Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 still make a profit; a small one but it's a profit. Through word of mouth of these unique experiences friends and casual onlookers buy the game to see what all the fuss is about. While it is highly unlikely; interacting with the world to the level of depth NWN series offers can be such a captivating experience. Making unforeseen changes to the game world or actually becoming a "big bad" are two things that are almost impossible in the modern day MMO.
Neverwinter Nevermore
- Thread starter E. T. Brooking
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Just reinstalled NWN the other day, in anticipation of a particular NWN persistent world server some friends are just about done creating.
Sigh. I wish NWN2 hadnt so completely missed the point of the multiplayer.
The article mirrors my own thoughts. There just hasnt been an RPG with that degree of freedom since, and its a real shame. The way I phrase it is that everybody rushed headlong towards the profits they saw in MMOs... and completely forgot to look at simply "MOs". We have multiplayer, but only on a tiny scale - nowhere can you find a multiplayer RPG that will allow you to have 32 / 64 / 100 players. You play 2 or 3 person co-op, or play an MMO with thousands of strangers - those are your options.
Many of the mechanics that make up the appealing aspects of NWN seem to have become inextricably linked in the minds of developers with MMOs, when theres actually no need for it to be that way. "Persistent" play is seen as an MMO trait - you log in and the world is already happening around you; play continues round the clock after you leave, and the world keeps turning - but all it really needs is a basic server app with a small database system to save player variables, not some vast MMO server farm. More than a few players - we see it all the time for simple round based FPSs, and the communities that can be formed around them. Ive seen plenty of Call of Duty and Team Fortress servers which allow dozens of players at a time, where the players get to know each other; they hang out on forums and discuss up-coming ranked/clan matches, coordinate when theyre going to be online to catch up, and generally have a common community - you can drop in to the server at any time of day and see somebody you know. Again, theres no reason that needs to be unique to an MMO, yet for RPGs thats the only place youre going to find that situation.
It saddens me... its almost enough to get me to try and develop my own game along those lines, but I know how big of a task building an RPG is (especially solo).
Sigh. I wish NWN2 hadnt so completely missed the point of the multiplayer.
The article mirrors my own thoughts. There just hasnt been an RPG with that degree of freedom since, and its a real shame. The way I phrase it is that everybody rushed headlong towards the profits they saw in MMOs... and completely forgot to look at simply "MOs". We have multiplayer, but only on a tiny scale - nowhere can you find a multiplayer RPG that will allow you to have 32 / 64 / 100 players. You play 2 or 3 person co-op, or play an MMO with thousands of strangers - those are your options.
Many of the mechanics that make up the appealing aspects of NWN seem to have become inextricably linked in the minds of developers with MMOs, when theres actually no need for it to be that way. "Persistent" play is seen as an MMO trait - you log in and the world is already happening around you; play continues round the clock after you leave, and the world keeps turning - but all it really needs is a basic server app with a small database system to save player variables, not some vast MMO server farm. More than a few players - we see it all the time for simple round based FPSs, and the communities that can be formed around them. Ive seen plenty of Call of Duty and Team Fortress servers which allow dozens of players at a time, where the players get to know each other; they hang out on forums and discuss up-coming ranked/clan matches, coordinate when theyre going to be online to catch up, and generally have a common community - you can drop in to the server at any time of day and see somebody you know. Again, theres no reason that needs to be unique to an MMO, yet for RPGs thats the only place youre going to find that situation.
It saddens me... its almost enough to get me to try and develop my own game along those lines, but I know how big of a task building an RPG is (especially solo).
I still play on the Neverwinter Nights persistant world servers from time to time. Prisoner's of the Mists. (PotM for short) is still my favorite by far. Gothic horror, heavy rp, with around 20 players online during the "bad hours," of EU/AU time zones. Active updates from devs to this day.
It's a shameless plug, but PotM deserves it. nwnravenloft.com for anyone who's interest I've sparked
And for anyone who's curious about how much the community has contributed to the game over the years, just take a look at CEP. (the Community Expansion Pack for NwN) It's sitting at around a Gig now, and it's packed full of... okay this is sounding too shameless even for me, but it's pretty darn amazing if you ask me.
It's a shameless plug, but PotM deserves it. nwnravenloft.com for anyone who's interest I've sparked
And for anyone who's curious about how much the community has contributed to the game over the years, just take a look at CEP. (the Community Expansion Pack for NwN) It's sitting at around a Gig now, and it's packed full of... okay this is sounding too shameless even for me, but it's pretty darn amazing if you ask me.
Greets!
I used to play on several NWN persistant worlds, true. The article is right about the sheer complexity of the multiplayer, all the worlds I played on were completely different from eachother in both in-game systems, lore and function.
I've played as a half-dragon, a heavily armoured arch-bishop of rightious death, a druid, a warlock, several vampires, a fallen angel and my greatest pride, but also greatest shame, a catgirl demon that shifts genders between herself and her captive host.
Oh the years I spent, the stories I've written, most of them lost with the passing of the NWN worlds. While I know many still exist and have players, I just dont have the will to form such stories and play in such worlds, not now, not after losing so many characters I have invested in.
