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Well it is official and here are my complaints.

1. Way too long. Make it 2005.
2. You better make it compatible with NWN and its expansions.
3. Better support and more options for NWN
4. Dont make people redo the entire world to make it NWN 2 compatible.

Links:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040804/45442_1.html - Yahoo press release

http://nwvault.ign.com/index2.shtml - The NWN vault info

http://www.atari.com/nwn2/ - Official site

[QUOTE=CM]Well it is official and here are my complaints.

1. Way too long. Make it 2005.
2. You better make it compatible with NWN and its expansions.
3. Better support and more options for NWN
4. Dont make people redo the entire world to make it NWN 2 compatible.

Links:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040804/45442_1.html - Yahoo press release

http://nwvault.ign.com/index2.shtml - The NWN vault info

http://www.atari.com/nwn2/ - Official site[/QUOTE]

1. I'm hoping they are going for a better game engine. take all the time they need, i say.

2. Nope. with all the haks and mods whatnot, and me hoping for a newer game engine, i'd say compatibility wouldn't be a big issue for me personally.

3. fully agree here, tho there is worse support out there...

4. hmm. that could be why it won't be done till 2006? Sometimes it's a GOOD thing to start fresh. I agree, tho, that some limited ability to import textures, maps, rulesets, etc. would be a very usefull thing.

cheers

Well - considering the amount of time that was spend on producing Neverwinter Nights - I'd say 2006 is optimistic. My bet is that it will be delayed minimum once, into 2007

But anyways - interesting news.

As for compability with NwN that would be nice - but on some level I doubt it.

But guess I have to start reading up on NwN 2 now.

[QUOTE=CM]Well it is official and here are my complaints.

1. Way too long. Make it 2005.
2. You better make it compatible with NWN and its expansions.
3. Better support and more options for NWN
4. Dont make people redo the entire world to make it NWN 2 compatible.
[/QUOTE]

1. Agreed
2. Yes! I don't want do lose all my ingenious character builds. But it will not be likely since they will probably move on to 3.5 ed dnd, or whatever the newest ed is.
3. Better support? Bioware provides some of the best support, but Atari is absolute c***. And since Atari is still the publisher...
4. I don't get you.

I belive I saw on the Obsidian board that they would use 3.5 edition D&D. So only a smaller change from the 3.edtion D&D for NwN1.
But naturally - if WotC throws out a 4.edtion about middle of 2005, then I wouldn't be surprised if Obsidian delayed the game and possible changed the rules or made a hybrid.

Of course it is the question how much they will stick to the rules this time, instead of making it NwN D&D instead of D&D.
Like for instance the 24 hour duration summon spells and wierd rest rules just to mention two wierd things.

I have started calling it the NwN rules (due to the great number of "house-rules") instead of 3.ed D&D when taking about the rules in NwN, to the great announce of somebody else on another board

Here are my thoughts:

- Neverwinter Nights 2 almost has to be somewhat compatible with original NWN modules, otherwise BioWare's first game will totally dry up if Obsidian's version is even nearly as good. If previous modules aren't totally compatible, then Obsidian might make it easy to modify the modules to make them work in NWN 2 or even include some sort of conversion utility.

- If Neverwinter Nights 2 is going to come close to the scope of the original Neverwinter Nights, then 2006 is a very early estimate (I agree with Xandax that 2007 is more believable). BioWare spent over 5 years working on the original NWN with a much larger group of developers, and the only thing that gives Obsidian a jump start is the fact that BioWare is providing an optimized version of the Aurora Engine to begin with.

- Since the graphics engine is going to be almost identical, the game will need to really shine in the single- and multi-player game experience. I wasn't a huge fan of the single player campaign in the original NWN, so if Obsidian can come back with a much better one and expand multiplayer capabilities a bit, I'd say the game will most likely be an immediate success.

The only mention so far I've seen of the Single Player is that they strive to make Neverwinter a prominent city and a level cap of 20.

The compability issue is something they - according to devs. on the forum - are well aware off.
And it will not only be because of the community of NwN would dry up. It would also cause competition between NwN1 and NwN2, and further more - the community is what made NwN1 great - and thus they have hak'ed and scripted loads of material that NwN2 could use by direct import if they made the game compatible.

