Black Isle Studios Board Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Here are some more comments from game developers on the BIS message boards.

Neverwinter Nights

Rob Bartel, Co-Lead Designer:

Alternative OS Toolset: Hi again, folks. Many of you are still expressing feelings of being lied to and for that I apologize. As I mentioned in my last post, we had always hoped for full multiplatform capability for the toolset. We had reason to believe that Borland-for-Linux would be available by this time and that a third party would be handling a Mac port on our behalf. For reasons beyond our control, these once-feasible options have both fallen through. Again, we regret this deeply and understand how many of you feel - we want a multiplatform toolset, too. But I promise you that we have not been lying to you - we told you what we understood to be true and we continue to do so now that that understanding has changed.

As for concerns that, as a developer, we are abandoning alternate platforms, I sure hope not. Many of you on the boards have mentioned that games of any sort on these platforms are few and far between and top-of-the-line roleplaying titles even more so. Well, with NWN, you're still getting that - a simultaneous multiplatform release of a rich D&D RPG from the developers of the Baldur's Gate series. On top of that, you're also able to experience the adventure with other players, regardless of platform, in multiplayer mode. Plus there are competitive play modules, random dungeons, persistent worlds, user-made campaigns, and so forth that you'll be able to download off the 'net or simply join in and play via the matching service. While that may or may not include the toolset, that's still something bigger and better and cooler than a lot of things out there - to ignore it entirely is to do yourself a disservice.

Another thing I've heard alternative-OS users on this board say is that it's good to support developers who cater to their platform of choice because it shows the developer (and other developers who happen to be paying attention) that their platform has market potential. That holds true in this case, as well. If Linux and Mac users make up a good portion of the traffic on our Matching Service, you can bet that that will turn heads and make it easier for us to pitch the toolset to a third-party porting company or convince the powers that be that we should do the port ourselves. For that matter, if you really want to the toolset ported to your platform of choice, consider emailing some of these porting companies and letting them know that there is a market for such a product (as it's "just a toolset" and not the game itself, many companies are understandably reluctant to take on such a risk).

As for open-sourcing the toolset itself, I'm not enough of a tech-head to assess the feasibility of such a move, nor enough of a legal beagle to know if there might be unforeseen complications along the way. Personally, I'd love to see it but it's really not my call to make.

Hope that helps...

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Mac Toolset: Just to clarify some of my earlier posts, I should make it clear that I'm not privy to any specific details of our plans for a Mac toolset port. I know only that we had been in contact with a third party at one point and that whatever deal we had been working towards never came to fruition. Anything beyond that has been mere speculation on my part. So, for the record, I don't know who the third party was nor do I know which other companies were approached. The particulars of the deal and the reasons it failed to come together are also well beyond my grasp.
Remember, this kind of stuff takes place at the legal and corporate level, not on the development floor. Due to Non-Disclosure Agreements, those who do know the details generally aren't allowed to discuss them anyway, even internally.

Aribeth the Female Warrior: If memory serves me (see, I never state anything 100% if I can help it but it doesn't mean I have nefarious plots to go against my word, either... tee hee) this picture was drawn for a scene that comes about as described by another poster in this thread: Aribeth drops to the ground while her sword, already plunged into the ground, sort of holds her up. I could elaborate further, but that might suggest at our story, and if I get my way, none of you will ever know anything about our story. Muhuhuhahaha *cough, cough, gag* ... well, until you get to play it, anyway."

Ravenloft: Anyway, BioWare doesn't hold the license to Ravenloft, so we won't be able to do anything with that campaign setting.

As for more creative envisonments of that evil, evil place, we are using an already-established setting, so we don't have any room for a restructuring of their vision. However, their vision is quite wide-and-varied, and should contain just about anything you could ever want in a setting.

Wielding two weapons: All classes may wield two weapons simultaneously, so long as each weapon is able to be wielded in one hand. There are feats that will decrease the penalties associated with wielding two weapons. To the best of my knowledge, we are implementing this exactly as it has been implemented in 3rd edition D&D. Hope that clears the matter up.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Terminology – NWN vs Others: One of these things that I am still trying to get straight in my head is the slightly different terminology that we are using as compared to your other modable games. I am just going to restate it here for your edification (and watch me get some stuff wrong and edit this post on Monday =).

