So why are Atari Fucking around with the D&D licence?

Schnippshly

New member
Mar 6, 2009
199
0
0
spartan231490 said:
Normally I agree with you. but the unique aspect of dnd is the group focus, if your just going to crank out action RPG's with full control over only one character, then you aren't making full use of a dnd license.
I know what you mean, but D&D isn't about one player controlling six characters; it's about six players controlling their own character. Making a game where one player has to manage six different people wouldn't be very D&D-like.
Also, Neverwinter Nights was a pretty faithful D&D game, but then the player could only have one other character in his party and he only controlled one person, with the other character being AI-controlled.
Confidingtripod said:
The thing for me was the asthetic touches, in neverwinter nights your taught basic controls by two twin brothers, immediatly after the tutorial section you then find one brother with the other dead.
Neverwinter Nights was pretty good about stuff like that, though I thought it was really silly that a bunch of powerful instructors could all be taken down by a bunch of goblins, and then the player steamrolls over them.
I remember using a mod that made all of the AI aggressively move around and hunt for the player. It was really cool because, in the zombie part of town, all the zombies would attack at the same time.
 

JMeganSnow

New member
Aug 27, 2008
1,591
0
0
StBishop said:
Anyone else agree?
YES.

Although, to be precise, they don't have the "Dungeons and Dragons" license. They have the "Forgotten Realms" license, which is why they're doing Neverwinter. The Eberron license belongs to Turbine and they've actually made an awesome MMO out of it--not so much "role-playing", but I think they've really captured the dungeoneering/puzzling and combat well.

I can't imagine how their "fourth edition" BS multiplayer thing is going to turn out. Fourth edition is absolutely BOUND to the square grid battle mat, so how they're going to turn it into a decent non-turn-based game is beyond me. And they're only letting you play 5 generic characters IIRC. It looks like it's going to be a retread of that horrible Pool of Radiance thing that came out a few years back.
 

JMeganSnow

New member
Aug 27, 2008
1,591
0
0
Dr_Horrible said:
I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.
I found NwN2 to be okay--plagued by Obsidian's typical problems of Not Enough Time, Full Of Bugs and We Didn't Finish. The Original Crispy campaign in Neverwinter Nights was lackluster from a story standpoint--too much running around fighting hordes of monsters and not enough interesting stuff happening. It improved with the expansions though. Icewind Dale, same problem,

I'm not interested in playing $60 for yet another long tedious hackfest that uses some mangled version of the D&D rules when I can just play DDO for free.
 

Baralak

New member
Dec 9, 2009
1,244
0
0
I don't know, I enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale. It's a fun hack and slash, that's sadly ridden by WAY too many bugs. Still, me and my friends really loved playing through the game, bugs and all, over Xbox Live.

Also, not to start an Edition War, but am I the only person who finds 4e fun? I mean, I love the combat, and how it's so freeform with roleplaying, not constraining you at all for your roleplaying.
 

AlternatePFG

New member
Jan 22, 2010
2,858
0
0
I dunno, while I don't have the first NWN to compare it to (Haven't heard great things about it anyway) I thought the campaign of NWN2 was still pretty good, and found the expansion Mask of the Betrayer was an amazing RPG experience.

Daggerdale was just a waste of the license though, it just looked like generic hack and slash #135.
 

Dr_Horrible

New member
Oct 24, 2010
421
0
0
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.
You liked Baldurs Gate, but not Baldurs Gate 2? Same for Neverwinter, same for Icewind....

You serious? I must ask..... why?

You have the nostalgia glasses on?
By Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, I meant the series. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for nostalgia glasses, I was too young to be interested in most of those games when they came out. My knowledge of older, awesome games comes from gog.com
 

Dr_Horrible

New member
Oct 24, 2010
421
0
0
JMeganSnow said:
Dr_Horrible said:
I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.
I found NwN2 to be okay--plagued by Obsidian's typical problems of Not Enough Time, Full Of Bugs and We Didn't Finish. The Original Crispy campaign in Neverwinter Nights was lackluster from a story standpoint--too much running around fighting hordes of monsters and not enough interesting stuff happening. It improved with the expansions though. Icewind Dale, same problem,

I'm not interested in playing $60 for yet another long tedious hackfest that uses some mangled version of the D&D rules when I can just play DDO for free.
Yeah, I prefer my RPGs to have RPing, not just combat. I don't care about RPG elements, like upgrades and such, nearly as much as, you know, playing a role. I see no point otherwise.
 

