Final Glimpse: It’s time for the level 20 inner-nerd in you to shine; Neverwinter Nights is back and equipped with an all-new engine.
For many RPGers, vivid memories of sitting in the dark secretly playing Dungeons and Dragons with your close friends surround our early childhoods (okay, in my case…my freshman college years). Using nothing but pen, paper, and an eight-pound player’s bible, players went on journeys while fighting hordes of monsters, discovering treasure, and sleeping in a tree. Literally.
Back in 2002, the video game developer BioWare took on the development of a game based off of the third edition Dungeons and Dragons and Forgotten Realms formula entitled ‘Neverwinter Nights’. Gone were the days of pen-and-paper; replaced by a fully immersive 3D environment. The most prominent feature of the game was the inclusion of a multiplayer mode, which was modeled very similarly to MMORPGs and MUDs. The game went on to become a best seller, and was awarded ‘RPG of the Year’ by several big video game reviewers.
Now it’s two years later and we’re about one month away from a sequel. Although the sequel plays much like the original Neverwinter Nights, the game is being built around the ‘Aurora Engine’ along with a new rewritten script and features. New to the game are revised party systems (with easier to issue commands), a deeper player customization (with new sub-races), and the almighty prestige classes (with new skills).
Since the game is based directly off of Dungeons and Dragons, your player will of course have access to a number of different alignments which will influence which quests you can undertake, which NPCs will join you, and how the townspeople will treat you. Want to play as a total badass? Be unlawful, otherwise pick either neutral or lawful. The game will be greatly influenced by the way you play the game.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Neverwinter Nights 2 is the stronghold system, which will come sometime around the middle of the single-player campaign. Similar to the PlayStation series Suikoden, the castle first appears in a dilapidated state, with crumbling walls and without anyone in it. Pretty lonely, huh? Thankfully, there’s a lot to be done with it in Neverwinter Nights 2.
As you progress through your quest, NPCs dissatisfied with their lives can be recruited to work at your castle. Some come with no string attached, while others may require you to do some sort of favor for them. While most of these NPCs will be found hanging around the Metropolitan centers of the game, some will require you to go out of the way to find them.
As your NPCs complete their tasks, your stronghold will develop into a well-manufactured castle complete with trade lines, inns, shops, etc. Additionally, there’s a little event called the ‘mass battle’, which are nothing more than stronghold assaults on your castle. If you don’t manage your castle well you’ll more than likely have a tough time surviving. Thankfully, there’s a castle foreman who will tell you what the castle needs and provides you with the current state of it from time-to-time.
While this preview hasn’t touched on every aspect on the game, most notably multiplayer mode and the player development tool, Neverwinter Nights 2 is looking more and more like the frontrunner for yet another ‘RPG of the Year’ title. Look forward to it later this month.
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