neverwinter-nights posts

It's never a good thing when a large game developer shuts its doors and two of them effectively did that today. We feel that the (almost) shut down of Bizarre Creations really hurts as we don't think its owner Activision gave it much of a chance.

• Steam is now selling the previously released A.R.E.S. The Extiction Agenda but with two Steam exclusive outfits and a week-long 10 percent discount.
• Steam has also added the adventure game Drawn The Painted Tower.
• Steam also has a new automatic update for Team Fortress 2.
• Impulse now has the Baldur's Gate games, the Icewind Dale games and the first Neverwinter Nights game available for purchase and download.
• People who pre-order the just announced IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover via Ubisoft's web site will get Silent Hunter III for free.
• It's a World of Warcraft-themed bathroom. Really.
• Apparently any game can be made pornographic, even The Secret of Monkey Island.

You now have less that 24 hours before the third annual Steam holiday sale ends. That means you will have less than a day to take advantage of the price cuts that are available on nearly all PC games on the service. It also means that you have until 1 pm Eastern time until these extra-special price cuts (all repeats of previous one-day sales) expire:

Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum - $9.99
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Left 4 Dead 2 - $6.80
Grand Theft Auto IV + Episodes from Liberty City - $9.99
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99
The Hitman Collection - $7.49 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Mafia 2 - $12.49
Dead Space - $6.80
Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition - $3.99
Amnesia The Dark Descent - $6.80
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit - $29.99
Killing Floor Complete Pack - $4.99

The founders of one of the most successful game developers of all time will be getting a big honor in 2011. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced that BioWare's co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk will be the latest game developers inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame. It will be the first time in the award's history that it will be given to two people in the same year. The award will officially be presented during the AIAS's annual DICE Summit on February 10 in Las Vegas.

After getting their medical degrees, Drs. Muzyka and Zeschuk founded BioWare and since then have given us some of the best PC and console games ever made. Titles like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect,and Dragon Age Origins have cemented the developer's reputation as one of the best, if not the best, RPG maker in the industry. At the moment the developer has three games scheduled for release in 2011: Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and the long awaited MMO Star Wars The Old Republic.

[Via email press release]

The DRM-free PC gaming web site GoG.com has added yet another classic titles to its download library and its yet another fantasy RPG from the team at developer BioWare. It''s the Diamond Edition of Dungeons and Dragons-based game Neverwinter Nights.

This edition not only includes the original game, released back in 2002, but BioWare's three official expansion pack-modules as well (Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark and Kingmaker). You also get three downloadable manuals, the game's original soundtrack, wallpapers and artwork, a map, and a re-installer program for the game's premium modules. All of that gaming goodness can be yours for just $9.99.

Last week, developer Cryptic Studios surprised many when it announced that its next game, Neverwinter, would be an online RPG title instead of an MMO game like all of Cryptic's previous games. However that doesn't mean the Dungeons and Dragons-based game will be a standard retail product.

In a chat with Gamasutra, Cryptic's co-founder Jack Emmert admitted that the developer was still debating what kind of a business model Neverwinter will have, saying, "I can guarantee you that we envision this as an online product that will continue to grow over time, that we continue to add content to." He said that subscription fees, microtransactions, play-for-free and even (as a joke) pay-by-minute models were all being considered. The game itself is still a long way from release; Neverwinter is scheduled to come out in the fourth quarter of 2011.

It looks like the various online rumors that a new Neverwinter Nights game coming from publisher Atari and developer Cryptic Studios was in the works have been proven to true - kind of.Today Atari officially announced that game, which is simply called Neverwinter.

The game, due out in the fourth quarter of 2011, is oddly enough not being called an MMO but a "co-op role playing game" where players can pick from one of five Dungeons and Dragons-based character classes and then team up with friends or with AI-controlled characters to form five-player teams. The game will also have support for user-generated content via a new system called Forge, much like how the Neverwinter Nights games developed by BioWare also had such tools.

While the game isn't due out until late 2011, the fictional backstory behind it will be launched on October 5 by author R.A. Salvatore in the novel Gauntlgrym. It's due out on October 5 and is the first of a planned trilogy of novels based on Neverwinter's world and storyline. Dungeons and Dragons owners Wizards of the Coasts also plan to release a Neverwinter-based tabletop RPG game. More info on the game is revealed on GameSpot in an interview with Cryptic co-founder Jack Emmert.

As we get closer to Gamescom, we can expect to hear more and more game announcements. One of them might be the reveal of an MMO based on the Neverwinter Nights franchise for Dungeons and Dragons. During this week's GenCon event, it was revealed that Atari, the current rights holders to make D&D based PC games, have a new announcement coming but could not go into details.

The superannuation web site has revealed that Atari has secured several web URLs related to Neverwinter Nights. A Neverwinter Nights MMO is not a new rumor as Variety reported over a year ago that such a game was in the works. Also Atari owned MMO dev team Cryptic Studios announced that their third MMO project for the publisher (after Champions Online and Star Trek Online) would be announced in late summer.

[Via Blue's News]

If you happened to get a copy of BioWare's original Neverwinter Nights RPG and wanted to check out some of their extra downloadable modules for the game, you are out of luck at least for now. BioWare is no longer selling or supporting the many downloadable modules (Kingmaker, ShadowGuard, Witch's Wake, Pirates of the Sword Coast, Infinite Dungeons and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr) they have created for the game. In fact they have not been doing so since the end of August.

What happened? According to BioWare's own message boards, the game's publisher Atari, " . . . has asked us to stop selling the modules through our store. All support for NwN products is now handled directly by Atari through their customer support channels." Atari currently owns the rights to the game but at the moment they are not selling the original Neverwinter Night title or any of the downloadable modules on their online store. People who have already purchased and installed the downloadable modules can still play them on their PC.

[Via Blue's News]

Since its recent revamp, GameTap has gotten back on track adding new games to download and purchase from its library of titles and also adding new titles to its premimum monthly subscription service. Today GameTap announced a new deal with publisher Atari that will add a number of its game to GameTap's services.

Among the Atari titles that will be added into GameTap's library will include the Neverwinter Nights series, the Master of Orion series, The Witcher, King's Bounty, the new 2008 version of Alone in the Dark, Test Drive Unlimited, the first ArmA game and Indigo Prophecy. There's no word yet on when these games will debut on the service.

[Via email press release]

When Atari purchased MMO developer Cryptic Studios several months ago, it was mentioned that besides their announced games Champions Online and Star Trek Online the team was working on another MMO game for release in 2011. Now Variety is reporting through unnamed sources that the unnamed project is none other than an MMO based on the Neverwinter Nights franchise.

If true it would not be much of a surprise. The first two Neverwinter Nights RPGs (the first made by BioWare in 2002 and the second by Obsidian in 2006) and their expansion packs have been one of the few sales successes for Atari so a move into a full blown MMO based on the franchise is a natural next step. The big question: Can yet another fantasy-themed MMO, even one with such a well-known past, compete with World of Warcraft and all of the other established games on the market?