January 2003

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 17:15 CET by Z-Layrex

Ah, here we are at yet another wonderful Wednesday of delights from Bioware, let's see what we've got this week:

Shadows of Undrentide - New Feats Profiled!

Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide will include over 30 new feats when it is released, and this week Bioware are profiling 3 of them. You can be sure this fistful of feats will put more punch into your attacks!

Creature Profile: Gnolls

The upcoming 1.28 patch will include the much anticipated Gnolls! This new creature profile provides a sneak peak at the 2 flavours of Gnolls that will be released, and provides an interesting theory regarding the Gnoll's ferocity.

Tileset Construction Tutorial

Bioware have updated their 3DSMax Files section with a new Neverwinter Tileset Construction Tutorial. This document covers tileset creation for the BioWare Aurora Engine, and it includes the tutorial (in Word and PDF format), several unsupported Windows utilities we use internaly when creating tilesets, and many sample files you can reference when working though the tutorial.

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Witch's Wake Status Report
Posted Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 16:58 CET by Z-Layrex

There's a new update over at Bioware, on the status of Witch's Wake II, (the Neverwinter Nights module being developed by Rob Bartel, Co-Lead Designer for NWN). Here's the story:

[Jan 29 2003] Work on WW2 is inching forward. A lot of Rob's time has been spent wrangling the various new scripting systems and hakpaks that he hopes to make use of in the upcoming module, and analysing the growing body of results from our recent WW1 Post-Release Survey. A morning was also spent co-DMing a modified version of Witch Wake I with one of the beta testers (great fun was had by all, a new route was found through the Myrkwood, and the halfling somehow managed to become half undead). Nevertheless, some plot and story work has been taking place and the groundwork is being laid for the initial sections of the module.

Read it here.

There is no release date for Witch's Wake II as of yet, but you can download and play the first version here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 16:50 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance

Unlocking Campaign Modules: Open nwnplayer.ini, and under [Game Options] change the CODEWORD= entry (or add it if it doesn't exist), to:

CODEWORD=hacktastic

This will unlock all the modules.

Robin Mayne, Bioware Webmaster

Patch 1.28:

Quote: Will the 1.28 patch have a similar effect on modules as 1.27? In other words once you touch a module with the 1.28 toolset will the module be playable by 1.27? I assume servers will also need to be patched. As the main builder/integrator of a PW the answer to these questions is very important to me.

Yes - Once you save a module with a 1.28 toolset, it requires that you play it on a 1.28 or higher game. This will be true anytime we add content that is accesible throught the toolset.

Gnolls:

Quote: Wow, good work... but does that mean only two types of gnoll? why not have a gnoll commander or slasher

With the 2 different body styles you are not limited to making addition types of Gnoll blueprints in the toolset. You will be able to create commanders and slashers with whatever stats/abilities you want, and then select one of the 2 body styles for their appearance.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Gnolls: Just checked the toolset and yes, I am a non-readin' monkey-head. It lists 24 hit points. Which was a bit of a debate but I assume what happened is that NWN have slightly more generous hit point rolls than a straight dice roll. That does not mean that it gives creatures more hit points than it should, but that it's dice rolls will be higher than what would be average. This is a guess. The Gnoll Shaman is not in the Monster Manual so we have taken a bit of liberty with the stats.

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Shadows of Undrentide Info at RPG Vault
Posted Thursday, January 30, 2003 - 10:35 CET by Mollusken

RPG Vault have posted 2 brand new screenshots from the upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion Shadows of Undrentide. They've also got some info on two new feats which will be available with this expansion: Zen Archery and Rapid Reload.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 23:09 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Evil Characters: We are making great efforts to support evil characters of the cartoon variety, the serious variety, and several shades in between. We are not doing this through implied/assumed motives that the player has to make up, but through the gameplay and faction options present in the game.

The main plot can be pursued for selfish reasons, altruistic reasons, and even cackling, hand-wringing "bitter taste of unimaginable sorrow" reasons.

Quote: Level 5 cap.

According to Bloodlust, not me. No offense to any parties involved, but Bloodlust has never been on the Jefferson development team.

Quote: You don't fully "control" NPCs.

The only things about them that you don't control are

a) Their biases (though this can be shaped over time for certain characters).
b) Their preferred professions (this can also be shaped over time).
c) Their general actions when they do not trust you.

Quote: Will NPCs be max level 5? How do they cast spells? What is stopping them from casting a fireball on that nasty Goblin in the shop WITH LOTS OF PEOPLE NEARBY? Do they level up?

Are you asking about companion NPCs or regular-ol'-hang-around-in-the-world NPCs?

Jefferson really is not being designed in the image of Torment. It's closer to Fallout, I think.

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Infogrames Half-Year Financial Report
Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 19:06 CET by Z-Layrex

Infogrames Entertainment have released its half-year financial report. The Group expects to release its fiscal 2003 half-year results for the period ending December 31, 2002 on February 13 2003.

Read it here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 18:55 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

Spellcasting Classes:

Quote: Are there any plans to unhardcode spellcasting classes so that they use the 2da files (and thus, so spellcasting classes could be added in)?

I've asked about this one myself and the answer, unfortunately, is no. The spellcasting classes are like that because each one has its own seperate GUI. Looking back on it now, it might have been better in the long run to have designed each class so that it "detected" available spells and had one GUI that listed the spell icons that were selectable. That's not how it was done, however (for various reasons, including the plain fact that the ability to add spellcasting classes was simply not required), and going back and re-working the entire thing now just isn't going to happen short of a sequel.

Custom Content: It's rather unfortunate that there are simply so many ways for us to get screwed when it comes to custom content. Besides the example of the textures made above, there's also such things to consider as 'did he make this himself?' ("Hey! Didn't you know that I helped that guy make the tileset! We were a team!") or the possibility of derivative work ("I made a model that looks just like one of the ones he used in his tileset!")... the list goes on. Not being a legal expert, I have no idea if a legal contract could be made with a community member that would cover all the bases necessary, but from the descriptions I get it doesn't sound promising.

Not impossible, however, as there are some companies out there that obviously do do stuff like this and Bioware is continuing to look at the possibility of doing something similar. I've heard of one scenario that sounds promising, personally. We'll have to wait and see if anything materializes, as utilizing what's out there and being made in a broader and more official capacity could only benefit everyone involved, no?

Wishful thinking does not exactly equate to protection in our litigious society, however, much as we might want otherwise.

Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant

Portraits:

Quote: Well, the whole style issue went along BiS, I think. Looking at the appearance of NWN (not only portraits, you mind), we can say that Bio was the serious and old school DnD part of the job, while BiS was the more artistic and cunning half.

Actually, all of the Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 portraits were created by BioWare, not Black Isle. Neverwinter simply featured a different visual style than the BG series, as do Icewind Dale 1 & 2

More:
As LdyShayna said, the rights to those BG1 and 2 portraits are held by Interplay.

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Black Isle Hiring
Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 17:34 CET by Mollusken

Black Isle have sent us words that they're looking for an associate producer. The position requires 4 years of experience in the gaming industry as well as 2 years of experience of production at an associate produer level. You'll find more info here.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 21:19 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

"Jefferson" Artists: Four IPLY or ex-IPLY people have art on there: Jason Manley, Kevin "Puddnhead" Llewellyn, Andrew Jones, and John Dickenson.

You can see some of Vance's work on the cover of The Silver Marches and in the IWD2 male monk and ghostwise halfling portraits. Chris Appelhans did the female monk portrait for IWD2.

Quote: I think RPG's should be about exploration of a particular role. Not following a story of people in your party. Definately not, for a BIS games. And since Josh is the man in control, I doubt something this silly will happen.

Almost all of the CNPCs in Jefferson are drawn into the Protagonist's company because the Protagonist is dealing with a particularly important situation that affects a lot of people. While the CNPCs certainly wish (and might attempt) to address this situation on their own, the Protagonist is the only person who's "got the goods".

Quote: Does this mean the PC is somehow special (like in BG) or is it just a case of the PC being the glue that unites disperate factions ?

