NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[Gahbreeil]

I disbelieve your arguments, people. First of all, compare MDK 1 to NwN. Clearly, NwN pulls off 3D graphics that do work. Second, the interface isn't terrible. Third, dialogues might not be on par but you can play Darkness over Daggerford. The dialogues there are better. We're talking about NwN, not the OC.

Meanwhile, I understand your agenda, I stand by mine.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

NwN 3D is dogshit and its interface is garbage

It's a pseudo MMO for team thinking that it was future of CRPG/DnD based CRPG

Modules like Swordflight are good in spite of being produced in NwN, due to very robust and user-friendly modding kit. The base game engine is dogshit and unfun

 

[almondblight]

Yeah, I can't stand the Everquest style MMORPG interface, that looks like a bland chatroom windows which are translucently displayed over the screen. We can debate how much of the ugliness of the game is because it's early 3D, but the interface, the portraits, the number of things that are glowing neon, etc., show an overall bad art direction.

Even that weird line that sticks out of the radial menu looks completely amateurish when compared to something like the ToEE radial menu.

 

[Gargaune]

Man, it's like a redditor convention in here. Pikoman is right, NWN has its share of compromises, but most everything from the RTwP combat to the tile-based maps serve that core vision of bringing the full scope of D&D to your computer, including cooperative play, an actual DM mode, and module authoring, and even taking it further to support larger multiplayer experiences. It's not perfect by nature and it's not even a perfect execution of that concept, but it works pretty damn well in aggregate and no other game has even attempted to pull off something on that scale.

The one thing I'll concede is that the lack of more advanced party controls was a gratuitous mistake. BioWare clearly intended to steer players more into the co-op aspects, but when NWN turned back towards singleplayer after the OC, they didn't go far enough with the added henchmen features. Beamdog's new party controls make a huge difference for the better, but they should've gone all the way and let module builders enable full DM-style possession of companions.

It's a pity that Bioware in 1998 didn't faithfully adopt the Gygaxian one-minute combat rounds of original D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and AD&D 2nd edition; that would have aborted RTSRPGs from the start.

Yeah, that's very pertinent to this discussion, it's a pity that Neverwinter Nights, the game initially advertised as supporting up to 64 players in online mode, didn't have you sit around sixteen fucking hours for everyone's turn.

Even that weird line that sticks out of the radial menu looks completely amateurish when compared to something like the ToEE radial menu.

The only good thing about ToEE's UI is the radial menu and even that's a tradeoff - it's quicker sans the click, but those slivers get real thin the deeper you go. Also, props for whining about NWN's UI aesthetics and then moving on to ToEE, who's far more sterile in that department without a stitch of transparency.

 

[Snufkin]

Aielund Saga with EE was very good experience for me. I had 4 person team most of the time and their AI was good because EE improves it.

 

[JarlFrank]

I disbelieve your arguments, people. First of all, compare MDK 1 to NwN. Clearly, NwN pulls off 3D graphics that do work.

NWN is exceptionally ugly compared to its contemporaries. The problem isn't the 3D graphics themselves, but the uninspired art direction, the lack of actual three-dimensionality (everything is a flat plane, and different height levels are strictly separated by 90 degree cliffs, making particularly natural environments look horrendous), and the oversized scale of the assets. Just look at the size of the interiors, every tavern looks like a warehouse, the people like halflings compared to the size of the rooms, and you can clearly see the block-based nature of the layout, even moreso than in the Tomb Raider games which are literally made of squares.

NWN was released in 2002, yet it looks worse than your average 3D game from the late 90s. All its contemporaries look better, be it from a technical standpoint or simply through art design. Morrowind is blocky, too, but it has cool art design and is less grid-bound, and has slopes and hills which NWN entirely lacks. Dungeon Siege looked beautiful for the time, with lush landscapes and lots of environmental detail. FPS games like Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Thief, Half Life, all look better. Now you could say that's because they're first person but the main reason they look better is that everything looks much better proportioned, compared to NWN where everything looks incredibly off-scale. Gothic 2 came out the same year as NWN, too, and it looks gorgeous.

