SNOW WAY IT’LL NEVER BE WINTER....
I had several present surprises while doing the rounds at ECTS (European Computer Trade Show): admittedly, most of these involved the Sony 'booth babes', but more about that some other time. The biggest surprise in terms of games was that presented to me by those genial Canadians, the Bioware Corporation. I didn't expect much when I turned up at their stand unannounced to see the 'BY APPOINTMENT ONLY' sign, but their representatives very kindly arranged a viewing for me of 'a game that will blow you away'. Knowing a little bit about them I assumed that this was the forthcoming Baldur's Gate 2. How right they were, and how wrong I was......
The game was Neverwinter Nights, a game based on the same Dungeons and Dragons Universe as their other RPG's - but there many of the similarities end. As Bioware producer Trent Oster explained, NN is a roleplaying game but it has a different focus from their other projects. It has two sections in effect: one is a highly gripping single-player adventure element featuring a 'well-crafted' 100 hour storyline which then gives the player a chance to go on and stay in the world even when he has completed the preset game elements. In this, players can purchase property and store equipment there - and interact with non-player characters 'better than ever before' according to Oster. The text engine uses a keyword system so that the NPC's appear to understand and respond in kind to what your character is actually saying. For example, if you enter 'Where in the Black Kingdom is the mighty base of the black rock' the engine will pick up Where and Black rock and, as it were, understand what you were saying. How successful this part of the game will be has yet to be seen, and I guess it may not be working too well just yet given that Bioware didn't show it off as much as some of the other game compnenets.
The other half of the game is a huge online component which can be classed (albeit clumsily) as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG). Huge playing areas (which take 15 minutes to run directly across, apparently) will host quests hosted by a 'Dungeon Master' figure. The world will be populated by a mix of players and the previously mentioned NPC's: the Bioware stated aim is to make 'the two types of inhabitant identical' - so you won't be able to tell whether the person you are talking to is a Mississippi farm worker or a sliver of silicon. For the player, there will be no server interface screen so as to make getting online as simple as possible and to prevent crashing (indeed, much of what goes on will be done on the client computer rather than on a server). All server customisation will be handled by a separate program.
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