NWN: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Games
21

An insecure one, too. I like the pre-emptive strikes against Qt3ers as the highbrow mafia.

As for his points… eh, a lot is solved by having good players and a good DM. I do think it’s weird to slap a fast, realtime combat system onto an imitation of the pen and paper experience, but whatever. Personally, I think turn-based would’ve made a lot of sense in NWN multiplayer, even if it made the combats a bit longer. They would’ve been quick anyway with the calculations taken care of.

The text thing is always an issue, too. Maybe voice headphone sets in an expansion pack? Okay, I’m driving off the rails…

22

Didn’t you ply them with alcohol? I rest my case!

Wish I’d been there, Tom. You did have the advantage of being able to talk to the players, though, didn’t you? I think that’s what the multiplayer game really needs. Having to read and type text messages slows things down too much.

23

“NWN actually demonstrates pretty convincingly what is compelling about the single-player CRPG experience”

Ok

“All I’m saying is that no matter how much time you spend crafting dialog trees and making the well talk so a man is trapped inside, it isn’t going to translate into gameplay the way you think it is. No matter how much “work” the DM and players put into it, it’s going to suck. In fact, the MORE “work” everyone does (better story, more choices, everyone controls themselves and doesn’t wander off) will just make it clear how not fun it is to do this. But you’ll find that out for yourself, I suppose.”

Except in single player, right? Seems that Ben will still be able to craft a good single player game, right? That’s actually more than enough for me.

And Ben, I sympathize. I grew up in Irvine California and that’s where my old D&D friends are. I’ve been in Milwaukee for 7 years and never bothered finding D&D players… there’s something scary about D&D players after the age of 30.

24

“This is my whole point: in pen-and-paper gaming, there often isn’t a lot that you, as the gamer, are actually doing. But the interaction between you and the other players, both through their physical presence and the fact that you are all drinking beer or Coke and probably occasionally petting the dog completely makes up for that. Separate the players, though, and give everyone his own screen and mouse, and all of a sudden the need to interact through a computer interface actually becomes cumbersome. You can try and use Roger Wilco or something (we did not but we will try it next time) but the conventions of CRPGs are all built on single-player gaming. The stupid dialog trees, “Poor soul, I will help you / Stupid fool, I will never help you! / Draw steel, ruffian! / Farewell” just don’t work well with five guys standing around, even if all five of those guys have regulalrly sat in the same living room for years as part of the same Morrow Team.”

Interesting post. Please let us know what you think of it after trying Roger Wilco.

I’m still excited by the game. I’m just looking forward to mods that I can play on my own with a single character and a henchman. There seem to be a lot of people designing the mods like that.

And I’d like to try a regular group too. If the voice communications work, it should help a bit. A DM can then just tell the players stuff instead of forcing players to read a lot of text. In fact, a module designed to be played that way would require less work on the part of the DM making the mod – you don’t have to write all that NPC text.

I suspect I’ll satisfy my multiplayer jones with MMOGs, though. In fact, I wonder if BioWare didn’t err in perhaps making a D&D MMOG instead?

25

Sure, we had beer… but that doesn’t matter :wink:

As for having the ability to talk to the players; I don’t think it mattered. Basically what I was doing was telling people stuff like “It seems you guys killed something evil that had a head… maybe it was carrying that Head of Evil you’re looking for.”

To have a good multi-player experience, you’re going to generally want to have a DM who created the module himself… or is at least extremely familiar with the module you’re playing. At our press tours in March (April maybe?) the module I created had absolutely no scripting in it whatsoever, and it was a pain to DM–it was still fun, but having to jump from NPC to NPC was irritating. But one thing you CAN do is assign text strings to your quickbar slots. So instead of having the players wait around like fools while you type your dialogue, you could go in ahead-of-time and assign certain strings of dialogue to quickbar slots.

