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

[Infinitron]

http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/08/august-3-livestream-recap.html

August 3 Livestream Recap

“The “NWSync” will be the biggest feature coming to Neverwinter Nights since the initial release. Launch the game and connect to a server - all the needed files will be downloaded automatically” ~ Phil

Last week Beamdog Studio Director Phillip Daigle and Marketing & PR Manager Lee Guille shared the latest Beamdog news and updates on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions. We also played a fun piece of never-used-before Minsc voice over.

Missed the stream ? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

• Beamdog will do a special announcement panel on PAX West. You might see changes regarding our announcements there in the near future. If you can’t make it to Seattle, tune on Twitch: we’ll be streaming our panel on the Beamdog Twitch channel!
• If you’re local to Edmonton, show up to Edmonton Expo in September!
• Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be running some newsletters soon with a bunch of contests, including a chance to add a fantasy version of a winner’s portrait into our games!
• If you’re not following our Steam Developer page – you should! You’ll be automatically notified when we release new games.
• We’re hiring! If you get skills, get in touch with us!
• Beamdog is moving to a new, bigger office in Edmonton!

Now you can use new models of Rapiers and Kukris in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition from the Steam Workshop!

• The 2.5 patches for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear are nearly done. We have 2 show stopping bugs to finish before we can release these patches, both should be fixed fairly soon.
• We’ll finish the 2.5 update series with one final patch for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition.
• The Mac App Store will get all the updates as soon as we’re finished with the 2.5 update series.
• After the 2.5 patches we’ll be able to push localization updates to Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition more frequently.
• There’re a few localization updates for Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition planned in the future!
• A new development build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will hopefully go out this week. Among other features, it will include the Road to 2.0 winners portraits (also added to Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition as a part of the 2.5 patches).
• You can see a couple of new updates for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on the Steam Workshop! Enhanced Kukri and Rapier models are now available. We also have reuploaded some of the previously updated models and released an update to the Aribeth example model, fixing conflicts with enhanced weapon models.
• We’d like to provide an alternative to the Steam Workshop for Beamdog and future GOG Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition players by uploading all our enhanced models on Beamdog.com.

“We’re nerds for good D&D books” ~ Lee

• During the time we were recording voice over lines for Siege of Dragonspear we asked Jim Cummings to voice a few funny things for the trailer. Now you can listen to an exclusive, never-used-before Minsc line!
• The NWN:EE team is currently discussing our approach towards updating all textures in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.
• After finishing heavy features for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition such as “NWSync” and 64-bit support, we plan to start including popular features from the Input Trello Board.
• We have a plan for adding Steam achievements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, but it won’t happen for a little while yet.
• The TTF fonts support and the UI scaling for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition are coming, these features already work in our internal build.
• If you plan to create a Premium Module for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, get in touch! Any content for it should use the 3rd Edition D&D rules and happen in the 3rd Edition timeline.
• We’ll be bringing people from the community to talk to during our livestreams. Stay tuned!

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

 

[Bocian]

Tranny Aribeth and plastic graphics, that's the result of a year's work.

These interiors are pain to look at, everything - floor, columns, walls - looks like it was made of one, exactly the same piece of stone. I guess none of them ever seen how a real cathedral or church looks like.

 

[Dorateen]

I guess none of them ever seen how a real cathedral or church looks like.

I'm pretty sure if anyone at beamdog ever stepped into a cathedral or church, they would be instantaneously vaporized.

 

[aweigh]

when does this game launch?

 

[Lilura]

It's already been launched. Next relevant step is x64 rewrite. Beamdog rewrote 75% of IE code, so it'll probably take a while.

Expect 5 years of patching and updating, patching and updating. Years from now, they will be patching things they broke themselves that were never broken in the original to begin with (see changelog for 2.5 IE update).

 

[Rahdulan]

It would be foolish not to have plans for a module or dozen. I'm actually interested if they have approached modders out there to acquire new modules, spruce them up and sell officially.

 

[Lilura]

It would be foolish not to have plans for a module or dozen. I'm actually interested if they have approached modders out there to acquire new modules, spruce them up and sell officially.

That's what I said nearly a year ago. From then until now, Beamdog have opened and closed, opened and closed. Even after Darkness Over Daggerford got its EE, they closed the idea again. It doesn't matter: nothing they could design would be on par with Swordflight.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's already been launched. Next relevant step is x64 rewrite. Beamdog rewrote 75% of IE code, so it'll probably take a while.

What? If true they'd have no trouble recreating IWD2's engine-specific features, yet Beamdog maintains IWD2EE is impossible without source code.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

There has been a persistent call for Arcanum: Enhanced Edition by YouTube commenters.

Arcanum but it won't crash every 5 seconds? I'm in.

 

[LESS T_T]

The PAX West panel: http://west.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/gather-your-party-for-a-beamdog-panel

Gather Your Party for A Beamdog Panel

• SAT 09/01 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
• HYDRA THEATRE

Beamdog has brought beloved roleplaying games like Baldur’s Gate™, Neverwinter Nights™, and other classic Dungeons & Dragons titles back to life as Enhanced Editions, and now we’re at PAX West to announce what’s to come for our existing titles and beyond!

PANELISTS
Trent Oster [CEO, Beamdog], Phillip Daigle [Studio Director, Beamdog], Alyssa Duguay [Art Director, Beamdog], Sarah Dawson [Community Manager, Beamdog], John Feil [Senior Producer, Digital Licensing, Wizards of the Coast]

 

[imweasel]

So Beamdawg has a new community manager. Sounds like something is brewing.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

So in the end this character models they were talking about are just a workshop mod made by them with a generic human male? Wow....
I wonder what they will do next!:D

 

[Cael]

So in the end this character models they were talking about are just a workshop mod made by them with a generic human male? Wow....
I wonder what they will do next!:D

This:

Spoiler

 

[Fedora Master]

Beamdog, it's time to stop. Seriously. This can't be healthy or profitable.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Apparently is indeed profittable since they keep doing that.

