Neverwinter nights

[deanwilkinson20]

I wasnt sure where to post this however after your recent success with bringing back some of the nostalgics of the old time rpgs would you ever consider a neverwinter nights 3 or a kickstarter thats dnd?  I remember playing nwn 1 especially for like 5 years and to this day i remember it to one of my faves of all time  and neverwinter nights 2 for sometime.  thanks

 

1490998181.4 sec.

[Heijoushin]

^--- I love people who directly address the devs. (I'm afraid they don't respond much on the forums)

 

I also love NWN. But since Obsidian now has their own DnD-esque setting in the form of Pillars, I can't see that they'll go through all the legal hoops just to get another (arguably similar) DnD game. All their creativity and resources will probably go to Pillars.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Madscientist]

I did not really like NWN1.

NWN2 was much better (though buggy) and MotB had one of the best stories ever.

 

I think the most importent selling point for those games was the ability to create your own maps, items and classes with the modding tool.

Some people have created very good games with those tools.

 

At the moment they work one PoE2 which will be single player only.

But I would be happy about a new game where you can make your own games easily.

The setting does not matter much (Eora, DnD, Numenera, . . . ) because you can create it yourself

The game gives you the basic rules and the tools to create own things.

Imagine a game with the PoE rules set in stone age or outer space. Round grey aliens worship godlikes as their gods (sorry, those smileys just inspired me)

 

PS: I think all games I know who allow you to create an own map where either similar to the RPG maker or they were a full 3D environment.

Does a tool exist that allows you to make a 2D real time with pause RPG like BG yourself? (No need for great visual effects, BG1 style is enough).

The hardest part would be painting your own map. I am a terrible artist, but some people might create something great.

Or you copy the maps of BG2, but each door is connected to a different location than you are used to and the entire world is inhabited by xaurips.

[Guard Dog]

NWN had one thing going for it: mods. It was a modders paradise and we ended up with hundreds of hours of high quality gaming time because of it. We also had thousands of hours of nit so good gaming time because only one in every ten was any good. If you only played the boxed campaign you were likely disappointed because it was terrible. The two expansions were better though. NWN2 was an improvement in that the story was much better and the game looked nicer. But it was still bound hand and foot to the D&D canon and therein lies the problem. THAT isn't that good.

When a company makes a game based on their own IP the result is usually much better. I though PoE was simply outstanding as far as the quality of the story goes. But the Obsidian guys usually crank out the best dialogue and story-lines. If KOTOR II had been made thy way they wanted to make it is would have been the best SW game ever. FONV was the best FO title since FO2 I think.

I'd rather play an original IP than another continuation of someone else's license.

[Volourn]

NWN = DA BEST GAME EVAR.

 

'Nough said.

 

NEXT.

[Guard Dog]

You have a framed picture of Aribeth on your wall don't you? Admit it!

[Darkpriest]

NWN was a game one of a kind. NWN2 had improved SP aspect of it, but unfortunately the MP aspect suffered heavily. NWN was MP paradise - I've spent YEARS in the MP with some of the most memorable RP action and a handful of real great worlds. It is still available, although the only one i recall beign on a decent+ level and still working is Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist.

 

Other great worlds vanished - some tried to port to NWN2 but it seems all eventually died there

[Amentep]

The likelihood of a licensed DnD game being kickstartered has to be fairly low, I think.

[CrumpetsForBreakfast]

People bring up Obsidian making a new NWN successor often but realistically I don't think experience shows that they are a company focused on modding. Bioware and Bethesda games are known to be more modding friendly but Obsidian makes games like Pillars of Eternity with technology that doesn't lend to a lot of modding.

 

A friend of mine told me that NWN was a perfect storm for that kind of game that wont be repeated. I'm inclined to think that might be true especially for a commercial game with a product license. I think it's possible future Obsidian might make something that has modding like Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age but not like NWN.

 

Pathfinder is interesting because it uses the OGL license which is public and free for anyone to use commercially or privately as long as you comply with the terms. Paizo owns the Pathfinder brand, the setting Golarion, and various product identities not released under the OGL. So it would effectively be two licenses, one public from Wizards of the Coast that every derivative work has, and one private from Paizo.

 

Some indie games just use the OGL license by itself so I guess anyone can do it for free as long as they follow the letter of the law. Some things have Wizards of the Coast copyrights like Forgotten Realms, Neverwinter city, Drizzt, Planescape, The Great Wheel cosmology, Mind Flayers, Beholders, some other monsters, the exp amount rewarded per monster. Not even Pathfinder can include those things legally, it has to be an official D&D brand licensed product to use any of that.

