Neverwinter Nights: EE - Fans help Devs

[HiddenX]

PC Gamer reports that Beamdog listens to the Neverwinter Nights community while rebuilding the Enhanced Edition:

How devs and fans are coming together to rebuild Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights was always about the community, and now they're helping bring it back to life.

[...]

"Neverwinter Nights is all about the community," Oster says. "We went to the community even before we had the license." Oster looked for active leaders, going as far as to hand out non-disclosure agreements and extending employment offers. Those superfans turned consultants became known as the Advisory Council.

It takes a village
"I think this approach of bringing on community members and seeking feedback was exemplary," says Bernhard 'Niv' Stockner. "I wish more game studios would do that for EEs, sequels and remasters. Especially with NWN having built up a solid, opinionated community, doing it this way was absolutely necessary."

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

More information.

 

[daveyd]

I'm hopeful that the EE release will rekindle interest in NWN module creation. The Sanctum of the Archmage creator is now considering finishing his series because of it.

But I absolutely can't see myself dropping money on Beamdogs "enhanced" edition, which I doubt will offer much in the way of improvements (at least nothing that you can't already get from the modding community for free).

I know this won't happen, but it'd be a nice gesture on Beamdog's part if they worked with GOG to offer EE as an "upgrade" for everyone who already owns NWN Diamond. Asking people to pay ~$20? for a 16 y/o game they already own is ridiculous. I might be willing to give them a few bucks (assuming there's some enhancements I actually care about) but definitely not full price. I think I bought BGEE on day one like a sucker. Fool me once…

I just hope new modules created in the EE will still be compatible with vanilla NWN.

 

[Lucky Day]

I'm going to ask them at some point for the following features

• animations for jumping, climbing, flying, levitating, falling, and swimming
• left handedness
• no cap limit on persistent worlds
• server history based on dynamic name, not IP address
• visible servers from the same box/ip
• stabbing animation - not just chopping or swinging
• option to turn off audio and animations with spell casting
• small boat appearances
• inability to see through walls and doors on the in game map
• proper overland map

 

[you]

Good luck getting any of those.

I'm going to ask them at some point for the following features

• animations for jumping, climbing, flying, levitating, falling, and swimming
• left handedness
• no cap limit on persistent worlds
• server history based on dynamic name, not IP address
• visible servers from the same box/ip
• stabbing animation - not just chopping or swinging
• option to turn off audio and animations with spell casting
• small boat appearances
• inability to see through walls and doors on the in game map
• proper overland map

 

[rjshae]

Keeping the technology backwards compatible will undoubtedly limit whatever they are going to do with this project. You can only beautify NWN so far before running into constraints due to allowed poly count, &c. Plus the style is generally cartoonish. I'd prefer a proper port to a modern game engine, accompanied by a complete refresh of the assets.

 

[Lucky Day]

Looks like add a new tileset has been added to the Trello board

That makes it one step closer to reality and being more of an expansion than a patch/premium mod.

Someone proposed levels beyond 40. That would be the last step IMO to make it to the level of expansion. That and a cool box.