Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Arwen)

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Game development questions: I don't have the time to be dragged into a good debate at the moment (I have to get work done so I can still make the Spiderman showing tonight ), so my comment is going to have to be short and to the point.

In regard to the comment about the length of our own campaign, I'm not sure that we had ever wanted anything as insane as BG2 w/ToB on our hands; I think it is safe to say that we are quite comfortable with our 100+ hour game - which, even if you race through the game and skip all of the combat, but still do every sub-plot, is probably going to be how long it takes you to get through Neverwinter Nights.

And...

You have to realize that game development does not work exactly as you might think. We don't start with a toolset and engine, and just spend four years designing maps and writing scripts.

In fact, four years ago, I think you can say that we had nothing.

We've had the toolset for perhaps a year or a year-and-a-half. We’ve had the scripting editor for slightly less than that, and, though the story was prepared, we didn't really start in earnest on our campaign design (map making and such) until less than two years ago.

In addition, you have to factor in that we made some fair-sized changes to the story, and re-worked how many things would end up, and continue to do so, in order to make certain that the story is as good as it can be. From that point of view, most of the current game campaign has been worked on for closer to 6 or 7 months.

Of course, even then - 6 or 7 months is a period where things were not always working, where we suffered setbacks, and continued to work with beta products.

Does this give you a better sense of how things work? It's harried work, I'll tell you, but when you have a passion for getting out the best prodyct that you can, it's worth every late night.

You give far too little credit toward module designers. The majority might be more simple, but there are going to be a select few that will burn the night out, and shame us in every way.

As for cheating, I think you're looking at this too much as a Everquest type game. With a DM, cheating is not an issue. In single player, cheating is up to you. In multiplayer, there are filters and booting powers to control that. If it's rampant, just play somewhere else. Like Diablo, there are always going to be servers with legitimate games.

Bastard swords: Bastard swords are also known as hand-and-a-half swords, falling between the longsword and greatsword in length. They are a two-handed weapon for any warrior of medium size.

Base Damage: 1d10
Base Critical Threat: 19-20/x2
Base Damage Type: Slashing
Weapon Size: Large
Feats Required: Martial
Base Item: Bastard Sword
Weight: 10.0
Cost: 70
This is as up-to-the-minute, and detailed, as it gets.

Oriental weapons: The katana requires the exotic weapon proficiency feat in order for the katana to be used. I'm not sure exactly what is and is not an oriental weapon, but I can say that shurikens are in.

D&D vs NWN: As a long-time D&Der, from my own personal preferences...
>>>There's the old standards riding, jumping, swimming, and sleeping.<<<
Our games generally did not involve these things. I've seen these as more common in computer games, such as Ultima. Add in climbing, and no loading screens, and I think you got something that would be a little more of an adventure game - which, as a sub-genre of the CRPG category, I like the most.
>>>Then there's equipping weapons and armor without proficiency.<<<
This doesn't bother me *too* much.
>>>Then there's summoning more than one creature.<<<
This doesn't bother me at all.
>>>Then there's summoning familiars once a day or some such.<<<
I think we can strive to make the familiars a little more involved in the future, but I think ours at current are okay. It's more than just summoning them in for a battle and shooing them away.
>>>Then there's no ability for the DM to possess the player's character, or familiar, or henchman, or whatever.<<<
If a DM ever possessed my PC, I'd bop him upside the head. Henchmen were NPCs in our games, so the DM HAD to control them. Here, the box controls them so that the DM doesn't have to. I'm fine with this.
>>>Then there's PiP type issues.<<<
I never paused during our games But seriously, our DMs never let us sit around for 20 minutes waiting for us to formulate our next moves' streategy.
>>>Then there's the save game issues.<<<
I'm not sure what this one means. It doesn't really come into play in either game.
>>>What other D&D PnP type features haven't creeped into the game?<<<
I'm sure the rules lawyers will find a lot.
>>>Does it matter?<<<
I guess we'll have to wait and see what the hardcore D&D fans who give Neverwinter a go think. And then we'll have to ask them again if we get to release expansions and/or sequels.

Estimating enemies strength: You can indeed examine a character to get a rough estimate comparison of it's CR compared with your character. It's about as accurate as "heavily wounded" and "near death" in our past titles... enough to give you a proper gauge, but still ambiguous enough as to have some uncertainty. Of course, a 10th level fighter can check out a nymph and see that it's a cake battle because she's got a low CR. But then she whips out some mind-affecting spells, and suddenly she's not so easy.

Sleeping: Originally, we had made a series of stand-alone, 2-hour modules. Playing through these modules, the idea of allowing the PC to rest a certain finite number of times, such as 3, was considered. When we merged everything together, it no longer made sense to limit by module. And then, after additional thought, it made less sense to limit at all. This is easily adjustable, and may well be adjusted before the game ships, but currently, you can rest as often as you'd like, so long as you're not engaged in combat.

Yes, this means that you could rest right before the battle, and then again right after the battle, but we've tried to balance our module to encourage you not to do this. Mainly, our battles aren't so impossible that you need to be at full strength. As well, we use some maps where you are not allowed to rest at all, and other maps where you're basically in combat for the duration of the map. There are plenty of tricks to limit resting. Why incorporate an artificial one?

