Darkness Over Daggerford is a Premium module that is often thrown in as a bundled item when you pick up the Enhanced Edition on sale. If you’re only going to play one long third party module, make it that one. It’s not the most impressive in features or production quality, but really all these modules look like a 3D game from 2003. But it has the best underlying RPG stuff. Every tiny sidequest has a lot of choices and impact.
In case anyone else was checking out this game due to the recent Enhanced Edition upgrades, you should know about this module installer tool: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/tool/neverwinter-nights-mod-installer-tool-nit
While NWN:EE does have Steam Workshop support, the vast majority of modules created in the last 20 years have not been uploaded to the Steam Workshop. And even many new modules are not uploaded there because the Workshop can’t do enough of the custom modifications that they require.
With that install tool you basically just point it at a URL to a module on the Neverwinter Vault and click next next next and it’s installed. In my experience it doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it’s quite high, maybe 90%. It even does stuff like re-encode video files into a format that the EE can read.
The old modules are a bit dark if you enable the new lighting system. Try setting ‘lighting intensity at range’ to .3 or .35. And maybe tweak the other two settings up a bit. Only some recently updated modules really benefit from the EE (infuriatingly even the fog of war distance is baked into the module, so is locked on really old stuff)
More typical example, from DoD:
NWN:EE used to run like absolute barf on ALL my systems no matter how beefy the cpu and gpu were or how low the detail settings I used. There was more stutter there than you could shakily shake a stick at, while NWN Diamond ran like butter. Then a week ago I decided to fire up NWN:EE (which I bought on steam for like $3) for shits and giggles, expecting a big laugh that Beamdog still sells this unoptimized turd and it ran like glass slicked with astroglide. I couldn’t believe how great it ran, even at 4K! That UI scaling feature alone has brought this game into the modern age and made it a downright joy.
Then I ran NWN Diamond for old time’s sake, and it’s the most stuttery piece of old jank I ever saw, and completely unplayable at UHD resolutions due to the tiny non-scaling UI (mods can’t fix this). I think fast g-sync/VRR displays (recent proud owner of an LG C2 OLED) make a big difference with EE. No reason to ever go back to Diamond in the 2160p age. NWN:EE is amazing.
Well, I mean, I remember playing this when it first came out, so I went back to see if I’d posted in this thread and I see I’m advising people not to buy GeForce 4 MX cards because GeForce 3 Ti cards are a better value.
So glad to hear today’s hardware handles it better. :)
I remember doing MP with someone from Qt3, but for some reason, it feels like it was 20 years ago and I can’t remember who.
There’s a lot of community upgrades for example Beamdog's HD Art Pack - With Community Fixes | The Neverwinter Vault
Yeah, I got a kick out of scrolling to the top of this thread to 2002 and seeing all the hardware recommendations of the era. I may have tried playing this on a Diamond Stealth II Verite video card at the time and it was unplayable (unless you had a high tolerance for 10-15 FPS) so I sat on it for about a year until I got a Geforce 2 GTS and it soared all the way to 30 FPS I think lol. I then played the OC all the way through and enjoyed it because I didn’t know any better. I picked a pure fighter and made short work of any monster or human baddie that came my way, including Aribeth. I then played the HotU expansion and was brought to my knees because it was suddenly a real DnD campaign with monster immunities and requiring you to actually think about builds to succeed.
The NWN:EE edition has a built-in Curated Community Module browser that you can add other URLs to to make EE the best value on the market for free, quality content. When I played online for the first time in the mid-2000s I discovered the concept of psychopathic and/or neurotic dungeon masters that behaved so poorly and immaturely they’d watch the players drop out of their PWs like flies and then they’d be posting on forums saying things like, “Hey guys! I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I just want to say: I’M SORRY! I’m a better person now; really, I am! I swear!” haha
Speaking of NWN:EE sometimes appearing too dark with older modules mentioned in a post above mine, instead of messing with in-game gamma levels and brightness sliders or ini files (which can make an image look washed out lacking the proper contrast ratio on any game), I discovered a neat trick if you have nvidia cards using recent drivers of the last year or so - in the CP change Vulcan/OpenGL present method to Prefer Layed on DXGI Swapchain. It forces HDR on in Vulkin/OpenGL games that normally don’t support HDR. Now games like NWN:EE and Red Dead Redemption 2 look much brighter and more vibrant with proper contrast ratios. This works on displays that support HDR but try it on your regular TV or monitor to see what happens.
I was actually remeaning to visit this game, check out some of the better modules that have been made since, like “A Dance with Rogues”. You know, the real smut shit.
Interesting timing on resurrecting this thread. PC Gamer recently published this:
I never did find the time to play Nwn beyond Act 1 of the terrible official campaign. So boring. But I did keep hearing how good some fan modules were and bought the diamond edition, but never really carved the time to play it.
On the other hand, I did play Nwn2’s main campaign all the way through and loved it. I tried Mask of the Betrayer but couldn’t get past the opening boss fight. That one always defeated me.
Speaking of modules, I’m playing Bone Kenning I right now. Be bad, be a necromancer, build thralls of blood and bone to do your terrible bidding, summon demons, rescue evil (but pretty) witches in distress, terrorize the town and make them cower behind their locked doors, or KILL THEM ALL! I rarely play evil little shits in RPGs, but when I do, watch out!
