Layoffs = No Future Patches?

[darcy]

at least updates for MOM and MOO1&2 for better graphics and advanced OS compatibility.

I doubt the source code is still available. It's usually thrown away if can't be exploited commercially anymore.

Closed source = Evil

[Araanor]

Originally posted by jscott991
Neverwinter Nights was no where near finished when released. Need I remind of you of the XP bug? The fact you couldn't complete the Host Tower chapter about 50% of the time because the battle on top would not start?

And they spent 5 years and gobs of people making it. The Aurora engine isn't even new, they used it in MDK2. NWN is a joke. Bioware rakes in the cash anyway.

If you wanted Diablo 3 or Dungeon Siege 2, you were largely satisfied.

No, Diablo has at least interactive combat.

[jscott991]

I didn't realize true DnD involved one player character walking around slaying dragons by themselves. I didn't realize true DnD was a non-party experience. Interesting. To think, I always thought DnD was about semi-realistic, party-based roleplaying. I guess I was wrong.

Perhaps I'll boot up NWN and slay the most powerful Red Dragon in the land with just my fighter again. I guess that's true DnD.

[Araanor]

When we're on the subject... check out Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil.

http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=31

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/385/385133p1.html

[Grumbold]

Any single PC can, when sufficiently powerful, defeat all monsters less powerful than themselves. NWN was designed primarily as a multiplayer experience and works best like that. It was given a SP element by popular demand and many players derive entertainment using it like that. Don't pretend that NWN is a non-party experience though. Even SP you had pets and henchmen should you choose to employ them.

[moomin]

Speaking of which, I just came back to Earth after a five-hour nonstop NWN session with my pals at work.

My team won! Wizards rule, sorceres drool, or somesuch...

NWN MP is insane fun. Doing it at work w/ the Man as DM is even better

[jscott991]

A henchman and a badger do not constitute a party. Especially given the atrocious state of henchmen AI in NWN. Its not even fair to BG and IWD to use the word party in the same sentence as NWN.

NWN was a dumbed down version of Diablo. It hacked and slashed the 3E DnD rules into bits and pieces and threw what was left into the game. The modding community might, by now, have made some things to make it interesting, but the game as released by Bioware and the game concept (one PC running around saving the world all by himself, with only a drone to help him) is not DnD and its barely roleplaying.

Originally posted by Grumbold
Any single PC can, when sufficiently powerful, defeat all monsters less powerful than themselves. NWN was designed primarily as a multiplayer experience and works best like that. It was given a SP element by popular demand and many players derive entertainment using it like that. Don't pretend that NWN is a non-party experience though. Even SP you had pets and henchmen should you choose to employ them.

[General Ludd]

What have I done?

[Araanor]

Funnily, Bioware sure takes the time to hype the nwn single player in their press releases.

http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/press_releases/nwngold/

"for the first time ever, a true translation of the D&D® ‘Dungeon Master’ to electronic entertainment."

Right.

Why release a full-worthy game when the modders will do it for you and you get to charge?

[moomin]

See, Osweld. This is what happens when you mention a great social game to people who are zealots enough not to have any friends - there'll be whining to high heaven about how the SP experiece is worse that the Quake XVII fraggin they're used to.

DnD isn't a SP experince. Whudavthunkit, eh?

[Grumbold]

Couldn't agree more. Amazingly you're expected to play D&D with friends. Those who can't find any try to tear apart the attached SP module because it only allows you to play one main character. It has just as much roleplaying as BG and IWD where their idea of roleplay is to try and get your main character to lay another member of the party or talk about their pet rodent every 23 seconds while obeying every command of the player like automatons. Thank god in multiplayer mode other players actually *gasp* do what they feel like instead of what the hivemind orders them to.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by jscott991
If they truly were fiddling around with MP bugs, then they are going to regret this decision, as they should.

I definitely disagree, if they did do an intensive job of cleaning up the bugs and polishing it up it will go a long way to making Quicksilver the ONLY COMPANY in the industry that doesn't program shoddy products.

Everyone associated with the game will have a glowing project to place in their work portfolio, the customers will be shocked that a game can actually work straight out of the box. In fact the only side that doesn't gain a benefit is Infrogrames who is world renown for producing low quality product so one game is going to make a dent in their reputation much.

[jscott991]

Pen and Paper DnD is a social experience. DnD computer games that take over 100 hours to complete are not usually.

But, I have played NWN, BGII, IWD, and IWD2 through as both single and multiplayer experiences. NWN's XP bug, its strange game crashes (for God's sake don't rest or be anywhere near a door when the game is saving), and its completely unimaginative campaign (I'm sorry, wasn't the game supposed to be set in the Forgotten Realms, because that's nothing like the FR the books present) make it the biggest disappointment in RPG's since Undermountain nearly killed the genre years ago.

Bioware sold the BG audience out to capitalize on the popularity of Diablo and Dungeon Siege. I wouldn't have any problem with that, except that they claimed they were making a 3E DnD product. There's about as much 3E Dnd in NWN as there will be in MOO3.

[Grumbold]

Sorry you didn't like the SP module added to a multiplayer product but you're overexaggerating its problems. NWN is the closest anyone has come to 3e D&D so far. I expect people to do a lot better in the future but IWD2 and PoR2 were poorer implementations of the ruleset.

Bioware were not attempting to please the BG or DS single player audience but the 3e D&D audience. Thats why you can log on, find a server (or set up your own) and play a 4 hour module with longstanding friends or complete strangers. A great boon for people like me whose old D&D cronies are now scattered over 600 miles. The construction toolset is fantastic and the beautiful worlds that budding DM's are creating with it are too. You're missing a lot if you sweep the game aside based on one SP module that was too short and too easy for hardcore BG fans.

[Araanor]

More NWN fun.

TOEE will be more faithful to 3e D&D than Bioware ever could. Just can't be without that neutered real-time, eh?