NWN - D&D Hall of Fame Nominee @ Diehard GameFAN

Myrthos

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To celebrate the release of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, Diehard GameFAN are looking for the D&D game that can be placed in their Hall of Fame. Today they nominated NeverWinter Nights, which failed their criteria to enter the Hall of Fame.
So what made Neverwinter Nights so memorable? Well there were a lot of things. The first was the ability to truly customize your character. For example, I played a Dwarven Necromancer for my first time through– something that wasn’t even remotely possible in any form of D&D before third edition. The game offered several expansion packs, which really hadn’t been done before this; certainly not to the level of success things like Shadows of Undrentide, Kingmaker and more managed to achieve. Most important was the multiplayer and community aspects of the game. Taking a page from Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, Neverwinter Nights allowed gamers to not only create their own adventures, but to play these adventures with other people. Playing games online is pretty run of the mill today, but in 2002 a game that could let up to 96 gamers go at it all at once was a big deal. This was a big deal and I personally was involved with a Ravenloft campaign for sometime where we’d all take turns running adventures. It was an insane amount of fun.
Thanks Alexander.
More information.
 
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NWN 1 is hands down best D&D game.

Baldurs Gate may take the credit for its singleplayer story.

But NWN1 with its DM tools, Persistant worlds , player generated content , thousands of player created adventures.

This game is the elephant in the room and no other can come close to it.
 
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Respectfully, twotricks, I completely disagree.

NWN was a great D&D toolbox - it's what the eTools should have been from the start. But as a video game I found it fell really short, especially compared to the baldurs gate series. Just look at the way the main campaign was basically a solo hero with companions you couldn't even direct properly.
 
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For those like myself who were looking for a good D&D single-player experience, NWN was mediocre. However, I can still recognize its impact regarding multiplayer and community content, even though I didn't partake in those things.
 
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I also think NWN is the best overall experience, speaking as a huge fan of cooperative multiplayer.

Sadly, Obsidian didn't quite follow up on it with the sequel - and Bioware clearly moved away from that with their following games.

Now they've moved to the MMO scene, though, so I guess they're still interested in multiplayer games. But, to my mind, there's a big difference between the traditional MMO - and then a client/server paradigm that's largely about player-created content.

I'd be really happy to see a NWN3 done right - but I doubt that's something we can expect from the current market-perception of the people in charge.
 
Yes, NWN sucked really as a single player game. The best D&D game will probably be BG (1 or 2 now that's the question). Guess technically BG2. But what about Planescape Torment? hmm...
 
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I'd vote Pool of Radiance as my favorite AD&D game. The first Baldur's Gate was a lot of fun too. I couldn't get into BG2 because of the contingency and counterspell magic system. I thought it was hideous.
 
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Question here is. Are we looking at singleplayer RPG experience out of the box ?
Because NWN1 singleplayer was basically no more than a demo of the toolset.

What came after was defining NWN1 as experience.

If all you did is play NWN as it was and never used the internet side. Than I agree.

But it was so much more than that.

To the point that I dare to say that it was best value for the money game I ever dreamed of purchasing.

6 years of active never ending content. Roleplaying with friends. Creating adventures.

And the game still has very active community
 
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For those like myself who were looking for a good D&D single-player experience, NWN was mediocre. However, I can still recognize its impact regarding multiplayer and community content, even though I didn't partake in those things.

You missed out then. There are allot of modules made by others that are better than the original. There still making more almost 7 years later. NWN2 also.

Yes, NWN sucked really as a single player game. The best D&D game will probably be BG (1 or 2 now that's the question). Guess technically BG2. But what about Planescape Torment? hmm

Those are good games but they haven't aged well.
 
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I have to admit that BG1/BG2 aged better than NWN. But NWN is still the better game in terms of mechanics - by far :)
 
Bah, more of this nonsense about games "ageing" when it's actually us and our perceptions of them, which change over time. The games themselves essentially remain the same; they are products of their time from when they were created.

That said, my favourite AD&D cRPG is probably Curse of the Azure Bonds. Some of that is genuine unabashed nostalgia, some is also due to the fact that it was my first role-playing game.

NWN for me, was a step backwards from Baldur's Gate simply due to the reduction in party numbers and the shambling, stumbling nature of combat. No argument though that its mechanics were more intricate, but I don't think this necessarily makes it a better game.
 
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Bah, more of this nonsense about games "ageing" when it's actually us and our perceptions of them, which change over time. The games themselves essentially remain the same; they are products of their time from when they were created.

I think that's pretty clear :)

But I don't think you should discount how our perceptions change over time as irrelevant to how the games were made. Things change in this industry - and there really are ways of making games that will "age better".

That said, my favourite AD&D cRPG is probably Curse of the Azure Bonds. Some of that is genuine unabashed nostalgia, some is also due to the fact that it was my first role-playing game.

Oh, that brings back memories…. I got it for christmas a few years after completing Pool of Radiance. I was in wonderland in those days, when I got a new game like that :)

NWN for me, was a step backwards from Baldur's Gate simply due to the reduction in party numbers and the shambling, stumbling nature of combat. No argument though that its mechanics were more intricate, but I don't think this necessarily makes it a better game.

Nah, that's down to taste. I wouldn't say the actual combat flow was better as such, though I don't think it was worse either. But the process of building a character was infinitely more engaging, to me anyway, than the BGs.
 
I don't see how NWN has aged any better.

You try playing those games on newer systems. You need mods just to get widescreen. BG1 has aged even worse than the rest. Its NOT ABOUT the game getting old I'm talking about the limitations of the engine.

NWN has aged well there are no problems on any system and the graphics have aged better than any of the infinity engine games. I play more NWN1+2 than the other games anyway nowadays.
 
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You try playing those games on newer systems. You need mods just to get widescreen. BG1 has aged even worse than the rest. Its NOT ABOUT the game getting old I'm talking about the limitations of the engine.

NWN has aged well there are no problems on any system and the graphics have aged better than any of the infinity engine games. I play more NWN1+2 than the other games anyway nowadays.

I guess you're talking about compatibility. I'm talking about gameplay. There's no comparison.. Baldur's Gate absolutely destroys NWN as a single-player experience, and no amount of time is going to change that.
 
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I guess you're talking about compatibility. I'm talking about gameplay. There's no comparison.. Baldur's Gate absolutely destroys NWN as a single-player experience, and no amount of time is going to change that.

I agree it was basically just a toolset to create your own adventure. As I sad before there are plenty of mods that put the campaign to shame. Some are epic like Baldur's Gate.
 
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You missed out then. There are allot of modules made by others that are better than the original. There still making more almost 7 years later. NWN2 also.

Those are good games but they haven't aged well.

NWN is not a game, it's simply a eTool. So it "cannot" age in first place.

And I don't see how BG1/2 and PS:T hasn't aged well. There are still large nunber of fans out there who still plays and enjoys those games (including myself), whether they play with/without mods.
 
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