60 Second Preview of…
Neverwinter Nights
The Specs
Neverwinter Nights is a Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons
computer roleplaying game. The emphasis is on multiplayer
play with one player serving as a Dungeonmaster (DM), although
it supports solo play and multiplayer without a DM as well.
It uses the Omen engine first developed for MDK2, with an
isometric view supported. The game will ship with about 50
modules that are linked adventures that can be played alone
or online. It will also feature a robust editor that Bioware
promises will be easy to use for players who want to make
their own adventures and share them online or DM them. There
will be no fee to play online with up to 64 players in a game
at once.
The Speculation
Mark's Comments: The click-clack of polyhedral
dice rolling amid lead miniatures, some painted and some not.
Graph paper with partially drawn mazes. Character sheets smudged
and worn through from too many erasings. Empty pizza boxes
and small pyramids of soda cans. Excited chatter as the minutiae
of rules are argued. Afternoons giving way to evenings spent
in basements or garages or attics converted to gaming rooms.
This is the essence, the aqua vitae that BioWare is attempting
to pour into Neverwinter Nights, and it's something that RPG
fans have been thirsting for. We're getting a computer game
that's returning us to our roots of pen and paper Dungeons
and Dragon gaming. Let's just hope they can deliver a game
with an easy-to-use editor and good network code.
Tom's Comments: Mark just explained to me that
Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale aren't the same thing.
I get confused by all the BioWare titles that have something
to do with cold things. Anyway, I'm hoping there will be massive
delays before Neverwinter Nights is released, because I want
to play Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale, but I'm still in
the middle of Planescape Torment and I can't play two RPGs
at once. It's like reading more than one book at a time --
some people can do it, but I can't. Here's hoping for a long
and involved QA process and a release date sometime in 2002.
Publisher:
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Interplay
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Developer:
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BioWare
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Genre:
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RPG
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Release Date:
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Q2 2001
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November 28, 2000
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