Is this game still worth playing?

[Legacy_icywind1980]

               

You're about 2 generations off.  The colour depth and resolution of RPG Maker games wasn't achieved in consoles until 5th generation consoles (NES is third).

 

It really still looks like NES to me.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

I wish NES games could look as good as that.

(16.7 million colours, alpha transparency, 640x480 resolution, I mean.)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               FYI - Big sale at GOG for NWN and other D&D titles
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

It might be hard getting into NWN1 since the game, let's be honest, is extremely outdated by modern standards.

 

Are you mainly referring to the graphics here?  I mean, for the record, I recently tried Dragon Age: Inquisition's single player campaign (I've beaten both DA:O and DA2) and...the controls are significantly worse than NWN, to be frank.  Because the game expects you to control the whole party while having terrible party controls and default companion behavior that might be worse than NWN's all told...

 

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think NWN looks all that bad. I mean ofc it's not amazing graphics like in Witcher 3, but it is still a quite serviceable game.

 

I agree.  I think it's aged pretty well overall -- yeah, if you zoom in and nitpick certain stuff is ridiculous but looking at the screen doesn't make me wince in general or anything.

 

This is one reason why I still play NWN. Its almost as developed graphically as it would ever need to be. NWN2 took it too far in my opinion for what this is. The only thing NWN would really need is modern shaders and perhaps better lighting, but its otherwise perfect for what it needs to be. I can live with out postprocessing affects like bloom and blur and all that. And I don't need really complex environments. The 2.5 D environments are actually fine for what we do. It would be nice if it was a real 3D thing, but I'm not sure how this would affect modding or the speed at which the level information is translated from server to client.

 

Also agreed.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

One thing I'm wondering, given that I'm a noob when it comes to all these technicalities...

 

Why hasn't NWN graphics been improved as much as some other games with comparable visuals? Take Morrowind, for example.

 

 

I mean, I don't need such graphics. But just... why? Was it impossible to achieve? Or is it that just nobody cared enough?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               

I can't see a difference in that video from the capture on the left vs. the one on the right.


FP!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MayCaesar]

               

Are you mainly referring to the graphics here?  I mean, for the record, I recently tried Dragon Age: Inquisition's single player campaign (I've beaten both DA:O and DA2) and...the controls are significantly worse than NWN, to be frank.  Because the game expects you to control the whole party while having terrible party controls and default companion behavior that might be worse than NWN's all told...

 

Graphics, too, but I am talking not as much about graphics as about controls and mechanics. DAI is not a very good example of modern controls, since its controls were bombarded by criticism ever since it came out. But, say, soon after playing DAO I've always had a hard time returning to NWN games: the difference was so drastic in everything - combat fluidity, controls, visuals, inventory management, crafting, music and sounds...

 

NWN2 was much better in this to me personally. Camera there is quite weird, and ugly turn-based combat is still there, but at least controls are fine, you are not stuck controlling only PC, and visuals are good enough for me to feel that I am playing in a real virtual world, not in some set of ugly tiles pretending to be virtual world.

 

Then, again, my first Bioware RPG was KotoR. I imagine for people growing up on Infinity Engine games NWN graphics and controls might be good. It all depends on the point of reference: what is the threshold for you below which you have a hard time immersing yourself into games.

 

 

One thing I'm wondering, given that I'm a noob when it comes to all these technicalities...

 

Why hasn't NWN graphics been improved as much as some other games with comparable visuals? Take Morrowind, for example.

 

*video*

 

I mean, I don't need such graphics. But just... why? Was it impossible to achieve? Or is it that just nobody cared enough?

 

I might be wrong since I've never really dealt directly with textures and such, but I believe there are some fundamental flows in the engine the game was built around. Texture size is limited in the game, and it is incredibly small by modern standards. For example, the upper dimension of NWN cloak texture is 96 pixels, if I am correct. Modern textures often have resolution 4096x4096 and beyond, so the difference here is 40+ times. When most people have a monitor resolution of, at least, 1920x1080, sometimes higher (I play games in UHD, for example, that is 3840x2160), 96 pixel texture really isn't working well.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rogueknight333]

               

...Then, again, my first Bioware RPG was KotoR. I imagine for people growing up on Infinity Engine games NWN graphics and controls might be good. It all depends on the point of reference: what is the threshold for you below which you have a hard time immersing yourself into games...

