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Role Playing (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Hordes of the Underdark Goes Gold 221

Posted by CowboyNeal from the duergar-drow-and-svirfneblin dept.
MattW writes "Bioware announced that Hordes of the Underdark has gone gold. This is the second expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights, and the first to be developed in-house by Bioware. It's also the first CRPG to feature 3rd Edition epic levels. Looks like it will be fun. Some of the biggest requests from the custom content community are in, like custom talk-tables, that should allow for a much better level of customization for the game." I can't say enough good things about the Neverwinter Nights titles, but if this game is anything like the last couple, it's going to steal a lot of my time. I hope I manage to make it home for the holidays.
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Hordes of the Underdark Goes Gold More

Hordes of the Underdark Goes Gold

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  • Airline alert! (Score:4, Funny)

    by BallPeenHammer ( 720987 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:05AM (#7501456)
    I hope I manage to make it home for the holidays.

    I'd like to see graphs of rising game sales vs. plummeting airline ticket sales.

    Correlations, anyone?

  • A truly long lasting game. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Martigan80 ( 305400 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:06AM (#7501462) Journal
    Well even though it took a l-o-n-g time for the Linux client to come out, it is a fun game. In fact it is the only game I play on a daily basis on my Linux system. Granted I have had moments of outrage to long delay's it is a great game, and I'm so happy to see the company still support the game and develop for it. This is a game that truly allows the end user and developers to continue the legacy as long as there is a demand. If they actually make a NWN II I hope they will concentrate on bring the Linux release up to par.

    P.s. The gfx is pretty cool, not great but I don't play a game solely based on gfx, I need good playability and challenging tasks.
    • I have been thinking of getting this game for Linux, is the ingame video "fiasco" fixed yet. Or do you have to use a standalone video player? How much of the game is ruined by not having the videos?

      Btw. Does anybody know if this expansion is for Linux too?
      • Afaik the videos can be viewed with some form of linuxplayer, but frankly, I dont care. It really isnt necessary to see them, the game works fine without them. If this is holding you back you are really missing a lot of fun. This game is quite addictive and you should give it a try.

        cu,
        Lispy
      • The videos are pretty lame. A couple of still images with a voice over does not make a "video". Just ask on the message boards for a brief synopsis of the appropriate chapter video. It doesn't affect play, though it might make the overall story make a little more sense.

        And I do believe it was mentioned on the boards that it is supported for Linux. I do believe the Linux binaries will be in the box.
        • You don't even need to ask on the message boards. The script for all of the videos is included with the linux client.

          You can watch them with Wine or even convert them to another format. I have them as ogm files. From there, you could try the hack that hooks into the game and plays the movies ingame or just watch them on your own at the appropriate time.

      • Re:A truly long lasting game. (Score:4, Informative)

        by EvilAlien ( 133134 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @01:13PM (#7503049) Journal
        I don't miss the in-game video... its pretty irrelevant, IMO. The expansion will be for Linux as well, its just extra modules and a client version update anyways. I play NWN exclusively on Linux since the client became stable.

        BTW, the graphics and whatnot are updated for this expansion. More polygons, better models, more varieties of "heads"... oh, and robes. You can actually have a robe. w00t!

    • If they actually make a NWN II I hope they will concentrate on bring the Linux release up to par.

      IF they make it? Why would it even be a question? You make a game that people like, and they buy it... you get more money. Now you have an established product with a fanbase. Why the hell wouldn't you make a sequel, especially from a game with such potential for a series?

      • Re:A truly long lasting game. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by crawling_chaos ( 23007 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @11:41AM (#7502204) Homepage
        The problem is the triumverate of Atari, Hasbro, and Wizards of the Coast, who must approve all content sold under the Dungeons and Dragons name. They have decided that any D&D game can have no more than a Teen Rating, and a fairly soft T at that. From the vibe I'm getting on the Bioware boards, it looks like the creative people are tired of fighting those battles. Bioware has already announced that their next PC game will not be based on a licensed property.

