News on Neverwinter Nights

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(Originally posted by Nazgul)

From Trent Oster, NWN Producer, Bioware Corp.

(1) If characters are stored on servers only, meaning no character vault or other outside influence, and a persistent world is built on a distributed model (meaning various small servers on DSL/Cable and "portalled" together)-- if a character dies on a particular server, or gets updated in any way (gains levels, items, experience) and that server loses its connection with the rest of the "world", will the character continue to be dead/updated upon next login, even if they log into the game with a different IP address (meaning another server in the group)? Or will that character "not exist" but on the current server (and thus be dead or currently updated):

The system is still under design and we are working towards the most powerful system we can build for the end user. The case you describe could result in one of two possibilities. If the characters are stored on one system for the entire server chain and that system is down the character will not be available for play. If the characters are stored in a distributed fashion, the character could exist on the last server you were on before the portal and you could resume play before you took the portal. If you played the character from the last server, any progression on the post portal server would be wiped out.

(2) Say 5 people are adventuring together and 2 take the portal to the "next world" and then that link goes down. The three remaining people cannot portal. If the characters are stored on the servers only are the 2 "trapped" characters done for until that particular server comes back up (meaning that they cannot play anywhere with those characters until they can get to the server where their character is currently stored):

The two people who are now on the crashed server will still exist on the previous server or in the server character storage system. they could log back in and resume play on the server where the 3 others are, but they would lose any xp/items/etc.. they obtained.

3) Is there a default timeout or server-defined parameter for timeouts? In EQ, for instance, if someone loses an IP connection, their character is vulnerable for 60 seconds:

Yes, pulling the cable out of your computer will result in an idle period while the character stands in a defensive pose.

4) Is there any capability for a personally controlled, central "character server" (not Bioware's Character Vault) where a distributed model could check characters in and out of (but under the server manager's control):

This is what I discussed as a possibility in #1. We are looking at this option in a serious manner and we hope to have time in development to offer this option.

(5) If a character logs out (or loses connectivity) and later comes back, do they "pop" back into the module starting point or do they "pop" back in where they left off, or (hopefully!) is it server defined:

Anytime a character loses connectivity with a server, his/her current position in the area is saved so they would pop back in where they were unless the module is reset, in which case the character would appear at the module start.

This is still an area we are doing a ton of work on and the final system may differ from the options I've described here. We are trying to create the best system we can and if a better option emerges we will attempt to use it.

He had a few other things to say about Darkvision as well:
We are still working through the implications of Dark vision. Our plan is to have some form of graphics representation such as the screen appears substantially brighter to a character with darkvision if there are no light sources present. If there is any form of light present dark vision will not function.