[Madscientist]

Like I said, I do not care if it is DnD or another system as long as we get a good game.

NWN1 and 2 were 2 completely seperate games that where set in the same universe, used a similar rule set (DnD 3 or 3.5) and where modder friendly.

I would be very happy if they make a new game with a great single player story ( I never did multi player) and if they add a modding tool that allows you to create maps yourself and has multi player it would be even greater. If I get that they can call it PoE3, NWN3, arcanum 2, fallout 10 or whatever they want.

 

DnD (or anything else) is just a set of rules. What you make of it is up to your own imagination (or the imagination of the devs in case of a computer game). If the devs use their own IP, they can make the rules themselves and they don´t have to pay anyone for a licence.

[rjshae]

PS: I think all games I know who allow you to create an own map where either similar to the RPG maker or they were a full 3D environment.

Does a tool exist that allows you to make a 2D real time with pause RPG like BG yourself? (No need for great visual effects, BG1 style is enough).

The hardest part would be painting your own map. I am a terrible artist, but some people might create something great.

Or you copy the maps of BG2, but each door is connected to a different location than you are used to and the entire world is inhabited by xaurips.

 

One possibility would be to create a highly detailed 3D map in NWN2, then use some type of software interface to scan it into a 2D image for an isometric game like ToEE or BG2. Perhaps this will become possible with Xoreos?

[CrumpetsForBreakfast]

If you don't have complete adventure creation, multiplayer, DM/GM client, server, scripting language, and suite of tools to easily replicate table top games graphically in 3D then it's not an NWN game or an NWN spiritual successor.

 

If you don't want any of that stuff or never used it or cared for it then Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny can be your "NWN" sequel because they're good single player stories. If people want Pillars to allow modding that's still not the same as what NWN provided but it might be interesting none the less. Doing multiplayer in Pillars would be interesting too.

[RangerSWG]

People bring up Obsidian making a new NWN successor often but realistically I don't think experience shows that they are a company focused on modding. Bioware and Bethesda games are known to be more modding friendly but Obsidian makes games like Pillars of Eternity with technology that doesn't lend to a lot of modding.

 

A friend of mine told me that NWN was a perfect storm for that kind of game that wont be repeated. I'm inclined to think that might be true especially for a commercial game with a product license. I think it's possible future Obsidian might make something that has modding like Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age but not like NWN.

 

Pathfinder is interesting because it uses the OGL license which is public and free for anyone to use commercially or privately as long as you comply with the terms. Paizo owns the Pathfinder brand, the setting Golarion, and various product identities not released under the OGL. So it would effectively be two licenses, one public from Wizards of the Coast that every derivative work has, and one private from Paizo.

 

Some indie games just use the OGL license by itself so I guess anyone can do it for free as long as they follow the letter of the law. Some things have Wizards of the Coast copyrights like Forgotten Realms, Neverwinter city, Drizzt, Planescape, The Great Wheel cosmology, Mind Flayers, Beholders, some other monsters, the exp amount rewarded per monster. Not even Pathfinder can include those things legally, it has to be an official D&D brand licensed product to use any of that.

 

 

Essentially this is what I would say as well. NWN out of the box was mediocre. But NWN with the Aielund Saga, Swordflight, the Kosigan series, Thain, Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist, and other high quality SP and MP FREE downloads was a treasure. NWN2 did not succeed to that degree, IMHO, because it was painful to mod in compared to NWN1. I also have a hard time ascribing 'good campaign' to the NWN2 OC. Parts of it were every bit the slog the NWN1 OC was. Hordes of the Underdark was a good XP. Mask of the Betrayer is the only reason to play NWN2, IMHO. But neither would have the lifespan that Morrowind had, (and indeed, both were inferior to what is, IMHO, the best of the ES games by far), if not for the modding community.

 

I have a hard time believing any major studio today would hand players a kit as simple, powerful, and accessible as the NW Toolkit today. I don't think Atari would have THEN if they had known how much gameplay was going into FTP resources. Even the Bethsoft kits, as frequently lauded as they are, only work within the basic framework of the existing game. None of them allow the kind of open creation flexibility the NWN kit provided. And anything that didn't have that as an intrinsic aspect of the product would be the cheapest of cash grabs. 

