LINUXGAMES

BioWare has posted a Dungeon Master’sHOWTO article which relates one player’s experiences running Neverwinter Nights games at Neverwinter Connections (asite devoted to organizing player-run campaigns).

Moreover, BioWare conducted a roundtablediscussion about the future of NWN with various community members. Amongthe topics mentioned are online role-playing games versus MMORPGs, persistentworlds, and the appeal of multiplayer gaming. A second segment will be putonline next week.

Finally, there’s been some followup on the NWN2and Linux front: an Obsidiandeveloper posted the followingstatement concerning the status of any future Linux port:

I’d like to touch upon the Linux/Mac versions and make the final word for thetime being on it from the dev team.

We have by no means made any decisions to abandon the Linux or Mac communitiesat this time. Nor is it such a black and white issue over whether Atari orObsidian decides what happens. Atari has been very open and a fantasticpartner. As a member of the management on this project, I’d like to ask thatthe contents of this message supercede any prior dev comment on this issue.

Adding DirectX to the rendering engine opens up options for us, one of whichis to take advantage of bleeding edge PC video card tech today. We realizeOpenGL will offer a very similar level of functionality, and as 2.0 matures,we’ll be watching. At this point in early pre-production, many, many monthsaway from shipping, we are spending our R&D efforts on adding and upgradingbig portions of the engine and adding a DirectX rendering path is one of thoseadditions.

Implementing this new rendering path does not preclude us from addingprogramming staff to upgrade the OpenGL renderer however. We don’t plan todisrupt the platform independent nature of the engine — it wouldn’t makesense for us to do so. But unfortunately, the decision to support the Linux orMac is not one we’re able to put into stone at this point. I do want toreiterate my feelings on it, and that if I have my way, having owned both aMac and several PC’s running Linux myself, we’ll be shipping on all threeplatforms. I just can’t in good conscience promise if and when so far awayfrom ship.

What I can say is to please hang in there, we’re not against the idea by anymeans, we hear the call for multi-platform support, and it will definitelystay on our radar as we plan out the project.

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