NWN Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition - Beamdog's final enhancement - now with new premium modules

[GarfunkeL]

Oho, is it time for plane tickets, bitch! part deus ex?

 

[fantadomat]

Oho, is it time for plane tickets, bitch! part deus ex?

Are you insane mate ? Why should i waste time to go and beat person that is beaten to a pulp by destiny/God? It is pretty obvious by his comments that his life is a mess? My life is not some amazing "sunshine and roses" experience,as it is the most of the codexers, but he is total wreck. It is like beating a wheel chair kid for its allowance.

Hey YES!,mate i do hope you get your life together and get out of the hole you are in. Also a former barman,one of the jobs that i did on the grey market a few years back.

 

[Mustawd]

Did they confirm that full-party control is out of bounds? Or are they being silent and coy about it? Because all the graphical face lifts won't help if that doesn't happen.

Trent continuously repeats ad-nauseum that he envisions you playing NWN1 as you would PnP. Controlling 1 character with 3 other real world heroes. :eyeroll:

So Ya - I wouldn't hold your breath.

Controlling 1 char is fine for MP. I do not understand the sentiment for a SP game. Makes zero sense. Why even have a party? Cuz my PnP? If you're gonna "cuz my PnP" then make it turn based and stfu.

 

[Lacrymas]

The reasoning for including companions was because some content was much harder for certain classes, so that way you can mitigate that somewhat.

 

[octavius]

But wasn't the whole fundament of D&D that you played a party of adventurers, and the party consisted of different classes, none of which could do everything?

 

[Lacrymas]

Lilura, I took that from your own interview with Trent Oster. I might be misremembering, but I think he said they added companions (to the OC) because single characters are limited in the context of D&D, i.e. it would've been harder without access to the other classes' abilities/skill sets. And some classes generally being what they are on lower levels/in general, that means that certain ones would've had an easier time than others.

 

[Jasede]

But wasn't the whole fundament of D&D that you played a party of adventurers, and the party consisted of different classes, none of which could do everything?

It's pretty obvious NWN was never meant as a single-player game first. Hence, there was no need to develop the party aspect.

Do you not remember the trailer and the gaming magazine previews and the game shows when it came out? The big selling point and big deal was always the modules and the multiplayer/coop; the ability to play with others and have a DM do things to your group.

You can easily tell this is the case by how blatantly cobbled-together and terrible the OC is, and, by contrast, how much longevity the online PWs have to this day.

Turn-based multiplayer is nonsense in this engine.

 

[Lilura]

Lilura, I took that from your own interview with Trent Oster. I might be misremembering, but I think he said they added companions (to the OC) because single characters are limited in the context of D&D, i.e. it would've been harder without access to the other classes' abilities/skill sets. And some classes generally being what they are on lower levels/in general, that means that certain ones would've had an easier time than others.

I've already argued in a few different write-ups that BioWare's initial vision of Aurora was grievously narrow and flawed; I'll never go back on it.

 

[Lacrymas]

I was never talking about FPC, though, and my statement wasn't my opinion regarding that. I was just stating what BioWare's reasoning for adding companions to the OC was, as per Mustawd's question of why have a party at all.

Anyway, some choice snippets from interviews more than 15 years ago (not about FPC) -

Ray Muzyka: When we started talking in '97 about Neverwinter, we always envisioned it as a table with four legs -- the single player, the multiplayer, the DMing tools and the toolset (the module making tools). They all appeal to different groups and we've tried to make them all equivalently high quality. We realize that not everyone's going to be into making modules or being DM (or playing multiplayer, for that matter). The single player experience has to be as good as anything we've ever done in BG, BG2 or Throne of Bhaal and hopefully better. Our goal here at BioWare is that each game we do has to be better than the previous one. It really depends on the person but all four of those areas are sort of the focuses of different parts of the team

IGNPC: Was the DM and toolset components as strong a part of the game when it was conceived as they are now?

Ray Muzyka: Core. Four legs on a table.

MGON: What is the basic premise of Neverwinter Nights?

Neverwinter Nights is the most accurate representation of pen and paper gaming available anywhere (with the exception of actual pen and paper gaming of course).

It features the ability to function as a player, dungeon master (the individual in control of the world where the game takes place), and builder (creating modules and adventures to play in either a single or multiplayer mode).