[rjshae]

NWN2 did not succeed to that degree, IMHO, because it was painful to mod in compared to NWN1.

 

Well, over the years a lot of fallacies have been ascribed to NWN2, and this is one of them. For example, pretty much any model in NWN can be ported over to NWN2, then further improved. Both games use many of the same scripts plus 2da files for data storage. The main headaches with NWN2 is the extensive use of placeable models and the flexible exterior area building tool. Both are powerful methods, but much more labor intensive than in NWN. Beyond that, the two games are not that different from a toolset perspective.

 

Once you're over the learning curve (and both NWN and NWN2 have one), it's just not that difficult to create models for NWN2. I've built and ported many myself.  Meanwhile, NWN can't support the textures sizes and poly counts that NWN2 can, and with NWN2 you get normal mapping, LoD, and tinting capabilities. This (and many other reasons like full party control) is a big reason why it made sense to port  games like Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, and Icewind Dale to NWN2.

Edited April 7, 2017 by rjshae

[Guard Dog]

For me the hardest part of NWN2 toolset was the heightmapping for the exterior areas. Interiors used tilesets like NWN1 and were much easier. But like rjshae said it was just about learning how. The thing that botheres me most about NWN2 mods though was the voice, or lack of it. NWN1 was the last of the text dialogue games really. And in NWN1 it was not terrible disruptive to read text in game. With NWN2 the game camera zooms in on the characters speaking and doing that text only just didn't look good. It looked fine when there was actual VO.

 

Just my $0.02.

[CrumpetsForBreakfast]

rjshae it's not a fallacy but it's very nuanced, NWN2 has newer graphics but that's where it stops and everything else is worse for modding.

 

If you think you can make a way to port all of the customization options in NWN over to NWN2 then go ahead you will be a hero for solving such a big issue. Characters in NWN2 have much fewer color channels and every outfit in NWN2 is what is called a robe in NWN which eliminates customization for each body part. NWN also had much more character animation mods because of how simple it was, different combat and walking styles too. The animation mod pack that NWN2 has are creepy and uncanny valley "intimate poses" by someone that obviously never had any experience or artistic feeling for it, so obviously something went wrong. If it was so easy why did nobody do better?

 

NWN also has mounts, mounted combat & ride skill, including horse mounts, spider mounts, monster mounts, dinosaur mounts, drawn carriage mounts. NWN2 only had horse mounts but they were never properly finished or animated properly.

 

NWN2 never got more new wing or tail types while NWN mods added infinite amount of tails, infinite amount of wing variations. That also includes mods for flying animations in NWN which don't exist in NWN2.

 

Also the tools you need for NWN2 animations are proprietary and costed thousands of dollars and aren't remotely available anymore but the tools that work with NWN are still functional and free.

 

NWN2 has things like bumpmaps and tintmaps but ultimately fewer options and harder to mod, so it's just more complicated.

 

As for building areas in NWN you could build an area in less than 10 minutes, the variations around each tile were automatically generated unlike NWN2 but you could use tools to change that if you like.

 

NWN2 has graphical superiority over NWN on account of the first game being made in the late 90s before modern graphics hardware existed. Other than that NWN is a modding paradise but NWN2 is extremely restrictive in comparison. Many NWN modders tried NWN2 and then went back when they found out the restrictions.

 

It's like the NWN2 modding community is still playing catchup with NWN's first or second year so it can't be that great.

 

 

[Volourn]

"But neither would have the lifespan that Morrowind had, (and indeed, both were inferior to what is, IMHO, the best of the ES games by far),"

 

WRONG. BIGLY WRONG. Even at its worse, the NWN series is vastly superior to the crap known as the ES. The ES is probably the worst BY FAR 'popular' PRG series of all time. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

[deanwilkinson20]

^{That's a shame im glad others share the same opinion though. I just thought neverwinter nights was amazing online}

[deanwilkinson20]

I liked both neverwinter nights though i prefered one. One seemed less cluncky and it was awesome to caste twice as fast with haste. Made you really feal bad ass. Aribeth was awesome and her voice set

[rjshae]

Characters in NWN2 have much fewer color channels and every outfit in NWN2 is what is called a robe in NWN which eliminates customization for each body part.

 

Not quite. Each armor type has a multitude of variations for different body parts, so it is highly customizable. Every piece of armor can be custom tinted, with each having its own tint map and channels. It's not that different really. Plus the graphics looks much better -- NWN are all angular low-poly models that look dreadful in closeup.

