For those in need of a good RPG to play on Linux you're in luck, as Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition [Steam] is now officially available with day-1 Linux support.
For those that don't know, the original Neverwinter Nights actually did have a Linux version, although it wasn't officially supported and needed some manual tinkering to get working properly, so having an updated version that is supported is fantastic. Beamdog have done some good things for Linux gaming, giving us official support for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and now this too! For fans of more classic RPG experiences, Linux is a pretty good gaming platform.
Note: My copy was provided by Beamdog.
Here's what's changed:
- Improved Display: Your portrait, combat bar, inventory, and other UI elements adjust in size based on your chosen resolution including 1080p and 4k.
- Advanced Graphics Options: Pixel shaders and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Enable contrast, vibrance, and depth of field options as preferred.
- Community Endorsed: Original developers have teamed with key members of the Neverwinter Nights community to curate important fan-requested improvements to support players, storytellers, and modders.
- Backwards Compatibility: Works with save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights. A galaxy of community created content awaits.
They're also including all the content from Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition, so you get the Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark expansions as well. As it's on Steam, it comes with Steam Workshop support.
On top of this, Beamdog have said that development will be ongoing. The released version is just the start, they do plan a graphical overhaul and they will have a Steam beta up for people to test what they're working on.
Honestly, there's not a huge point in doing a traditional review, since the story hasn't changed and it's been around since 2002. I can say, since the earlier versions I tested, some Linux-specific issues like cursors vanishing behind the UI and some sound issues have been solved so the Linux version is working rather nicely.
In regards to the editor being Windows-only, it is on the Roadmap to make a version that's cross-platform, but it's in the "Icebox" section, which is items they want to do, but aren't the highest priority.
Find Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Steam now. As for a GOG release, they told me directly they don't have any dates lined up yet, but it sounds like it's not off the table.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: razing32Quoting: JanneQuoteFor those that don't know, the original Neverwinter Nights actually did have a Linux version, although it wasn't officially supported and needed some manual tinkering to get working properly,
Well, it was official enough to have the Tux logo on the game box. They did officially support it; the main limitation was that the editor was never made available.
ps. The two "Penultima" campaigns by Stefan Gagne is still the single best thing I played on Neverwinter Nights, and one of the best computer RPGs I've played, period. No idea if you can still find and download them, or if they work on this new release though.
Did not hear of them.
Seems the dude still has them up on his site :
http://stefangagne.com/penultima/modules.html
They are probably also at The Vault; along with just about everything else ever released...
https://neverwintervault.org
Viktualius Mar 28, 2018
A few bugs should be mentioned for interested linuxers, though:
-Fullscreen has to be done by the window-manager (rightclick on the window-titlebar and choose fullscreen)
-moving the mouse to the edges of the window or screen doesn't rotate the camera, which sucks and is maybe linked to the fullscreen issue
-the mouse-offset for scaled UI is also bad if you want to use anything higher then 1920x1080 (its pretty unplayable with scaled ui... works normal with unscaled, if its big enough for you to read (menues are about half the height of my monitor which is 1920x1080))
(I know some of this is posted above... just wanted to summarise it...)
It seems Beamdog is traing to fix the issues afaik...
Anyone here, who doesn't have all of the above on linux?
Quoting: ViktualiusSuch a great game... I own a few copies of the original one nowadays... but instantly bought the EE yesterday on steam.
A few bugs should be mentioned for interested linuxers, though:
-Fullscreen has to be done by the window-manager (rightclick on the window-titlebar and choose fullscreen)
-moving the mouse to the edges of the window or screen doesn't rotate the camera, which sucks and is maybe linked to the fullscreen issue
-the mouse-offset for scaled UI is also bad if you want to use anything higher then 1920x1080 (its pretty unplayable with scaled ui... works normal with unscaled, if its big enough for you to read (menues are about half the height of my monitor which is 1920x1080))
(I know some of this is posted above... just wanted to summarise it...)
It seems Beamdog is traing to fix the issues afaik...
Anyone here, who doesn't have all of the above on linux?
Yes, same issues.
I have to admit that I'm disappointed they didn't sort out the poor Linux behaviour of the original client. Interacting with window manager standards properly ( like pausing the game when switching to another application ) should not be that difficult.
Quoting: throghBesides the named problems with fullscreen-support: The game is not working really good using integrated graphic processors while the classic version does without problems. So much about those optimizations! Tested and rejected this really bad optimized version.For me the performance on Ubuntu 16.04 with an R9 290 was also poor. After upgrading Ubuntu to the 18.04 beta, it works very well.
I don't know how much of this is down to mesa improvements, but clearly they can't guarantee performance over a wide range of hardware at different software maturity levels.
That said, I doubt there was much testing on Linux, as their community is probably not that large.
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