Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition NWSync Early Look + Beamdog.com DLCs

Exciting news for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition fans waiting for NWSync!

We merged in experimental support for NWSync in the recently released Development Build 8182. The first implementation of this allows transparent multiplayer server content downloads, and requires special setup by the server admin to make functional.

The preliminary manual, including instructions and system details, can be read here.

Note that if you are from The Future, then this URL might have changed or disappeared. Please check the official documentation in lang/en/docs instead.

Again, this is experimental, and we are shipping this to the development branch early so persistent world admins and interested parties can test it. This is a very complex technical feature and we fully expect that we will have to ship more development patches to address found issues. Please let us know any feedback you have regarding this feature in the Beamdog forums!

Speaking of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, on Beamdog.com we’ve broken out the Digital Deluxe package into individual DLCs! Now owners of NWN:EE can purchase Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, Infinite Dungeons, and the rest as they like. You can still get a deal by buying everything in a single bundle.

Next week, we’ll be removing the current NWN:EE Digital Deluxe bundle from sale. All Beamdog.com NWN:EE Digital Deluxe owners have had the base game and individual DLCs added to their accounts.

If we’ve missed your account, please let our customer support team know via support@beamdog.com and we’ll make sure a correction is made. 

September 07 Livestream Recap

“We’ve got a big list of feature requests. Keep telling us what you want to see in our games!” ~ Luke

During last week’s livestream Beamdog Producer Luke Rideout and Marketing & PR Manager Lee Guille shared the latest studio news and updates on the Dice, Camera, Action! Portrait & Voice pack, Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, and Infinity Engine games.

Missed the stream? It's on Twitch (we’re investigating a problem with our YouTube channel)! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

• The Dice, Camera, Action! Voice and Portrait pack is shaping up greatly! The idea behind it is that you, as a player, can play as Strix (Holly Conrad), Diath Woodrow (Jared Knabenbauer), Paultin Seppa (Anna Prosser Robinson), Evelyn Marthain (Nathan Sharp), or even lead the whole Waffle Crew party together!
• The voice and portrait pack won't include inter-party banter for technical reasons, and will be English-only.
• International Dungeons & Dragons group interested in creating a voice pack in their native language are more than welcome to reach out to us!
• There will be unique lines for each character across Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.
• The voice and portrait pack will have to be purchased for each of game separately.
• We’re currently figuring out how the pack will work in multiplayer. The plan is to allow players playing with voice and portrait pack owners to see and hear these portraits and voicesets.
• Jared Knabenbauer (ProJared) is super excited about the pack. He’s been playing Baldur’s Gate since it originally released. Diath Woodrow was his first character. We’ll ask if he can create a Let’s Play!

“We’re hoping to pass modders the tools to make visual updates to Infinity Engine games!” ~ Luke

• Come say hi to our booth at Edmonton Expo (September, 21 - 23)!
• Beamdog is moving to a new office, and hiring! If you’re a programmer, technical artist, web developer, or human resources generalist - apply!
• There was a cancelled announcement planned for the PAX West panel. When we can, we’ll announce it, so stay tuned!
• Congratulations to Kevin- you won a Baldur’s Gate style portrait during the PAX West panel! Frith5 won another portrait as a viewer on Beamdog’s Twitch livestream, congratulations to you too!
• An email has been sent to a winner of a Baldur’s Gate style portrait as a result of signing up for the Beamdog newsletter! Watch out for more contests soon!
• We plan to release updates for our Infinity Engine games more often.
• The 2.5 builds for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for the Mac App Store are in QA’s hands.
• Future patches for the Mac App Store will have the same cadence as our patches for other platforms. We understand we’ve made our Mac App Store fans wait long for the 2.5 update, and we’re going to do better!

“Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Collector’s Edition is still in the queue!” ~ Luke

• A new development build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is very close. It will contain the Road to 2.0 portraits, bug fixes, small toolset updates, and GOG features.
• We know a GOG build is taking a long time. If it turns out Rich Presence support requires more work, we’ll release the first build without it. We want to bring Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition to GOG as soon as possible.
• Desktop and Android versions of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will be separate products and will have to be bought separately. We’re looking into ways to let you put your desktop CDKey on mobile if you choose to do so.
• Updating Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition to 64bit and improving the Toolset are completely different tasks. A 64bit version of the Toolset won’t be available immediately, but the current Toolset will be able to create content for the 64bit version of NWN:EE.
• We’re working to update Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition 64bit before creating mobile versions.
• The Android and iOS versions will be 64bit apps. They won’t be released simultaneously, as they need more time to work on individually.
• New enhanced models for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition are coming, but we don’t have any specific timelines to share.
• Adding more tile path nodes to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is possible, but we’d like to hear your suggestions about how you want them implemented on our forums.

