Preview NWN2 prelookings at Neverwinter Vault

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2

There's a <a href="http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=articles.detail&id=13">preview</a> of <A href="http://www.atari.com/nwn2">Neverwinter Nights 2</a>. It's based on a visit to <a href="http://www.obsidianent.com">Obsidian</a> and they're breaking it up in to several parts. Here's a bit from the first part:
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<blockquote>The first example of that was when Nathaniel turned the area from night to day and back to night in a very short period of time. The effect was visually very cool, as shadows of everything changed their orientation and length to the position of the sun and moon, both of which are visible in the sky along with clouds, and stars. So as the sun is above the characters head, the shadows were very short and only under the characters feet, but as the sun settled over the horizon, they grew in length before disappearing into the night. What is really amazing is the amount of control content creators will have for the skies in the game. Instead of static sky boxes, everything is now controllable and dynamic. Pulling up a development menu with about 15 sliders, Nathaniel, changed the skies to different colors, adjusted the amount of clouds and depth plus there are controls over the stars. While this menu was mainly for developers, it's the same type of controls that are in the toolset and should give authors a pretty unlimited choice of skies.</blockquote>
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Yup, the whole thing is basically about the graphics.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.shacknews.com">Shack News</A>

 

[Naked_Lunch]

It's bad enough the whole thing is about graphics but sky graphics? Who the fuck honestly cares about this? Is there anybody out there in our big world of ours that will buy the game based on the sky effects?

 

[bryce777]

It's bad enough the whole thing is about graphics but sky graphics? Who the fuck honestly cares about this? Is there anybody out there in our big world of ours that will buy the game based on the sky effects?

You obviously missed the other thread where the posters here went crazy tearing into the nwn2 graphics.

 

[Drakron]

Well NwN was sold as "make your own shitty crappy adventure" so its not strange that NwN 2 is following the same idea ... just that it looks better that before.

I would be more curious of how much can we add/gut the rules since NwN was very agressive on how much could we changed ruleset wise but ...

 

[RGE]

Well, graphics is one of the areas that builders have the most trouble improving on their own, and NWN vault is mostly about usercreated content. Skies matter to those who wish to look at the horizon. You know, those who might not always have their eyes firmly set on the ground to see which enemy to kill next.

 

[Atrokkus]

NWN2 has huge potential and I'm really looking forward to not only the game itself, but more so to what people will do with it -- shards, SP modules -- everything.
Too bad the graphics are way too fat for my machine to handle properly... But we'll see: maybe there's a way to trip the shit.

Anyways, NWN2 will be the ultimate incarnation of PnP in CRPG realm, of that I'm certain.

 

[Llyranor]

... If only it were TB

 

[LlamaGod]

POSITIONAL SHADOWS, WHAT A STUNNING INNOVATION


thats been in games for like 6 or 7 years now

 

[ElastiZombie]

Well NwN was sold as "make your own shitty crappy adventure" so its not strange that NwN 2 is following the same idea ... just that it looks better that before.

I would be more curious of how much can we add/gut the rules since NwN was very agressive on how much could we changed ruleset wise but ...

It would be nice if they included more in the way of help files and documentation this time so it wasn't such a pain in the ass to figure out how to create decent modules. User made tutorials are nice and all, but a complete listing of script commands etc. would have made the process a lot more fun and maybe would have resulted in less "shitty crappy adventures" and more kickass ones.

Just a thought.

 

[Dreagon]

Sky graphics? So this time it's going to be from a first person perspective?

 

[Naked_Lunch]

It's over the shoulder perspective, IIRC.

 

[gromit]

I hope they still let you switch between the camera modes. An overhead view is of strategic benefit in nearly any game, even like dropping into the iso view in Sands of Time to plan your over-enemy vaults so as to not get surrounded. How one could ever hope to play an area-affectin', attack-of-opportunity-makin', backstabbin'-flankin' game without being able to see at least a few meters in every direction is beyond me, especially when the combat is broken into rounds so you can't immediately react.