NWN:EE Graphic Updates - Why I think they are important
Twotricks
Member Posts: 20
When I buy NWN:EE it will be the only game I bought 3 times ( not counting premium modules ).
One time when it was released, one time at GOG and one time Enhanced Edition... And I am surely not the only one with a similar story.
So when I look at the 19.99$ price, it is certainly not much for the best game in the world. But I have to ask myself, what I am getting for my third time buying of this game ? And not only this, but - was Beamdog effort worth it ?
After all ( at least for me ) we are talking about most amazing RPG ever made, actually not RPG : a virtual tabletop experience.
So this is why I think not updating graphics assets is going to be a missed opportunity
I understand that increasing polygon count or making all new models may introduce pathfinding problems ( although I believe it is a problem that can be solved ).
And after all LOW POLY style has its own charm.
But there is no excuse for not reworking textures in higher resolution.
The current textures are simply not suitable for modern release
Better textures can drastically improve visuals of the game. Even Blizzard reworked most of the WOW textures for great effect.
I would be gladly ready to pay a higher game price for the cost of graphics team that would be doing this.
And while they are at it,
perhaps new and reworked portraits and other assets that need touch up...
One time when it was released, one time at GOG and one time Enhanced Edition... And I am surely not the only one with a similar story.
So when I look at the 19.99$ price, it is certainly not much for the best game in the world. But I have to ask myself, what I am getting for my third time buying of this game ? And not only this, but - was Beamdog effort worth it ?
After all ( at least for me ) we are talking about most amazing RPG ever made, actually not RPG : a virtual tabletop experience.
So this is why I think not updating graphics assets is going to be a missed opportunity
I understand that increasing polygon count or making all new models may introduce pathfinding problems ( although I believe it is a problem that can be solved ).
And after all LOW POLY style has its own charm.
But there is no excuse for not reworking textures in higher resolution.
The current textures are simply not suitable for modern release
Better textures can drastically improve visuals of the game. Even Blizzard reworked most of the WOW textures for great effect.
I would be gladly ready to pay a higher game price for the cost of graphics team that would be doing this.
And while they are at it,
perhaps new and reworked portraits and other assets that need touch up...
11
Comments
Improved assets wont even increase the value of the enhanced edition because you can already just download improved assets for free, it will just increase the development costs and limit the budget for new content.
Not to mention that just managing to gather, find and install all the overrides that deal with asset changes is difficult even to most hardcore NWN user.
Finally, there is also a problem of inconsistency of what players see in multiplayer. One player using modded game will possibly see something different than a player not using it. And this can be a big problem i roleplaying sessions.
The goal should be that when a player new to NWN buys the game he gets complete modern experience.
Otherwise, this game is only meant for HC NWN players, and they already have all the hacks and mods they need to play, and this EE version is not really needed.
Without serious effort to revitalize graphic assets, I am afraid the EE version will barely be any worth to anyone. And possibly end up as a dud
1: People are not going to play Neverwinter Nights expecting 'a modern experience'. Its an old game. People know that
2: Cases where there are graphical improvements on old games don't generally work all that well. I mean, the classic for this is the Cave Story 3D release on 3DS. Go and read how well the upgrade to 3D models was received over the pixel art
Likewise, the WoW stuff was a complete model update. And for some races that was well received (Dwarves), but others less so. I mean, there's a reason they took twice as long to finish off Draenei than any other race, and I know that model still has some weird glitches
3: The old, janky 3D models are, believe it or not, part of the charm of playing NWN. You lose that nostalgia without them
2. I dont think anyone would complain. But I understand your point
3. However, the textures are just abysmal. Honestly, they were bad even by standards when game was released - and were that bad only because at that time resolution was very low and Bioware never counted on players zooming the game in very much.
By today standards these textures are simply below even the lowest acceptable standard.
On the other, I realize the EE won't have any greater chances of attracting new players than the original game has had by providing only under the hood tweaks and features. Can you imagine a new player stumbling on the game on Steam and being all like "Wow, this edition of the game I've never played gives new scripting functions to modders and increases max texture memory!"?