 

Also the tools you need for NWN2 animations are proprietary and costed thousands of dollars and aren't remotely available anymore but the tools that work with NWN are still functional and free.

 

That's the one area where I feel there is a lack. There's the free product GMax, which provides some of that capability.

 

NWN also has mounts, mounted combat & ride skill, including horse mounts, spider mounts, monster mounts, dinosaur mounts, drawn carriage mounts. NWN2 only had horse mounts but they were never properly finished or animated properly.

 

NWN2 never got more new wing or tail types while NWN mods added infinite amount of tails, infinite amount of wing variations. That also includes mods for flying animations in NWN which don't exist in NWN2.

 

True, but I haven't found these to be particularly important. They're niche areas.

 

As for building areas in NWN you could build an area in less than 10 minutes, the variations around each tile were automatically generated unlike NWN2 but you could use tools to change that if you like.

 

Yes, the NWN2 area building tools are more powerful and allow vastly more variety, at a cost in longer building time. Sure you can throw together a cheesy NWN area in no time flat, as you can with an NWN2 interior area. But the remainder of the module takes just as much work in NWN as it does in NWN2 (scripting, conversations, custom creatures, sound placement, traps, &c.), and that is where I find myself spending much of the time.

[rjshae]

Here's a couple of recent creature projects for NWN2:

• Ooze -- 
• Larva -- 

Kalister's still learning creature animation, but to me they look pretty decent.

[CrumpetsForBreakfast]

rsjae it's great that you and a small few of the dedicated people with copies of the now completely unavailable tools are still plodding along making new content. On the other hand you had all sorts of oozes and worms like a decade ago for NWN. It's 10 years too late for NWN2 modding to start playing catch up.

 

You should also not brush off the things I've mentioned to you. Your armor in NWN2 is definitely not as customizable. What you're referring to is "armor parts" which float over the armor mesh rather than customizing the armor mesh itself. It is not possible for example to have a pale master with a bone arm like it is in NWN by default on any armor you're wearing. If you wanted that the same for NWN2 you have to make a separate mesh of the entire armor just for a bone arm variant for every single armor mesh. That's not friendly to modding!

 

I think you also misunderstand the tint issue. NWN2 has 3 tint channels. Here's a list of the channels NWN has that you can change and override:

Skin, Hair, Cloth 1, Cloth 2, Leather 1, Leather 2, Metal 1, Metal 2, Tattoo 1,Tattoo 2

 

NWN body sections include:

Head, Neck, Shoulder 1, Shoulder 2, Bicep 1, Bicep 2, Forearm 1, Forearm 2, Hand 1, Hand 2, Torso, Pelvis, Thigh 1, Thigh 2, Shin 1, Shin 2, Foot 1, Foot 2, Belt, Cloak, Robe

 

Just from that anyone understands that NWN has more options for character customization, an endless amount of permutations as each part has hundreds of variations. If you wanted that in NWN2 you have to rebuild the body system from scratch and use the floaty "armor parts" or vfx mesh to make a whole new body and then do that for every race, that would be a modding headache. So NWN2 outfits are always whole body presets and never really unique.

 

Moving on the only reason someone thinks flying and mounts aren't important is because they're not really part of the game that was released. NWN introduced it and it's an option so not a fringe thing. For NWN2 it was promised along with things like swimming and climbing but it was never delivered, so that's a big minus nobody solved in 10 years.

 

NWN2 interior creation is not as easy as NWN since it's not automatic, you have to paste each individual tile and individually go thru each of the variations where this happens automatically in NWN. The idea that NWN areas aren't as good is silly, especially if you've seen mods, they're very advanced and can do rolling hills and all sorts of inclines that aren't possible in NWN2. An NWN pw has maybe over 1000 exterior areas, an NWN2 pw has maybe 50? Huge drawback.

Heightmaps weren't good for modding and PW support, the areas look like they're all made out of wax and the models don't always interact with them naturally with jittery animation occurring frequently.

 

If you had to use one of the two games as a blueprint for spiritual successor "NWN3" styled game you should definitely use the first game and bring that technology into the new graphical age.

 

There are reasons that even today user activity for NWN is still three to five times as big as it is for NWN2, reasons people did not switch over, reasons fewer mod for NWN2. People still care less about the angular models and graphical limitation for NWN than they do about the technical limitations of NWN2.

 

It should be a lesson people should learn from if they're interested in this kind of modding game. Not something that should be brushed off or minimized, because then you don't learn anything and you make the same mistakes.