        Unless Hasbro unloads the D&D license to another company, I expect D&D games to slowly fade out. I very much doubt that the folks who made Temple of Elemental Evil really want to repeat the experience they had with them, and Bioware seems to be tiring as well.

    • Hmmm... I used to play this..... but I've got a girlfriend now... no time anymore.... barely got 4 hours of sleep last night.... ;-)

      Daniel
      • Miss Michigan keep you up late?
      • barely got 4 hours of sleep last night

        So you used to play NWN, but can't cope with only 4 hours of sleep in a night.

        Obviously you can't have played much of it ;)

    • Community Content is awesome too (Score:4, Informative)

      by DG ( 989 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @11:06AM (#7501903) Homepage Journal
      There are some really spectacular community-produced modules too. CC1 and CC2 in particular were really very good. There are some really strong writers out there.

      And Bioware has been keeping the Linux client up to date (and in some cases, even slightly advanced over) the Windows client. I'm VERY happy with the Linux support. Supposedly there is a Linux toolset coming too (OpenNights or something like that)

      Thumbs WAY up BioWare!

      DG

  • AI (Score:2, Informative)

    by musikit ( 716987 )
    i just remember going to a talk at gdconf last year where the lead AI programmer talked about decisions they made in neverwinter nights and said "please don't hurt me" when describing the AI system and problems they were having

  • Box set (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I believe there's one for NWN and the first expansion, SoU.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0 00 09MGVF/qid=1069164519/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/104-769983 3-0575100?v=glance&s=videogames&n=507846

  • HotU Opinion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bartmoss ( 16109 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:10AM (#7501494) Homepage Journal
    Now, of course I haven't seen the game yet but I have followed the news as it leaked out of Bioware. It's truely wonderful what they've included in HotU. Hordes is a module designer's wet dream, really. From robes, to Ioun stones to skyboxes, to hundreds of new scripting functions. Especially nice - and available for all versions via the Live team/patches - are the improvement for the stores, like what does this merchant sell, what does he buy, and so on.

    I ordered my copy today, and I am still mad at Bioware for not releasing a Linux toolset (editor) for the game as they had promised.

    About the only feature that I am really missing is... spellcaster prestige classes. There's a bug in their code that doesn't allow them to do "casterlevel +1" for a prestige class. This is really sad.

    Sorry if this sounds like an advertisement, but I am really excited about HotU (much more than I was over SoU). You should really check out Bioware (http://nwn.bioware.com) or the Vault (http://nwvault.ign.com) for some info.

    • Re:HotU Opinion (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ferro_Man ( 252684 )
      About the only feature that I am really missing is... spellcaster prestige classes. There's a bug in their code that doesn't allow them to do "casterlevel +1" for a prestige class. This is really sad.

      i thought they fixed that
      with the dragon disciple and the pale master both needing that fixed...
      you would think they could have done it

      i am looking forward to the max level cap being raised to level 40 and the 6 new prestige classes...
      some of them seem interesting enough to use
      unlike the harpers scout of sha
      • i thought they fixed that with the dragon disciple and the pale master both needing that fixed... you would think they could have done it

        Nope, I am pretty sure I did not miss anything to that effect (I really don't live under a rock when nwn is concerned). Very sad. I think both Pale Master and Dragon Disciple use feats for their special powers.

    • no, spellcaster +1 is in (Score:3, Informative)

      by MattW ( 97290 )
      They have 2 new 2da fields -- Divine and Spellcaster level offset in classes.2da, so they say. They allow you to give a +1 spellcaster level to any PrC, and they're using it themselves for Pale Master (which gets +1 every other level per the books).

      The custom talk tables are a REALLY big deal, however, since they allow you to add in custom strings, needed for custom classes, spells, etc, without including the 8+ Mb dialog.tlk file in a hak pak (or requiring people to put a new dialog.tlk in their override
      • Caster Level +1 is in?! I believe this when I see it. That would fix my only remaining major grief with NWN. Hmmm have to ask on the boards right away.