But as I said, this could and may well change. This is one of those things that betas are for.

There IS a cool down period after combat. If you try to rest, it says you're too excited to rest, or something like that. This lasts for a fairly short period of time.

Scripting the passage if time in the module: I really like it when you have to constantly be aware of the time of day and when you have to show up to meet NPCs (like "go to the Docks at night").

I also like going to sleep and waking up in a potentially very different atmosphere. For instance, you could go to sleep in a graveyard in the afternoon and be awakened by undead as the sun sets and you're still asleep.

That sounds most do-able.

Trent Oster, Producer:

Rapier: Rapier is in.

David Gaider, Designer:

Druids using bows?: Alright, let me clarify, then:

A druid starts off with 'druid weapon proficiency' as a feat (well, technically it's a feat, just not the sort that you would pick). This is the only weapon-related proficiency they are given, as a druid... and since non-proficient weapons cannot be equipped, they are restricted to those weapons.

With armor, they are given the feats for both light and medium armor to start off. They can take the heavy armor proficiency later.

There is no '24-hour power loss spiritual restriction'. Even if we were able to do that, I'd doubt we'd put it in for the same reason you don't rest 8 hours of game time. A live DM can say 'okay, you sleep through the night'... not the same in a CRPG.

As far as the druid being able to select other weapon feats (simple proficiency, martial, etc.) as they level up... I'm actually not sure on that point.

I do know that if they receive weapon or armor feats from other sources (such as the elven weapon proficiency feat or by multiclassing) that, yes, they can use the weapons those proficiencies allow... just as a cleric could.

Attack animations: You can't parry if you don't have a melee weapon in hand... but there will be some dodging going on.

The filler animations for the 6-second round are in. While you will see them a lot if you're in parry mode, the timing for how often you'll see them otherwise is still being tweaked... currently the opponents face each other on the balls of their feet, shifting slightly left and right occasionally (I'm not sure how well these show on the video... I haven't seen it) and play the 'extra' swings with parries/dodges at intervals (that interval is what is being tweaked).

Load time: 1) The smaller the area being loaded, the shorter the load time. Currently, entering a small interior (8x8 or less) takes about 5 seconds or so. A house interior (2x2) even less. The only thing that could extend that is if there are a significant number of creatures and objects in the area. The area outside of where Aribeth was located is a 16x16.

2) That aside, the team is still working on lowering the time it takes to load areas. Everything is not fully optimized at this point. Up until shortly before release, I remember the load times for areas in BG2 being twice as long as they were on release.

3) Regardless of that, entering a full 32x32 area with lots of creatures and objects already placed will require a pretty hefty load. Hence our constant recommendations for people to think in smaller areas.

Signposts: We use signposts that are placeholder objects with 'dialogue'. When you click on them, a text box displays over the signpost (yes, with a little signpost portrait beside it) that displays what the sign says.

Psionics: 3rd edition Psionics is something that wouldn't be terribly difficult to add, I'd think... just a lot of work to include the entire scope as it's presented in the Psionics handbook.

The fact that psionic abilities are very akin in the way they work to spells is very helpful.

As to whether or not we'd actually do the work required and include them, it remains to be seen. It definitely wouldn't be in a patch (that's for fixing bugs and maybe a few tweaks, not introducing new features... don't get them confused)... and it might be a bit large of a feature for an expansion. But, like I said, it remains to be seen.

Animal form: As far as a PC in animal form being able to communicate with NPC's (and access inventory), we actually went back-and-forth on this for a bit. In the end, it was decided to keep it the default way in the official campaign simply for ease of gameplay.

It doesn't have to be that way, however, if you'd prefer to do otherwise in your own campaign. The communication can be cut off with simple scripting (in fact, anyone could add one line into the generic OnConversation script in 5 secs that would do it).

Cutting off inventory would be more involved... but one thing you should know is that no items can be equipped or used while in polymorph form, so the benefit of accessing one's inventory is relatively limited.

Nathan Frederick, Quality Assurance:

Game development: I'd like to address the concern of how long it's taken our team to make our modules, compared to how long the average user will have to spend.

The biggest time-sink for our team was trying to create modules in a toolset that was being developed, for an engine that was being created, based on a ruleset that hadn't been written.

Our designers have had to adapt as things change, and/or became available (for example, I remember a point where we didn't have doors, so the designers were placing umber hulks in doorways, which would destroy themselves when clicked on). Transitions initially required individual scripting for where they were going, door interaction between them, and player facings at the other end - now, you simply connect the two transitions, and everything is automatic.

The end user wont have to deal with these issues - the toolset is no longer changing, and the engine is complete. They won't have to worry about having the entire mechanics of conversations changing halfway through creating a plot, nor having a tileset change, and having their hallways turn into corners, and having to repaint all their maps.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Non-professional AI scripting: Well, as far as AI scripting goes, any standard creatures you place in your modules, or your own creatures that you create through the creature wizard, will have our 'generic' scripts attached to them by default. These are the same scripts that are used in the official campaign. If someone wishes to remove them and write their own scripts they are perfectly welcome to do so, but it is not necessary.