161 réponses à ce sujet

[foil-]

I think NWN is just beginning to show signs of age for an rpg engine.  Just beginning.  It was horribly over ambitious at the time and had graphics options that no tech at the time short of maybe some sli options could run smoothly with all options cranked (especially shadows on high in forested areas with tonnes of trees casting shadows and maybe some point light shadows for good measure).

What I would like to know is the current hardware able to handle more grass and tree placables than before.  Today's graphics cards are loaded with way more memory than most people ever thought necessary at the time of NWN2 release.  I recall people saying games would never use 512MB of ram.  Now we're looking at an average of 1GB and many cards with 1.5GB or more.

By the way, until the southern island radeon cards come out with the reduced manufacturing transistor size, I upgraded to a mid range nVidia 560Ti card.  I loaded a couple of my trouble areas in NWN2 and they still struggle on current hardware.  But I think I'm really believing those can be chalked up to some poor engine designs since they've plagued NWN2 since day one.

As I speak, I'm downloading the steam version of NWN2 platinum and will give those areas a try again with the updated 280.19 nVidia drivers.  I've heard on the Dragon Age 2 site that they work wonders for NWN1, so hoping they also fix some problems with NWN2 (even though they are completely different engines).

Speaking of player character models, I'm afraid to admit that DA and DA2 are worlds past NWN2.  And their movie making tools I saw advertised at release would be something spectacular to have in NWN2.  The only critisism with DAO I saw was that the women walk animation looked identical to the man's.  This has been fixed with Dragon Age 2 (to a fault - those hip swaggers are done by someone with a passion)

[painofdungeoneternal]

Well i hope someone defends NWN2 to death, lol, but what does that have to do with NWO which looks like it has no toolset, but some sort of "map maker" tool which allows you to draw simple 2D maps. For some users ( and that is a majority now ) will find simple tools like that much more useful than any fancy toolset. My concern is that they will be only valued IF they happen to make leveling easier, and won't really be a tool to implement stories and ideas, or even tactical battles.

[Shallina]

Gimme first the dynamic lightning, day/night cycle, and Multiplayer with full liberty, and we may speak of a next gen engine.

Sadly DAO miss them all. Even if DAO improve animations and characters, it doesn't make up for all wich was given up.

Modifié par Shallina, 30 juillet 2011 - 04:17 .

[foil-]

It has a lot of new tech that NWN2 doesn't have (I'm talking DA2 here) including tessellation, hi-res textures, ambient occlusion, moving clouds (I especially like this one).

Andreas Papathanasis does a nice summary of the dragon age 2 engine (links below) stating specifically:
-Dynamic Lighting
-Tessellation and additional geometry details
-Screen space ambient occlusion
-Diffusion Depth of Field

http://blog.bioware....ge-ii-–-part-1/
http://blog.bioware....ge-ii-–-part-2/

Also, Dragon Age 2 is now one of the more demanding games out there. Whether that is poor programing or heavy requirements due to hi res texture packs and other things, I'm still not sure about.

But at the end of the day, tree shadows in NWN2 is what adds a whole level of immersion for me and is the deciding factor in which engine I prefer.

[-Semper-]

Shallina wrote...

Gimme first the dynamic lightning, day/night cycle, and Multiplayer with full liberty, and we may speak of a next gen engine.

the eclipse engine's got realtime lighting. dunno how many the engine supports within one level.

imo for atmosphere i really love obsidian's new engine onyx. ds3 dungeons are looking gorgeous. there's also the rumor of icewind dale 3 with an updated infinity like engine by the wizards of black isle... infinity engine with prerendered backgrounds, 3d characters and a powerful toolset would be a dream coming to life

foil- wrote...

-Tessellation and additional geometry details

i never saw tesselation in da2. in fact the whole dx11 support was a bad joke and only to satisfy the dumb pc crowd. bio tried to show that they're spending extra effort for the pc version while it still was a bad port

Modifié par -Semper-, 30 juillet 2011 - 11:29 .

[foil-]

-Semper- wrote...

Shallina wrote...

Gimme first the dynamic lightning, day/night cycle, and Multiplayer with full liberty, and we may speak of a next gen engine.

the eclipse engine's got realtime lighting. dunno how many the engine supports within one level.

imo for atmosphere i really love obsidian's new engine onyx. ds3 dungeons are looking gorgeous. there's also the rumor of icewind dale 3 with an updated infinity like engine by the wizards of black isle... infinity engine with prerendered backgrounds, 3d characters and a powerful toolset would be a dream coming to life

Come on!!  You're pulling our chains!   Our you serious??  That would be a dream come true (I dream small ).  Linkys please?

[-Semper-]

foil- wrote...

Come on!!  You're pulling our chains!   Our you serious??  That would be a dream come true (I dream small ).  Linkys please?

http://forums.obsidi...showtopic=57440

nobody knows what that could be, besides obs of course. but feargus stated in an interview that he spoke with atari some time ago about a 2d rpg distributed through online platforms like gog, steam and d2d.
the speculation goes from mobile games, social network crap to infinity. i am hoping for the latter :innocent:

Modifié par -Semper-, 30 juillet 2011 - 04:41 .

[foil-]

Okay, there was some serious rumour mongering going on in that thread but I believe most of the hiring evidence points firmly away from anything D&D related. I suspect they are looking at a wider audience than D&D can capture and more the casual gamer crew. When I read stylised art direction I think things like Bastion:

Apparently that game has a narrator speaking during the entire gameplay. A little too frantic for me but looks interesting.

Modifié par foil-, 30 juillet 2011 - 05:08 .

[foil-]

I just finished my steam install and loaded some old save games from the OC.  I gotta say, I don't think I've played any neverwinter nights 2 in a year (probably a lot more) and its still one of the best looking RPGs out there.  I've got it fully maxed out everything (nothing unchecked) and its floating around 20fps on my 560ti nVidia card.

I was so impressed again after not playing for a while (I've only really played Crysis and Dragon age lately - all I;ve had time for) that I took some screenshots from the OC which are better than I remember.

Neverwinter Nights 2

http://dl.dropbox.co...14-13-49-39.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-14-02-31.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-14-08-11.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-14-10-86.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-15-00-42.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-15-12-16.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...14-15-16-18.bmp

How about some Dragon Age 2 for comparison
Uphill shot like some of the above NWN2 shots http://dl.dropbox.co...13-56-09-69.bmp
Friday Night Fights - Main event.  Anders vs. Some Random Elf guy http://dl.dropbox.co...18-18-11-04.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...18-19-02-21.bmp
some clouds in Dragon Age 2 (And a Dragon I stuffed and mounted) http://dl.dropbox.co...20-48-30-55.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...20-48-20-67.bmp
I'll let you make up your own off colour jokes for this one - not going there http://dl.dropbox.co...21-55-32-42.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...23-40-41-10.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.co...21-33-22-82.bmp

And a Crysis 2 shot for good measure
http://dl.dropbox.co...23-47-18-08.bmp

Modifié par foil-, 30 juillet 2011 - 06:44 .

[Shallina]

Great animations, better characters but bad area for the DA engine. As everyone says.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

The thing is, it's not really the full capacity of the engine that matters, but what the artists and builders can do with it.  I think we've reached the point where a scattered collection of amateurs/dilettantes, working over years, can produce better content than a small group of professionals working on a tight schedule.  Some of this might be perverse incentives within the industry, where all the effort goes into producing a flashier screenshot than the next game, but mostly I think it's just because we amateurs have more time and freedom to flush out our ideas.

It just bothers me that all the buzz goes to the (probably) mediocre new game, when we've had so many high-quality modules released in the last year, and more to come.  This is where the real comparision should take place, not between the DA or Neverwinter and the NWN2 OC of 2006, but between DA/Neverwinter and what the community is producing now.

stuff like this:

nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php
nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php
nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php
nwvault.ign.com/fms/Image.php

[foil-]

Those are some georgeos screenshots Lugaid, but lets not ignore an engine that can give the artist more media to work with.  Professional developers have the option to adjust the paintbrush to their vision:



Fire and burning grass/trees made up a big part of the vision Ubisoft had for Far Cry 2 and what they created was georgeous and something I would love to see in a future D&D game.

