NWN 1 Anyone tried those premium Modules?

[SpiritWarrior]

I've been eyeing them. With my one good eye...(the other was torn out by an Umber Hulk a few years back - something about if I he can't see I can't see). I never bothered checking them out beforehand, but I want something to play multiplayer with two friends. Since the NWN 2 OC is unbearable and just plain broken for multiplayer I have been considering going back to NWN 1 and trying these. Now I see they actually put quite a bit of work into them from looking at the site. Has anyone here bought them? Are they all multiplayer compatible or only certain ones?

I see also they re-mastered WW, I confess I never played the original version : -/ Is that only avaialble when buying the premium mods or can you DL it free somewhere. Btw, what happend to the ones they "cancelled". Not up to par?

[JrKASperov]

Darkness over Daggerford was surprisingly good. Especially if you're playing a rogue(or multiclass), that worked somehow. Haven't played any of the other PM's, but I've heard from a trusted source that they are quite good.

[Micah Foehammer]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: I've been eyeing them. With my one good eye...(the other was torn out by an Umber Hulk a few years back - something about if I he can't see I can't see). I never bothered checking them out beforehand, but I want something to play multiplayer with two friends. Since the NWN 2 OC is unbearable and just plain broken for multiplayer I have been considering going back to NWN 1 and trying these. Now I see they actually put quite a bit of work into them from looking at the site. Has anyone here bought them? Are they all multiplayer compatible or only certain ones? I see also they re-mastered WW, I confess I never played the original version : -/ Is that only avaialble when buying the premium mods or can you DL it free somewhere. Btw, what happend to the ones they "cancelled". Not up to par?

To the best of my info, you can only get the remastered witch's wake if you buy the entire Kingmaker package, which includes:

Kingmaker
ShadowGuard
Witch's Wake (remastered)

I've bought them, but haven't played them yet. NWN2 is taking up all my time at the moment. I DID play the original Witchs wake and thought it was great.

No it wasn't about quality. I've heard that the cancelled premium mods were cancelled due to a squabble with Atari - they didn't like the idea of giving away FREE premium mods when they could make a profit apparently. So they withdrew the "premium mod" tag. From what I understand Darkness over Daggerford is excellent (although it has a fair share of bugs in it) but it likely the last FREE premium you'll ever see.

[robertthebard]

Funny, I thought Atari pulled the plug on the Premium mods just prior to release of NWN's 2 ostensibly to generate more NWN's 2 revenue, and kill any potential competition.

[Micah Foehammer]

Originally posted by robertthebard: Funny, I thought Atari pulled the plug on the Premium mods just prior to release of NWN's 2 ostensibly to generate more NWN's 2 revenue, and kill any potential competition.

Kingmaker, Shadowguard and witch's wake are still available; and DoD is a freebie.

Either way, the decision was based on profit; and that is ALL atari cares about.

BTW, I almost laughed myself silly reading a post from someone at Bioware NWN2 forums who was tired of having everyone post their bugs on those forums. She said it wasn't biowares game anyway, and we should post them over at Obsidians support forums or at Atari's forums. [img]smile.gif[/img] Someone kindly pointed out to her that Obsidians support page points DIRECTLY to the Bioware forums, and that Atari's support team is non-functional and worthless. They don't even respond to people like Memnoch who apparently didn't get his pre-release key code!

Atari is going to cut off their own heads one of these days with their blatant disregard for their customers. They surely don't care.

[Memnoch]

Wyvern Crown of Cormyr is probably the best of the lot. It was put together by the DLA crew just before Atari cancelled the program (they were trying to use the Gillette razor and blade model but it got too hard for them).

[SpiritWarrior]

Okay but are all of 'em multiplayer or no? I wanted to play through them with 2 other people.

I agree about Atari...they have admitted they suck basically in a recent press release or some crap. Someone posted it here at IW. I am tired of them owning the rights to D&D also. I think Bioware did all they could with NWN's 1 and still managed to go beyond the call of duty despite having Atari as a lead. I really hate Atari now...they're so frikkin money-driven it's not funny. They care about cash first and product later. But they own the rights to D&D games currently (not own but y'know what I mean) so what can I do if I want to play a D&D game?

