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

[ChaDargo]

You won’t catch me arguing for authorial/painterly intent, but there’s a limit to how far accident takes you. Black Square is very much in keeping with his oeuvre.

I threw up in my mouth a little.

You are a barbarian, sirrah.

Yes--and proud of it, brother.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

So their intentions, whatever they may be, ruin the perspective of distortion and cubism? I really don't care what they were going for, or whether it's avant-garde or not, and I'm the one enjoying it for meaningful reasons, so it's a win-win situation for me. It's still a unique and cool aesthetic that we haven't seen before and won't see ever again.

I literally just don’t see it and don’t think it’s unique among early 3D games (is Deus Ex cubist?). But again, obviously, your mileage may vary.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I can see Infinitron reaching for the axe here...

 

[fantadomat]

Did they fix art ?

I mean those fucking things:

I still remember turning on NWN1 for first time and i was like WTF is that. Where are those glorious paperdolls and glorious BG2 art ? I mean below that you have version of some modder and it looks miles fucking better than original.

Many years after internet gave us meme to sum up my feelings about that:


Which could be used as into to NWN1 imho.

Must say that the new items look worst,they look plastic or cardboard.Yet the shield look good.

 

[Lacrymas]

I literally just don’t see it and don’t think it’s unique among early 3D games (is Deus Ex cubist?). But again, obviously, your mileage may vary.

The area/map design is intentionally cubic to be more easily put together in the toolset and everything is uncannily symmetrical and geometric because of that. The intention is not keeping it in line with the philosophy of cubism, but it is cubic from a deliberate and practical standpoint. The models' "roundish squares" (like a classmate of mine in high school described them) just add to the whole thing, making it look aesthetically complete. Contrast that with PoE's models which look like taken from a different game. You won't be surprised to find out that I think what Beamdog are doing to the models is more of an egregious blasphemy than their usual lack of artistic taste, vaguely transvestic Aribeth aside.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I literally just don’t see it and don’t think it’s unique among early 3D games (is Deus Ex cubist?). But again, obviously, your mileage may vary.

The area/map design is intentionally cubic to be more easily put together in the toolset and everything is uncannily symmetrical and geometric because of that. The intention is not keeping it in line with the philosophy of cubism, but it is cubic from a deliberate and practical standpoint. The models' "roundish squares" (like a classmate of mine in high school described them) just add to the whole thing, making it look aesthetically complete. Contrast that with PoE's models which look like taken from a different game. You won't be surprised to find out that I think what Beamdog are doing to the models is more of an egregious blasphemy than their usual lack of artistic taste, vaguely transvestic Aribeth aside.

Okay, I can sort of see that in the bodies--there's something distinct there. In terms of the environment, the uncanny symmetry feels to me like a better looking version of many of the early 3D console games I'd play as a kid. But yeah, the limitations of the technology definitely helped BioWare craft a coherently good looking world. I certainly agree that Beamdog's "improvements" seem to spoil the whole vibe.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You are a barbarian, sirrah.

Ain't nowt wrong with barbarians.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I googled this picture hoping for a quick link but

Best suggestion for this image: action-adventure game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action-adventure_game

I guess this confirms it, NWN is not a RPG.

 

[Lacrymas]

That's the Aielund Saga, if that's what you were hoping to find out.

 

[Infinitron]

http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/03/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition.html

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Patch 8162


Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Patch 8162 is here and it brings all kinds of multiplayer goodness! Thanks to all our Steam players for trying out builds 8160 and 8161 in the new Development branch.

Fixes

• A memory leak was fixed in the Toolset that would exhibit every time after a script was compiled.
• We now compile the Linux binaries with 64-bit-only filesystem API support (so that nwserver runs properly inside docker-on-mac/windows).
• Fixed a crash in the Toolset when trying to static-light a mesh with zero vertices (as seen by some custom tilesets, and the humongous bell).
• A fix to Steam thumbnails to update properly on changes, not just on initial upload.
• We fixed the Toolset crashing on Intel GPUs.
• A huge shadows-related memleak was fixed in the toolset that would happen when loading areas.
• “Input player name” is no longer covered by the Direct Connect UI.
• LAN “Connect” button now works as expected.
• Toolset now remembers window position between starts.
• Servers displayed in the History/Favourites panel now grey out properly when they are unknown to the masterserver.

