Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition is coming from Beamdog, Linux support confirmed

Back 10 years ago, Neverwinter Nights was the only commercial game to have a Linux client, and, as I had already played the game since 2002, I was overjoyed, and have played hundreds of hours on Linux.

I have often said that NWN is the most game you can get in a box. The Neverwinter Vault (https://neverwintervault.org/ has hundreds and hundreds of adventures just waiting for download and play.

It is wonderful to see Beamdog, my favorite porter, develop this must buy game.

this is awesome, would love an updated version of this. I'm going to grab the digital deluxe for sure. I still have my original with all expansions tarballed. I played it back on ubuntu 12.04 & 14.04 after steam came to Linux, so i had that plus Civ 4 to play while i waited on other things to come out. had to do a little work around for the sound to work, but it ran great.

Quoting: oldrocker99Back 10 years ago, Neverwinter Nights was the only commercial game to have a Linux client, and, as I had already played the game since 2002, I was overjoyed, and have played hundreds of hours on Linux.

No, the original Doom was one of if not the first commercial game to have a Linux client, way back in 1994:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1

Abuse by Crack Dot Com even had Linux releases published by Red Hat in 1997:
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/press-crackdotcom

Not to mention Loki Software, more from id Software, Hyperion, Tribsoft, LGP, and many more.


Last edited by Hamish on 22 November 2017 at 3:45 am UTC

please put in modern third person RPG controls. The current controls are ancient and unapproachable.

This was the Bioware RPG that deserves credit for getting me into the whole genre.
Still play it on occasion and the Linux version is actually pretty solid.
I'd be more impressed if NWN2 somehow got brought over to our OS.

Quoting: mcphailYep. I followed some links on GOG and got it working on Ubuntu 16.04 a few weeks ago.

Thanks! I'm surprised that these old binarys still work. The last time I tried them I was running something called "Mandrake Linux" xD

Quoting: jnriversThis was the Bioware RPG that deserves credit for getting me into the whole genre.
Still play it on occasion and the Linux version is actually pretty solid.
I'd be more impressed if NWN2 somehow got brought over to our OS.

Same here!


Last edited by crt0mega on 22 November 2017 at 9:53 am UTC

Quoting: slaapliedjeI'm really curious about the editor too, otherwise the game ran great on Linux. Though they did have some weirdness with the Bink video player, but once you converted the videos to mpg or other standard video format, it worked well enough.

A bit off topic but do you have more infos on this? I'm currently reinstalling the game and while I've found a hack to play the bik movies, it would be better if I could use a better format. I assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct? do I have to "cheat" and rename mpg files to .bik? or is there another hack needed to play the videos in a different format?

Quoting: abelthorneA bit off topic but do you have more infos on this?

There simply was no Bink player for Linux at that time, so they removed the ability to play movies altogether from the video client.

People from the community wrote an LD_PRELOAD hack that hooks up into the original game, at the place where the video player would be called, and instead call a native Linux program for playing videos, like mplayer.

You would then have to get official Bink tool, a Windows .exe, and run that in Wine. It would take a Bink movie and export each frame as a single picture image and the sound as a .wav, and then you'd recreate a new video file out of it that can be played with that native Linux program. This, of course, reduces the quality of the video quite a bit.

Nowadays, there are native Bink player for Linux, both the official closed-source Bink player, and also all FLOSS players, because the ffmpeg people have RE'd the Bink format. So while that hack to hook into the original game is still necessary, you at least don't need to transcode the video files anymore.

My hope with the NWN:EE is that they'll make the hack obsolete too, by just using the native Bink library to play the videos, like on Windows. Or alternatively, use a different codec altogether, by recreating the videos from their original source (thus not lowering the quality through transcoding).

Quoting: abelthorneit would be better if I could use a better format.

You of course can still do that. But you'll introduce quality losses, because going from one lossy codec to another is lossy.

So I for one would advice against it.

Quoting: abelthorneI assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct?

From my understanding of the nwmovies hack, this is correct, yes.

Quoting: DrMcCoyPeople from the community wrote an LD_PRELOAD hack that hooks up into the original game, at the place where the video player would be called, and instead call a native Linux program for playing videos, like mplayer.

Nowadays, there are native Bink player for Linux, both the official closed-source Bink player, and also all FLOSS players, because the ffmpeg people have RE'd the Bink format. So while that hack to hook into the original game is still necessary, you at least don't need to transcode the video files anymore.

The hack I mentioned is nwmovies (on GitHub). Is that the same one you're talking about? I'm a bit annoyed that it displays a window border for a fraction of a second every time it plays a video, that's why I was looking for a solution with a more classic format. Also, for some reason, while all the guides I've seen say to put the Bink player in the movies folder, they seem to play fine on my system without it, using only nwmovies. I assume it includes Bink decoding but I'm not sure about this.

QuoteMy hope with the NWN:EE is that they'll make the hack obsolete too, by just using the native Bink library to play the videos, like on Windows. Or alternatively, use a different codec altogether, by recreating the videos from their original source (thus not lowering the quality through transcoding).

I guess they'll reencode the videos in a more modern format, I think that's what they did with the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. I wouldn't make a bet on them using the original "master" files, though, they'll probably just reencode the existing bik videos to mp4 or similar.

QuoteYou of course can still do that. But you'll introduce quality losses, because going from one lossy codec to another is lossy.

Sure, but the videos are already in pretty low quality, a proper reencoding would barely be noticeable.

Quote

Quoting: abelthorneI assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct?

From my understanding of the nwmovies hack, this is correct, yes.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.


Last edited by abelthorne on 22 November 2017 at 3:38 pm UTC

Quoting: abelthorneThe hack I mentioned is nwmovies (on GitHub). Is that the same one you're talking about?

Yes.

Quoting: abelthorneI'm a bit annoyed that it displays a window border for a fraction of a second every time it plays a video, that's why I was looking for a solution with a more classic format.

The Bink format has been reverse engineered by the FFmpeg people. So you should be able to just use mplayer, mpv, vlc, or any other video player to play the Bink files, instead of the original Bink player.

You might want to look into the nwmovies.pl script to see how it calls what player, and change it according to your needs.

Quoting: abelthorneAlso, for some reason, while all the guides I've seen say to put the Bink player in the movies folder, they seem to play fine on my system without it, using only nwmovies.

That would be already using mplayer then, I think. Look into the nwmovies.pl script and see what it does :).

Quoting: abelthorneI assume it includes Bink decoding but I'm not sure about this.

No. nwmovies just calls another player, either the original Bink Player or mplayer.

Quoting: abelthorneI guess they'll reencode the videos in a more modern format, I think that's what they did with the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. I wouldn't make a bet on them using the original "master" files, though, they'll probably just reencode the existing bik videos to mp4 or similar.

That would be disappointing.

Quoting: abelthorneSure, but the videos are already in pretty low quality, a proper reencoding would barely be noticeable.

Well, okay, yes, it might not be with more modern codecs. But back in the day, using XviD, it was very noticable.