chevalier
Tue, 28th Aug '07, 2:38pm
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 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">Rob McGinnis</font>
1.07 where for art though (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581232&post=5224003&forum=109&highlight=)
<hr />Not to sound pessimistic but after looking at sinking online multiplayer stats for Nwn2, I wonder if there is a bit of cold feet with this release. The patch seems to cater to a very select and limited section of customers for a game which seems to have a stronger single player customer base. If I were a betting person I would say you'll see the patch awful close to or on the date of the expansion release at this point. Hopefully Obsidian will prove me wrong.<hr />Heh. You always seem to take the pessimistic view. I guess that's ok. We've earned that so far.
We are currently averaging a patch release once ever two months. So far, for 1.07, we are about four days behind schedule, based on that average.
As for multiplayer, For the first half of August, we have gained an average of about 15% more players online over the entirety of July, which showed about a 10% growth as well. Our net increase in players since I started tracking it back in January is averaging about 16% - overall, not bad, but I think we can do better.
1.07 Beta should be making an appearance very soon. We have been testing 1.07 with MoTB and the original NWN2 and found some things that need a bit of tweaking to ensure there is backwards compatibility. We have also jostled some programmers around to pushing MoTB at the very end of its development cycle, and that has slowed 1.07 down slightly - but as I said, right now, we are only running about 4 days behind our average.
1.07 was also slowed down for some last minute changes reported back to us by the community. We felt they were too important to leave out of this patch, so a delay made sense.
NWN vs NWN2 (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=580836&post=5224038&forum=109&highlight=)
As I read through this thread, I see there are a lot of personal insults going on again. These will not be tolerated. If you posted in this thread and you have to wonder if I mean you, I probably do. Consider this the one and only warning for this thread.
As for the subject matter, I have to call on the "old standard" for a response:
everything we do has to be evaluated against what we have to do, feedback we have received and on the history of NWN1.
We have talked before about every feature requiring a tradeoff. If we can do 100 features in the time it takes to do 1 feature, we will go for the 100. But, we try to temper this with what those features bring to the game.
Will we please everyone? No.
PW Client Crashes (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=544478&post=5224067&forum=118&highlight=)
<hr />Getting back to the transition crashes; are there any players who don't have this problem? Has anyone tried to make a comparison between those that do have this problem and those that don't?<hr />We have actually collected quite a bit of data on this now, thanks to a lot of great players and PW Admins.
I won't go into details, as that would be boring, but the issue of transition crashes seems to be many issues, not just one.
The sticky thread in this forum that covers how to minimize them has some great advice in there. Hopefully people are reading it.
New Contest To Be Announced This Week (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581444&post=5224098&forum=115&highlight=)
This week, we will be announcing a new contest in the NWN2 Community Update.
The Contest will be Custom Content focused.
Don't know about the NWN2 Community Update? Check the link in my signature.
D&D 4th Edition and NWN2 (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581448&post=5224147&forum=109&highlight=)
There have been a few posts created on this forum, and locked. Up until this point, we have considered the discussion of 4th edition to be off-topic - mostly because it was http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif
Well, after thinking about it a bit, I think we can have some reasonable discussions here. But, as it can easily become even more off-topic, I want to lay down some rules for this, and answer a couple questions up front.
First, you can discuss the D&D 4th edition rules in this forum as they apply to the future of Neverwinter Nights. This forum is not for the general discussion of 4th edition; go to the WoTC boards for that.
Second, you can discuss the 4th edition rules in the Toolset, Scripting, Custom Content and PW/Multiplayer forums as the 4th edition rules apply to the building efforts covered in those forums (ie: scripting a 4th edition rules framework).
All other moderating guidelines still apply.
As for some answers to some common questions, I will offer this: At this time, I have heard nothing about a NWN3 or a change to NWN2 to incorporate the 4th edition D&D rules.
What Need i to do it (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581443&post=5224544&forum=115&highlight=)
Check out the link at the top of the forums relating to the Granny/Expotron release.
Power-players are the market? (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581118&post=5224796&forum=121&highlight=)
No game can deliver if you are looking for a true D&D experience.
The D&D experience is based on face-to-face interaction between players and the DM. It is a Roleplaying game, where the imagination of the players and DM are the limit. The D&D game, while it has a set of rules as a guideline for play, is always driven by how players and DMs interpret those rules, with the final say going to the DM.