It’s all about preparation for the DM. I’m not super familiar with PnP DMing, but I’d imagine it’s a similar situation–if you’re not totally prepared to DM that specific module, it isn’t going to be an overly exciting experience for your players.

26

I’m going to be snatching up player made, single player modules left and right. I think that is where the true life of the game is going to be; the ability of the community to essentially make expansion packs. As long as the single player game continues to satisfy, I’m quite happy with the game. Multiplayer is nice, and it’s what the game was marketted towards, but so far it’s been the only part I feel is lacking.

There will undoubtedly be a decently sized multiplayer community for quite some time, but I don’t think it’s going to live up to the MMOG-style numbers that people seem to be expecting.

As for the combat, I think it could have been made 90% better with one little change to multiplayer: use Fallout’s combat style. The game is all nice and real time while people run around and explore, but you run into a hostile and smack, you’re in turn based mode. You have movement points, number of attacks, etc. It would capture the feeling of the D&D style combat much better, and encounters wouldn’t last the split second that they do now.

27

Have at it, Bub. Just calling it like I sees it.

I hope NWN works out as it does have some neat ideas but it really isn’t aiming at hardcore highbrow roleplaying mafia nutjobs like myself. (Of course, I don’t think good roleplaying is really all that hard or weird but that’s a topic for another forum).

28

That’s what I look like when I forget to log in.

29

You write a lot like Cliffy B., Legolas.

30

Except in single player, right? Seems that Ben will still be able to craft a good single player game, right? That’s actually more than enough for me.

Yeah, this in itself could be enough. I mean, that was what Adventure Construction Set was about way back in the day and I had a blast with that (though back then there was no internet with which to distribute one’s adventures). Of course other CRPG’s have editors (MW and DS, etc.) but NWN’s seems to have a shallower learning curve, which could help.

31

“It’s all about preparation for the DM. I’m not super familiar with PnP DMing, but I’d imagine it’s a similar situation–if you’re not totally prepared to DM that specific module, it isn’t going to be an overly exciting experience for your players.”

That’s important, but I think what Legolas was getting at is that the pacing that works for PNP is far too slow for online play. PNP stuff is very conversational, and even if the DM’s busy with something, then you talk to your friends at the table, pick up a miniature and comment on the paint job, etc. Online you’re focused on the PC and even having to wait 60 seconds can seem interminable, because staring at a monitor when nothing’s happening is extremely boring.

Part of the slow pace of play is due to the text chat and messages. Things could be sped up a bit with voice chat. Really, though, I think the issue is the way playing a computer game demands your entire attention, which in turn makes players demand that the game constantly be interesting. Players just will not tolerate much dead time in computer games.

I think designing good NWN mods for group play will be quite a bit different from designing PNP adventures. The action’s really going to have to be kicked up to Diablo-esque levels for it to be popular as a multiplayer game. Mods where the group has to roam around talking to NPCs a lot might alienate a lot of players.

32

“I’m not super familiar with PnP DMing, but I’d imagine it’s a similar situation–if you’re not totally prepared to DM that specific module, it isn’t going to be an overly exciting experience for your players.”

Exactly, and any PnP gamer would know this. They would probably have plenty of crappy sessions they could tell about from their PnP days.

The complaining about the game that people just don’t like the feel or whatever. Where you tottally comfortable when you first started PnP gaming? I doubt it. Slamming the games MP after just a week of release is just lame.

Ohh and the comments about getting the online RPG gaming from MM games is really laughable. The games out today are about as fro from role-playing as you can get. Their MM action camping hackfests.

33

“Ohh and the comments about getting the online RPG gaming from MM games is really laughable. The games out today are about as fro from role-playing as you can get. Their MM action camping hackfests.”

So what’s wrong with playing an online RPG where you kill lots of monsters and get loot? That’s the fun part, isn’t it?