Features

• Relays! We added experimental support to carry your connection over authenticated relays, hosted on our end. This is fully automatic and transparent for both players (a relay connection will be chosen if all other attempts fail) and server hosts (servers and scripting will still “see” the actual client IP), and is meant to take care of all remaining connection issues that cannot be handled with UDP hole punching.
• We added support for the material file format (.mtr) as described in last weeks’ patch notes; reproduced below for your convenience.
• Per-vertex static lighting now works properly when normal mapping is enabled: we use a stream that indicates the direction of the brightest light from the location of the vertex, and approximate normal mapping using that information.
• Clicking on “Join Game” in the Steam friends list while already connected to another server will now be handled more gracefully.
• History/Favourites now displays server data from the masterserver list to avoid connection issues.
• LAN enumeration has been slightly improved to find multiple servers on the same host.
• Server listing speed has been improved.
• Toolset performance when loading/accessing placeable-related functions has been improved.
  Toolset performance when working with the object tree in area view has been improved.
• Rendering performance has been improved. (This is not the Skybox issue; we’re still looking into this).
• Windows game and server will now use UPnP to automatically attempt a port map.

NWScript

New script commands:

// Get if oPlayer is currently connected over a relay (instead of directly).
// Returns FALSE for any other object, including OBJECT_INVALID.
int GetIsPlayerConnectionRelayed(object oPlayer);

What follows is a sample material file that includes examples for all currently supported fields:

customshaderVS vsSkinned
// Specifies a custom vertex shader: vsSkinned.shd

customshaderFS fsFancyNew
// Specifies a custom fragment shader: fsFancyNew.shd

texture0 myDecal
// Specifies a texture that will be bound to texUnit0 in the fragment shader. Will override bitmap/tetxure0 in the model

texture1 myMask
// Binds to texUnit1 in the fragment shader. We support up to fifteen of these textures: texture0 - texture14.

parameter float vDiffuse 0.8 1.0 0.65 1.0
// Creates a 4-float parameter that will be bound to a shader uniform of the same name (if it exists)

parameter float fModulator 0.5
// Creates a float parameter that will be bound to a shader uniform of the same name (if it exists)

parameter int iCount 2
// Creates an int parameter that will be bound to a shader uniform of the same name (if it exists)

To use a material like this one on a mesh, simple add the following line in the .mdl file: materialname myNewMaterial

 

[Infinitron]

http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/03/march-2-livestream-recap.html

March 2 Livestream Recap

Siege of Dragonspear on mobile devices. Less than 6 days from now.

Today Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle announced the release date of Siege of Dragonspear for Google Play and the App Store, and shared the latest Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and Infinity Engine beta news. Phil just barely escaped being сut by the very sharp edge of a wakizashi blade forged by Trent.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch!

Here's a quick summary of the highlights from the livestream:

• Exciting news for all Siege of Dragonspear fans: it’s coming to Android and iOS devices on March 8!
• Siege of Dragonspear on Google Play and the App Store will be a standalone app due to the 4 gb size limit by Apple, so you won’t need Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition to play it.
• The second part of the 2.5 patch beta for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is coming. Watch out for localization updates released along with a ton of bug fixes and new features.

A call to make a module where you can kill Phil in hilarious ways is still on the table!

• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition patch 8162 was released today. The new patch focuses on bug fixes, especially on the multiplayer side, and brings in a few new features. Check out full patch notes here.
• There’s still no release date for NWN:EE, but each build brings it closer, stay tuned!
• We’d appreciate more discussion from community members about henchmen control in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. Hop over to our forums and share your ideas.
• Allowing custom classes and spellbooks in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is a goal, but it will take time.

