Two NWN Expansions Revealed

Saying "BioWare and Infogrames will announce two new expansion packs to Neverwinter Nights tomorrow, but we've got details on them today," the Neverwinter Nights: The Shadows of Undrentide Q&A on GameSpot chats with Paul Neurath and Rick Ernst of Floodgate and BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to discuss one of the add-ons, The Shadows of Undrentide, co-developed by Floodgate, said to be composed of several former members of Looking Glass. They also have posted a second Q&A with Dr. Greg and Dr. Ray about the second of these two new expansions, currently only going under the mysterious working moniker of XP2. Here's a bit about the Shadows of Undrentide from Paul Neurath:
Most everyone who's played Neverwinter Nights has a favorite monster, spell, or weapon that they'd like to see added to the game. So what we're doing with the Shadows of Undrentide expansion is adding a stack of new material and then building a new campaign to show it all off. The biggest additions would have to be the three new tilesets we've cooked up, a winter version of the rural tileset, plus a new desert and ruins tileset.
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27.
 
Re: Blegh
Dec 2, 2002, 17:52
27.
Re: Blegh Dec 2, 2002, 17:52
Dec 2, 2002, 17:52
 
Theres a couple of Ravenloft based ones which are VERY good - check the NW vault on IGN. I can't remember the name off the top of my head.
Epic rules would kick arse

PMB / Shodan
http://futilez.com
Avatar 4537
26.
 
Re: Blegh
Nov 30, 2002, 15:20
26.
Re: Blegh Nov 30, 2002, 15:20
Nov 30, 2002, 15:20
 
m19: As a preface, I'd like to note that I myself am a Daggerfall fan (although not Morrowind).

That aside, I'm not sure what you look for in quests if the very act of getting them seems to bother you.

When you mention those other games, you're making an implicit comparison... and out of the games you mentioned, I've played all but one (Wizardy; Final Fantasy doesn't count because it really doesn't fall into the same category as games like Morrowind or NWN).

None of them are, in my estimation, comparable to NWN. In most cases, this isn't because I think they're inferior, but because of the different approach various games have. I can type my fingers off about how they're different, but I don't think all of you lovely people want to hear about that.

NWN's quests aren't any more generic than any other game's. If you substitute "your 705th Daedric Whatsit worth 23k gp and/or alchemical ingredients" for "3gp," then you have a fair description of Morrowind's quests too, only minus the possibility of ever dying because it's so freaking easy. Quests based on hostile NPCs are an amusement; what NPC can remain hostile after being inundated with 5000 or so gold? Despite this glaring flaw, a number of quests are built around the idea of trying to win an NPC over.

Oversimplification aside, NWN's quests come in a variety that you rarely see, though they are often not as open ended as I'd like. I believe that this was a design decision; NWN is a bit more combat oriented than previous iterations of the series as a matter of style, but they didn't neglect a healthy variety of quests.

The Charwood and Uthgardt trial are two quests that readily come to mind as being unique in terms of what they have you do, while reflecting the fundamental premise of the game: kicking substantial portions of ass, D&D 3rd style.

The quest wherein you must go into the basement of the tavern in the docks district is another that expemplifies a lot of what I'm talking about. You can bribe the guy guarding the door; you can snag a key off someone; or you can go upstairs to the dwarf in the sauna and chat him up to find out the password.

Another gem is the dungeon race. I don't know about you, I'm always amused when the Infinity series of RPGs addresses the ramifications of adventuring being a part of the culture in Forgotten Realms.

By comparison, Morrowind succeeded in providing open-ended gameplay, but the quests themselves were sadly lacking in that regard, requiring a great deal of effort in the form of imagination and walking around for an hour, if nothing else. It was often the case that you'd solve a quest before you even got it, and since you don't get XP in Morrowind, it's more than a little disappointing when it does occur.

Judging from the speculative nature of your judgement of multiplayer, I'd wager you didn't try it. I found NWN to be just this side of easy in a satisfying kind of way in SP. Multiplayer is much more challenging, as the difficulty scales to suit your party. When my friends and I played, we all tried to play it like SP... and died within the first five minutes! We were a bit humbled, needless to say, and proceeded a bit more carefully from there on out.

You also shouldn't neglect the lessons learned from MP shooters; any game can be made instantly more fun by playing with good friends. It also helps if they're within earshot.

Oh, and as a side note... Ordinarily, I'd think you were crazy for sniping Bioware for adding additional content for a game that already has incredible replay value. Then again, you don't like the game, so I suppose you have your reasons.

