Painting by Rick Sardinha
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June 13, 2008
Several of the NWN2 community reps from Germany, Spain, and France got together to do a
podcast
with Alan Miranda, to talk about Ossian's upcoming adventure pack Mysteries of Westgate.
Many thanks to Avantenor, QK, Tranko, Drako, Elynehil, Argyl, and Semcatala for participating!
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May 24, 2008
Ossian Studios has taken part in an RPG roundtable on the Iron Tower Studio forum, along with
other eminent RPG developers including BioWare and Obsidian. Discussed are 3 topics that will
interest any RPG enthusiast on the creative process that takes place at the very start of making a great game:
setting,
story,
and characters.
There's plenty of insightful dialogue from 4 Ossian designers and the other developers,
so be sure to check it out!
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May 15, 2008
Tom Chick from IGN
talks about his hands-on time with Mysteries of Westgate at the MoW press event
in Beverly Hills last week. Leading you through the beginning of the game, he highlights
some of the sights and sounds that players will come across after they step off the ship and
into the city.
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May 13, 2008
Hot on the heels of yesterday's press event articles comes an interview from
Allen Rausch at GameSpy
with Alan Miranda. In addition to info about MoW, and why Westgate was chosen as the location
for the first adventure pack, the Q&A covers other topics like digital distribution and the virtual team model.
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May 12, 2008
Last week, on Thursday May 8th, Ossian Studios and Atari held a press event day in Los Angeles,
California to showcase Mysteries of Westgate at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills. Select members
of the press from the NWN2 community, as well as RPG editors from various online sites, were
invited to watch a demo given by Alan Miranda and Russ Davis from Ossian, and then to play the
game itself for several hours.
Everyone had a great time and there was plenty of excitement in the air as players explored the
mysteries of the infamous city of Westgate. Today, their hands-on previews were posted, one right
after the next, and here is some of the great stuff they had to say, along with the links to their
full articles.
Thieves Guild
(Dwight Kubach)
"Quite simply, this is a must have for NWN2 fans. This is an extremely polished and superbly crafted adventure,
and the attention to detail is simply astounding. The game draws you in from the start and doesn't want to let
go. I had a hard time tearing myself away from it, it's THAT good. I simply can't find anything to criticize,
except perhaps that I wish it was longer. The Ossian development team can take a well deserved collective bow:
they NAILED this one. Be patient folks, this is worth the wait. You are in for a real treat."
Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault
(Errol Pinto aka Maximus)
"I'm pleased to report that it's a lot of fun and I really didn't want to stop playing when we had to go.
The writing is excellent and if you did all the side quests, spending 20 hours to complete it all would be
conservative."
WarCry
(Suzie Ford)
"The journey truly begins in Westgate's Harbor District and the area is alive with NPCs walking around and
talking with one another. Most have something to say to adventurers and some have literally side-splitting
stories to tell. Remember to look for Salty Jack and the hustler in the Arena District with a Minsc & Boo
story to tell and, not coincidentally, a hamster to sell."
Just RPG
(Robert Stock)
"Right from the beginning, I felt a good vibe about the story and was drawn in. In many games, I feel like my
character is just plopped into a place to begin adventuring. But, in MoW, my interest was piqued. The opening
video and introductory events were well done, and had the "magic" that is often missing - I was pulled in and
definitely looking forward to the events that would unfold. I have great confidence that it will get a good mark
from JustRPG!"
Neverwinter Nights Podcast
(Michele O'Sullivan)
And last, but certainly not least, Michele from NWN Podcast recorded a 15-minute interview with Alan and Russ
by the pool at the Avalon Hotel, talking about the development of MoW.
Thanks to everyone who attended the event. Hopefully we'll get to do it again in the future!
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May 1, 2008
Thieves Guild
has posted an interview that covers MoW's new features,
especially the new sewer tileset and how it was designed by Brian Dunn,
one of Ossian's artists. To go along with the interview are 13 exclusive
screenshots of the new tileset!
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April 15, 2008
The WarCry Network has an interview up with Alan Miranda, talking about Ossian Studios'
background, game philosophies, the team behind Mysteries of Westgate, and much more.
You can find it
here.
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April 6, 2008
PC Gamer's RPG editor, Desslock, has written an editorial about Mysteries of Westgate in this month's
issue (May '08). In it, he calls MoW "a real gem" and a "top-notch" game. From an RPG veteran like
Desslock, this is fantastic for us to hear! :) Here is an excerpt from his article:
"Enemies seem to act less scatterbrained, courtesy of more effective customized AI scripts.
The three new companions are all complex and somewhat broken or malleable individuals,
such as Mantides the fallen Paladin whose lust for violent retribution caused him to lose his faith.
There are only a handful of new monsters, but they're all memorable, and there's nary a bland or
tedious encounter. Ossian tags the campaign at 15 hours long, but it took me around 20, and its
competing factions and the conflicting choices you'll have to wrestle with make it worthy of at least
one additional playthrough."
Pick up an issue of May's PC Gamer to read the full article!
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March 23, 2008
Games for Windows has reviewed Mysteries of Westgate in their April/May issue
and had some great things to say about it!
"Mysteries of Westgate is as worthy of attention as Obsidian's great Mask of the Betrayer expansion
from last year. It's no big surprise, as it was made by Ossian Studios (helmed by a former BioWare producer),
who made the acclaimed Darkness Over Daggerford mod for NWN1 in 2006. Ossian delivers again with a
great-looking and engaging 10-to-15-hour (depending on side quests) RPG that any D&D dork should
feel right at home with. Well worth the $10 download."
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March 10, 2008
The intro movie for Mysteries of Westgate has been released on
IGN!
At almost 2 minutes in length, the movie tells the background story of the cursed mask
and introduces players to some of the sights of the city of Westgate, with its inviting clutches...
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March 7, 2008
The fourth and last Mysteries of Westgate developer diary has been posted on
RPG Vault,
with lead designer, Luke Scull, talking about the multiple paths that players can take through
the main story and the large amount of replayability the adventure pack offers. There are
3 new exclusive screenshots with the diary as well.
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February 27, 2008
The third Mysteries of Westgate developer diary has been posted on
RPG Vault.
This installment gives the inside scoop on some of the tools Ossian used to develop MoW
in the Neverwinter Nights 2 toolset, as well as some new screenshots of the sewer tileset,
wererat, and quelzarn.
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February 23, 2008
Alan Miranda and Luke Scull join the Neverwinter Nights Podcast folks for their 45th episode
to chat about Mysteries of Westgate and what makes this adventure pack so special. You can listen to the podcast
here.
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February 21, 2008
RPG Vault
has posted the second developer diary for Mysteries of Westgate,
talking about some of the major players in the city of Westgate,
as well as new detailed info on the 3 companions players can recruit in the game.
Included are 5 exclusive screenshots showcasing the companions.
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January 15, 2008
IGN PC
has posted an interview with Alan Miranda, Luke Scull, and Keehwan Her discussing several topics,
such as developing high quality games at Ossian, and the kind of free content from MoW that will be made
available to the NWN2 community. There are also 5 new exclusive screenshots released with the interview.
Don't forget to check out all 5 videos they have previously posted, showing select scenes from
Mysteries of Westgate.
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January 14, 2008
A huge Q&A has been posted in the Mysteries of Westgate forums answering practically every
question you can think of about the new companions in MoW. You can read the thread
here.
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January 11, 2008
A set of 5 exclusive screenshots have been posted at
Sorcerer's Place.
Along with each shot is a description (and even poetry!) written by Ossian writer, Alex Hugon (aka Hugie).
A render of MoW's new wererat creature is revealed for the first time!
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January 11, 2008
IGN PC has been showing a whole week of videos about Mysteries of Westgate,
with footage that includes new creatures and the new sewer tileset. You can watch all of them
here.
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December 21, 2007
In this interview on
GameShark,
Alan Miranda and Keehwan Her (Associate Producer at Atari) talk about the development of
Mysteries of Westgate and plans for future adventure packs for NWN2. There are also 3 new
exclusive screenshots found at the end of the interview!
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December 19, 2007
Sorcerer's Place
has posted a 15-question interview with Alan Miranda, Luke Scull, and Kevin Smith,
talking about the origins of the cursed mask, memorable moments in MoW, and much more.
Included is an exclusive shot of Undergate, the dank sewer underbelly of the city of Westgate.
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December 5, 2007
RPG Vault has the first of a series of developer diaries for Mysteries of Westgate. This
installment
offers an insightful overview of the city of Westgate, not to mention an exclusive shot of the city map!
RPGWatch also has an
in-depth interview
with some of the MoW dev team discussing the improvements of the NWN2 Adventure Packs
from the NWN1 Premium Modules, comparisons with Baldur's Gate II, and what it means to take
the evil path in MoW.
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November 9, 2007
Another interview about Mysteries of Westgate is now up, this time on the
RPG Codex site.