There have been some great user-made modules since 2002. In fact, my best cRPG memories have been playing usermade content for NWN. Go to the The Vault and check out the Hall of Fame modules.
NWN is in my personal Hall of Fame, right there with FPS Football and a few others. but NOT because of the included campaign.
The magic with NWN for me is threefold
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The User made modules, as mentioned. The tools to allow users to make adventures in very flexible and powerful, without being completely obtuse for the nonprofessional. There are libraries of great adventures.
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The ease of multiplayer. You can play modules with your small group of friends, or you can join one of the many persistent worlds.
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The DM mode, which allows in MP one player to take on the role as DM. As DM, you can take control of the NPCs and roleplay with the group, invoke powers, create encounters or effects on demand, etc. I DMed 3 long campaigns back in the day.
I still go visit NWN periodically. I probably will DM a campaign with my current group of friends in a few months (we are playing Solasta right now).
For us, all that sounded great in theory, but since at the launch of the game, we only had the included campaign to work with, that’s what we played together. And we had a miserable time. In theory, allowing a player to DM sounds great, but with the included campaign, how much can one player do, and how hard is it? Isn’t that effort better spent just doing a pen and paper campaign instead?
So in the end, NWN was abandoned, and we did a few more pen and paper 2nd edition campaigns, and then a couple of years later, 3rd edition campaigns. In one I reached level 2, in another I reached level 3, but my favorite one was one in which we all died at level 1. I honestly have no idea what high level DnD is like because level 3 is the highest I’ve ever reached on pen and paper, and yet, I had a TON more fun than the stupid NWN campaign. But I guess I’m still grateful to NWN to spur us to go back to pen and paper. The truth is, two of my friends had played a lot of DnD in the 80s and 90s as kids, but me and another friend had never played it until after we tried to play DnD CRPGs first. I had a terrible time with Baldur’s Gate, and I had a terrible time with NWN. But Planescape Torment really inspired both of us who had never played pen and paper before. Planescape is the game that taught us that DnD can be wonderous and has infinite possibilities, even if that’s not the setting we used for the paper campaigns and even though we died early.
At launch NWN was a massive disappointment. I couldn’t believe it. I did make some custom modules but never finished any of them.
The official expansion campaign Hordes of the Underdark is decent. And some of the player made modules.
Might have been one of the only/last cRPGs based on D&D 3.0. Icewind Dale II and Temple of Elemental Evil made the jumped to 3.5.
I recall that I was mostly enjoying the game for the first few hours and then started reading a review where the writer dropped a massive spoiler for the main plot in the first paragraph or two with little to no warning. Then the dude doubled down when he was called on it. I wasn’t happy.
I tried a few custom modules and even a persistent world (my MUSH group had recently disbanded so I thought this might be a replacement). But good grief was it bland and not particularly conducive to actual roleplaying. Still, the idea of what NWN could be was always close but never quite in hand.
DMing the official campaign is not a good approach.
There are player made modules that are designed for DMing. Just like a PnP module, the DM has DM notes on how to run the module. The NPC typically have little to no scripting/automation as the DM can do all of that in real time.
Imagine the typical start of the mission Instead of the PCs clicking on the quest-giver NPC and getting lines of dialog, the DM uses the DM client to possess the NPC. Now you can interact in real time, roleplaying the NPC with the group through the character chat. You can even hop between multiple NPCs so multiple of them can chat with the group.
Fast forward and the PCs are in the lair of the dark necromancer. As the DM you can cue up spooky sound effects or visual effects. You can place traps, you can lock/unlock doors. You can possess the bad guys to interact with the PCs, or to play them in battle to make them more human-like… If you see an encounter is too easy, you can spawn in some more bad guys. What ever you want.
As I noted, I made my own campaigns. I found the prep time to be equal to making my own campaign in PnP. When I ran mods designed for DMing, likewise prep time was similar to PnP.
We did all our communication via typed text. The player’s text of course was labeled based on their PC. My chat as DM was labeled as from the NPC I was possessing at the time unless I intentionally was wanting to speak to the group as the DM. Playing via chat can be a challenge if you or your players are not fast typists. However because its text, you can roleplay anything and not get the dissonance of the player vs player character voice and bad accents like you do in PnP
Just like in PnP, you can make mistakes and completely flub a scene. It did not happen often but as the DM it was recoverable.
Currently playing Swordflight 3, a well-regarded user-made series of modules not for newbies or the faint-hearted. It’s nice not to have level-scaling in an RPG these days or the ridiculous levels of hand-holding typical with modern RPGs.
Downloading that Module right now…buying the NWN:EE has been the best $6.99 I’ve spent in years…didnt mind springing for all the updated modules for it either…so worth the price…
I’m finding Swordflight Chapter 3 not as compelling as 1 or 2 but still high quality. I learned an important mechanic playing the author’s modules - run! There are times when you encounter a foe or foes that are so overpowering that you have no choice but to run away; though in the case of the female Bard’s sword instructor at the end of Chapter 2 that seemed utterly impervious to my paladine’s blades, I ran and ran and ran, while he gave frantic, relentless chase, through the sewers, and led him right to a waiting gnoll henchmen that had a couple of high level offensive spells that turned him into a charred corpse. It’s moments like that that make it all worthwhile.