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream this Friday!

PAX West Panel and August 31 Livestream Recap

Trent, Alyssa, John and Sarah were joined by Holly Conrad and Jared Knabenbauer for our PAX West panel!

During a special announcement panel at PAX West on September, 1 Beamdog CEO Trent Oster, Art Director Alyssa Duguay, Community Manager Sarah Dawson and Wizards of the Coast, Senior Producer, Digital Licensing John Feil talked about the history of Beamdog and Neverwinter Nights, and showed footage of NWN:EE on mobile. Special guests Holly Conrad and Jared Knabenbauer announced the Dice, Camera, Action! Portrait & Voice pack DLC for the Beamdog Enhanced Edition Family of games.

A day earlier, Beamdog Producer Luke Rideout and QA lead on Infinity Engine games Kristin Warren shared the latest gaming updates and plans for the Enhanced Editions.

Missed the streams? Check out the Twitch video from our Panel (starts at 03:03:10)! Watch the August 31 Livestream here (sorry about the sound quality, we’ll make sure to fix audio-related issues this week)! Below is a quick summary of the highlights:

• The Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack DLC is coming to the Beamdog Enhanced Edition Family of games later this year! Waffle Crew cast members Holly Conrad, Jared Knabenbauer, Anna Prosser Robinson, and Nathan Sharp are recording player character voice-over for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. Portraits and voices of Strix, Diath Woodrow, Paultin Seppa, Evelyn Marthain, and a special portrait for DM Chris Perkins will be available as DLC on Steam, Beamdog, GOG, Google Play, and App Store.

• If you’re local to Edmonton, we’ll see you at Edmonton Expo (September, 21 - 23)!
• We’re hiring! If you’re a programmer, technical artist, web developer, or human resources generalist - apply!
• We’ve seen requests to update Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition to the 2.5.17 build (to make the version in line with other games), and are working on it.
• The 2.5 builds for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for the Mac App Store are with QA.
• A colossal amount of work has been put into the 2.5 patches, but we’re interested in making continued improvements for our Infinity Engine games. If you run into bugs, please use the public bug tracker - we have people checking them on a daily basis.

• We’re sorting out last steps on Rich Presence support for the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition GOG build. It’ll let players click and join friends, render your friends list in the in-game view, and get information about what server they’re playing on. We also need to make a change to our builds to deploy multi-language on GOG, since they support custom per-language installers.
• We’re working on a variety of visual improvements for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. We’re cautious about how we’ll be implementing new models into the game, considering old machines and mobile devices.
• During our PAX West panel we showed footage of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on Android (it’s still Work in Progress). A lot of work is being put into UI and supporting different aspect ratios.

• We’re actively looking into improving the maximum number of bones per skinmesh. Some progress has been made, but we don’t have any specific ETA for this feature.
• If you’re interested in seeing scripting functions that add DoMeleeAttack / DoRangedAttack functions, share your suggestions about how you want them implemented on our forums.
• We’ll be bringing people from the community to talk to during our livestreams. Stay tuned!

Excited for what’s next? Have questions about the Dice, Camera, Action! voice and portrait pack DLC and NWN:EE on mobile? Come and join the next livestream this Friday!

June 8 Livestream Recap

A VERY early look at Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on an Nvidia Shield tablet, shown by the Hand of Dan

During today’s livestream Beamdog CEO Trent Oster was joined by Mark Meer, voice of Commander Shepard, Rasaad yn Bashir, Baeloth the Entertainer, Alveus Malcanter, and many other characters. Trent and Mark shared Stream of Many Eyes stories and the latest news on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch! Here's a quick summary of the highlights:

• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition on tablets is in the works! There’s still some work to do to make it possible, so stay tuned for more news! We’re looking into ways to have a list of the best mods available for download. Sign up for our newsletter to get all the information about NWN:EE on tablets first!
• Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford is out on Steam and will come to Beamdog.com in the future! Learn about all the fantastic improvements put into Darkness over Daggerford by Ossian Studios here. We support Ossian Studios and want them to do well as they never got to make money from Darkness over Daggerford originally.
• We’re working to support downloadable content on Beamdog.com. Hopefully it’ll happen fairly soon.

