The only way I'd consider buying an "Enhanced Edition" of Neverwinter Nights is not if it got a new engine, or super nice looking models and graphics, is if it scraped the 3rd Edition rules and used the 3.5 set instead.
I'm not sure there's all that much point to remaking the NWN campaigns, but if Beamdog wanted to, say, make a successor in 3.5E or 5E with a NWN-like toolset (not NWN2's toolset, please, that thing is so much harder to use) and multiplayer capabilities, I would throw money at it.
I wouldn't mind an NWN:EE. Especially if it came with all of the dlc modules. I mean, I own all the modules already and can play them whenever I want, but lots of people missed out. Plus a lot of people lost their serial numbers for said modules when the old Bioware forum was taken down.
As far as NWN having a bad engine, I am going to laugh myself sick. The engine was fine. Playing NWN in isometric mode was fine. It wasn't hard to move around or cast spells or do pretty much anything. It was easy and somewhat intuitive.
The story was fine. The engine was shit. Most people felt that way about it, the game felt absolutely terrible to play because of how bad the engine was.
If we're talking engine stuff, I guess there are three improvements I'd really want to see.
First, increase the maximum mouse scroll speed, at least for the chase camera. Like, by a factor of 2-3. The minimum should of course stay the same, so that people who are fine with the current speeds can still have the settings they most enjoy.
Second, give us an "always run" option. NWN decided whether to have your character walk or run based on how far away the destination was, which is bad enough, but then that distance was in terms of distance on the screen, not distance in the game. Whether the character walked or ran to a give point was determined not by how long it'd take them to get to that point, but by how zoomed out the camera was. Which is one of the most bizarre design decisions I've ever seen, and needs to be addressed.
Third, fix modes so that they turn on and off correctly, can be kept on outside of combat, and preferably so that we can have more than one active at once. NWN2 did a fantastic job of this. NWN1 did not.
It'd also be nice to have an RTS/IE mode, where you can zoom out and take control of pets/NPCs directly in classic IE style, at least as an optional game mode in the toolset. But I'd consider that a bonus, rather than a much-needed fix to the existing system.
I dunno, NWN2 had a pretty good interpretation of 3E rules. Its problem was more that something about the combination of the characters' pathing sizes and the AI made combat dissolve into a giant clump of characters wailing on one another instead of anything particularly tactical. That, and the interface for controlling multiple characters at once was just kind of bad.
Well Neverwinter Nights 2 has the 3.5 rules, not the 3.0 rules that Neverwinter Nights. That's a BIG difference. 3.5 was a much better rule set than 3.0.
The Aurora engine, however... definitely not the best.
Sorry, but I had to ask the question: Is a Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition a feasible idea in the distant future?
For starters, Neverwinter Nights came out the same year as Icewind Dale 2, which is up for grabs as a possible Enhanced Edition project.
In contrast, I realize Neverwinter Nights was built on a newer (no longer isometric) engine, which some might view as modern enough and unfit for being "Enhanced".
So what are your thoughts? I have not seen any Dev commentary on the subject (though IWD and IWD2 were mentioned as being of "interest" to the Devs).
It is more of a curiosity of mine than anything, mainly because Neverwinter Nights is what got me back into the Infinity Engine games after almost a decade of not playing them.
I personally would welcome an Enhanced Neverwinter Nights, after Baldur's Gate 3, IWDEE, IWD2EE, and Planescape: Torment EE of course
Edit: Subtopic - I also remember thinking about how cool Neverwinter Nights could/would have been if the loading screens in Baldur's Gate were correct about transferring your characters to Neverwinter Nights and had come true. Neverwinter Nights on the Infinity Engine? Yes please
I get a kick out of the mods that have brought Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate to the NWN2 engine, because if I had more skill and knowledge (and time) with the Infinity Engine, I'd love to personally bring Neverwinter Nights to the Infinity Engine as an Icewind Dale 2 mod.
I dont see a NWN:EE happenning.
First, different engine. That means a NWE: EE shouold be a whole new game, not a "polished" but old one.
Second: different set of rules, which means different balance. The whole game should be retought.
