38 réponses à ce sujet

[brisingr90]

as Title, is there news update about this AWESOME game?

 

I played this game when I was still in elementary and till this day it still influenced me as a gamer. I am just hoping there will be a continuity for this game.

[WhiZard]

There is Dragon Age, but no attempt at NWN3, likely because of the EA versus Infragames dilemma which then became the Hasbro versus Atari lawsuit.  It would be easy for EA to cooperate with Hasbro to get other DND games launched, but that particular title seems unable to be resurrected for another sequel.

[Proleric]

Of course, NWN1 is still a popular tool for fan-made campaigns, with a huge library of excellent offerings on the new vault.

[OfficerDonNZ]

The closest thing I've seen that comes close is a game called Sward Coast Legends. It uses whatever the current DnD rule set. Due out later in the year and here's the kicker only available through Steam from what I can see.

[Knight Teore]

From what I understand the moddability still won't come even remotely close to what NWN offered. I'm hoping for the better but incredibly skeptical still. I'd recommend keeping an eye out for Sword Coast Legends, all the same.

[Lazarus Magni]

Of course not, most game developers are too scared to give said powers to their players/consumers.

[Aelis Eine]

In due time I think.

 

Valve and Bethesda have started monetizing mods. It's a hamfisted attempt, but the pieces will start to fall in place from there.

[OldTimeRadio]

Right now, there's only one person and one company that's actively trying to reboot/overhaul NWN: Trent Oster and Beamdog/Overhaul Games, which he's the president of.  Trent is very open and up front and that's kind of a hallmark of his.  From public statements he's made in the last six or so months, Beamdog has variously tried to both acquire licensing for the Aurora engine for an unrelated project and license the engine for an overhauled, enhanced edition.  On the first count, EA would not allow licensing of the Aurora engine and it was Trent's impression that they would not be likely to ever license it again, unless it was for a NWN overhaul.  On the second count, because of the Neverwinter MMO, it is very difficult to get the myriad of people who are needed to sign off to do it.  Namespace issues, basically.  The fear of naming confusion is a big one but even if that were not a concern anymore, the number of people who would have to sign off on an overhaul of NWN are astronomical.

 

However, interestingly, he still occasionally mentions that he does keep trying.  By his own account, an overhaul of NWN is not likley to be allowed for at least a year or two more.

 

As far as Sword Coast Legends goes, I recomment people read their forums and carefully watch their community Twitch broadcasts- especially the broadcasts.  There is something not right with that game's development.  Not for a game which has been in development "several years" and which is slated for release in September.  I'm sure the guys who are making it are good people but I can't watch those Twitch broadcasts without my b.s. meter and warning sirens going off.

[WebShaman]

Thanks for the update OTR!

I hope Trent succeeds.

[Proleric]

In due time I think.

 

Valve and Bethesda have started monetizing mods. It's a hamfisted attempt, but the pieces will start to fall in place from there.

 

Yes, I saw that announcement, too, but I don't think it will help the D&D community, since I'm not aware of any new D&D games that might provide the toolset and content for modders to get started. Given all the copyright issues already mentioned, I wouldn't expect one any time soon.

 

Probably just as well. The NWN community thrives, and is a nice place to be, because we help one another, share content between builders on open license (with minor exceptions) and don't impose artistic constraints. Last I heard, Valve and Bethesda heavily censor fan-made work. In my experience, Skyrim has a rather unpleasant, cut-throat modder culture, which opposes open content, even when it makes commercial sense. No doubt monetized mods will make that even worse.

[Savagefool]

While that's all true, think of what we could do on a new NWN with far less work. Even adding VR Implementation becomes possible

[Gruftlord]

Far less work? The technical limitations of nwn mean that it does require far less work to get a good adventure going than in any recent game. You won't see anything of the depth of an aielund saga for any of the current generation of games, at least not as far as hobbyist work is considered.

[OldTimeRadio]

While that's all true, think of what we could do on a new NWN with far less work. Even adding VR Implementation becomes possible

Just so you know, NWN 1 probably wouldn't have to be changed much or at all to play under a future VR system.  Since active shutter display glasses went on sale in the late 1990's and all the way up to NVidia's most recent "3D Vision", OpenGL wrappers have been used to "convert" games over to whatever the new viewing paradigm is.  It's not usually that big a deal.