The Stream of Many Eyes. “A phenomenal, amazing environment to be in” ~ Trent

• Last week Minsc (Trent), Rasaad (Phil), Biff the Understudy (Lee), and Alveus Malcanter (Mark) took part in the Stream of Many Eyes. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast and all the people who came there, the event was truly epic! Check our Facebook and Twitter for all the photos from the stream.

“The Yawning portal is my favourite tavern in Waterdeep ~ Mark

• We’re working on the next development build for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition which will address many of the issues on 1.75, including area transition colours and DM interactivity issues with them, door highlights interfering with easily walking through them, chat panels not remembering their positioning, Premium Module crashing and working oddly in Multiplayer. We’re targeting next week as the build is not ready yet.
• Linux players, if the 2x UI scaling results in clicks not aligning with your cursor, open the nwn.ini file and enable Hardware Mouse to fix this issue.
• We urge players to submit bugs they encounter on our bug-tracking site. The better repro steps and more detail you can provide in your bug report (especially about Multiplayer bugs), the better chances to fix the appropriate bug will be.
• We plan to add the remaining official translations of Neverwinter Nights into NWN:EE. The best way to get a translation of NWN:EE into a new language is to volunteer as a translator here!

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream next Friday!

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition v8166

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition v8166 is now available on Steam and Beamdog. We’re closing in on the March 27 release date fast! 

This build brings Steam and Beamdog versions back in line and focuses on camera, audio, and part-based item/character issues.

“What happened to 8165?” you might ask. That build rolled out Thursday on Steam-only so our QA team would be able to test some Linux specific issues on that platform. 

Hotfix:

• Fixed an issue where Borderless full-screen mode (introduced in 8166) prevented some resolution changes from happening.
• Reverted an attachment point fix causing attachment issues on cloaks and horses in 8166.

Known Issues: 

• We are still looking into the Intel Integrated GPU-related crashes on Windows.
• Windows players using the server tool may experience save game corruption if they load the game from a save game rather than a module and then attempt to save the game via the server tool while nobody is logged into the server. In cases like this, please save your game while at least one player is still online.

Fixes:

• Fixed clipping/popping on some music tracks.
• Fixed distortion/crackling on music.
• Switched to using OpenALSoft to allow surround sound to work properly.
• Fixed an issue with positional audio listener orientation that was causing undefined behavior.
• Removed UI options that are no longer relevant with OpenAL.
• Fixed case sensitivity issues with opening music files.
• Fixed an array bounds issue in the MP3 decoder.
• Paste (as in copy/paste) has been fixed.
• Fixed the issue where part-based rendering would not attach properly; like crossbows, slings, tails and wings.
• Fixed the camera issue where switching to Drive Mode would lock the zoom-axis erroneously.
• Fixed the camera issue where it would start tilted down in some cases.
• We fixed ANSI-encoding of text (sorry, not UTF-8 yet) in all input modes. Everything the NWN chat font supports should now work.
• The console doesn’t emit \ (or `, depending) anymore when opening it.
• The console cannot be closed anymore with the console-open key. The reason for this is that some console commands require \; i.e. workshopupload. Use ESC instead.
• You can now type ~ and ` in the console.
• We fixed an issue where UI click positions would sometimes not line up with the buttons after switching window mode or resizing the game window.

Features:

• Lighting and normal-mapping on static objects has been improved.
• Added a pointer on CGameObject dedicated to NWNX use.
• Numpad Return now acts the same as Enter on the main key block.
• Re-enabled 2x UI scaling on 1080p. Some main menu elements do not fit yet. We plan to update the screens that break so they play nice at 1080p.

nwn.ini

• Under Display Options, you can now set glFinishBeforeFBO=1. This will cost about 20% performance, but will fix post-process rendering issues on some setups, particularly Intel. When turned on, you’ll notice filter “leaking” into the next, producing visual artifacts (You can test this on the console by typing glFinishBeforeFBO=1). The alternative is to only run one post-process filter.
• You can turn on Borderless Window mode by setting Borderless=1 under Display Options.
• You can use DESKTOP-style fullscreen mode (“borderless fullscreen”) by setting FullScreenDesktopMode=1 under Display Options. FullScreen needs to be enabled as well for this to work.

PST:EE Patch 3.1.3 And What's Next for Beamdog

The first patch for Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition is now available on Beamdog, Steam, GOG, Google Play, iTunes, and Mac App store! 

Patch 3.1.3 focuses on bug fixes and localization improvements for desktop and mobile versions of the game. If you don’t see the patch immediately, please be patient as the update should populate in your region soon. Linux fans will be happy to hear this patch also adds 64 bit support.

A full list of patch notes is available at the bottom of this post.

