Beamdog Announces Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition

[Nymera]

www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/11/20/beamdog-announces-neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition-for-pc.aspx

...and it's backwards compatable with all existing modules and haks!  (not sure about PWs yet)

The details:

▪Improved Display: Your portrait, combat bar, inventory, and other UI elements adjust in size based on your chosen resolution including 1080p and 4k.
▪Advanced Graphics Options: Pixel shaders and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Enable contrast, vibrance, and depth of field options as preferred.
▪Community Endorsed: Original developers have teamed with key members of the Neverwinter Nights community to curate important fan-requested improvements to support players, storytellers, and modders.
▪Backwards Compatibility: Works with save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights. A galaxy of community created content awaits.

Get hyped!  

[Eredruie]

Yaaaaaaaaaas!

[Ogre Time Yay]

I've been waiting for this for a long time now, hopefully they pull it off just right.

[Edge]

Still nothing from inside the black box though, I take?

[lurkerabove]

not holding my breath, self. Multiplayer didn't make it into BG Enhanced by the same developer. Multplayer will be the only reason to even buy it. Hopefully Beamdog realizes that.  

[allatum]

You'll need NWN EE to play on EE servers, so any server that updates will have to depend on all of its players making the switch too. Otherwise things should be compatible (I.E transfering the module/haks)

Everything will be 64 bit, and they're apparently fixing a lot of old bugs and default stack values.

It also sounds like they are opening up some of the hardcoded stuff, but no word on what exactly, yet.

In all, I'll buy it for 20 bux. At the very least the move could lead to more server traffic, which is rarely a bad thing

[Darvins]

Hmm that's not as good, understandable but not as good.

[Kymus]

Trent Oster, one of the devs, posted about it in the NWN group on Facebook here. It's a public group, so even non-facebook users should be able to read the posts.  There's mention of a GameSpy alternative that they're working on, and it sounds like it will likely go to Steam eventually as well. There's some other little bits in the discussion that go over my head, so read it if you want to know everything about everything .

Trent has encouraged everyone to continue discussion on the Beamdog forum here.

Trailer is here:

[Kymus]

Guys... what are we gonna do without the grass/water bug feature?? Full on shadows as well! Man, it'll be like it's 2004 and we're pumping everything up to max and letting it fly..... without the crashes. My body is ready

(seriously though, when I first saw the announcement, I had to check the date and make sure it wasn't April 1st )

[kothoses]

From the FAQ



Will the server browser work again?



Yes, the server browser has been rewritten so you can once again find servers for multiplayer. At this time the original NWN restrictions apply: The server host must be reachable at the external UDP address and port advertised through your NAT firewall.





Will 1.69 clients be able to connect to NWN:EE servers?



No. While save games and modules created in older versions of Neverwinter Nights are usable in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, NWN 1.69 players won't be able to connect to NWN:EE servers. Like all previous patches, we change the networking model continuously to allow us to implement new features and fix bugs. You will need the same NWN:EE client version to connect to an NWN:EE server.




Jason Knipe: The graphics engine has been updated so that everything runs through GLSL shaders, including the toolset. The shaders reproduce the old hardware T&L functionality from the original NWN, and were not meant to add detail or fidelity that did not exist in the original. However, this means that you can create and apply your own custom shaders in the game which opens up a wide variety of graphical possibilities.



Bernhard Stöckner: We've done a thorough security audit of the codebase, removing all known exploits and crash issues in the process. We have also addressed a great many engine, game and rules problems, as well as improved server performance significantly.



On the big feature front, we have done work as well. In addition to things mentioned elsewhere, you can expect to see a collection of new scripting commands and ini configuration flags, hak loading before character creation, area instancing, and much more as the beta will progress and bring in feedback.



Last, but not least, we've approached the NWNX developers and are actively helping them with a clean and complete rewrite of the codebase to the new release, so that the majority of server transitions will go as smooth as possible. Future patches will receive the same loving attention!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Graphically, other than the UI scaling, it looks nothing more than an ENB mod, there certainly wont be a massive jump in fidelity but if it gets a decent level of community support the cell shading functionality will make for some interesting possibilities for community created content to look really nice and crisp





I am hyped, but lets set expectations, Beamdog are just very committed modders in terms of what they can actually do, I do not get the impression they are reverse engineering the combat system for example, however there was one bit what was VERY interesting and I think Fire Wraith  might be happy with, (Haks loading before character creation).

[Garage Trashcan]

$20 is more than I'd be willing to spend. And as mentioned, reliant on the majority of playerbases jumping to the EE for the servers to want to transition and if server want to get more new players, then jumping to the EE whether or not most of their playerbase is on board.

[allatum]

Release Notes

Nice Fixes:

• • Fixed aggressive removal of spell uses for bards/
  sorcerers when charisma bonus is removed from
  the character
• Fixed an issue where placeables could get stuck
  open/closed
• Weapon Focus (Trident) should now work
  properly (Which means custom weapons may be possible, sometime?)
• Ensure that the module's desired HAK and TLK
  files are loaded before we attempt to start character
  creation within a multiplayer module (allows
  servers to specify their own set of additional base
  classes, races, et cetera)
• Area of Effect objects now move each time
  their creature moves (to prevent creatures from
  outrunning their own auras in busy areas).
• Custom-content added base classes can now be
  selected during character creation

[Kymus]

I'll def purchase it at some point. This is the only server I play on or have any real interest in playing on for as long as I can see, but this version really helps to extend the life of NWN much further since it will support current hardware and - egads - 4K resolution. I hope that at some point in the future we'd be able to transition to the EE.

(and after purchasing the EE, I'll have bought NWN around 5 or 6 times >_>)

[lurkerabove]

Still, to require both sides of the connection to be on EE is putting a huge burden on an already belabored building community for servers. I'm thinking about a couple PWs that are multiple servers large, and you're talking about having to convert to make it EE compatible.

Then, you're relying on the player base forking out the 20 bucks to keep playing on a PW on EE, so while they may tote that new potential players will come because we don't have to twiddle stuff out of the box to make NWN work, you also have to risk the attrition of players that won't bother to upgrade.

They will also be competing with GoG still offering the classic version of the game for anywhere from 5 bucks to occasionally free.

So what you end up doing is making a schism, the NWN community that stays on 1.69, and the community that moves on. In which case, I would project little net gain for either community.

CPP 1.71 put in fixes that allowed for backward compatibility in either direction from server to client. Seems to me Beamdog could have made such consideration.

But then, they're hedging bets on requiring a player base to shill out 20 bucks a pop.

[Edge]

Kinda surprised by the number of people not willing to part with $20.