Beamdog has announced that Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition [Steam, Official Site] will officially release on March 27th and it's coming with day-1 Linux support.
Announced on Twitter, where they also replied to our question to confirm Linux at day-1. We obviously knew it was already coming to Linux, but knowing it's for sure at the same time as other platforms is indeed great news.
It will cost $19.99 at release and they've confirmed it will support English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Polish with more languages to come. They've said it will not be an Early Access title, but development is still ongoing so it's likely to get some bigger updates after release. Also, so far only Steam (and the Beamdog Client obviously) has been mentioned, GOG has not been.
I actually have pre-release access through the Beamdog Client and I can confirm it runs quite nicely, here's two random shots of it running:
One issue I have come across in the Linux client, is the cursor vanishing in the Video Options menu (which I've been told is already fixed in a newer build). There's also some audio issues, like the audio for torches and other items suddenly popping in at max volume at a certain zoom level and then totally vanishing at another—instead of it fading based on camera distance.
Although I haven't yet had an extensive amount of testing time, but it seems smooth in terms of overall performance.
Here's what's going to be updated:
- 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.
It also includes all content from Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition.
Will you be grabbing a copy?
Post updated after publishing with issue information.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by SadL on 10 March 2018 at 11:35 am UTC
I still need to configure the controls to have any meaning in NWN.
Another thing is that there is no fullscreen (yet), and the gnome F11 refuses to fullscreen it.
The original NWN seems to be able to do fullscreen, but somehow it messes everything up and displays the neverwinternights halfway the screen.
But it still works.
Mountain Man Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: GrifterQuoting: Mountain ManIn fact, it was BioWare's original intent to sell just the toolset and rely 100% on the community to create the content. They changed this plan at the last minute and threw together the single player campaign because they feared nobody would buy the game otherwise, which is why the campaign is so lackluster
That doesn't sound accurate at all, the original campaign is hardly lackluster, it's huge in scope with a vast array of voice talent and certainly not something just thrown together at the last minute. While waiting for NWN I don't remember at any point when they were going to just release a toolset, from the very beginning they had the campaign in mind and they even wanted it to run on BeOS. If anything was a bit lackluster it was shadows of undrentide, but hordes of the underdark is another massive story like the original campaign. At no point did they fear nobody would buy the game.
I'm pretty certain what I said is accurate. I remember a lot of game journalists at the time questioning whether or not there was really a market for a pure game construction set. Maybe the campaign wasn't a last-minute addition, but it also wasn't the plan to include it when they started development, so it was started relatively late in the development cycle.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 10 March 2018 at 3:14 pm UTC
And it's NWN… I mean come on.
I fact it is the only title that makes me excited (Due to other games requiring Steam, ofcourse).
Wow, these are some pretty neat enhancements. I was just a little concerned that they'd settle for the "bare minimum", where graphical enhancements are concerned. This level of improvement is above & beyond what I hoped for. (although I assume it'll still be some time before the whole game is up to snuff graphically)
Also, I found this some years ago and I guess it's pertinent to share now for anyone who cares:
A reimplementation of BioWare's Aurora engine (and derivatives). Pre-pre-alpha :P
Expalphalog Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: NotSoQTI really wish we had more games like NWN and NWN2. As today I'm still unable to drag my D&D gang into NWN, but this is surely a stimulus, with or without toolset (it would slow down the things a lot but...).
Also, I found this some years ago and I guess it's pertinent to share now for anyone who cares:
A reimplementation of BioWare's Aurora engine (and derivatives). Pre-pre-alpha :P
DrMcCoy frequently posts here about his endevours on Xoreos! Here's a search of GOL for those articles: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=search&q=xoreos, although he does mention that they're mainly crossposts from the changelogs he writes for the project itself.
Last edited by scaine on 10 March 2018 at 3:58 pm UTC
QuoteIncludes 100+ hours of award-winning adventuresand the tools to create your own!
No tools? Ah well, I'll forget all about them sometime before I finish the 100+ hours(!!!!!) of content I will have.
Haters gonna hate, and kvetchers gonna kvetch, but I'll do a dance every time another truly great game makes it to Linux.
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