I’ll give you this – if you don’t want to call those games “roleplaying” games, that’s fine. In turn, I don’t want to play a game where I have to spend a lot of time pretending I’m an elf and doing a lot of non-combat stuff. BTW, I read a message about a new NWN online campaign starting that’s “roleplaying” and one of the things the DM is insisting on is that characters walk instead of running because that promotes more roleplaying. Ugh.

What I do want with an online RPGish game is something I can jump into quickly and have fun right away and maintain a persistent character. I’m not sold that NWN is that game yet.

34

I’ve played through about 1/2 of Act One with two friends, using Game Voice. Other than playing through the prelude prior to starting multiplayer, I haven’t played any single player.

We had a great time. The paladin is the designated talker, and he does all the NPC chats. It doesn’t matter that I don’t read the text, cause he tells us the top line summary. While he’s chatting, I (the rogue) pop around looting all the chests, picking locks, etc. The monk does his Tai Chi, or whatever, and sells stuff as necessary (since he can carry all the heavy stuff). When we are ready to go, the Paladin, who knows the mission, can head out to the appropriate place, and the other two of us, use the stone of recall, then pop to the party leader location (which is free).

No muss, no fuss. Meanwhile, we give each other shit, mock the paladin, etc. The same as you would be doing in a live action game. We lose the physical comedy obviously, but as we all have kids, we can do this for an hour or two every other night or so, whereas we could almost never get together for a PNP session.

The three of us have played EQ, DAOC, and AO together, and I’d say the experience is about the same. We are still in the early glow of NWN, so it will probably tarnish like the others did. OTOH, given that we usually play one to two hour sessions, the MMP’s become unplayable at high level. NWN might not. Or, it might. Or it just might get boring.

If the included campaign takes us forty hours or so, it will take a few months to get through, and be about the equivalent of how long we played any of the other three for. Due to our time constraints, we’d definitely be considered casual players in the online space, but NWN is serving our needs just fine.

I wouldn’t play it without Gamevoice. But, I could say the same for any of the MMP’s. Given our time and family contraints we find playing with gamevoice to be a perfectly acceptable PNP substitute.

35

Okay, but…

All I’m saying is that no matter how much time you spend crafting dialog trees and making the well talk so a man is trapped inside, it isn’t going to translate into gameplay the way you think it is. No matter how much “work” the DM and players put into it, it’s going to suck.

See, here is where you tell me that it sucks again, no matter how much I think, even from firsthand experience, that it doesn’t. So I’d say the problem is less one of my reading comprehension and more one of your communication skills.

I have no problem with the fact that you don’t like it. I don’t think that DMed multiplayer modules are going to be everyone’s cup of tea. And quite frankly, I don’t think that DMed modules are the appropriate place for all the scripting and dialog trees. In my regular game, I plan to have most conversation trees that give you two choices: “Goodbye,” and “I’d like to ask you something…” (the latter sends a server call to the DM, telling them to posses that character because a player wants to chat). I plan to use only those scripts that perform functions that I can’t do on the fly. It’s a time thing–I’d like to play at least twice a month, and I’ like to spend the interveneing time on something other than game prep.

I’d also like to make modules designed to be played multiplayer without a DM, or solo. Those do require scripting. As Desslock said, they are functionally identical to playing BG I or II multiplayer, which I personally found to be an awful lot of fun. So again, I find your prediction that “it’s going to suck even if you think it won’t” puzzling. You’ve said that it does for you, and I believe you. Other people obviously disagree. I know a lot of people that enjoyed playing the BG games online. I can’t think of a single reason why this would be any different (or at least any worse; it’s significantly better in many ways, not least of which the fact that user-created content will probably be easy to come by).

And even if you are completely correct about multiplayer NWN failing to catch on in te mainstream (and I’m not convinced that you are), I’d still say that people will still be playing it years from now for the solo mods alone.

If the whole point of playing NWN is that you’d rather be playing face-to-face D&D but you cannot, then how bad NWN is as a multiplayer game doesn’t matter because you have no choice.

Well, yeah. That’s true. Although if it were so bad that it wasn’t any fun, I’d rather not play at all.

Instead of having sex with a person, you can buy a blow-up sex doll and use that, but it’s not so good either, according to Met_K.

All right, I’m about 85% convinced at this point that you, in fact, are Met_K, or possibly a cleverly constructed clone. But that’s besides the point. While it may be true that I have no choice regarding the method by which I run my campaign, it does not necessarily follow that the NWN method is bad.

I’m not going to argue with you further, because you have obviously already made up your mind about two things: NWN sucks, and everyone that thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. There’s not much I can say to an argument like that but “whatever.” Time will tell either way, I guess.

36

I think Legolas’ take on NWN’s appeal is quite off. Yes, if you attempt to try to shoehorn a strict PnP campaign into NWN, it will probably suck, largely because the infrastructure doesn’t support all the crazy segues and backstory DMs love to overdevelop. And that also assumes that everyone WANTS that aspect of PnP.

What NWN does allow for is great multiplay of IT’S OWN BREED. It may not replicate the PnP experience, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun on its own terms, which is fast-paced cooperative AD&D 3E hack-and-slash with a bit of story and context thrown in for atmosphere.

I don’t expect some fruity Gygaxian multiplane-spanning campaign full of politics and romance and elven intrigue or whatever. They can save that shit for Baldur’s Gate 3 so the people who apparently found BG3’s interparty dynamic so incredibly compelling that life without it is a shallow mockery of living can get their rocks off. And yes, the people that attempt to replicate the entire Lord of the Rings across a set of NWN modules will probably have a pretty unfun Internet multiplayer experience on their hands, no matter how badly they wish otherwise.

What I do expect is Tomb of Horrors or some other hackfest module type design that features good old-fashioned killing and looting and levelling and bragging. Y’know, like Diablo 2, but with a whole host of new environments and monsters and loot coming from the fertile minds of the people who appreciate hack-and-slash to the degree I do. Just because LoTR would suck as a NWN internet multiplay module doesn’t mean that say, the Helm’s Deep bit will as well.

And just because Baldur’s Gate had a party and RTS elements doesn’t mean that every single AD&D RPG that comes from Bioware should have likewise, fer chrissakes. There’s quite a few great RPGs out there that don’t have parties and sexxxy dark elves hitting on your non-fatty avatar, contrary to what the melodramatic reactions of a few around here might indicate. Personally, I like having a single character, since it allows me to really focus on them and chew up landscape minus constant bandboxing.

LAN play also works quite well, since you can do a good chunk of the things you’d do in a PnP session while the DM is masturbating behind his little screen, such as BS with your buddies. You can also communicate without the need to type, which allows for more frivolous conversation and less terse commands, which builds the social dynamic in which the real appeal of PnP lies. Y’know, a bunch of geeks just hangin’ out, talking about what might be the geekiest thing conceivable: their lives in a world where they aren’t geeks, plus stat management exercises.

NWN is a great, great hack-and-loot AD&D experience, which adequately replicates a lot of what I liked about the classic dungeon crawl modules, only in streamlined form. When you start trying to script a fucking fantasy novel, yes, it WILL get lame, just as Counterstrike might get lame if someone tried to cram a whole Tom Clancy novel into a mod. NWN is an incredibly fun way to hack monsters, collect loot, and get a bit of the good old AD&D atmosphere going on over the wire, along with pretty graphics and a questionable camera.

It is not a substitute for PnP, and I think Legolas’ ideas that EVERYONE is going to try to replicate the PnP in their modules is incredibly silly. Survival of the fittest: the mods that don’t work well under the game’s core design logic, such as a port of any story-intensive, NPC-driven module, will fail. People will stop making them. What will work are quality hack-and-slash episodes, and I imagine they’ll find a lot of clever ways to work around the limitations of the engine. Not every mod designer wants to the next Gary Gygax or Douglas Niles or R.A. Salvatore - some of them (like me) just want to make a good mod that’ll give a group of gamers a good two to five hour campaign with some fun twists and surprises (that don’t necessarily involve overwrought dialogue trees) and work their party tactics a bit.

