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

[Lilura]

Ah, an uncharacteristic showing of humility from you. Disappointing.

 

[Immortal]

Ah, an uncharacteristic showing of humility from you. Disappointing.

I was actually bragging. Wanted to put my best foot forward to smear walls of text on that pale white abortion you call a blog.

 

[Roguey]

I don't think mod monetization is going anywhere after the Skyrim paid mod fiasco.

That was different. People don't have issues with paying for original content, it's stuff like buying bug fixes, UI improvements, enhanced graphics, etc. that sticks in peoples' craw.

I can't imagine anyone ever having an issue with the idea of paying for something like Nehrim for example.

 

[Infinitron]

Updated again: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/darkness-over-daggerford-canceled-premium-module

* SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT *

Darkness over Daggerford has finally been released as an official Premium Module for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition! We worked on this new version for many months, adding in new music, new portrait art, lots of VO, and most importantly about 500 fixes, improvements, and some complete overhauls based on all the feedback and critiques players have posted over the years. The original version of the game will of course remain on the NWVault but the enhanced version of is a much better gameplay experience and is now available for sale. You can find out more about the enhanced edition of Darkness over Daggerford on Ossian’s website: http://www.ossianstudios.com/dod(link is external)

We hope to bring you more Dungeons & Dragons adventures in the future!

http://www.ossianstudios.com/dod

Introduction
In August 2006, Ossian Studios released its first game: Darkness over Daggerford. Originally slated to be a an official Neverwinter Nights Premium Mod released by BioWare, it was cancelled when the premium mod program was unexpectedly shut down a few months earlier in May. The Daggerford team pressed ahead anyhow, finishing the module and releasing it for free, taking the Neverwinter community by complete surprise. The game promptly broke download records on the NWVault, won several awards for its outstanding quality, and praise from thousands of fans.

Almost 12 years later, on June 1, 2018, Ossian finally finished what it had originally set out to do: complete Darkness over Daggerford as it had been envisioned. Released by Beamdog as an official premium module for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, the game has been remastered with new music, new portrait art, lots of VO, and most importantly almost 500 fixes, improvements, and some complete overhauls based on all the feedback and critiques players had posted over the years. This level of care and polish was added over the course of many months, with the ultimate goal of giving players the best possible gameplay experience. We hope you enjoy playing it!
- Alan Miranda

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I don't think mod monetization is going anywhere after the Skyrim paid mod fiasco.

it's stuff like buying bug fixes, UI improvements, enhanced graphics, etc. that sticks in peoples' craw.

And yet, here we are, with the Beamdog business model.

To be frank, I'd be in two minds about paying for something like Nehrim. I don't begrudge tossing a few bucks to SureAI, but I'd think hard about it if Todd would take his pound o' flesh too.

 

[Roguey]

With Beamdog it's more like UI "improvements", "enhanced" graphics.

Enhanced editions are fine, it's the nickel and diming of it that's obscene.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

With Beamdog it's more like UI "improvements", "enhanced" graphics.

Still gets them revenue, does it not?

 

[Immortal]

I don't think mod monetization is going anywhere after the Skyrim paid mod fiasco.

That was different. People don't have issues with paying for original content, it's stuff like buying bug fixes, UI improvements, enhanced graphics, etc. that sticks in peoples' craw.

I can't imagine anyone ever having an issue with the idea of paying for something like Nehrim for example.

Within a week of paid mods going live - we saw a slew of stolen / low quality garbage hit the market place.
When money is involved, pandering to the lowest common denominator suddenly becomes enticing instead of shameful, causing the net quality of the entire community to dive.

It's a bad system that fosters walled gardens and shady practices. The bugfixes were never gonna be charged for. Those bugfix projects are done by over 10 different people, good luck at carving that up on the steam store.

It couldn't of died fast enough and just the fact Bethesda unironically even tried, shows how out of touch they are.
Queue Fallout 76.

With Beamdog it's more like UI "improvements", "enhanced" graphics.

Enhanced editions are fine, it's the nickel and diming of it that's obscene.

Just to be clear - as much of a rip off Darkness over Daggerford is. The bugfixes / ui improvements ect would be all base game. They aren't locking anything behind premium modules. They even release their custom content to the community so everyone can use it - whether they bought the module or not.

It also does seem like a 'Support us' project, similar to a patreon tier or something. Still, I'm not buying that shit.

 

[Roguey]

Within a week of paid mods going live - we saw a slew of stolen / low quality garbage hit the market place.
When money is involved, pandering to the lowest common denominator suddenly becomes enticing instead of shameful, causing the net quality of the entire community to dive.

It can work just fine if the mods are properly curated like how Valve curated its store before Greenlight/their current process.

 

[Immortal]

Within a week of paid mods going live - we saw a slew of stolen / low quality garbage hit the market place.
When money is involved, pandering to the lowest common denominator suddenly becomes enticing instead of shameful, causing the net quality of the entire community to dive.

It can work just fine if the mods are properly curated like how Valve curated its store before Greenlight/their current process.

The Creation Club is essentially what you describe.. And it's just endless pages of Nexus flips / skins / armor packs.
I would never buy any of that shit and yet it's console players only source of mods.
I would not call that a good system.

(Unless by good you mean, free income for Bethesda at the expense of idiots who bought a Console)

 

[Roguey]

The Creation Club is essentially what you describe.. And it's just endless pages of Nexus flips / skins / armor packs.
I would never buy any of that shit and yet it's console players only source of mods.
I would not call that a good system.

I'm describing Bioware's original attempt at premium mods. Say what you will about quality, but none of the mods that were approved (Darkness over Daggerford, Hex Coda, Crimson Tides of Tethyr, Wyvern Crown of Cormyr) were shovelware.