Third: The argument of NWN was the worst of the lot (BG serie, NWN 2 or even NWN expansions). History was rather boring, imho. The thing that really made NWN shine was the Toolset that allowed players make their own adventures. That was groundbreaking for the time. But that isnt groundbreaking any longer. And it is something that cant be "ported" to the BG engine. It should be made from the bottom (IF they wanted to give us something similar to the NWN Toolset)
@helmo1977 So couldn't you argue that a NWN: EE with an enhanced toolset is groundbreaking, as it would be the best in the business?
No, because a NWN EE edition using the BG engine would have to use a full NEW toolset. The only thing of NWN EE that shouldnt be changed would be the history and characters. All the rest should have to be done from scratch, toolset included. So, the Toolset EE edition might be good or bad depending on how much time developers spend making the NEW toolset. It would never be the NWN toolset ported to BG because both games work with different engines.
Now, is there a market for a BG toolset similar to the NWN one?. Perhaps, but I dont see Beamdog doing a toolset for a decades old engine. It makes far more sense to make a new engine and a new toolset althogether.
Neverwinter Nights 1 especially, was basically the RPG equivalent of Minecraft. You bought to play online and to make or play modules. Or DM with it.
The campaigns were totally a second thought and I know people that barely touched them and instead chose to play online on Persistent Worlds.
If they change/improve the engine, they will suddenly ruin the compatibility of HUNDREDS of mods and many PWs. It's really not worth it. The game runs fine now.
Icewind Dale II should be enhanced next because not many people played it. Not many people played it because it came very late and the 3E implementation was kinda half-assed. It was also rushed so it's still buggy and unoptimized. Classes can be updated to 3.5E and Prestige Classes could be added as well. It also got no expansion or something like Trials of the Luremaster so it's ideal for a ton of new content.
Having cooked 7 years of my life into NWN, I'm painfully familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the title. We made key decisions on the title to favour the content creator and in some cases this actually hurt the final quality of the narrative experience we could create. I still stand by NWN as a huge accomplishment and I am proud of what we achieved. I think the Hordes of the Underdark expansion was us as a team reaching stride with what the game tech could create. Engine-wise, Aurora was behind the scenes in many titles and the NWNscript system supported Bioware projects for a long time. I think Aurora could be revisited and improved to make something pretty amazing.
Having cooked 7 years of my life into NWN, I'm painfully familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the title. We made key decisions on the title to favour the content creator and in some cases this actually hurt the final quality of the narrative experience we could create. I still stand by NWN as a huge accomplishment and I am proud of what we achieved. I think the Hordes of the Underdark expansion was us as a team reaching stride with what the game tech could create. Engine-wise, Aurora was behind the scenes in many titles and the NWNscript system supported Bioware projects for a long time. I think Aurora could be revisited and improved to make something pretty amazing.
-Trent
I am glad to see that your opinion more or less mirrors my own . As someone who spent a large portion of his college career consuming NWN, all of its expansions and modules and many fan made modules (with some time spent also producing content) I can honestly say, even though it was quite an achievement in its day, today it could be improved upon and become something truly amazing by today's standards.
Neverwinter Nights 1 especially, was basically the RPG equivalent of Minecraft. You bought to play online and to make or play modules. Or DM with it.
The campaigns were totally a second thought and I know people that barely touched them and instead chose to play online on Persistent Worlds.
If they change/improve the engine, they will suddenly ruin the compatibility of HUNDREDS of mods and many PWs. It's really not worth it. The game runs fine now.
Yeah personally I'm not opposed to the idea of an enhanced edition, but incompatibility with older custom content would likely be somewhat problematic. Would it revitalize the old modding community or just make everyone angry?>_>
You could say You can have both! Well yes...but what would an enhanced edition have that I couldn't find in the vanilla? Unless you had a really good new campaign.
Of course it's hard to renounce something when you don't know what ideas Beamdog had about it. But yes new story content would have to be on the menu imo.
I probably wouldn't buy an EE of NwN for the simple reason that I didn't care for the original game. My biggest issue with the game was that it was not party-based (the quasi-companion you could drag along totally doesn't count), and on top of that also had a horrible inventory system. NwN2 on the other hand is a different story precisely because they corrected their previous mistake and made it party-based.
