Beamdog Announces Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition

[Kymus]

If anyone hasn't seen it already, there was a live stream from Beamdog a few days ago on Twitch. You can see it here. I'm watching it now ^^

[Garage Trashcan]

Nov 24, 2017 18:58:05 GMT -5 Arya Kalarathri said:

Nov 24, 2017 17:32:00 GMT -5 Edge said:

As long as I can tell what I'm looking at, the graphics are still pretty low on my priority list. Nicer graphics are nice, but very much not at all my focus.

+1 

Riding on what Ryoko said earlier, one thing I would love to see is a NWN revival (as in revival of interest), or at least a chance of it. What is killing NWN servers so far is not even exclusively one factor or another in most of the existing communities (a 'bad' admin in a place, or graphics, or whatever). It is the lack of new players coming into the place and keeping the dynamic element. We are not getting any newer players. Part of why, even though it can be hard sometimes, I am trying very hard to think the best of our community and reasons to be grateful for it, even in our ups and downs. Even if I might fail to help much.

Quality of the game and story will always beat graphics. Them addressing some of the concerns though as Allatum had pointed out is a nice bonus. :-) 

Best wishes,
Arya

With the overwhelming popularity of 5e, maybe a re-release can bring some life to the online RP worlds. While the mechanics of NWN and 5e are completely different, it's a small hurdle to get over if you just want to RP. And Sword Coast Legends was such a colossal failure, I doubt we'll ever see a good video game adaptation of D&D 5e.

[Kymus]

I spent last night and this morning watching both livestreams (because I'm obsessed ). For those that don't have 3+hrs of time to spare, here is the short version:

• The goal is to add to the game without breaking it or require an overhaul of everything
• You are very very very strongly encouraged to go to the Beamdog forum and tell them your wishlist
• They would like to remake the models, but it'll probably never happen because that would break the custom content
• Livesteams will be every Friday on Twitch in the afternoon and they'll discuss Beamdog stuff (BG, IWD, NWN, etc.)
• It sounds like they want to make transparent items (like helmets) a thing by being able to toggle equipped stuff's visual off and on
• They've got something or other that will make it easier to change the colours of equipped stuff (it was demonstrated briefly)
• A UI overhaul would be cool but it will take a long long while (Trent Oster said "years")
• If for whatever reason Beamdog goes out of business, they said they would likely give the source code for the server list to someone else
• No native linux support for the toolset because something something C++, but they can try to make it play better with WINE
• There will be 64bit support
• They want to support NWN for as long as possible. Trent said that Baldur's Gate is on year 5, as an example
• Merchandise is something they're looking in to (legal BS involved)
• Change the 64-player limit on servers to a number modern computers can handle
• An update to 3.5e rules is unlikely; that would require recoding everything (and you're def not getting 5e)
• Character scaling will be a thing. You can make a kitten-sized dragon or a dragon-sized kitten
• Downloading custom content on login instead of via the web is a possibility
• mobile support is something they want to look in to (playing NWN on our phones/tablets?? We're living in the future!)

The key points that were repeated over and over again were: they want to add to the game and make it better (and open it up to more customization from the community) without breaking it and having to recode everything, and you really should go to the Beamdog forum and tell Santa what you want (many times, and loudly).

It also sounds like (based on the questions asked) there is a good deal of renewed interest in NWN from people that haven't played it in ages and even people that may have never played it, ever. But that's just my educated guess because some questions were very noobish.

[Autumn]

I'd pay 20 but I am gonna raise the obvious q......if CD switches to it........will our chars come?


And would CD need to be totally rebuilt mod up?

[Edge]

Everything should transfer over. It's more like a patch than a new game in that regard.

[Dismus]

I have been playing with the Beta. It is pretty fun and pretty.

[Ogre Time Yay]

I hope they add a sort inventory button, it's hell keeping ones inventory organized.

[Nokteronoth]

You can suggest it on their forums, Ogre. You just need to go on and request it, I think they wanted to build a list of features that players would enjoy.

~BR

[Kymus]

For those interested, here's a summary of what was discussed during the livestream last Friday.

• The texture size limit will be increased from 64mb and this will be in the .ini file to help make it more flexible in the future
  
• There will be new content released in the future. Trent Oster says that he feels that mini-expansions would be the best way to do this
• This could also bring in something like new tilesets
• The latest version of NWN:EE will support changing the color of individual armour parts (like we do already, but supported natively. The very short demo that was provided previously makes it seem that more colors will be supported)
• Invisible helmets, or rather, turning off helmet appearance will be supported
• They're experimenting with improvements to the water shader
• They're looking in to adding support for resizing PCs much like how you will be able to resize monsters from big to small
• More quick slots will require a new UI
• This would be a "big thing" and will take some time to do. (though Trent says he really wants to "go to war" on the UI, but again, it'll take a while)
• There will be a new NWNX version released this week and a lot of the functionality will be moved in to core NWN
• The tool set will be expanded upon, albeit cautiously, as it was written in borland C++ and as such it's delicate
• A "loot all" feature on chests and such is a possible feature; it's been a very popular request
• As always, if you want to see a feature added, then go to the forum and suggest it. Trent and the team have been reading and taking notes
  

[FaeFae]

Hey, thanks for the updates! I love not having to dig.

[Eredruie]

[Edge]

No word yet on the Sorc/Bard thing?

[Kymus]

Dec 6, 2017 0:56:57 GMT -5 FaeFae said:

Hey, thanks for the updates! I love not having to dig.

I'm good for more than just asking questions and disappearing for months

edit: sometimes

[Kymus]

Dec 6, 2017 13:42:33 GMT -5 Edge said:

No word yet on the Sorc/Bard thing?

I presume this is about the prestige class bug? No word, though I imagine that this would be fixed in the release. I've seen a few people mention it on the forum

[Edge]

Yeah that's what I meant. I knew it had been brought up a few times, but was curious if they'd responded about it in any way.