Legolas assumes that everyone bought this game expecting to play through a Dragonlance novel at some point with their pals, which does the audience quite a disservice; not to say that a few swallowed the hype, and there’s also quite a few of us having a great deal of fun with the game on its own terms.

37

“It is not a substitute for PnP, and I think Legolas’ ideas that EVERYONE is going to try to replicate the PnP in their modules is incredibly silly.”

I don’t think his idea was silly – that’s what a lot of people thought they’d be able to do with NWN – take their PNP campaigns online. In fact a lot of DMs are making online versions of the PNPs from some of the comments I’ve read on message boards.

38

Which is all fine and dandy until you have more than one party (or the same party broken up into two sub-parties) working on different parts of a single quest. What happens to the other party when one goes into turn based mode?

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In some games it is. It doesn’t have to be. Do you like any games (they don’t have to be role-playing games) that don’t involve hacking monsters and getting loot? Case in point.

I’ll give you this – if you don’t want to call those games “roleplaying” games, that’s fine. In turn, I don’t want to play a game where I have to spend a lot of time pretending I’m an elf and doing a lot of non-combat stuff. BTW, I read a message about a new NWN online campaign starting that’s “roleplaying” and one of the things the DM is insisting on is that characters walk instead of running because that promotes more roleplaying. Ugh.

Well, I agree–that does sound dumb. But I don’t accept, via that isolated example, that combat is the only thing that can make an RPG compelling.

What I do want with an online RPGish game is something I can jump into quickly and have fun right away and maintain a persistent character. I’m not sold that NWN is that game yet.

I’m guessing it probably won’t be. Sounds like you want to play a massively multiplayer game. Nothing wrong with that–go play one. But don’t knock NWN for not being one.

I think designing good NWN mods for group play will be quite a bit different from designing PNP adventures.

Now that I agree with. I don’t think it follows that “different” means “full of nonstop combat.” Like I said before, I’m sure we’ll get some modules like that, and I’m sure some of them will be fun. There are other possibilities too, however.

I don’t think his idea was silly – that’s what a lot of people thought they’d be able to do with NWN – take their PNP campaigns online.

I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but I’ll give you my take on this. I do plan to run an online campaign. I do not expect it to work like a tabletop campaign. How could it? It’s going to take a very different design approach. I have a running list of strengths and weaknesses inherent in any multiplayer NWN campaign, and the biggest (aside from the fact that players are not face to face–one very crucial difference that Legolas mentioned) is the fact that you can’t improvise, at least not on a large scale. You can’t create areas on the fly, so if the party decides that they want to go someplace you haven’t prepared for, it’ll have to wait until next week. Better to either keep the game more structured, or more focused–a campaign set in a single “hub” area where most of the action takes place, for instance. This solves a lot of problems, because you CAN improvise within the bounds of existing game areas.

Mostly I agree with Doug’s statements. I think that DMs/module makers that fail to adjust their design approach to NWN’s particular strengths and weaknesses will find that their games aren’t much fun. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t run a fun, episodic campaign with persistent PCs and a storyline and recurring characters. You just need to alter your approach, and your expectations.

40

I still think it’s difficult to hold a computer player’s interest if the action isn’t cranked up significantly in a multiplayer game. Just spending 30 seconds looking at the screen while you wait for your party leader to talk to an NPC is aggravating, moreso if this is repeated periodically.

It’s not that I don’t think a DM can create a fun experience, but now having played NWN, my expectations that players could recreate the tabletop experience have been dashed for the most part. I think the best NWN multiplayer games will play more like a story-driven DM-controlled Diablo – heavy on the action, light on the reading and NPC interaction.