chevalier
Wed, 28th Jul '04, 1:24pm
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault (http://nwvault.ign.com). Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>
New Online Player Map! (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369873&post=3042223&forum=77&highlight=)
That's a really cool idea!
What the Official Word on the 1.63 Patch? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369593&post=3043067&forum=77&highlight=)
- Patch 1.63 is in private beta. After that concludes we will have a public beta. After that we will have a release.
- The Live Team is working on the DD Project. For both projects we will not give any estimated release date. Watch for an official announcement at some point in the future instead.
- It is up to Atari whether or not there will be a platinum edition and I'm sure they (and we) send out a press release if such a product is announced. However there should be no need for a syncronization patch, as such a patch is only needed for new expansion packs.
More:
<hr>Can we not see a list of fixes that you know for certain will be included in the patch?<hr>
Sorry, but con't know for certain if something is going to be in the patch until it has passed beta.
More:
<hr>...of course, this doesn't mean pull a Duke Nukem Forever on us, but make all us server admins proud to host your game!<hr>
hmm Neverwinter at least has it in the name, eh? I think the Live Team is pretty much crunching on 1.63 and related changes at this point, we don't want you guys waiting till christmas for the patch, but as said before, it doesn't make sense to release the patch until it was tested. Once we hit public beta, you guys can certainly help to get the patch tested. If you find time, run a beta server for a while and gather some player feedback, some of the beta tests in the past were a bit lacking in that regard. (and we really get itchy when people post "hey, I saw this bug in beta, why is it still there?" when they never gave us any feedback about it )
My prediction is that servers should be able to run much longer with 1.63, I saw that Craig fixed several memory leaks that had been hiding in the code for ages. I'd like to give you an ETA, but right now, it would not be save to make any predictions, and I would like to avoid getting burned on a stake for promising that the patch would be out by a certain date.
More:
<hr>Could I ask another? Will Bio consider include those amazing stuffs in CEP as an official release for future DD or patches?<hr>
It was certainly considered and the lawyers said no. We have no way of knowing if the material that people submit to CEP was based of their own work, and given that just a single texture that someone "borrowed" from somewhere on the web would open you for a flood of lawsuits these days, adding material from CEP to official patches is a non option.
If we were to add community created material, it would have been created from the scratch by a contracted community member or group specifically for BioWare, with all the required paperwork. That's about the only way community creations could appear in a patch - and there is a chance that something like this might actually happen at some point in the future.
NwN/SoU/HotU end of life? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369014&post=3043311&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr>Ok, first of all my sincere appologies to Georg Zoeller (a countryman?) for my assumptions and calling his posts "odd"<hr>
I'm German, maybe that makes my posts a bit odd by accent:)
<hr>PS: What is DA?<hr>
Our next PC RPG, Dragon Age You can learn more about it here: http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/
How to get Location of "Center of Tile"? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=370055&post=3043536&forum=47&highlight=)
Do a search for "Tile Magic" on these forums, the BioWare include file used for this has code that shows how to do that. Basically each tile is 10x10 meters, so you can use your current position and calculate the nearest tile center from there.
Party = Lag (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=370169&post=3044445&forum=56&highlight=)
That is correct. The more people are in a certain faction/party, the longer operations that target the faction as whole will take. NWN's focus is the party between 1-8 players, anything above should be avoided (by activating multiple parties). Also keep in mind that certain functions in game and scripting work based of your whole faction (a party is just a faction). If all your monsters are in the same "hostile" faction, they might get informed of certain events by scripting or in game (i.e. Player X just changed his stance to our faction to "hostile"). If you divide your monsters into more different factions (i.e. "The swamp ogres" or "the mountain trolls"), you will save CPU time, especially if you use scripting functions like GetFactionBestAC* or other faction related information.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>
New Online Player Map! (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369873&post=3042223&forum=77&highlight=)
That's a really cool idea!
What the Official Word on the 1.63 Patch? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369593&post=3043067&forum=77&highlight=)
- Patch 1.63 is in private beta. After that concludes we will have a public beta. After that we will have a release.
- The Live Team is working on the DD Project. For both projects we will not give any estimated release date. Watch for an official announcement at some point in the future instead.
- It is up to Atari whether or not there will be a platinum edition and I'm sure they (and we) send out a press release if such a product is announced. However there should be no need for a syncronization patch, as such a patch is only needed for new expansion packs.
More:
<hr>Can we not see a list of fixes that you know for certain will be included in the patch?<hr>
Sorry, but con't know for certain if something is going to be in the patch until it has passed beta.
More:
<hr>...of course, this doesn't mean pull a Duke Nukem Forever on us, but make all us server admins proud to host your game!<hr>
hmm Neverwinter at least has it in the name, eh? I think the Live Team is pretty much crunching on 1.63 and related changes at this point, we don't want you guys waiting till christmas for the patch, but as said before, it doesn't make sense to release the patch until it was tested. Once we hit public beta, you guys can certainly help to get the patch tested. If you find time, run a beta server for a while and gather some player feedback, some of the beta tests in the past were a bit lacking in that regard. (and we really get itchy when people post "hey, I saw this bug in beta, why is it still there?" when they never gave us any feedback about it )
My prediction is that servers should be able to run much longer with 1.63, I saw that Craig fixed several memory leaks that had been hiding in the code for ages. I'd like to give you an ETA, but right now, it would not be save to make any predictions, and I would like to avoid getting burned on a stake for promising that the patch would be out by a certain date.
More:
<hr>Could I ask another? Will Bio consider include those amazing stuffs in CEP as an official release for future DD or patches?<hr>
It was certainly considered and the lawyers said no. We have no way of knowing if the material that people submit to CEP was based of their own work, and given that just a single texture that someone "borrowed" from somewhere on the web would open you for a flood of lawsuits these days, adding material from CEP to official patches is a non option.
If we were to add community created material, it would have been created from the scratch by a contracted community member or group specifically for BioWare, with all the required paperwork. That's about the only way community creations could appear in a patch - and there is a chance that something like this might actually happen at some point in the future.
NwN/SoU/HotU end of life? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=369014&post=3043311&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr>Ok, first of all my sincere appologies to Georg Zoeller (a countryman?) for my assumptions and calling his posts "odd"<hr>
I'm German, maybe that makes my posts a bit odd by accent:)
<hr>PS: What is DA?<hr>
Our next PC RPG, Dragon Age You can learn more about it here: http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/
How to get Location of "Center of Tile"? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=370055&post=3043536&forum=47&highlight=)
Do a search for "Tile Magic" on these forums, the BioWare include file used for this has code that shows how to do that. Basically each tile is 10x10 meters, so you can use your current position and calculate the nearest tile center from there.
Party = Lag (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=370169&post=3044445&forum=56&highlight=)
That is correct. The more people are in a certain faction/party, the longer operations that target the faction as whole will take. NWN's focus is the party between 1-8 players, anything above should be avoided (by activating multiple parties). Also keep in mind that certain functions in game and scripting work based of your whole faction (a party is just a faction). If all your monsters are in the same "hostile" faction, they might get informed of certain events by scripting or in game (i.e. Player X just changed his stance to our faction to "hostile"). If you divide your monsters into more different factions (i.e. "The swamp ogres" or "the mountain trolls"), you will save CPU time, especially if you use scripting functions like GetFactionBestAC* or other faction related information.