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Neverwinter Nights Mac Client Gone Gold 34

Posted by CowboyNeal from the hacking-and-slashing-in-style dept.
Mandelbrot-5 writes "From the official NWN page: 'That's right - the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights has been sent off to duplication! Watch for it on store shelves in the coming weeks!' It could be in stores as early as August 2nd." I never thought the day would come that I'd care about Mac games, but here it is. I've still yet to play through Shadows of Undrentide, but I reckon I'll pick it up once it's also released.
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Neverwinter Nights Mac Client Gone Gold More

Neverwinter Nights Mac Client Gone Gold

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  • the word on the street.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mausmalone ( 594185 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @02:26PM (#6552635) Homepage Journal
    Word on the street [machall.com] is that the expansions and mods won't be available on the Mac. It's nice that they're releasing it on OS X, but it would be much nicer if you could mod it.
    • This would be really detrimental to the experience of the game, where much of the fun comes from seeing cool new things whenever.. hopefully they'll change that..

    • Re:the word on the street.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Other White Boy ( 626206 ) <theotherwhiteboy&gmail,com> on Monday July 28, 2003 @02:37PM (#6552719)
      i imagine that it will still be able to play the expansions and the mods, its just not including a toolkit, so there wont be any mods made by mac users.

      at least until some mac user writes their own toolkit anyway.
      • The user mods are the best part of NWN, and I would definitely consider passing on this game if Mac didn't support mods.

        Are the devs at Bioware so dependent on D3D that a Mac version runs 12+ months late?
        • It is OpenGL, though it uses Miles sound that caused the Linux port no end of problems.
        • The toolset is probably using MFC for the front end gui framework. MFC is very tightly coupled to the Windows api, and would be very difficult to port within a reasonable time.
          • The toolset uses the Borland compiler and should be easy to port. At least I know Delphi exists for Linux and expect something to exist for Mac OSX.

            So far, Bioware says we are on our own.

            • Re:the word on the street.... (Score:4, Interesting)

              by lpp ( 115405 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @06:59PM (#6554513) Homepage Journal
              Not long ago, I inquired with Borland regarding any ports of their compiler technology to OS X. I was told there are not currently any such plans nor products. As a result, the toolset, since it was coded with C++ Builder, is not easily ported. In addition, C++ Builder was only recently available on Linux (Delphi having been available as Kylix for awhile longer), much later than would be useful for the NWN development cycle. Unfortunately, from what I gather, VCL libraries were used rather than CLX, again because CLX wasn't even available on C++ Builder at the time. As a result, VCL not being available on Linux, the toolset is not going to be made available "natively" on Linux either.
      • The Linux community is working the with the OSX community to create our own. See Open Knights [sourceforge.net]
    • Well all they had to do was port over the loader, the data files are exactly the same. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to port over the expansions.
      • probably won't be too hard since it's OS X.... y'know... an interface at least a few people on this planet understand. Linux and Unix programmers are really hard-core... no doubt they could crack this egg in no time.
    • No. That word is wrong. The Mac version supports all user-made mods, as well as official releases. Expansions, however, will have to be specifically retooled for the Mac version, as they apply changes to the game code.

      If NWN sells well on the Mac, and it probably will, we will get the expansion.

      All we do not currently have is the toolset, and there is already a project on SourceForge that is attempting to create one.

      At least the Mac version will hit stores $10 less then the PC version did.

  • NWN:Mac specifics (Score:5, Informative)

    by lpp ( 115405 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @02:56PM (#6552862) Homepage Journal
    For those who don't know (and I can't imagine who you might be), the NWN:Mac will lack the Toolset. At minimum, this means you can't create new content. However, those who anticipate playing DM for canned content should consider that their only means of previewing the module will consist of running through it solo (presumably in "god" mode so as to be able to get through efficiently) and hoping you catch everything the players might catch.

    Also, if you intended to make any modifications to creature stats or dialog, you will have to do that on the fly, in the case of dialog having to (I assume) possess the creatures.

    In addition, it is unknown at this time whether the Shadows of Undrentide (SoU) content from the Windows CD will work on the Mac (it is known that it will work on the Linux version). The Mac will have the correct version of the binaries, but it remains to be seen whether MacSoft will request exclusion code to make Mac users ineligible for the Windows SoU material. Why would they do this? Because if MacSoft manages to get the SoU pack out within a few months, they may find the Mac market saturated with Windows SoU packs and so lose the revenue stream.

    On top of this, any module so much as saved using a Toolset with SoU available will make the game unplayable to those without SoU, even if no SoU specific resources were added to the module.

    This last point is why some folks are concerned about module availability and PW playability for Mac users. However, many PW admins have stated they will stay away from SoU for awhile to get Mac users into the fold, so to speak. And a plethora of good modules already exist and can be downloaded now before too many SoU versions crop up.

    In addition, hak packs should work just fine when dropped into the Mac version, again, assuming nothing SoU specific is included or depended upon. In short, the Player client experience should be completely in synch with NWN:Windows users without SoU.

    Cheers...