 

Speaking as someone who came to NWN from the Infinity Engine games, I would say that far from making NWN look good, that experience initially hurt my appreciation for NWN, which seemed to me a much worse game by comparison, with noticeably inferior controls, class balance, and general gameplay. Party control in particular is simplicity itself in the Infinity Engine games, unlike anything in the NWN series, and apparently the Dragon Age series as well (not that I know much about the latter).

 

Your more general point, that one's ability to appreciate a game can be greatly affected by the expectations set up by previous games one has played, is correct however, and certainly an important thing to keep in mind. A graphical style, control system, or style of play one is not accustomed to can certainly be off-putting, and given that there are far more games out there than any one person can play, I can certainly understand people passing on games that have this effect and sticking to what they know. On the other hand, I have often found that if I am willing to work through my initial distaste for an unfamiliar system, I can come to quite enjoy many games that at first did not seem that promising (like NWN itself), coming to appreciate them for what they in fact offer rather than remaining disappointed that they were not what my initial prejudices led me to expect.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

 Party control in particular is simplicity itself in the Infinity Engine games, unlike anything in the NWN series, and apparently the Dragon Age series as well

 

No, party control in NWN2 is the same kind as in the Infinity Engine and Dragon Age: Origins.

 

But I agree that the Infinity Engine games are nicer looking.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MayCaesar]

               

Speaking as someone who came to NWN from the Infinity Engine games, I would say that far from making NWN look good, that experience initially hurt my appreciation for NWN, which seemed to me a much worse game by comparison, with noticeably inferior controls, class balance, and general gameplay. Party control in particular is simplicity itself in the Infinity Engine games, unlike anything in the NWN series, and apparently the Dragon Age series as well (not that I know much about the latter).

 

Your more general point, that one's ability to appreciate a game can be greatly affected by the expectations set up by previous games one has played, is correct however, and certainly an important thing to keep in mind. A graphical style, control system, or style of play one is not accustomed to can certainly be off-putting, and given that there are far more games out there than any one person can play, I can certainly understand people passing on games that have this effect and sticking to what they know. On the other hand, I have often found that if I am willing to work through my initial distaste for an unfamiliar system, I can come to quite enjoy many games that at first did not seem that promising (like NWN itself), coming to appreciate them for what they in fact offer rather than remaining disappointed that they were not what my initial prejudices led me to expect.

 

Interesting... I had the exact opposite experience with Infinity Engine games: I really disliked their art style, and I hated the controls with passion. They felt very sluggish and unresponsive. For example, to cast a spell, you need to first press F5 (if I remember correctly), then choose a spell, while in modern games you can choose a spell with one button press. Lack of any proper AI resulted in me pausing the game, issuing orders, unpausing it for a second, pausing again, issuing new orders and so on.

 

Now, an Infinity Engine game that I really liked in its gameplay and visual style was Planescape: Torment. Unfortunately, I played the English version back when I didn't know a word in English, and so the core of the game - the story - I managed to miss entirely. This game has a very high position in my list of games to play in the future.

 

I agree with you on working through initial distaste, and it is actually how I got into Bioware games in the first place. When I first tried KotoR, I disliked the controls and combat so much that I nearly quit 20 minutes into the game. But I decided to give it a chance, and in a couple of hours I was hooked. However, it didn't work for me in Baldur's Gate games: after having spent over 150 hours total in both of them, I still had to always struggle with my distaste. I desperately tried to focus on the story, ignoring other aspects I disliked, but I simply couldn't. In NWN1, I got to the point when I can ignore the things I dislike about the game and focus on the things I like - but that took over 200 hours of walking through 3 official campaigns. In NWN2, on the other hand, it took me maybe 2 hours to adjust to the camera settings and combat style, and I was playing it comfortably. Same in Dragon Age: Origins, everything felt very intuitive and easy to figure out. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rogueknight333]

               

No, party control in NWN2 is the same kind as in the Infinity Engine and Dragon Age: Origins...

 

It tries to be, but it is not implemented nearly as well. If there were no meaningful differences between them surely it would be inexplicable that I, who love the Infinity Engine's party control system, hate NWN2's? And I am hardly alone in preferring one over the other.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tchos]

               

Yeah, it is inexplicable to me, because I love both and don't see the difference.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

One thing I'm wondering, given that I'm a noob when it comes to all these technicalities...

