NWN2 Premium module announced.

[Starwars]

Just when you were finished throwing up from the Codex embracing MotB, more NWN2 news come your way.

http://www.neverwinternights2.fr:80/mod ... toryid=343

Pretty crazy. It's from the makers of Darkness over Daggerford. I thought that was a good mod (though I must say I lost interest after a while) that will feature "more than 15 hours of gameplay".

Could be good, could be bad.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I won't believe it until I see it in English, since Obsidian and Atari happen to be American companies.


Edit: By this I mean it's quite suspicious seeing the announcement only on a French site and not on any other page... but apparently it was confirmed by one of the developers on the official NWN2 forums, so there you go.

 

[ricolikesrice]

.....

i found darkness over daggerford really enjoyable too. not groundbreaking, not really much roleplaying (comparable with baldurs gate i d say) but all really well done and some cool ideas. definitly would have been worth the 10(?) bucks if it wasnt free anyway.

from what i remember (correct me if i m wrong) ossian studios always hinted that their next project is gonna combine RPG with strategy elements, so maybe we can expect a module that is kinda like the crossroad keep part of NWN2 but alot more fleshed out.

that would truly rock, i loved the CRK part of the NWN2 OC - if only there had been more consequences ..... which might hopefully happen in such a module (if its going that route )

 

[Jora]

I won't believe it until I see it in English, since Obsidian and Atari happen to be American companies.

Isn't Atari a French company?

 

[Starwars]

I won't believe it until I see it in English, since Obsidian and Atari happen to be American companies.

The lead designer of Ossian studios confirmed it on the Bioware boards. Here's his post:

"Just to clarify, this is an Adventure Pack rather than a Premium Module. What's the difference? In terms of size, quality and production value, NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate is more like an expansion campaign than a "Premium Module" as you might remember them from NWN1. I think the community will be blown away by the quality of our product.

Full details will be released on Monday."

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate is more like an expansion campaign than a "Premium Module" as you might remember them from NWN1.

"Premium Modules" for NWN 1 as I remember them were an attempt to suck some money out of customers' wallets. How are Mysteries of Westgate different?

 

[Texas Red]

I just hope these premium models will be longer than at least 10 hours. Those sucktitude ones for NWN 1 that didnt last even 5 hours are, imo, just not worth the effort of buying and installing. Many will disagree but I just cant play something that I know will end after a few hours.

I think people will buy a single module advertised as 15-20 hours more than a bunch of tiny ones, especially since money is not an issue in this matter. What do you think?

 

[Starwars]

I thought the majority of NWN1 premium mods were rather lacking when keeping in mind that you have to pay for them. I liked a few of them (the Pirate one and the one where you had the weid companions, can't remember the name), but they were not good enough to pay for them. The exception was Wyvern Crown of Cormyr which felt a lot more solid even though it wasn't something that hugely interested me.
Darkness over Daggerford was originally gonna be a Premium Module I think, and it too felt much more solid than the early ones.

I guess we will see how this turns out. I would gladly pay a bit of money for a fairly lengthy module if it's *good*. Guess time (and price) will tell.

 

[Elwro]

I hope it'll work with the Polish version of the game. As a rule, foreign mods do work...

 

[Norfleet]

Isn't Atari a French company?

Yes. They used to be known as the more infamous "Infogrames", and adopted the Atari name to hide their shameful past. Many have now forgotten this. Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[cardtrick]

Isn't Atari a French company?

Yes. They used to be known as the more infamous "Infogrames", and adopted the Atari name to hide their shameful past. Many have now forgotten this. Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it.

Fun fact: the founder of Infogrames evidently believes an armadillo to be a dinosaur. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infogrames.

 

[MLMarkland]

I'll be surprised if the adventure pack isn't worth the money in its own right.

But folks should also consider the market ramifications of this.

If you want any chance of large publishers funding more niche crpgs, voting with your wallet on this release will make a big difference.

I don't speak for anyone, but in my personal estimate, the sales of this adventure pack will directly impact the likelihood of people seeing things like a Dark Sun adventure pack or a Dragonlance adventure pack (to grab two random campaign settings out of a hat).

You should support this for the same reason you support Age of Decadence. To give indie/niche rpg developers a leg up in what is primarily a mass market business right now.

You folks here at the Codex want a chance to be heard and affect the crpg market. This is one of those chances.

 

[aries202]

The Premium Modules for NWN1 was actually Bioware making the very good fan mode mods Premium modules. These Premium Modules who then could (and still can be) bought for around 8-12 US dollars helped (and still help) fund NWN1 patches as well as additional support for NWN1.

That's the reason why I've bought 2-3 of them, to support the community, the fan made mods, and of course Biowware

I fear, however, that with EA taken over in January 2008, the Premium Modules and the support for these will be gone. They simply don't generate enough profit to EA. I'm sorry to bring the EA buy-out into this thread, but it is a realistic future and we need to start preparing ourself for this. It could happen as could EA ending support for all Premium Modules made by other studios than - you've guessed it - Bioware (at least for NWN1),
then doubling or tripling the price.

