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Beamdog [Official Site] have officially announced their next revamp of a classic with Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. I have it confirmed it will be on Linux too.

See Also: My interview with Beamdog earlier this year.

Their official press details sent out to me clearly listed Linux as a release platform, as expected, since their previous revamps are also on Linux. Really great to see another classic get a refresh, but not only that, to see it get proper official Linux support.

For those that don't remember, Neverwinter Nights did actually have a Linux version, although it wasn't well supported, so it's fantastic that we get it properly this time.

With that out of the way, here's the trailer:

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From the press email I woke up to today:

We are incredibly proud of the work the team has done so far on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, and with the community’s feedback, we will continue fixing bugs and adding features for launch. We’ve added an improved display that looks great on modern 4k monitors, UI elements now adjust in size based on chosen resolution, and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights work in the Enhanced Edition.

Here's what it will include:

  • Improved Display: Your portrait, combat bar, inventory, and other UI elements adjust in size based on your chosen resolution including 1080p and 4k.
  • Advanced Graphics Options: Pixel shaders and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Enable contrast, vibrance, and depth of field options as preferred.
  • Community Endorsed: Original developers have teamed with key members of the Neverwinter Nights community to curate important fan-requested improvements to support players, storytellers, and modders.
  • Backwards Compatibility: Works with save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights. A galaxy of community created content awaits.

They will be doing a livestream later today at 8PM UTC on their official Twitch channel, where they will give out more info. The official site will be up here, likely once the livestream is over.

Beamdog said that pre-orders will go live today and the game will cost $19.99, it should also get a Steam page later today too. On top of that, Beamdog will be selecting players from the pre-order pool for their "Head Start program" to "play, import modules, and update persistent world servers early".

They will also be doing a Digital Deluxe bundle, which will include Pirates of the Sword Coast, Infinite Dungeons, and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr), two soundtracks collecting all of the original music, and a new portrait pack. Each DLC will also be sold separately for those that don't want it all.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: RPG, Steam, Upcoming
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oldrocker99 Nov 22, 2017
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Back 10 years ago, Neverwinter Nights was the only commercial game to have a Linux client, and, as I had already played the game since 2002, I was overjoyed, and have played hundreds of hours on Linux.

I have often said that NWN is the most game you can get in a box. The Neverwinter Vault (https://neverwintervault.org/ has hundreds and hundreds of adventures just waiting for download and play.

It is wonderful to see Beamdog, my favorite porter, develop this must buy game.
neowiz73 Nov 22, 2017
this is awesome, would love an updated version of this. I'm going to grab the digital deluxe for sure. I still have my original with all expansions tarballed. I played it back on ubuntu 12.04 & 14.04 after steam came to Linux, so i had that plus Civ 4 to play while i waited on other things to come out. had to do a little work around for the sound to work, but it ran great.
Hamish Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: oldrocker99Back 10 years ago, Neverwinter Nights was the only commercial game to have a Linux client, and, as I had already played the game since 2002, I was overjoyed, and have played hundreds of hours on Linux.
No, the original Doom was one of if not the first commercial game to have a Linux client, way back in 1994:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1

Abuse by Crack Dot Com even had Linux releases published by Red Hat in 1997:
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/press-crackdotcom

Not to mention Loki Software, more from id Software, Hyperion, Tribsoft, LGP, and many more.


Last edited by Hamish on 22 November 2017 at 3:45 am UTC
Asu Nov 22, 2017
please put in modern third person RPG controls. The current controls are ancient and unapproachable.
jnrivers Nov 22, 2017
This was the Bioware RPG that deserves credit for getting me into the whole genre.
Still play it on occasion and the Linux version is actually pretty solid.
I'd be more impressed if NWN2 somehow got brought over to our OS.
crt0mega Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: mcphailYep. I followed some links on GOG and got it working on Ubuntu 16.04 a few weeks ago.
Thanks! I'm surprised that these old binarys still work. The last time I tried them I was running something called "Mandrake Linux" xD
Quoting: jnriversThis was the Bioware RPG that deserves credit for getting me into the whole genre.
Still play it on occasion and the Linux version is actually pretty solid.
I'd be more impressed if NWN2 somehow got brought over to our OS.
Same here!


Last edited by crt0mega on 22 November 2017 at 9:53 am UTC
abelthorne Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: slaapliedjeI'm really curious about the editor too, otherwise the game ran great on Linux. Though they did have some weirdness with the Bink video player, but once you converted the videos to mpg or other standard video format, it worked well enough.
A bit off topic but do you have more infos on this? I'm currently reinstalling the game and while I've found a hack to play the bik movies, it would be better if I could use a better format. I assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct? do I have to "cheat" and rename mpg files to .bik? or is there another hack needed to play the videos in a different format?
DrMcCoy Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: abelthorneA bit off topic but do you have more infos on this?