I don't take away from the artistry of people working in the NWN2 toolset because I've been astounded multiple times.  And I understand NWN2 has certain limitations in making the world building accessible. But there can always be more and as graphics tech improves so will the mood and feel of the areas created by area artists.  As much as NWN2 areas are an improvement on NWN1 areas, even more complicated/advanced graphics engines lead to even more asounding visual impact.  Especially in the shot of the first movie below.

NWN1 is a great game but its graphics have their limits.  Its enough to push people to NWN2 even though there is less content.  What is possible graphically in NWN2 is worlds above NWN1.  But NWN2 has its limits also and they will be exceeded as time moves on.  Neverwinter Online may not be the game people were hoping for, but at least the idea of user generated content is not dead and maybe someone down the road will find that a Neverwinter Nights 3 is possible.  I just hope the same reluctance to move on from NWN1 to NWN2 doesn't again happen if Neverwinter Nights 3 comes along.  Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great game but it could have been so much more if more NWN1 people supported it.  It also may have made more NWN2 content possible and Atari thinking about a true NWN3.  But that boat has sailed and the industry will just have to go full circle again before it comes back to another game that truly follows in the footsteps of NWN2.

More Farcry movies of grasslands (unfortunately not a lot of HD video during FC2 release):
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch
grass fields : www.youtube.com/watch   and   www.youtube.com/watch
HD gameplay: www.youtube.com/watch  and 

Modifié par foil-, 31 juillet 2011 - 01:12 .

[kamal_]

foil- wrote...
  But that boat has sailed and the industry will just have to go full circle again before it comes back to another game that truly follows in the footsteps of NWN2.

I'd suggest people try counting the number of Oblivion or Farcry/Crysis mods (these games shipped with toolsets) that are adventures in new areas not connected to the official campaign. Go ahead everyone, I have the 10 seconds it will take to count them all. Dragon Age also suffers from this.

Until there's a radical breakthrough in ease of content generation (probably via procedural generation) for builders, there's not going to be a "NWN3" on a "next gen" engine, or even a "current gen" one. Mapping takes too long. Until then it's going to a few maps and a number of adventures you can count on one hand from the community. The community will create plenty of scantily clad female models and new weapons to place in the official game though.

Neverwinter Online's forge will be better than that. The STO forge seems to have a variety of Crpytic produced maps, and interiors seem to be tileset based. Tilesets will make things easier for community builders. It would even be good, except for the communities inability to add content to improve things. As long as you want to play inside the Cryptic sandbox it will be fine. And hey, they promise 5 (count em!) races and classes at launch!

Of course, that probably leaves everyone reading this out in the cold, and the most awesome things come from the creativity and "need to scratch an itch" of the community. Let's face it, NWN doesn't succeed without the ability of the community to do that. 

{animation will be a solved issue for a game community as soon as a game allows importing of Kinect mocap}

[kamal_]

These youtube videos are featured on the Star Trek Online foundry site for area building.
www.startrekonline.com/foundry_video

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

Notice the exteriors are prefab only, you can place stuff in them, but not create them.

You can cry now.

[MokahTGS]

 Yeah, if we are limited to pregen exteriors then things will get stale really fast.  They have said that interiors snap together, so it sounds like tiles to me.  No different then any moddable game we have now for interiors.

Exteriors and moldable terrain mesh is the key...

oh yeah...and custom models, scripting, animations, and, and, and...

[kamal_]

honestly they should just give every author of a published nwn1 or 2 adventure a free copy and subscription, to encourage content. It would cost them very little in the scheme of things.

[foil-]

There's no need to cry.  It sets out to do what it wanted to do: accessibility.  NWN2 set out to do what it wanted to do: flexibility.

Its all about that slider of ease of use and content produced. NWN2 has its niche and its good at what it does, but its not the only good game out there. And its not all doom and gloom for games like Neverwinter because they don't offer the flexibility of NWN2. If that was the case the NWN1 should be a complete failure next to NWN2. But its community was bigger by far and the game exceeded expectations. I prefer NWN2 for many reasons, but there is a place for games like Neverwinter even if they don't offer the gazillion classes of NWN2. The simplicity may draw a strong community like NWN1 did. It may offer extremely well built classes from launch.