I'm a bit rusty on D&D stuff ... if they're using 3.5, does this mean we get Psionics? Because I love Psionics! I wanna see that giant Psionic Nullifying Disc thing!

Wether or not Psionics are in the game, isn't that much a question of rule set. It is more a question of wether or not they implement it in the game.
(from what I know - there were also psionic rules for 2ed AD&D as well)

So far I've seen nothing stated about wether or not psionics are in the game.

If the game is released is 2007, who would still care about NwN 1?
The engine would be way to old. No one want that.

In 2007, it should be a whole new game.

I'm not sure what you are pointing at, but ... that hasn't stopped me before


I think there will still be a following of NwN in 2007, if looking at the current size of the community. The reason would be the community driven content.

That is also why NwN2 will try to be as backwards compatible as possible, so the developers there dosen't have to "re-invent the wheel" in terms of many things made for NwN1.

I think it would be good if a backwards compatibility and link to NwN1 could be made in NwN2, because otherwise you would have NwN2 competing against NwN1 instead of with it. It would divide the userbase a lot if NwN1 and NwN2 became non-compatible.

Who said anything about 2007, it's set to come out sometime in 2006. Now about the engine comments, they've stated that they'll be using a dramatically tweaked Aurora engine. If that means it'll look like NWN only better i'm cool with that. And 3.5 rules are fine by me as well, most of the changes made from what I understand were balancing issues. And the whole starting fresh with a level cap of twenty or so is just fine with me as long as that means enough quality gameplay to get up to level 20, not squeezing ridiculous amounts of experience out of each mundane encounter and quest(ie BGII). And the dev team looks good especially with a suggestions section on their own message board. I also have no qualms about waiting until 2006. That'll give them a solid two years to work on this despite Atari probably trying to push it out the door as soon as possible.

[QUOTE=Skuld]Who said anything about 2007, it's set to come out sometime in 2006.<snip>[/QUOTE]

There aren't many games that haven't been delayed some, so I still think 2006 is optimistic

I'm thinking holiday season 2006 or early summer 2007 at the latest if testing ends up being buggy and problematic.

2006?

That's ok with me. It may take me that long to finish NWN 1 plus the expansions.

I am more used to playing the later Ultima games and the Elder Scrolls. I'd guess this mixed bag of real-time/turn based RPG will take me a little getting used to. There are so many set of rules that I haven't learnt yet, which are totally different from.

What's wrong with my smilies? It's not working. Damned!

Surely it will be worth waiting for though, although a level cap of 20 seems a bit stupid, considering it doesn't take long to get to level 20.

If they are using a much improved game engine then I'm gonna have to go out and buy new motherboard, processor, RAM, graphics card.

Psionics would be cool but so would cross polinated characters, Half Dragons, Half Demons etc. An expansion of monsters, villians and general NPC's would also be good.

More spells, or maybe even a spell research system.
Also a deeper, much more involved plot to which can change deppending on your alignment and actions.

And there should actually be diety's in this one.

Just some of my thoughts

[QUOTE=Darfuria]Surely it will be worth waiting for though, although a level cap of 20 seems a bit stupid, considering it doesn't take long to get to level 20.
<snip>[/QUOTE]

Actually - it should take quite a long time to reach level 20 in D&D, the fact that it dosen't in CRPGs is that (many) gamers are so used to leveling quickly in fast paced action RPGs that the developers have to do it to earn their money back. (common denominator and all that).
Level 20 in D&D is supposed to be high and difficult to get to.

I say bring on lower levels with slower leveling and focus more on the roleplaying. There is no need to pit the avatar/hero against multiple dragons and demons and what not to create the illusion of a "difficulty" game.
Some good old roleplaying can do that as well with some decent quest system.
However - this 'but a dream that one day RPGs will move away from the hack n' slash era it has dumped into in the name of mainstream moneymachines..

Well if it's going to be more "D&D'ish" then thats fair enough, however I don't see that it will. Although that would improve the game so much, considering level 15 is hard enough to get to. They would have to spread out the Xp awards and the necessary amount to go up levels. If you look in the 1st edition Players Handbook fo D&D and just see how much XP you need to go up levels then it would give a rough idea of how much bigger and better the game would be.

If they made it like that, it would be awesome.