f13.net

Seem that at release the DM Client will not be available. They have no known ETA on when it will be available.
Seems it is being worked on but wont be ready for launch day, and they dont want to push launch back any further.

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480755&forum=95

Oh lord, rush to release. Please don't let this be NWN with higher poly models and shinier water.

I personally don't care much about the DM client as long as the toolset ships with the game but it's nice to see that Atari is keeping up with its track record of shipping incomplete games.

That news alone was pretty much enough to sink my hope of a complicated yet fun and engrossing game.

This is gonna suck again, isn't it ?

I'll hold off buying it for TWO FUCKING YEARS till the designers can make some GOOD modules that show off it's abilities.  Right before they announce NWN3.

Sigh.

ARG ARG ARG.  WHEN WILL THEY LEARN THE DEFINITION OF 'GOOD NEWS' ! ! ! ?


"The good news is, since none of the developers here (or the testers or anyone else) have been using a DM client to test things, many of the same features of a DM client are available through script via the console."

Great.  More fucking scripting.

Edited to add :  A video.  It looks like a prettier NWN.  Shit.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwinternights2/media.html?sid=6151026&autoplay=6151026

I don't get the hate.  I played other people's modules, and the modules that came with the game, in NWN multiplayer mode and had no need for the DM tool.  The DM tool is not the editor, it's a tool for some poor sap who wants to dick with other players without playing himself.  They could never release the DM tool, and the game would still be able to host persistant multiplayer worlds just fine.

Of course, I thought the first game was great, so this may be where opinions diverge.  If the new game supports the modding/creation of PrCs, I'll like NWN2 even more.

Imagine that. In D&D.

Moron.

I often wonder if fantasy gamers generally have a high tolerance for shit, so long as it's fantasy.

Well in all fairness the game itself still looks engaging to me atleast.

I'd rather them continue to finalize the actual game for release and then release the DM Client as a free download 1-2 months later, which seems to be their game plan.

Actually, I know nothing about NWN 2. I won't be premature with my hate there.

I'm just talking about NWN 1. Or Morrowind. It seems like many fans of the genre actually hate these games themselves, but for some reason, they still feel compelled to play and talk about them. Kind of like Robert Jordan books. I don't understand it.

Stray I know exactly what you mean! Im sure all of us on this site (most being MMO fans) have seen the trend time and time again.

BTW you are right about the Jordan books. They were shit and I never have understood why people kept buying and reading them.

I heard by book 5 he would spend an entire page describing a room where a trivial conversation was taking place. Five pages later someone new would walk into the room and he would copy and paste the entire description in again.

In my (brief) experimentation with the client on the E3 show floor that was in fact what it appeared to be.

Yes.

This pretty much ensures I will not buy the game until the DM Client is released, just to prove that I don't want to pay for incomplete shit. The Toolset for NWN was a buggy fucking nightmare when released, and it was a good 2 or 3 months until they fixed the issues with the toolset that caused me so much frustration. And it still relied way too much on scripting if you weren't going to use the DM cilent, or even if you were. It's probably a decent toolset now, but it wasn't at release. Maybe after they release the first expansion I'll buy it. That seemed to be when NWN got decent.

:(

I had such high hopes too. I know people liked the click-n-create map designer, but I was hoping for a more advanced development tool myself so people could actually make origiinal designs or remake classic PnP stuff without having to hack the client to pieces to make a half-assed version of what they want. Basically, you should be able to make a nearly perfect remake of Baldur's Gate 1/2 if you want.

So long as I get my elf T&A I'm in happyland.

Well, not really, but it was just too good an opportunity to pass-up.  Generally, though, fantsy lets folks fill-in the gaps in their head, probably without even realizing it.  Storylines that have blatant plot holes or just plain asinine shit can go over great in Fantasy, but be completly asstastic if it were Sci-Fi or another genere. (Weiss & Hickman's stuff, for example.)  I can't imagine the same isn't true of games.

The problem with RJ's stuff is that in-between paleolithic layers of crap, there are the occasional jade veins that are few and far between, but oh so good. Past book 3 he pretty much just goes off the rails  :|

But yea, here's to hoping that NWN2 turns out somewhat decent. Maybe they'll add actual curved terrain.

Much improved toolset, though. Mapmaking is quicker and more flexible. Tiles are happily absent - everything's done using brushes. Reminded me a lot of the AC2 tool set (which was quite good). I was disturbed, however, to note that you have to manually flatten the terrain under any buildings you place.

Heh. That reminds me of Populous.

NWN and all its sequels are non-starters for me until they make the combat turn-based. Tactical combat is the core of D&D, and running around clicking and pushing hotkeys just doesn't do it for me.

I like turn based and all, but the D&D combat system was designed when there wasn't a good alternative to turn based. Plus the rules are so extensive to make me think that it was meant to approximate real time. If one can do the same things in real time nowadays though, then why not? That can require tactical thinking too, so long as it's done correctly.

That being said, NWN is worst thing Bioware has ever released, in my opinion. Real time or not.

I agree. I loved ToEE's combat system. No reason that could not be put into an NWN-type game and an over-the-shoulder POV.

Re: Robert Jordan. Why? Because goddammit, I will finish the damn thing even though it sucks more than anything I could have possibly imagined. That's why. It's fucking pride-based marketing.

As to NWN2: Eh, not holding out a lot of hope at this point.

He is gonna die before he finishes the last book to spite everyone.

If the quality of the single player content is equivalent to the second and third expansion then it will be worth the purchase price for the single player alone, especially with the increased party size.

Then I will make a hand-puppet out of his skull and DICTATE a better freakin' ending. Here, I'll do it now:

Robert Jordan Skull Pupper: And Rand like totally kicked Satan's ass, but the world blew up in the process and all the magic's gone, so it's like the Dark Ages again and it's all science and shit cause it's really our world! I'm so FUCKING CLEVER! It's a wheel, bitch! I had you going! HAHAHAHAHA! I SLEEP ON A BED OF 100 DOLLAR BILLS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

See how easy that was? Robert Jordan lives in all of us.

You're nuts.  Look NWN may not have been the greatest game evah! but it was certainly worth the price of admission and was a huge step into the middle ground between single player/multiplayer games and MMOs.

The major problem with it was the real time nature of the game which basically ran counter to the turn based root of D&D which made it simply feel "wrong" when you played, and the restrictive nature of the toolset to the core D&D rules (can't change core rules, adding true custom mobs/items/spells, meant to be like lego's but came out more like duplo blocks).

But even with those limitations, name one other game which has even a fraction of the player made content that NWN has given rise to.  There are over 4400 modules out there even now, plus tons of scripts, models, artwork, cutscenes and program extenders.  It has been used for single player games, multi-player, DM'ed games, and a variety of persistant worlds.  People have made action games, pvp games, heavy story based games, hack and slash fests, sneak fests and even humorous games.   It game people full control over their own games in terms of allowable characters, items, levels, password restricted server, public server.  Most importantly, it got a tons of people who would have never even considered dabbling with the toolset of something like morrowind, TRYING to make their own content.  Plus, the engine led to Kotor1 & 2 :)  Not only all that, but BW didn't charge any sort of monthly fee and kept supporting and enhancing the product even to this day.

Sure people knocked the campaign that shipped with it, but that really wasn't the point of NWN at all; it was supposed to server as an introduction as to what could be done with the toolset.  The later expansions provided some really good included campaigns, and the premium module are apparently pretty good as well.
(side note, this month they are going to release a new one called Infinte Dungeons (http://nwn.bioware.com/premium/module_infinitedungeons.html) which will randomly create new, class specific dungeons each time you begin it and can be played solo, multiplayer cooperative or multiplayer competitive.  Sounds intriguing)

Seriously, you would think us jaded gamer types would give NWN more love.  Eveyone focus on how it let them down in one way or another without ever giving it credit for what it was able to pull off.  I consider it almost a landmark product and would hope to see more efforts into this same middle ground that right now, only NWN occupies.

You high expectation, jaded mofos.

Xilren
PS  Now, NWN2 just sounds like enhanced NWN1, which isn't exactly what most people were looking for as the next step forward.  I more interested in seeing what Bioware does with  Dragon Age or their own MMO.

That's the best analogy I've ever seen.

Anyway, even if NWN is a less buggy, better looking NWN1, it'll be worth buying several times over to me. 

That's why I thought it sucked. Maybe now that people have had time to mod it it's better, but I remember sitting with the Worldbuilder's Guide and being incapable of making the module I had in mind because I can't build 3d models in Maya or whatever. Veery limiting and combined with being real-time, utterly killed the game for me. I have zero interest in nwn2.

To continue the (excellent) lego analogy, it's like wanting to build a spaceship and only having the pirate lego set. All your adventures will be pirates or some crappy compromise. And (originally, anyway) the only way to get new legos is build molds and pour your own plastic, or wait around years for them to release some new stuff.

I understand I 'miss the point' with NWN, though. :) But by the time there were enough models to begin thinking about building my original custom module, I was not interested at all in NWN (and I didn't like the way gameplay was implemented...).

The lesson I learned was simple: look into NWN2 in 2008. Seriously.

The scripting is what killed NWN for me (and the bugs in the Construction set that took months and eventually an expansion to fix). Making NPC's that were anything more than quest boxes or bags of hitpoints to bash took more progamming/scripting chops than I had time to develop.

Not to mention that the real-time nature totally killed the D&D paradigm.

Just to be difficult: Morrowind and Oblivion.

Quake, Unreal. Etc. Not like NWN invented modding or something, including professional modding (Half-Life for instance).

That looks the biz.  I may have to reinstall.

Edited :  Cool !

Be to snarky back...

Hows that multiplayer Morrowind and Oblivion coming? :-p

Xilren

Just fine as I don't have to deal with people from the internet.

I don't know...I might choose to deal with a game full of VN board retards then ever see another goddamned cliff racer  :-D

You can't mod out stupid.

Lord knows we try!  :evil:

The only cure for Stupid is Louisville Slugger.

If the DM client doesn't release with the game, that means I'm very likely to not be buying the game on release.

That said, I'll probably buy it when the DM client comes out, and if the DM client works better than original NWN's DM client I'll be a very happy camper indeed.  NWN's DM client was poorly done and very very poorly tested, even in later patches.  Given enough tools, the DM client could have easily overcome many of the major problems with NWN, but requiring most things to go through scripting which a lot of players and potential module makers couldn't figure out significantly limited things.  Personally I managed to do some decent scripting, but never had the time to go through and make an entire module with the quality that I wanted out of them.  Not to mention the memory requirements for such a thing would be insane, and NWN already tended to chug sometimes.

Maybe by the time NWN2 and the DM Client comes out I'll be able to afford a dual-core processor and 4 gigs of memory.

Mmm.   You've somehow confused a PC game that, at some level, supports the d20 rule set with a tool with which you could ever realistically expect to be able to run an enjoyable PNP style campaign.

I happen to DM a pen and paper campaign every week.  When I think about how much time it would take to detail the locales, encounters, merchants, factions, and general ambiance necessary to make the setting I run my campaign in come alive in NWN, I laugh at the thought of a serious DM trying to use the software in place of a table top.  This is assuming that you save significant time by performing the role of live action dialogue actor for each and every NPC the party wishes to hold conversations with.

NWN's DM tool was likely the idea of some designer who had never really DMed and thought "Wow! This is, like, server/client software! Which means we can create multiple kinds of clients.... Surely someone will take advantage of the obvious great functionality of being able to connect in and (kind of) control the game environment!" 

Almost all of a DM's important work is actually covered better by the module editor, rather than the DM client tool.  The whole system would have to be rewritten to provide much more powerful and efficient buttons and levers with which the DM could change the world before any serious DM would consider implementing a DM-client controlled campaign in NWN, and from what I've read about NWN2, the game hasn't changed that much.

So, yeah, that leaves the sole realistic functionality of the DM client to dicking with players in your world because, well, you aren't driven enough to actually improve the world by using the module editor.

I'm not sure about the 1-shot group modules, as I played relatively few of those and never really DM'd one, nor did I ever try and make one.  But the DM client shines at what NWN was best at for me - the small PSW's that have 20-50 regular players.  A better DM client would have done wonders for those..  I DM'd a psw for a time (and to this day I kick myself for ever having left) and even with the very limited tools available I was often able to throw together interesting little adventures in 30 minutes to an hour.  When I had a few days to prepare and was able to get actual changes to the module in, the stories could be really interesting and engrossing.  But the DM client was great (and could have been much better) for those day-to-day little things.

NWN was all too fast for me, though.  If 1 round had been 12 or 18 seconds, to give everyone a chance to think and actually access non-hotkeyed controls, I would have found the game far, far better.

I look forward to NWN2, and I hope the module editor is better, but I also hope the DM client works *much* better.  The module editor may be the heart of the setting and where the most important work takes place, but the ability to use the DM client is what takes the NWN idea from 'amateur CRPG' to a completely different sort of experience where you can do the unexpected, because the DM can adjudicate it if your intended actions are not covered by scripts or standard game mechanics.

Agree with your post  I never tried to DM a game with other player myself but just fooled around with the client and some of the user created DM assistance tools and they could be pretty flexible.  One point this drove home is again how different pen and paper gaming is from computer gaming. In p&p, the DM is also the worldbuilder b/c he can always make shit up spur of the moment if need be.  In NWN, and any crpg for that matter, the world builder was much more important that the DM'ing, b/c the worldbuilder creates both the play space, rules, and all the props which the DM could use.  More like a limited avater of a god than a god itself.

Xilren
PS I am tempted to go back and basically make modules out of the quests in DDO.  A lot of the early ones would be simple enough to do. and even the longer, high level ones should be doable.  Come to think of it, you could replicate DDO with NWN almost in toto.  Persistant world hub with links to a bunch of modules for indviduals/groups.

I know what this is.  This is your Inner DM silently screaming at you.  If you read its lips, it is screaming, "I HAVE THESE GREAT IDEAS! PLEASE, GOD, LEND ME A STAGE WHEREON THEY MAY LIIIIIIVE!"

If you want your players to feel like their characters are really living, you have to give the players enough time to react on an emotional and creative level, instead of just a instinctive/combative level.  This can be achieved to some extent with social situations, but the most rewarding form of this occurs when some test of morality or loyalty is mixed in with combat (as movie example, the final scenes of The Count of Monte Cristo), played out in exchanged sentences mixed with exchanged blows or posturing.  As you note, this level of involvement is difficult to achieve in a real time representation of the d20 system.  Do yourself a favor: if you can, find yourself some good players and host a pen & paper campaign.

There will eventually be software that proves a better tool for running a campaign then some Excel files, some books, and a gridded mat, it just isn't here yet.

If NWN was turn-based and had a solid DM client, it'd be a fine AD&D tool.

You say I'm mistaken, but imo it's wrong to put the AD&D brand on a game that is clearly not aligned with the AD&D design. If it had been a generic real-time adventure generator, I'd not be making these complaints.
And that's exactly why there's a need for a solid AD&D computer product. I don't have a group, my old group travelled with my band is spread across the US. But we all have pcs and internet access.

Infinite Dungeons apparently out.

Reviews ?

Is this out yet?  I'm too tired to look it up.

No, it's not due out until Mid-Late September.   

Not seen here but posted elsewhere, Obsidian also announced they're not going to support 'persistant worlds' in any significant way.  You want to try and 'build your own mmo' you have to do it like NWN1 and have everyone download the module.   Of course, with the rumors that the editor won't ship with the released game, either scenario would  be, um, "difficult."

I'm not interested in making my own modules anyway.  I'll just play whatever everyone else throws together.  I half-heartedly started to do one with NWN, but it just made me sleepy.  Please wake me up in September.

Did you just say the editor won't ship with NWN2?

Bwhawhawha?

Yeah, that'll be a great bargain bin buy imo. In two years.

I think he's confusing the toolset with the DM client.

PLEASE HELP ME, I WISH TO KNOW IF ANYONE HAS DOWNLOADED INFINITE DUNGEONS AND IF IT'S ANY GOOD.

PLEASE HELP ME OR THEY MIGHT KILL MY MUM.

While I haven't gotten it myself, reaction on the forum has been mixed.  Some like it, some hate it but the ones who don';t like it seem to have 3 mains complaints: "it's all hack and slash"  (um, it's a random dungeon generator), "loading times too long and too often", and oddly "too much high powered loot".

But it seems to work.

It's only like $8, i may pick it up sooner or later.

Xilren

Whoops, you would be right.

Whew.

They have promised the DM client will be patched in, on the same day the game comes out:

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481529&forum=95&highlight=dm%20client (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481529&forum=95&highlight=dm%20client)

I agree NWN can never be the same as playing a pen and paper game even with the best DM client and best DMs, but you do need it. On the server I ran for a few years, DMs would come on and do quests and it worked well. The best comparison I think is with the seers in UO, except the DMs had far more tools at their disposal than the seers did.

You also need a DM client on a server for gamemaster functions, eg helping people who encounter bugs, wandering around invisibly to make sure things are working (if a monster is far too easy even the nicest players may not tell you - you need to watch them), dealing with cheaters who you don't want to ban (you ban people using the server client not the DM client, but you may just want to talk to them instead) and so on.

Oh man, don't bring up the mess that was the Seer program.

edit: Then again, it was way better than anything EQ did. I remember the only time I attended an EQ 'event' (that didn't consist of killing everyone level-appropriate in the zone): Innoruuk's daughter was looking for a champion. There were about 40 dark elves around, she didn't rp for shit and ended up choosing a human monk of the motherlovin' tranquil! I boggled. Of course Inny'd want a human monk over a tierdal sk or necro. Sheesh.

A friend got it a couple days ago. It's pure H&S, very little for quests, no story at all. He says it's Very random (sword of +1 vs orcs and +3 to perform and +1 Will save). Also, he says if you are the type who can't pass up loot til its been id'd, you'll be running back to the entrance to id shit every ten minutes.

To me it sounds like a good option for rounding out a character between adventures with some unique loot, or maybe for testing a new concept to see how it works in combat. I'll probably get it this weekend.

Original NWN single player was largely garbage. Hordes of the Underdark was a vast improvement though it still fell short of Baldurs Gate 1 or 2.

The multiplayer, on the other hand... I think your opinion had to be flavored by what type of servers you found yourself playing on. A friend of mine played on a server which was little more than a Diablo clone. I went with a persistent world, hardcore pvp/rp setting with permadeath and active GM participation and a million other things i've wanted to see in an MMO and it was the best game i've ever played. Period.

I'm surprised the game gets knocked as much as it does. With a bit of creativity you could turn it into anything you wanted.

The server was City of Arabel by the way, on the extreme off chance anyone's heard of it.

It's the Engine.  The Engine Sucks for what it wants to do.


Sucks.

Agreed. I bought NWN practically twice; once on release, and again in Diamond edition with all the expansions and things.

I just couldn't get into the game.

As both NWN and DDO have showed, Real-time combat and D&D mechanics suck monkey balls together.

And this makes me very sad. I wanted to love NWN. I wanted to make the modules that I tried to create as a kid in table top and get my friends to play them online, correctly, with proper magic rules and no rules lawyering.

I would have rather had a some sort of easily-moddable version of the Infinity Engine to use.

NWN isn't really real time.  It's about as real time as Baldur's Gate or any other game using the Infinity engine.

As much as I hate 3rd edition, I think temple of elemental evil did combat better. It was a piece of trash game becuase of the game ending bugs, but the engine was both pretty, useful, and accurate.

I know it's not "really" real time...but it felt somehow...faster than BG, etc.

Which is too fast for such a game I think....maybe I should go back and try the single-player modules...again.

There is no reason DDO couldn't have adopted the ToEE combat model. A 100% instanced game is begging for some quality turn-based gameplay. Give players 30 seconds to act or they lose their turn to keep it flowing.

Amen! I won't ever purchase another D&D game that does not have turn-based combat. The whole P&P game revolves around the combat mechanics, for Christ's sake. Let us USE them!

Goddamned real-time heretics!

But yeah. I agree, I've disliked real-time since it infected the strategy gaming. A few titles like Dune 2, Warcraft 2, maybe. And some of the more interesting stuff like Syndicate. But anything strategic should give the commander some fucking time to mull things over, fer crissake.

Heh, you're not into the "ZOMG ZERG RUSH KEKEKEKE!" stuff?

Not a fan of speed chess, eh?

Pawn rush ftw!