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

WalkWaypoint: In short, no WW will not ever be the same again, I can try to make it as near as possible to the old version, but Floodgate changed a significant part of it for Shadows, and changing it back could break things in the Shadows Official Campaign - something we can not risk. That is the reason for this Global Variable added to reenable Area Transition Walking with WalkWaypoints instead of just readding this functionality without any switch - just think about the potential problems this could cause in a complex set of modules like SoU. And, finally, please don't misunderstand my above posts , this fix not going into an official patch soon is *not* because I am on the Hordes team and patches are done by the Live team, its because it is a siginificant change to a highly used function that requires lots of testing, and because the fix involves the new SetActionMode command which has not been added in the Live/XP1 scripting language but exists in the Hordes codebranch only. I'll do some tests with readding Facing for the waypoints anyway, thanks for the feedback.

As far as 1.30+ goes, you are not correct, but this shows just how deep this function is burried into the scripting system:

a) Classic modules also inherit the changes to WalkWaypoints, because the compiled versions of the creature AI scripts (nw_c2_defaultX) is taken from the game resources, and those have been recompiled with the new version of that function since 1.30 (see below)

b) The nw_c2_defaultX scripts include x0_i0_anims which, in turn, contains x0_i0_walkway. So the WalkWaypoints() called in those scripts comes from x0_i0_walkway

c) nw_i0_generic, as per 1.30+ contains x0_i0_walkway. So, even functions including nw_i0_generic use the new implementation. (see file header of nw_i0_generic).

Bottomline: There is only one implementation of WalkWayPoints, which is in x0_i0_walkway since 1.30, an include file which is included in most creature AI scripts. Even if you do not recompile an older module, it will most likely behave after the new function, unless your creatures have custom AI scripts compiled under 1.29-. As far as I can tell, Bioware never used the area crossing functionality of the old WalkWaypoints, because of the problems it spawns (creatures getting a lower AI level in uninhabited areas, causing them to take much longer to walk those areas as areas with players in them). Thats probably the reason why nobody ever missed that functionality in testing after Naomi reorganized creature AI. In any case, you are free to either take the fix provided here or wait for the official patch incorporating it, which will probably be in the patch that will released simultaneously to Hordes of the Underdark to ensure multiplayer compatibility with NWN classic.

Talktable: You should not modify the talktable, it introduces a major hurdle for players to enter your module. The Live Team is evaluating a "User defined talktable" feature that allows an additional, user created talktable to be associated with a module.

Discipline: Rangers and Monks get Discipline.

Stack Size: Only certain item have stacksizes. You can modify them with SetItemStackSize(?) but items who have a greyed out stacksize in the toolset can not be made stackable.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: Anyway, on a serious note, how do you see the Aribeth character? Do you think she's better then those in BG2? Don't you think it means something that a lot of people reacted negative towards Aribeth's character? If a lot of people react negative towards one piece of your work(Aribeth), doesn't it mean you made something teenie weenie little bit wrong?

Personally, I think the Aribeth character is quite intriguing. I think the execution of how her story ended didn't go as well as we might have liked, but I'm willing to bet a lot of the vitriol that gets thrown her way by some is due to some peoples' feelings about the original campaign itself rather than any real flaws on Aribeth's part. Some people just like to go over the top in that regard, it's not hard to miss. As for a lot of people reacting negatively towards Aribeth... well so what? A lot of people have reacted positively, too. I'd think we did something a teeny weenie little bit wrong if the reaction was ambivalence, nothing else. I certainly wouldn't use Aarin Gend again... regardless of how good or bad he was used, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him mentioned. I remember the sheer hate spewing from some people at the mere mention that Jaheira was returning in BG2, and she was a fine character.

Truly, regardless of peoples' feelings about the original campaign or Aribeth's voice actor or whatever, if we think she's a viable character (and she obviously is) the single criteria that judges whether or not we use her again is whether she fits the story we're planning and that's it.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Language Strings: Anywhere you can enter a string such as a name or description, you can enter it in multiple languages. The language that appears to the player depends upon the language version of the game they're using. That is, owners of the North American and UK versions will see English, owners of the French version will see French and so on.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Localization: Just for clarification, external parties do our localization. Atari Europe does the non-English patch testing and approval. All non-English items are mostly out of our hands. 1.32 looks like it will be a release in all languages, though. And we are in Canada, not the US