And before you say the oversized tiles and blocks that NWN's environments are made of are designed to be easy to use in a construction kit, I'll have you know that Morrowind uses the exact same system for interiors yet manages to look less off-scale (even though you will notice the repetition of pre-made blocks if you've entered enough interiors). And Morrowind is just as popular a modding platform as NWN, it's in no way harder to use. It also has slopes and hills for the outdoors, whereas NWN only has plateaus and 90 degree angles.

Similarly, Quake and Thief have level editors that allow you to create complex 3D levels very freely, with any shapes you want, angled walls and everything, and the modding scenes of these games show how beautiful you can make a level in these editors. They're also not hard to use at all, some of the best Thief fan missions were made by middle aged housewives with no background in computer tech at all. You don't have to look as shitty as NWN to be easily moddable.

It simply looked shit compared to all of its contemporaries, and it still looks shit now. While other games from the time have been polished up with user-made content to look better than they ever could on old hardware, NWN's inherent limitations prevent it from looking much better than it did. Environment scale will always feel off, there will never be sloped hills, there will never be anything but 90 degree corners, making everything look fake and lame.

 

[Faarbaute]

I'm an unapologetic NWN fan.

With that out of the way, the absolute dumbest critique that gets leveled at the game, is the idea that it fails as a DnD experience because it doesn't adequately facilitate party play, while at the same time, dismissing the game as a multiplayer experience. I'm looking at you specifically JarlFrank. This is embarrassing to read. Pull yourself together, for Gods sake.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

 

[Faarbaute]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

It not even that your critiques are offensive, or wrong. It's that they are uninteresting.

Oh no, this game falls short outside of the context in which it was made. It's 0/10, it's shit :DDDD, ad naseum for 20 years

Fuck off with this lowbrow shit.

 

[Pikoman]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

But you didn't judge the game's SP modules in this thread, if anything you pointed out that you liked Swordflight and AdwR, but that you couldn't really enjoy them due to how NwN handles party control and because the game is too slow according to you - the former point a fairly reasonable one depending on individual taste, even if I've already explained that some of your more specific issues with companions could've easily been rectified using the tools that the base game had even prior to EE, and the latter issue of the overall experience being too tardy an entirely subjective opinion.

If an entirely objective summary of NwN as a DnD experience is to be made, you can't completely ignore multiplayer as the poster above you said. DnD is a multiplayer game in itself, it's silly to gloss over that aspect of it when talking about NwN or any other CRPG based on its system when talking about which game offers the best simulation of the real deal - and by that metric NwN is still unparalleled, ultimately accomplishing the vision Bioware had for it.

Rating NwN as 0/10 and as one of the worst RPGs is an appalling take no matter which side of the experience we're talking about IMO, even if I myself am quite biased.

 

[Gargaune]

NWN is exceptionally ugly compared to its contemporaries. The problem isn't the 3D graphics themselves, but the uninspired art direction, the lack of actual three-dimensionality (everything is a flat plane, and different height levels are strictly separated by 90 degree cliffs, making particularly natural environments look horrendous), and the oversized scale of the assets. Just look at the size of the interiors, every tavern looks like a warehouse, the people like halflings compared to the size of the rooms, and you can clearly see the block-based nature of the layout, even moreso than in the Tomb Raider games which are literally made of squares.

NWN was released in 2002, yet it looks worse than your average 3D game from the late 90s. All its contemporaries look better, be it from a technical standpoint or simply through art design. Morrowind is blocky, too, but it has cool art design and is less grid-bound, and has slopes and hills which NWN entirely lacks. Dungeon Siege looked beautiful for the time, with lush landscapes and lots of environmental detail. FPS games like Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Thief, Half Life, all look better. Now you could say that's because they're first person but the main reason they look better is that everything looks much better proportioned, compared to NWN where everything looks incredibly off-scale. Gothic 2 came out the same year as NWN, too, and it looks gorgeous.

And before you say the oversized tiles and blocks that NWN's environments are made of are designed to be easy to use in a construction kit, I'll have you know that Morrowind uses the exact same system for interiors yet manages to look less off-scale (even though you will notice the repetition of pre-made blocks if you've entered enough interiors). And Morrowind is just as popular a modding platform as NWN, it's in no way harder to use. It also has slopes and hills for the outdoors, whereas NWN only has plateaus and 90 degree angles.

Similarly, Quake and Thief have level editors that allow you to create complex 3D levels very freely, with any shapes you want, angled walls and everything, and the modding scenes of these games show how beautiful you can make a level in these editors. They're also not hard to use at all, some of the best Thief fan missions were made by middle aged housewives with no background in computer tech at all. You don't have to look as shitty as NWN to be easily moddable.

It simply looked shit compared to all of its contemporaries, and it still looks shit now. While other games from the time have been polished up with user-made content to look better than they ever could on old hardware, NWN's inherent limitations prevent it from looking much better than it did. Environment scale will always feel off, there will never be sloped hills, there will never be anything but 90 degree corners, making everything look fake and lame.

NWN is a little uglier than its contemporaries, partly due to modularity for user-made content, partly due to its long development cycles for the era (5 years) and BioWare underestimating hardware advancements by the time of release. When HotU rolled around in 2003, polycounts increased slightly for new assets, and tilesets started having variable elevation levels (your "sloped hills"). The "overscaled" aspect of its visual design is also due to its intended isometric perspective and having to see things clearly from a distance (the topic was touched on tangentially by Oster when he explained why he made weapon models so chunky).

Subsequent developments, such as DLA's and Zwerkules' tilesets, which have since been included in the EE, further improved visuals while sticking to a compatible level of fidelity.

And things could be pushed further with modern visuals, but there's not much point since it would limit usage of the existing tileset base.

As for user-generated content, you're once again looking at things superficially and talking rubbish, Bethesda's toolset is nowhere near as quick and accessible as Aurora because it was built to make games with a team and released to the public as a bonus, whereas NWN addressed solo hobbyists as an intended feature of play. That's why tiles are grid-aligned, with multiple configurations of preset decorative geometry, that's why they snap together and have built-in navmeshes. The results speak for themselves, NWN boasts countless single-author adventure modules with dozens of hours of play, whereas all Morrowind did was train a community to churn out titty mods for Oblivion and Skyrim. Bethesda modders make a single quest dungeon in as long as it takes NWN builders to make a complete little RPG, and comparing things to a Quake map is ridiculous.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

It not even that your critiques are offensive, or wrong. It's that they are uninteresting.

Oh no, this game falls short outside of the context in which it was made. It's 0/10, it's shit :DDDD, ad naseum for 20 years

Fuck off with this lowbrow shit.

Amazing! Twenty years of shitting on NWN, and its defenders never come up with any better defense than "Well it was designed for multiplayer, that's why it sucks so hard in singleplayer!"

What a great defense. Truly, this redeems the game!

 

[JarlFrank]

Rating NwN as 0/10 and as one of the worst RPGs is an appalling take no matter which side of the experience we're talking about IMO, even if I myself am quite biased.

I mean, for all the praises it gets from its fans, and all the high quality user modules it has, I've tried to enjoy it many times but always ended up being frustrated by its fundamental core issues that cannot be fixed unless you'd completely overhaul it from the ground up.
From a pure gameplay enjoyment factor, it's at about the same level as janky Russian shovelware RPGs. It simply feels bad to play. Slow, janky, unresponsive, filled with a ton of annoyances that add up to make the experience more frustrating than fun.

I played thousands of games in my life, and while there are worse RPGs for sure, NWN is the one with the highest amount of squandered potential. It was made by the people who made Baldur's Gate 2 for fuck's sake. Had it been made by a small Russian studio or something, its flaws could be excused, but those guys should have known better! It's the sharpest drop in quality ever seen from a studio. And I say that as someone who considers the drop from Morrowind to Oblivion to single-handedly have ruined not only The Elder Scrolls but open world RPGs in general for years to come. Even when you look at Oblivion, the sheer drop in how fun it feels to actually play the game is worse coming from BG2 to NWN. It truly is that bad. It's hard to enjoy the good parts of a module when for the rest of it you find yourself struggling against NWN's inherently unfun elements. Every single aspect of its design is bad.

The results speak for themselves, NWN boasts countless single-author adventure modules with dozens of hours of play, whereas all Morrowind did was train a community to churn out titty mods for Oblivion and Skyrim.

https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/

comparing things to a Quake map is ridiculous.

What about comparing things to a Thief map?
And how is it ridiculous, when making maps for these games is just as quick and easy (if not even easier!) than NWN?

 

[Faarbaute]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

It not even that your critiques are offensive, or wrong. It's that they are uninteresting.

Oh no, this game falls short outside of the context in which it was made. It's 0/10, it's shit :DDDD, ad naseum for 20 years

Fuck off with this lowbrow shit.

Amazing! Twenty years of shitting on NWN, and its defenders never come up with any better defense than "Well it was designed for multiplayer, that's why it sucks so hard in singleplayer!"

What a great defense. Truly, this redeems the game!

Your whole cock and balls are showing. Pull your pants up you retard.

 

[Pikoman]

Ah yes, I should judge the game's single player modules based on the multiplayer experience, makes sense

It not even that your critiques are offensive, or wrong. It's that they are uninteresting.

Oh no, this game falls short outside of the context in which it was made. It's 0/10, it's shit :DDDD, ad naseum for 20 years

Fuck off with this lowbrow shit.

Amazing! Twenty years of shitting on NWN, and its defenders never come up with any better defense than "Well it was designed for multiplayer, that's why it sucks so hard in singleplayer!"

What a great defense. Truly, this redeems the game!

You yourself haven't come up with any new talking points which aren't subjective or refutable. Really what's the point of you shitting on the game for as long of a time as you claim to have when you simply refuse to acknowledge huge chunks of the full NwN package such as the multiplayer and then talk about how the game is ugly, not fun, slow or whatever, sprinkled with a pretty surface level understanding on the toolset and the engine's capabilities for stuff like "sloped" terrains as Gargaune already showed that it's more than possible. The NwN evangelists here aren't going to convince you to like the game and vice-versa you won't be able to persuade the resident posters here that the game is shit and they should just stop playing it. We really are going in circles and are offering nothing enlightening or new, which is normal considering that the game is 23 years old.

I do not intend to portray this as a personal jab towards you, but why do you expend so much time talking about a game you obviously don't enjoy? As a lurker for a fairly long time I recognize your name popping up in the vast majority of NwN threads on the Codex, repeating the same stuff in the past ad nauseam. Really what's the reason for your massive and restless hateboner? Did you get cybermolested on some shady ERP server as an underdeveloped teen?

 

[JarlFrank]

Because there's so much potential in its modules and it's all ruined by the game being so unfun to play! It's a tragedy. Truly, one of the worst tragedies in RPG history.

 

[MerchantKing]

Oh no, this game falls short outside of the context in which it was made.

Neverwinter Nights was released with a single player campaign on day one with the expectation that many players would be playing it single player. Some custom modules such as Swordflight are intended to be played in single player. Second, the fundamental context of NWN is that it is a computer game that exists to be played. If the gameplay falls short, then the game falls short regardless of developer intentions or history which is how JarlFrank is evaluating the game. He's not evaluating it as someone makeing a module or going on some multiplayer roleplaying server where you faggots pretend that typing in chat somehow makes the game better. He played the game, saw it was a bad game, and is posting that it's a bad game.

