Neverwinter Nights 2 Preview

The original Neverwinter Nights was a great fantasy game which explored new dimensions for the Diablo fans like me. Those who love to cast spells and magic or fight their way through hoards of monsters and dark creatures loved it and it sold millions of copies worldwide. The original NWN was a BioWare production, whereas the sequel Neverwinter Nights 2 is going to be published by Atari. The sequel to NWN was rumoured to come out for years but it finally entered in production stage in July 2004 when the Californian Obsidian Entertainment started developing it (Obsidian Entertainment has been founded by the members of Black Isles Studios, who also happen to have good relations with BioWare, also the first game by Obsidian: Knights of The Old Republic II was a sequel to a BioWare game). So the two companies involved hold a strong relation and while developing mighty games, it’s important to hold on to your instincts, especially when you are doing a sequel to such a monstrosity.

More than the game, consumers are waiting to get their hands at the all new Electron engine, which is supposed to be uber-cool, super strong and is supposed to make other games in its genre look ancient (and that includes its very own mother). The Electron engine is a significantly rewritten and updated version of the Aurora engine which was used for the original Neverwinter Nights. Electron engine is supposed to make the game more organic and worldlier. Its flora and fauna is friendly and gets rid of the generic “tile-based” look and replaces it with an up-to-date graphics engine, so outdoor environments will look a lot more natural. The engine will control the shapes of the trees and environment from the numbers coded in the script, which means you can have thousands of trees and all of them would be completely different from each other: It’s more like DNA coding. Not just that, now there are going to be folds and faults in the terrain, more dynamic lighting, particle effects such as ground mist and a day/night cycle with real-time shadows. Whereas indoor environments, such as dungeons and building interiors, will still have a “tile” look. But the engine will separate the environment from the objects, so you will be able to put different objects (plants, grass, rocks etc.) in the dungeons to make all of them look different as per your taste. The conversation system has been completely overhauled, and now there are cinematic-style camera angles that can zoom in on faces, instead of the static portraits used in the first game.

NWN2 will feature a strong single player campaign as it did in the original. Nothing is sure about the storyline yet but it is rumoured that you start as a no one, with no destiny, identity and aim of life. It’s opposed to the earlier game where you used to get the campaigns just because you were a hero. NWN2 will feature a more believable world with more believable campaigns and logical following of episodes and adventures. The developers have made a commitment to make the players interested in the game through storyline. They want the layers to play the game in search for its conclusion apart from its motivating features. It’s supposed to be more about the personal growth and getting mature in the world of forgotten realms. The game starts after the events of the first game and a subsequent time has elapsed. The story begins in the swampy village of West Harbor with players taking the role of one of its inhabitants. This village doesn’t pretend towards the warm fuzzy feeling that home gives most of us, but serves its purpose to define the main character as a very tough person. Village is trying to forget the mighty war its empire faced in the history and you are an ignorant villager. But as it always happens in games, no matter how hard you try, you won’t stay a nobody for long. Raiders raid your village and you along with your kinsmen fight and defeat them and then, then you realise that your picturesque and secluded town harbors a dark secret. It was once a battlefield that hosted a bloody conflict between the King of Shadows and the very forces of Neverwinter. The end is not known and so you will be developing your character to find the secrets of unknown and the history of the land and also thinking, “Why is it me every time?”

