Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (Nov. 2, 04)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault from Obsidian Forums. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Brian Lawson, Graphics Programming

NWN2 Game Engines

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"Aurora" is for NWN2 RULES and GAMEPLAY.

"Electron" is for NWN2 GRAPHICS -- this is all new according to the Guildmaster -- so GRAPHICS will be up to date in 2006, presumably -- at least that's what I read (see Guildmaster post above).

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You've read correctly young Jedi.

Erik Novales, Programmer

Reverse Compatibility
Let's put it this way...we're not going to intentionally change file formats just for the sake of breaking content. Where necessary, we'll change things to support all the cool new stuff we're putting into NWN2. original.gif But as of right now, the extent to which we can make content compatible between the two games has not yet been fully determined. Like I said before, it's not like we're sitting here trying to find every way possible to keep you guys from getting custom characters into the game (as it was previously kind of implied getlost.gif ). That's ludricous. Anyway, I hope this has helped and it's something we can certainly keep in mind.

Ferret, Developer

Plots
Our game will have the "Find the X" type of quests in it on occasion. It's a common activities that all adventurers do on occasion. But the story arc as a whole doesn't fall into that characterization at all. So rejoice, your wish is granted.

Poll: Static Map or Rotating Map
Don't take this as a promise either way, but I'm quite curious which one of these people prefer.

Marc Taro, Lead Artist

Various Climates and Settings Tiles
On of the main reason we have tilesets and decor libraries is to save texture memory. Naturally, we would like to be able to use any object in any setting - however there is a budget of how much texture can be loaded on the card at any one time - so landscape is dvided in to 'zones' where you know you're only going to need a limited set of materials. This is the same rationale behind games like EQ - each zone has it's own 'style' and it's own set of art assets. That's kind of a round-about explanation of why there were both Rural and Urban tilesets in NWN, and why they did not mix.

In the new game it's going to be a little different. We might have a scheme a bit like this: City sets are one type of level, and Landscape of various kinds, (hills, coastal, swamp) are another type of level. At the moment the plan is that all outdoor, non-city environments would share a library of 'farm houses' and small ruins - the kind of structures you might expect to find on an overland adventure. thx - good question...

Various Climates and Settings Tiles
In Runequest you would cut your OWN arm off more often than not. That was a dangerous game system - nobody lived for long

[ November 07, 2004, 22:03: Message edited by: chevalier ]