I guess what I'm trying to say is we can be comfortable that NWN2 is a good game regardless if other games do a good job at what they set out to do. We can criticize Neverwinter if it does a bad job at what it set out to do, but we can hardly criticize it for doing a good job at what it intends to do and being successful because of it. Same goes for Dragon Age.

Some of the community here may be able to slap together a great area in 2 or 3 hours, but how long did it take them to get to that point. I think what Neverwinter wants to offer is something where anyone can put together a small module or dungeon with little learning curve. And according to the info available, those modules will be reviewed by approved reviewers and if deemed acceptable, attached as an actual living dungeon/quest to the official world by Cryptic. This may not be everyones cup of tea, or as unique as whole worlds created by NWN2 authors, but it has a place and may fill a niche that interests D&Ders. Quite honestly if this system had been shown to me in the late 70s or early 80s, I would have fell off my seat.

As for Far Cry 2, it doesn't have the mods for two reasons. Its even further up the scale of difficulty and the First Person Shooter crowd have such a diverse amount of content to choose from that is absolutely breathtaking visually and quality, they don't stick around to mod maps anymore. Its not like it was in the early war shooter days where custom content was coming out of the woodwork. CoD2 had quite a bit and it was very good. But if there were some members who stuck it out with learning the NWN2 engine who would commit themselves to an engine like FarCry2's, imagine the areas you could create. In fact, reviewing all those videos it occured to be that it would be an outstanding graphics engine for NWN3. It has:
-Day night cycle
-Incredible water
-Beautiful sunsets and lighting
-Beautiful and alive nature (animals and plants).
-Is not as demanding as many other engines like Dice's or Crytek

Why wouldn't you go to an engine like that if they built in 3rd person and added the D&D ruleset?

Modifié par foil-, 31 juillet 2011 - 03:25 .

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

@foil- yes, as a builder I'm quite ready to move on to a better engine, especially if it has a seamless area design like Far Cry 2. And it will probably take me another 3-4 years to really learn the engine and the associated toolset.

But that's the rub, NWN2 is only just now hitting it's prime, just as NWN hit it's prime back around when the CEP came out. These things take time to mature, and the Neverwinter game on offer will just be a little runt at release compared to NWN/2. I'm not saying we should strangle the thing in it's crib, but the new game should have to compete on a fair footing with it's older siblings, as they exist now. Neverwinter does't have to beat the NWN2 OC that OEI slapped together back in 2006, but the refined and debugged project that OEI brought out with patch 1.23, and all the additions and tweaks from the community. Remember that part of the reason NWN2 stumbled at first was because the NWN community beat them to certain additions (i.e. mounts).

I agree that there's a real need for an absurdly easy dungeon/quest design tool, but that seems incidental to the game. The issue to me is that the developers, instead of trying to make money by putting together a superior product, instead are trying to make money by throwing together a substandard product that fills a conspicuous gap in the current marketplace (modern, good-looking DnD CRPG and MMORPG). If regular people knew that the new community-made NWN and NWN2 content already filled that gap pretty well, then the developers would have some incentive to put together a product that really does surpass the aging NWN2 engine.

[foil-]

Lugaid of the Red Stripes wrote...

@foil- yes, as a builder I'm quite ready to move on to a better engine, especially if it has a seamless area design like Far Cry 2. And it will probably take me another 3-4 years to really learn the engine and the associated toolset.

But that's the rub, NWN2 is only just now hitting it's prime, just as NWN hit it's prime back around when the CEP came out. These things take time to mature, and the Neverwinter game on offer will just be a little runt at release compared to NWN/2. I'm not saying we should strangle the thing in it's crib, but the new game should have to compete on a fair footing with it's older siblings, as they exist now. Neverwinter does't have to beat the NWN2 OC that OEI slapped together back in 2006, but the refined and debugged project that OEI brought out with patch 1.23, and all the additions and tweaks from the community. Remember that part of the reason NWN2 stumbled at first was because the NWN community beat them to certain additions (i.e. mounts).

I agree that there's a real need for an absurdly easy dungeon/quest design tool, but that seems incidental to the game. The issue to me is that the developers, instead of trying to make money by putting together a superior product, instead are trying to make money by throwing together a substandard product that fills a conspicuous gap in the current marketplace (modern, good-looking DnD CRPG and MMORPG). If regular people knew that the new community-made NWN and NWN2 content already filled that gap pretty well, then the developers would have some incentive to put together a product that really does surpass the aging NWN2 engine.

Not a single comment in that which I don't agree with.  You are stating something similar to what the console developers are saying.  They have only just recently mastered the tools for making games for the consoles and that's one of the reason we see a fair amount of high quality material coming out on consoles these days.  I will have to get back to playing NWN2 and see what new material has cropped up in the last couple years.  Wish I had more time.  One of these lottery tickets has gotta be the one.

[painofdungeoneternal]

The big issue with NWO is it's published by Atari ( even cryptic is being sold off now for whatever reason ), it's priorities are not aimed at the niche of folks who are the heart and soul of D&D, but it's aimed at the mass market which does not care that much what the rules involved are ( and hasbro aimed 4th edition at the same niche ). If that means the number of D&D players increases i'd cheer that on, but it just seems to me it's getter farther from what Gygax set up as the bean counters get more and more say so.

It's also using a recycled engine, which saves them a ton of work which they are redirecting towards areas and models, already sounds like it's going to be fantastic visually. But all that said it's still the star trek engine, which is just another MMO, and the forge in NWO will have very similar results to what you get in STO. Note that a recycled engine is a good idea, and i'd love it if they were to "recycle" NWN2 to make NWN3, perhaps give obsidian enough time to do a revamp and put the amount of work to release something solid on day 1, perhaps to give us flying and all the rest.

The concept of NWN1, was repeated in NWN2 with only incremental improvements, and such a rushed schedule that most of the reasons for a sequel ( z axis, horses, flying for example ) were scrapped. However the fact it was redone allowed them to change a lot of core issues in the original game, while leveraging what was good in NWN1, and eventually it released some ground breaking features like ADL, nifty script functions, and enough community access that we can actually implement most things ourselves.

Dragon Age decided single player was the true path to riches, and NWO is going the MMO route, both extremes, and it really eliminates a lot of the arguments between parts of our community, but i think both choices leave behind a lot of value. The more diverse the perspectives, that has a direct result in creativity of what you see for the entire community as ideas bounce back and forth. And it also loses the true PNP spirit of D&D, which is all about Rule Zero, which says if i want to have Cthulu, play it by myself or with 6 strangers, if i want to DM, or if i want to do custom spells, then that is up to me.

NWN2 is just hitting it's stride at this point. Eventually Dragon age will as well. The way NWO is set up is far more proprietary and i don't see the same happening for it -- but that is just speculation. I don't think it's as easy to mod MMO's. I don't think the business people see the idea of a moddable game as a good idea, they'd rather sell a few new trinkets instead of letting amateurs do it for free, nor is a DM client, persistent world, seen as something that adds to their bottom line. It is going to be  a long wait until something actually is released which fills the NWN2 niche.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 31 juillet 2011 - 05:35 .

[Shallina]

DAO will nevers hit a prime for moddeler. Sadly there are to much issue with that engine for modeller.

But I'am sure 2 or 3 team are going to produce something amazing with it.

Modifié par Shallina, 31 juillet 2011 - 06:31 .

[foil-]

painofdungeoneternal wrote...
 Note that a recycled engine is a good idea, and i'd love it if they were to "recycle" NWN2 to make NWN3, perhaps give obsidian enough time to do a revamp and put the amount of work to release something solid on day 1, perhaps to give us flying and all the rest.

I would love to see that as well.  NWN2 at the release of SoZ was incredible.  It really became that dream game that dethroned Baldur's Gate for me at that point.  Once the crafting was improved, the overland map was available, and the automatic downloader for content was available, NWN2 was a thing of beauty that updating could only improve if they kept the overall design intact.

I still would have liked the automatic updater to include single player modules and also have a way in-engine to connect with friends for some co-op play.