That aside, I'm excited. NWN has great replay value as it stands, and three expansions (Witchwork, XP2, and SoU) in the works is nothing but good news to me. I only wish more RPGs continued to receive so much official content.

(Aside: I may try Tribunal, primarily because it attempts to address some of the issues I had with Morrowind, although I'm not really interested, really. It makes me sad.)

This comment was edited on Nov 30, 15:34.
25.
 
Re: what the
Nov 27, 2002, 22:28
25.
Re: what the Nov 27, 2002, 22:28
Nov 27, 2002, 22:28
 
SMA: "Then what the hell do you call The Winds of Eremor, To Heir is Human and The Dark Ranger's Treasure? All developed by Bioware employees with the Bioware name on the them."

Sorry about the abbreviation Maybe it's the difference between official material (from the Live Team) and modules produced by Bioware people for other reasons. All the modules you mention have a single author, not from the team and were, IIRC, produced primarily to explore different aspects of the game (sound, features added late, etc...). To be polite about it, maybe you should have looked into it before your parting "wtf".

*edit* Or looking back on his post, as crushbug said:

"Now we have released other little demo and example modules on the site to show off the potential of Neverwinter Nights, but we haven't actually released a new story-based module."

I think that pretty much sums it up. Pretty much proves that old "read before you reply" thing too.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 22:32.
24.
 
nice expansion
Nov 27, 2002, 17:18
24.
nice expansion Nov 27, 2002, 17:18
Nov 27, 2002, 17:18
 
--

This comment was edited on Jul 31, 2010, 22:33.
23.
 
Re: what the
Nov 27, 2002, 15:04
23.
Re: what the Nov 27, 2002, 15:04
Nov 27, 2002, 15:04
 
Then what the hell do you call The Winds of Eremor, To Heir is Human and The Dark Ranger's Treasure? All developed by Bioware employees with the Bioware name on the them. Christ, Bioware's own Live Producer doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 15:08.
22.
 
Re: Capped at level 20
Nov 27, 2002, 11:50
22.
Re: Capped at level 20 Nov 27, 2002, 11:50
Nov 27, 2002, 11:50
 
Bitter much red? I played through the entire Single Player campaign during patches 1.x to 1.26 and I only had two problems which I easily worked around. I admit I've only played with the druid class, but *shrug* I greatly enjoyed the game. I spent way too many nights up late playing it

"Bioware refuses to list fixed bugs". Because they don't know what the fixed bugs are until the new patch. If you've noticed they *do* list them in the changelogs when the new patch comes out

21.
 
Re: Capped at level 20
Nov 27, 2002, 11:10
Red
21.
Re: Capped at level 20 Nov 27, 2002, 11:10
Nov 27, 2002, 11:10
Red
 
Do any of you here still play NWN? I used to be die-hard long, long ago, but eventually gave up in frustration because of the number of bugs the game had. I occassionally read the patch infos, but it seems Bioware refuses to list fixed bugs if they were embarrassed about them in the first place and hoping no one knew they existed. So I have no way to tell if they ever fixed all those little issues (broken spells, skills, abilities, etc), and I could only come back if I knew these things had been addressed.

Avatar 8335
20.
 
Capped at level 20
Nov 27, 2002, 10:56
20.
Capped at level 20 Nov 27, 2002, 10:56
Nov 27, 2002, 10:56
 
It's not really true, is it?

Epic Level Handbook or, as a last resort, the epic level rules in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting?

Edit: Ooh, after actually reading the whole article, I revise my statement. Looks like they have some epic stuff planned. I can't wait.
It's much harder to create epic level adventures, though, because of the immense amount of options availible to player characters.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 11:02.
19.
 
Re: Blegh
Nov 27, 2002, 09:24
19.
Re: Blegh Nov 27, 2002, 09:24
Nov 27, 2002, 09:24
 
Can anyone suggest any good SP modules for NWN? I'm getting the hankering to play again...

18.
 
Re: Blegh
Nov 27, 2002, 09:16
18.
Re: Blegh Nov 27, 2002, 09:16
Nov 27, 2002, 09:16
 
The SP game it ships with is weak. The SP modules fans have been creating have some real gems out there, with a lot of variety in style. Playing the SP game it shipped with in MP is dumb; playing some of the terrific MP based modules that, again, fans have made is not.

NWN is a bit like Quake. Yeah, it comes with a 'game', but you're really buying an engine that is going to be used to build so much more than the 'example game' it comes with. If you bought a D&D rulebook and a two dollar adventure pamphlet would you claim D&D sucks because the game you got with it was weak?

17.
 
Blegh
Nov 27, 2002, 08:39
17.
Blegh Nov 27, 2002, 08:39
Nov 27, 2002, 08:39
 
Pass...

