Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

Here are today's 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

Quote: Give us choices for different kinds of players. Don't lock in a hardwired, hardcore concept for petrifying spells that will just frustrate a large percentage of the players who own this game.

No, the only "hard wired" part of petrification is the effect, itself. This has the visual part (which is, more or less, the Stoneskin effect) combined with the "freeze" to the animations (which is what was not possible without great headache previously). The spells and abilities (like a medusa's gaze) are all open to scripting, otherwise.

Quote: So... then what's the difference between petrify and paralyze? Nothing? oh ok.

There's a big difference to a non-PC. And even to the PC there's a big difference insofar as duration is concerned. Plus it is an effect that was really wanted, so even if you don't agree with our reasoning, you can make it what you want. If you don't agree with our reasoning, however, I would hope you would actually address my points instead of just crying 'cheeze'.

Quote: What if you just did this: Give anyone who is permanently petrified the option to commit suicide and respawn, but have it be so even if they get raised or rezed, they're still stone.

But how do we do that without a new GUI? The problem, as I said, is that there IS no way for the player to indicate "I give up" so he can die and then respawn. Just killing the player and allowing him to wait for help or respawn as per the death GUI might work... but only if petrification and death effects can stack.

Quote: Ok, how's about we address the point that NWN is too easy and getting easier all the time? I like the game, but the campaigns made by Bioware just aren't challenging.

It's my understanding that we've only done one campaign for NWN so far. If you didn't find that challenging, that's fine, but how does that necessarily follow that SoU is less challenging? At the very least, we've implented rest restrictions in appropriate areas and changed the recall stone so that it's a charged item available only in the very first part of the game (and not usable during combat). You might feel that's not enough, but it is certainly more challenging than before, no?

Quote: If you get petrified, it shouldn't just wear off on it's own like a light stomach virus. Also, I certainly don't like the trend that Bioware seems to be playing fast and loose with the DnD rules and mores, and relying on the community to fix mistakes. That, in my opinion, is cheesy.

We're not relying on the community to fix any mistake with this. I simply said that the spell is easily changed if a mod-builder wishes to do it differently. We're implementing the petrification for PC's in this way for very good reasons, and it's not at all out of a spirit of playing fast and loose with the rules. Is it your assertion that we should implement this exactly as per the PnP rules regardless of the playability? Petrification was asked for and we wanted to include it. We could make it work exactly for PC's as it does for NPC's... but what do we do about players standing there permanently paralyzed? We could simply make it 'instant death' to everyone, but that both eliminates any need for the Stone To Flesh spell and is not the spirit of petrification in the rules... which, if we didn't care about, wouldn't be an issue to begin with. Our other option would be not to include the spell at all until and unless we could also include the coding and GUI to handle this exception to make it exactly as per the rules. This would also deny the mod-building community the medusa and cockatrice as well as an effect they've been asking for. Is that preferable? Hopefully we can work on this. In the mean-time, please do tell us what you'd prefer. Feedback is what these boards are for.

Quote: when you die in multiplayer, don't you get the option to respawn, reload or wait for help. Couldn't the death options gui you get be slightly modified for petrification? If you wait for help, you are waiting for someone to stone to flesh you..

Yes, this was suggested already a page before you posted this... if we could apply the petrification effect followed by a death effect and allow the death GUI to do our work for us, then that would be great. There are (just from speaking to the programmers involved) all kinds of problems that could impede this, however... though that doesn't mean it's impossible in the long run. I'm all for petrification being permanent for PC's just as it is for NPC's... but it's got to have an implementation that is playable, as well. Whether we would have time, at this point, to try ironing out something like this and test it as well remains to be seen, but it might be worth the attempt.

Database Questions: No, there's no inherent function for the game to perform maintenance like you suggest on the database files that are produced.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Experience: The XP value in the journal category was never intended to be awarded automatically upon completion. Our designers say that XP can be awarded at any point in the category. They would write a script to award a percentage of the total XP value for the category at a particular point. That way, if as a result of testing, it is decided that the amount of XP the category awards needs to be adjusted, the designer can simply make the change in the Journal Editor without having to recompile the scripts. The next time the module is played, all the scripts that award XP from that category award the right amount of XP (this assumes the percentages are correct, of course).