I hope Atari sees the value of this engine and one day picks it up and updates it for a new game.  But seeing that they never looked back with ToEE, I doubt that will happen unfortunately.

[kamal_]

STO is apparently restricted to 8 missions per builder. With no offline saving them (so you can't rotate the active missions in and out). Makes producing modular content difficult.

They also limit mission size.
"Each Project is given a storyline “budget” that allows them to put a maximum number of locations, enemies, npcs, etc., into the mission. This prevents players from making missions that never end, and also helps keep the episodes playable."
http://www.mmosanctu...creation-system

A 2 1/2 hour mission is considered exceptionally long, and most missions clock in around an hour.

[dunniteowl]

I can only say what I said before, when NWO was first announced: I will wait and see, but I won't, not for a second, pay a monthly fee to play a video game. Dammnit! I bought my first computer to get me out of the video arcades, where I was dropping somewhere close to 80 bucks a month on video games. My computer was a smaller payment per month than that and I could play anyt kind of game available, any time I wanted (when I was home, anyway) and in any clothed state I preferred.

No monthly fees for my gaming, thanks. I bought a PC to avoid that and, in the intervening time since 1987 when I bought that first computer, I have heard the news reporting the demise of the PC for gaming no less than 6 times now. I have heard people proclaim (as well as marvel) that this memory limit would never be needed to pass, or that this video quality would not make for a better experience, or that this processor, though faster, wasn't going to make gaming better than the consoles.

They have all had to eat crow, while I happily upgraded over the years, maybe not keeping up to date all the time, but at least close enough to improve my experience, technologically.

Gaming's come a long way. But there have been many a step backwards and many a step forwards that was, in my view, a mis-step as well. And no sign of the impending death of the desktop PC as a valid and valued gaming rig. MMO's are for sissies. (tongue firmly in cheek here.)

I wonder what would be the state of the game, NWO included, had the development and industry not just become memory pigs and coding monkeys using more code, more memory to get less done than the computer scientists that used 64k ram machines with tape drives to get man to the moon? We have jumped orders of magnitude in capability in technology, and yet, we have simply scrapped all that was useful and effectively elegant in favor of more, More, MORE, without regard to whether or not we were using all that more any more effectively than we could.

NWO will probably look fine and will be fun, most likely, at first blush. But I stand here before you today, willing to prophesy that, before the game is a year old, it will be losing players, not gaining them. I make this claim because the history of Atari and the history of D&D related online gaming in MMM's *(that's Massively Multiplayer Markets) shows, as one sagacious poster earlier metaphorically stated: That ship has sailed. The forces at work to create and market NWO cannot help but be left behind, monetarily. Atari hasn't the financial wherewithal to market NWO effectively to the point where it can compete with any other Online efforts (save, possibly for Conan or LotRO) and without an engine of supreme power, they won't have enough steam, wind or oar in the water to make it anything but a pathetic attempt to capture something already long gone.

Such is my prophesy. Worship me, for I am never wrong and I never lie.

In any case, I am still in a wait and see position for NWO, even though all the indicators at this point is that there is a lot of talk that sounds good, but the history of those that speak is of speaking with a forked tongue.

regards,
dno

[foil-]

He's aliiiiiive!

Just to set the record straight here on one item. Neverwinter has some MMO roots but the developers are stating, and this is their vision, that Neverwinter will not be an MMO. It serves them no gain to make such a statement since they are essentially alienating the MMO crowd by doing it.

Neverwinter will be a co-op closer to Left4dead than World of Warcraft and they are supposedly implementing many features to encourage co-op play and well balanced parties. That sounds like D&D to me.

Your comment about arcades made me pause for a second and recall how many quarters I had dumped in Galaga, Dragon's Lair, joust, and others.

But D&D fans are use to paying for more content. You buy the basic set and then buy more monster manuals, players manuals, etc. Paying just for the right to play is silly. But paying for continual updates and content is....well, less silly (Darn you TSR and Wizards of the Coast). If NWN2's adventure pack program has released one per month I would have happily paid it.

Modifié par foil-, 31 juillet 2011 - 07:55 .