“D&D is a framework within which you can play fantastic adventures with friends and a person who oversees it, called a DM” ~ Trent

• Allowing players in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition to buy more than one item at a time is something we can absolutely look at, but it’s tied up to the UI refactor work.
• As we improve character models in NWN:EE it’s critically important for us to maintain backwards compatibility.
• If you want us to add in raycasts to scripting in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, let us know: discuss it on the forums, tell us what do you want to use it for, think about every case you might need it.
• If there are bugs in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition from the original game, log them into the public bug tracker. All those exploitable bugs such as being able to see stealthed creatures when first transitioning for 2-3 seconds, swapping your weapon at the peak of your attack animation to reset the timing and beat the standard attacks per round limit, adding lag to your position checks to let you walk through walls, log them all!
• We are interested in updating audio to work with new systems in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.
• We don’t have rights to create “the Black Hound” premium module, however the community is free to create their own interpretation of it.
• New content will come to Neverwinter Nights. We’re currently working on a few D&D concepts, but don’t have additional details to share at this time.
• We’re still on a hiring spree! Check out the full list of our open positions here and apply.

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream next Friday!

 

[Roguey]

We don’t have rights to create “the Black Hound” premium module, however the community is free to create their own interpretation of it.

Josh Sawyer's vision required full party control.

 

[Bocian]

NWN:EE Development Build 8163

The latest update to the Development build is here. Lots of exciting stuff here including re-enabling multiplayer for some premium modules. Enjoy!

New Known Issues Since Last Build
The default values for the camera changes in 8163 were too narrow and will be fixed in 8164. If you need this fixed for 8163, simply edit your nwnplayer.ini to contain these values:
[Control Options] CameraMaxPitch=89.000000 CameraMinDist=1.000000

Fixes

• The multiplayer server list will now properly highlight passworded servers in red.
  
• The software mouse cursor will no longer hide behind certain UI elements, such as Quit Game.
  
• The Toolset can now properly select WBM movies instead of BIK.
  
• Premium Modules now work in multiplayer again. (Note that some modules are not meant to be played in multiplayer and their scripting/design might prevent proper functioning.)
  
• Some crashes in the UPnP mechanism were fixed.
  
• Water static lighting problems have been fixed.
  
• The combining of parts with similar attributes has been re-enabled with support for the new data streams (tangents, additional texture coord streams, vertex color). This should boost performance back to where it was prior to the addition of the new streams.

Features

• The camera limits can now be adjusted in nwnplayer.ini (see below).
  
• Joining a multiplayer game through the Friends system, while already playing on a server, has been improved.

Configuration
CameraMinPitch, CameraMaxPitch, CameraMinDist, CameraMaxDist in nwnplayer.ini can be used to adjust the camera limits. (They are written on first start to give you the default values).

Camera fix has been available as a mod since basically forever.

 

[Infinitron]

Steam release on March 27 plus more new character models: http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/03/march-9-livestream-recap.html

March 9 Livestream Recap


A glimpse of what to expect in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition

During today’s livestream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle announced the March 27 release date of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Steam and showed the new look of the Hall of Justice from the Wailing Death campaign. They also spoke about the recently launched Siege of Dragonspear on mobile devices and upcoming patches for Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch!

Here's a quick summary of the highlights from the livestream:

• Big news! Siege of Dragonspear is out on Google Play and the App Store! Go grab it and have a great time!
• Siege of Dragonspear on mobile is a standalone app. You can export your party from Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition into Siege of Dragonspear and continue your adventure into Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition.
• In celebration of the launch of Siege of Dragonspear on Android and iOS, Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is on sale on Google Play and the App Store.

“This is a sweet box” ~ Phil

• The Siege of Dragonspear Collector's Edition is on sale! Act quick!
• The toughest part of bringing Siege of Dragonspear to tablets and phones was the size limit of applications on mobile platforms. Getting it to fit while balancing performance was a hurdle to get over.
• As Phil mentioned in the interview with 148apps, the size of battles and crowd scenes in the original game murdered the performance of the game on lower end tablets. As such we had to increase the minimum requirements for Siege of Dragonspear.
• At this time we don’t plan to bring Siege of Dragonspear-related content to Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Back during development of this expansion we had plans of adding a new questline into BGII:EE continuing the story of the Soultaker Dagger.

