Module Recommendations (Focus on exploration, side quests, good area design)

#1

I still miss the days when the old BioWare forum had a “Module Discussion” section; now I don’t really know anymore what’s the best place to ask for specific recommendations, the SP module fans seems to be spread across several websites’ forums, and many probably don’t visit forums at all and just post reviews at the Vault or so. But after posting on Beamdogs’ NWN Module Discussion yesterday and still waiting for the first reply now, I thought why not turn this into a little experiment and see which NWN forum is most active and helpful in this regard - Beamdog’s, this one, GOG’s or Steam’s. :sunglasses:

So, I’ve played quite a lot of NWN modules back in the days, about a decade ago, but I’ve also missed quite a few classics and hidden gems, and I’m currently trying to catch up a bit on those. At the moment, I’m mostly in the mood for:

modules that aren’t strictly linear but allow you to explore on your own and do a lot of side quests or even discover interesting thing just by poking around. I’m also looking for a certain level of quality in the area design that makes exploration feel rewarding, meaning attention to details, environmental story-telling, a good variety of everything and comparatively compact design - no large maps with lots of empty space to run across; preferably few trash mobs, but unique encounters; also good dialogues but not an overwhelming lot of it with walls and walls of text.

Examples of modules that I’ve most recently played and that fit the description: Darkness Over Daggerford, The Wanderer, Cormyrean Nights, A Tangled Web 1&2, maybe Eye of the Beholder (sadly Im stuck in it), maybe Ravenloft: Beyond the Gate. And I just finished Citadel by the Sea, a PnP conversion by BlueAres, which I had never heard of before but which perfectly met the requirements as well.

Any suggestions on what else I could check out?

PS: Not to open the flood gates, but if you have a really, really good suggestion that doesn’t quite fit all of the above, I’d be interested in it, too. For example, I also played and loved Madness and Magic which was more linear and story-oriented but had such lovely attention to details, good compact area design and unique characters.

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#2

ive always noticed it can sometimes take a few days for people to reply to topics unless its really popular like projects or content people are working on and are sharing openly.

Regarding modules though id welcome some sort of fresh reviews, and maybe even take a revisit of what we’d consider new top modules (There used to be awards and competitions back in the day too! we get none of that anymore.)

#3

Looks like it. I also suspect that these forums are mostly visited by custom creators, and that there are not that many active players here. On the other hand, this thread is now in the lead. On Beamdog my thread was flagged as potential spam at first, because I edited it two times in order to fix typos; a moderator waved it through Sunday evening, but so far no actual player has posted in it. On GOG neither. And on Steam my thread was flagged as potential spam as well and hasn’t shown up again so far, possibly because I don’t own the game there and it said something about me not being allowed to post because of it (I can post in other people’s threads, but maybe not create my own ones).

So, yeah, I still don’t know where all the players of SP modules are hanging out. I see some very dedicated ones regularly posting reviews on the Vault, but they don’t seem to frequent forums (that often).

Btw, just in case you don’t know it, on the main Vault page, if you click on Recent Content, you can see all recent posts on Vault pages, and many of them are fresh reviews. But it takes some random browsing to find them.

As for new top modules, sorting the Vault entries by the new rating brings up this list:
https://neverwintervault.org/catalog/nwn1?field_category_tid=11&field_category_tid_1=All&field_tags_tid=&field_first_release_value=All&order=value&sort=desc
So I guess those would be the modules who are currently most popular?

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#4

You might find my guide useful:

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#5

Speaking as a mod on here but not in my official capacity, I look in on that page a number of times each day and I have a couple of tips you may (or maybe not) find useful. I use the Opera browser (got three other browsers installed but that’s the one I use nearly all the time). If I hover over the numeric link, Opera displays the full address to where that link goes to. As part of the address tells you which game (NwN, NwN EE, NwN 2), this can be useful if you are only looking to find stuff for one of these games. You will also see that some of the recent content entries do not have a number as a link. These entries indicate either that it is a new item or that it is a very recent update to that project.