The Protagonist is special, but not inherently special, as he/she was in BG. A strange coincidence puts the Protagonist in the "game-important" position, but it's up to the player to choose how to deal with it.

Quote: I would like to see characters getting their due XP. In IWD2 and the original BG I have often had to split my party and fight one set of monsters with one half and another set of monsters with the other half. What really gripes me about the current system is that the XP is just divided equally amongst the members of the party, rather than basing it on who did what in the battle.

The importance of who does what, and when, is extremely subjective. Sorry, but I think it would take a silly amount of effort just to come close to getting appropriate merit-based awards.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 21:05 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: Don Moar basically said that you will not be supporting any commerical database system at all... not even ODBC (which I find amazing considering you are writing the game in Borland C++ which has its own Open Database methodologies). The reason he stated was that using a specific database engine would require licensing etc...

No, the game is written in MS VC++, not Borland. Only the Toolset is Borland. We are using currently testing out a commercial database package. Let me be very clear. We are NOT creating a database system from scratch. Our database system must be compiled into the game executable.

Quote: This however seems really strange to me. If you simply include the ability to connect to "any" database system (throgh ODBC) then you are not actually using any particular system and thus have no reason to license it. So Derek... why is it you are choosing to do this "in house" rather than making it easy and allowing your customers to make the decision of what database they wish to use. If I want to use SQL Server but the guy next to me wants to use Oracle or Access... why stop us?

Because it must work instantly on any computer without any configuration, since the database access is through scripting in a module. It would not be a Good Thing if the average end user who just downloaded a module, finds that nothing works in the game, simply because he hasn't set up a database server on his home computer. The database access has to just work, in the game, for any module, on Mac, Linux, and Win32.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Neverwinter Nights in Windowed Mode: Add "AllowWindowedMode=1" to the "[Display Options]" section of your "nwn.ini" file (which you will find in your NWN install dir, the default is C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN). Then start the game. Hit Alt+Enter to window back and forth.

Quote: Oh dear... well I have sussed out how to change the mode of the file... but when exporting to PLT most of these were not acceptable. I am at a loss, can these files include colour?

I will try and clear this up for you Kai! The point of a PLT file is to create a texture that defines 'color areas' such as skin, hair, and metal so that you can use the toolset to select colors. So no, PLT files will not include color, as you will use the toolset to set the 'skin' areas to brown, the 'hair' areas to red, and the 'metal' areas to grey, for example.

Rick Ernst, Lead Designer, Floodgate Entertainment

Prestige Classes: The Harper Scout prestige class is a benefit available to members of the Harpers who are so inclined. There is no requirement that a Harper or ally of the Harpers take levels of this (or any other) prestige class. This is how we are treating it in SoU, in any case. For what it's worth, it will not be neccessary to join or even ally yourself with the Harpers in SoU to complete the campaign.

ESRB Ratings: At the risk of derailing this topic entirely...First off, according to the current ESRB guidlines, Doom would never have gotten an M rating. The violence in Doom is not realistic or particularly graphic, there is no profanity, there is no nudity, there is no substance abuse.

Secondly, removing ESRB ratings would not suddenly cause people to use 'common sense' when buying games. The reason games are rated is for parents who justifiably and correctly want some sort of idea about the games their children are playing and asking for. There are many, many video and computer games on the market today that I would not want my child playing. I'm not saying these games are bad, or should not be sold. I very much enjoy many of them myself. But not all games are appropriate for all people.

Children should not be allowed to do, or play, anything they want. A child's parents should be the ones to make this decision. Parents, very often, are not very knowledgable about video games. They generally do not have the time (sadly) to personally test every game their children want to play. In light of this, parents want (and need) some form of guidance. Realistically, this guidance can come in one of two forms. Ratings such as those established by the ESRB, or laws that prohibit restricted games. You may not agree with which games a parent allows, or does not allow, their children to play. But I'm sure you'd rather the parents make that decision than Congress.

