I do think it's a shame that we're not getting more advanced graphics, and I definitely am going to use a mod to improve them. But it's true--creating new meshes and new textures for a game as massive as NWN would be extremely expensive. Beamdog's specialty is improving source code, and that's what they've chosen to focus on for NWN:EE.
Perhaps it'd help to quantify exactly what you think would make a worthwhile update to graphics quality?
I know I've got a few recent indie games kicking around that compare on fidelity. NWN:EE would be equal to more if you ramped up NWN's brightness and got the SSAO filter fully functional (it's in already, just weak).
There will be more visual tweaks to come, but what exactly is it you feel is needed?
NWN 1 is a one of its kind game that sold very well in spite of the criticized single player campaign.
If any game deserves a complete remake, it's this one. The limitless content creation, modding and PW capability doesn't even have any competition out there.
The graphics are the only thing about NWN that doesn't work today. Everything else is still good. And the visuals only need to be good enough to be immersive. The Witcher 1 or NWN 2 standards. 10 years old instead of 15 years old.
I don't think there's any point in redoing the original OC. But.. If there would be a new official campaign with updated visuals and maybe full party support for a proper D&D party I'd be very happy to throw in 50€ for that. And then after finishing the SP campaign play on PW's with the same updated visuals until the end of time.
If the cost is too much, then that’s fine with me. I’m not too picky about the graphics myself. I was raised on the original Mario and Legend of Zelda games.
I am personally willing to accept no total graphic overhaul in exchange for more premium modules or expansions to please single players (like myself) and updates to the toolset and source code to please modders and the PW community (like myself) and hopefully get some upgrades in the future by modders like we have for other games. As is stands i'm gonna patiently wait for the features to roll out before buying.
But I still think they could use crowdfunding if they have to because I think people would be very enthusiastic about that.
there are plenty of graphic enhancements to the original game I'm sure they can implement some with EE.
Actually this makes me curious. Is there an overview somewhere? A list of "all" (as in "many") mods for visual improvements? And would such mods be compatible with NWN:EE?
In theory they should be compatible, but I'm not 100% sure. Here's a video with some relevant haks from 1.69. Everything is linked in the description.
It'll be the changes that Beamdog make to the fundamentals of the engine that allow people to make more modern looking content.
Without having a really in depth poke (hopefully I'll be able too next week) it's hard to say what exactly the limits of the engine are currently compared to what they were. Given what's been hinted at and the potential of the new shaders I don't see NWN2 as being that much of a leap for new content. Sadly there's no quick and simple way of bringing the old content to that sort of standard, it'd mean rebuilding every asset.
Maybe think of what exists now as the NWN:EE Legacy content. It'll benefit from overall engine tweaks, better AA, shading tweaks, AO, modern system compatibility plus bugfixes, tweaks and more players. Future modules and content packs from Beamdog, modders or other studios could be made to more modern standards (and if there was a simple .fbx workflow then you could buy content easily from many 3rd party vendors).
Without a graphics update, and requiring people to buy the deluxe version just to get the premium modules, I'm not seeing much difference over the GOG version here.
Without a graphics update, and requiring people to buy the deluxe version just to get the premium modules, I'm not seeing much difference over the GOG version here.
You people still don't get it. Each piece of armor is made up of 2 fists 2 forearms 2 biceps 2 shoulders a neck a chest a pelvis a belt 2 thighs 2 shins and two feet. Now multiply that by every single type of armor in the game. Each type of armor has several different meshes and skins per individual body part. When i say a metric ass ton of work i am very much understating it. When i got around to making odd shaped custom races back in the day i was confronted by a massive amount of incredibly mind numbing, tedious work in order to shape each existing piece into the shape of my odd shaped pc race so that he could wear all of the vanilla armor. Just trust me it's a retarded amount of work that would cost a retarded amount of time and money.
@smeagolheart Well, Beamdog is not the original game creator. You expect them to delve into the source code, patch the game for the first time in years, offer server services and continued maintenance for free ?
The thing is though. I've been waiting for this patch since 2005 (or was it 2006 that 1.69 dropped?). I've had all of my most immersive roleplaying playing this game. Not because of the graphics but because this game made almost ANYTHING from tabletop RPG's possible.
