Will NWN:EE Inspire a Move Back to NWN?

[c2k]

The NWN1 community was much larger than the NWN2 community. Assuming those people would be drawn back to the game, it would make NWN1 more popular than NWN2 is again. I doubt this will help NWN2, as the NWN2 engine is on par with the NWN1 engine in terms of power. And if this NWN: EE gets any type of engine enhancement, NWN2 will be left in the dust.

Not to mention, as was already stated, anyone could build and host a NWN1 PW without a lot of experience. I know a guy that was hosting one of the popular PWs from NWN1 on a normal gaming PC in his basement. You can't really do that with NWN2 unless you cap population to 20(?).

[Arcanophage]

I currently play both NWN2 and NWN1 - for me, NWN1 wins hands down. The graphics of NWN2 are kind of insulting and weird. Everyone kind of looks alien, and it's made worse by the thought that was this a genuine attempt at realistic graphics. At least with NWN1, I can substitute my imagination for a lot of things, but with NWN:EE it opens up the horizon for more immersion and experience.

But this isn't about NWN1 versus 2.

I'll be playing the head start this weekend, and I am keen as beans.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Trent Oster declined texture and model updates, citing expenses of the labor involved (source: BD twitch stream). Graphic fidelity in NWN:EE is boiling down to just a ReShade-esque pixelshader update, higher resolution support, and what has been announced. If you're familiar with Peachykeen's nwshader, this is exactly the same thing. I sincerely doubt there will be much beyond that, given NWN1's renderer limitations for compatibility's sake to not break hundreds of thousands of custom content that holds a meager fraction to NWN2's (even as buggy as granny3d is, ironically) pipelines for drawing the scene each frame. If you're holding cards to the chest about your hopes and dreams in this department, take a look at the past titles Beamdog has touched for comparison.

---

That said, if NWN2 gets the EE treatment the laundry list of fixes is smaller by comparison.

1. WASD / Movement fix
2. 64bit (Though this was wasn't trivial to do and took me five months, I was able to recompile out the assembly to this target)
3. Additional camera mode akin to NWN1
4. Linux dedicated server compile target (get rid of the renderer in it's binary)
5. Move all hard coded gameplay feat functions (WWA) out to nwscript.
6. Export animations to another format.
8. Fix pathing
9. Introduce symmetric multiprocessing on a per area load basis.


I've also thrown my resume at them just in case.

[Lockonnow]

Aspect of Sorrow Additional camera mode akin to NWN1 it is allready in nwn2 use the force man

[RaiderOne]

I've also thrown my resume at them just in case.

You would get the vote from everyone around here

[Thorsson]

Trent Oster declined texture and model updates, citing expenses of the labor involved

Indeed, as there are thousands of textures across the modules being supplied in the package, they have a limited audience and they're trying to keep it within a price point. But, as I understood it, PWs will be able to make use of better textures in future, no?

Maybe that's not such a big deal in NWN2, but still, what can be done has moved on in the last 10 years.

[NegInfinity]

While I was excited to find out about Neverwinter Nights getting an enhanced version like Baldur's Gate, I figured it was going to cut out multiplayer and just focus on single player play. Then I decided to check out the FAQ on Beamdog and I was pleasantly surprised to find this:

Will the server browser work again?

Yes, the server browser has been rewritten so you can once again find servers for multiplayer. At this time the original NWN restrictions apply: The server host must be reachable at the external UDP address and port advertised through your NAT firewall.

I think this is great news. Not only an enhanced version of the classic, but official support for multiplayer and persistent worlds. And Beamdog is seeking the input of the NWN mod community to make it even better. It may even get a release on Android and iOS. Not only will this draw back old players but will bring the game to the attention of a new crop of players.

The question now is how will the remaining NWN2 PWs react to this? We're not likely to see a NWN2 Enhanced Edition due to Obsidian. "Stepping back" seems to actually be a step forward. What does everyone else think?

You can't really move from NWN2 to NWN1, because NWN1 doesn't really give a damn about most of the DND content. For example, weapom masters get instakill feats, items go up to +10, instead of damage resistance to good/evil/whatever, there's damage resistance to, say weapons under +6. Level cap is 40, and you can keep taking prc levels forever (and there's a small number of prcs).

It is half way between pnp and arcade, while nwn2 is more faithful representation of pnp that still took a lot of liberties.

One thing that NWN1 had going is that combat animations are absolutely amazing, while in nwn2 they're mostly garbage. In nwn1 blocks and dodges are animated, even for multiple hits, and for opponents attacking at angles. In nwn2 you get an awkward dodging animation, and that's it.

With EE out, yeah, there will be a spike of new players. A small one.

[Lockonnow]

how do we get nwn2 back to stream

[Dagesh]

While I was excited to find out about Neverwinter Nights getting an enhanced version like Baldur's Gate, I figured it was going to cut out multiplayer and just focus on single player play. Then I decided to check out the FAQ on Beamdog and I was pleasantly surprised to find this:

Will the server browser work again?

Yes, the server browser has been rewritten so you can once again find servers for multiplayer. At this time the original NWN restrictions apply: The server host must be reachable at the external UDP address and port advertised through your NAT firewall.

I think this is great news. Not only an enhanced version of the classic, but official support for multiplayer and persistent worlds. And Beamdog is seeking the input of the NWN mod community to make it even better. It may even get a release on Android and iOS. Not only will this draw back old players but will bring the game to the attention of a new crop of players.

The question now is how will the remaining NWN2 PWs react to this? We're not likely to see a NWN2 Enhanced Edition due to Obsidian. "Stepping back" seems to actually be a step forward. What does everyone else think?

You can't really move from NWN2 to NWN1, because NWN1 doesn't really give a damn about most of the DND content. For example, weapom masters get instakill feats, items go up to +10, instead of damage resistance to good/evil/whatever, there's damage resistance to, say weapons under +6. Level cap is 40, and you can keep taking prc levels forever (and there's a small number of prcs).

Weapon masters do get insta-kill but, like here, the feat can be swapped out and changed easily enough. Items can go up to +20 on both NWN1 and NWN2. Damage resistance is the same between NWN1 and NWN2 (there is no DR vs. alignment either way). There is AC vs. alignment on both. Level Cap is 40 but, through code and such, levels can go well beyond 40 (see Higher Ground server). As for PRCs, you've gotta check this out: PRC Pack. Levels can be limited as well and quite easily (changing a number in a spreadsheet).

It is half way between pnp and arcade, while nwn2 is more faithful representation of pnp that still took a lot of liberties.

I don't think any game that isn't turned based can ever be PnP.

One thing that NWN1 had going is that combat animations are absolutely amazing, while in nwn2 they're mostly garbage. In nwn1 blocks and dodges are animated, even for multiple hits, and for opponents attacking at angles. In nwn2 you get an awkward dodging animation, and that's it.

Agreed.

With EE out, yeah, there will be a spike of new players. A small one.

[Blame The Rogue]

i recall a lot of mages hating fighters' devastating critical

yes, it was too much