Neverwinter Nights Online. (Cryptic Studios)

[palmer_eldritch]

That would suck, I haven't used it myself, but I hear the suite of tools that came with the NWN series was a huge selling point for the series and its life span.

I used it quite extensively. My programming career basically started by making NWN1 modules. You could do damn near anything with them with relatively little skill at all. The persistent servers would range from Complex team death match systems where you'd gain levels, skills, and money to buy equipment from a vendor to full scale mmos very similar to Ultima Online. The offline player made content was staggering in its breadth. There were player made campaigns that dwarfed the original game content. Some even had voice actors to cover the parts of the main characters. Some done kind of cheaply but a few had real production quality to them. To this day I think buying NWN1 Diamond edition is probably the best value in the gaming market... followed by Valves Orange Box of course.

Yeah, it was just a great toolset.   I think you are overestimating its accessibility.  The actually world building was a since, but there was quite a bit of scripting to be done if you wanted to do most things.   I think the community was extremely willing to dig into the tools though, and there were great resources out there so that if you wanted to put in the time you really could do a lot.

I had years of fun with that game and still install it every so often.  There are still great PWs up and running with communities.

You're both making me nostalgic for NWN1. I did a lot of work with the toolset working on a persistent world, and loved the level of freedom and creativity it allowed.

I think somewhere in the back of my mind I assumed that NWN2 would be just like this but better, or if it wasn't then somebody else would make their own version instead. Toolsets like this were here to stay.

But that hasn't happened and there's nothing on the horizon that I know of. The "make your own adventure game" genre hasn't taken off.

Bioware did explain once that supporting online games (whether persistent worlds or just small-scale co-op play) hadn't worked for them from a business point of view. Most people who bought NWN never played online at all - they just played the official campaign that came with the game - yet significant resources were spent supporting those that did. I don't have a link, it's just a comment I remember from some years ago.

[koro]

Bioware did explain once that supporting online games (whether persistent worlds or just small-scale co-op play) hadn't worked for them from a business point of view. Most people who bought NWN never played online at all - they just played the official campaign that came with the game - yet significant resources were spent supporting those that did. I don't have a link, it's just a comment I remember from some years ago.

I remember that comment as well. I think it was around the release of one of the Premium Modules they did. Those were pretty damn good too; reasonably priced and included new stuff for modders to use. Infinite Dungeons alone was pretty wild (I didn't know the Aurora Engine could even do something like that), and I still fire it up on occasion if I want to just take a dude around and beat up some stuff while getting ridiculously overpowered.

[Fordel]

What I remember about the NWN toolset is I could make fully populated castles or towns or forests or whatever I wanted all day, but I could never make any of them more then static objects or basic dialogue trees.

Anything past that involved scripting, and that was just way more investment then I was capable of.

[Stabs]

That's how I remember it too. You could see that it was capable of just about anything but I spent about 80 hours designing an inn where people could meet quest givers, realised that it wasn't even a quarter done yet and decided that designing a whole world with these tools was beyond me.

To be fair I'm not a good level designer and scope creep hit my project hard.

I think while NWN1 was a wonderful tool for people who simply enjoy designing it wasn't yet the tool for people who don't mind designing but are mainly interested in the end product. It nearly was. Wonderful game, decades ahead of its time.

[Koyasha]

It was certainly a lot better than NWN2, which was so difficult I never managed to make a single area.  My main problem was definitely scope creep and perfectionism, because I obsessed over every minute detail, but I was able to do a good deal with the scripting system just by putting some time into it, although I can see why many wouldn't be able or willing to put in enough time.

Its real failing, however, was the buggy DM client and the lack of good tools there.  If the DM client had been the most well-polished part of the setup, then the scripting difficulties wouldn't have been as bad, since it would be easy to do everything simply by actively DMing.  But there were so many things that could not be accomplished at all through the DM client that it made the scripting absolutely necessary to create most anything that was moderately complex or more.

[Malakili]

It was certainly a lot better than NWN2, which was so difficult I never managed to make a single area.  My main problem was definitely scope creep and perfectionism, because I obsessed over every minute detail, but I was able to do a good deal with the scripting system just by putting some time into it, although I can see why many wouldn't be able or willing to put in enough time.

Its real failing, however, was the buggy DM client and the lack of good tools there.  If the DM client had been the most well-polished part of the setup, then the scripting difficulties wouldn't have been as bad, since it would be easy to do everything simply by actively DMing.  But there were so many things that could not be accomplished at all through the DM client that it made the scripting absolutely necessary to create most anything that was moderately complex or more.

There were some DM tool mods out there that were absolutely fantastic and really put a dent in the shortcomings.

[waylander]

Cryptic has released two stinkers of games, and pretty much damaged their image with a lot of folks.  I don't care what the game name is but I would not try another Cryptic made game unless it was Free2Play first.

[birdsguts]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1119900p1.html

"Exploring the New Neverwinter"
Not very interesting, honestly. Maybe someone in here will get more out of it than I did.

[Slyfeind]

Hm, sounds like just one character advancement path. Ugh. If there's really robust support for user-generated content, I'll check it out after there's more than just "Go under Neverwinter AGAIN!"

Regarding the old Aurora toolkit, I think my favorite modules were just simple towns and dungeons without a lot of dialog paths. When players bogged down their modules with all sorts of funky rules, they just got, well, bogged down.

[Sand]

Just discovered this game tonight while reading the new Salvatore book Gauntlgrym. They advertised the game in the books jacket.
Thus far it sounds like DDO with 4ed rules, fewer classes and an attempt to shoe horn in player created content (has this ever been succesfully done in a commercial title in a persistent online world?).

[Koyasha]

Just discovered this game tonight while reading the new Salvatore book Gauntlgrym. They advertised the game in the books jacket.
Thus far it sounds like DDO with 4ed rules, fewer classes and an attempt to shoe horn in player created content (has this ever been succesfully done in a commercial title in a persistent online world?).

City of Heroes' architect thing is pretty good.  Its main failing is that the risk/reward is often out of whack because the automated system can't tell whether an NPC is overpowered or underpowered.

Beyond that, its failing is the same failing of CoX in general, and some of the AE story arcs that I played were well and truly superior to pretty much anything official.  I suppose the other failing would be the rating system.  Finding the really good story arcs can be challenging, at best.  This is the main thing I think any attempt at player created content will run into difficulty with.  There is going to be loads of crap out there, and if they cannot make it easy to find the good stuff, then it won't work very well.

[shiznitz]

Just discovered this game tonight while reading the new Salvatore book Gauntlgrym. They advertised the game in the books jacket.
Thus far it sounds like DDO with 4ed rules, fewer classes and an attempt to shoe horn in player created content (has this ever been succesfully done in a commercial title in a persistent online world?).

Someone shoujld make a single player DnD 4E game before some clowns try and MMO it.

[luckton]

Oh fuck...it lives!

http://www.playneverwinter.com/splash?redir=frontpage

There aren't enough  faces on the net to satisfy how 'artarded this will turn out to be.

[Cadaverine]

Given how poorly Daggerdale has done, I hold no hope that an NWN mmo will be anything other than an utter disappointment.

[Ingmar]

The marketing material seems to be specifically avoiding calling it an MMO. "Onilne co-op RPG" is what they seem to be using.

[palmer_eldritch]

The marketing material seems to be specifically avoiding calling it an MMO. "Onilne co-op RPG" is what they seem to be using.

That would have been a fair description of NWN 1 and 2 in multiplayer mode. I won't be sorry if this one goes down the same path.

[Velorath]

IGN put up a preview a few days ago.

[Xilren's Twin]

This is the short page on the content creation tools - the Foundry
That actually the one part I think Cryptic could do well based on their experiences in CoH...

[Ingmar]

This is the short page on the content creation tools - the Foundry
That actually the one part I think Cryptic could do well based on their experiences in CoH...

Mission Architect came out nearly 2 years after Cryptic was no longer in charge of the CoX games. That doesn't mean they weren't there for at least some of the development of course, but it is a good bet that most of the work on it was done by the people who turned into Paragon Studios, rather than the ones who stayed with Cryptic.

[UnSub]

Cryptic has since launched the Foundry for STO, which is their player generated mission system for that title.

Also, this isn't a MMO - it's an online co-op title, so it should be shifted to the PC games forum.

Also, I'm curious that PW will be launching the Torchlight MMO and Neverwinter since both seem very similar... I wouldn't be surprised if one managed to fold into the other and I suspect that Torchlight would be the one left standing.

[Kail]

The marketing material seems to be specifically avoiding calling it an MMO. "Onilne co-op RPG" is what they seem to be using.

That would have been a fair description of NWN 1 and 2 in multiplayer mode. I won't be sorry if this one goes down the same path.

I dunno, the co-op support for the original game was kind of spotty.  It flat out didn't work for Hordes of Underdark if I recall correctly, issues with players getting stuck in "cinematic" maps (the opening dream sequence/vision, for example) with no way out, not getting the resurrection item, that kind of thing.  I don't even know if it was officially supported at first.

And in NwN2 it was just nightmarish, as I recall.  Every time one player talked to someone (and if you've played the game, you know this happens every ten goddamn seconds when you're not in a combat map) the other got locked out of the game until the conversation finished.  And if you're not talking to someone, you're fighting, which is slightly better, but kind of pointless in multiplayer since you don't ever die, you just respawn at the entrance of the map if you lose all your HP.

[Stormwaltz]

Cryptic has since launched the Foundry for STO, which is their player generated mission system for that title.

An interesting quote from a recent STO "Ask Cryptic":

Long term, we plan to synch up with all the amazing Foundry work being done by the Neverwinter team and bring those new features over to STO to improve the toolset features.

It appears some form of the Foundry is also being used for Neverwinter.

[Furiously]

Jack's comment on removing the Night from the title kinda made me go, "uhmm." I really would have thought someone would have explained the historic significance of the name.

[UnSub]

This is Neverwinter's Foundry page.

Is there a reason it was called Neverwinter Nights other than that was what happened back in 1991?

[Malakili]

I hope players can run adventures in real time (with a DM tool or something), that would probably be enough to make me seriously consider this, but if its just a mediocre RPG with a lot of player made (aka probably terrible) premade adventures, then that isn't so interesting to me.

[FatuousTwat]

Wasn't Neverwinter wiped out with 4e? Or was that Luskan?

[rk47]

Whoa, you mean it isn't another world to explore in their DDO F2P model?
I got the mailer and immediately assumed that.

[Malakili]

Wasn't Neverwinter wiped out with 4e? Or was that Luskan?

I think it has been rebuilt.  

Also, I heard that players will be able to DM adventures for their friends, but how or what exactly that means remains to be seen.  The combat is apparently also totally real time (not even the sort of hybrid that the other NWN games had), which is maybe a slight warning sign, but not something that sounds terrible.  Its really so early on that everything and everything we know isn't enough to be excited or to write it off.  My gut feeling is that at the end of the day its going to be an easier to use but way less powerful version of the NWN toolset/dm client.  There are a lot of people on the forums clearly hoping that this game will allow them to effectively run private D&D campaigns in the engine, and I agree that it would be the idea, but Im not convinced it will be really possible.


Edit: I just realized that the Wizards virtual table software for Dungeons and Dragons insider is actually in beta after all this time.  When that comes out I would absolutely rather subscribe to DDI than play Neverwinter, so this just lost a lot of its attraction.

[palmer_eldritch]

There's lots of hype floating around to tie in with E3. Here's one article on the Foundry system in NW from The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110876-E3-Neverwinter

From what I've read, I get the impression a key difference with the previous games is that you won't be able to set up your own worlds. In NWN and NWN2, players could create and control their own servers. In Neverwinter, it looks like you add stuff to the official server.

[UnSub]

Neverwinter delayed for 12 months; Hasbro wins digital D&D rights back off Atari.

Perfect World is investing more into Neverwinter's development and has set the new timeline, which makes me think Atari wanted a Q4 2011 release just so they had a new MMO in the stable.

Of course, what it means for Hasbro to have taken the rights back off Atari (who can still license D&D games from Hasbro) and its impact on the Cryptic Neverwinter title remains to be seen.

[Malakili]

Neverwinter delayed for 12 months; Hasbro wins digital D&D rights back off Atari.

Perfect World is investing more into Neverwinter's development and has set the new timeline, which makes me think Atari wanted a Q4 2011 release just so they had a new MMO in the stable.

Of course, what it means for Hasbro to have taken the rights back off Atari (who can still license D&D games from Hasbro) and its impact on the Cryptic Neverwinter title remains to be seen.

Forum the Neverwinter forums:

Perfect World's acquisition of Cryptic Studios is complete! This is great news for Cryptic and we couldn't be happier.

We have exciting announcements queued up for the near future, too – announcements that may even detail significant improvements to our existing products and shed light on games we still have in development... Lots of awesome things are right around the corner!

But what about right-now-this-second-now-now?

Well, right now we'd like to reassure our fans and players that it's basically business as usual for us and you. Things are changing – and changing for the better – but the immediate changes we need to make to complete our separation from Atari and our integration into Perfect World are virtually all cosmetic. For example, Atari Tokens will shortly become Cryptic Points (incidentally, some may recall they were originally called Cryptic Points long ago). There's a lot happening on our back-end to facilitate that kind of change, but from an everyday user's perspective, it mostly just comes down to names and icons.

Of course, we'll provide exact details on the exact changes we make in the near future. As it stands, we're planning to roll out across-the-board separation work on August 18th, but some components are trickling out even now based on the needs of our game teams and their builds.

In short: There shouldn't be any inconvenience to our players, we're moving forward with a lot of great improvements to our games, more details will come soon, and we'll publish exactly what we do and how it impacts you all as it happens.

Thanks so much!

p.s. We're hiring!

 

[shiznitz]

This game is so dead man walking now.  God knows what Hasbro suits will do to it.

[UnSub]

It's a fantasy dungeon crawler. The name is less important here (and tbh I think Cryptic would be better served in owning their own IP than paying the licensing fees).

[luckton]

Cryptic Officially Makes Neverwinter a F2P game.

I'm sure Gygax is rolling over in his grave 

[Tearofsoul]

This game is dead to me

IGN today delivers the news that Cryptic and new publisher Perfect World Entertainment are reorienting the game's design to make it a true MMO in the style of Vindictus or Rusty Hearts