Alan Miranda and Luke Scull talk about MoW's design in more detail, as well as what they think
it takes to make great RPGs.
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November 7, 2007
GameBanshee has posted an interview with Alan Miranda talking about Darkness over Daggerford,
how Mysteries of Westgate got started, and the differences between working with the
NWN1 and NWN2 toolsets. There are also a couple of new screenshots of MoW. You'll find the interview
here.
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October 27, 2007
There are two interviews up that talk about the details of Ossian's recently announced
Mysteries of Westgate, with questions answered by both Alan Miranda (CEO and Producer)
and Luke Scull (Lead Designer). The first screenshots of the game have also been released in
the interviews, with a sneak peek at one of the game's new monsters, the quelzarn! You can check out
Part 1 on the NWVault and
Part 2 on WarCry.
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October 22, 2007
Ossian Studios is very proud to present to you our second Dungeons & Dragons® Forgotten Realms
game, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate, the first Adventure Pack for Neverwinter Nights 2.
Set in the infamous city of Westgate along the Dragon Coast of Faerūn, players will embark upon a
grand city adventure where they can count on having as much fun (if not more!) as they had with
our acclaimed NWN1 module, Darkness over Daggerford.
With 15 hours of gameplay, including a main story with multiple paths, a slew of optional sidequests,
new art content, and an all-original orchestral musical score, MoW is a role-playing gamer's dream,
crafted by a team composed of some of the best modders from the NWN community. More details will be
released in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Lastly, a big thanks to our fans who have made Daggerford such a success - we've now had over 50,000 downloads!
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June 20, 2007
Darkness over Daggerford has hit another milestone today and surpassed 45,000 downloads!
We're happy that our fans have enjoyed Daggerford and hope they will enjoy playing our next project
just as much, something we've been hard at work on these last many months. Stay tuned for more
epic adventures...
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April 16, 2007
Darkness over Daggerford received the
NWVault 2006 Gold Award
for the best NWN1 mods of 2006, as voted by the fans. Released exactly 8 months ago to the day,
the game has had over 42,000 downloads and continues to be downloaded everyday.
Thanks to all Daggerfans who voted for our module!
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March 12, 2007
Ossian Studios went to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco last week to showcase
Darkness over Daggerford at the Independent Games Festival (IGF). Having won the IGF 2007 Best
RPG Mod award, we had a lot of people stop by the IGF booth in the North Hall, from hardcore
NWN players to other game developers, all interested in checking out our expansion-sized RPG.
It was an exciting three days and we'd like to send out a big thanks to all our fans who dropped
by to say hi - it was great to see you!
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March 2, 2007
The Neverwinter Vault has started their yearly poll to pick the best NWN module for 2006. There are 28
Hall of Fame modules in the running, and the winner will be crowned the 2006 NWN Module of the Year.
If you had fun playing Darkness over Daggerford, then head over to the Vault and
cast your vote
for it today!
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February 23, 2007
Gamasutra has posted an interview with Alan Miranda talking about Darkness over Daggerford
winning the IGF 2007 Best RPG Mod award, as well as the state of game modding. You can read the interview
here.
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December 16, 2006
The IGF has just announced the four category winners of the 2007 Independent Games
Festival Modding Competition (posted on
Gamasutra
), and Daggerford has received the award for Best RPG Mod! Each winner will now
compete at GDC 2007 on March 7th for the overall IGF Best Mod award.
Congratulations Daggerford team!
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December 12, 2006
It has been almost 4 months since Darkness over Daggerford was released,
and we are excited to announce that we have just passed 35,000 downloads
by fans! It's fantastic to know that so many players continue to have fun
with our game. If you still haven't tried it out, you can find it
here.
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December 7, 2006
This week Darkness over Daggerford was inducted into the Neverwinter Vault
Hall of Fame. Back in August, less than 3 days after we released Daggerford,
the Vault recognized that we had already surpassed all Hall of Fame
requirements, saying that they didn't think they'd ever seen this much of a
response for a mod, even at the peak of NWN1! We're very happy and honoured
to be a part of this select group of the most popular Neverwinter Nights modules.