[rjshae]

I think you also misunderstand the tint issue. NWN2 has 3 tint channels. Here's a list of the channels NWN has that you can change and override:

Skin, Hair, Cloth 1, Cloth 2, Leather 1, Leather 2, Metal 1, Metal 2, Tattoo 1,Tattoo 2

 

NWN body sections include:

Head, Neck, Shoulder 1, Shoulder 2, Bicep 1, Bicep 2, Forearm 1, Forearm 2, Hand 1, Hand 2, Torso, Pelvis, Thigh 1, Thigh 2, Shin 1, Shin 2, Foot 1, Foot 2, Belt, Cloak, Robe

 

Mmm no, I don't think I did. In NWN2, the flesh1, flesh2, hair, hat/helm, cloak, armor, shield, belt, and boots all have three tint channels, as do each of the armor parts: 2 bracers, 2 elbows, 2 arms, 2 shoulders, waist, 2 thighs, 2 knees, 2 ankles, and so forth. There's a vast number of variations, as well as model scaling, that allow endless tweaking. Sure it's not the same as NWN, and I can see benefits to both approaches. But kindly don't think that NWN2 clothing is particularly limited. There's also a pretty large number of clothing mods available for NWN2, along with armor, weapons, shields, hair, and the usual nude variants.

 

 

NWN2 interior creation is not as easy as NWN since it's not automatic, you have to paste each individual tile and individually go thru each of the variations where this happens automatically in NWN. The idea that NWN areas aren't as good is silly, especially if you've seen mods, they're very advanced and can do rolling hills and all sorts of inclines that aren't possible in NWN2. An NWN pw has maybe over 1000 exterior areas, an NWN2 pw has maybe 50? Huge drawback.

Heightmaps weren't good for modding and PW support, the areas look like they're all made out of wax and the models don't always interact with them naturally with jittery animation occurring frequently.

 

If you had to use one of the two games as a blueprint for spiritual successor "NWN3" styled game you should definitely use the first game and bring that technology into the new graphical age.

 

Ugh, no thanks. I have seen the "rolling hill" mods for NWN. They're a pale imitation of what you can do with the NWN2 exterior area tool. In NWN2 I can create arbitrary terrains, complete with texturable surfaces, moving water, randomized trees and bushes, paintable grass, relocatable buildings, and, in particular, it doesn't have a boxy grid squished up look. Personally I prefer quality over quantity, so I'll take the NWN2 PW any day.

 

It boils down to personal preferences. I like the power, party control, and improved graphics of NWN2; you prefer the ease and greater number of mods for NWN.

Edited April 12, 2017 by rjshae

[CrumpetsForBreakfast]

rjshae I've used both systems for clothing extensively and I know that NWN2 just isn't as good. Like it's not even close, most that play both games understand this. Those parts in NWN2 are meaningless because they don't change the model they float above it like a vfx so it doesn't replace anything, nobody makes mods for those parts. You just can't compare it to the infinite options you get with NWN.

 

On an interesting aside NWN modders have overcome things like resize things now. Just like they were able to overcome the GUI limits on NWN. Tho NWN2 still has it's limits.

 

If you make an outfit in NWN it's completely custom since each part has hundreds of variations. A conservative estimate of the number of unique variations on outfits in NWN before adding color would be about 200^22 variations but with NWN2 you're always stuck with the outfits the modellers made, always. In NWN I can make an outfit of almost any fictional character that comes to mind and on a server I can sell it for a lot of gold pieces and roleplay an expert seamstress, on NWN2 that's not even remotely possible. Because on some NWN mods you can customize every single detail of every single part, including position, size, orientation, all color channels, and base model. on NWN2 you can scroll through single body meshes, add a tint and stick on an ugly arm guard. They're not even remotely comparable.

 

It's like comparing lego to .... something that's not lego.

 

 

NWN rolling hills is not an imitation since it actually came first. In NWN2 you can't create arbitrary terrain because each point is connected so it slopes from the adjacent points. This means you're stretching and squashing the texture to which you're limited to using only 6 textures at once?  And then you can't make 90 degree inclines, and you can't make cliffs that hang over the lower area. So it's a misconception that you can make any terrain, tiles are simply far superior for that. Then there's other limitations like grass in NWN2 exploding the size of areas, walkmesh limitations I've been over, and of course shadows where even today the conventional wisdom is to limit shadows and lighting in NWN2 because it's a resource killer. So everything you win by using NWN2 you pay back another way.