 

Why hasn't NWN graphics been improved as much as some other games with comparable visuals? Take Morrowind, for example.

 

I mean, I don't need such graphics. But just... why? Was it impossible to achieve? Or is it that just nobody cared enough?

 

Well, yes, there was someone who came along and did something similar in the Neverwinter community.  The result of the first incarnation was called NWShader, which was strictly concerned with Neverwinter Nights 1 and which consisted of a series of builds/versions, some of which were better/more stable than others.  The second iteration of that was a multiple-game enhancer called VoodooShader, which was even more ambitious than the maybe-a-little-too-ambitious NWShader and which eventually appeared to topple over under its own weight.  No fault of it's creator, though.  Very talented and generous guy, in equal portions.  The problem was, after he was out of the picture, no one really had the skill set needed to "pick up the ball" and continue where he left off, even though he'd kindly made the source code available to the community.  I don't mean to mislead you, though, there are probably a lot of people still using NWShader.  Probably versions which have been recommended to them by their PW maintainers or similar.

 

There were a couple of insurmountable technical issues with NWShader, the first regarding a quirk of UV Mapping regarding how NWN orients (or auto-orients, to be more specific) certain ground and water textures on a tile, and which prevented bump-mapping from working well with them.  The second involved how NWN reads data assets from disk and was more a hindrance to further optimization than anything.  And yet, anyone with the skills necessary could not just pick up where PKPeachyKeen left off but also address a number of basic compatibility issues which are popping up more and more frequently as older OpenGL calls are depreciated.  Nothing flashy, but it could probably speed up the game a lot.

 

I hope that someday someone with the appropriate skills joins the community and helps us overcome those issues because I'm not sure the game will wind up getting the much-needed overhaul it deserves.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

It tries to be, but it is not implemented nearly as well.

 

I agree. Infinity Engine full party control is superior for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the ability to choose various rotatable formations.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

But, say, soon after playing DAO I've always had a hard time returning to NWN games: the difference was so drastic in everything - combat fluidity, controls, visuals, inventory management, crafting, music and sounds...

Opposite for me. As bad as some of the problems in DnD/NWN are, I dislike many things in DA:O even more. And DA:O did not have the modding scene with custom content to remotely the degree that NWN did/does. Where, mind you, people completely overhaul a lot of the game on PWs and in some campaigns. Some of my favorite music is from NWN but I can really only name two songs offhand that I recall from DA:O (opening theme -- loved the first 30 seconds or whatever, didn't like the rest as much and Leliana's Song itself).
 

Then, again, my first Bioware RPG was KotoR. I imagine for people growing up on Infinity Engine games NWN graphics and controls might be good. It all depends on the point of reference: what is the threshold for you below which you have a hard time immersing yourself into games.

I don't think "good" is the right term here. "Acceptable" might be better. On a personal level I don't care much about graphics -- shiny stuff is nice but not at the expense of gameplay. I think styles like WoW and TF2 look just fine, even if they're hardly photorealistic. And in something like NWN I'm also considerably zoomed out from the action so the fact my character has blocks for hands matters a lot less.

And NWN2? I literally only played it for like 15-20 minutes before getting so disgusted with the camera/controls that I just never touched the game again. And this is coming from a person who had played a wide variety of N64 games (in multiple genres ranging from Perfect Dark to Starfox 64 to MarioKart 64 to Donkey Kong 64 and so on), many PC games (in multiple genres ranging from Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun/Red Alert 2 to Lords of Magic to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron to Oregon Trail 1/2/3/4 and so on), and never before been so disgusted with a game's controls that I just thought it wasn't worth playing.

And it certainly took some adjustment to get used to the controls in some of those games...but at least I felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel if I figured out the controls.

It tries to be, but it is not implemented nearly as well. If there were no meaningful differences between them surely it would be inexplicable that I, who love the Infinity Engine's party control system, hate NWN2's? And I am hardly alone in preferring one over the other.

I agree. Infinity Engine full party control is superior for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the ability to choose various rotatable formations.

Tchos...isn't really good at paying attention to finer details of things, apparently. Just some friendly advice to not waste your breath on the subject.