Woot!! I got Neverwinter Nights yesterday, loaded her up and without reading the manual hardly at all, jumped right in and had at it. So what do I think of NWN so far? Read on…
From a player standpoint, it’s *very* nice on a lot of fronts. The graphics and textures are very well done, you can tell there was a lot of attention to detail when the tilesets were created. I have my video settings set as high as they can go… I love seeing multiple shadows, reflective surfaces, realistic dynamic lighting… *drool* ;-) And the SOUND… NWN comes with full support for EAX 2/3, so anyone out there with a SoundBlaster Audigy card is really going to be in for a treat… be sure to enable that functionality in the game setup. The single player module isn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, but I’m barely into the first chapter. So far it looks promising.
From a server operator standpoint… wow. This is by far the most stable and efficient dedicated server console I’ve ever worked with. Any of you old-time HF regs will remember the headaches we had with the CS console… had to write a script auto-restart the port because of constant crashing, and don’t even get me started on the tons of unnecessary overhead the console generated. This is a refreshing change to say the least. CPU, memory and network resources used are a bit lower than what I initially expected. That’s a good thing ;-) I think I may be able to host an extra 10-12 people total on my servers once they go live. Overall I’m very impressed with the work Bioware has done, both from a player and server op perspective. I should have my main PvP arena server up and going sometime next week. Expect it to be a work in progress as well… and any feedback/ideas/suggestions you all have, send ’em my way please. Oh yeah… here’s three pics from my first ten minutes into the single player campaign. Introducing my newbie dorf fighter, Garth – so named from the very first AD&D fighter I ever rolled, way back in 1983 :-)
One more thing… I have a test NWN port open right now, mainly just to gather CPU load/memory and network usage stats. If ya wanna jump in and just mess around, feel free, the IP is 66.166.128.98 or just look for ‘Hardfought Test’ in the in-game browser. PvP is on and you can import your local characters… so go have some fun, and lemme know what kind of ping ya get and how smooth (or not so smooth) the play is.
OK, let’s touch base about the next Hardfought LAN party that’s about to happen. Some official data about the facility that will be hosting us – check out The Gaming Center. They have a brand new facility made specifically for LAN gaming. They support a multitude of game titles, you can play on their in-game systems if you can’t provide your own (our LAN is BYOC however) and they also have an outside connection to the internet. Take a look at their pictures on their site, you can tell it was made to be a gaming center from the ground-up. Now, we’ve got about 16 people signed up so far, with only three that have pre-paid. I know it’s normal for people to procrastinate until the last minute, but if you know you’re going to attend, please sign up via the ‘LAN registration’ link to the left here as soon as ya can. Spudboy is gonna cook out (we’re bringing in a BBQ pit) and you definitely don’t wanna miss his cooking… he gets paid well to do this kinda thing :-) The event is exactly one month away so please sign up or lemme know your intentions, etc – soon. It’s gonna be a blast, you don’t wanna miss this if you can help it.
Alright… back to NWN ;-P See you all soon.
K2