Dr_Horrible

New member
Oct 24, 2010
421
0
0
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.
You liked Baldurs Gate, but not Baldurs Gate 2? Same for Neverwinter, same for Icewind....

You serious? I must ask..... why?

You have the nostalgia glasses on?
By Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, I meant the series. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for nostalgia glasses, I was too young to be interested in most of those games when they came out. My knowledge of older, awesome games comes from gog.com
Those games were shit when they came out. Baldurs Gate ect... The sequels were a million times better. You say you mean the 'series'?? What part of the originals blew, but the sequels were better are we getting confused about?

GoG is the best place to download games. STEAM and its DRM and anti-mod laws suck ass. No question that GoG is where its at...

But I must ask again, what do you mean when you say 'I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.'

I want to know why you didn't like NWN2 and BG2 and ID 2. They were better in every way as far as I'm concerned. Graphics, Game Play (combat/rules), Characters, Story... Do you really mean to say the originals are just better? I can respect that, I just don't understand it.
You misunderstand me. Of ALL the games we listed and are discussing, the ONLY one that I didn't like was NWN2. I agree that ID2 and BG2 are better than the originals, I was stating that I liked the entirety of the ID games and the BG games, not just the originals.

The reason I didn't like NWN2 is... well I'm not quite sure. It just had none of the old charm and appeal for me like the original NWN did. Perhaps it was story, perhaps gameplay, perhaps aesthetics... I really don't know. Sorry.
 

Dr_Horrible

New member
Oct 24, 2010
421
0
0
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
Sober Thal said:
Dr_Horrible said:
I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.
You liked Baldurs Gate, but not Baldurs Gate 2? Same for Neverwinter, same for Icewind....

You serious? I must ask..... why?

You have the nostalgia glasses on?
By Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, I meant the series. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for nostalgia glasses, I was too young to be interested in most of those games when they came out. My knowledge of older, awesome games comes from gog.com
Those games were shit when they came out. Baldurs Gate ect... The sequels were a million times better. You say you mean the 'series'?? What part of the originals blew, but the sequels were better are we getting confused about?

GoG is the best place to download games. STEAM and its DRM and anti-mod laws suck ass. No question that GoG is where its at...

But I must ask again, what do you mean when you say 'I hated NWN2, but games like the first NWN, Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale were awesome! I wish Atari would have bioware making a proper NWN2.'

I want to know why you didn't like NWN2 and BG2 and ID 2. They were better in every way as far as I'm concerned. Graphics, Game Play (combat/rules), Characters, Story... Do you really mean to say the originals are just better? I can respect that, I just don't understand it.
You misunderstand me. Of ALL the games we listed and are discussing, the ONLY one that I didn't like was NWN2. I agree that ID2 and BG2 are better than the originals, I was stating that I liked the entirety of the ID games and the BG games, not just the originals.

The reason I didn't like NWN2 is... well I'm not quite sure. It just had none of the old charm and appeal for me like the original NWN did. Perhaps it was story, perhaps gameplay, perhaps aesthetics... I really don't know. Sorry.
K, I hear ya now.

I just want to say again, that I hope the new Neverwinter game coming out (hopefully) soon is a good reason Atari has the DnD rights. If the game sucks, then I'll lament on Atari being the wrong people to have said rights.

Neverwinter 2 is still an awe inspiring game as far as I'm concerned. Nothing short of Dragon Age has even come close to it as far as I'm concerned tho.

Cheers!
Yeah, I hope that Atari doesn't completely destroy the Neverwinter series.
 

Warforger

New member
Apr 24, 2010
641
0
0
Jerry Pendleton said:
Just give the DnD license to BioWare. They need something to pimp out once the Mass Effect trilogy is over and we need another BG.
....You mean like Dragon Age?