        SoU... I didn't really like SoU. The first chapter was really cool, I loved it. The "interlude" was okay, but already a little heavy on the loot. Chapter 2 was total monty haul, absolutely annoying. The levels were well laid-out, some of the puzzles and effects were nice, but overall I didn't like it at all.

        I tried the toolset under wine. It works, sort of,

    • Re:HotU Opinion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by glenrm ( 640773 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:17PM (#7502516) Homepage Journal
      I am still mad at Bioware for not releasing a Linux toolset (editor) for the game as they had promised.
      I don't get the attacking of a company that support Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. It seems to me they are doing the right thing, you should praise them for the support and critizes other that do not support your OS at all. I does not give a warm fuzzy to developers if all they get is hate back when the go out on a limb to support a program on a non-dominate OS.
      • The problem is, it's only a half-ass Linux support. A disgrace really, that was plagued with so many problems that cannot be taken seriously.

        The toolset is quite a significant part of the game package.
        • Is it that difficult for you to understand that somebody inside the company may have battled pretty hard to get the half-ass support to even see the light of day? And that for all of the effort they/he/she has put in he gets people like you bitching?
    • I ordered my copy today, and I am still mad at Bioware for not releasing a Linux toolset (editor) for the game as they had promised.

      They never promised this. They said they would try, but it would take too much time. Give them a break- the guys who did the Linux Client did the damn thing in their OWN time, not on company time.

      These kind of incorrect statements are exactly why companies dont care about making games for linux. People go out of their way to do things, and they still get complaints.

      • the guys who did the Linux Client did the damn thing in their OWN time, not on company time.

        Wow! I had no idea of that, and from my point of view, they deserve *huge* ammounts of credit for that. And probably a fat bonus, I doubt I'm the only person who chose NWN over another game because of it's Linux support. (It was actually my first real RPG)
      • Are you absolutly sure about that? This is the first I've heard of it, and if true would actually make my negitive feelings about bioware ease up a bit.
      • Nah, the original promise was identical games, all released on one CD for Windows and Linux (and I think Mac too, but that wasn't on my radar way back then).

        And if you paid any attention at all to the creation of the NWN Linux client.. they did not go out of their way to do it at all. I mean, like a year after the initial release they 'discovered' that there was no bink video for linux. Oops.

        Sorry, I will blast a company that promises a linux client and then does not deliver like I will blast any other co
    • The biggest problem with porting the toolset is that they used C++ Builder and were relying on Kylix to be able to do a fairly quick and painless port. Unfortunatly that was not the case as they kept running into bugs and problems with Kylix. Not only that but they were getting little support from Borland, it seems Borland jumped on the Linux bandwagon to keep their name in the game and had little real expectations of keeping up Kylix. Hell there have been few updates to Kylix in the last 2 years and none a
      • Right, part of the blame lies with Borland. However, you'd think they'd done a little more careful consideration of their tools before going on a multi-platform project. NWN was supposed to be Win, Lin, Mac from the get-go...

        Also, remember the Bink issue.

        No, I still blame Bioware for the Toolset fiasco. They're still cool people, and I love NWN; but they fucked-up royally on this project.

  • Someone actually *liked* NWN? (Score:2, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not just a rant, but compared to Baulders Gate 1 and 2, NWN came up WAYYYYYYYY short. The engine, story, and "party" controls were all a huge step backwards. It's only step forward were custom levels being able to be made, but today that doesn't go far enough when people all want a great story and graphics engine (2D please, 3D sucks for this.).

    • Thats the point. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The whole point of NWN *is* the toolset. Look online, how many people are running stock games? Not many. The actual NWN games are fun, but the real fun is making your own, or playing other peoples homemade games. Theres a million and one games to choose from. Its not just one game.
      • If this is what you want, Morrowind is both a far superior game and a far better engine than what's offered by NWN. I can't imagine why'd you 'step down' to NWN when you could use Morrowind instead, unless you want your game to be specifically D&D-based.

        Max

        • Re:Thats the point. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Haeleth ( 414428 )
          I can't imagine why'd you 'step down' to NWN when you could use Morrowind instead, unless you want your game to be specifically D&D-based.