Whereas the idea that Neverwinter Nights suddenly becomes fun in multiplier falls apart on conception. "It's a good game with friends" is just a cop-out. A shitty movie with friends is still enjoyable. It doesn't change the fact that it's a shitty movie. What's enjoyable is spending time with friends. Meanwhile the game still runs the same exact way in multiplayer as it does in single player. Playing the game multiplayer does not fix any of the problems with NWN's mechanics. It just allows you the chance to be distracted by something else so that you notice the terrible gameplay less.

 

[almondblight]

Even that weird line that sticks out of the radial menu looks completely amateurish when compared to something like the ToEE radial menu.

The only good thing about ToEE's UI is the radial menu and even that's a tradeoff - it's quicker sans the click, but those slivers get real thin the deeper you go. Also, props for whining about NWN's UI aesthetics and then moving on to ToEE, who's far more sterile in that department without a stitch of transparency.

Not sure what you're getting at - the only thing I brought up about ToEE was the radial menu, which you agree with, so...? "X worked pretty well in that game" -> "You're a moron, the thing that worked well in that game was X." Did you even read what you were responding it?

The way NWN fanboys are even refusing to acknowledge the ugly interface suggests that most of them are just mindlessly defending the game no matter what. I can like Vogel games and admit he has poor art direction. I can find BG2 to be a good looking game overall, and admit that the portraits are mostly horrendous. Acting like NWN is a good looking game is just shouting from the rooftops that you have absolutely no standards.

 

[ds]

If an entirely objective summary of NwN as a DnD experience is to be made, you can't completely ignore multiplayer as the poster above you said. DnD is a multiplayer game in itself, it's silly to gloss over that aspect of it when talking about NwN or any other CRPG based on its system when talking about which game offers the best simulation of the real deal - and by that metric NwN is still unparalleled, ultimately accomplishing the vision Bioware had for it.

Computer RPGs are supposed to fix this unfortunate aspect, not be hindered by it.

The results speak for themselves, NWN boasts countless single-author adventure modules with dozens of hours of play, whereas all Morrowind did was train a community to churn out titty mods for Oblivion and Skyrim.

This is a really bad take in an otherwise good mod that does nothing besides showing your ignorance of the Morrowind modding community. There's more than just tits: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/51086

Anyway, I don't think the design goal of easy module creation really excuses NwNs shortcomings. Modders have shown that tile-sets don't need to be nearly as blocky as the original ones. It's mainly an art direction problem, as well as you pointed out the long development cycle.

But the real problems are not the graphics - those are good enough really even if they don't compare favorably with contemporary games unless you are a graphics whore. Where the game really suffers is the gameplay aspects pushed by the multiplayer target - long rounds to be able to play without pause, single character control being the two big ones. It's just yet another example of how when a game has both single player and multi player one always suffers because of the other.

 

[Snufkin]

You couldnt be able to control followers in OG Fallouts. In NWN some modules give you couple of henchmans at the time. Aielund rocking with 4 party is fun stomping everything, FEELS EPIC MAN! The 1 level NWN where you have 3 spells and 1 APR is diffrent experience when you level up and feel powerful.

 

[Gargaune]

https://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/

lol

And how is it ridiculous, when making maps for these games is just as quick and easy (if not even easier!) than NWN?

Stop talking shit, you can block out an entire NWN level in a few minutes.

Not sure what you're getting at - the only thing I brought up about ToEE was the radial menu, which you agree with, so...? "X worked pretty well in that game" -> "You're a moron, the thing that worked well in that game was X." Did you even read what you were responding it?

I don't agree, NWN's UI isn't as pretty as the full skeumorphics of BG or IWD, not close, but it is artistically better than ToEE's or something like Solasta's. As "modernised", transparent UIs go, it strikes a pretty decent balance. I thought you also meant function about the radials, since it's a common complaint, but ToEE's and NWN's have pros and cons against one another, hence "tradeoff."