I respect DnD for being original when everyone else is ripping it and Tolkien off over and over....Hell I even got a response once telling me about the Elves history in the Dragon Age world, and it was basiclly just the same elf story for pretty much every fantasy world i.e. elves used to be this great empire but then something catastrophic happened and most died, they then split into factions usually light and dark but can also split into wood, and now they're continuing to fight to survive. It's all fluff to distance them from humans, because the only thing that separates them is fucking ears, everything else had to be made up, and even then it's usually copy-pasta, i.e. elves are experts in magic and bow and arrow, they are smarter and wiser, and they have a feeling of superiority over the other factions like humans and orcs and sometimes fight with them for a goal to their advantage. Same can tend to be said about Orcs I guess.

Still rather confused why no one seems to have a problem with the fantasy genre but tend to complain about the FPS genre.

Other then that Atari are just another relic from the good ol' days selling cheap games from bad-good developers, they're almost like LJN in the sense that their best games tend to be the mindless fighting ones like the Godzilla games, but they don't crank out as much shit as LJN did. They're souless, a carcass of an old day devoid of ambition or willingness to try new things since they did and failed hard.
 

Leoofmoon

New member
Aug 14, 2008
391
0
0
because fanboys are twats? I mean fanboys made a guy who made star wars Galxeys combat BETTER they made him kill himself and people well....craped on his corpes after his death! fanboys are the worst thing ever!
 

viranimus

Thread killer
Nov 20, 2009
4,952
0
0
Its hilarious for me to see people condemning Atari for their handling of the DnD line then claiming it should be passed to Bioware like Bioware's products aren't still tightly tied into the DnD rulesets.

The DnD game mechanic is practically omnipresent in western RPGs. Just because you don't see dice rolls or numbers flashing on the screen doesn't mean it isn't happening as an invisible process underneath.

Reminds me of the guy who went car shopping and the most important thing to him was to get a V8 engine. He forgets to ask when he sees a Dodge he likes and then gets pissed because it has a "Hemi" engine.
 

The Madman

New member
Dec 7, 2007
4,404
0
0
Neverwinter Nights 2 was good, but yeah, that's about it on the roleplaying front in terms of modern games and even calling NWN2 'modern' is a bit of a stretch considering it came out a couple of years ago now.

As for the whole NWN1 vs. 2 thing, I actually find the second to be better in a number of ways. People tend to forget that the original Neverwinter Nights had an absolutely shit campaign, I mean really boring which for a Bioware game was unthinkable at the time. It was also plagued by bugs and glitches on release and truthfully only after a couple of years worth of expansions, patches and community mods did it become worthwhile to own. (By the way, it *IS* worthwhile to own especially now. There's a literal library of user campaign and mods to play now, many of which surpass the default experience by a huge margin.) The games main redeeming factor on release for a number of people was the multiplayer, but honestly I never play the multiplayer on rpg games so that was never a selling feature to me.

Neverwinter Nights 2's main campaign wasn't the most compelling, but it was fun the first time through despite some blatant padding at the start and a disappointing ending. Had some memorable moments, a few neat set-pieces. and some compelling companion characters that were worth getting to know. Buggy and glitchy on release like the first game, but like the first game those have been fixed up by now. Mod support is just as much a factor as well, and while the library of fan campaign and mods isn't as vast as the original games for a number of reasons, it's still damned impressive with a few campaign which stand out as spectacular experience. Mask of the Betrayer was also probably the high-point in terms of singleplayer experience for the entire NWN franchise as well! And finally, FINALLY, I'm back to controlling a group in NWN2 unlike that stupid henchmen system from the first game. Multiplayer I've heard isn't as well implemented, but like above, that's not a factor for me.

So yeah, I liked NWN2 a fair deal.

As for why there hasn't been anything even remotely similar since despite NWN2 selling well enough to warrant two expansions, well... I don't know. Guess it's just not the 'fad' these days.

Pity, I'd like to see the Neverwinter Nights license handed off to another developer, see how for better or worse it turns out this time. Instead we're apparently getting an MMO, which isn't what I wanted at all though to be fair that *is* the roots of the entire franchise.