          Multiplayer?

    • Go back and play again (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MattW ( 97290 ) <matt@ender.com> on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:40AM (#7501671) Homepage
      There's a reason it seems that way. BG2 was expectation-shattering. I mean, BG1 was like: wow, this is a fun game, and nicely nonlinear.

      BG2 was like: Wow, this is totally mind-numbingly amazing. It reproduced tons of fun kits, all the crazy spells like limited wish and contingency that we'd never seen in a game before, and the impossible hugeness of the game... you could play it 3 times and not find all the quests or read all the funny comments from the NPCs.

      NWN, partially because of the huge success of BG2, had huge expectations attached. It definitely fell short, largely because the OC was just rather weak, partially because of a story that felt somehow mechanical, and partially because there were just too damn many chests... it literally slowed the game down.

      Go back and play BG2 now though, and you'll realize without pause, its nearly impossible to control 1 character, let alone 6, and you'll find you REALLY want to rotate the screen around to see things from another angle... I find myself wanting to do that with ToEE all the time.

      I would love to know how the sales compared to their expected sales... personally, I'd like to see them build on it. With a graphical update and a bunch of engine enhancements, NWN2 could be to NWN what BG2 was to BG. NWN already has a LOT of staying power: the City Of Doors and Dragonlance Adventures teams are producing projects far more impressive in scope than the OC, and containing more custom content than the first expansion pack. They've released custom modeling tools, creatures, and tilesets already. So there's actually a LOT of longevity left in the game -- because the biggest, best of the third-party projects are only going to start coming out now.
      • Have you seen BG1TuTu [fwstudios.net] yet? It lets you play thru Tales of the Sword Coast using the Throne of Bhaal engine. I've played it thru till the end just recently. It's great. Breathes new life into a game from the late 90's.

        Jaysyn

      • You might like to check out the mods and tookits available for BG2 from TeamBG [teambg.net], Forgotten Wars Studios [fwstudios.net], Forgotten Wars Projects [forgottenwars.net] and the Chosen of Mystra [db-forge.com] (a list of links to completed mods is available here [teambg.net]).

        There are some major pieces of work here (e.g. The Darkest Day and Shadows over Soubar weigh in at over 300MB each) - and the most interesting project, The Big Picture [teambg.net] combines the 3 largest mods (The Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar and Tortured Souls) with several smaller ones (and some substantial AI

      • I really don't agree here. I have gone back and played BG1, BG2, all of the expansions as well as IWD 1 and 2 and their expansions. I really prefer the old system. NWN certainly better graphics, but they really missed the boat by making it too focused on single-character development. When I play BG/IWD, I play in MP mode and create a full party straight away and use auto-pause. NWN is a totally-different experience that just doesn't satisfy as much. I still have BG1 installed on my system to this day. Bes

    • I tend to agree. The pathings, AI and speed were waaay down in NWN (well, maybe I should say "I could set them waaay up in BG, but not in NWN"). My henches, familiars and summons kept getting stuck everywhere. My familiar kept using up all its powers in the first encounter (and it was a bat: casting Fear over and over on ennemies which were affected by the first Fear spell ain't exactly useful). You often have to click 2-3 times on a locked door before Tommi actually starts unlocking it. Bleh.

      The game als

    • One of NWN goal's is to put content creation in the hands of the players. Granted, you have to be a pretty hard-core fan to spend time creating content rather than playing but then NWN is more directed to trying to capture as much of the feel and flexibility of PnP D&D as possible. This includes the ability to mod the hell out of it. Try doing that with BG. I'm not sure why you think that doesn't go far enough. NWN and Morrowind have spoiled me - I now hesitate to buy any PC game that does not have buil
    • NWN is a platform for creating and running D&D 3E games online. That's it.
      The module that came with it is just an example of what could be done using the tools provided.

      It's kinda like Mozilla Seamonkey: of course it's bloated and slow, it was only created to test new features and show off existing ones. They hope that you'll get some ideas and implement something yourself (i.e. Camino, Galeon, Mozilla Firebird).

