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

SoU Campaign: As for whether or not the campaign will be better, that depends a lot on what you value. One has to keep in mind that this campaign is a LOT shorter... it's an expansion pack-sized adventure and not a new OC put into an expansion pack. That's an important distinction, as some people seem to be expecting the latter. As for the adventure itself... it's a little more challenging (it's designed for people who are familiar with NWN and not as an introductory adventure), it's got more attention to detail, a better story (for the most part... I'd still say it's quite linear overall while allowing several paths within the bounds of its plot), more interactive henchmen (they make regular comments throughout, initiate dialogue occaisionally, cast spells and identify items when you ask them to as well as allow you to alter their inventory)... and, well, other stuff. It may not end up being everyone's cup of tea, but I'm fairly happy with how it's turning out, personally. My advice, if you're concerned, is to listen for feedback from people who do give it a try and judge for yourself whether the expansion's of interest to you. Although, to be honest, unlike our previous expansions for other games, there is more here than just the campaign to give it value. Aren't we evil?

Quote: I used to answer these things under the mistaken impression that they were read by the "powers that be" and given thought. However, I've since learned that that is not the case.

Mmm... they're certainly read, occaisionally, if not always responded to. It's just that most folks don't know the resources involved in many cases, and so ask for things that just plainly aren't going to happen. How often do you want to tell people no? But it's good feedback, regardless. As far as XP2 is concerned, the implementation of Epic Level stuff is going to take the largest portion of our resources right there. It's not a small thing at all.

Quote: 1 - Fix the freaking city gate! It has got to be *easier* to fix the gate than to create a "plot wizard." It must be easier to fix the gate than to create 20+ new monsters and double-handfuls of spell effects, and 3 new tilesets. FIX THE BLASTED GATE!

I take it something's wrong with the city gate?

Quote: 2 - Circular patrol paths. Duh.

The patrol path is the way it is because it's scripted that way. If you want a circular path, the script only needs to be changed. There are, I believe, already scripts out there which have done this.

Quote: 4 - Give the DM the power to view the player's character-sheets. Duh.

Wasn't this put in several patches ago?

5 - Sometimes my story line says they cannot map the area. Let me turn off the map *without* the need for a hackpak.

This is being considered. You're more likely to see this from the Live Team than from XP2, however.

7 - When I create a mob during scripting give me "SetName" to change what is displayed above the NPC's head. Then I can have 15 "Troll Chieftains" all identical, but give each a unique name without the need for 15 unique blueprints.

A 'SetName' function is not going to happen, as far as I know. This sounds easy to change but is not, according to the programmers.

9 - Ladders. Hello! They only need to be able to be clicked upon to activate an area change, that's fine. But they need to BE. Duh.

There are two types of ladders available as placeables in XP1. You will need to script them to activate an area change, but there you go.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Release Of SoU: As always, it'll ship when it's done... however, we have no control over how long it takes for the game to get to England (or Germany, or anywhere for that matter). It all depends on publisher distribution. Hey, last year, Israel got the game before anyone (even before the States)

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Conversations: You have to set the Speaker Tag on the conversation node to correspond to the tag of the next NPC to speak. If the NPC speaking is the owner of the conversation, you can leave the Speaker Tag blank (which should default to "OWNER"). Note that the conversation still has to alternate between NPC and PC statements, it's just that the PC line should be blank, resulting in a [Continue]:

-Root
-- NPC1: Did you hear about ?
---- PC: [Continue]
------ NPC2: No. What about ?
-------- PC: [Continue]
---------- NPC1: Well! was overheard plotting against the king! ... and so on.

SoU Modules: Yes, once you've installed SoU, you will be able to add to existing modules with any of the new content. However, this will tag your module as requiring SoU. This means people that don't have the expansion installed will be unable to play your module.