There simply was no Bink player for Linux at that time, so they removed the ability to play movies altogether from the video client.

People from the community wrote an LD_PRELOAD hack that hooks up into the original game, at the place where the video player would be called, and instead call a native Linux program for playing videos, like mplayer.

You would then have to get official Bink tool, a Windows .exe, and run that in Wine. It would take a Bink movie and export each frame as a single picture image and the sound as a .wav, and then you'd recreate a new video file out of it that can be played with that native Linux program. This, of course, reduces the quality of the video quite a bit.

Nowadays, there are native Bink player for Linux, both the official closed-source Bink player, and also all FLOSS players, because the ffmpeg people have RE'd the Bink format. So while that hack to hook into the original game is still necessary, you at least don't need to transcode the video files anymore.

My hope with the NWN:EE is that they'll make the hack obsolete too, by just using the native Bink library to play the videos, like on Windows. Or alternatively, use a different codec altogether, by recreating the videos from their original source (thus not lowering the quality through transcoding).

Quoting: abelthorneit would be better if I could use a better format.

You of course can still do that. But you'll introduce quality losses, because going from one lossy codec to another is lossy.

So I for one would advice against it.

Quoting: abelthorneI assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct?

From my understanding of the nwmovies hack, this is correct, yes.
abelthorne Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: DrMcCoyPeople from the community wrote an LD_PRELOAD hack that hooks up into the original game, at the place where the video player would be called, and instead call a native Linux program for playing videos, like mplayer.

Nowadays, there are native Bink player for Linux, both the official closed-source Bink player, and also all FLOSS players, because the ffmpeg people have RE'd the Bink format. So while that hack to hook into the original game is still necessary, you at least don't need to transcode the video files anymore.
The hack I mentioned is nwmovies (on GitHub). Is that the same one you're talking about? I'm a bit annoyed that it displays a window border for a fraction of a second every time it plays a video, that's why I was looking for a solution with a more classic format. Also, for some reason, while all the guides I've seen say to put the Bink player in the movies folder, they seem to play fine on my system without it, using only nwmovies. I assume it includes Bink decoding but I'm not sure about this.

QuoteMy hope with the NWN:EE is that they'll make the hack obsolete too, by just using the native Bink library to play the videos, like on Windows. Or alternatively, use a different codec altogether, by recreating the videos from their original source (thus not lowering the quality through transcoding).
I guess they'll reencode the videos in a more modern format, I think that's what they did with the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. I wouldn't make a bet on them using the original "master" files, though, they'll probably just reencode the existing bik videos to mp4 or similar.

QuoteYou of course can still do that. But you'll introduce quality losses, because going from one lossy codec to another is lossy.
Sure, but the videos are already in pretty low quality, a proper reencoding would barely be noticeable.

Quote
Quoting: abelthorneI assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct?
From my understanding of the nwmovies hack, this is correct, yes.
Thanks, I'll give it a try.


Last edited by abelthorne on 22 November 2017 at 3:38 pm UTC
DrMcCoy Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: abelthorneThe hack I mentioned is nwmovies (on GitHub). Is that the same one you're talking about?

Yes.

Quoting: abelthorneI'm a bit annoyed that it displays a window border for a fraction of a second every time it plays a video, that's why I was looking for a solution with a more classic format.

The Bink format has been reverse engineered by the FFmpeg people. So you should be able to just use mplayer, mpv, vlc, or any other video player to play the Bink files, instead of the original Bink player.

You might want to look into the nwmovies.pl script to see how it calls what player, and change it according to your needs.

Quoting: abelthorneAlso, for some reason, while all the guides I've seen say to put the Bink player in the movies folder, they seem to play fine on my system without it, using only nwmovies.

That would be already using mplayer then, I think. Look into the nwmovies.pl script and see what it does :).

Quoting: abelthorneI assume it includes Bink decoding but I'm not sure about this.

No. nwmovies just calls another player, either the original Bink Player or mplayer.

Quoting: abelthorneI guess they'll reencode the videos in a more modern format, I think that's what they did with the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. I wouldn't make a bet on them using the original "master" files, though, they'll probably just reencode the existing bik videos to mp4 or similar.

That would be disappointing.

Quoting: abelthorneSure, but the videos are already in pretty low quality, a proper reencoding would barely be noticeable.

Well, okay, yes, it might not be with more modern codecs. But back in the day, using XviD, it was very noticable.
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