  • Development Still Too Complicated (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Slider451 ( 514881 ) <slider451 AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:14AM (#7501518)
    While I loved the idea of NWN, it didn't meet the expectations I had brewing for the four years of hype leading up to it. Surprised?

    The endless customizations are awesome and it really is the closest thing to tabletop D&D. But it takes way too long to put together a quality module, on the order of hours of work:minutes of gameplay. The defenders will say "Yeah, but I, as the DM, can just roleplay the characters and other things I didn't have time to add." True, but you still can't match the open endedness of a PnP game, where all you need is your imagination.

    Again, love the idea, but still waiting for something that truly replaces tabletop. This isn't it... yet.
    • still waiting for something that truly replaces tabletop

      You're going to be waiting for quite some time. The problem lies in the fundamental openness of a tabletop game and the lack of the same in computer games: You can't do anything the designer didn't think of or didn't want you to do, and part of the fun of D&D is the creativity it requires to win on some occasions. Often you end up bypassing a trap or monster easily because you thought of something the DM didn't. (example from one of my D&
    • The endless customizations are awesome and it really is the closest thing to tabletop D&D.

      Actually, NWN is about as far away from tabletop D&D you can get. Most of the abilities are only light representations of the real tabletop mechanics, and by far the most glaring difference is the real-time combat, which can be an utter pain for spellcasters.

      The Temple of Elemental Evil, released recently by Atari, is in fact MUCH closer to tabletop D&D. It has nearly full representation of the D&D 3
      • Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure that NWN is turn based, but in a real-time setting so you don't really see the turns occuring. If you have your spells in the QuickBar, you should be fine.

      • Re: "bug ridden" in Temple of Elemental Evil, install the patch that came out about a week or two ago, which really does fix 99% of the problems with the original release of the game.

        ToEE as a module is still kind of sparse in terms of plot & storyline (the module its based on was a pretty straightforward dungeon crawl), but post-patch, it's far and away the best tactical combat RPG I've ever played on a computer. I really hope they design more modules/games using the same turn-based engine.

    • The not-as-easy-to-use-as-hyped editor was one of the big disappointments after discovering the original campaign really wasn't very good (I'll stray a notch above sucked, because I've played worse).

      The stick figure jerky animations and flat gameplay are my biggest gripes, though, closely followed by the "tiny" world feel. I'm not much of a fan of what's known in the development world as "areas" (maps that contain a segment of the world, but do not interact with other maps in the world -- e.g. monsters do
    • I feel the need to comment on this from the other side...

      As someone who has *never* played DnD (table top), I must say "don't let that stop you from playing NWN". It's the only game I've bought in recent memory, and it's the only one I have played consistantly since it came out. It's that damn good, and if you don't care about all of the tabletop DnD stuff, and don't want to see the dice rolls, you can ignore them (they're just in a dialogue box at the bottom of the screen).

      In fact, playing NWN has made
      • You need to buy more games. I had been following NwN for something like 2 years before it was released. I got it the day it came out and I was simply very disapointed. Bioware really shot themselves in the foot by trying to move into 3D and doing it in a very ugly, clumsy way. There were so many little things, not so much "wrong" but just slightly "off", that kept me from really enjoying the game. I think if the Singgleplayer game was better I might have a better opinion, but that module sucks so hard
    • Agreed -- to a point. The tabletop rules can still be a bear to remember and apply appropriately. I played a 4 hour session of 3rd edition last weekend, and out of all that time, probably 2 1/2 hours of it was bookkeeping and rules consultation. Two minor battles and a pittance of dialog made up the rest.

      Neverwinter Nights is fantastic for making combat *fast* and exciting. None of this pussy-footing around waiting for 5 other players wondering which square to step in to gain maximum advantage shit -- get

  • My thoughts. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CFBMoo1 ( 157453 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:37AM (#7501658) Homepage
    NWN's original campaign got me interested. I charged through as a barbarian on a rampage and loved every minute of it. When I went to online play the game shined and shot me in the keister too for game exploits.

    I really enjoyed the fact the Linux client came out for it. Once I switched over to Linux I have little reason for Windows anymore. Right now the only thing keeping Windows alive on my other machine is the fact I need the NWN Toolset. I really, REALLY!, wish they would put out a toolset for Linux. I feel sorta cheated for not having it.

    I'll definatly pick up the HoU expansion but I won't be buying any new titles from Bioware or any other game company unless there's direct Linux support and no half way, "Oh here it is a day late." type deals either. I just hope they keep the HoU release in step with both Windows and Linux.

    As for the client on my Linux Mandrake box, thing runs better then it did on Windows with the same graphics resolution. I'm flat out amazed and the picture seems slightly sharper and things are snappier for me. Nice job and keep it up and make things better! By that I mean make a toolset for Linux!
    • The expected availability of a GNU/Linux client was a major incentive when I bought the game (along with being a D&D fan and the fact that Bioware is Canadian). Imagine my joy when I noticed a speed increase after switching (~7 fps)!

      Then Shadows of Undrentide shipped with Linux support out of the box. I really have to applaud Bioware for working so hard on a client that probably 1% of their players will use.

      Maybe we could convince them to release the source for the toolset. I'm sure that the communit

  • NwN Multiplayer is where its at! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The_Dougster ( 308194 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:39AM (#7501668) Homepage
    Some of the persistant world modules that are out there now are intensely fun. There is plenty to do all the time, tremendously challenging quests, and plenty of other players to for a party with. Then add to that you may have dm's online stirring up the soup and spreading mischief, and it all adds up to great fun.

    Personally I never finished the OC, never even bothered to play the SoU campaign. The game sat kind of idle for a while until I tried out multiplayer, but now I feel like I am seeing NwN as it was envisioned to be. Wait until you are in an army of 20+ high level characters attacking some epic fortress, it is fantastic!

    I'm not going to mention which PW I play on because I don't want all of you slashdot dorks ruining my fun. I leave it to you to find a suitable campaign which suits you.

    • Exactly the same here! I bought it, it lay idle for some time, I tried it out online, someone recommended a good server and *bam*! Wow. It actually became very addictive indeed.
      • I have NWN as well as the first expansion, and I've never gone online. I guess I misunderstood completely the way that it worked; I was of the mind that you pick a module, find some other folks that want to play it, play through the module, end of story. Mind telling me where to find some of these persistent world servers?
        • Pesistant world servers are fun. But I have had a lot of fun playing through modules as well. Generally, though, the people who I play modules with are people I've met on... persistant world servers :) - they're like mini MMORPGs :)

          Usually the ones with a good number of players are the best. But look around. Don't tie yourself down to a particular server, at least not at first. I did, with Arleah, which turned out not to be that good. I had fun on it, but compared to others, it really wasn't. So hop about,
        • Oh, and look under the "Persistant Worlds Story" or "Roleplay" catagories for a list on the NWN internet game thing.

  • hmmm (Score:2)

    by Jacer ( 574383 )
    There's a Linux version, it must be a good game... I don't mean to troll but NWN is a horrible game. It was easy, and the camera angles sucked. It was D&D, but where was the party controle. The hirelings AI was terrible, I hired a theif to disarm and pick locks ect and he kept getting himself into melee combat. If you want a really fun game, go pick up Baldur's Gate and/or Baldur's Gate 2.

    • Easiness: Hum... try cranking up the difficulty and then trying some of the challenging mods. =) How easy the game is supposed to be is subjective, of course. I do not personally equate "needs hundreds of reloads to get through" as "hard", but rather as "frustrating". It remains to be seen how difficult the tricks in HotU are.

      Camera angles: Camera unlocking was implemented ages ago, and HotU will have it enabled by default! Also they have skyboxes and fog distance (I think), so this mostly eliminates the

    • Effectively, all the problems with NWN can be fixed with mods. A good online server is great. Quite a few of the mods availiable for download are far better than the original campaign.

