I agree that topping NWN will be hard, if not impossible. We're certainly not trying to compete with NWN.
Neverwinter Nights is a game. It's a story, a campaign, a plot, and all those modules by all those authors. Behind that is an engine and a toolset that allow for those. If you could load those same modules and play that same story on a newer, faster engine, smoother framerate, better textures, higher resolution, smooth shadows... is that not worth running a quick installer?
I realize there are people who will just never be sold on this topic. There just isn't anything that can be said to convince them. If you find yourself (whoever you are) among that group, then know we're not trying to force you into trying anything new. If you're happy with what you have, more power to you. I hope it keeps you well for as long as you wish.
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However, if you are interested in a new way to play the same game, then you are the group this project is aimed toward. Imagine if you take the same old modules, the same campaign, the same models... run them in the new engine. Smoother animations and smoother framerates.
Look at Windows and new video cards: NWN runs slowly, the water is broken, it often lags even on high-end broadband connections.
I can run Mass Effect at high graphics, 1280x1024, shadows, textures on high, etc; at
twice the speed of NWN, same settings (and NWN's textures are far lower resolution). I've benchmarked it, NWN runs a lot slower than almost any other game. Even just being able to run it faster would be a lot of help for a lot of people, and while NWN does support plenty of old computers, an OGRE-based engine would support far more. OGRE scales from the PSP to the PS3, touching PCs, Linux, Macs and 360s on the way.
The power and performance are something that originally got me interested in this, there were optimizations that I was unable to write into NWShader and required a new core renderer. I tried patching some of this into NWN as it stands now, and the restrictions make it more difficult than writing a new engine.
Now add a powerful, commercial-grade database engine, one of the best render engines available anywhere, and high-end physics. A toolset that lets you access and customize every aspect of the game,
if you want. Power when you need it, but only when you want it. You can still use the features you've become comfortable with.
The key is we need players and builders to tell us what they want. That's the goal of a community engine. It does what the community wants and needs in the best way possible for us.
