chevalier
Sun, 5th Sep '04, 11:08am
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 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>
Linux 64 bit server version? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379669&post=3134835&forum=56&highlight=)
I can savely say that there are no plans for a 64bit server for any OS at this point.
transfer rate from server to client and client to server (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379870&post=3134838&forum=56&highlight=)
It really depends on your setup. Patch 1.64Beta2 has a subnet profiling option which can probably give some insight into bandwith consumption.
Expertise, casting and 1.64b (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379761&post=3134850&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr />So..this means we need to wait until after platinum is out for 1.64?<hr />The release of the platinum edition has no impact on patch 1.64 release timing. We had a few nasty crash problems related to resource loading in 1.64Beta 1 and 2 and Beta 3 will be there to find out if we were able to fix them. If 1.64 Beta 3 is found stable and without major issues to prevent release, we will proceed to 1.64 release. If not, rinse and repeat until it is stable. The platinum edition is of no concern to that process.
AI problems (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379587&post=3134882&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr /><hr />Quote: Even Bioware has only so much time available in a workday, and with mega projects like Jade Empire and Dragonage in the works, there is bound to be precious little left for other things.<hr />Somebody from BioWare can come along and correct me, but I believe that the Live Team works on NWN exclusively. So Jade Kombat and Dragon Age probably don't affect them directly (other than stealing QA and PR/community resources). Regardless, they can't fix an issue they can't reproduce/isolate.<hr />
The live team delivers support for all our products once the development teams have moved to their next game. However it is true that NWN gets by far largest part of their attention at this time, especially with the DD project around the corner. But even for NWN, there are a lot of different things that are done by the live team, from creating patches for all different versions of the game, to the DD project with all it's related tasks, to supporting the custom content community and certain mod groups to handling things like cd content and installer for products like the platinum edition. Short: Lots of work http://forums.bioware.com/_global/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif
As for this bug: To say the AI in NWN is complex would be an understatement - 2 years, 2 expansion packs and 2 related codebrances (SoU AI was mainly written by Naomi from floodgate, HotU AI was mainly based on the original NWN AI) can make this happen. It took about 1 day to make revisions to the WalkWaypoints routine for HotU and get rid of all side effects those changes introduced, and that function isn't anywhere close to the main AI.
Point is: Changes to the AI take a lot of time to make and even longer to QA, as their potential to break things is "extreme". Thus expecting major changes from the Live Team in this regard is not realistic, bugfixes or improvements, maybe, anything major - not a chance. The people who maintained the AI or were able to make major revisions to it without breaking stuff have all moved on to other projects. That said, we still intend to fix obvious problems when they are reported. The more precise the bug report is and the easier it is to verify that it is valid, the higher the chance for it to make it into a patch. Chasing shadows is, at this point, not a good timesink for the Live Team. Another thing - I think someone looked into the behavior variable doubling for 1.64, maybe someone with beta 2 installed can check if that is the case or not.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>
Linux 64 bit server version? (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379669&post=3134835&forum=56&highlight=)
I can savely say that there are no plans for a 64bit server for any OS at this point.
transfer rate from server to client and client to server (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379870&post=3134838&forum=56&highlight=)
It really depends on your setup. Patch 1.64Beta2 has a subnet profiling option which can probably give some insight into bandwith consumption.
Expertise, casting and 1.64b (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379761&post=3134850&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr />So..this means we need to wait until after platinum is out for 1.64?<hr />The release of the platinum edition has no impact on patch 1.64 release timing. We had a few nasty crash problems related to resource loading in 1.64Beta 1 and 2 and Beta 3 will be there to find out if we were able to fix them. If 1.64 Beta 3 is found stable and without major issues to prevent release, we will proceed to 1.64 release. If not, rinse and repeat until it is stable. The platinum edition is of no concern to that process.
AI problems (http://nwn.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=379587&post=3134882&forum=77&highlight=)
<hr /><hr />Quote: Even Bioware has only so much time available in a workday, and with mega projects like Jade Empire and Dragonage in the works, there is bound to be precious little left for other things.<hr />Somebody from BioWare can come along and correct me, but I believe that the Live Team works on NWN exclusively. So Jade Kombat and Dragon Age probably don't affect them directly (other than stealing QA and PR/community resources). Regardless, they can't fix an issue they can't reproduce/isolate.<hr />
The live team delivers support for all our products once the development teams have moved to their next game. However it is true that NWN gets by far largest part of their attention at this time, especially with the DD project around the corner. But even for NWN, there are a lot of different things that are done by the live team, from creating patches for all different versions of the game, to the DD project with all it's related tasks, to supporting the custom content community and certain mod groups to handling things like cd content and installer for products like the platinum edition. Short: Lots of work http://forums.bioware.com/_global/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif
As for this bug: To say the AI in NWN is complex would be an understatement - 2 years, 2 expansion packs and 2 related codebrances (SoU AI was mainly written by Naomi from floodgate, HotU AI was mainly based on the original NWN AI) can make this happen. It took about 1 day to make revisions to the WalkWaypoints routine for HotU and get rid of all side effects those changes introduced, and that function isn't anywhere close to the main AI.
Point is: Changes to the AI take a lot of time to make and even longer to QA, as their potential to break things is "extreme". Thus expecting major changes from the Live Team in this regard is not realistic, bugfixes or improvements, maybe, anything major - not a chance. The people who maintained the AI or were able to make major revisions to it without breaking stuff have all moved on to other projects. That said, we still intend to fix obvious problems when they are reported. The more precise the bug report is and the easier it is to verify that it is valid, the higher the chance for it to make it into a patch. Chasing shadows is, at this point, not a good timesink for the Live Team. Another thing - I think someone looked into the behavior variable doubling for 1.64, maybe someone with beta 2 installed can check if that is the case or not.