Didn't Bioware have awful trouble with them? Or was it WotC? I've heard rumours as to why they didn't pursue NWN's 2. They officially say they wanted to "branch out" but it doesn't feel right when I hear it. They could branch out and make a sequel to the game they already made which has the work already done and sitting in their office and still making them money via the premium modules.

[Micah Foehammer]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: Okay but are all of 'em multiplayer or no? I wanted to play through them with 2 other people. I agree about Atari...they have admitted they suck basically in a recent press release or some crap. Someone posted it here at IW. I am tired of them owning the rights to D&D also. I think Bioware did all they could with NWN's 1 and still managed to go beyond the call of duty despite having Atari as a lead. I really hate Atari now...they're so frikkin money-driven it's not funny. They care about cash first and product later. But they own the rights to D&D games currently (not own but y'know what I mean) so what can I do if I want to play a D&D game? Didn't Bioware have awful trouble with them? Or was it WotC? I've heard rumours as to why they didn't pursue NWN's 2. They officially say they wanted to "branch out" but it doesn't feel right when I hear it. They could branch out and make a sequel to the game they already made which has the work already done and sitting in their office and still making them money via the premium modules.

Good question about multiplayer and I don't know the answer. Most so called single player games can be handled in multiplayer mode, so my guess is that the Kingmaker trilogy can be done in multiplayer as well. Just a guess though - not basing that on any first hand experience. Just save the game often. LOL

I think iirc that the biggest problem that Bioware had was actually with Hasbro / WotC. Apparently WotC was really putting the screws to Bioware over how DnD games should be implemented. It got so bad from everything I heard that Bioware felt that they had no control over the creative aspects of their games because WotC was demanding adherence to aspects of the DnD rules systems that Bioware felt had to be tweaked. So at least PART of the problem WAS over artistic control. That much rings true to me. I used to know a bunch of guys who worked for WotC when they were still based in Wisconsin and they were, well, less tha flexible on their interpretations of the rules systems.

I think (but not sure) Atari is involved because they own the rights to certain licenses, or certain license anyway. Hasbro actually owns WotC but I believe that they sold the rights to various licenses to Infogrammes / Interplay. I'm not sure exactly how all this is intertwined, but Atari may have picked up the license thru Interplay by way of Infogrammes in some fashion. Anyway it's not a simple situation.

And yeah, Atari totally sucks on customer support and they let the actual game dsigners deal with the customers. What little customer support they do have gives lip service to customer problems. Be very grateful that Bioware is still maintaining the NWN2 forums and that Obsidian is staffed primarily by old Interplay / Black Isle folks because otherwise NWN2 would be getting zero support. Atari would have NO interest in putting out one let alone THREE patches with more pending - because that involves staff intensive resources! And Atari is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!

Sorry for the rant, didn't answer your question about m-player really either. LOL

[robertthebard]

We are MP'ing Atari bashing, and man is it fun! [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by SpiritWarrior: Didn't Bioware have awful trouble with them? Or was it WotC? I've heard rumours as to why they didn't pursue NWN's 2. They officially say they wanted to "branch out" but it doesn't feel right when I hear it. They could branch out and make a sequel to the game they already made which has the work already done and sitting in their office and still making them money via the premium modules.

I think it was more WOTC - Bio wanted to make their own ruleset (eg Dragon Age, Jade Empire) without being beholden to the D&D ruleset.

I can understand Atari's plight to an extent - they're a business and they need to make sure they protect their bottom line, given how precarious their situation is. It's actually Infogrames that owns the Atari brand (I think). You can understand why they would put pressure on developers to make sure they met seasonal deadlines like Christmas as otherwise you miss out on huge sales uplifts. But at the end of the day you need to have a product that works, and provides positive word of mouth, and (in this case, generates significant network effects). Word of mouth and referencing is a key part of the software gaming business model - if you get a rep as a bad publisher nobody will buy anything from you in the future.