A computer game, on the other hand, is limited in these respects. In a computer game, you are not limited by imagination, but by hard-coded rule implementations and gameplay frameworks. There is little to be interpreted because the computer game is designed with an interpretation already in mind.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Rob McGinnis</font>
1.07 where for art though (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581232&post=5224003&forum=109&highlight=)
<hr />Not to sound pessimistic but after looking at sinking online multiplayer stats for Nwn2, I wonder if there is a bit of cold feet with this release. The patch seems to cater to a very select and limited section of customers for a game which seems to have a stronger single player customer base. If I were a betting person I would say you'll see the patch awful close to or on the date of the expansion release at this point. Hopefully Obsidian will prove me wrong.<hr />Heh. You always seem to take the pessimistic view. I guess that's ok. We've earned that so far.
We are currently averaging a patch release once ever two months. So far, for 1.07, we are about four days behind schedule, based on that average.
As for multiplayer, For the first half of August, we have gained an average of about 15% more players online over the entirety of July, which showed about a 10% growth as well. Our net increase in players since I started tracking it back in January is averaging about 16% - overall, not bad, but I think we can do better.
1.07 Beta should be making an appearance very soon. We have been testing 1.07 with MoTB and the original NWN2 and found some things that need a bit of tweaking to ensure there is backwards compatibility. We have also jostled some programmers around to pushing MoTB at the very end of its development cycle, and that has slowed 1.07 down slightly - but as I said, right now, we are only running about 4 days behind our average.
1.07 was also slowed down for some last minute changes reported back to us by the community. We felt they were too important to leave out of this patch, so a delay made sense.
NWN vs NWN2 (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=580836&post=5224038&forum=109&highlight=)
As I read through this thread, I see there are a lot of personal insults going on again. These will not be tolerated. If you posted in this thread and you have to wonder if I mean you, I probably do. Consider this the one and only warning for this thread.
As for the subject matter, I have to call on the "old standard" for a response:
everything we do has to be evaluated against what we have to do, feedback we have received and on the history of NWN1.
We have talked before about every feature requiring a tradeoff. If we can do 100 features in the time it takes to do 1 feature, we will go for the 100. But, we try to temper this with what those features bring to the game.
Will we please everyone? No.
PW Client Crashes (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=544478&post=5224067&forum=118&highlight=)
<hr />Getting back to the transition crashes; are there any players who don't have this problem? Has anyone tried to make a comparison between those that do have this problem and those that don't?<hr />We have actually collected quite a bit of data on this now, thanks to a lot of great players and PW Admins.
I won't go into details, as that would be boring, but the issue of transition crashes seems to be many issues, not just one.
The sticky thread in this forum that covers how to minimize them has some great advice in there. Hopefully people are reading it.
New Contest To Be Announced This Week (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581444&post=5224098&forum=115&highlight=)
This week, we will be announcing a new contest in the NWN2 Community Update.
The Contest will be Custom Content focused.
Don't know about the NWN2 Community Update? Check the link in my signature.
D&D 4th Edition and NWN2 (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581448&post=5224147&forum=109&highlight=)
There have been a few posts created on this forum, and locked. Up until this point, we have considered the discussion of 4th edition to be off-topic - mostly because it was http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif
Well, after thinking about it a bit, I think we can have some reasonable discussions here. But, as it can easily become even more off-topic, I want to lay down some rules for this, and answer a couple questions up front.
First, you can discuss the D&D 4th edition rules in this forum as they apply to the future of Neverwinter Nights. This forum is not for the general discussion of 4th edition; go to the WoTC boards for that.
Second, you can discuss the 4th edition rules in the Toolset, Scripting, Custom Content and PW/Multiplayer forums as the 4th edition rules apply to the building efforts covered in those forums (ie: scripting a 4th edition rules framework).
All other moderating guidelines still apply.
As for some answers to some common questions, I will offer this: At this time, I have heard nothing about a NWN3 or a change to NWN2 to incorporate the 4th edition D&D rules.
What Need i to do it (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581443&post=5224544&forum=115&highlight=)
Check out the link at the top of the forums relating to the Granny/Expotron release.
Power-players are the market? (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewpost.html?topic=581118&post=5224796&forum=121&highlight=)
No game can deliver if you are looking for a true D&D experience.
The D&D experience is based on face-to-face interaction between players and the DM. It is a Roleplaying game, where the imagination of the players and DM are the limit. The D&D game, while it has a set of rules as a guideline for play, is always driven by how players and DMs interpret those rules, with the final say going to the DM.
A computer game, on the other hand, is limited in these respects. In a computer game, you are not limited by imagination, but by hard-coded rule implementations and gameplay frameworks. There is little to be interpreted because the computer game is designed with an interpretation already in mind.