Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Let Love In » Sat Jun 01, 2019 5:17 pm

More players = more rp. Really, everything else is second to that.
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by malcolm_mountainslayer » Tue Jun 04, 2019 12:32 pm

Dr. B wrote:
Fri May 31, 2019 9:10 pm
https://www.vg247.com/2019/05/31/baldur ... -consoles/

Apparently the multiplayer function will be included. No idea how this will impact Arelith, since consoles don't have keyboards, and I don't want to hear people's terrible vocal impersonations of their characters.
I doubt console will implement local area voice chat in game. People who play together, party chat together.

That being said, my acting skills are much better than my writing skills to the point that I sometimes find elaborate long emotes boring because it feels more like a book and less alive in the moment. But again, i cant see this happening.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Beard Master Flex » Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:54 pm

I get that for some people EE might feel like a downgrade in certain areas and I'm sympathetic to the crashes some people have experienced as a result; but for me the EE has been such a dramatic improvement in performance that its kept me (and those in my friend group) still playing.

1.69 I was crashing all the time, took me 3-4 failed boots to even launch the game each and every time, if something forced me to windows I'd have to CTRL+ALT+DELETE and wait for task manager to close the game before I could play again... it was exhaustive.

So I just feel like saying EE was a total gyp is a bit inflammatory. Its demonstrably increased numbers of the server and we're slowly starting to see some of the missing features like Disguise and stuff returning too.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by yellowcateyes » Tue Jun 04, 2019 4:55 pm

EE has some significant issues, and there are legitimate questions as to whether Beamdog gave it the proper resources and support before veering off into cross-platform projects.

At the same time, it's also worth remembering that 1.69 had its own share of problems. The foremost among them, in my mind, was that a significant portion of the playerbase could not play NWN using their latest video drivers. That was also a significant barrier to new blood - getting a friend to play a janky old game is one thing, convincing them that it was worth rolling back their drivers and messing up their other games is another thing entirely.

Steam support was also a major boon in making the game accessible and (relatively) easy to get into.

Of course, none of this lets Beamdog off the hook for EE's bugs, foibles, and a slow and erratic pace of updates and fixes. But when it comes down to it, I wouldn't want to return to 1.69. The lack of support and incompatibility with modern systems made old NWN a ticking time bomb.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Brandon Steel » Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:36 pm

I feel more enhanced every day.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Tue Jun 04, 2019 10:13 pm

yellowcateyes wrote:
Tue Jun 04, 2019 4:55 pm
EE has some significant issues, and there are legitimate questions as to whether Beamdog gave it the proper resources and support before veering off into cross-platform projects.

At the same time, it's also worth remembering that 1.69 had its own share of problems. The foremost among them, in my mind, was that a significant portion of the playerbase could not play NWN using their latest video drivers. That was also a significant barrier to new blood - getting a friend to play a janky old game is one thing, convincing them that it was worth rolling back their drivers and messing up their other games is another thing entirely.

Steam support was also a major boon in making the game accessible and (relatively) easy to get into.

Of course, none of this lets Beamdog off the hook for EE's bugs, foibles, and a slow and erratic pace of updates and fixes. But when it comes down to it, I wouldn't want to return to 1.69. The lack of support and incompatibility with modern systems made old NWN a ticking time bomb.
This is generally how I feel. My PC couldn't run 1.69, it was very randomly crashy. Now it's predictably crashy, which is actually an improvement. Someone suggested turning off anti-aliasing to help stop crashes, it actually does work. I still get memory leak crashes, but it takes a lot longer for it to happen. I highly recommend everyone turn it off.

I'm largely just disappointed they haven't fixed even small bugs, like the server list favourites not saving. I wanted to be optimistic about the project, it just feels really abandoned when they don't fix tiny things.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Tarkus the dog » Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:32 pm

Choosing between 1.69 and EE is like choosing between a dull sword and a good sword without a hilt. At least we don't have to choose between a good hiltless sword and a hiltless sword made of glass ( consoles ).

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by ReverentBlade » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:49 am

Console players without a keyboard wouldn't be any different from the many soulless, description-less, mute characters that run around, destined only to be rolled for an award ASAP.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by ActionReplay » Wed Jun 05, 2019 2:52 pm

I can see this working on a Switch, with it being portable and all and probably has a virtual touch keyboard. Dunno why anyone would play this on their PS4 Pro.