Water and Trees: If you are saying you would have rather had water and thick trees as the border terrain in the forest, that's one thing. Saying it would be trivial to add those two new terrain types to the existing tileset for SoU is another matter entirely. We thought it would be better to create 3 new tile sets in order to give builders a wider range of possible environments, rather than expand existing areas. I think you'll like what we've done. The desert screens that were approved for release recently is just the beginning.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Module Help: I would start with the basic module construction tutorials you can find in the "For Builders" section. Then, if you're interested, take a look at some of the scripting tutorials. These should at least get you familiar with the process of making modules and that should put a lot of the discussions where you're seeing those file types described into context.

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Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Update
Posted Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 20:42 CET by Mollusken

The following update about the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client has been posted at the official site:

We are now into the rather boring stretch at the end of game development. We are currently running through the loop of: find bug, fix bug, make new build, test. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, this is also the longest part of development and the most uncertain. It is even harder now to give you a date on the Client Beta.

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Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Forum News
Posted Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 18:23 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's official Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Tim Cain, Lead Designer

Variable spell areas: Hi everyone,

Something came up in a design meeting about spells with varying size of effects. We want to support spells like Wall of Fire, which allow a wall to be created of variable size. Unfortunately, with the end of month milestone looming, no one has time to carefully sift through the hundreds of spells to see which ones have variable areas. So we cannot estimate the time to implement this feature.

Want to help us?

We need a list of every spell in 3rd edition that is castable by a character up to level 10 (i.e. all 0 through 5 spells) that have variable area of effects, usually varying by caster level. This is harder than it seems, since spells like Cone of Cold appear to have a fixed area of effect, but they really do damage up to their range, which is variable.

If someone here has or could point me to an existing list of such spells, that would be great. I can't guarantee we can get all such spells in the game, but without a list, we can't estimate the time involved and we may have to skip such spells or make them with a fixed area of effect. And we don't want to do that.

Manual: Me rite manual! Me rite gud. Full of stuff. Stuff you do. Happy words make it.

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Quote: How in depth is it going to be regarding 3e rules? Will it be assumed that players know at least a little about them, or will there be a ton of info?

I think Tim will be writing our manual in the upcoming months. It is going to be a difficult write because the 3rd Ed. Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's guide combined have about 550 pages of text and are much larger in WxH than our manual can be.

I think it will focus on what is specifically important and pertinant to the module and how our interface explains 3rd edition rules. We are also hoping to include a lot of in-depth in game help. I personally feel that if you don't care or know anything about 3rd edition you can still play the game, but if you are a D&D junkie you'll love all the attention to detail.

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BioWare Chat at Neverwinter Vault
Posted Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 14:10 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault will host a chat with the BioWare Live Team Thursday this week. Here are the details:

When: Thursday, January 30 at 7pm MST (6pm PST, 9pm EST)
Where: The IGN Chat servers hosted by RPGVault and Neverwinter Vault
IRC Client:
* Server: chat1.ign.com
* Port: 6667
* Channel : #neverwinter

If you don't have a program like mIRC to connect the IRC channel you can always use our web chat client and enter the channel #neverwinter.

Questions to the Live Team can also be sent in to maximus@vaultnetwork.com.

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6 Million Neverwinter Nights Downloads
Posted Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 14:01 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault reports that files from their file section (which has grown to host over 6200 different files) now has a combined download count of over 6 million.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 1:42 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Linux: Let me be very clear here. As soon as all the issues that are critical for releasing the Linux Beta are resolved, we will be posting the files. Not one second longer. We are just not at the state right now. You want a Beta. I want you to have the Beta. We are just not there, yet.

1.28 Patch: Unfortunately, it only rears its ugly head in a specific situation and we would have to add a huge amount of exception processing and art changes to fix this. This bug was evaluated quite extensively and due to time contraints, we won't be able to address it at this time. In that same time frame, we estimate that we can fix about 5 other gameplay affecting bugs over this rather prominent visual annoyance. Hopefully, we will have a beta 1.28 for you early next week.

Quote: And the worst blow of all: the camera angle. I was *astounded* by Bioware's complete disregard for their *MANY* upset customers who complained about this game-design flaw. When at last a player in the community hacked the .exe to unlock the camera, Bioware's great lie ("It Cannot Be Done") was unmasked, and I lost a ton of respect for this company.

