Another NWN2 Expansion/Add-On Already?

[Emperor Devon]

Clicky clicky if you can read French.

 

LYON, FRANCE – 22 October 2007 – Atari today announced the forthcoming launch of the first Neverwinter Nights™ 2 Adventure Pack to be available exclusively via digital download, bringing a wealth of new content to the Neverwinter Nights 2 experience and growing the franchise still further. Created by Atari and some of the most prominent members of the Neverwinter Nights 2 communities, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate provides hours of additional entertainment with all new engrossing storylines, professional voice acting, enchanting musical scores, new in-game content, and much more. Neverwinter Nights 2 is set in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Forgotten Realms® universe created by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS). DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is under license from HPG, the licensing division of Hasbro.

 

Developed by Ossian Studios, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate is the first full featured Adventure Pack available from Atari. Set in the infamous Forgotten Realms city of Westgate, players find themselves in possession of a powerful but cursed treasure that threatens to destroy them. Linked to the underworld organization known as the Night Masks, the treasure will draw players into a city-spanning clash between warring factions. Players must choose their allegiance in order to break the curse and ultimately uncover a plot that threatens Westgate itself.

 

“Neverwinter Nights 2 and the influence of this phenomenal brand continues to grow through the tremendous work done by the committed and highly active fan community who have mastered Obsidian’s toolset to create deeply involving new adventures,” said Mathias Hautefort, Executive Vice President of publishing and production, Atari. “Our successful work with independent developer Obsidian in creating the original game is now being enhanced by our collaborative efforts with these highly talented and emerging studios such as Ossian Studios, and the result is nothing less than the fans would expect of Neverwinter Nights: high production values, engrossing storylines, and long, involving campaigns.”

 

From the creators of the critically-acclaimed Neverwinter Nights module, Darkness over Daggerford, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate will feature a non-linear, open-ended single-player campaign with numerous side quests covering more than 15 hours of game play. Atari’s new Adventure Pack will also feature 3 new companions; an entirely new underground sewers tile set themed after the seedy underbelly of Westgate; a host of new monsters to do battle with, including some truly epic foes; an exciting new and original musical score; as well as thousands of new lines of professionally recorded dialogue.

 

The Neverwinter Nights franchise has sold more than three million copies worldwide, is translated into 10 languages, sold in more than 40 countries and features one of the largest and most active fan communities in all of gaming. To date, fans of the franchise, which includes Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide™, Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark™ and Neverwinter Nights 2, have created more than 5,000 modifications to the original game using the award-winning toolset included with the full game that allows players to create their own universes, quests and storylines.

 

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate is scheduled for release in autumn 2007. The new Mysteries of Westgate, as well as future adventure packs, require the original game and will be made available for purchase and download directly from Atari. More information about Neverwinter Nights 2 can be found at http://www.nwn2.com, which includes user forums, project news, development updates and more.

 

This is awfully soon for what sounds like the first premium module... I thought we'd be waiting months for anything new.

 

Personally I'm skeptical of the whole thing - Ossian hasn't done any work apart from a NWN module with Daggerford in it that won 2nd place in the '06 module competition. (A Dance With Rogues pulled in first - your bit of NWN trivia for the day and another reason to play it.)

 

Warring factions? I do hope this doesn't mean any 'run to the Merchant's Guild with the trade agreement you got from the Fighter's Guild by wiping out the trolls raiding Old Man Old Man's farm' quests... But maybe I'm being overly pessimistic and thinking too much about how the NWN premium modules went. As long as there's new custom content I'll be glad whether the module sucks or not. This all just seems strangely soon after an expansion. (Or it means Atari plans to pamper us with new content every month - we wish.)

[Pavlos]

Gah! Why are they spending money on this when they could hire Obsidian to work on another expansion pack? To be honest, I think MotB finally showed what Obsidian is capable of (and I think the review scores are perhaps a little harsh when compared to games like... oh... Halo 3) it felt like I was playing an old Black Isle game, which can't be anything but good - it certainly had the "one more minute" factor .

 

Unless, of course, Obsidian is too busy to put together a team right now... too busy on KotOR III?! Nah, but I can dream.

[Balderdash]

I would imagine that their Aliens RPG will be the next full game that OE will release since they've been talking about that for a while now... but who knows? I definitely want another NWN2 Expansion though. This module doesn't sound that amazing but I'll give it a chance. Sounds as if it is polished to a reasonable standard, at the very least.

