chevalier
Sat, 18th Sep '04, 1:47pm
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault (http://nwvault.ign.com) from Obsidian Forums (http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showforum=21). 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">Feargus Urquhart, CEO</font>
Developer Attitudes ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17613&hl=')
Another aspect of why devs may come off as overly nice or PC in interviews is because of all the people they have to be careful about pissing off. We have to be careful about what we say about our publisher, other publishers we may want to work with, important people in the industry who might have a say in our future products, companies that supply us engines like ID, Epic, or Bioware or games that might be a certain reviewers favorite. It's kind of a pain in the ass.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Ferret, Developer</font>
Food & Water System ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17959&hl=')
I agree with Percival. The games I recollect having food and water systems I found their implementation annoying more than anything else. A game should be fun first and foremost and certain unrealistic abstractions make it easier to focus on all the good stuff. It's sort of akin to a fantasy novel - food and water provisions are usually only mentioned when it's dramatically appropriate. There are ways food can be made fun - like SWG or World of Warcraft, but in those games they aren't realistic food. In SWG food acts almost like a potion, and in WOW it's functionally equivalent of the Rest button in NWN.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">FrankK, Programmer</font>
Combat Animations ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17786&hl=')
<hr />Hey, I was just thinking about how nice it would be to have more than 3 generic combat animations. Then it hit me; you could tie which combat animation was used to the attack roll and allow that to depict how well someone is fighting through the animations. For example, an attack roll of 19 would trigger an animation from the attacker of a good, on line attack. Should that attack not hit, the defender could successfully parry it (not really using the skill, just blocking it). An attack roll of 4 could have a rather clumsy, poorly aimed attack. A roll of 1 would obviously be a really poor attack animation. A critical hit could actually appear to be a stronger, more powerful attack. Just an idea, and I'm not sure how you would handle it with all of the attack bonuses, but maybe we could come up with something. Any thoughts or comments?<hr />Interesting idea, and certainly not difficult to implement on the code side. However, our animation team would have to animate dozens of attack animations...per weapon arch-type (ie 1-handed, 2-handed, spear, unarmed...) This all adds up over time, when you factor in racial differences and such. Magic 8-ball says, probably not. That's not to say we won't have plenty of animations, but we have some other things planned to relieve the 'wow, i've been doing that attack since level 1' syndrome.
Hand detail ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=18112&hl=')
there will be no ball-hands.
NWN to NWN2 ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=18221&hl=')
<hr />Ive heard somewhere tha there is a possabilety that mods from nwn will be able to be changed into nwn2 mods...... is this right? or am i way out there <hr />You'll most likely only have the ability to import/modify scripts and conversation files. The model format has been 100% rewritten to allow us to do some things we'd like to see in the game--this has the unfortunate 'ripple effect' of making most mod data relating to game objects pretty useless and without a corresponding equivalent in the new system.
Custom Tilesets? ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17774&hl=')
we are prototyping some ideas that should have people who want to customize tilesets feeling good =)
Hiring Practices ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=15825&hl=')
We generally don't discount rejected candidates because many times they weren't rejected because we didn't think they could do the job. It's not uncommon to have simply found someone who is a better fit for the position. So we don't discourage resubmission. We accept both recommendations and blind submissions. A candidate is usually evaluated by the leads of the project and the ownership of the company--so while a referral can help get the interview, it's not a shoe in for the job. Industry wide is a crapshoot. Honestly, many companies have their different philosophies on hiring. In general, I think most encourage you to resubmit provided you have an updated resume that reflects more experience or new skills or a new demo/mod.
[ September 18, 2004, 20:54: Message edited by: chevalier ]
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Feargus Urquhart, CEO</font>
Developer Attitudes ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17613&hl=')
Another aspect of why devs may come off as overly nice or PC in interviews is because of all the people they have to be careful about pissing off. We have to be careful about what we say about our publisher, other publishers we may want to work with, important people in the industry who might have a say in our future products, companies that supply us engines like ID, Epic, or Bioware or games that might be a certain reviewers favorite. It's kind of a pain in the ass.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Ferret, Developer</font>
Food & Water System ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17959&hl=')
I agree with Percival. The games I recollect having food and water systems I found their implementation annoying more than anything else. A game should be fun first and foremost and certain unrealistic abstractions make it easier to focus on all the good stuff. It's sort of akin to a fantasy novel - food and water provisions are usually only mentioned when it's dramatically appropriate. There are ways food can be made fun - like SWG or World of Warcraft, but in those games they aren't realistic food. In SWG food acts almost like a potion, and in WOW it's functionally equivalent of the Rest button in NWN.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">FrankK, Programmer</font>
Combat Animations ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17786&hl=')
<hr />Hey, I was just thinking about how nice it would be to have more than 3 generic combat animations. Then it hit me; you could tie which combat animation was used to the attack roll and allow that to depict how well someone is fighting through the animations. For example, an attack roll of 19 would trigger an animation from the attacker of a good, on line attack. Should that attack not hit, the defender could successfully parry it (not really using the skill, just blocking it). An attack roll of 4 could have a rather clumsy, poorly aimed attack. A roll of 1 would obviously be a really poor attack animation. A critical hit could actually appear to be a stronger, more powerful attack. Just an idea, and I'm not sure how you would handle it with all of the attack bonuses, but maybe we could come up with something. Any thoughts or comments?<hr />Interesting idea, and certainly not difficult to implement on the code side. However, our animation team would have to animate dozens of attack animations...per weapon arch-type (ie 1-handed, 2-handed, spear, unarmed...) This all adds up over time, when you factor in racial differences and such. Magic 8-ball says, probably not. That's not to say we won't have plenty of animations, but we have some other things planned to relieve the 'wow, i've been doing that attack since level 1' syndrome.
Hand detail ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=18112&hl=')
there will be no ball-hands.
NWN to NWN2 ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=18221&hl=')
<hr />Ive heard somewhere tha there is a possabilety that mods from nwn will be able to be changed into nwn2 mods...... is this right? or am i way out there <hr />You'll most likely only have the ability to import/modify scripts and conversation files. The model format has been 100% rewritten to allow us to do some things we'd like to see in the game--this has the unfortunate 'ripple effect' of making most mod data relating to game objects pretty useless and without a corresponding equivalent in the new system.
Custom Tilesets? ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=17774&hl=')
we are prototyping some ideas that should have people who want to customize tilesets feeling good =)
Hiring Practices ('http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=15825&hl=')
We generally don't discount rejected candidates because many times they weren't rejected because we didn't think they could do the job. It's not uncommon to have simply found someone who is a better fit for the position. So we don't discourage resubmission. We accept both recommendations and blind submissions. A candidate is usually evaluated by the leads of the project and the ownership of the company--so while a referral can help get the interview, it's not a shoe in for the job. Industry wide is a crapshoot. Honestly, many companies have their different philosophies on hiring. In general, I think most encourage you to resubmit provided you have an updated resume that reflects more experience or new skills or a new demo/mod.
[ September 18, 2004, 20:54: Message edited by: chevalier ]