Hope that is of some use.

TR

#6

Thanks, Proleric, I’m familiar with these module lists and they are definitely helpful, I was just hoping for some individual recommendations because searching on my own for something that might meet my requirements can be a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, since I haven’t gotten any suggestions so far, in the meantime I found and played through another, UK5: Eye of the Serpent by ENoa4. But now I need to look for a new one again. :sweat_smile:

Also thanks for the tips, TR! :slightly_smiling_face:

#7

Hello Olivier,

Sometimes, when i don’t despair at my modules lack of progress, i play single player mods. Recently tried ADK_Kunoichi 1 et 2 and that was not bad at all, in particular the first part. I like a lot the Auren trilogy by Fester Pot too (Almraiven, etc.) and before that i played Ceremorphed (short and easy but fun), Small Village Woes (classic but interesting) and Sea of Shadows (good but with hard level fights).

edit: in fact the name is sea of shadow, here…
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/sea-shadow

#8

Thanks for the suggestions! Not sure about Ceremorphed, but I think I’ve played all of the others except for the last one. Under that name I only find fan fiction on the Vault though. Do you have a link?

#9

Well, there is must less content created these days. But maybe if there was a dedicated module review/guide/discussion forum category with a somewhat regulated structure (i.e. one module = one thread), It’d encourage more discussion or a shift of player comments from the vault pages here (where it is easier to post screenshots, etc).

Did you have any luck the modules from your other thread? @Werelynx (among other posters) shared a list of modules there (with vault links :+1:):

#10

To my embarrassment, I have to admit, I completely forgot about that thread. :flushed:

Good thing you still remembered it and pointed it out, I’m not even sure I saw this extensive post by Werelynx at the time (maybe I got distracted by other games?). In any case, thats exactly the sort of enthusiastic and knowlegdeable SP player I was looking for. I’ll make sure to check out the modules yet unknown to me - there actually are several on that list. Thanks a lot! :+1:

#11

Oh, by the way, among the module lists, I also found two old ones I did on the IGN Vault, ages ago,
https://neverwintervault.org/article/reference/nwn-kids-rough-copy-nwn1
https://neverwintervault.org/article/reference/short-modules
(I see the second one includes Ceremorphed, mentioned above, so I guess I’ve played it, after all. :innocent:)

Is it still possible to do module lists like that on the new Vault? Can you create and maintain your own link pages, without actually uploading anything of your own? And if so, can you keep it hidden as long as it’s a work in progress?

#12

And in other news, I overlooked that there’s a NWN forum on reddit, too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/neverwinternights/

When I posted there, I got two replies within the first two hours, so it seems like a better choice than GOG, Steam and Beamdog forums, and maybe a good complement to this one.

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#13

There is no “portfolio”(IIRC?) category in the new vault.
AFAIK there is no way to have unpublished list. You can only make an article and edit it afterwards (like I did with all the lists)

If you want to (re)gain ownership of any lists I have copied let me know. (just dont delete them :stuck_out_tongue:)

I have many a bookmark to expand those listings… just to lazy, I mean busy! to get it done.

#14

Hi Werelynx, thanks for your helpful answer(s)! I see, so you just create an “Article” under “Contribute”, as if it was a forum post and fill it with links?

At the moment I wouldn’t really know what to do with them, so I don’t mind you taking over. Unless you want to get rid of the responsibility, of course. :innocent:

Did you or anyone else ever create a list of modules that converted official source materials? E.g. sorted by PnP conversions, video game conversions (Icewind Dale, Pool of Radiance, Diablo, Zork, The Immortal etc.), possibly modules based on novels, movies or TV series (e.g. Discworld, Lankhmar, Firefly, Star Wars)? I know you have quite a lot of these modules on your other lists, but I didn’t notice any under that specific headline.

#15

There is a list by setting and in the campaigns there is very unfinished list,
https://neverwintervault.org/article/reference/campaigns-and-module-series-list-nwn1

Other Games Expansions, Continuations, NWN Adaptations etc.: :

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