 

[Infinitron]

http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/08/august-10-livestream-recap.html

August 10 Livestream Recap

“The key thing about NWN:EE on Android is all the features of the desktop version should be available. All the stuff is still there” ~ Phil

During last week’s livestream Beamdog Studio Director Phillip Daigle and Marketing & PR Manager Lee Guille shared the latest studio and gaming news. Phil and Lee talked about what’s to come for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions.

Missed the stream ? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

• Beamdog is going to PAX West! We’ll be doing a panel at September, 1 at 1pm PT. If you aren’t travelling to Seattle - don’t worry! We’ll be streaming the panel on the Beamdog Twitch channel!
• Come by our booth at Edmonton Expo! If you’re in Edmonton, come by to say “Hi!’ and check out our booth contest!
• If you want to win a Baldur’s Gate style portrait of your very own which may make it into the Enhanced Edition family of games, sign up for our new newsletter before August 28, 2018! If you’re already signed up, you’re entered! Make sure to double check that you’re signed up!
• We’re continuing to hire! If you’re a web developer, programer, or technical artist looking for a new adventure, apply!
• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition has been nominated at the 2018 Dragon Awards for the Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game. Register and vote here!

Want your face included in one of our Enhanced Editions as an epic fantasy portrait? Sign up for the newsletter!

• Only one ticket is left before the 2.5 patches for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear are finished.
• The final 2.5 patch for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is almost ready to go! Among other features, it’ll include an optional setting in the Baldur.lua file to show an area-of-effect of the spell you’re going to cast! This prototype feature will be only available on desktop. If you have feedback, please share it on our forums.

Fireball with pinpoint accuracy!

• We’re already thinking about what will happen for the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions after the 2.5 patch. We’ve hired Luke Rideout as a producer on the Infinity Engine project. While getting to the 2.6 patch will take some time, we’ll be able to start pushing localization updates more frequently.
• We’re looking at performance issues of our IE EEs on old mobile devices and working on bringing tweaks and improvements to the Android and iOS versions.
• We’re actively investigating creating a Collector’s Edition of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Baldur’s Gate in December, 2018. We won’t take orders for this Collector’s Edition before it’s actually finished. More news soon!

“I’m trying to get GOG support for NWN:EE out of the door!” ~ Phil

• We’re working on bringing Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition to GOG. The plan is to push a special update for NWN:EE for GOG, which will include the GOG Galaxy support. The development build for NWN:EE with the “NWSync” feature will follow.
• We haven’t built achievements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition yet, but we have the plan for them.
• The work on adding the 64-bit support for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Windows is complete. We’re working on a few problems on Mac and Linux. The 64-bit feature will be on a development branch for NWN:EE for a while as this is a big change, and we’ll need your feedback!
• We’re still discussing how to improve the lighting model in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

The UI is still in development and what we’re showing is not final.

• The Android version of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will have all the the features of the desktop version. On top of that, we’re adding tablet-specific features to provide better playing experience. One of them is a digital joystick to control your character with an onscreen console. For interacting with NPCs and items we’re adding a context sensitive button. When you’re next to an NPC or a container, it’ll cast out an icon, for example, to talk or to open the chest.
• The normal NWN:EE UI is working fine on Android, but we want to make it much more comfortable for you with an improved tablet UI. You’ll have a lot of configuration options to scale the UI and font size depending on your device’s screen and DPI.
• We’re working on the overall new UI for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition with external partners.
• Mike Spalding is coming to Beamdog this fall. He’ll be coordinating our art, and one of his tasks will be to push to the community all the documentation about using enhanced NWN:EE assets.
• We’re thinking on how to improve the translating tool for the Infinity Engine Enhanced Editions. We’re also working on adding Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition to the translating tool.
• We’ll be bringing people from the community to talk to during our livestreams. Stay tuned!

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

 

[Lilura]

Spalding is credited as Lead Character Artist on Mass Effect. Along with Ossian working on art assets, there could be some visual incline ahead.

I didn't watch the vid, but I guess there was no mention of this KotOR-style FPC...

 

[Bocian]

Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition has been nominated at the 2018 Dragon Awards for the Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game.

 

[Lord_Potato]

So... now you can die of bordom playing Neverwinter Nights OC in front of your android phone too.

Hurray, I guess.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

How about start to develop new rpg beamdog?
The games to enhance will end a day and what then?

What will be your next move beamdog?
Neverwinter nights 2 enhanced edition?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How about start to develop new rpg beamdog?
The games to enhance will end a day and what then?

What will be your next move beamdog?
Neverwinter nights 2 enhanced edition?

If they actually enhanced it I'd be ok with that. The game is incredibly buggy.

 

[Sinatar]

If they released a NWN2 enhanced edition with a functioning camera I'd buy it. Fuck NWN2's camera.

 

[Lacrymas]

If I had a cent for every time someone brings up NWN2's camera......... NWN2's camera is fine, git gut.

 

[aweigh]

NWN2 is just fine as it is. Also, jfl at thinking Beamdog has the resources/capacity to rework a game's 3D camera, jfl indeed.

 

[Roguey]

Feels like it's been a while since I've Joshposted

To be honest, the major issues are due to a lack of polish. There's certainly a lot of stuff in the game, but none of it really looks or feels great. At best, the controls and features feel good, at worst they feel terrible.

For example, the camera. Programming got the camera in and fixed a number of its glaring problems, but for all the various camera modes you could run in, it was hard to find one that felt good.