Game News Beamdog announce Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition

[curry]

They'll just add a few transgender companions and call it enhanced.

 

[DavidBVal]

The best thing about NWN series was the content creation, DM mode and persistent servers. None of that will probably be back with this EE, and very likely the existing user content will be incompatible too. Pointless release.

Read the website

Oh, I did... maybe I didn't express myself clearly. I don't doubt their intention to make it compatible, but I'll believe it when I see an old module working well on the new NWN. And I highly doubt the creators community that was once awesome can be rebuilt after being forgotten for so many years.

 

[Black]

Volourn on suicide watch.

 

[Echo Mirage]

A Dance with Rogues enhanced edition?

 

[Orobis]

This "company" is a fucking joke, makes me puke when i see them get any attention. Disgusting, abhorrent cash grab business model, amazing how many dumb saps fall for this shit.


NWN:Enhanced! Now with gender fluid characters! Only $39.95! Upgrade to the King edition for $89.99 and get a statue of david gaider riding on a dick unicorn! Made with silicone! (black only)

 

[Telengard]

NWN:Enhanced! Now with gender fluid characters! Only $39.95! Upgrade to the King edition for $89.99 and get a statue of david gaider riding on a dick unicorn! Made with silicone! (black only)

If you want to sell it, don't narrowcast.

NWN:Enhanced! Have the romance YOU want with any character YOU want to have! It's YOUR choice! Only $39.95! Upgrade to the King edition for $89.99 and get a statue of a DROW* riding on a unicorn! Pay $129.99 for the Emperor Edition and have YOUR likeness become one of the in-game avatars! Then YOU can meet the DROW* in person and forge the kind of friendship (hee hee) YOU have always wanted to have with him!

Throw in a bunch of pictures that imply S&M and/or gay sex (like every old picture of drow like ever), "tastefully" of course, and job done. It'd fly of the shelves, just like it did in the days of yore. And you know, any number of Codexians would pay that $129.99. For "review" purposes, of course. - Which is Beamdog's real failing; they didn't hire anyone who knew how to sell this shit to nerds, despite it being exactly the sort of shit the nerds have liked to lap up since BG2.


* Any visual similarities to Drizzt do'Urden are purely coincidental.

 

[DavidBVal]

Smart franchise handling would mean to make a new game called NWN3 using D&D 5e and with a toolset and DM mode similar to what NWN offered, including persistent server capability. That would be a real hit, and I bet it'd even help D&D 5e to become more popular. A decent videogame that teaches you the basic rules is a good starting point for people that later tries the PNP game.

Of course, that'd involve working, so it won't happen.

I don't know what they expect to accomplish. New players that don't get the "context" will hate it because of the outdated graphics and engine. We old timers either hate it or have already played it, or both. Heck, it was even FREE on GoG not so long ago.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Smart franchise handling would mean to make a new game called NWN3 using D&D 5e and with a toolset and DM mode similar to what NWN offered, including persistent server capability. That would be a real hit, and I bet it'd even help D&D 5e to become more popular. A decent videogame that teaches you the basic rules is a good starting point for people that later tries the PNP game.

Of course, that'd involve working, so it won't happen.

I don't know what they expect to accomplish. New players that don't get the "context" will hate it because of the outdated graphics and engine. We old timers either hate it or have already played it, or both. Heck, it was even FREE on GoG not so long ago.

Why make a new game if you can spend next to nothing patching up an old one and then triple the price? It's not like they need to sell many copies to turn a profit here. I do think it will be compatible with the vast bulk of the mods because that's beamdog's business model: buy the rights, work in a bunch of non trademarked fixes that modders have spent years working on, then jack up the price. They will do enough work to make it so that they can take advantage of other people's labor. They're just responding to incentives in the marketplace, though.

In the future, I bet any franchise that supports really extensive modding--like your theoretical 5th edition NWN3--will be sold via subscription because games-as-a-service is too lucrative a business model for these fuckers to pass up.

 

[A user named cat]

It's been years since I played but wasn't one of the NWN1 expansions actually pretty decent? I recall the vanilla game being horribly boring but one of the expansions having good dungeon crawls.

 

[Harry Easter]

Shadow of Undrentide was indeed a fun and lighthearted adventure. Hordes of the Underdark had more of everything, but it was kind of overblown for me. I dunno, I found Undrentide always more charming.

 

[MicoSelva]

Yeah, Undrentide was pretty good.

This remaster looks really lazy. Every Beamdog release so far has been at least a little bit interesting to me. This one... is not.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Bare fucking minimum they could at least make the pc models better, but no, they wormed their way outta that one too.

 

[norolim]

Oh,

for fuck's sake...