 

It's a much bigger deal to find people who can afford the VR headsets! 

[Savagefool]

Heh you assume I don't know what I'm talking about I see

It wont be that much, Oculus rift comes out at the end of the year (For around $200-300) along with HTC Vive. And even less than that if you go for a mobile VR experience via the Gear VR.

Nwn1 would be extremely difficult to make into a comfortable vr experience,

it's not just a case of creating side by side images with FOV changes via a VorpX plugin unless your playing on a virtual cinema screen.

While that's an experience, it's not what I was really talking about.

You should listen to the legend that is John Carmack for a better idea of the challenges.

 

For your enjoyment if you love Johns super technical off the standard PR message talks:

 

But anyway, just to mention a few, fps needs to be 90+ at all times.

Positional tracking data to be considered.

UI issues.

Low persistence is vital.

 

Then think about if a single-threaded, single CPU based game can achieve this.

Even things like maintaining correct draw calls for framerate.

 

To back up what I say... The information is here, as given by pretty much all the top in the industry:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020714

It's nowhere near as easy as your making out. Infact.. it's not easy at all.

[Savagefool]

Far less work? The technical limitations of nwn mean that it does require far less work to get a good adventure going than in any recent game. You won't see anything of the depth of an aielund saga for any of the current generation of games, at least not as far as hobbyist work is considered.

 

I get where your coming from, games like skyrim, goat simulator etc etc etc have a nice depth too.

[leo_x]

I'd be super interested in hearing what Trent Oster thought a NWN:EE would entail, I've missed all the AMAs, has he discussed that anywhere?

[Savagefool]

"With Neverwinter Nights we had talked about building a way modders could sell content. Previous to DMCA there were too many legal nightmares" All i've seen, he was at GDX so possibly, there was something there. Message him on twitter

[OldTimeRadio]

@Savagefool - Okay.

 

@leo_x - Excellent thread about it in the Baldur's Gate forums and more information can be found here in a recent Reddit AMA.  In the Reddit thread, it might be easier to just click BeamdogTrent's name and then read over his comments for NWN-related stuff.  He does occasionally post NWN-related stuff to his Twitter (for instance, the Tweet Savagefool posted above mine) and he'll also respond to questions- though between the two links in my first sentence, most questions are answered.

[Savagefool]

So on an update:

I said this:

@TrentOster @OldTimeRadioNWN Also what about the amazing modding community? Are their any plans to let them continue to do great work?

 

He replied:

@Savagefool2 If we did anything with NWN, we'd 100% keep modding support in. For new products, keeping things open is important to us.

 

Also it looks like they are looking to make with UE4.

[Grani]

I wonder how this would affect the community, really...

I doubt the remake could be made compatible with the modules made for the original NWN. I mean, it depends on how much they really would like to change. If they simply wanted to upgrade the textures to some high-quality ones and keep the compatibility with NWN modules, then it'd pretty much be simply a texture pack for NWN.

 

On the other hand, if they tried to do something more revolutionary, then it'd likely mean that all these 13 years of custom content creation would go to waste in a way.

 

Does anyone else see this problem? I simply can't comprehend how this would be possible to create a proper NWN remake while keeping the results of the community's work.

[KlatchainCoffee]

..

On the other hand, if they tried to do something more revolutionary, then it'd likely mean that all these 13 years of custom content creation would go to waste in a way.

 

Does anyone else see this problem? I simply can't comprehend how this would be possible to create a proper NWN remake while keeping the results of the community's work.

 

Perhaps if good channels of communication are established, a workable degree of compatibility can be maintained (if it is an actual revamp of NWN, and not an entirely new game).

 

On the other hand, I have been hoping that in due time the entire game innards would be released to this modding community, and then we'll just fix the few things that have been annoying us or are most outdated and continue in our free-sharing creative mayhem.     (Some of the things mentioned above seem to be a bit of a double-edged deal in this respect).