      I agree with you, in that the original campaign really wasn't too good. But, and this is a big, big, J-Lo-sized but, you're missing out if you think that's all there is to it. NWN needs the internet, either for a fun online game or for downloading custom modules that are far superior to the one Bioware created.

  • Too much high level play (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nicophonica ( 660859 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @10:45AM (#7501708)
    Hoards allows up to 40th level attainment. That's too high. D&D, both the board game and the various computer rpgs is best at low to medium levels. Temple of Elemental Evil is a great example of this. The first half of NWN was great but once your characters get above 12th a lot of it becomes tedious.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Key word there being allows.

      And it only becomes tedious if you don't have a game system and/or a DM that can work with it. You should look at some of the character classes and skills at the Epic level sometime - Very impressive stuff, but also controlled, as well as being insanely hard to attain.
    • I absolutely disagree. Scaling difficulty is a lot harder on higher levels, and finding appropriate plots is too.

      I would say that D&D is best when you play a long campaign with characters starting out at low levels, and take them to the high levels manually. What really is no fun is starting out at 15th level or so...

  • NWN is the future (well maybe not) (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Players making thier own games is the future of gaming. You see this trend starting way back in old school MUDs, continuing into Load Runner map editors, Tony Hawk skate park editors, The SecondLife MMOG, what Sims Online Should have been, etc... and NWN.

    And for those who complain that hours of developement in NWN equal minutes of game time. Yes, you have to expect this.

    If you want a system that provides REAL customization and expandibilty then it is going to be complex, and take time.

    I do agree that NWN
  • I think I best summarize what I think about this game with a pro/con list:

    Pros:

    - Highly flexible modding tools that are fairly easy to use.
    - Available in a Windows, Mac and Linux version.
    - Good availability of custom campaigns of varying quality.
    - Many implemented D&D rules.

    Cons:

    - Very outdated game engine already when NWN went gold. Almost back to Doom II with a sort of pseudo-3D. Sure, the 3D is "real", but the feature set doesn't make it look like that. No swimming, no flying, no jumping (!), no
    • This comment shouldn't have been moderated "Flamebait." It's an honest opinion of the game, and many of it's laments are shared by long time and hard core NwN players. Some of the experienced module designers would kill to have full 3D terrain, and the fact that even Water Elementals can't cross water tiles deeper than a stream is a disapointment.

      The other comments are all valid. Both pro and con.

      As for HotU, it looks like it will be a good expansion with new monsters, spells, classes, FX, tilesets, et

  • Dumbed down combat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ih8sG8s ( 4112 )
    Don't get me wrong, I likes NWN, and even spent some time creating a module, but I find the combat uninspiring.

    Bioware took lots of liberties in the combat and game mechanics. It's not even close to following the D&D v3.x ruleset.

    If you like proper D&D tactical combat, you owe it to yourself to check out Temple of Elemental Evil. The game, as a whole is great, although there are a few bugs which are supposed to be addressed in an upcoming patch. It has THE BEST tactical turn-based combat eng

    • I agree, that when comparing computer RPG D&D-inspired combat to the real thing that ToEE is the only one that comes close.

      The only problem is - how do you successfully translate that into a multiplayer environment? Would ToEE-style combat even work in a game like NWN? I'm not talking about realtime vs turn-based, although that would be the major issue.

      Anyway, would be fun if there was a possibility of such a game.
    • The game, as a whole is great, although there are a few bugs which are supposed to be addressed in an upcoming patch.
      Rejoice! The patch [fileshack.com] has been available for over a week now.
  • In designing a module is there a time variable, and would you be able to affect when monsters showed up and their strength depending upon the time?

  • Can the PC/Linux expansion be installed on the Mac like Shadows of Undrentide [insidemacgames.com]?

    Granted, it's unsupported and a bit hush-hush that it can be done, but it worked perfectly.

    All it took was manually moving the files over to the appropriate directories on the first expansion -- a good thing, as I really had no urge to wait another 18 months for MacPlay to get around to porting the exp. pack.