Also getting a bit irritated on these releases when there's clearly issues on Desktop that needs to be addressed and issues I've reported on RedMine multiple times since EE launch that are still present to this day. Do you know how much it sucks to swap server as a DM? The game crashes 70% of the time and if you relog you'll get an error message saying your CD key is still in use so you'll have to wait 5 minutes and hopefully it won't crash again, this is tedious as hell.

Here's hoping the new renderer can work wonders but when that one is due I dunno, but it would seem weird to me they'd release it on consoles without this feature. This is probably also one of the biggest reasons they started a new renderer - for consoles?

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Ebonstar » Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:04 pm

ReverentBlade wrote:
Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:49 am
Console players without a keyboard wouldn't be any different from the many soulless, description-less, mute characters that run around, destined only to be rolled for an award ASAP.
they have keyboards and mice now they just have to learn to use them
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Might-N-Magic » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:20 am

(cringes)

Oh gods, prepare for an onslaught of non-RPing FPS players who spam canned responses (Sorry, no keyboard. Trade? Sorry, no keyboard. Group with me. Trade? Sorry, no keyboard. Group with me. Sorry, no keyboard. Group with me. Trade?)

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by MissEvelyn » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:40 am

Instead of making fun of and dismissing console players before they're even here, how about we stick to a welcoming attitude?


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Dr. B
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Dr. B » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:02 pm

MissEvelyn wrote:
Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:40 am
Instead of making fun of and dismissing console players before they're even here, how about we stick to a welcoming attitude?
Nah.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by KreshDickens » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:14 pm

The idea of playing Arelith on a Switch is so enticing!

I just checked and they have some interesting keyboard designs.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by NauVaseline » Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:25 pm

MissEvelyn wrote:
Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:40 am
Instead of making fun of and dismissing console players before they're even here, how about we stick to a welcoming attitude?
Sorry, no tact. Group with me, trade?

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Peppermint » Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:10 am

I'm not so certain it's a lack of tact so much as unqualified ignorance. Multiplayer console RPGs have been a thing for a long while now. Heck, Final Fantasy 14 was released nearly a decade ago and has a sizable console-based roleplay community.

The line between consoles and PCs grows ever-thinner, with consoles gaining access to more and more PC-like features (e.g. video streaming, VoIP, etc) and peripherals. Cross-play is a big thing nowadays. The notion that consoles are "mere" gaming machines suited only for the lowest common denominator is as tired as the minds of those who espouse it.

This isn't the 90's anymore. Time to move on, folks.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Sea Shanties » Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:56 am

There's also a good chance a console version might be more stable than PC since they'd be optimizing for specific hardware. If so I might switch over myself especially since the Mac version might not work with the next OS update.

You guys need to lighten up... This place doesn't have much to offer a console user who can't be bothered to plug in a keyboard, they aren't going to stick around.

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Anime Sword Fighter
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Anime Sword Fighter » Wed Jun 12, 2019 12:15 am

will the console versions crash to the dashboard as often as the PC versions? hopefully it's released with an update to PC too

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Ebonstar » Wed Jun 12, 2019 2:08 am

with the console release it means the renderer is either done its upgrade or very close to it which means other things will be fixed and updated again.

some people have forgotten how much the game crashed in 2004
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Subutai » Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:37 am

Think it's important to remember that Beamdog isn't exactly a massive company. They have what? A few dozen employees at most, I think. They're very much going to need revenue to be able to afford fixing things. Developers are very expensive, and fixing bugs and doing optimizations is very time consuming. Beamdog has put a lot of money into updating and rereleasing the old Bioware titles, and it's completely reasonable that they port those games over to consoles.

As Ebonstar said, I suspect that now that they're releasing it to consoles, they'll start fixing and updating again. Stuff like a new renderer, and other big fixes, would be awesome selling points for console launch day.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Vincent » Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:47 am

Anyone with two eyes can see Beamdog is just prioritizing porting this game to every console in existence in the hopes of scraping together a few more bucks. I am very dubious actual improvements are on the horizon, I'm sure the new renderer is just a bit of flashy graphics made to entice first time purchasers that will be completely unoptimized and will in fact make the game even laggier and prone to crashing. This isn't pessimism, just realism by this point—some of these posts read like the depressing anecdotes of partners in abusive relationships, with the partner in question being Beamdog.