I'm glad I already have the original on GOG...

Let me double check...



...OK, I do have it.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

It's been years since I played but wasn't one of the NWN1 expansions actually pretty decent? I recall the vanilla game being horribly boring but one of the expansions having good dungeon crawls.

You're probably thinking first chapter of Hordes of Underdark with its crazy multi-level dungeon. Although last chapter of Shadows of Undrentide sort of fits the description, too, but it's technically a tower, not a dungeon.

The OC is not all that bad by modern standards, I actually sort of enjoyed it back in the day, but the later chapters are just too linear / uninspired, and the randomized loot is just a kick in the nuts. The early portion that actually takes place in the plague-ridden city is kinda cool.

I'm glad I already have the original on GOG...

I think most people should have it, I believe they were even giving it away for free at one point... Anyone who doesn't probably should take care of it now, since the remaster looks like prime free-range bullshit.

 

[ArchAngel]

It's been years since I played but wasn't one of the NWN1 expansions actually pretty decent? I recall the vanilla game being horribly boring but one of the expansions having good dungeon crawls.

You're probably thinking first chapter of Hordes of Underdark with its crazy multi-level dungeon. Although last chapter of Shadows of Undrentide sort of fits the description, too, but it's technically a tower, not a dungeon.

The OC is not all that bad by modern standards, I actually sort of enjoyed it back in the day, but the later chapters are just too linear / uninspired, and the randomized loot is just a kick in the nuts. The early portion that actually takes place in the plague-ridden city is kinda cool.

Fuck those criteria. It came after bg1 and bg2 and it looked and played like those same devs all had a group lobotomy before they started making it.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Fuck those criteria. It came after bg1 and bg2 and it looked and played like those same devs all had a group lobotomy before they started making it.

Kinda how I felt playing DA:O after NWN2 MoTB, so I can relate But I was still yiung when NWN1 came out, so it seemed decent at the time, and I still have a soft spot for it.

 

[aweigh]

I wonder what Beamdog will add that isn't available via mods. For BG1/2/PS:T they added the ability to zoom in and out using the mouse wheel.

 

[Fenix]

I understand your negativism in general, but why it is so... well, sharp?
I think I don't exactly understand it because NWN somehow escaped my attention, remember I looked at it in a store, but decided to not buy, maybe because of fugly 3D, dunno.

Throw in a bunch of pictures that imply S&M and/or gay sex (like every old picture of drow like ever

Hm, what do you mean?

 

[thesheeep]

I think I don't exactly understand it because NWN somehow escaped my attention, remember I looked at it in a store, but decided to not buy, maybe because of fugly 3D, dunno.

Yeah, not surprising.
NWN 1 is one of the ugliest games I've ever played.
That terrible sterile look is just extremely off-putting.

Ah, the good old days of early 3D when people discovered they could do reflections with shaders and suddenly everything looked like it was covered in a thin layer of lard for maximum light reflection

 

[Fenix]

Yeah, especially after Evil Islands Curce of the Lost Soul, which came two yars before.

 

[DavidBVal]

I think I don't exactly understand it because NWN somehow escaped my attention, remember I looked at it in a store, but decided to not buy, maybe because of fugly 3D, dunno.

Yeah, not surprising.
NWN 1 is one of the ugliest games I've ever played.
That terrible sterile look is just extremely off-putting.

Ah, the good old days of early 3D when people discovered they could do reflections with shaders and suddenly everything looked like it was covered in a thin layer of lard for maximum light reflection

Yeah, early days of any technology tend to do that. I remember the days when CD games arrived, and suddenly every game needed 3 hours of cutscenes with real actors.

 

[thesheeep]

Yeah, early days of any technology tend to do that. I remember the days when CD games arrived, and suddenly every game needed 3 hours of cutscenes with real actors.

That was pretty awesome, though.
I mean... there were people not loving all those wonderful cheesy C&C, Emperor: Battle for Dune, MechWarrior 4, etc. scenes?
I really miss them. Much better than most in-game stuff.

 

[Barnabas]

What a waste or time

 

[DavidBVal]

Yeah, early days of any technology tend to do that. I remember the days when CD games arrived, and suddenly every game needed 3 hours of cutscenes with real actors.

That was pretty awesome, though.
I mean... there were people not loving all those wonderful cheesy C&C, Emperor: Battle for Dune, MechWarrior 4, etc. scenes?
I really miss them. Much better than most in-game stuff.

Some were great but... did you play Wing Commander 4? Every time you entered a room (even the elevator!) you got a cutscene of Mark Hamill walking in, waiting out, looking around idling... a bit overkill. :D

 

[imweasel]

It was bad and really corny, but I still love it. :D