MGON: If you were to try and interest an non-rpg gamer in Neverwinter Nights, what would you say to get them interested?

Neverwinter Nights will truly be a milestone among all games, not just RPGs. It represents an entirely new way to play (giving players the power to create their own games) and should be tried by everyone.

MGON: The ability to determine the very nature of each adventure from the players perspective is an ambitious part of the game�s design. Are you finding this aspect of the design challenging?

We find creating the perspective-based adventure is an extension of what we've done with the Baldur's Gate series ' in essence, it's the next logical step. We started testing this with Throne of Bhaal and Neverwinter Nights extends it to a new level.

MGON: How?

We�ve changed the way we think about elements of the game � the world responds to the player more than any games we've done in the past. These systems are inherent to the game, and not something added as an afterthought. For example � when an encounter occurs the game decides how strong the character is and scales the enemies accordingly. In a multiplayer mode this can even be further extended by the Dungeon Master.

 

[Lilura]

Yep, it's a flawed and narrow vision. Like I've said, BioWare never did D&D justice: FPC omission + RTwP = epic fail. Swordflight has squeezed the most juice out of Aurora, almost every drop, so I'm looking forward to its next installments.

 

[Lacrymas]

Even with their grand proclamations of trying to be at least as good as BG and all the "four legs" to be equally as "valid", it seems like single-player (both the OC and gameplay-wise) did fall by the wayside in the end. Trent's insistence that it was "always designed for controlling a single character" only features in post factum interviews when the game was already released, there is no mention of such a thing in interviews before that.

Judging by this interview, it seems a lot of things were cut from the release, so that might have something to do with it.

Spoiler

LD: You had to scrap the original plot as well as a lot of content, like tilesets, as part of the settlement with Interplay. And there were a lot of people shocked when the original Interplay story got leaked. What can you say about that?

Bob: I don't know what did or didn't get cut as part of a settlement. I didn't think any of the tiles had been cut, to be honest. But I can't really say more than that.

The original plot's release caught me off guard. In a way I was glad. I thought it was a fantastic story, very polished, and I was glad it got put out there as a novelty of sorts. I really liked the politics and sense of betrayal and twists, on and on. I thought it was a very well done epic, such a fun story. And I'm glad fans can look at that and peek behind the curtain a little. I know I've enjoyed looking at stuff like that with the Ultima series, or some of the various other docs that have popped out over time. But I never expected it to see the light of day. That it did get released was also disappointing. I was proud of the final team effort, that the entire team was able to get such a huge project (DM Client, tools, multiplayer, and a full campaign) out, and pointing to an alternate story partially diminishes some of what we accomplished.

LD: How did you feel when the story was cut?

Bob: From memory, I think it was in the fall of the last year of development when it was "scrapped". October? November? And I remember being really disappointed at the change. Was it scrapped as part of a settlement? Again, I'm not completely sure. I know there were internal expectations of quality that I believe we may not have been meeting, and there may have been publisher/legal-related issues, too. I can't say one way or the other, because I don't fully know. And I don't remember too many people at that time wanting to talk about it. It was a fair bit of uncertainty. I was surprised by the chaos, but I was learning a lot as we went through the process.

The most important bit I won't put in spoiler tags -

LD: I read that you weren't going to even release a game with it, just make it a toolset, until marketing showed you that it would never work. And had you done that you would have gotten ripped to shreads because most users (and gaming magazines) didn't bother with the toolset - its best feature. Also, companions were rushed.

Bob: To be honest, I don't know how we got Neverwinter Nights out the door. Many people internally were begging for the release to be delayed but we had been working on it for so long already. The good news is that BioWare really committed to supporting that game. So many patches! That was great to see. And it was a testament that we got anything out at all considering the legal issues.

You're right about the henchmen. We wanted them in, but it was always something else that needed to get done first. Henchmen were always on the chopping block. I was sad because they were such a great part of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and to think they might not be in Neverwinter was disappointing. Then I think we hit a point where everyone realized it wouldn't happen, they'd never get in. But, seemingly overnight, Brent Knowles was like, "hey, I figured out how to make henchmen work, and I implemented it." (That may not be an exact quote.) What a shocker. I think we briefly debated what to do now, whether we wanted to fully support the system Brent so quickly got working, and it was decided that a few henchmen would get some writing and the system would be a part of the game. Feature creep, haha. But henchmen have always been such a big part of BioWare games, so it makes sense that they would err on the side of getting them in, rushed or not. But I think they came out well, didn't they?

 

[YES!]

Oho, is it time for plane tickets, bitch! part deus ex?

Are you insane mate ? Why should i waste time to go and beat person that is beaten to a pulp by destiny/God? It is pretty obvious by his comments that his life is a mess? My life is not some amazing "sunshine and roses" experience,as it is the most of the codexers, but he is total wreck. It is like beating a wheel chair kid for its allowance.

Hey YES!,mate i do hope you get your life together and get out of the hole you are in. Also a former barman,one of the jobs that i did on the grey market a few years back.

I'm sure you're a former barman; next you'll say you're a former chicken. It takes a special type of pussy to not even have the sack to not take an online quiz. You're balls must be producing estrogen you fucking pansy ass bitch.

Mods - can we get this fish a special chicken tag?

 

[Immortal]

Did they confirm that full-party control is out of bounds? Or are they being silent and coy about it? Because all the graphical face lifts won't help if that doesn't happen.

Trent continuously repeats ad-nauseum that he envisions you playing NWN1 as you would PnP. Controlling 1 character with 3 other real world heroes. :eyeroll:

So Ya - I wouldn't hold your breath.

Controlling 1 char is fine for MP. I do not understand the sentiment for a SP game. Makes zero sense. Why even have a party? Cuz my PnP? If you're gonna "cuz my PnP" then make it turn based and stfu.

I don't consider FPC as a make or break feature. However I do enjoy it and would prefer the game to have it.
There are more important features I can think of though, just for the longevity of the game.


That said.. FPC would probably make my top 5 - now that I think about it. It would be non-trivial to add though.

 

[Mustawd]

That said.. FPC would probably make my top 5 - now that I think about it. It would be non-trivial to add though.

I've said that it's a great feature on Lilura's blog. But a couple of commenters have made good arguments against it. At the end of the day it WOULD change the game dramatically. And NWN2 already has full party support.

So it's probably not gonna happen. That being said, I think it is definitely on my top 2 wishlist items for NWN. Top being Turn Based combat , which will never happen. Second is FPC, which apparently is never gonna happen either.

 

[Jasede]

I see Lilura has given some excellent arguments to argue my post and then rated it accordingly. That's the discussion culture I miss.

See, this is why I don't like them buttons. Back in the day we'd at least have to go through the effort to call each other retarded cunts. Now you just press a button and the other person doesn't know what it is supposed to mean. I've helpfully gone on to rate some of your posts 'shit' in return - but don't worry! It's a positive shit, not a negative one. I am appreciating your scatolicious intensity.

 

[Cael]

I see Lilura has given some excellent arguments to argue my post and then rated it accordingly. That's the discussion culture I miss.

See, this is why I don't like them buttons. Back in the day we'd at least have to go through the effort to call each other retarded cunts. Now you just press a button and the other person doesn't know what it is supposed to mean. I've helpfully gone on to rate some of your posts 'shit' in return - but don't worry! It's a positive shit, not a negative one. I am appreciating your scatolicious intensity.

I wouldn't worry about it. The fanboi down rates anyone who ciriticises his target of obsession.

That said, I wouldn't take the down rates seriously. There are a few stalkers on the forum who tracks down your posts and down rates them. The kind of OCD required to do that is hilarious, and it is doubly hilarious when you realise that over 60% of the down rates you received are from the same 2-3 guys.

The only problem, of course, is that those 2-3 guys are the pets of a mod, which results in... a couple of interesting phenomena, including one in which arguments that you are winning being moved to a section of the forum that you have no access to, and another where an entire section of the forum disappeared on you because you were kicking his pets' asses using real science and not their made up shit.

 

[Jasede]

Y'know, I really preferred taking the time to call each other faggots and maybe sending them to Lady Tubgirl over clicking a button. It's so... It's so the thing we used to make fun of. "New Bethesda game, lulz: you press BUTAN and something awsum happenz!!1"

 

[Cael]

Y'know, I really preferred taking the time to call each other faggots and maybe sending them to Lady Tubgirl over clicking a button. It's so... It's so the thing we used to make fun of. "New Bethesda game, lulz: you press BUTAN and something awsum happenz!!1"

I know, but that's what this forum is now. I have never seen this forum in its heyday. I am new here, but I have seen other forums back when men were men and didn't run to mods at the drop of a hat.

