Wow! I just started playing my favorite RPG for computer, Neverwinter Nights and Neverwnter Nights 2, with all of their expansions.
I’ve never really gotten very used to creating areas and modules, etc., with NWN2, but the first NWN has such a welcoming experience for building you own adventures, complete campaigns, or simply tweaking existing modules. It’s like a paint program, but the pictures are already drawn in 3d, so all you need to do is place the stuff where you want it. It has multitudes of terrain types to choose from for the base of an area. Then you can paint in water, streams waterfalls, pits, bridges, walls, castles, dungeons and dungeon dressings… anything. Even steam punk style settings have been included over the many upgrades that BioWare beefed it up with over the years,
NWN is now being sold at GOG (Good Ol’ Games) as an all inclusive installer - very convenient - for $9.99 and NWN2 is 19.99
GOG takes the headaches away from trying to install and upgrade the games for their original discs - I bought them all, but bought them agai through GOG simply for the convenience of being able to always find my game installers. Kind of reminds me of the Daz3d convenience in that respect. Oh and both games also come with amazing soundtracks!
Okay, I know that those aren’t free. Those games were responsible for my find. Not sure if anyone mentioned this one already, but by reading some news at the Neverwinter Vault, I’ve found that Turbo Squid is now allowing registration (and therefore, use) of their game asset creation version of 3DS Max: GMax! It behaves a lot like earlier versions of 3DS Max, with less options - especially for exports - but many games have plugins made for GMax, allowing for asset creation and tweaking - so you get imports and exports, and GMax gives you a simplified 3DS Max to model and enhance in. I recall even having the abilities to paint on areas that respond to wind and movement like dynamic clothing works using the awesome NWMax plugin for making Neverwinter Nights MDL.
I’m fairly certain that GMax will also make for a great modeling experience. It is now longer supported beyond forum help - as it’s development is completely over - aside from, perhaps, what you get from plugins for your specific game(s)
Check it out, and see for yourself. It requires registration to run - which is free and handled through the installation process where you must create a Turbo Squid membership. All of it is absolutely FREE!!!
http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax
That link also leads you to downloads for the manual, the license agreement, tutorials, etc.,
If you’ve even enjoyed role playing in Dungeons & Dragons - especially if you’ve enjoyed the use of having miniatures represent the action, there has never been a better tool for online gaming than the now 9.99 Neverwinter Nights. It includes most of the Monsters available from the books, many of the class and race choices and an incredible facility for the Dungeon Master to run existing games, or easily create new original modules - even use the toolset to recreate your favorite adventures. It’s really easy, and the community at Neverwinter Vault has been going strong since the year 2000 and has a wealth of free modules, characters, campaigns, monsters, landscapes, scripts and special effects, animations, tutorials for creating games… you name it - for both NWN and NWN2.
Interested?
You can get NWN from GOG Here:
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/neverwinter_nights_diamond_edition
and NWN 2 from GOG here:
http://www.gog.com/gamecard/neverwinter_nights_2_complete
Both offerings include all of the official expansions and updates in a very easy installer, so it’s ready to play after running a single installer! GOG also provides additional downloads to complete the package - like original artwork, avatars you can use for various forums and such, wallpapers, manuals and maps, and incredible soundtracks.
And the NW Vault is here:
http://nwvault.ign.com/
Explore the various modules (User created adventures), for there are tons of them. They have script catalogs and products that provide the scripts so you don’t ever have to understand the C++, but if you do, you can get the game to really do anything you want - as the commands are all there for you to see and use.
This newest “final” version of NWN has a wonderful horseback riding system that you can include in any game, simply by dropping in a horse where your characters can access it, save, and play! The CEP (Communtiy Expansion Project) has premade widgets allowing characters to call forth their steed, be it a horse, shark, dragon… yeah… very cool… very D&D. Also look for the DM 101 module by Carlo One, which is a complete adventure that teaches you how to play the game as a Dungeon Master, so you can host games and totally enhance the experience in more ways than you could imagine, simply by using simple game controls. It’s absolutely brilliant!
(Images are screen shots of my NWN2 game - the first official campaign. Mask of the Betrayer follows that, and then Storm of the Zephyr and Mysteries of Westgate _ I’d like to note, however, that although the graphics are far superior in 2, NWN1 has a much easier to use toolset, and much more monsters andother assets)