I didn't stop playing NWN because graphics changed got outdated. I stopped playing because a lot of players migrated to NWN2. That game in turn failed to live up to expectations and was worse than NWN1 in many ways. The release of NWN2 also meant support for the scripters, modders and builders who made dreams come true stopped. The shutdown of the Gamespy server finding tools then made it harder for new players to find all those beautiful gems people were playing online.
Just a chance to breathe new life into the literally millions of hours the community have spent creating wonders on this platform is well worth the price. You just don't find that level of user created content anywhere anymore. And i've already paid the digital deluxe cost because of a that already. And i'm VERY sceptical of pre-orders in general. I'm paying to patch and i'd recommend all my friends to do the same!
Updated graphics would also make it vastly more labor intensive for custom content creators to make good quality stuff that fits in with the quality standard set by the current models
I'm rather a singleplayer gamer. For me Neverwinter Nights was actually about graphics. Normally I do not even care much about graphics. But back then, back in the day, after Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Throne of Bhaal and Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights was THAT game that brought 3D to the Forgotten Realms. For me, I remember, that was HUGE back then.
When you say singleplayer, do you just mean the OC and official expansions, or would you include all the user-made singleplayer modules as well? Because if you are referring to both, then I really do see the EE as a potential way to bring back enough interest for more better-looking and complex user-made modules to start appearing. And I'm sure you'll see overhauls of many of the already-existing ones as well. There are more than a few builders who are greatly encouraged by the idea that the number of players might come back up to the levels they once were (or near to it), and would gladly get back into the process if the interest were there. And who knows - you may even find some enjoyment in making modules for others to play as well.
@Shandaxx , I am a single-player NWN player who loves the game and is thrilled with this release. I have never played multiplayer, or on a PW server, and I have no interest in doing so.
The graphical enhancements look very nice on my HDTV, but the big, huge, main thing that makes NWN:EE so wonderful for me is that it WORKS on my computer, on my HDTV, in widescreen resolution. The improved video quality is just icing on the cake.
Despite what you may have heard, the GoG version of NWN does NOT work and is not stable out of the box for many, many people and on many, many machine configurations. It has not worked properly on my last THREE computers, including my current one. With a lot of trouble shooting and effort, I can get GoG NWN to work on my machine with my HDTV in 800x600 resolution!
Any attempt to play in widescreen results in constant crashing. Plus, the GoG version will not work with the GoG Galaxy client. It crashes on startup if I try to start it there. I have to go into the game folder and click on the .exe manually to get it to run at all.
Furthermore, when GoG implemented cloud saving, it created a bug where the cloudsaving causes corruption of my save game files. I had to learn what was causing the corruption, go into the GoG Galaxy settings, and turn off cloud saving. Then, I had to manually repair ALL of my save game files by deleting corrupted extraneous save files that the cloud feature from GoG was downloading. To my knowledge, they are still not even aware that they are corrupting people's save files, much less doing anything about it.
NWN:EE is a GODSEND to me. I'm a single player, who is only interested in the official campaigns, and in single player mods like Savant's "Saga of Aielund", and Adam Miller's "Shadowlords" epic series.
Irrc aren't like the character skins png (or similar I recall using gimp). How hard would it be to make those higher definition? You don't even have to mess with the meshes just add better textures.
NWN uses plt files for dynamic creature textures, which have 10 layers corresponding to skin, hair, metal, etc. This makes for an easy way to customize colors, but limits things in the sense that there can only be one solid color for each layer. In the past, custom content pioneers like BigfootNZ worked at ways to improve how these plt textures worked, but there's just no way to get the variation of tones and colors that can be achieved with other texture formats.
here is an example, lets say the game is totally revamped graphics and all. Now it costs 60 and isnt coming out until 2019-20. whats worse than that? Nothing some may say we get a whole new game. Whats worse is this: all the custom content, every single bit, every tileset, every weapon, every head, every armor part gets tossed in the trash because it wont migrate to the amazing new game. 15 years of mods, and work modders and PW and everyone else has taken time and effort to create just thrown out the window, because of a few who cannot understand why backwards compatible is more important than new graphics, and candy. These few who keep repeating EE has nothing for me or the people who have to have fancy graphics. Well in my opinion, you just smacked every person in the face who has taken time to create custom content over the years, because in your all holiness have decided its not worth a thing. Think on that for a minute, and if you have to reread your above posts with that in your head. You should feel ashamed for posting such.