This is a really bad take in an otherwise good mod that does nothing besides showing your ignorance of the Morrowind modding community. There's more than just tits: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/51086

I was talking about volume. I'm well aware the people have been making more than just tits on Gamebryo, I had a whole thread about Fo4 conversions, but you have to be delusional or lying through your fucking teeth to pretend it's anywhere as quick and easy as Aurora (and he still is), which is reflected in the much higher number of quest/campaign mods, at least in its heyday.

Anyway, I don't think the design goal of easy module creation really excuses NwNs shortcomings.

Correct, it does not, but the collective aim to make a full computer D&D package does. Not all of its shortcomings, e.g. party controls are worse than they have a right to be, but a lot of the other problems get a pass when you consider the full picture. As for art direction, it's not a pretty game and wasn't to begin with, but the criticism is far overblown in context.

 

[JarlFrank]

And how is it ridiculous, when making maps for these games is just as quick and easy (if not even easier!) than NWN?

Stop talking shit, you can block out an entire NWN level in a few minutes.

Block out, huh? Yeah, if it's just about the basic geometry blockout, I can make you an entire city district in Thief's editor within 5 minutes if I just quickly slap something down. Give me 5 more minutes and it will even be decently textured. In fact it's even easier to do because you're not bound by rigid blocks, while still having a freely resizeable grid at your disposal to keep everything aligned.

 

[Gargaune]

Block out, huh? Yeah, if it's just about the basic geometry blockout, I can make you an entire city district in Thief's editor within 5 minutes if I just quickly slap something down. Give me 5 more minutes and it will even be decently textured. In fact it's even easier to do because you're not bound by rigid blocks, while still having a freely resizeable grid at your disposal to keep everything aligned.

Yes, I'm sure you can drop sixteen primitives on an empty map, that's not what we're talking about and you know it. That five-minute NWN "block out" I was referring to is fully playable, or rather ready for lighting, placing objects, encounters and scripting. You do want a detail pass on the environment too (or else you end up with our favourite RPG, the NWN OC), but it's not even close in labour.

Seriously, just drop it, you're not gonna convince anyone that sculpting a level in DromEd or Unreal or bashing your balls against Gamebryo is anywhere as accessible as a purpose-built point-and-paint editor like Aurora.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's easier to make interesting and unique architecture in Dromed than it is in NWN's editor, yes. It might be easier to just slap a map together in Aurora, but making it unique requires downloading shitloads of custom objects. It's MUCH easier to create custom objects in Dromed.

Now that's not me being biased against Aurora in particular, I have the same issue with Morrowind modding, and working on an actual commercial project in Unity. All of these have you place pre-made building meshes on the map. While that's pretty quick, it severely limits creativity compared to brush-based editors that let you build your own architecture from geometric shapes and slapping textures on them. It's simply the superior form of level editing.

Due to the more powerful editing of geometry, yes, I do consider editors like Dromed to be much easier for translating what you have in your head to the screen. If I try to work with something like the Aurora engine I just browse the building sets for hours, trying to find the exact tower shape I'm looking for, not finding it, then going to repositories for user-made objects and looking there, etc

 

[Pikoman]

The toolset in particular being underplayed is perhaps the most bizarre out of all the criticisms that could be raised and we're steering away from the dimension of personal opinions into the territory of the flat-out wrong. I'm not an expert in matters of Aurora and I've shelved my ideas of trying to make something of my own due to various constraints but even in some universe where Thief's mission maker is easier and more intuitive to use it's still a silly comparison. You can't make a semi-competent RPG in it, I thought that was the focus of the discussion pertaining to Aurora and NwN's moddability as a whole, since it was made to make RPG campaigns the same way Thief's editor is made to create fanmade stealth games. Though to be fair, there are a lot of adventure game style modules for the NwN that can barely be called RPGs, which I think is another compliment to the editor's versatility but I digress.