Like some of the posts below, I was also excited about NWN before it came out but was then totally underwhelemed by both its SP and MP experiences. SP was dumbed down beyond belief (each scenario amounted to get a quest, break open an endless amount of chests for 3gp, finish quest) and MP was just the same thing except with live people. How that's a saving grace is beyond me. "Why break chests alone when you can do it with friends online?!"

I love RPGs, everything from Daggerfall and Morrowind to Wizardry to Final Fantasy (shush) to M&M to the supposedly "inferior to NWN" Infinity games. But NWN just doesn't cut it, and personally I don't think two more expansions (sounds desperate ^_^) will save this one for me. But yahoo for the people who will play it, I guess.

m19

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 08:40.
Avatar 11406
16.
 
Re: what the
Nov 27, 2002, 07:10
16.
Re: what the Nov 27, 2002, 07:10
Nov 27, 2002, 07:10
 
im looking forward to the expansions. i really dig NWN and it's one of the few games that I've played after I've beat it. say what you want about the story, that's personal taste but I have no idea how anyone could say the game has bad graphics. the only fault in them i can see is the lack of robes.

dave snider
comicvine.com
15.
 
Duke Nukem Forever and Ever and ever and
Nov 27, 2002, 05:27
15.
Duke Nukem Forever and Ever and ever and Nov 27, 2002, 05:27
Nov 27, 2002, 05:27
 
Bwahahahaha you said Duke Nukem' Forever.

14.
 
Thief 3
Nov 27, 2002, 05:11
14.
Thief 3 Nov 27, 2002, 05:11
Nov 27, 2002, 05:11
 
Yeah, I know its being made, I'm just afraid its being made like Teamfortress 2 and Duke Nuken Forever are being made....

13.
 
Re: Looking Glass?
Nov 27, 2002, 05:09
13.
Re: Looking Glass? Nov 27, 2002, 05:09
Nov 27, 2002, 05:09
 
Theif 3 is being made.
by ion storm
which is another company comprised of several former looking glass employees.

===========================
these be words here

12.
 
Looking Glass?
Nov 27, 2002, 03:26
12.
Looking Glass? Nov 27, 2002, 03:26
Nov 27, 2002, 03:26
 
What is the NWN expansion crap? Those bitches better get back to work on Thief 3 before I cry...

...hey, I can dream can't I?

11.
 
Re: what the
Nov 27, 2002, 03:10
11.
Re: what the Nov 27, 2002, 03:10
Nov 27, 2002, 03:10
 
It sounds good to me. I've played D&D in one form or another since 1975 and I think they did a good job with NWN. If you read the interviews, you know they're adding prestige classes with Undrentide and perhaps epic level classes with the unnamed 2nd expansion. If you play the paper and pencil D&D 3E game, you know what that means. If you don't, trust me it's good stuff. Three new tilesets and other goodies like spells, monsters etc as well. Given the popularity of the game, in sales, online players, community size and productivity, etc., I imagine it will only keep building.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 03:14.
10.
 
Re: what the
Nov 27, 2002, 03:02
10.
Re: what the Nov 27, 2002, 03:02
Nov 27, 2002, 03:02
 
"all of the NWN modules produced by Bioware"

Sorry, but so far, we have only put out the Official Campaign that came with the game. We have yet to release another module for Neverwinter Nights. That will be our upcoming release from the BioWare Live Team here:

http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/module_witchwork.html

This will be a completely free for download module.

Now we have released other little demo and example modules on the site to show off the potential of Neverwinter Nights, but we haven't actually released a new story-based module.

Derek French
Producer - Live Team
BioWare Corp.

Derek French
Live Ops Producer
Beamdog
Avatar 5028
9.
 
Re: No subject
Nov 27, 2002, 02:59
9.
Re: No subject Nov 27, 2002, 02:59
Nov 27, 2002, 02:59
 
Not only was I unimpressed I was pissed off. The game is ugly (welcome to Blocko land!), boring, impossible to build anything good without a programmer doing your scripting. The main story, plot and the map layouts were very weak sauce.
No cloaks, robes, flying, teleporting, swimming, underwater stuff, shitty henchmen ai, lack of inv control, etc. the list goes on.
I can't believe Bioware made this POS, as I've loved all their other stuff.
Let's see from fresh FR games, please and thank you.


8.
 
Re: Two Camps
Nov 27, 2002, 00:23
8.
Re: Two Camps Nov 27, 2002, 00:23
Nov 27, 2002, 00:23
 
Hell, I want to know what happens to Aribeth!
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-Albert Einstein
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