We have NEVER said it could not be done. We are, in fact, giving you a console command in the next patch to unlock the camera slightly. What we did say about the camera angle, is that we designed the camera angle and the world that way intentionally and have not plans to change it in an official capacity.

Henchman AI: We're definitely trying to improve the survivability of henchmen in addition to improving their interaction. For example, we're trying to get them to respond to 'go stealthy' commands, so rogues and bards can sneak around with their stealthy henchmen. We're also hoping to implement a 'Don't attack until I'm attacked' command. This way your henchman won't go tearing off at the first sight of a beastie. With any luck you'll be genuinely sad when your henchman kicks the bucket. And we're working on something for that as well...

Al Schilling, Product Manager, MacSoft

Mac: I really don't have anything new to post but I wanted to assure you that (between jelly doughnuts, Fooey) I am following the posts. We are still being held up by some issues with video drivers but, progress is being made. Hopefully, I'll have some more info for all next week.

Trent Oster, Producer

Reflections: I know, missing a detail like than in a little game like NWN, what were we thinking . Seriously the reflection system is quite complicated and we had a lot of difficulty ourselves. With the limited resources available to the Live effort, bugs like this may languish for a while. We try to fix the biggest bugs we can and with the variety of things you fellows are trying keep bringin up new issues which would never be seen in a traditional commercial game.

Rick Ernst, Lead Designer, Floodgate Entertainment

SoU Release: In many cases, the delay before an american-developed product's release in Eruope is due to localization. (Translation, for the most part) This not always the case, nor is it the only factor.

Quote: With that said the people that do TV, Movie, and Video Games ratings (like ESRB) can suck my ****. Always blaming depicted violence as being the cause for social deviance. Who do you think is more likely to kill someone? A person playing video games that depict people being killed or a person that lives in an impoverished area? Personally, I think the person playing video games (enough to where it would effect their mood) would be too busy playing video games to go out and commit crimes.

I've spoken with the fine folks at the ESRB and the last thing they would ever do is blame video games for violence. The ESRB works very hard to be an impartial ratings board so that consumers can make informed decisions about what they buy. I think they do an admirable, and underated, job very well. Keep in mind that the ESRB is pretty much the only thing preventing legislators from passing laws making certain types of video games unlawful. Do not speak ill of the ESRB. They are our industry's reaction to concerned people who do not understand video games. They are on our side. If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the sound-bite chasing legislators who always look to popular culture as an easy scapegoat come election time.

Quote: 14 monsters sounds good to me. I hope that's 14 monster types though, I can't imagine 1 Wyrmling being much good, you need one for every colour of dragon.

There will be wyrmlings for each color of dragon, and then some...

The rural winter tileset is, as its name implies a winter version of the rural set. I think Tom's description of it as a very detailed reskinning (with added details) is accurate. And as for those wyrmlings, they sure are cute. And then there was this other small dragon that had just the prettiest...Gotta go - Rick and Darcy are coming after me with Sea Bass.

14 new monsters means just that. We aren't counting each wyrmling as a new monster, we aren't counting each formian as a new monster, we aren't counting each... Oh, wait, I can't say that yet, can I? Never mind. In any case, 14 new monster types.

Tilesets: I suspect you may be a bit surprised to discover that each tile set is made up of around 200 to 250 tiles. Each element of terrain (such as the suggested water or tree tiles) added to a tile set requires around 30 to 40 new tiles. The more types of terrain you have in a tile set, the more tiles each individual terrain type needs to have. If you add water tiles to the forest, for example, you need water tiles that border forest floor, tiles that border cliff, tiles with roads across them, tiles that border the pit, tiles with pit on one side and cliff on the other... on and on and on.

Creating a new tile set is a huge undertaking, and adding a new terrain type to an existing tile set is still a huge amount of work. Though system requirements are an issue, due to the additional textures that a terrain type would require, the biggest issue is simply the artist (and as ever, QA) resources needed to put one of these things together and make sure it works. Hope that puts our additional three new tilesets for SoU into perspective somewhat.

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Jessica Urquhart Interview at The Unforgotten Realms
Posted Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 19:47 CET by Mollusken

Jessica Urquhart is the PR manager of Black Isle, and at The Unforgotten Realms she answers a few questions about herself.

Besides being the “Goddess of Public Relations”, and having to put up with a pushy bastard like me, what is your role at Black Isle?

Goddess of Public Relations, hahahah I love it!!! I’m sensing a new title and some spiffy new business cards to accompany said title in the not so distant future! My role here at Black Isle varies from day to day, however primarily I’m responsible for designing and maintaining all of Black Isle’s websites, processing PR requests as they come in and basically making sure that there is plenty of information about out there about all of our titles! As a function of this I basically get to harass the producers from day to day to make sure that all of the outstanding interviews and other miscellaneous PR requests are processed and completed on time and get back to their rightful owners. In fact, I’ve become so good at constantly bugging my co-workers with all sorts of kooky requests these past few months that they’ve installed an electrical fence around my cube curtailing my harassment activities to a limited number of hours per day!

Are you a gamer? Meaning, do you play the games that BlackIsle produces?

In all honesty I am not a giant CRPGer, however this will probably change as since I’ve been here at the Isle I’ve developed quite a fondness for certain Multiplayer First Person Shooters, so it is still entirely possible that I will throw down with the best of them at some point in the near future. I did get quite a kick out of our first console title Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance as any time that I can play a green haired chick causing chaos/wasting monsters with a massive sword I’m in!

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Icewind Dale II Review at The Wargamer
Posted Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 19:43 CET by Mollusken

The Wargamer have posted a long review of Icewind Dale II, and the reviewer found it to be one of the most enjoyable games he played last year.

Creatures of higher intelligence tend to engage the player on sight, whether in conversation or combat, and quite often one immediately after the other. Many are armed with potent magic and use it well, often making life difficult for me. I had a blast finding the right mix of spells, missile weapons and swordsmanship to defeat them, and though my wife disputes me on this point, I contend that these exercises require more than a modest exercise in intelligence on the part of the gamer in order to successfully play the game. The dialogue with NPCs and opponents is scripted, but it is well written. Players should exercise care in how they respond during these conversations, as the player's response is matched against his alignment. Characters of Good alignment should resist the temptation to select some of the wittier sarcastic remarks that can be selected. Since I only play characters of Good alignment, I can't say with certainty, but I suspect that characters of Evil alignment will find equal hazards in demonstrating too much compassion in their intercourse with the creatures of the game.

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BioWare is Hiring
Posted Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 17:56 CET by Mollusken

18 different positions are free at BioWare, so take a look at their hiring pages if you're interested in a career in the gaming industry.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003 - 18:02 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Which weapon fighting style do you prefer your fighters in CRPGs to use?
(437 votes total)

Dual-wielding (2 weapons) (221) 50%
Weapon & shield (126) 29%
Two-handed (1 weapon) (90) 21%

Quite surprisingly, about half of the people who voted (50%), prefer their fighters in CRPGs to dual-wield weapons. While I expected this figure to be high, I never dreamed it would amount to half of the votes...

The weapon & shield combo is already less popular, with 29% of poll participants voting for it.

Least popular fighting style is two-handed wielding of one powerful weapon, with 21% of votes.

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Shadows of Undrentide Screens at EBgames
Posted Friday, January 24, 2003 - 16:34 CET by Mollusken

EBgames have got 3 new screenshots from the Shadows of Undrentide expansion for Neverwinter Nights. They've also set the price to $29.99, and the release date to March 25.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 21:50 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Quote: ...would it be possible to have some unusual environments in which to play in Jefferson? The volcano in IWD2 was cool, but I mean thinks like a busy seaport (may not be possible in first game, but would be cool if Moonsea is available) where you actually board ships and stuff, or fighting on a snow-covered cliff where you have to worry about being too loud? Personally, too many games follow the "You are in a clearing and you are being attacked" formula for my tastes. I enjoy combat in places that are difficult at best, impossible at worst. Imagine having to ram and board several Zhent ships, fighting off hordes of pirates, attempting to get to the leader, or battling a dracolich on a windy, snowy cliff, knowing that fireball and lightning bolt could call down an avalanche! Man, that would be cool!