The community is working with Beamdog. You want to know why? because they are the ones who have kept the game alive when Bioware and Atari and Gamespy and everyone else decided to close up shop on a game we still like and love to play and create with. Bringing the code and mechanics to work with modern systems for 20 dollars, is a gift come true. it means dev teams that have patched, bandaged, jury rigged, using aluminum foil hanging from the ceiling, can now use unlocked code, implement proven content and fixes, erradicate bugs, and bring the game we all love so much into this decade and beyond. Shaders and other tools will provide the new graphics fixes and upgrades for each group of PW devs and modders making one shots.
So no your not getting a new mercedes with typical new mercedes pretty candy. You are however getting a classic mercedes with a hybrid eco engine ready to be tweaked and supercharged by skill mechanics who work under the hood.
The thing is though. I've been waiting for this patch since 2005 (or was it 2006 that 1.69 dropped?). I've had all of my most immersive roleplaying playing this game. Not because of the graphics but because this game made almost ANYTHING from tabletop RPG's possible.
I didn't stop playing NWN because graphics changed got outdated. I stopped playing because a lot of players migrated to NWN2. That game in turn failed to live up to expectations and was worse than NWN1 in many ways. The release of NWN2 also meant support for the scripters, modders and builders who made dreams come true stopped. The shutdown of the Gamespy server finding tools then made it harder for new players to find all those beautiful gems people were playing online.
Just a chance to breathe new life into the literally millions of hours the community have spent creating wonders on this platform is well worth the price. You just don't find that level of user created content anywhere anymore. And i've already paid the digital deluxe cost because of a that already. And i'm VERY sceptical of pre-orders in general. I'm paying to patch and i'd recommend all my friends to do the same!
I played both NWN and NWN2. Both had thriving communities. The NWN community definitely quieted down after NWN2 took off. I remember, on the NWN forums there was a lot of NWN2 bashing about how much worse the sequel was, how ugly the graphics were and what a failure of a game it was...
I pulled this from the web to make a point:
"Reception of Neverwinter Nights 2 was generally favorable.[74][75] It placed number 6 on Amazon's video game pre-order list the week before its release,[77] and was a best-seller for several weeks afterwards.[78][79] It received GameSpot's "Best Story" award for 2006, beating out the reader's choice, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[76] It was also nominated for a Golden Joystick Award for Best PC Game of 2006.[80] The editors of Computer Games Magazine presented Neverwinter Nights 2 with their 2006 "Best Writing" award, and it was a runner-up for their list of the year's top 10 computer games.[81]"
Maybe the sequel failed to live up to your personal expectations because the aurora engine was more advanced thus more complicated to work with. Maybe your computer couldn't handle the updated graphics. Maybe you didn't like that they got rid of the 'dance of death.' I don't know. Each to their own. Personally I enjoyed both games and didn't need a high end computer to run either.
My reason for bringing it up is this, there seems to be this sort of defacto position some people took on the original NWN forums that is being regurgitated here that NWN2 was a failure and its better graphics didn't make a difference then and won't now.
This is a bad argument because it is a false one. The game was fairly successful and the graphics upgrade was well received both critically and by a large section of the community.
Don't get me wrong, I'm just saying this particular argument isn't a good one. Beamdog saying they just don't have the recourses to do a graphics overhaul is a legitimate argument and one I think should be respected by the community. We're all here presumably because we like Beamdog and how they are breathing life into these old games.
Conversely I think it is both legitimate and productive for potential customers to express their desire to see updated graphics. If anything at least it gives Beamdog a sense of what their customer base is willing to pay for. Maybe it only turns out to be a small portion of the base, maybe it turns out to be a large one. If it's a large one maybe they can make money by releasing DLC that addresses it.