[stoffe]

players find themselves in possession of a powerful but cursed treasure that threatens to destroy them. Linked to the underworld organization known as the Night Masks, the treasure will draw players into a city-spanning clash between warring factions. Players must choose their allegiance in order to break the curse and ultimately uncover a plot that threatens Westgate itself.

 

Another curse that threatens to destroy you? My character has had enough of curses and being forced into things by now thank you very much, I think I'll skip that one.

 

This is awfully soon for what sounds like the first premium module... I thought we'd be waiting months for anything new.

 

If they use the same DRM protection on the NWN2 premium modules as Bioware did for their NWN1 modules I will not buy them no matter what. They may release a module that's the apex of computer role playing, but it still won't be worth the hazzle of that incredibly annoying and intrusive copy protection scheme that violates the very concept of open modding that the NWN games are built upon (the assets used by the premium modules were locked down and could not be opened/altered with the toolset, or used in your own modules).

[Emperor Devon]

Gah! Why are they spending money on this when they could hire Obsidian to work on another expansion pack?

 

Unless Ossian can make premium modules at inhuman speeds (it's being released this fall) I'd presume they've been working on this since MotB was in development and Obsidian was busy with two games.

 

My character has had enough of curses and being forced into things by now thank you very much, I think I'll skip that one.

 

Your character likely won't have anymore curses to worry about, as it sounds like they intend for you to start a make one unless they're raising the level cap even higher. Or you could cheat and import your level 30 warlock into what's probably a level 1-15 adventure.

 

If they use the same DRM protection on the NWN2 premium modules as Bioware did for their NWN1 modules I will not buy them no matter what.

 

I'd hope not. Atari has released MotB for digital download without requiring anything so annoying - perhaps they'll do the same for the premium modules?

 

In other news, an interview! My do those new monsters look wonderful.

[Emperor Devon]

I feel like such a spammer double-posting... Anyways, another interview. Apparently the DRM will make editing the Westgate module impossible, but at least the new content is still accessible.

 

14. Will any of the custom content be available to the modding community to use in their modules?

 

Larry Liberty: Yes, making new content available to the modding community is central to the Adventure Pack program. It represents another avenue for Atari to seed the community with high quality content (beyond expansion packs).

 

18. Will Mysteries of Westgate use the same DRM as that of NWN1 where it needs to contact a server before being played? In other words, can it be played offline?

 

Larry Liberty: The game will use technology similar to NWN1 premium modules. We have not yet determined if you will be able to play offline.

[stoffe]

I feel like such a spammer double-posting... Anyways, another interview. Apparently the DRM will make editing the Westgate module impossible, but at least the new content is still accessible.

 

"Larry Liberty: The game will use technology similar to NWN1 premium modules. We have not yet determined if you will be able to play offline."

 

That's too bad. Oh well, at least the modding community is hard at work producing modules that aren't ruined by annoying DRM schemes, so it's not a big loss having to pass over the NWN2 premium modules as well.

[Pavlos]

This is ever so slightly confusing to me. They allow you to edit the official campaign of NWN2 but not the premium modules? Atari's logic - or lack, thereof - never ceases to astound me.

[Emperor Devon]

They allow you to edit the official campaign of NWN2 but not the premium modules? Atari's logic - or lack, thereof - never ceases to astound me.

 

The OC anyone can edit and upload, yes, but to play it you have to own the game. And the OC, well, comes with that game. With these premium/adventure modules there's no additional software required to play them as they're basically officially made hakpaks and modules that can work on any computer with MotB installed. Hence the DRM protection since uploading them illegally would be so easy.

 

Oh well, at least the modding community is hard at work producing modules that aren't ruined by annoying DRM schemes, so it's not a big loss having to pass over the NWN2 premium modules as well.

 

In all honesty there haven't been many modules apart from the Planescape Trilogy and Adam Miller's Dark Waters (have you seen his site? Fascinating stuff he's doing) that are in the works.

 

I personally don't see why you'd want to abstain from MoW. Not being able to edit it doesn't sound that torturous unless they've managed to pack a high-quality story into a module that small. (Would be quite hard to do.) Even then there's still the new custom content they're releasing that any module-makers in the community will probably use; $12 doesn't sound like much of a price for it.

