Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

Noel Borstad, Programmer:

Avoiding giants by hiding in small doorways: What should happen is that as soon as you step through the doorframe the giant will no longer be able to plot a direct path to you (it takes personal space into account when pathfinding) so he will attempt to find any other paths that he can... which might mean using some other door to come attack you from behind. If that's not possible, he will give up and resume normally scripted behaviour.

Scripting Damage Avoidance: That's where you come in! Either script 'em to run away, or give them a ranged attack so that they can fight back.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

How long has NWN been in development? You are not going crazy. NWN has been in development for about 4 years. Trent O. spoke at length today at the company meeting about that very thing.
That's a long time, but as the man said-'It's really, really big'.

Neverwinter Wednesday: The idea of Neverwinter Wednesday is still a go. We are finishing up some PR details with our new publisher, however and I do need to wait on confirmation of a few things. After that we should be not only back on track, but have a bunch of new stuff for you. Derek and I are working on the FAQ revamp and when that clears a few hurdles for new content etc, it will be slapped up here.

Level Cap: Pretty much everybody is correct. NWN, upon release, is only including the rules in the Players Handbook which only deals with characters up to level 20 (in total). There may be some confusion about level cap due to people reading the Forgotten Realms Handbook, which NWN takes place in, and seeing characters who are about 187th level . The rules for beyond 20th level are not out yet and thus have not been included in NWN.

Guild Requirements: I am in the process of planning the NWN Community Page, Phase I. This means that we are shooting for an initial set of features which will be changed, added-to etc. as the community develops. I would like some suggestions as to what would be a reasonable thing to request from folks who wish to create a guild, or have created a guild and want it in the Guild section of the official NWN Community Page.
Initially, this would simply be a listing of guilds that have been looked at, and approved for listing in the official Guilds page by BioWare. Hopefully more features will be added later as the Community Page matures.
My ideas for requirements so far are:
- Your guild has a web site.
- You have a written document explaining your guilds basic tenets, beliefs and expected conduct for members.
- You grant permission for BioWare staff to read through your guild material (kind of important )
- You grant BioWare staff the right to refuse your guild registration based on any perceived violation of the basic rules of conduct which will be based on the rules of behavior for posting on the NWN boards (basically nothing illegal, slanderous, insulting etc.).
I am making this document up in the next week or so and would appreciate any constructive input into this will be the rules for your section of the Community Page. I am not locking this thread so folks can actually comment here. I humbly, humbly request that any posts are relevant

More: I am looking for suggestions on what I should request for Guild submissions as you folks are the experts on what makes a good guild and how I can attempt to limit 'unworthy' guilds from being listed on the official site. If you have ideas on that, post them here.

More on checking out guild first: I was talking about looking at the beliefs, ideas etc. behind a guild. I would assume that these things would be posted for all to see on a web page but it is nice to gain permission before invading someone's guild. If a link to your guild is posted on the NWN page you can't have objectionable material displayed to the public or, indeed, in private either. The basic rules of these boards, for example, (no porn, no hate literature etc.) are what I need to make sure do not exist on whatever guilds get a link on the NWN site.
As for secret rituals etc. I need to think about that as I'm sure there will be those out there who have the public statement "Love Animals Above All Else" and then when you become a member they have questionable photos of sheep.

Info Releasing: We are in discussions about the specifics of who does what PR-wise with our new publisher. We have lots of stuff for you but need to iron out the little bits. Infogrames has been very accommodating in the discussions and we want to make sure everything is 100% clear as we have just formed this partnership. I hope that clears things up for everybody.

Upcoming Information: Huge thanks to everyone for stepping in and clearing some stuff up- I appreciate it very much. We just finished up our morning PR meeting and yeeehaw ! we have some cool stuff coming up. Just hang on until the meetings with our publisher are completed and baby, we got the goods.

David Gaider, Designer:

Dialogue: Having the dialogues end at the same spot wasn't done for VO (Voice-Over) purposes, really. It was done because:

a) different kinds of replies, even if they arrived at the same point, was actually a request from the message board. Some fans said the options presented often didn't 'talk' like their character and they wanted more flavor.

b) I know everybody ideally wants dialogues and stories to go in a million different paths, with every choice you make leading to some different plotline completely, right? Well, ok, maybe not that bad, but sometimes it seems like that's what's actually being asked for.
While that would be a dream come true for the hardcore fan who intends to play the game through ten times, take the following into consideration: the 'wider' plots become, the shorter they are... and the less of them there can be. That means we could have, say, 3 really diverging plots that had lots of responses and let you do anything you wanted to... and you'd finish the section in about half-an-hour; or you could have 30 plots that had one or two divergences (maximum)... and you'd finish the section in about 10 hours. Most people are only going to play the game once, and the idea is to maximize their experience and not put too much time into a feature or plot that, say, maybe 5% of the audience might even see.

Ideally we want to get somewhere in-between... have a quality plot that allows the player some flexibility without having it meander all over the place and have its width get out of control. We've heard plenty from the fans on their view of the dialogues in Torment, BG2/ToB and Fallout... and we're trying to incorporate some of these ideas into the dialogue in the NWN official campaign. It's quite different.
There is one more limitation, even in that regard however, and it's one most fans don't seem to understand:

c) Word Count. There is a high cost associated with word count, especially with a game that is going to be translated into many different languages. When you're talking about a cost per word , a game like BG2 that had about 1.2 million words, is nothing to sniff at. I remember ToB... as an expansion, its word count was quite draconian simply because it was an expansion pack. Expansion packs are supposed to be small... and we still managed to put in 200,000 words (about twice as much as we were supposed to) and more story than one is supposed to in an expansion pack. Of course, what the hardcore fans wanted was a sequel (and all the length and detail that goes along with that), but that's beside the point.

The point is that we still have a limitation in the NWN official campaign... but that at the same time we are trying to incorporate a lot of what people have been asking for. A couple of examples are:

- skill checks inside of dialogue (you often get the option to use Persuade, for example)
- characteristics affecting dialogue (one example is the use of Wisdom for 'insights'... dialogue responses that will come up only for characters with a high Wis that shows them coming up with a particularly incisive question)
- dumb dialogue (for those PC's of low Intelligence, they will now sound like it)
- more alignment options (more options for people of extreme alignments... such as the common option when being rewarded for a good-aligned quest: there is usually the 'good' option to turn down the reward as well as the 'evil' option to demand a higher reward or you'll beat the crap out of the plot-giver.)
- PC recognition (a bit more often, details about the PC will be recognized... particularly race and class. For example, a Barbarian who speaks to an innkeeper will likely be greeted by a groan and a plea not to destroy his hotel room like the last Uthgardt that stayed there.)
These are a few examples, at any rate. The best thing, however, is that while we may be limited as to our word count... a player making their own module certainly isn't. Plus you're always free to take the official campaign's dialogue and add to it or alter it as much as you prefer... so all the wits who say they can do better will now have to put up or shut up.

I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most... the fact that someone out there is going to write something brilliant and I'll get to play it. Until then, rest assured that the Design department here is breaking its collective backs trying to wow you guys with the official campaign. It may not be focused on much simply because the MP aspect of NWN is so unique... but it's definitely there and VERY important to us that we get it right.

Tilesets: 1) There are no castle tiles in the rural tilesets. The Good Castle/Evil Castle tiles exist in the city tileset, currently.
You could create, though, a castle that has empty space around it (cobblestone) and a wall surrounding the edge of the castle area...have that all be one 'area' in the module. When they go through the outer walls, they transition to a rural tileset with the town...bordered on one side by a wall (which is the outer wall of the castle). Two seperate module areas, two different tilesets.

2) When you say 'have this rural area surrounded by city tilesets', keep in mind that the different tilesets have to be in different areas. You have 'tiles' which are single area block (in-game roughly 10 foot square)...tilesets are a big selection of tiles with a common theme, only one of which may be in use in a single area.

Areas can transition to another area very simply, though. You can simply walk down a road, walk off the edge of the map, go through a door, walk through a gate...whatever you wish. Keep in mind, though, that if there's no 'edge' to the current area (a wall, a row of buildings, a cliff face, etc), the player 'sees' the terrain continuing along according to what he's currently walking on.

Example?

OK, on your map you have a field of grass with a single path leading up to the edge of the map. At the edge, you transition to another area...where you immediately have a high wall and the path leading up to a city gate.

Limitation: when the player reaches the edge of the map on the 'field of grass' area, what they visually see is the road continuing on straight ahead, along with more grass, even though they've reached the edge of that map. They don't see the city walls which are (presumably) directly ahead of them. In such a case, all you can do is imply space. The road on one map 'leads' to the city...but it's not just 10 feet away. Since you have an overhead view, it's not like the player can see way off in the distance, anyway, so the difference doesn't have to be much. Just something to keep in mind.

The End of the World: The edge of an area can be comprised of pretty much any tile. There is then non-accessible, shaded tiles placed beyond the edge of the area made up of the same tile that is at the edge, so you don't have an abrubt chop-off.
An example of this is if you have a docks area, and along the edge is water, the water will appear to go off for as far as you can see.

Area Borders: Like Nathan pointed out, you don't HAVE to place a border around an area. The terrain will appear to continue past the border (as I also mentioned in my last post above). If you do want borders, there are tiles which are specifically good for that...and several in each tileset. I'm not going to go into a point-by-point list, but the city tileset has walls, water and castle tilesets rather than just buildings. The rural tileset also has water and two types of walls (wooden and stone) which are good for borders. In both cases, the 'raise/lower' function also can be used for this purpose (and looks good).

Building a castle in a cavern: The cavern tileset only has a few crude buildings. There are numerous types of cave openings, though... you could probably have one of those going into a large stone wall border and have the castle as the interior. Personally, I wouldn't say that the cavern tileset translates very well into underground cities/fortresses or the like (not large ones, anyway), but you could probably cobble something half-decent together via the placed walls/cave entrances/placeable objects.

Pathways in the cavern tileset: Mmm... no, no brick/cobblestone pathways exist in the cavern tileset, nor on the placeable object list. I don't know how that would work as a placeable object, either... for one, it'd have to be huge, and for another there'd be a lot of them. We do have placeable floor designs, but that's a whole different ball of wax.
They are merely patterns that you can lay down as an object... not interior flooring. An example is a summoning circle that you just place on the floor.

Bottomless pits around castles: You mean around the exterior of the castle? No, not currently. The pits exist in the forest and crypt tilesets... not in the city tileset. I imagine, once again, that you could take the pit tile and combine it with city tiles to make a unique tileset... but I don't know how complicated that would be.

Making Road Blocks: If it was available in the tileset. There are no path-blocking rockslides in the current tilesets, but that doesn't mean one can't be made.

Adjustable Wall Heights: Walls and cliffs are made by using the 'raise/lower' function...you have up to five elevation levels available. They are of uniform heigh and while they cannot be stacked directly on top of each other (you can't have one sheer cliff five levels high), they are stackable in a staggered fashion (like a staircase...though you can do this in as irregular a fashion as you wish).

Adjustable Towers: There are no 'adjustable' towers...the only towers that exist are those that have been modeled and exist in a tileset. From the ground, though, you certainly can't see the top of them (you can't see the top of most things that are over one storey high). You CAN go to the top of the tower, however, IF there is a 'roof level' that exists in the model.
One of the smaller towers we have has such a level, and if the player goes to the top of it you can see an interesting view of the area around. Not the whole city...just the area (although that's usually pretty big). It actually doesn't look that bad, either, as the fog effects make the ground buildings look sort of hazy and distant...and if your area is large enough and the tower far enough away from the edge of the map you won't detect any irregularity visually in that way.

Forest Tileset: I just popped over to the toolset and made a map pretty close to the one you have planned. The Forest tileset works just groovy for what you have planned. Unlike the Rural tileset, though, you can't currently 'raise/lower' the tiles in the Forest as you can in the other tilesets (this may be a temporary thing, though, as the option is on the list...so that may be added).
Regardless, there is a 'cliff' tile in the Forest tileset which is much more impressive (and tall) than the normal cliff-faces...so if you have a cliff, a walkable area and a pit tile beside it it all looks very impressive and mountainous.
And no...the Rural tileset and the Forest tileset aren't being combined into one. That would limit a lot of your options if that happened.

Underground or Drow Cities: Being able to build underground cities and such Underdark stuff might be something we'd consider with an expansion... but the cavern tileset alone probably won't do what you're thinking (like I said earlier).

Can one not have a long corridor with rooms opening up on both sides, with furniture or bar counters and tables and so on in them? You could thus have a sort of an underground or dwarven city, with the corridor being the main street. It won't be a very rich looking city, but it might just about do. Yes, you can do that. The cavern tileset DOES have a couple of crude buildings, as well. You can also have cave openings which transition to an interior tileset... which would probably be the best way to go. Like you said, the city wouldn't look that rich... a bunch of caves in a cavern... but add a bunch of placeable objects into the mix and it might look like an actual settlement.

Quests and Alignment Changes: The quests can be assigned an alignment (if the DM chooses), or the DM can script alignment changes on plot resolution... if he feels that the resolution is skewed towards any alignment. If the resolution is very Good-aligned, as you suggest, then we can script the player to 'nudge' towards Good either a small, medium or large amount.

Does Neverwinter Nights use Unicode? No idea what Unicode even is, personally.

Professional typography in the dialogue: Uh-huh --- 'I'll think about it.'

XP Through Journal Entries and Scripting: Actually, there is a way. XP is applied through the journal entries in the following fashion:

- using the journal wizard, you can create journal entries for plots, which as many individual entries as you'd like (for each step along the way). The journal entry (as a whole, for the plot) has a tag... and each entry can be given a priority, a picture, and even marked as the 'finishing' entry. You also (most importantly) mark what the XP value for the plot is.

- via scripting, you can apply the XP:

RewardXP("PIRATE_PLOT1",100,GetPCSpeaker()); This applies 100% of the XP for PIRATE_PLOT1 to the PCSpeaker and his party (this one used in dialogue, obviously, as many are).
RewardXP("HIGHLAND_PLOT2",25,GetPCSpeaker(),FALSE); This applies 25% of the total XP for HIGHLAND_PLOT2 to the PCSpeaker...but only him, not his party.

and so forth...

The thing is, you CAN put a negative value in for a plot's total XP value. So... if I were going to include the possibility of deducting XP, I might perhaps create a journal called "XP_DEDUCT" with a total value of, say, 10,000.

Then, if I want to deduct 1,000 XP from someone, I simply apply 10% of the XP for "XP_DEDUCT" to whoever. You don't HAVE to write anything for the journal entry comment (other than "shame on you!", if you wanted).

I was thinking of making a "ROGUE_XP" journal entry to award xp for picking locks and disarming traps in a module I'm doing.

Hmmm...I hope this wasn't confusing. Please don't blast me with a million questions... gah! (runs for the hills)

What happens to a character if they lose enough XP that it should make them "drop" a level? Good question. I'm not actually sure... the possibility of deducting XP in the manner I suggest was just an idea. I've never actually tried it. I will try it out. I suspect one of two things:
1) Similar to level drain, the player actually loses the level. Or, more likely...
2) Nothing. The player will just have that much farther to go to advance.
We'll see. I might just smell a bug report, here...

Weapon Animations: Not sure about the attacks question (haven't seen it in operation, myself...my bard only has one attack per round currently), but I can answer the first two easily enough.
All weapons included have unique animations.

Are sickles in the game? Yes. Scythes, too.

How many official modules is Bioware creating? Well, we have the one really big campaign... which is a series of four modules in a successive storyline. There may be other modules that come with, as well, of varying sizes. That depends on what gets done/how much time there is and so forth.

Scripting: Well, it really depends on what you're trying to script. The script events are different for modules, placeable objects, creatures, areas and so forth. Maybe that's where the confusion is coming in.

Conversation Trees: There's nothing commercially available to store conversation trees that I can think of, if that's what you're asking.

Insight vs Sense Motive: Insights are extra dialogue options for those with high Wisdom... they are more incisive questions or options that relate simply to the character being smart (generally allowing the player to gain extra information, or to do it quicker, but sometimes getting them unique things) and is not a skill check of any kind.
Sense Motive is a skill used to detect when someone is bluffing or lying to you... and doesn't even relate to the Insight option in my example, so I have no idea where you came up with this comparison of yours other than the fact that 'Sense Motive' and 'Insight' vaguely sound like they might do the same things (and which means you didn't actually bother to read the original post).

Applying the True/False condition to the dialogue branches: You add a script into the 'Text Appears When' section. There is a default script that comes up that allows you to easily plug in a TRUE/FALSE statement that calls upon one thing (a global, a stat, etc.)...since these are the most common scripts.

Just as an example, the check for the Insight script is:

#include "NW_I0_PLOT"
int StartingConditional()
{
int iResult;
iResult = CheckWisdomHigh();
return iResult;
}

I don't think it gets much simpler than that.

Does Wisdom have to be 14 to use Insight: The CheckWisdomHigh() function is one that is set into the "designer include" script (the first function called there, the 'include'). In that script, it sets the CheckWisdomHigh() to return true if the PC's Wisdom is > 13. If you wanted to change that, you could always change that number in the script or simply write a quick one of your own (very easy).

Stats: Well, I've posted elsewhere on how much skills and stats affect dialogue... so I won't repeat it here. I will say, though, that in my current run-through of the official campaign, my charismatic bard gets positive reactions from most people she meets and is very persuasive...so I'm really getting the most out of NPC interaction. If the character had a low charisma/int/wisdom, then she just wouldn't have access to as many options or quests.

Some characters might be better at combat, and therefore better at the quests that require it... but many quests can be solved in more than one fashion (though not all), and some don't require combat at all (stealth & persuasion can often by-pass combat altogether, if you choose).

This is speaking of the official campaign, of course. How you make your own modules is up to you... but having all kinds of checks for stats and skill use is very simple. Check out the advanced scripting skillz needed for a Persuade check:

#include "nw_i0_plot"
int StartingConditional()
{
return AutoDC(DC_EASY, SKILL_PERSUADE, GetPCSpeaker());
}

And that's it. That's the automated one, with three difficulty settings (Easy, Mid, Hard). If you wanted to set the DC exactly and roll a die just as in PnP, that's also pretty simple:

int StartingConditional()
{
int iSkill = GetSkillRank(SKILL_PERSUADE,GetPCSpeaker());
int iRoll = d20();
int DC = 25;
if ((iRoll + iSkill) >= DC)
{
return TRUE;
}
return FALSE;
}

Of course, you don't HAVE to declare the DC here...could just put it in the IF statement... but trust me, this is very basic scripting (even if it puzzles you to look at now) and will take you about 5 min to recognize and learn once you see it at use within the scripts.

But anyway, the question was about role-playing in the dialogue and not scripting, so I'll shut up now.

Cavern Tileset: You can have wide passages using the generic cavern tile, but there is a basic width to the 'corridor' tile...so you can't narrow them without having a new tile for it. So if what you're imagining is having very narrow, single-file-only passages...then, no, the basic Cavern tileset doesn't allow that.

Nathan Frederick, Quality Assurance:

Second Floors: No, the buildings with walkable second floors are separate buildings, and are not directly adjacent to the cliff, so you would not be able to walk across (due to the gap)

Parks: As for parks, yes, there is park stuff for the cities.

Inventory GUI: There are indeed slots, and weight. The actual gui tends to fluctuate a lot, so I can't really give you anything solid on that aspect at this moment.

Giant Tree: There is a giant tree which takes up 4 tiles (2x2).

Placeholders: Placeholders (or lack thereof, since there's pretty much no art to them ). I've seen the inventory gui change its appearance more times than I can count

Anxious Silence: Nothing has been said about many things, some for reasons of legality or PR mechanics, some for suspense (can't give all the goodies out, after all), but most, simply because they haven't been finalized. People have demonstrated a tendency to get very upset if, at a later date, something is no longer the way we said it was a while ago. So until things are fairly certain to not change regarding a topic at hand, we tend to not say anything. And no, the simple disclaimer of "This is how it is currently, it might change" does not work. That seems to be the first thing that is ignored and/or forgotten.

Transitions: There are two basic types of area transitions: Doors, and triggers.
Doors have built-in transition capability, so that you can simply link doors together. These work in such a way that you open the door, and then you can click on a transition poly within the door (much like the doors in BG2 were interacted with)
Trigger transitions are painted, and can be pretty much any size or shape. You can set them to fire on entering the trigger, exiting them, clicking on them, on heartbeat (say for a timed teleporter), or a customly scripted reason.
You can set transitions up to be two-way, or one-way, by default. If you get involved, with some custom scripting, you can have the destinations change.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

The Game: We've gone on so much abut the single player game that it is sickening. And we've also mentioned too many times that the single player game = the multiplayer game. And we've mentioned that the campaign is something that we're striving to make better than BG2, and also take the great elements that were in BG1 and neglected in BG2, and put them in there as well. Sheesh!

Must DMs follow the 3E rules? It really depends. What kind of rules are we talking here? Are you asking if a DM can make to hit rolls based on d100, and affect the bonuses each class gets? No, I doubt you'll be able to deviate in that way. I won't say more because more clarity is needed in this question, unless I got it right already...

Starting Items: I believe each character starts off with a starting package. Generally, it's a torch, clothing, and a normal weapon.

Progressive Character Growth: This is completely up to the player and the DMs / MOD creators. it won't happen in our campaign, but not everyone agrees that the way we run things is the way things are meant to be run, right?

Ambient Objects: I'm not sure if ambient objects can be set to appear through a script... guessing? i'd say yes, but my guess is worthless. why do i guess yes? because there was a strange bug where, when you killed a monster that had an inventory - instead of being left with a bag or small chest or pile of loot or what have you, you were left with an... armoir! Ya know, one of those big ol' dresser things, right? They're an ambient object, so... putting 2 & 2 together to get 3.14.

Beating the Single-Player Game: Just a quick defense to say that we're not implementing monty-haul OR wimpy encounters to allow people to play through in single-player. It's hard to explain it without letting people actually "play" through the game. We've said in the past that the game can be gotten through with any class. What this means is that a lot of the time, our encounters have multiple solutions. Think that shooter game... Deus Ex? I didn't really play it (Halo is my first first-person shooter - I know, I know, I need to play Unreal), but their encounters were set the same way. If you had tech skills, you could de-activate the alarm and walk through. If you had fighting skills, you just slaughtered the huge numbers ofguards that arrived when you triggered the alarm. If you had stealth, you triggered the alarm with a diversion, then snuck through the encounter.
That is what we're going for. You have to be good to accomplish these feats, but you don't have to be a super fighter / wizard / rogue to do it, either. And, so far, there has been some stumbling there. The game in some areas is hard for this class or easy for that class. But that's why there are so many people playing through the game - so we can get the balance right. And yes, there are going to be encounters that you might not be able to get through unless you are particularly skilled. In those cases, you have to find another route, or hire a henchman to help you. Anyway, hopefully this clears the matter up slightly

E3: I'm going to e3 again this year (one way or another), as will likely half of the company (judging by past years) and we'll by hyping up neverwinter nights, for certain. whether it's a post- or pre-release hype, or official or unnofficial hype, is something i won't speculate on

DM tutorial: I'm pretty sure that we're going to have a module that is a DM tutorial. That would go a long way in helping to learn some of the controls and ideas of DMing.

Body Types: Originally, I believe, there were 4 phenotypes. That has been reduced to three. It's basically a thin phenotype, a normal/muscular phenotype, and a heavy phenotype.
You can challenge me as much as you want, but the fact remains that I created a new character today and when I came to the "select body type" option, I received a thin choice, a normal/muscular choice, and a heavy choice Yes, we did say that the difference between thin and normal was too minor to make it a worthwhile choice, but by making normal slightly more muscular, skinny really stands out as different, and looks good as well.
There were originally four body types: Yes!
The thinnest one of the four was the one that got dropped: Originally? Yes! We can go from there. I don't want to rock your world too much

Ambient Objects: Hmm... I would define it more as the make-up of the environment. Trees fill the forest, etc... in that sense, perhaps, it is off-the-mark as a little too all-encompasing. But just the same, creatures can be placed, tiles can be placed, items can be placed...

Rob Bartel, Co-Lead Designer:

On the death of a creature... Yup, you can stick a "CreateObject" script on the OnDeath event of a creature, if you like, allowing you to spawn in a tree, a sofa, a waypoint, another creature, a map note, a container, a... you get the picture.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Z Axis: No Z axis so nothing can be placed under or over something. I should have said, only 1 Z value. I just meant that it equates to having a non-function Z system because nothing can be stacked. There are height variations. I really should build what you are suggesting so I can properly describe how it looks.

Hack Packs: I think I understand your question. User content must be in hack packs, and hack packs go in our hack pack directory. Unless the module you are playing requires a hack pack, nothing is loaded. If you are playing the Official Campaign nothing external is loaded. If you are tossing files into our Override folder, you are playing with fire. Other peoples hack packs can't affect other modules or games.

Official Campaign: We are shipping the Official Campaign, playable solo or multiplay that encompases about 60 hours of gameplay and will take your character from level 1 to the low teens.

NWN and Diablo: NWN is quite different from Diablo. We are not running any servers. NWN is geared towards those PnP sessions with your friends, so you won't really encounter the same issues. With the NWN Toolset, everyone is getting the same ability to hack any part of the game. It kind of defeats the purpose of cheating.

NWN EULA: I have already asked some of these questions and this is what I have been told. There will be no plain language version of the EULA. We will not be able to comment on specific situations with the EULA after it is published, because we are not lawyers and it could be construed as giving legal advice. We will be able to speak in broad terms about the EULA as to our intentions. For example we have already said that any form of revenue generation will be prohibited by the NWN EULA.

Tech Support: This is only the second time that I have seen a NWN question in the Off Topic forum. I wonder what causes this?
Infogrames will most likely have primary support duties for NWN and Dave will coordinate support stuff for us.

Trent Oster, Producer:

Leveling Up: The level up pace in NWN is faster than in our previous games. The main reason is the 3rd Edition rules. The system is baised towards much faster advenacement. As well in NWN you are only leveling one character, while in BG you were leveling six, so to keep a feeling of advancement the leveling will be faster. In BGII you started at a higher level (based on if you imported a character or not). In NWN you start as a first level chaarcter and move up to a 20th level character, which took us four titles to do in the past. (BG, BG ToSC, BGII SoA, BGII ToB).

NWN Soundtrack: The music for NWN will be good.
The person responsible is very good and we are working together to ensure a quality soundtrack which enhances our vision of the game.

Modules & The EULA: With the number of parties involved in NWN (Infogrames, WoTC, Bioware) the EULA will have to be pretty comprehensive. We haven't got a draft together yet, so I can't really offer anything.
If you have the best module in the world and don't want others to get it, set up a server and let them play it so they can enjoy the experience. You don't have to upload it for people to enjoy it.

David Chan, Audio Producer:

Sound Codecs: To clarify, sounds will be .wav, music will be .mp3 and voice might be .mp3. We haven't decided on the final voice format.

Music Transitions and Ogg: One piece of music will fade out and the other will fade in. Music will not play back to back. Ogg looks cool, but like I have stated before, we have decided on MP3 because it is widely accepted.