There is going to be a new dynamic concept of companions in NWN2, which were known as henchmen in the previous game. The original Neverwinter Nights only let you have one henchman; while the expansions let you have another one later, for a total of two. Neverwinter Nights 2 will let you have three companions, all of which are going to be different in their traits. They are not going to be your regular companions who blindly follow your lead and die while you try to evade your foes (oh! how many times my dear golem died for me while I was a Necro in Diablo2: Lords of Destruction, and not to forget my mercenaries). The “die factor” of your companions will depend upon your relation with them, on what you tell them and the kind of relation you develop with them. Each companion will have his or her own motivations, as well as a detailed history, and your path through the game will vary depending on the companions that you choose to adventure with. You will be able to control companions directly, as well as control their inventory, which is something you couldn’tdo in the original game. You will also be able to “influence” your companions, much like you could try and influence your companions in Knights of the Old Republic 2(in that game you could gain or lose influence with your companions). Moreover they won’t be available to you 24/7 as they will have their own jobs to attend and most often you will find them busy in their own lives and missions. Now that’s what you call real companions.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is still far away from being launched and so the traits of the story are still unsure and readers may discover a few spoilers when the game is launched. But one thing is certain that NWN2 will be using the 3.5 edition of the Dragons & Dungeons’ rules, though there will be modifications where needed. Apart from that the new Warlock class has been developed which is the first for a D&D game. The warlock is an attempt to make magic users a lot more useful, especially at early levels, when they’re ridiculously weak. That’s because the warlocks only have a handful of powers, but they can cast them at any time, as much as they want. This gets rid of the need to constantly rest and “memorise” or recharge your spell casting ability, like you have to do with the sorcerer and wizard classes.

The next best thing is the game editor, which is said to start a whole new chapter in the field of game editors. The editor is going to be as user friendly as an editor of this kind can be. Noobs like me can do a little change here and there and for our help a new wizard has been developed which creates a random map, based on the various inputs as inserted bythe user. Now that’s what we usually see right, but this editor will have some added features for us. Those who are deeply in it can do more than that (almost making an all new game) as the editor is going to provide all the tools needed for developing a game. The editor is said to put you in the shoes of a game developer and then you will be free to create a new game of your own altogether. Terrain can now be painted to create any kind of environment wanted. Rolling hills, dismal swamps, jagged mountains are all easy as pie. Simply clickand drag to raise or lower terrain and then paint a texture over the top. With the addition of texture blending, players can also create smooth transitions between terrain types as well as easily create overgrown paths. Simply changing the colours (or textures) of the sky and horizon along with ambient lighting can create a completely different mood in any setting. Environments need buildings or items as well and altering them is also made simple. Now, instead of requiring each item to be placed individually, patterns of items, likes of stacked barrels, can be saved in a separate file called prefab and this prefab can be used later in some other map and mission. In addition, most buildings can now be tinted just like creatures for even more variety. Finally, base tree types can be planted around an environment and then altered using a seed value. Changing this value alters the structure of the tree including its slant, number of leaves, number of branches, thickness, and so on. Players can create an entire forest of the same trees and have a really hardtime picking out any that are similar. What else? Well you can even change the dialogues according to your need. Obsidian has developed a few modifications as requested by earlier users like the resizable and moveable windows. The monsters can be resized and so you have can develop an all new monster class depending upon the attributes you allot to them. In simple words it meansthat the users of editors will have a lot more power at their hands. You will be able to work on height maps, normal maps, and shadow maps. You can adjust the lighting, the level of fog, terrain, animations, wind speed, and how many clouds are in the sky. The foreword is that the editor is an almost a game making software of its own kind. The real power is the ability to share your own creations with the world just like you did with the original game. Hail to NWN2..!!

This brings us to the multiplayer gaming and it’s obvious that when you will have hundreds of new missions created by users themselves on the internet, ready to be downloaded and used, NWN2 is going to have a cult of its own and one can see a new community of online gaming arising in the not so distant future. Also the company has planned to support as far as 64 layers in the multiplayer gaming, with support to more. As far as the support for the earlier maps and missions go, well you will have to create the modules in the new editor to use the new graphic effects, but the properties of objects and coding values haven’t changed so that will save some of your time. That requires you to get ready for a lot of copying and pasting. Happy coding!!!

So the question is when are we going to lay our hands on this plush game? Developers say that they are working towards a release during the first half of the year 2006. Atari did not include the game in the list of games they were aiming to publish during the current fiscal year, which ends in March. So the notions are that NWN2 will be in stores somewhere in the second quarter of 2006. But of course, keeping in mind the effort and magnitude of the game, the release is pretty much subjected to changes. When a major successful game comes out with a sequel, it always carries expectations from the gamers and that puts extra pressure on the developers who spend sleepless nights so that people like us can enjoy the game. But I have a gut feeling that Neverwinter Nights 2 is going to write a new success story of its own,
independent of the name it follows. …amen!!