Is this a +2 dagger I see before me?

December 1, 2007 12:43 PM

Arden: The World of William Shakespeare is a Neverwinter Nights mod created by the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University. You can play it, but it's kinda boring.
posted by BitterOldPunk (9 comments total)

"First, there continues to be tremendous interest in the basic idea of building a virtual world at a university for the purpose of research and education. Arden I splashes lovingly cold water on the face of anyone who dreams about that. "

Heh.
posted by dismas at 1:27 PM on December 1, 2007

I read terra nova all the time, and while sometimes it can be interesting, especially the Eve posts, a lot of the time it seems like they spectacularly miss the point of why people play games.
posted by empath at 2:01 PM on December 1, 2007

I would totally try this if it ran in a mac.
posted by DenOfSizer at 2:20 PM on December 1, 2007

Waaaaiiiiit a minute. It's a game based on Shakespeare's take on the the Wars of the Roses (not exactly balanced as he was employed by the winning side), set it in Somerset. Odd.

And they called it Arden. Which isn't in Somerset, and, I don't think, featured in any of Shakespeare's plays about the Wars of the Roses. Obviously, monsters would make it much better.

I didn't play it because, today, I got in ye olde car and drove to ye olde Stratford-upon-Avon, through ye olde forest of Arden, and bought ye olde groceries.... no monsters there either, only someone by the door (ye olde doore) trying to sell me ye olde credit card.
posted by Helga-woo at 2:27 PM on December 1, 2007 [4 favorites]

Man, this discussion is so 2006.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:21 PM on December 1, 2007

I dunno about the whole "where are the monsters" argument. I haven't played it, but if they can't make a Shakespearean scenario run red with human blood, they're probably doing something wrong.
posted by juv3nal at 6:08 PM on December 1, 2007

I gave it a shot. (With "Cardenio," a level one druid.)

It seems that the developers replaced the rivers of human blood and high speeches with fetch quests. It's not really an improvement. You're simply not involved with the stories, at least not in the early game; your role is simply to furnish plot tokens to more important people. You are not Prince Hamlet, nor are meant to be.

I much prefer "Hamlet - The Text Adventure" - a game in which you actually are Hamlet, and you don't have to suffer the indignity of killing x number of wild boars.
posted by Iridic at 8:14 PM on December 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

(With "Cardenio," a level one druid.)

Maybe you would've had a better time of it...
...as a bard?
posted by juv3nal at 9:56 PM on December 1, 2007

You can't flash bard colors in a setting like that unless you're really and truly serious, juv3nal. Bard role players are always in it in for keeps.
posted by Iridic at 11:13 AM on December 2, 2007