 

[Immortal]

The Creation Club is essentially what you describe.. And it's just endless pages of Nexus flips / skins / armor packs.
I would never buy any of that shit and yet it's console players only source of mods.
I would not call that a good system.

I'm describing Bioware's original attempt at premium mods. Say what you will about quality, but none of the mods that were approved (Darkness over Daggerford, Hex Coda, Crimson Tides of Tethyr, Wyvern Crown of Cormyr) were shovelware.

I don't disagree.

When you say Mods.. Do you mean Modifications or Modules? We are now talking about different things.
NWN Modules are not comparable to Skyrim Mods. That is a Apples to Giraffes comparison.

 

[Roguey]

I don't disagree.

When you say Mods.. Do you mean Modifications or Modules? We are now talking about different things.
NWN Modules are not comparable to Skyrim Mods. That is a Apples to Giraffes comparison.

Modules, yes. Selling anything else would be a mistake.

...With some possible exceptions. Like music and art packages that can be used to make more-original-looking-and-sounding modules seems to work fine in the RPG Maker scene. But upgraded textures, models, nah.

 

[Infinitron]

What I was trying to say in my newspost is that if a bunch of old-time NWN modders now come out of retirement and make enhanced versions of their old modules to sell on Steam - and not ones that were originally meant to be sold like Darkness over Daggerford - that might cause some butthurt.

Especially if any of them take down the original free versions from the Neverwinter Vault.

 

[Immortal]

I don't disagree.

When you say Mods.. Do you mean Modifications or Modules? We are now talking about different things.
NWN Modules are not comparable to Skyrim Mods. That is a Apples to Giraffes comparison.

Modules, yes. Selling anything else would be a mistake.

...With some possible exceptions. Like music and art packages that can be used to make more-original-looking-and-sounding modules seems to work fine in the RPG Maker scene. But upgraded textures, models, nah.

Yea agreed.

I think the bar of entry for Modules being completed at the level required by a developer for sale - will just organically weed out the bullshit.
A module takes many many months to complete and is hard to rip or re-purpose wholesale.. compared to an armor pack.

TL;DR
With NWN you are forced to go for quality over quantity as a business model. Not so much with Skyrim or Fallout 4.

What I was trying to say in my newspost is that if a bunch of old-time NWN modders now come out of retirement and make enhanced versions of their old modules to sell on Steam - and not ones that were originally meant to be sold like Darkness over Daggerford - that might cause some butthurt.

Especially if any of them take down the original free versions from the Neverwinter Vault.

I don't think this will realistically happen.. anything is possible though.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Sabotin]

Do I even dare to click on that play button?

If they want to sell premium modules I feel they should improve on the base a bit. For all the bugs NWN has, most of them seem to be stuff not working properly, while EE bugs keep being nuisance during gameplay. Dunno if it's just me but in the latest patch mousing over open doors highlights the whole doorway, so clicking to go through the doorway actually just closes the door. Thus you're forced to turn the camera around and click, or use keyboard movement to go through. And the character movement seems to hitch over every trigger you walk, so I'm never sure if there's supposed to be some companion conversation that didn't fire or w/e.

About the Ossian module I tried to dig a bit for the improvements, but it's not really self evident and I won't check every single area and conversation... What I've noticed is the conversation word count is a bit larger (195k to 198,5k or so). There seems to be a new NPC or two and maybe some reactivity added (flock of seaguls checking if you're a druid/ranger etc). I assume there was some editing pass on conversations and changes in portraits/music judging by steam comments. I'd guess there's some background stuff, too, using new EE features instead of old workarounds, but that's not really gonna be visible.

 

[Sacred82]

X 1000

just watching it with sound off gave me brain cancer

 

[rogueknight333]

Active module-makers have been quiet on my (Beamdog-critical) blog lately...

Andarian and Savant have both indicated plans for EE related projects, and Luspr was involved with Darkness over Daggerford which is now also an EE thing. On top of that, it has been a long time since you posted anything about NWN specifically leaving nothing for NWN authors qua NWN authors to comment on even if they were inclined to. Among your NWN author commnenters that just leaves me as the only one who is not especially enthusiastic about the EE and who also occasionally comments on the IE game materials as well, and I have been very busy lately, so...were you expecting anything different?

...Ossian should release changelog publicly detailing 500 improvements...

It appears that they have: Ossian changelog.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm more interested in knowing what would happen to the Shadow Sun ip now that Ossian is getting something.

 

[Lilura]

so...were you expecting anything different?

As I sought to imply - in relation to custom content creators possibly signing up with Beam-mongrel in the future - of course not.

In relation to my lack of recent coverage, I'm eagerly awaiting Swordflight Chapter Four.

Though it isn't like I have to continue to post on NWN in order for my commentary to be read by thousands daily: Google Indexing continues to increasingly favor my King Content. Tee-hee.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Though it isn't like I have to continue to post on NWN in order for my commentary to be read by thousands daily: Google Indexing continues to increasingly favor my King Content. Tee-hee.

You have started leaning a bit more toward clickbait lately. "Top Ten Infinity Engine Two-Handed Swords!!!" My prediction: your traffic will continue to grow, but within the year we'll be seeing titles like, "I made $___ a month playing old RPGs and you can, too!" Or perhaps: "How to lose twenty pounds playing Temple of Elemental Evil!!!!" Or "Playing the original Neverwinter Nights can stop hair loss, but not the enhanced editions!!!!"

Monetize, monetize, monetize.

***

...hovering....

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

OK, the photos are taken at different angles. One is turned a bit different to the other. There, I'm now in the top 1%.

 

[Infinitron]

First YouTube footage of the new Darkness over Daggerford: