Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Steelgem)

Trent Oster, Producer:

DMs and party management: Unfortunately we have found it is not possible to have multiple cameras active at one time in the same window. So the DM client will have only the main view to interface with the party. The DM client will also have a mini map for the area he/she is in. By clicking on the minimap the DM will be able to quickly jump around the area. We also hope to offer a hotkey which you can attach to any character, simply pressing the key will bring you to that player. If there are multiple parties in multiple areas, you will have to load the area you wish to look into. We are optimizing the loading time, but it will still be noticeable.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Module Licensing: All of these topics that you are talking about will be addressed in the EULA (End User License Agreement). At this time, the EULA is still being worked on. We won't be able to give you any details on it until much closer to release.

Linux Servers: My linux server at home runs on a 1/2 meg Trident ISA card =]

You will not need any special video card to run a linux dedicated server.

Yes, you can log in from another machine with a player or DM client and access the servers.

Parsed Text & Dialog Trees:
This was Derek's response to a post by dbsousa.

Original Post:

BW has said that we may use parsed dialogue OR dialogue trees on our NPC's. Can we use both on the same PC? for instance can Jimmy the Pawn Shop Guy:

1.)Parse the word "BUY" and launch a buy dialogue.
2.)Parse the word "SELL" and launch a sell dialogue.
3.)Parse the phrase "The Crow flies at midnight" and launch a buy/sell stolen goods dialogue.

Derek's Response:

Yes, you would be able to have an NPC listen for a keyword and then start a dialogue with you.

Playing Neverwinter Solo: Absolutely possible. The Official Campaign will support 1 to many (unknown top end at this time) players. User made modules may or may not be designed this way.

Developing for Multiple Platforms: I could devote a great number of pages to this, but I will try to summarize why developing on multiple platforms was the right thing to do for us.

Bugs were found on the other platforms that did not show up in Windows, but were there, waiting to blow up on us nonetheless. Being on multiple platforms found us more bugs and will lead to a better, more stable game for all. Other developers have discovered this, too.

The concept of "dropping" OpenGL and "switching" to Direct3D would add somewhere from 3 to 6 months of development time. We are not going to do this. This would be a bad decision.

Ignoring the Linux dedicated server would be a Bad Thing. Over half of the game servers for Half-Life and Quake 3 run on Linux. Providing a Linux dedicated server expands the number of game servers out there that our customers can run.

No investment of time and energy that produces positive results is a waste of time.


Dan Yakielashek, Assistant Lead Programmer:

BeOS Port: I am definitly saddened with the news about BeOS. I believe they have been struggling for quite a while. It is real hard to break into the market with a brand new OS. It takes a very long time to develop a community and a strong freeware/shareware software base to the point where most commercial developers can even take a chance at developing for it. Until that happens most people won't even look at the OS. Its a no win situation. Having said that it was no risk for myself to start porting in my spare time and it ended up no risk for Bioware to make the port official because of the way the port was handled. If porting would have affected the development negatively we wouldn't have done it.

We decided to use platform independent API's early on for a number of reasons including portability. The porting of our code to various platforms has a negligable affect on our development time because we made this ported from the start with these API's. In fact, almost all of the code that has been written in some time and has yet to be written is completely platform independent and requires nothing more than recompiling on the other platforms. We have also experienced the bonus of finding and fixing bugs that showed up while running the game on multiple platforms. Even if in the future only the Windows version was released we still wouldn't regret our decision.

The reason I started the port was for fun and because of my interest in the potential of BeOS. I am interested in having choices. I am one of those strange people who wouldn't mind booting in to one extremely optimized fast OS for playing games, and another for regular tasks. As well it's an awful big chore for Microsoft to make an OS that does everything. Maybe there is the potential for a niche OS to do less but better? I don't know, but I respect people who try and keep an open mind. The competition also helps keep things evolving and the customer always wins. You have to look no further than NVidia or AMD to see the results.

As far as OpenAL, we will wait and see. It is OpenSource and Creative Labs is behind it so its not dead unless they decide its dead and no one else cares to develop for it. Regardless our sound code can be ported without great difficulty to any other API.

Brent Knowles, Co-Lead Designer :

Skills & Items: These are all good ideas but basically we can't justify spending development time putting in optional GUIs that are used by only a small subset of players. GUI work is one of the most time consuming development task.

Secondly, most people playing NwN, when spending skill points, will want those points to matter in every module they play. Soaking points into skills that sound cool but are never used will only annoy people and create expectations that said skills should be used in all user created modules.

As mentioned, there are several clever work arounds for those of you who really do want to do this kind of thing.