And now for more exciting news! Beamdog fans have been asking about what’s next and the answer is… lots!

Our team of translators have already started work on PST:EE in multiple languages including Czech, Ukrainian, Italian, and more! Because these are volunteer-driven projects, we do not currently have a release date for any new languages. The new Beamdog Localization Coordinator is currently assessing each of our translation projects on our other Enhanced Edition titles and as projects are completed, we’ll add them to upcoming patches.

Our fans on iOS will be pleased to hear that we’re aware of the notification you’ve all been seeing regarding 32-bit applications and can rest assured that we will have all of our Enhanced Edition games upgraded to 64-bit as part of our 2.4 patch series. The Beamdog team has already started on the 64 bit update for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, and plans to address the same issue on Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition afterwards. Expect to see more details on these iOS patches later this summer.

Once the 2.4 patch series has been completed, we will bring those improvements to desktop and Android versions of BG:EE, BGII:EE, and IWD:EE alongside more bug fixes and feature requests submitted by the community, including Steam achievements for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition.

As we get further into development, fans who own Enhanced Edition games on Beamdog will be able to opt into available betas through the Beamdog Client. Beta availability will be announced on all of our social channels, so stay tuned!

We’ve got a few other projects in the works including Steam trading cards. Watch out for more news in future updates! In the meantime, read on for a full list of bugs and features included in PST:EE patch 3.1.3! 

Features Added
64 bit Linux support
[Tablet-only] Additional font scaling range for graphics options 

Bug Fixes

General
Cranium Rats spawn in fight with Many-as-One

Missing gate guard added back to the Foundry
Drusilla now realizes Ignus has been freed

Vrischika will now purchase the Portal Lens

Mantuok does not appear again after he is dead

Bonus Hit Points from CON continue to be granted after level 10

The Rearrange Party feature now works as it did in the original game
The "Linear scaling" box now controls linear scaling consistently whether using DirectX or OpenGL

"Eye" items with alignment restrictions no longer grant the player passive benefits when they shouldn’t

Exceptional strength 18/01 no longer shows as 18/1
Ravel's cutscene with TTO no longer stops before the end
Changing character class in an area now does not cause portal triggers to cancel out

The game does not end if TNO is killed in the Smoldering Corpse bar
Zoom Lock should no longer distort cinematic spells
The "Lost Item" feedback message now appears when TNO loses an item

Cutscenes return camera to the level of zoom they started in
Turning off "Critical Hit Screen Shake" in the baldur.lua file disables screen shake during critical hits
Right clicking joinable NPCs no longer produces selection sounds
Voice actor names have been corrected in the credits

Added default names to save games

The party can now get to the Pillar of Skulls when using single file formation
Dialogue about breaking out of prison does not happen if party isn't imprisoned
The GUI returns after Ravels death
Fixed Pestle Kiln’s missing textures
PST:EE supports loading M_*.lua files
Smooth Area Transitions should no longer reduces voice volume when arriving in a new area
Fixed the Lock View on Character tooltip so it does not overlap the button/arrow 

Gameplay

Casting Chromatic Orb at night no longer leaves the screen green
Ice Knife's THAC0 penalty is now temporary

The level of zoom in the Shattered Crypt does not affect Lesser Vargouilles' spawning

Infernal Shield cannot be dispelled by quickload anymore
The Fog of War now reappears after Abyssal Fury is cast and the victim fails their saving throw
Stygian Ice Storm visuals have been fixed

Tricha in the Curst pit fight now runs
Silhouettes no longer appear during cutscene spells
Guardian Mantle does not last forever anymore
Morte's Litany of Curses now gets harder to resist as he learns new taunts
Using Guard should set the party to guard an area does not toggle the draw selection button anymore 

Steam

Expanded the description for the Enable Cloud Saves option

The "Closing the Circle" achievement description in Korean typo has been fixed
The "N'joi Ts'Cai'Sotex" achievement now always fires when joining Chaosmen 

Android-only

The "How to play" page 4 arrow indicators have been swapped and now point to the correct button

Casting Abyssal Fury no longer freezes the game
Fixed a bug causing a crash on start on the Motorola Xoom MZ604 

Localization

[French] Dialog with Fhjull is now fully translated
[French, German] Aegis of Torment description has been fully translated
[French] 'défilement' no longer contains a hyphen

[French] Quell is now translated consistently

[German, French] Fixed dialog errors in Lower Ward quests

[German] Typo fixes

[Korean] Translations suggestions and typo fixes added

[Non-English] Saving using the default name now works