now that the game is announced we are going to be asking a ton of questions. The Neverwinter community is incredibly dedicated, and I am sure that we are going to get some great ideas from them.
-taosk8r