If we could have made a flyable terrain type for IWD2, I wanted to have a part of the game where Oswald's flying ship was attacked by harpies and other creatures en-route to Kuldahar. Cliche, but I think it could have been fun.

Quote: As a sidenote, this was possible to do within the Aurora engine but Bioware decided against using racial speed in NWN.

Because people always think they want exact racial speeds until they have to actually watch their characters travel that distance. How many of you would have made dwarf fighters in full plate for IWD2 if they moved half the speed of a normal character?

Quote: After all, racial speed is a part of the core D&D ruleset, it seams unfair to ignore it completely.

CRPGs and PnP RPGs are two different beasts. There are a lot of parallels between them, but real-time movement isn't one of them. In PnP, when the players say, "We walk from the cave entrance to the mill and then back to town," it takes seconds for the DM to say, "Okay. You guys walk past the mill, then back to town. You don't encounter anything unusual along the way." It might take two, three, or four minutes to walk that distance in a CRPG. If you have an armored dwarf in your party, that becomes four, six, or eight minutes.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 16:22 CET by Mollusken

There are several new Shadows of Undrentide treats this week. BioWare have made a new wallpaper and released some new screenshots, and they've also updated the FAQ and made a Shadows of Undrentide fact sheet.

A BioWare Photoshop PLT exporter plugin can now be downloaded from the miscellaneous section at the Neverwinter Nights site. The plugin allows you to export your own PLT files, which again allows you to customize textures so that you can utilize the colour selection in the Aurora toolset. The package also includes a few pre-made templates (belt, head, arms etc.).

If you're registered at the official Neverwinter Nights site, you can now head over to your message inbox and fill out a survey about Witch's Wake 1: Fields of Battle.

Last week Eligio Sacateca's custom content guide was profiled by Jay Watamaniuk, and this week the author himself is profiled, and discusses the guide and custom content for Neverwinter Nights.

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Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 22:05 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Alignments:

Quote: Can a character's alignment change during the course of the game? And if so, at the player's command or will the game keep track of this somehow?

I'm certainly not the final say on this, but as far as I know I do not think we will be supporting any alignment shifting. Instead we try to tailor the game to the alignments you have chosen.

Huy Nguyen, Interface and Magic System

Composer?:

Quote: Has troika picked a composer for the game score?

I made a personal suggestion for kevin mathei of ja2 and wiz8 fame, but the music and sound (who or what studio does them) is under the direction of infogrames. I don't recall if a composer has been selected yet.

Tim Cain, Lead Designer

Will there be a pickpocket skill?: We support pick pocket. It lets you steal money or any small, unwielded item from the target, but no, you do NOT get to pick which one or even see the victim's inventory. That leads to too much abuse of the skill.

Pick pocket is opposed by the victim's Spot skill. And yes, you get a +2 synergy bonus with Bluff.

More:

Quote: Can you kill the said NPC and take the loot?

You sure can. You can kill anybody. Have fun!

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 18:56 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.28: We are working on getting an internal test build this week, so I would expect a beta of it next week. But that is all just guesswork right now.

More:
Sorry, we won't have anymore details until we are closer to the Beta release.

Rick Ernst, Lead Designer (Floodgate Entertainment)

Grenade Weapons: Grenade-like weapons will conform with all of the neccessary server and difficulty settings.

More:
Since grenade-like weapons (as with most other effects) are scripted as 'spells' they have only a limited selection of animations to use. Alas, the dart-throw animation is not one of them.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Prestige Classes: Prestige classes are pretty much exactly like regular classes except for the fact they have limited level progression. For example a Fighter class can go all the way to level 20 while most prestige classes can only go 10 levels or even 5 levels. The bonus is the fact you are further specializing your character and have access to some very unique new abilities.