Although I enjoy NWN/NWN2 a lot, I feel that the original campaigns don't focus on your character development. You're just there doing one quest after another and leveling up, while in BG2 you could feel your own character maturing through the story.
I probably wouldn't buy an EE of NwN for the simple reason that I didn't care for the original game. My biggest issue with the game was that it was not party-based (the quasi-companion you could drag along totally doesn't count), and on top of that also had a horrible inventory system. NwN2 on the other hand is a different story precisely because they corrected their previous mistake and made it party-based.
well hordes of the underdark and most fan modules gave you a 3 person party.
what kept me from liking nwn was how it played. i can't pt my finger on it but something was really off about and an ee may fix that. and nwn 2 needs an engine update so badly.
Comments
As an adventuring toolset NwN was fine... I really liked the 3e implementation, it blows 2E from BG series out of the water.
As far as NWN having a bad engine, I am going to laugh myself sick. The engine was fine. Playing NWN in isometric mode was fine. It wasn't hard to move around or cast spells or do pretty much anything. It was easy and somewhat intuitive.
First, increase the maximum mouse scroll speed, at least for the chase camera. Like, by a factor of 2-3. The minimum should of course stay the same, so that people who are fine with the current speeds can still have the settings they most enjoy.
Second, give us an "always run" option. NWN decided whether to have your character walk or run based on how far away the destination was, which is bad enough, but then that distance was in terms of distance on the screen, not distance in the game. Whether the character walked or ran to a give point was determined not by how long it'd take them to get to that point, but by how zoomed out the camera was. Which is one of the most bizarre design decisions I've ever seen, and needs to be addressed.
Third, fix modes so that they turn on and off correctly, can be kept on outside of combat, and preferably so that we can have more than one active at once. NWN2 did a fantastic job of this. NWN1 did not.
It'd also be nice to have an RTS/IE mode, where you can zoom out and take control of pets/NPCs directly in classic IE style, at least as an optional game mode in the toolset. But I'd consider that a bonus, rather than a much-needed fix to the existing system.
The Aurora engine, however... definitely not the best.
First, different engine. That means a NWE: EE shouold be a whole new game, not a "polished" but old one.
Second: different set of rules, which means different balance. The whole game should be retought.
Third: The argument of NWN was the worst of the lot (BG serie, NWN 2 or even NWN expansions). History was rather boring, imho. The thing that really made NWN shine was the Toolset that allowed players make their own adventures. That was groundbreaking for the time. But that isnt groundbreaking any longer. And it is something that cant be "ported" to the BG engine. It should be made from the bottom (IF they wanted to give us something similar to the NWN Toolset)
What I meant is that nowadays several games offer something similar (not better, but similar, while when NWN 1 was released, no game offered it)
Now, is there a market for a BG toolset similar to the NWN one?. Perhaps, but I dont see Beamdog doing a toolset for a decades old engine. It makes far more sense to make a new engine and a new toolset althogether.
You bought to play online and to make or play modules. Or DM with it.
The campaigns were totally a second thought and I know people that barely touched them and instead chose to play online on Persistent Worlds.
If they change/improve the engine, they will suddenly ruin the compatibility of HUNDREDS of mods and many PWs.
It's really not worth it. The game runs fine now.
Icewind Dale II should be enhanced next because not many people played it.
Not many people played it because it came very late and the 3E implementation was kinda half-assed.
It was also rushed so it's still buggy and unoptimized.
Classes can be updated to 3.5E and Prestige Classes could be added as well.
It also got no expansion or something like Trials of the Luremaster so it's ideal for a ton of new content.
Engine-wise, Aurora was behind the scenes in many titles and the NWNscript system supported Bioware projects for a long time. I think Aurora could be revisited and improved to make something pretty amazing.
-Trent
I don't think NWN was as good as BG, but still it was very solid, very good cRPG - but it felt really small, even cameral.
You could say You can have both! Well yes...but what would an enhanced edition have that I couldn't find in the vanilla? Unless you had a really good new campaign.
Of course it's hard to renounce something when you don't know what ideas Beamdog had about it. But yes new story content would have to be on the menu imo.
what kept me from liking nwn was how it played. i can't pt my finger on it but something was really off about and an ee may fix that. and nwn 2 needs an engine update so badly.