Neverwinter Nights E3 Reports

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(Originally posted by Mollusken)

A lot of people tried out Neverwinter Nights at E3, and some of them have written reports or previews based on their experiences. First we go to GameSpy, who participated in a multiplayer session with BioWare's Tom Ohle as dungeon master.

We were waylaid by an umber hulk with its gaze of confusion. As the barbarian stood around transfixed, the party killed the monster and continued. Shortly thereafter, my thief noticed a portion of the floor was colored red - a trap. Right-clicking on the trap brought up NWN's context-sensitive, radial menu, an elegant method to handle the myriad of spells, abilities, feats, skills and actions in the game. Selecting Disarm Trap, a progress bar then appeared and after about 10 seconds, the trap was gone. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a fire elemental appeared -- apparently, the DM thought we were having it too easy. But it was a pushover, and we pushed on, opening the final two seals and reaching the lowest level of the dungeon.

GameSpot has also tried the multiplayer game, and this is a part of what they had to say.

Joining a multiplayer game is simple-we choose our character, clicked on the "connect" button, and we were in. All characters appeared in a small training area with training dummies-we were able to try out the game's simple point-and-click combat, which is initiated with a single click on the target enemy. We also took some time to try out the game's different spells-Neverwinter Nights will have nearly all the popular magic spells that appeared in the Baldur's Gate series, though they will the spells will be modified to be consistent with the 3rd-edition rules. Among other things, we were able to use Heal, Horrid Wilting, Cloudkill, and Fireball, as well as turn undead. As you've probably seen in previous screenshots and movie footage, Neverwinter Nights uses colorful particle effects for most of its magic, and though they seem rather simple for the most part, all spells are immediately recognizable at a glance.

Gamehelper has written a preview of Neverwinter Nights based on their E3 experiences.

With the almost infinitesimal amount of detail happening behind the scenes of Neverwinter Nights, would you believe the graphics are some of the best ever for an RPG? It’s true; BioWare has gone the 3D route and has packaged a behemoth of content in a beautiful package. From the demonstration we were only able to view a small dungeon area and the beginning of a quest within a castle keep, but that small glimpse still sold me on the promise of Neverwinter Nights to come. The camera scrolled around the character and could be drawn back and forth. Flames flickered, spells and their effects were amazing, and the combat, though a tad repetitive in animation, was still classic BioWare RPG stamp of approval.

And finally, another preview can be found at Frictionless Insight.

The DM Client was also surprisingly easy to use. As soon as we had jumped into the session we were adding hostile dragons, giants and loot to a real-time game, without difficulty or much explanation. You can also take control of NPCs' action and dialogue. Everything seems clear and menu-driven. Of course, the quality of play will depend on the quality of the DM, but the toolset appears robust enough to give a good DM a fair amount of control over the play experience. Multiplayer sessions support up to 64 players, in any combination of characters and DMs. One DM could manage an enormous game, or 63 DMs could cater to a single player's every need. The DM can set a password for DM control, to prevent grief DMing, but once in, all DMs are created equal. Bioware may implement a ranking or prioritization of DMs at some point after release.