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November 8, 2006
GamerDad has reviewed all of the latest BioWare Premium Modules and has given Darkness over Daggerford
a positively glowing review as well as a score of 4.5/5 stars, despite the fact that Daggerford is
a cancelled premium module! The reviewer, Mike Anderson, says, "Daggerford is more than just my
favorite NWN module to date, it is my favorite role-playing game of 2006 thus far." Wow! You can't
expect to hear much better than that! Here's more of what he had to say in his review:
"It is perhaps ironic that my favorite of the Premium Modules is the one that was cancelled
and released for free. That aside, this is just a tremendous game - and I can't think of it
as anything but a 'game'. It has as much content as either of the NWN expansion packs, and
is larger and more interesting than many full-priced role-playing games being released. This
succeeds by leveraging the strengths that already exist in the game and focusing on what matters
most - providing a compelling story that unfolds in an interesting way, and a wonderful player
experience." ... "I would definitely recommend everyone go and download Darkness Over Daggerford
immediately - it is an excellent game."
So what are you waiting for?! :-) See how Ossian's Darkness over Daggerford stacked up
against the other premium modules in
GamerDad's review wrap-up.
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October 30, 2006
Part 2 of Sorcerer's Place Darkness over Daggerford interview is now up,
discussing topics such as content cut from the module and the future of
single-player CRPGs. You can check it out
here.
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October 27, 2006
Sorcerer's Place has posted part one of their Darkness over Daggerford interview with
the producer and lead designer on the project, Alan Miranda. It is a behind the scenes
look that covers the heavy influence Baldur's Gate had on Daggerford and much more.
You can read the article
here.
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October 25, 2006
Ossian's CEO, Alan Miranda, takes part in IGN's RPG Roundtable #6, Part 3, along with such industry
icons as Bill Roper and Ken Levine. The topic in this feature is "They don't make RPGs like they
used to." Can this be true? Find out the answer
here.
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October 11, 2006
Version 1.2 of Darkness over Daggerford has been released on the Neverwinter
Vault. You can now download the full updated version of the game or a separate
patched version of the module (please refer to the v1.2 Readme file for details).
To go along with this release, we have also posted part 2 of Daggerford's critical
path walkthrough. The v1.2 files and both walkthroughs can be downloaded
here.
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October 4, 2006
In their November 2006 issue (p.92), Computer Games Magazine offered some high
praise for Daggerford, ranking it as a "20-30-hour epic" that's "worth every byte."
Here's more on what they thought of the game:
"Many Neverwinter Nights conventions have been turned on their Elven ears here,
courtesy of an expansive new world map that gives the module a spacious feel
and extensive dialogue that makes the game play like a lost chapter in the
Baldur's Gate series."
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September 27, 2006
The Neverwinter Vault has given Daggerford a review of 8.5/10 (rated Excellent)
as well as a Reviewer's Award! Calling it a "landmark Neverwinter Nights module,"
here's how they summed up the game:
"As a whole, Daggerford offers a wonderful gaming experience that should rank it among
the most impressive, not to mention ambitious modules released this year, if not in
the history of Neverwinter Nights."
You can read the full review
here.
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September 15, 2006
Ossian has released a stand-alone version of the world map system used in
Darkness over Daggerford. Developed by Ossian, the world map system is very
similar to the one used in Baldur's Gate, even including random encounters.
Packaged in this release is a detailed instruction manual, a demo, a resource hak,
and an erf file for builders to get a working map integrated into their own module.
You can download it from the
Neverwinter Vault.
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September 8, 2006
Welcome to the new Ossian Studios website - we hope you like our new look!
You can now find out more about who we are and our games. Check out our
Games section for details on our recently released Neverwinter Nights game,
Darkness over Daggerford.
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August 28, 2006
Version 1.1 of Darkness over Daggerford has been released on the
Neverwinter Vault. You can now download the full updated version of the
game or a separate patched version of the module. Version 1.1 contains
bug fixes reported by players from version 1.0 (please refer to the Readme
file for details).
Download v1.1 now!
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August 26, 2006
Check out the Darkness over Daggerford
team interview
on the Neverwinter Vault.
It's a massive, tell-all interview with all our team members, so get ready for
an in-depth read!
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August 16, 2006
Ossian Studios has released its Neverwinter Nights game, Darkness over Daggerford,
to the Neverwinter Vault, and the NWN community's reaction has been beyond our
expectations! We knew that we wanted to make the biggest and best BioWare Premium
Module ever, and aside from the fact that BioWare cancelled the premium mod program,
we feel we did just that.
We are very happy that so many people are getting this much enjoyment from the game,
and it makes the development of Daggerford over the last year feel totally worthwhile.
To all our new fans, from all of us here at Ossian, THANK YOU!
Download
Darkness over Daggerford
from the Neverwinter Vault and play the game for free!
Also check out the great articles about Ossian Studios and Darkness over Daggerford on
BioWare's
website and on the
Neverwinter Vault.
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