I don't know. It's really probably too early for anyone to know. But if the topic is going to be debated it should be debated honestly.
You people still don't get it. Each piece of armor is made up of 2 fists 2 forearms 2 biceps 2 shoulders a neck a chest a pelvis a belt 2 thighs 2 shins and two feet. Now multiply that by every single type of armor in the game. Each type of armor has several different meshes and skins per individual body part. When i say a metric ass ton of work i am very much understating it. When i got around to making odd shaped custom races back in the day i was confronted by a massive amount of incredibly mind numbing, tedious work in order to shape each existing piece into the shape of my odd shaped pc race so that he could wear all of the vanilla armor. Just trust me it's a retarded amount of work that would cost a retarded amount of time and money.
So change the system so that an upgraded armor is one fixed piece.
I don't care about that level of customization since whatever you do, it will still look like 2002.
Comments
I know I've got a few recent indie games kicking around that compare on fidelity. NWN:EE would be equal to more if you ramped up NWN's brightness and got the SSAO filter fully functional (it's in already, just weak).
There will be more visual tweaks to come, but what exactly is it you feel is needed?
If any game deserves a complete remake, it's this one. The limitless content creation, modding and PW capability doesn't even have any competition out there.
The graphics are the only thing about NWN that doesn't work today. Everything else is still good. And the visuals only need to be good enough to be immersive. The Witcher 1 or NWN 2 standards. 10 years old instead of 15 years old.
I don't think there's any point in redoing the original OC. But.. If there would be a new official campaign with updated visuals and maybe full party support for a proper D&D party I'd be very happy to throw in 50€ for that. And then after finishing the SP campaign play on PW's with the same updated visuals until the end of time.
Still want the ferret companion, though.
But I still think they could use crowdfunding if they have to because I think people would be very enthusiastic about that.
It'll be the changes that Beamdog make to the fundamentals of the engine that allow people to make more modern looking content.
Without having a really in depth poke (hopefully I'll be able too next week) it's hard to say what exactly the limits of the engine are currently compared to what they were. Given what's been hinted at and the potential of the new shaders I don't see NWN2 as being that much of a leap for new content. Sadly there's no quick and simple way of bringing the old content to that sort of standard, it'd mean rebuilding every asset.
Maybe think of what exists now as the NWN:EE Legacy content. It'll benefit from overall engine tweaks, better AA, shading tweaks, AO, modern system compatibility plus bugfixes, tweaks and more players. Future modules and content packs from Beamdog, modders or other studios could be made to more modern standards (and if there was a simple .fbx workflow then you could buy content easily from many 3rd party vendors).
What's enhanced about it.
looks like they've made a very nice patch for the original game. i wouldn't really call this a new edition, rather a new version
NWN isn't the game you play if you really care about visuals. Never was. Never will be.
I didn't stop playing NWN because graphics changed got outdated. I stopped playing because a lot of players migrated to NWN2. That game in turn failed to live up to expectations and was worse than NWN1 in many ways. The release of NWN2 also meant support for the scripters, modders and builders who made dreams come true stopped. The shutdown of the Gamespy server finding tools then made it harder for new players to find all those beautiful gems people were playing online.
Just a chance to breathe new life into the literally millions of hours the community have spent creating wonders on this platform is well worth the price. You just don't find that level of user created content anywhere anymore. And i've already paid the digital deluxe cost because of a that already. And i'm VERY sceptical of pre-orders in general. I'm paying to patch and i'd recommend all my friends to do the same!
The graphical enhancements look very nice on my HDTV, but the big, huge, main thing that makes NWN:EE so wonderful for me is that it WORKS on my computer, on my HDTV, in widescreen resolution. The improved video quality is just icing on the cake.
Despite what you may have heard, the GoG version of NWN does NOT work and is not stable out of the box for many, many people and on many, many machine configurations. It has not worked properly on my last THREE computers, including my current one. With a lot of trouble shooting and effort, I can get GoG NWN to work on my machine with my HDTV in 800x600 resolution!
