Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist
Public (OOC) => Tech discussion => Topic started by: Vastgoten on April 26, 2021, 10:56:58 AM
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So, I am playing NWN on my Ipad. I am an old returning player to these games, but previously mostly played NWN2 on PC.
I took a loooong break from NWN although when I discovered that NWN was released on IOS I could not resist but try it out. And its not all bad. The game is pretty smooth and from what I can tell, I am able to enjoy most aspects of the PotM server and the original game to its full extent.
I am using a Ipad Air, 3rd generation.
For the curious - Here are some items I believe might be good to know about the experience I had so far.
- The camera angle is stuck. that's right, you can not tilt your camera while in game. You can zoom and rotate but not tilt. Well, you can tilt but then you need to script which is a bit too much fuzz to handle in game. By scripting you can decide what tilt angle suits you and then accept it so to speak. Not being able to tilt either means that you choose a top down camera or a ”3rd person view” and is stuck with it. Both have their pros and cons ofc. I have chosen to play top down. I cant tilt to see the horizon which is a problem sometimes but for the most part it seems to work.
- There is the matter of typing. The touch screen is halved when the keyboard appears, meaning you will probably miss allot of information whenever you type anything longer then a few words. I bought a keyboard which works fine but the game is really rough against the battery time and my keyboard has a cord which means I need to unplug it every so often to use a charger instead. If possible I would recommend looking into a keyboard with bluetooth. I also discovered a problem with the extra keyboard, it does not have ”brackets” that we use frequently to change languages or do emotes. So, even with the keyboard plugged in I need to raise the in built touch keyboard to access those ”brackets.”
- There is a ”touch delay” when ”right clicking” - this is mostly a problem when you want to quickly order a summon, or use the radial menu somehow. It works, it just take a little longer. Some fellow RPers will interpret this as if you are not going to ”close the door” after you since it takes a moment longer then it would on a PC with a regular mouse. ;). So its a minor issue all in all.
- PvP and to put someone hostile is a pain. When using the player list to change a PC to hostile its really a rough list to scroll through. It takes time and seem to be such a burden for the Ipad to handle that I try to avoid opening that list at all. Fighting in itself is however not a problem.
- Transitions are not visible. Yep... it can be troublesome. On most areas where roads lead to transitions it helps allot, but its super easy to get lost and not find a transition in the wilderness, a forest or the amber wastes. Either one has to memorise where the transitions are or spend time running along the edges until you hit the transition by luck.
- There is no in game compass. This in combination with the invisible transition points makes navigating hard. I have been lost more then one time. But That is probably also due to my own mushy brain. The minimap still appears and always shows up as north.
- When entering areas where lots of visible effects are ongoing, or when a caster uses spells with large animations it causes lag. This is probably true to most older computers as well. But worth noting for someone considering playing on IOS. For RP purpose and most dungeons around Vallaki it works very well but if you are looking to hit high level dungeons you will face problems.
- The greatest advantage is of course that I can play while on the move. For me, I barely never has time or the option to sit down to play on a PC anylonger. But with the Ipad I can play from wherever. Simply put, without the Ipad I would not be playing NWN.
So, basicly, the IOS is not a bad experience at all. Its not as good as a PC but still works much better then I would have imagined.
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I’ve played on my ipad as well, and there’s definitely some things that get rendered differently on ios vs pc. For example the mists look awesome on pc, but look very weird on ipad. On the bright side it is still playable though!
A lot of these things are things that the developers at beamdog (the publisher for nwn) need to fix, so im not sure when they will be better
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now I am curious if DMing might work there :lol:
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now I am curious if DMing might work there :lol:
Id avoid anything spawn related. My guess is that it will be at least as heavy as bringing up the player lists. Worth testing though!
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now I am curious if DMing might work there :lol:
I can't speak for iPads at all, but I play from a Macbook, and while the game runs just fine on my end (none of the sorts of problems that OP has helpfully reported), I have never been able to crack the code to get the toolset to work. Not even with the Wine virtual desktops. When I DM'd on a different server, I found the inability to jump into toolset to make some imports to be a real drag on my groove.
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now I am curious if DMing might work there :lol:
I can't speak for iPads at all, but I play from a Macbook, and while the game runs just fine on my end (none of the sorts of problems that OP has helpfully reported), I have never been able to crack the code to get the toolset to work. Not even with the Wine virtual desktops. When I DM'd on a different server, I found the inability to jump into toolset to make some imports to be a real drag on my groove.
The toolset dont work at all. But the DM-client might. I guess for some light check in on the server, throw a few RP lines or just observing it could be a useful complement for a DM. 🤷♂️