[stoffe]

I personally don't see why you'd want to abstain from MoW. Not being able to edit it doesn't sound that torturous unless they've managed to pack a high-quality story into a module that small. (Would be quite hard to do.) Even then there's still the new custom content they're releasing that any module-makers in the community will probably use; $12 doesn't sound like much of a price for it.

 

I won't buy anything with a copy protection as extremely intrusive as the NWN premium modules. Having to online-activate/decrypt the damn things every single time you play them is messed up, especially since it's a soloplayer adventure (generally).

 

And I always mod my games to some extent. Being prevented from doing so in a game that has modding as a feature bullet point at the back of the box is just silly. If Bethesda managed to release tiny downloadable content for Oblivion and let people modify them, and still make enough money from them to keep churning them out I think Bioware/Atari would have surived as well.

[Corinthian]

Just milking the cow. Business as usual.

[Pavlos]

In all honesty there haven't been many modules apart from the Planescape Trilogy and Adam Miller's Dark Waters (have you seen his site? Fascinating stuff he's doing) that are in the works.

 

That is untrue.

 

I haven't played any custom modules for NWN2 - I just haven't gotten around to it - aside from Dark Waters but there are several high-marked mods. Due to the new ratings system, they're probably better than the NWN ones with the same mark .

[Emperor Devon]

I won't buy anything with a copy protection as extremely intrusive as the NWN premium modules. Having to online-activate/decrypt the damn things every single time you play them is messed up, especially since it's a soloplayer adventure (generally).

 

Makes you wonder why you ever bought Bioshock, doesn't it?

 

And I always mod my games to some extent. Being prevented from doing so in a game that has modding as a feature bullet point at the back of the box is just silly.

 

Really, the only thing you're being prevented from editing is a maybe 10-hour module that'll be worth playing several times. The new content it provides (and any eventual fan modules that require that content) should make it more than worth it.

 

I haven't played any custom modules for NWN2 - I just haven't gotten around to it - aside from Dark Waters but there are several high-marked mods.

 

Ja, I saw those ones you've listed. There honestly hasn't been much in the way of module activity in the past few months. Hackn'slash fests, character creators and the occasionally poorly-written story for the most part. (I disagree about the ratings being accurate - Stormchaser got into the HoF, and it made NWN's OC look well-written in comparison.)

[stoffe]

Makes you wonder why you ever bought Bioshock, doesn't it?

 

You have to activate Bioshock once during installation, you won't have to do it every time you play the game, making the game impossible to play if you don't have an internet connection on a computer so it can phone home. (That and the exponentially increased load times due to the module decryption.)

 

Makes you wonder why you refuse to buy Bioshock but are interested in the premium modules, when the latter have much more intrusive protection than the former.

 

Really, the only thing you're being prevented from editing is a maybe 10-hour module that'll be worth playing several times. The new content it provides should make it more than worth it.

 

Which is bad enough for a game that was made for modding. You wouldn't mind if Mask of the Betrayer was off-limits for modding since it's only a 20-hour campaign that'll be worth playing a couple of times?

 

 

Ja, I saw those ones you've listed. There honestly hasn't been much in the way of module activity in the past few months. Hackn'slash fests, character creators and the occasionally poorly-written story for the most part.

 

Good modules take a while to write, and the game has only been out for roughly a year. Then disregard about 6 months from that during which the toolset was so buggy it was sheer annoyance to (try to) use. The early NWN1 mods weren't all that impressive either (with a few exceptions), so hopefully better ones will be released in the future.

[Emperor Devon]

Makes you wonder why you refuse to buy Bioshock but are interested in the premium modules, when the latter have much more intrusive protection than the former.

 

What part of 'the game itself also doesn't look interesting' didn't you hear in the past two months?

 

You wouldn't mind if Mask of the Betrayer was off-limits for modding since it's only a 20-hour campaign that'll be worth playing a couple of times?

 

Considering how you put up without modding NWN2's 30+ hour OC after playing it several times since it would mess up the patches... why not? Whether it's because of that or the DRM protection you're cut off from playing it, so the only real inconvenience it's bringing you is a required constant connection to the internet. (If you could call that an inconvenience anyway.)

 

They are entirely different modules in any case. MotB is 20+ hours of a memorable and very well-written story. MoW look to be 10+ hours of a C+ story if it's anything like the NWN premium modules were.