The Hall of Justice: with original graphics (first image) and with enhanced graphics (WIP) of NWN:EE (second image)

• More exciting news! Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is coming to Steam on March 27!
• The Head Start program won’t stop with the game’s launch. Development will be ongoing, we will continue to provide patches through the development branch on Steam which will then combine into bigger normal patches.
• The development branch of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Steam got a new patch this week. Build 8163, among other fixes, makes possible to play the Premium Modules in Multiplayer. Check out the full patch notes here.

An early look at a new player character model

• New content for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will come as separate modules. We’re investigating requests for new content in the Original Campaign of Neverwinter Nights but don’t have a solution currently.
• The issue of UI scaling freely on any resolution hasn’t been resolved yet as we are discussing possible approaches to it. UI refactor will happen further down the line.
• Things are slowly rolling out for the Neverwinter Nights Toolset, we’re making some progress on it.
• We’re still interested in getting feedback about possible henchmen control in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition from the community. Share your thoughts on the forums.
• We have no formal plans to announce bringing Enhanced Editions to the Nintendo Switch, but this is something that is appealing to us.

The statue on left shows the recent attempt of improving its look, the statue on the right is an old model

• The new beta build of the 2.5 patch for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is already available on beamdog.com, Steam and Google Play. New beta updates for Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition will be released as planned in the upcoming weeks.
• We’re going to start rolling out new content for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition into the Steam Workshop soon, stay tuned.
• We continue to hire! Check out our job offerings here.

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream next Friday!

 

[Immortal]

That's a great big step - As Trent said, That lighting needs a huge overhaul.

The Normal and Spec maps are great.

 

[d1nolore]

What exactly are they launching on March 27? They are not far along enough in development to launch yet. Is it an early access thing?

 

[Erikolaz]

That character looks as though he wouldn't approve of Infinitron's tribe.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Kek the models are still made of different meshes stuck together.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Did they fix art ?

I mean those fucking things:

I still remember turning on NWN1 for first time and i was like WTF is that. Where are those glorious paperdolls and glorious BG2 art ? I mean below that you have version of some modder and it looks miles fucking better than original.

Art below is way worse than the original art...

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Game was fucking ugly even at release. I remember being hyped about it i switch on game and everything looks the fucking same, rooms which looked like warehouses, crappy 2d art, weak shit looking animations without punch, spells that shat on whole screen where you hardly could make what is going on on screen and worst offender repeating assets everywhere.

This is bullshit.
NWN had superb animation, even by today's rpg standarts. They animated dodges, parries, blocks, various special hits and etc. Compare it with bg animation which had absolutely no weight and almost all atacks were animated the same whether they hit, missed, were deflected and etc.. It's so sad that corporate heads decided it's not worth spending money on animating afterwards and we returned to baldur's gate standarts of animation....

The lightning and shadows also was also absolutely mind blowind.

 

[Semper]

Kek the models are still made of different meshes stuck together.

and that's a plus. being able to swap out parts of a mesh is one feature that's sorely missed in nwn2. who cares about visible seams between parts if the upside is flexibility?

 

[Roguey]

They animated dodges, parries, blocks, various special hits and etc. Compare it with bg animation which had absolutely no weight and almost all atacks were animated the same whether they hit, missed, were deflected and etc.. It's so sad that corporate heads decided it's not worth spending money on animating afterwards and we returned to baldur's gate standarts of animation....

Those animations messed with the rules with regards to how many attacks per round you should get. Quite a few people had a negative reaction to NWN2's phantom attacks.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

They animated dodges, parries, blocks, various special hits and etc. Compare it with bg animation which had absolutely no weight and almost all atacks were animated the same whether they hit, missed, were deflected and etc.. It's so sad that corporate heads decided it's not worth spending money on animating afterwards and we returned to baldur's gate standarts of animation....

Those animations messed with the rules with regards to how many attacks per round you should get. Quite a few people had a negative reaction to NWN2's phantom attacks.

NWN2 didn't have the kind of quality of animations first game had due to its budget.
Obsidian said they cut the animations because good animations felt bad for player or smth.

 

[Palomides]

what does that even mean

 

[Jimmious]

NWN looked like shit apart from lighting. Early 3D era kind of shit.
Every time I think about it, I just remember how I was disappointed by this game on launch