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I'm sure NwN will fall short of people's expectations in some key areas because the task the developers have set before themselves is so enormous. It is truly a landmark game. Remember what they are doing here: 1) tranlating 3rd edition tabletop PnP as faithfully as possible to a real time CRPG--i.e., having to compromise it somewhat to adapt it to that new medium (eg, real time vs. turnbased), and, 2) doing that in such a way that allows for a relatively huge number of players (unlike tabletop PnP games, where you might have at the most 20 sitting around a table) and Persistent Worlds.
I expect the biggest problems to be around typewritten chat communication between between up to 64 players in real time! Bioware really must to playtest the hell out of that aspect of the game before they release the game. I trust that they will code this so that only players within earshot (50 ft?) of each other can talk to each other. Otherwise the game will be a disaster--it would be pandemonium.
I have played in BG/Tales online MP games where we roleplayed our characters and I can tell you that in addition to having a great deal of text to attend to as players roleplay and develop their characters, there is also a hell of a lot of OOC chat to monitor. With a full party of six players in BG the text whizzed by very fast on that little dialogue bar, etc., and it really required a lot of concentration. It is far more demanding than you might think (especially if you suck at typing like me). So what is this going to be like with groups of 10 or more players in NwN?
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