  • Demo available (Score:5, Informative)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @03:11PM (#6552992)
    Get the demo here [macgamefiles.com]. The specs say that you need a 450MHz CPU minimum. I have a G4/400 with an ATI Radeon 8500, and the demo runs fast enough.
    • They probably mean a G3 450, and a radeon 7000. I have a G3 350 with a 16MB Rage with the MPEG accelerator and it's a dog. Woof. (I am looking to sell it though, any suckers^Winterested parties should contact me immediately.) Part of the problem is that I'm running OS X, but every web browser available for Mac OS is a turd except for Safari. Not to mention I wouldn't touch classic Mac OS if you paid me, unless it was a lot.

      Neverwinter nights is a pretty demanding game. I have an XP 2000+ and a GF4Ti4200 a

  • I don't know where to begin. I hate you all. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28, 2003 @03:43PM (#6553207)
    I was in the Borders up by the Arboretum, cruising the computer section. I saw this really hot chic and she was looking at the linux books ! I'm no linux guru (barely even a computer person, learning C in a class I'm taking now, installed linux so I could learn postgreSQL for a job that never materialized, working as a lowly filer at a title company) but I decided to start talking to her. She said she worked for BAE and they were switching some Oracle shit over to Linux and she was learning it. We talked and had a coffee there and exchanged email addresses. I did ok because my two roommates use linux all the time, so I tossed out some buzzwords and bashed SCO. Little did I know what I was in for.

    A week later we agree to meet for a bite to eat, and start talking after ordering food.

    My first warning was that she told me the last three relationships she's had were people she met on Evercrack. That, and the fact that she called it "Evercrack", should have made me run right then. But didn't know. I wasn't even sure what Everquest was, or what a role playing game was. So I toss out that I've heard of it from my roommates and ask her what she likes about it.

    It turns out this girl plays more than 6 hours a day on weekdays ! She's part of some "raiding party" that has more than 100 people and started yammering about how they had standards for admission in ping times and bandwidth and stuff. It goes on and on. She won't shut up. She writes down a link to her character online and gives it to me. She stares at me after I get the napkin, so I feel obligated it put in my pocket like I'm gonna check it. (She is some magician-elf-Romulan thing.) She starts telling me how it is a real problem that her character can't see in the dark, and how her "gameplay" develops around this. I'm totally puzzled. "It gets dark in the everquest world too, you know!" Yeah, that's a "real" problem.

    I'm out of my league and struggling here, but I'm not giving up. Remember she's hot. I remember my two roommates (the linux dudes) having a conversation with a third nerd (hey that rhymes) about some game that was a top secrete local project funded by some rich dude -- basically, the idea was a distributed P2P world, so each player got to edit and make rules for the piece of the universe hosted on their computer. There was some contrived shit with giant cylindrical space stations, to allow for the fact that you could visit anybody, not just the physical neighbors in a flat world. I realize now it is sick and gay and will probably lead to school shootings, but I'm trying to bang this chic so I tell her everything I remember.

    While I am talking her face slowly smooths out and gets very calm, and then her eyes starting getting narrow. I think this is because she's interested.

    As soon as I finish, she informs me in this dead, calm voice that I am part of a conspiracy of corporate powers envious of Evercrack's (yeah she still called it that) success and plotting to bring it down by siphoning off all the new gamers who didn't know better than to fall for our false sirens rather than join the one true game, evercrack. She actually said the words "the evercrack world is just as valid as the real world." She got into some Sony versus someone else and how Everquest was cheaper per hour entertainment than the movies so Hollywood was probably behind it.

    I get really scared for some reason, but I start defending my self. First, I have no designs on the evercrack world and I'm not even the one writing the competeing game. (She interrupts and accuses me of making fun of her for being an evercracker.) I said I planned to try evercrack myself, since it sounded fun. (I'm sure my face betrayed the fact that I will never go near it.) She accused me of thinking that playing Evercrack was a waste of time, which I never even said. She wouldn't be stopped. At this point she also said I rudely made her feel fat by ordering a smaller meal than she did. (She was skinny and very hot.)

    Her voice kept rising, and some peop

  • Beautiful on Cinema Display (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stecker ( 263711 ) on Monday July 28, 2003 @04:00PM (#6553320) Homepage
    I hacked one of the configuration files to make it run at full native resolution on my 20" cinema display. I'm suprised that my older Radeon 7500 graphics card can hack it, but it does, and it looks amazing at this res.

    If anyone needs to try some unsupported resolution, let me know, and I'll go back and figure out how I did it.

    matthewATappliedinformation.com
    http://www.stovepipehat.com [stovepipehat.com] (my slash site)
    • with a 22" Cinema but it runs great on my iBook (900MHz). In fact it runs just as well as it does on my Dell Inspiron 8100. I'll notice the lag when I can play the full game. It taxes my geforce 4 Ti 4600 on my dual 933 when I get into the big open areas (since it's all 3d rendered).

      I'll buy the Mac version just to support the creation of Mac games. However, this delay is pathetic. I waited about 3 years for them to finish this game for the PC. There was no way I'd wait another year for a Mac version sans

  • oo! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 )
    And a handful of gamers rejoice!
  • Damn it. My college career is ruined! They could have atleast had the decency to release this in June, so I could have had the summer to play. Damn them...

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