A spiritual sucessor to Neverwinter Nights at last

[Legacy_SatelliteMind]

               

https://www.kickstar...y-by-your-rules

This looks like the best chance of getting anything close to Neverwinter Nights for a long while. Thankfully it has already reached its inital funding goal a few days after the kickstarter was launched which shows how popular the idea is. The devs are pretty open minded and the community is made up of NWN and UO players so anyone from either game should feel pretty at home. The amount of customization avaibile to player run Shards is arguably even more than NWN with pretty much every aspect of the gameplay being modifiable. A dev already confirmed that it would be theoreticlly possible to write a D&D based ruleset as the Lua the scripting language their game is using is quite flexible. I encourage folks even if they do not choose to back the money wise just yet to sign up on the forums and make yourselfs a part of the community so that we NWNers have our voices heard in shaping this game.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Naeryna]

               

I will definitely try to play Shards.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

How can this be called a successor if it doesn't even have an offline component to it?

               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               

Its a fair point - its just an indie game, its not going to have serious graphics, story telling, or all the added extras you get from a A++ Game.

Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter nights 2 + Expansions had millions in their budget - these guys have 50k

 

They are basically creating a toolset, and integrating it with their online platform, and making it so they dont really have to create any content themselves, the players will basically pay for the game, and then make the content themselves, while the studio makes the cash from the content we make?

 

While that appeals to some people - it doesnt to me.

 

I personally think that Pillars of Eternity looks like a much more polished NWN Successor.

While I cannot speak for any modding capability - I can say it looks almost identical to a 3d enabled Baldurs Gate in terms of GUI and World Design.

 

The thing I really hate about Shards online, is that it looks and feels like your ice skating.

Eg: Your character takes 1 step, but travels 5 ft, regardless of his feel connecting with ground or not.

Whereas Neverwinter nights 1 -  one step really was one step, your actually connected to the ground, not gliding across it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

The thing I really hate about Shards online, is that it looks and feels like your ice skating.

Eg: Your character takes 1 step, but travels 5 ft, regardless of his feel connecting with ground or not.

Whereas Neverwinter nights 1 -  one step really was one step, your actually connected to the ground, not gliding across it.

 

Getting this right is tricky. I've seen procedural methods of getting the animation to work, and was really impressed by the work involved and the potential of inverse kinematic animations - but I've never done it. That said Neverwinter Nights does not do this. Its actually just careful trickery that makes the default animations scaled properly. The truth is that those characters are ice skating, BUT they have been trained not to look like it. Its impressive work in its own right.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kamal_]

               

If you can go to anyone's world, ingame and at any time, and the kickstarter video promotes that, then builders don't really have control over loot or game rules despite the claim that they will. Nothing would stop someone from making a shard of "Everyone who logs in gets a +12 Hackmaster" and then going off to your low magic permadeath PvP world.

 

It will likely also suffer from the problem of 'if everyone can make something, everyone can make something'. Neverwinter Online has this problem with their Foundry, 99% of everything is crap and loot farms run the place.

 

They don't address those problems, and the nature of their game (everything and everyone connected) is such that I don't believe it can be successfully addressed.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Speaking of potential successors, has anyone here looked into Divinity: Original Sin yet? I have been curious about it since the release (and really since hearing about its success as a Kickstarter project). But, I have been waiting to see some impressions from people who are NWN fans when we have had a chance to play it and get a feel for the online/MP features and the modability aspect and ease-of-use of its toolset/editor. Has anyone here played this yet or poked around with it under the hood?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kamal_]

               

Speaking of potential successors, has anyone here looked into Divinity: Original Sin yet? I have been curious about it since the release (and really since hearing about its success as a Kickstarter project). But, I have been waiting to see some impressions from people who are NWN fans when we have had a chance to play it and get a feel for the online/MP features and the modability aspect and ease-of-use of its toolset/editor. Has anyone here played this yet or poked around with it under the hood?

At least one of nwn1/2 modders have (and she has a vault Hall of Fame for her nwn1 module). http://forum.bioware...wn2/?p=17568355

 

relevant part:

"I, like you Tchos, watch the modding scene pretty closely and was pretty interested in Div:OS when it was in development.  Unfortunately the editor is not really in a usable state for anyone other than the most hard core of modders.  As mentioned, building anything is a massive chore with even the simplest functionality being handled through scripting or outside file editing.  It is not, nor do I believe it will ever be, a GUI driven modding tool like NWN/NWN2.

 

Besides the fact that it is missing a ton of modding features, it is really difficult to use.  It was made by coders for coders.  It was never really intended for the masses to use or understand.  It was designed as a development tool for a development team, not a hobby modder.  Just watch any of the tutorial videos and you will see what I'm talking about."

 

Also, MP capped at 4 or six players, no PWs.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

I'm waiting for the price to drop to sensible levels. I have read that the game as it stands, while playable, isn't really finished yet.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Ouch! Thanks. Obviously, both of those comments push me more into a wait-and-see position regarding D:OS.

 

Sadly, even though I am a coder and could probably deal with that aspect of their modding, it's a real disappointment that the modding is seemingly inaccessible to most people. I know that, at some point, a developer has to reign in work on (what they see as) secondary functionality and finish a shippable game. But, addressing that modability issue should really be a priority for them. A winning strategy, as I see it, for a game to develop an enthusiastic player-base and be a long-term favorite is to make it a platform on which people can express their own creativity and passions. Leveraging the player base to improve and extend the game can take it to the next level. It's when the developer provides tools so that people can make the game their own that some fraction of normal players become fanatics and collectively pour tens of thousands of hours of their own time into making something that they love and that others will want, too.

 

Really, I wouldn't mind another SP game with only the dev's own campaign, if that's all it turns out to be. But, really, there are loads of games like that already out there vying for my dollars and there are still dozens of NWN modules on my list to play...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Urk]

               

No. 


First, no DM client. Second, no offline mode. It's just an MMO with a foundry client. 


This isn't even remotely interesting afaic.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_fiendish55]

               

No. 


First, no DM client. Second, no offline mode. It's just an MMO with a foundry client. 


This isn't even remotely interesting afaic.

 

 

If you would have made any research before giving these "I think" comments you would know it has DM client and full customizable expect few hard coded things like network code, overally its way more customizable than neverwinter nights ever was amen

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_icywind1980]

               

It kind of looks pretty, but I think I'll stick with NWN. I can't really get into a game where I have to be online all the time.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

My main issue with Shards Online right now is it looks quite visually unpolished - character models lack detail and animations look stiff as of last preview. I like the concept though, and hopefully they can raise enough funds to make it look prettier.

 

Or they could throw animations open to modders like ACP for NWN.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Kossith123]

               

Kick starter games will never be that good imo, unless the funding is just too big, like that one with $6m+ donations >_<

 

If the gameplay and camerca controls were like NwN1/2, I would look into it, but this just looks like any typical MMO.