Yes there's keyboards for consoles out there, but as far as I am aware they aren't exactly incredibly popular and I doubt Beamdog is going to advertise the game like "keyboard highly recommended." They just want money, and they're probably chortling to themselves realizing there's going to be an influx of people joining Arelith who can't exactly experience Arelith. It's depressing we were all effectively scammed but so are many other things in life. Now, if Beamdog would like to prove me wrong, that'd be wonderful. How I very much doubt they will.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Royal Blood » Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:56 am

There are a lot of good features EE brought. Maybe scammed isn't the right word tbf. I think -everyone- agrees they could have and should have done more. Like no argument there. But there are a lot of neat EE Features and it did bring some life into the game I think that wasn't there before. Still, yeah, they gotta fix the crashing it's so stupid.
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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Anime Sword Fighter » Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:07 pm

Not really a scam when the game would have stopped working as soon as another edition of windows was released, from how other games I have of that time period are behaving.

Of course they're doing it for money, it's a game company and they're not a nonprofit. More money = more pay for them to actually work on the game, one that isn't filled with microtransactions and won't sustain much profit in a few years like other MMO style games will
Last edited by Anime Sword Fighter on Thu Jun 13, 2019 2:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Vincent » Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:42 am

Anime Sword Fighter wrote:
Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:07 pm
Not really a scam when the game would have stopped working as soon as another edition of windows was released, from how other games I have of that time period are behaving.

Of course they're doing it for money, it's a game company and they're not a nonprofit. More money = moreally pay for them to actually work on the game, one that isn't filled with microtransactions and won't sustain much profit in a few years like other MMO style games will
The 1.69 client still runs better for myself and many others. I assure you, hardware isn't the issue. There's a nice QoL change with EE where you can enjoy a proper windowed mode (it can be very buggy from system to system on 1.69), and that's about all the praise I have for it. You may not be aware but people are playing games as old as thirty years on their modern systems, often all that's required are a few mods, or some form of emulation, which, unlike NWN: EE, does not cost an additional $20. The practice of remastering games with quite literally zero noteworthy improvements (I, along with many others, consider EE to be a downgrade due to the memory leak issues that simply were not present, or at least as prevalent before) is just as duplicitous a practice as aggressive monetization via microtransactions. You don't see anyone defending the mistreatment of animals because hey, at least they're not mistreating human beings instead.

Had this remaster been an 'as is' reproduction you wouldn't even see these types of complaints. It's the fact they made the game worse. Would NWN just with an 'Enhanced Edition' subtitle tacked on have been worth $20? No, of course not, but even that, as pathetic a product as it would have been, would have been superior to this literal downgrade. It's extremely poor.

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Re: Neverwinter Nights EE coming to consoles

Post by Anime Sword Fighter » Thu Jun 13, 2019 2:20 am

Vincent wrote:
Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:42 am

The 1.69 client still runs better for myself and many others. I assure you, hardware isn't the issue. There's a nice QoL change with EE where you can enjoy a proper windowed mode (it can be very buggy from system to system on 1.69), and that's about all the praise I have for it.
I don't doubt it does, but for how much longer is it going to work straight out of the download as Windows systems develop
You may not be aware but people are playing games as old as thirty years on their modern systems, often all that's required are a few mods, or some form of emulation, which, unlike NWN: EE, does not cost an additional $20.
and isn't new user friendly no matter how hard more tech literate people will yell that it is
The practice of remastering games with quite literally zero noteworthy improvements (I, along with many others, consider EE to be a downgrade due to the memory leak issues that simply were not present, or at least as prevalent before) is just as duplicitous a practice as aggressive monetization via microtransactions.
Sure, this is true. But actually having a company that works on the game and is going to update it LIKE THIS UPDATE is a great boon. I'm also in support of consoles getting the game because it means I can soon play with a friend who has a switch but isn't much of a computer gamer.

I am optimistic for Beamdog to continue to improve the game and encourage people to send their thoughts directly to them as much as they can

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