[MrZork]

Of the answers related to NWN in that Reddit session, it seems like the takeaway was

 

[–]BeamdogTrent[S] 15 points 5 months ago

We've talked to the fine fellows at the Wizards of the Coast about such a thing. The sheer number of people involved in the contractual side of all things Neverwinter is mind-boggling. As such, we are not making much in the way of progress. It currently sits in my "waiting on external approval" pile. We did some work with the Aurora Engine a couple years ago, as a possible platform for a new project, but it died when we could no longer acquire a license to the engine.

Not the most encouraging thing for NWN fans, but at least we know where things stand.

[Grani]

Perhaps if good channels of communication are established, a workable degree of compatibility can be maintained (if it is an actual revamp of NWN, and not an entirely new game).

 

BG:EE, BG2:EE and IWD:EE seem to be just revamps of these respective titles, perhaps it would be the same with NWN:EE.

 

 

Not the most encouraging thing for NWN fans, but at least we know where things stand.

 

Indeed. But I really am not sure if NWN could be remade as simply as its D&D predecessors. I'm not even talking about all the licensing stuff, it's only that NWN was special among these games in that so much of its content was created by its community. Beamdog would only remake the core official content, which would in fact mean that it's not really the game itself that is getting a revamp, it's the campaigns.

Unless, of course, the remake would be compatible with original custom content. Even then, there are a lot of problems. How will homebrew custom textures compare to the improved HD textures of the remake? Would they be usable at all from the aesthetic perspective? Even backward compatibility might not solve anything.

 

I'm really torn apart. On one hand, I'd love NWN to get more publicity. Can you imagine websites posting articles about NWN all over again? This would be a sure way to attract members towards our community.

On the other hand, I'm pessimistic about this endeavor due to everything I said.

[MrZork]

BTW, I agree with some of the earlier posts in the thread regarding the business reasons another NWN (in the way that we mean it) is so far away from happening. Among the things that make NWN great is that it, in addition to all of the great player-made SP modules, it allows for true MP persistent worlds, and both with modules that were largely built using a toolset that is well within the usability grasp of a very significant fraction of players/enthusiasts. The development and support of a toolset like that can be a huge endeavor, particularly if one throws in a goal of supporting updated graphics and art assets. So, some company has to look at that and decide that they can make money doing it.  That's the issue.

 

And, yes, they would have to release their own campaign along with the toolset. But, really, that's not the bottleneck. The module released with the game doesn't have to be earth-shaking to make this work, particularly if building one's own world is promoted as the real draw.

 

And, yes, I know (and agree) that the IP issues are their own stumbling block. But, I can almost guarantee that, if someone figured out a way to make money building the next version of NWN, then it will not be the case that all that stands in the way of doing it are IP holders who weren't willing to sign off, even though they were being fairly compensated.

 

IMO, the reality is that we are asking for a game where we create worlds and invite other players to play in them in SP and MP modules, and we don't charge them and their only monetary investment is the initial cost of the game. I think a lot of companies will look at that and say, "Um, so where is the part where we make the money back we spent on creating this toolset and an engine that flexibly supports online play on non-monetized third-party servers?" I am not saying there isn't a way. I am saying that, I suspect that the real reason we haven't (and perhaps won't) see a new NWN is because no one has found that way and convinced people of the business case for it.

[kuronue bloodlust]

There is Dragon Age, but no attempt at NWN3, likely because of the EA versus Infragames dilemma which then became the Hasbro versus Atari lawsuit.  It would be easy for EA to cooperate with Hasbro to get other DND games launched, but that particular title seems unable to be resurrected for another sequel.

EA never had the copyright for NWN just the licence to produce the game and Prefect World gameing got the contract to do a online MMO Neverwinter NIghts. EA's poor qulity unfinished game reputation preceded them with NWN and it bit them in the backside because Wizzards of the Coast (owners of NWN) decided they would rather have a more reliable game developer work on NWN games.

 

The online game pretty boss but it wowlike in grafics and has the same grafics core as WOW so you will need a prety advanced system to handle it. its worth the pain, the storyline is wonderful and the battle system is awsome.

 

edit: fixed company name I tmparaly forgot forgotten realms was a sub to WOTC.