Although I find it hilarious the mod I alluded to in the previous post identified himself when I purposedly did not mention his name.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Y'know, I really preferred taking the time to call each other faggots and maybe sending them to Lady Tubgirl over clicking a button. It's so... It's so the thing we used to make fun of. "New Bethesda game, lulz: you press BUTAN and something awsum happenz!!1"

I know, but that's what this forum is now. I have never seen this forum in its heyday. I am new here, but I have seen other forums back when men were men and didn't run to mods at the drop of a hat.

Although I find it hilarious the mod I alluded to in the previous post identified himself when I purposedly did not mention his name.

Oh yeah, you were real subtle. It was quite the mystery!

He’s just preventing threads from derailing. You can always donate some potatoes if you feel a passionate need to keep arguing.

Also, I do not believe you were winning any arguments.

 

[Lilura]

I've said that it's a great feature on Lilura's blog. But a couple of commenters have made good arguments against it.

They have. Better than anyone in this thread has and better than Beamdog themselves have. I announced a while back that my "crusade" for FPC has ended. I gave reasons why I agitated for FPC. Because I wanted to highlight BioWare's misstep and remind people that NWN isn't the last word and never will be. It is enough for me that Rogueknight 333, and other respected community members, would have liked to see FPC employed in the original NWN (though Rogueknight 333 is against its retroactive employment, and gives very solid reasons for that, which I completely understand).

Also, I have removed the poll on preferred NWN:EE features, even though FPC was winning (whoop-de-doo!) Now, I wouldn't shell out for NWN:EE even if Beamdog employed FPC flawlessly. In addition, I have removed all references to NWN:EE from my prime NWN write-up. I no longer want to cover NWN:EE on my blog, even through constructive criticism. My contempt for Beamdog grew out of their soiling, muddling and blaspheming of the Infinity Engine platform through their EEs along with their democratization of game development, subpar public relations, and cultivation of an ignoble rabble-community the chief characteristics of which are repellent ignorance, ass-licking and false pretense to community spirit and love for the Infinity and Aurora platforms.

Whether NWN:EE crashes and burns or is released to great fanfare, I will not care a jot. I am only concerned with the expansion and refinement of original incarnation narratives.

 

[Infinitron]

along with their democratization of game development, subpar public relations, and cultivation of an ignoble rabble-community the chief characteristics of which are repellent ignorance, ass-licking and false pretense to community spirit and love for the Infinity and Aurora platforms.

Considering the EEs have been out for over five years I suspect this is the primary reason.

Lilura's credo: "Disappointing games you can deal with, but true hell is other people."

 

[ArchAngel]

The original game uses the D&D 3.0 ruleset, do they have a plan to update it to the 3.5 version?

Main differences I remember are:

• Updated ranger class.
• Every 4(?) levels a sorcerer can unlearn a spell he already knows for a different one of the same level.
• Animal companions that level up with the character

You forgot the most important one:
Haste spell does not make casters even more absurdly overpowered.

 

[Cael]

He’s just preventing threads from derailing. You can always donate some potatoes if you feel a passionate need to keep arguing.

Yes. Pay good money so that the mods can abuse you more. You have to be a special kind of stupid to do that.

Or alternatively, you are suggesting that paying the forum money would make the mods more kindly disposed towards you? Hmmm...

 

[ArchAngel]

I sent her this...

You shouldn't just assume that anyone on the Codex with girlish sounding screen name and a female avatar is actually a woman. A real woman.

Spoiler

Phew if she is a woman. If she was a girl

Spoiler

Guy In Real Life

he would be in trouble

 

[Lilura]

Considering the EEs have been out for over five years I suspect this is the primary reason.

I've recently criticized the EEs at length in multiple write-ups. And yeah, I didn't play EEs until fairly recently. I criticized Tutu/BGT long before EEs (since their inception, in fact).

"true hell is other people."

That community is, may I say, decidedly "on the nose." Beamdog PR, too. They spam multiple reddits in a shameful attempt to up their sales. Check the history of PR postings there. I don't see other devs going that far.