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. 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.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Golems: While we can not change the existing golems on the palette, because this could render the original NWN campaign unplayable, the new golems definitly have "appropriate" hides...Golems used in the official campaign modules may or may not have new hides..., let them surprise you. Not to forget you can easily give them new hides with appropriate spell resistances in your campaign....

Quote: Yes perhaps by D&D mechanics mantles are supposed to protect against the spell. But how many characters in a properly DMd D&D game have 1 level of rogue and are then able to read any spell scroll they wish, and also have a limitless supply of these scrolls?

There is a limited Use Magic Device Skill roll Code coming up with Hordes of the Underdark. It will be active for scrolls only on HardCore + Difficult difficulty settings and require rogues to win a skillroll vs DC 25+SpellLevel to cast a scroll.

David Gaider, Designer

Parry: There are no plans on changing how Parry works in HotU. Maybe the Live Team might consider it, I'm not sure.

Quote: Oh, and by the way, I have never blamed Bioware for this and have always directed my frustration at Atari.

And we're thankful for that, to be sure. I would never want to defend the use of SecureRom, personally, and I completely understand your frustration (especially since all you obviously want to do is play NWN), but I personally do take issue with some of the views you are espousing.

Quote: But, that aside, and answering the next post at the same time: I have spent over £1000 on hardware to finish a LAN to play the game to support my hobby of D&D by using this product.

Would Atari be prepared to refund my expense of all this as well. I don't think so. So if I build a garage in anticipation of buying a car, and the car I buy is a lemon that doesn't work for me (although here this stupid analogy breaks down a bit, since this car would generally work fine for most others), the dealer now owes me for the garage?

Quote: I am sure you are using the generalised "you" when you refer to a thief, because I would be highly offended if you were referring to me for doing what I could to make my legitimate game work. I have tried going down the "official" route, but their response was terrible to say the least. One could even say that Atari are the thieves, as it feels like they have "taken my money and run" or "sabotaged the software" to no longer work.

Ah, yes. I actually meant to say that the pirates themselves are thieves, I didn't mean to say that you are or what you're doing is thievery. I do, however, mean to call a spade a spade. If you buy a product and it doesn't work for you or doesn't meet your satisfaction, you have the right to return that product to the point of sale as defective (in which case Atari hasn't run anywhere with your money). You do not have the right to go hacking the .exe to your satisfaction and claim that Atari has forced you into such measures.

Now by "you do not have the right" I do not mean that this is some heinous criminal activity that should result in Atari hiring goons to come and pimp-slap you around your apartment until you repent in shameful tears. I'd think it would, however, void your right to expect future support for the game as well as the ability to play it outside of a private LAN or similar network. The fact that we recognize most players really just want to play our game and get the most out of it despite such problems, however, means that most companies will overlook this kind of hacking while they try to find a more amicable solution. They really don't want people returning a product to the store that they could otherwise use, I'd imagine, neh?

Quote: Are there any plans to do away with the 'Take 20' when it comes to skill checks etc.

Not in HotU, no.

Quote: Well Dave, an easy fix to that problem is simply to give us more new weapons.

No, that won't happen. As for more details on the waraxe and the whip, you're going to have to wait for them. Won't be worth much of a Wednesday if we've spilled all our beans beforehand, after all.

Quote: I want to know why you only made two new weapons.

Because we're putting other things in that we feel are more important. Sure, as you say, putting in a few more weapons might not have been that difficult. But they would have added what? With an expansion that we have squeezed so *much* into, you've got to still realize that we can only do so much. We had to pick and choose where out time went.

Brent Knowles, Co Lead Designer

Item Switching AI: Actually, in regards to weapon switching we yanked all the automatic "try a different weapon" code from the henchmen AI before ship of Shadows. Why? It annoyed people. Because we added henchmen inventory control, the general consensus of our Q/A department and the Atari Q/A was that they wanted full control of what weapons the henchmen were using. They did not want the henchmen to ever switch weapons automatically. We pretty much assumed that if you were unhappy with the weapon the henchman was using, you'd equip them with a different one...The only auto switching is if you start a henchmen out with a ranged weapon, they will switch to melee if enemies get too close and then back to that ranged weapon after battle.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Quote: So the Demon Flesh Golem will be patched in at some point? Excellent, it is exactly what my module needs... Any ETA on its arrival?

Correct - the Demon Flesh Golem is currently scheduled to be released in the 1.33 update. We will have more information in the coming weeks after the 1.32 update is released.