And yes, Atari is a French company, as it was French Infogrames who bought Atari back in the day. Ubisoft is also a French company that bought another company or two or three back in the day. The thing is this though: Even if EA is an US based company its owners are from alle the world as Danes, Germans, Italians and Australians, yes, even the Chinese, can invest their money in EA stocks, so who owns EA ? Atari and Ubisoft may well have base in France, but everyone can invest in their stock, hoping to make some money doing so. When dealing with giant corporations like, Atari, EA and Ubisoft people need to remember that these companies are global corporations that have offices all over the wold.

This is what globalization is all about - being everywhere on the planet, influencing decision making processes everywhere. Lately, EA is talking about having a one gamer platform, consisting of a box, and harddrive and an internet connection. This way gamers only need to download the games they play - under the term and conditions set by EA of course as EA, of course, in thre future will own every game developer and publisher out there or so EA hopes...it will be...

I hope not

 

[MLMarkland]

EA and Bioware don't really have anything to do with the digitally distributed adventure packs for NWN2 (aside from Bioware licensing the foundation of the engine for NWN2 to Atari/Obsidian).

Atari is certainly the publisher. But that's not particularly relevant. What is relevant is that Ossian Studios is an indie studio. And whether you enjoyed DoD or not, what they did with it and hopefully what they've done with this adventure pack, is focused on a return to some of the design elements that make stat-based, dialog-based crpgs fun.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Isn't Atari a French company?

Yes. They used to be known as the more infamous "Infogrames", and adopted the Atari name to hide their shameful past. Many have now forgotten this. Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it.

Ah... I always forget about their Gallic past.

 

[aweigh]

Well, while I didn't particularly enjoy Daggerford I'll be sure to give this a look.

I just hope this time the writing doesn't resemble a romance novel so much.

 

[Badesumofu]

Ossian's writer is 'Hugie', and if you've played any of his mods (check out Moonshadows) you'll know that he's a fine writer. I expect this adventure pack to be rock-solid, qualitywise. The press release describes it as open-ended and non-linear, but I'll take that with a grain of salt until I see something more substantial.

 

[cardtrick]

I enjoyed Daggerford reasonably well; certainly I liked it better than NWN or its expansions. I'm definitely more excited for Purgatorio and the other Planescape mods, but this is still quite promising, and I will more than likely buy it when released.

I don't think this has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but if you read the linked article it's apparently going to be released quite soon (Autumn of 2007). Between this, MOTB, and the upcoming Purgatorio (hopefully to be released this year?), NWN2 has kind of saved the RPG genre for the year. Cool, and surprising.

 

[MLMarkland]

and the upcoming Purgatorio (hopefully to be released this year?)

I think this year should be good for, at a minimum, an open beta, possibly a release of 1.0 during the xmas holidays, we shall see. We're trying to push the envelope a little more in terms of ambient AI than we had originally planned.

 

[xantrius]

and the upcoming Purgatorio (hopefully to be released this year?)

I think this year should be good for, at a minimum, an open beta, possibly a release of 1.0 during the xmas holidays, we shall see. We're trying to push the envelope a little more in terms of ambient AI than we had originally planned.

oO Sounds like sweet music in my ears about the ambient AI part, hope you succeed in enhancing it according to you guys own satisfaction.

 

[Texas Red]

So its supposed to be out today? Can anybody translate it when the info comes? I dont speak Beast . Atari yet again shows their uberness by only offering info in French.

I think its safe to say that NWN 2 is worhty of a buy, just because of the Planescape module, MotB and this new module. The OC is pretty enjoyable as well, though many cant get over some of the flaws and cry their disappointment instead of enjoying the rest.

 

[Elhoim]

http://alazander.blogspot.com/2007/10/r ... e-day.html

Yeah, it feels good to have announced NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate.

I've played about 300 NWN modules, give or take a few. I'm a pretty objective guy. I honestly feel this Adventure Pack is a contender for PC RPG of the Year 2007. Hey, I've played the rest. If I had to sum it up, it'd be, "Like Daggerford, but with a great story and terrific companions." Or if you haven't played that, "Like Athkatla from BG2. On 'roids."

So there's every reason to be excited. It might even please the gnarled old cynics at the RPG Codex. Wouldn't that be something?

 

[Starwars]

He's to late since MotB came out before and showed the world that Codexers are actually mushy teddybears inside.

Anyways, I'll probably end up buying this. I daresay I will get enjoyment out of it. Like I said before, I liked Daggerford but I played it at a time where I was dead-tired of the NWN1 engine so I think that contributed to me abandoning it. It wasn't a perfect mod, but it was solid I think.

 

[doctor_kaz]

This is great news. Darkness over Daggerford was one of my favorite single player mods for any game. Once you got out of Daggerford, it was excellent. Mods like that one make me fantasize about what a well-funded developer could do with an RPG if they actually gave a shit about it. The OC for NWN was such an uninspired piece of shit.

 

[Ladonna]

I would rather they farm the engine out to someone else, and let them make a full size RPG, instead of these short mods.