Any attempt to play in widescreen results in constant crashing. Plus, the GoG version will not work with the GoG Galaxy client. It crashes on startup if I try to start it there. I have to go into the game folder and click on the .exe manually to get it to run at all.
Furthermore, when GoG implemented cloud saving, it created a bug where the cloudsaving causes corruption of my save game files. I had to learn what was causing the corruption, go into the GoG Galaxy settings, and turn off cloud saving. Then, I had to manually repair ALL of my save game files by deleting corrupted extraneous save files that the cloud feature from GoG was downloading. To my knowledge, they are still not even aware that they are corrupting people's save files, much less doing anything about it.
NWN:EE is a GODSEND to me. I'm a single player, who is only interested in the official campaigns, and in single player mods like Savant's "Saga of Aielund", and Adam Miller's "Shadowlords" epic series.
@Beamdog, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Same for the tilesets.
all the custom content, every single bit, every tileset, every weapon, every head, every armor part gets tossed in the trash because it wont migrate to the amazing new game. 15 years of mods, and work modders and PW and everyone else has taken time and effort to create just thrown out the window, because of a few who cannot understand why backwards compatible is more important than new graphics, and candy.
These few who keep repeating EE has nothing for me or the people who have to have fancy graphics. Well in my opinion, you just smacked every person in the face who has taken time to create custom content over the years, because in your all holiness have decided its not worth a thing. Think on that for a minute, and if you have to reread your above posts with that in your head. You should feel ashamed for posting such.
The community is working with Beamdog. You want to know why? because they are the ones who have kept the game alive when Bioware and Atari and Gamespy and everyone else decided to close up shop on a game we still like and love to play and create with.
Bringing the code and mechanics to work with modern systems for 20 dollars, is a gift come true. it means dev teams that have patched, bandaged, jury rigged, using aluminum foil hanging from the ceiling, can now use unlocked code, implement proven content and fixes, erradicate bugs, and bring the game we all love so much into this decade and beyond. Shaders and other tools will provide the new graphics fixes and upgrades for each group of PW devs and modders making one shots.
So no your not getting a new mercedes with typical new mercedes pretty candy. You are however getting a classic mercedes with a hybrid eco engine ready to be tweaked and supercharged by skill mechanics who work under the hood.
I pulled this from the web to make a point:
"Reception of Neverwinter Nights 2 was generally favorable.[74][75] It placed number 6 on Amazon's video game pre-order list the week before its release,[77] and was a best-seller for several weeks afterwards.[78][79] It received GameSpot's "Best Story" award for 2006, beating out the reader's choice, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.[76] It was also nominated for a Golden Joystick Award for Best PC Game of 2006.[80] The editors of Computer Games Magazine presented Neverwinter Nights 2 with their 2006 "Best Writing" award, and it was a runner-up for their list of the year's top 10 computer games.[81]"
Maybe the sequel failed to live up to your personal expectations because the aurora engine was more advanced thus more complicated to work with. Maybe your computer couldn't handle the updated graphics. Maybe you didn't like that they got rid of the 'dance of death.' I don't know. Each to their own. Personally I enjoyed both games and didn't need a high end computer to run either.
My reason for bringing it up is this, there seems to be this sort of defacto position some people took on the original NWN forums that is being regurgitated here that NWN2 was a failure and its better graphics didn't make a difference then and won't now.
This is a bad argument because it is a false one. The game was fairly successful and the graphics upgrade was well received both critically and by a large section of the community.
Don't get me wrong, I'm just saying this particular argument isn't a good one. Beamdog saying they just don't have the recourses to do a graphics overhaul is a legitimate argument and one I think should be respected by the community. We're all here presumably because we like Beamdog and how they are breathing life into these old games.
Conversely I think it is both legitimate and productive for potential customers to express their desire to see updated graphics. If anything at least it gives Beamdog a sense of what their customer base is willing to pay for. Maybe it only turns out to be a small portion of the base, maybe it turns out to be a large one. If it's a large one maybe they can make money by releasing DLC that addresses it.
I don't know. It's really probably too early for anyone to know. But if the topic is going to be debated it should be debated honestly.
I don't care about that level of customization since whatever you do, it will still look like 2002.