No. This won't happen. The game needs better visuals to attract people other than dedicated NWN fans.
And I think it wouldn't be difficult to achieve it. Ask authors of facelifting haks/overrides to use them. Better yet, hire them to make more such enhancements. Has Zwerkules made some great tileset facelifts? Well, let him facelift all the other official tilesets, too! Has The Gunner created better models for the PC races? Hire him to improve them by also remaking tattooed body parts.
These are just examples, of course. And obviously using community's content will make some criticize Beamdog for "stealing" content, but the very same people right now criticize Beamdog for not improving graphics of the game, so it's best not to pay much attention to that small but loud group.
100% custom (excluding that it's obviously a redo of female elf 001, so it's copyright Bioware (or whereever the copyright chain ends) anyway), done in Blender and GIMP. 609 verts, 1060 faces, but I could cut it down by about 75-100 verts if needed. The hair and circlet are separate elements from the face, which is actually bald underneath; the back of the head and the invisible parts of the circlet are included in that count.
The idea is that if we do get those extra slots for head-aligned models like hair and helmets, I'll set the bald base heads, extra bits and pieces like the circlet, and the hairstyles up separately for mixing and matching. :-) So that's why I've left them intact so far.
I'm uncertain whether or not the ears ought to be made part of the head mesh, for lighting. I think it depends on how open-faced helmets and separate hairstyles can be set up. Elf ears in particular run the risk of sticking out of their helmets; maybe the ears ought to be part of the hairstyle instead, to be hidden along with the hair when a helmet is equipped.
Torchlight in pitch black cave:
ps: feed me criticism and also somebody give me bumpmaps and transparency for hair
It's 2017, going to a mod site and downloading mods is not hard core anymore, it's common practice, why would it be difficult? It takes a few minutes or an hour if you go nuts. Everyone knows in games like NWN, NWN2, Fallout, Skyrim and all the other modding friendly games that the community produces higher quality content than the companies.
One of the main differences however is that big studios made those games, a tiny studio is updating this one. It wont be better than what the community can make with enhanced techniques, it might not even be better than old community content.
On multiplayer servers use haks, everyone sees the same thing. It's not 2002 anymore, people don't have data limits, they don't use dial-up, the game is even a digital download.
This would help keep the comunity together as people will come over for the gameplay improvements as well as expanding the existing comunity with new players.
Trent already said several times in the streams that they don't want to get stuck remaking the entire game rather than improving it to do new things so they can add new content and not just re-do old content. I think that's the winning strategy after all is said and done.
Of course there are people that refuse to use any custom content no matter how good or how easy to install. There are also people that say they have never and never will play any mods and persistent worlds. It doesn't take much looking to see what the intention for the game was, and I think they should stick to that because there are enough games that prioritize other things like an engaging epic story rather than a virtual D&D red box. Then again apparently there are also a lot of people that buy enhanced editions of games and never play them.
The whole thrust will be FORWARD. So, Beamdog won't go back and redo artwork for the OC, or any of the premium modules. Or at least not wholesale.
But!!! But, they will instead use upgraded art assets to produce NEW modules, premium, expansion, or some new beast I haven't thought about yet. Those assets will become part of the core game, and be available to the community to produce new modules themselves too. That's the real reason for doing the 'under the hood' improvements! Not so THEY can go back and change the OC's look, but leave the storyline, which many complained about, the same. Or, change the look, but leave the glitches or shortcoming intact. No, the OC is the OC. It's only another module, after all. New stories, new modules, will be much, much better, and will LOOK it, to boot.
This is my opinion only, obviously, and I could be as wrong as possible.
Just some thoughts for a Wednesday. Not, as long ago, a 'Neverwinter Wednesday', as we used to wait for all week, but just a Wednesday!
-JFK
Anyone who wants to go back and update their OC could then do so, I guess. The old stuff will always be there, but the new stuff will be too.