Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Z-Layrex)

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

NWN 2: Hmmm... suddenly the temptation to make my own wishlist becomes too strong... must resist... programmers will throw rocks... ahhhh!!

1) Have to agree on the z-axis thing: climbing, swimming, flying, the whole 9-yards (not sure what that means... 9 yards of what?) is required for any sequel to be an evolutionary step forward. Whether or not the current engine could be retooled to include that, however, is the scary part... I would be pretty leery, personally, about starting all over again with a new engine. Having a working engine to start from is what's supposed to make working on sequels so sweet, design-wise. I don't actually lump in riding with the z-axis... and I don't think it's necessary... but maybe that's just me. What is necessary is having dragons that can fly and swoop down on you, wizards that levitate, a nice climbing puzzle to grab that statue's eye-gems which lets your rogue shine and some nice underwater combat. All that stuff alone is a major endeavour that would require most of the work in the sequel... but wouldn't that be sweet?

2) I won't go into a long list of appearance options, as the bang-for-your-buck only goes so far on that point... but evolutionary-wise you can't get much sweeter than cloaks flapping in the wind along with realistic-looking draping cloth and hair. Graphical layers will be a must.

3) More omniscience/omnipotence for DM's. I say lose the avatar. Let the DM have an omniscient, multi-window view. Allow them to possess anything (including a PC) and give the DM a mini-toolset which will allow them some ability at creating on the fly and also allow them to import anything made in the toolset proper... including new areas. Oh... and editable save games. (Ow! Damn programmer just hit me in the noggin!)

4) Greater editing control over toolset creations. Allow for more color control and on-the-fly sizing of creatures and placeables. Built-in support for custom models and textures. Allow for item creation with less limitations. At the same time, allow for a local server to control their own security and set their own parameters for what can be brought into their game.

5) Allow players to make their own face textures (a la the Sims), portraits and voice files and have these all plopped into one directory and transferred automatically during play. (Ummm... hopefully broadband is the standard by this point...)

Heh... tall enough order for ya? I could probably come up with several more, but I think I just made myself depressed. Time to go pop some Xanax.

Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant

Spells: When a spell is modified for use in NWN, it is for a good reason--usually play balancing. Stuff that's balanced for a PnP game isn't necessarily balanced for a CRPG, where things need to happen much quicker.

NWN Resolutions: Sorry, but we had to drop the official 640x480 as there was just not enough room for all the GUI elements. I will get that part of the FAQ fixed up tomorrow.

More:
There were reasons, I'd imagine. The design team is chock-full of D&D nuts, so the chance that they don't know the rules is slim to none.

And More:

Quote: It is your silence that most offends.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Unfortunately, the design team is extremely busy with our next... 6 projects (including the two expansions and KotOR Xbox and PC). Designing the game took a substantial amount of time. I'm sure the designers wish they had time to document and post every design decision they made... but they simply don't. I'm just giving you a general statement that holds true for most of the gaming industry (which includes D&D-based games). I'd like to be able to explain the design decisions in further detail, but the fact is that I don't know why decisions were made; only that they were made for good reason. Whether it be time constraints, play balancing, or poor translation to a CRPG...

And Even More:

Quote: Tom, ?it is your silence that most offends? is a quote form Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing, act 1) and was not intended to be taken literally. I mean only to say: we want to know what we can and the more we are told, the happier we are. At least where we = me. I don?t presume to speak for everyone. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. I also don?t expect every nit noid decision to be put before the tribunal of the community for adjudication. There isn?t time or money for that. I am also a person who has to make a living, turn in projects on time and on budget, so I understand the realities. But in an industry which is dependent on a fickle fan base, I think I could demonstrate (with some research) that the ROI from a strong communications policy was strongly positive, and paid for itself. I have said this same thing to Darcy. You have a fan base which wants to be involved, the fans want to love your product. We can help.

I'm aware it's shakespeare But anyway, the fact is that we do listen--many of the things being implemented in SoU, Witch's Wake, and XP2 are direct requests from fans.

Helmets & Headbands:

Quote: Screen shots don't mean much to me anymore. if you look at the pre-release BG2 SS the things depicted are things that could not happen. Icewind Dale did the same thing. Look at the box pictures. All are made to look great but do not really show the real game. I am sure the expansion will be good but what is the word on the invisible headgear? If you like the look of helmets on mages, monks, etc. so much why don't you put them in the screenshots? It is because you know how stupid they look.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. All the shots on the NWN box are definitely possibilities in-game. I should know--I took a few of them. And no one said we "like" the look of helmets on mages and monks--I play a Rogue in NWN, and I just don't use the head slot; doesn't really bother me. As Darcy said, they're looking into the possibility of having invisible headbands and such. It will require relatively substantial programming and design resources, so it will be a matter of deciding which features are most important to implement. If we were to go "you can have more prestige classes, but then we won't be able to give you headbands" would you be upset? It's all a matter of personal preference. We are looking into the headband thing; if I hear a definite yes or no from the design team, I'll be in this thread two seconds later letting you know.

More:
Precisely... I'm not throwing you the "take prestige classes or take headbands" ultimatum--just presenting a theoretical situation.

Tumble: Correct. Tumble is a skill.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Dialog Viewer: No, this isn't an indication of something big coming. It was just a utility that one of the Tools guys mentioned to me that could be a handy utility, so I just popped it up there. Most of the upcoming Wednesday items will be focusing on SoU so I will be manually scattering some things outside of Wednesday.

Patch 1.28 Release: Today or tomorrow.

More:
Just an update. Most likely Wednesday morning. We have the 1.28 version finalized, but we still have many hours of last minute sanity checking to do, and it will probably all get done by the end of the day.