 

You can look at the community statistics too.

 

nwnlist.com

NWN: 430 players

NWN2: 150 players

 

neverwintervault.org

NWN: 293 pages of custom content

NWN2: 16 pages of custom content

 

neverwintervault.org custom content forums

NWN custom content: 4569 posts

NWN player's corner: 1427 posts

NWN2 custom content: 1465 posts

NWN2 player's corner: 329 posts

 

Community packs

NWN: CEP, CEP2, CEP 3, Project Q

NWN2: ..........?

 

Now if someone can't accept this reality then they're not going to learn the game design lessons they could learn by comparing the two and understanding what happened and why. It's not that NWN simply has more mods it's that NWN2 has severe limitations on modding compared to NWN. It's also not because NWN2 is more powerful, like in NWN you can also use tools to override the properties of tiles including height and variation to craft interiors never possible in NWN2.

 

I don't "hate" either game but after some time I did wonder why the old NWN is still more popular, I talked to people, I read up on things, I tried mods and I learned why. I wish NWN2 attracted more players and more modders, but it didn't, I wish most people from NWN converted over to NWN2, but they didn't. It's a good exercise to try to understand why.

Edited April 12, 2017 by CrumpetsForBreakfast

[rjshae]

rjshae I've used both systems for clothing extensively and I know that NWN2 just isn't as good. Like it's not even close, most that play both games understand this. Those parts in NWN2 are meaningless because they don't change the model they float above it like a vfx so it doesn't replace anything, nobody makes mods for those parts. You just can't compare it to the infinite options you get with NWN.

 

On an interesting aside NWN modders have overcome things like resize things now. Just like they were able to overcome the GUI limits on NWN. Tho NWN2 still has it's limits.

 

If you make an outfit in NWN it's completely custom since each part has hundreds of variations. A conservative estimate of the number of unique variations on outfits in NWN before adding color would be about 200^22 variations but with NWN2 you're always stuck with the outfits the modellers made, always. In NWN I can make an outfit of almost any fictional character that comes to mind and on a server I can sell it for a lot of gold pieces and roleplay an expert seamstress, on NWN2 that's not even remotely possible. Because on some NWN mods you can customize every single detail of every single part, including position, size, orientation, all color channels, and base model. on NWN2 you can scroll through single body meshes, add a tint and stick on an ugly arm guard. They're not even remotely comparable.

 

It's like comparing lego to .... something that's not lego.

 

 

NWN rolling hills is not an imitation since it actually came first. In NWN2 you can't create arbitrary terrain because each point is connected so it slopes from the adjacent points. This means you're stretching and squashing the texture to which you're limited to using only 6 textures at once?  And then you can't make 90 degree inclines, and you can't make cliffs that hang over the lower area. So it's a misconception that you can make any terrain, tiles are simply far superior for that. Then there's other limitations like grass in NWN2 exploding the size of areas, walkmesh limitations I've been over, and of course shadows where even today the conventional wisdom is to limit shadows and lighting in NWN2 because it's a resource killer. So everything you win by using NWN2 you pay back another way.

 

Well sorry but to me these arguments are like comparing razor blades. Is the razor blade with 9 blades superior to the one with 7? Well perhaps by a microscopic amount. I prefer the one with the tiltable head and 7 blades to the one with a fixed head and 9 blades. To me, the factors you raise do not make NWN any more inviting. The options in NWN2 are vastly more than I need.

 

Your argument about the NWN2 exterior area building is based on corner cases. I can create pretty much any area I want. Would I like to have more than six textures per grid square plus one 16-bit color tint per vertex? Sure, but as you point out, that would come at a cost. We can make some very nice and realistic terrains using the current system. Yes, the features that make NWN2 area building vastly better come with a memory cost. What of it? Disk space is cheap these days.

 

I've worked with the NWN toolset and found it rather constrained and unappealing compared to NWN2. I've also tried doing some mods for NWN, and found it quite limited because of the various size constraints. For example, there's almost no way to port most NWN2 tilesets to NWN because of the poly count limits and texture size constraints. It would take a ton of work to diminish the poly count enough, and the textures would need to be shrunk down and the normal/tint/illumination maps removed. The end result would be pretty ugly.

 

Like I said, it's a matter of personal preference. I'll stick with NWN2; you stick with NWN.

Edited April 12, 2017 by rjshae