New Preview of Neverwinter Nights

H3resy wrote to us with a new preview of Neverwinter Nights. The game continues to look great - and combined with its release date being right around Warcraft III, I suspect sleep will not be an option.

Re:alternate platforms

[Jacer]

yes indeed, but Neverwinter is going to run on linux out of the box! that's so awesome, no pesky binaries, no unsupported installs, no downloading other installers, right out of the box i'm not sure if there are two different versions, or one kick ass version, but either way, it's a huge step in the right direction....we don't need another loki to rise our hopes and then go bankrupt, we need a black isle (partially because they make the best games ever, period!) with the forsight to include linux versions, NOT linux ports.....

Makes multiplayer AD&D rpgs any sense ?

[Krapangor]

There are two options:

1. Turn based - this means that you can screw any human player of the game by just taking "enough time" for a turn.
2. Real time - this reduces to strategic AD&D concept to Diablo style brainless monster wacking.

So I wonder why they are so keen on providing multiplayer abilities for NeverWinterNights.
And why does one play an rpg anyway ?
For the story of course ! Has anyone here played Baldurs Gate, Pools of Radiance (the old, non sucking one), Ultima or Wizardry for monster wacking ?
And don't object with "Diablo". If Diablo is an rpg then Quake is a flight simulator.

Re:Toolkit

[EFGearman]

Cool. What I want to see is well done versions of some of the early D&D dungeons, like 'Tomb of Horrors' or the entire Bloodstone series.

EFGearman

Re:NWN != MUD.

[DCram]

Oh I agree that it will not be a MMO but I have never enjoyed Muds with more than 75 people.

I also played EQ and was disapointed. I have coded, read source and not world, on both Emlen and Diku style Muds and still think that if the scripting is good enough this will be better than EQ and much closer to a mud in my mind.

Re:alternate platforms

[tempest303]

the box will contain media for Windows, Linux, and MacOS

And it's for this reason exactly that I'll be picking up THIS game before a lot of others. Linux support IN THE BOX. Major kudos to bioware for this!

This makes me wonder... did they use SDL by any chance? (Not being a programmer, I realize that might be a horribly silly question, but I thought it was worth asking)

Re:Good news!

[stefanlasiewski]

Not only that, but the Windows, Linux & Macintosh versions all come in the SAME BOX [bioware.com], so we
dual-boosters can try it out on both systems.

The downside here is that Bioware may have trouble determining the number of users who use Linux vs Windows vs Macintosh. So remember: if you use Linux, remember find the little postcard, check the box next to 'Linux' and send it off.

Otherwise, they'll never know...

Movie Preview

[Kanan]

Here is a link [ign.com] to a movie (avi file) preview that was just released today. It is the best one I've seen, although the resolution isn't the best. Lots of gameplay and action.

Re:Runs on 3 platforms out of the box

[Thenomain]

They say "Mac", but they don't say whether it's MacOS 8/9 or MacOS X, or both. Curious Minds Want To Know.

Morrowind

[Henry V .009]

Morrowind, which just went gold, has a chance of being a much better game than NWN. It is a true free-form RPG. 100's of hours of play time. Character options out the wazoo. I can't wait.

While we're on the subject...

[gspeare]

Might as well mention Morrowind [elderscrolls.com], which went gold last week and is expected in stores late next week. According to [rpgdot.com] the [ugo.com] many [gameindustry.com] previews [gamespy.com] out there, Morrowind looks to be more open-ended and immersive than any other RPG to date. It's only single player, but given the joys of many multiplayer RPGs [diabloii.net], that's probably a good thing. In addition to the official site [elderscrolls.com] and forums [elderscrolls.com], there's a good RPGPlanet site [rpgplanet.com] that collects most relevant information. Look for the water screenshots [rpgdot.com]; they use pixel shading to get some truly impressive effects.