    Here's to hoping that the new mods aren't coded into the client....

    Give me Deekin (now!) or give me death!

  • How to have the most fun with Neverwinter Nights. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @12:38PM (#7502707)
    0. If you've never played check out www.bioware.com and download the free demo trial to see if it's your cup of tea. 1. Buy the Gold Edition. (you get the original and the first expansion) 2. Install it and patch it up to 1.32. (Use the operating system of your choice)(With the patches it's stable, without the patches it runs like something from Evil Bill. Early criticism of the stability was well founded but it's stable now.) 3. Do not waste even one second playing the official campaign (even if you were the kind of kid that followed the instructions with your Lego set and then put it away.) 4. Knowing how to play pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons will help but you may find it easier to go to www.gamefaqs.com and do a search on "Neverwinter" 5. Log onto the muliplayer and look for a good persistent world. 6. Get the hak packs and custom content from http://neverwinter.ign.com 7. Set up some games with other people at http://www.neverwinterconnections.com 8. Get a dedicated server and bandwidth. Create your own persistent world with the toolset. (The scripting language is trivial to learn if you know c.) -- See you online! Coral Reef
    • "8. Get a dedicated server and bandwidth. Create your own persistent world with the toolset."

      So, the other steps take what, fifteen minutes, right? Step 8 is to spend the next four or five months creating a playable persistent module, as well as paying for bandwidth costs and a dedicated server? This is fun?

      When I buy a game, I want to install it on my HD and have it *work*. I don't want to spend hours and hours creating a game that, in the end, I can't even play (because I designed it and am sick of

  • MemeticAI v6.6 for NWN Developers Out (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kilkonie ( 178841 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @02:27PM (#7503767)

    The Memeitc AI Toolkit is a comprehensive system for designing realistic NPC AI for persistant worlds. It uses a meme metaphor to rationalize the hows and whys of NPC life. The Memetic AI Toolkit provides an artificial life designer with a host of tools, documentation, example code, and a community to help with their projects.

    This implementation is written in NWScript and is designed to run on a stand alone server using Bioware's NeverwinterNights game platform. It is distributed as a set of scripts that can be imported into Bioware's toolkit. It does not require a database, or hacks to the original game.

    Links:

    Major features include:

    • Complete implementation of classes and (multiple) inheritance for NWScript
    • Full support for automatic preemption, and resumption of actions, without losing state
    • Response-tables, child behaviors, decaying variables.
    • Non-linear time to ease the handling of real-time to game-time coding.
    • Trails & landmarks, a resuable path system based on NPC preference
    • Non-polling solutions for points of interest observation
    • Complete asynchronous messaging, direct to NPC or via channel subscriptions
    • Completely modularization of response, behavior, and message handlers.
    • Chains of actions, sequence can resume or restart based on preemption
    • Sample code, forums, documentation, and an active friendly community.

    -W. Bull [mailto]

  • Hordes? (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitalgiblet ( 530309 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @02:34PM (#7503833) Homepage Journal
    Hordes? All this time I've been waiting with baited breath for Whores of the Underdark and it turns out to be Hordes! Damn!!!

  • honestly not that good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @03:20PM (#7504253)
    as much as I enjoyed playing NWN, it's still just a souless video game.

    Recently, I picked up playing pen and paper D&D. It's unimagineably more fun. Less repetitive, more focus on throught and problem solving, and more dynamic overall. That, and imagining a world in your mind is many times more addictive and involving than one on a screen - especially if you envision the world differently than the game creators made it.

    I can't say I've played many video games at all in the last while. Especially fantasy RPGs.
  • I was one of loki's beta testers and didn't play much after Loki folded. Along came NWN and I tried it out and liked it. I played the OC and really enjoyed it. Along the way I noticed one of the best guides written was by silverforce about the cleric, and he mentioned exaria

    http://www.exaria.net

    I have not played anything else since. It is an excellent PW with very good desingers that keep things balanced and tough through L20. You'll know fear when you first see a crag crusader ;) The players are matu

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