Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Sorcerer)

Don Moar, Lead Programmer, Tools:

Random Map Generator: This feature is definitely on our wish list and if we have the time to do it right, we'll include it. At this point however, it appears unlikely.

Features: As I understand it, the official campaign is the focus of NWN.
I would like to stress that the nwtoolset is being built to provide the functionality required by our designers to tell the best story they can. Those features are being implemented in the most user-friendly fashion possible. Other features, such as wizards, are being added to make it even easier for end-user module creators to make their own adventures using the core 3rd edition D&D rules as implemented in NWN.

David Gaider, Designer:

Factions: Don't get factions confused with organizations...they are just a group (or even single person) that react commonly towards other factions. When you create a module, it comes with a few standard factions...one of which is the 'hostile' faction which is used for most enemies, which makes them hostile to anyone not of the hostile faction, and is the default setting applied to any creature/NPC unless you change it.

Making new factions is very easy. You can have a whole slough of them, if you like. When you make one, you give it a name...and up pops a handy bar graph that shows the faction's relationship to all other factions (on a scale of 0...hostile...to 100...friendly) as well as the PC. You just click on a bar and you can drag it up or down to whatever setting you desire. The actual relationship can be changed dynamically during the course of a module through scripting.

How someone will react to a 'friendly', 'neutral' or 'hostile' mob depends on their scripting...though the standard scripts that are applied to most mobs dictate that they will move to protect those they are friendly towards and attack those they are hostile towards, as well as more complex stuff. An enemy wizard who is part of a group, for instance, can judge the blast area of a potential fireball and decide against it if there's friendly allies in that area...or decide that, hey, maybe one friendly is expendable enough...

Say you make a town with a 'commoner' and 'merchant' faction that are pretty much neutral to everyone. The merchants are hostile to the 'thief' faction...but their own script dictates that they won't attack a hostile but instead will shout for help. The 'town guard' faction would be friendly to commoners and merchants, and protect them, but might be neutral to thieves unless a merchant calls for help. If you wanted active fighting in the streets, the town guard could be set to hostile against the thieves...attacking them on sight. Those thieves could be scripted to run away until they call for help and outnumber the attacking guard...or whatever you like. A lot of these behaviors are already in the default scripts...you'd be surprised. Personally, I love the reaction of commoners when threatened. Run and scream...unless and until there's enough of them to form a potential angry mob...
There's probably more that can be done with the factions, or more changes planned in their implementation...don't take this as gospel just yet...but from what I've used of it so far it seems pretty handy.

All I meant by organizations is that you could organize the factions in that manner, if you wanted, but you weren't restricted to it. If you had an organization of thieves in your campaign called the 'Black Hand' you could assign all of them to the same faction and call it 'Black Hand Thieves' or whatever. You could also split up that faction into sub-groups and/or individuals, if you so wished...depending on how you wanted the factions to change their attitude throughout your campaign.

And yes...numerically changing the attitude of a faction and using that in a script...that works just fine. Say for every Black Hand thief you capture and turn into the City Guard in a city, the City Guard faction's attitude towards you improves by 2...and when you get to an attitude of 60 (which is still neutral, mind you) they will help you out by giving you that classified info you needed. Of course...the Black Hand might not care for you much by that point...maybe at an attitude of 40 (also still neutral, technically) the module script calls for them to send an NPC assassin your way...

Familiars: We do listen to suggestions. We don't implement them all, nor could we.

Sure...in PnP familiars can do a lot. There will actually be a lot of cool things you can do with your familiar in NWN...more than in BG2, certainly, although probably not as much as you're suggesting. For us to spend so much time implementing all those features for something that is only available to 2 classes probably isn't a good idea.

But given the fact that they have a standard creature file, you have the ability to possess them and use them as you wish, the ability to give them dialogue and spell abilities and so forth...if we don't make familiars quite the way you'd prefer in the official campaign, you are certainly free to modify them to your heart's content in your own games (or change it in the official campaign) and it will not be terribly difficult to do so.