Sure, I do ocassionally write the odd story nowdays, but never daily updates like I did years ago for these worlds.
Unfortunately for me, indulging in nostelgia with NWN now would only remind me of the years past and make me very sad, knowing that such games really are no more with the way gaming is developing.
I used to play on several NWN persistant worlds, true. The article is right about the sheer complexity of the multiplayer, all the worlds I played on were completely different from eachother in both in-game systems, lore and function.
I've played as a half-dragon, a heavily armoured arch-bishop of rightious death, a druid, a warlock, several vampires, a fallen angel and my greatest pride, but also greatest shame, a catgirl demon that shifts genders between herself and her captive host.
Oh the years I spent, the stories I've written, most of them lost with the passing of the NWN worlds. While I know many still exist and have players, I just dont have the will to form such stories and play in such worlds, not now, not after losing so many characters I have invested in.
Sure, I do ocassionally write the odd story nowdays, but never daily updates like I did years ago for these worlds.
Unfortunately for me, indulging in nostelgia with NWN now would only remind me of the years past and make me very sad, knowing that such games really are no more with the way gaming is developing.
The game is I think 10 bucks at Gog.com, and there are still several multiplayer servers available.Littaly said:
I'm going to go ahead and plug 12 Dark Secrets, which I am a DM on.(It wouldn't be proper for me as a DM not to plug it). I started playing on that server late 2005 or early 2006 because it wasn't a PVP server. The servers(yes it sounds odd, but the game world is so large it's mapped over 3 servers) are still up and running, and the code does the best it can to overcome RAM limitations imposed by a 32 bit game system, and other limitations that were added via patches.
I never played the first NWN and when i di buy the NWN2 the only way to get it to run was i had to physically disable the sound card on my computer. I never got more than an hour into the game as not having sound really spoils an experience for a game.
Yeah, that's the problem, isn't it? There was a time when a dev could put a toolkit for creating new worlds in their game system and it would just be another bullet point, just a cool thing for the hardcore fans. Nowadays we only have Minecraft, a world where you need tens of mods to turn it into anything other than a pointless faffing around simulator, and while the mod support is admirable it does mean that there is no central game you can work on, mods can enter in conflict, and you need to understand programming to do anything anyone will notice, unless you're wasting time by creating a giant sculpture that can only be seen on a computer.JuliusMagnus said:
We used to get excited because we could create brand new things, now we get excited because we can slap blocks together. We embrace less and less freedom - magic crayons made of shit [http://www.bogost.com/writing/shit_crayons.shtml] - because the alternative is developers locking out mods so that they can sell you four weapons for fifteen dollars.
How far we've come.
I love retro gaming, I bought Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri + expansion pack on ebay and love it heaps. I always had it on my computer, but lost the discs D:
Im still very fond of Neverwinter Nights. It was far from a perfect game but it was a game that always tried, and where you could tell the developers had really pushed the enevelope to deliver an experience. Maybe it was wishful thinking but i felt like it really mattered to BioWare that i enjoyed the experience, not just that i brought the game and thats something that has been sorely lacking in recent titles across the industry.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?appid=72850&browsesort=topratedThe Random One said:
Hmm there seems to be 9610 entries there.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/categories/
Even if all the files on steamworkshop are duplicated there that is still another 9128 entries there.
http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/categories/
http://dragonage.nexusmods.com/mods/categories/
Pretty sure modding RPGs is alive and well
I actually spent a lot of time playing Half-Life 2: Deathmatch because of the role-playing maps that some servers used. After a while you start making friends, and enemies.
It wasn't quite the experience described here, but it still felt special.
It wasn't quite the experience described here, but it still felt special.
So, how exactly is this different? A small number of people create a world that a bunch of other people play in. It's exactly the same as for NN, except done by professionals instead of hobbyists. I think where you go wrong is in calling WoW a single world. Sure, WoW is, but WoW is equivalent to just one of the mods for NN. If you want something different then you just play a different game, just as you could with NN. Far from taking anything away, MMOs are simply the logical extension of what people were trying to do themselves with the limited tools NN had to offer.E. T. Brooking said:
Damn, this has once again reminded me how much Bioware has declined. Everyone should stop buying anything from Bioware until they make Neverwinter Nights 3, or something similar.
This is always going to have a special warm place in my memory because it was my first computer RPG, and really the first computer game I ever played.
I was learning how to play the game, and how to play with a mouse and keyboard at the same time.
*tears up*
Goddamn I love this game.
I was learning how to play the game, and how to play with a mouse and keyboard at the same time.
*tears up*
Goddamn I love this game.
This article has made me really want to dive back into the Arelith servers again, but I'm so used to 3.5 now...
Nice read, E.T.
Nice read, E.T.
Probably not... But its worth pointing out that the head developer behind Baldurs Gate: EE was Project Director for NWN, and hes made mention of the flexibility as something hes especially proud of. From some comments hes made on twitter, I think if he could he would.Bentusi16 said: