NWN Graphic update : Kickstarter

Twotricks

It is clear that Beamdog team decided not to make graphic update to NWN:EE . The reasons for such decision are many : need for art team , development time , additional debugging , community interest. But bottom line it is question of is it worth the risk - and this is very hard to gauge.

But today we have a very good tool to test this : Kickstarter

So here is my idea:

Beamdog should open kickstarter for graphic update. They should estimate the cost and the money needed , adjust the price - and set the kickstarter.

If the kickstarter succeeds great , and if not again great since nothing was lost.

Graphic update could even be a DLC added to the game later, in order not to delay the release of regular version.

dafena

Stop asking for a graphic update, just search the vault and you'll find an amazing amount of work to update the game.

Without going that far, Project Q overrides almost all the NWN creatures with a high poly version and Zwerkules facelift replaces City, Forest, Mine, Rural, Rural winter and Interior tilesets. Yes it's missing some tilesets, but maybe he'll work on them later.

The only thing that it's really missing the EE is a optimization update so the game dosn't struggle to show all the custom content in big areas (more than 8x8).

EDIT: I don't mean to sound like a bastard, it's just that working on adding new features or unhardcoding all it's what really needs the game right now.

FreshLemonBun

Like dafena says you already have access to some amazing content which you could get in a fraction of the time that some people will keep arguing about this.

I do think that Kickstarter has a good side, you pay ahead of the work and the funds are limited to the work that is done. If you don't meet the goal then the project wont be funded, which could be the reality, I'm wondering if people will accept that outcome. On the other hand launching a Kickstarter campaign can end up taking a lot of resources itself so Beamdog would need to judge whether it's a good idea or not. Maybe start a petition or a strawpoll.me to gauge the interest. Possibly the work will get outsourced if that's what ends up happening.

I think it would be better if Beamdog just did more to promote existing community content and educate people on using and installing it. Some modern management tools might be useful too for those that don't like to drag and drop files into a folder and keep backup folders to prevent overwriting and conflicts.

If they can get in touch with some of the original creators it might be an idea if they ask them to pre-install their content into the game in exchange for a credit. I don't know the specifics of the legal situation for that right now however, usually companies can't accept and sometimes not even look at unsolicited submissions to protect themselves.

superfly2000

Well if it really is so easy as you say to patch/override the game then Beamdog should be able to make the option to choose from a long list of the best and most popular overrides where you can select the ones you want. Ka-ching, right?

FreshLemonBun

@superfly2000 Right, that would be a lot easier. Someone could make a sticky thread and find all the best content with brief description and download links. You then just download and drag & drop the unpacked contents into the override or hak folder depending on what it is.

A PW auto-downloader would do this automatically when you join and they require haks.

deltago

WotC will not allow Kickstarters for any of their products.

Staran

Then let’s start a kickstarter to buy WOTC and then have another Kickstarter for graphic updates and then another Kickstarter for sharks with freaking lasers on their head!