Other -> NWN
--------------------------
map -> module
mod -> hack pack

In other games, maps need to reside on both the client and the server. In NWN, only the server needs to have the module, the clients just get positional information so they can run the game with no need for any type of download.

A hack pack is an addition to a NWN module in such a way that the client will need the new data file that is on the server. This could be music, sound effects, etc. This will require that the client download the hack pack externally from the game and have it in place to play.

At this time we have no plans to allow downloading of hack pack data from within the NWN game. This is the current plan and as per all things, is subject to change before shipping.

Also, I would like to ask you guys to try to be more polite on these message boards. I know it can be frustrating to see some of the same questions, but posting a flame about it is only going to make things worse for everyone. Let's try and keep it fun here, please.

OS and Modules: The OS doesn't matter because the modules are binary data that are OS independent. The file system question doesn't enter into it, as you would be using FTP or Samba to transfer the file.

Marc Taro Holmes, Art Director:

Aribeth the Female Warrior:I think some guys have summed it up pretty much - the armor in our paintings of Aribeth is not as realistic as some might like, but it is a nice design...I'd think she wouldn't dress like that if she was entering a pitched battle - she's wearing a skirt for goodness sake - this is more 'town gear'.

She has a similar outfit in game but with armored legs. You have to keep in mind, this is a fantasy world, not a medieval European military simulation.
She has access to kinds of protective spells after all. I don't think you would really wear 60 pounds of plate around all the time if you had the option of protections or magic circles, plus if you have a high dex you want to preserve your AC bonus...

Overall I AM glad everyone's looking at the paintings in any case.

Don Moar, Lead Programmer, Tools:

Alternative OS Toolset:Hi. As the lead programmer on the NWToolset, I figured it's about time I actually spoke up to address some of the comments that have been made in regards to its portability.

First of all, no one, no one wants a cross-platform NWToolset more than I do; I absolutely guarantee it.

When we started development on NWN a few years ago, these were our requirements for what would become the NWToolset:

1. Use C++ - to share some of the game's source files. This also makes it easier to do nifty things like display the areas in the program itself to give the module designers a real sense of how their stories will look and play.

2. Fast Development - so the designers can start making the game as fast as possible. This had the consequence of requiring us to select a Windows development environment initially since that's the platform we use on our machines internally.

3. GUI Flexibility - not at the beginning of the development cycle, at the end, when we would be doing our final analysis on all the form layouts, control interfaces, etc...

4. Cross-Platform - we all know about this one. Make the NWToolset available on every platform the game supports. ;^)

The first 3 requirements eliminated using the game engine itself, all native Linux and Mac development platforms as well as VB, Visual C++ (and MFC), Delphi, Powerbuilder, SQLWindows, any Java variants and left us with C++ Builder. It was decided that we would try to design with portablity in mind and hopefully have the tools, time and resources available to do the ports later, either ourselves or have some other company do it.

While business decisions sometimes force us to change our plans, we haven't lost site of the goals.

Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

David Gaider, Senior Designer:

Grandmastery: Fer cryin' out loud...

Don't be such a freak. I don't come here to answer every question posed by every fan, ya know. I answer the ones I know about or have something to say about...otherwise I don't post.

***Noodle-WHAACK!!*** just for that.

*I* didn't have anything to do with Grandmastery at all (nor am I the Dictator of DW, for that matter, since people seem determined to say 'Dave did this' and 'Dave did that' ). I have posted once or twice in the past about this topic (and not answered every question but yours, Lancer), and all I've said is that while I didn't necessarily agree with the choice, myself, that it was changed for balance reasons.

Now, if I recall correctly (it's been a while), the reasoning was that the overall bonuses for GM were felt to be too high. Maybe it would have been better to spread out the lowered bonuses instead of taking them all out of the last *, but that's what was done. It is only a half-attack per round and, what?, 1 less ThAC0? What is the exact difference?

Anyway, it's not the end of the world...and while I think it cold have been done differently I don't think it 'nerfs' the entire fighter class.

But agree or disagree with it, there you go. Rail at it or no, it's not a bug.

Wall Spells: Yes, we tried several different ways to implement the wall spells. Even taking away your ability to control how the wall is set up (making it a standard size), there were still problems both in how to avoid conflictions with the 2D backgrounds as well as avoid game-play breakers (same reason the Dimension Door spell had to be abandoned as a PC-usable spell).

Maybe NWN will be able to put them in. Hopefully. (They may already have, I'm just not sure of what their spell list looks like.)