Map Size: I agree with John D. Gordon. Create a smallish area first and make it detailed. I have played through many modules where the builder makes this massive forest/city/whatever with nothing in it. Very, very boring. A city should be teeming with life.

Al Schilling, Product Manager (MacSoft)

Mac: Thanks to everyone for taking the time to make your feelings, opinions, and suggestions known. I have read every post in this string and am affected by each and every one of them. A few things:

1) I know that the website is out of date and needs to be updated. This will be taken care of soon.

2) For those of you who are upset because you haven't heard an apology, let me just say that I am very sorry for the lack of communication and for not being able to come through on the toolset. I must make it clear that the toolset was never "guaranteed" or "promised", as many of you continue to state. We said we'd try-and we did. I've been with MacSoft for 9 years and I take a lot of pride in this label. It pains me when people have a bad impression of our group. Unfortunately, some things are out of my control. Bottom line-I'm truly sorry for the furor this has wrought. There is a reason we don't presell software. In this business things can, and do change during development.

3) As to your suggestions for possible remedies, we're considering all. Keep in mind that there are legal considerations that we have no control over. We won't announce anything until we are absolutely certain that it will happen (I've learned something from all of this)

4) System requirements will be posted when we are absolutely certain what they will be. We are waiting on video drivers. I would have to be absolutely insane to post requirements tagged with the disclaimer "...pending review of final code and video drivers."

5) Please stop questioning the veracity of Mike from IMG. I barely know Mike. We are not personal friends. Anyone who has worked with Mike in a professional capacity will tell you that he is one of the most amazing human beings on the face of this planet. Those of you who would slam him without bothering to check out his credentials should really do a reality check.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 23:54 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Witch's Wake: Most of the skill check modifiers can be found in the WW_AbilityUse conversation file. It's a template and I copied and pasted from it on a fairly regular basis when writing the various NPCs in WW1. As for my resting code, much of it relies on the underlying HCR system, though I made my own modifications. The module has an OnPlayerRest event -- check the attached script and follow the trail from there.

Yes, sorry that the template isn't more user-friendly. My own code certainly isn't the cleanest (my background's in creative design, not technical design, I'm afraid) and I've also cobbled in countless other end-user modifications. The end result can be quite a mish-mash. Your best bet for getting help is to ask a very specific question and myself and others will try to chime in with answers where we can.

Opening Scene: In that opening scene, I am pushing the engine to do a lot of things that it was never really intended to do. There's a lot of combat going on as well as a lot of particles (smoke, fire, tentacles, rain). At the same time, I've also lowered the camera down to take in as much of it as possible. In the background, I'm also firing off scripting commands set a new camera position every tenth of a second. I was deliberately pushing the envelope with that opening scene and I wanted to start the module off with a NWN experience unlike any module anyone had played before. I new that it would chug on lower end systems but ultimately decided that it was a fair trade-off (especially seeing that your character is entirely safe during the cutscene and won't have to deal with lag-death). In other words, driver updates and such may not help but don't worry -- the rest of the game should be a lot more smooth for you.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: I was aware of that and i apreciate that but as i said 7 months down the track and your telling me its still a few months off for something i consider should have been integral in a product that you have promoted as having the ability to be set up as a PW.

I don't dispute the validity of the concerns brought up in this thread, and I'll leave the programming-mumbo to Don, but this particular statement I have to take issue with. We never once promoted NWN as having the ability to be set up as a PW. Every single time this was brought up prior to release, we said that NWN was not set up to work well as a PW. We said that PW functionality was not supported... but that if you wanted to use what functionality was there, you were free to do so. We also said we would try to accomodate PW builders post-release as much as we could, and we are. Personally, I'm surprised that the upcoming database functions are being added this early, if at all.

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BioWare Community Growth
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 21:38 CET by Mollusken

BioWare have sent out the following press release about their fan community growth.

BioWare fan community an unqualified success
Recent initiatives push BioWare community numbers to record levels.

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada - January 20th, 2003 - BioWare Corp. today released new growth statistics for the official BioWare Community as well as new download statistics for Witch's Wake I: The Fields of Battle.

Since October 2001, the official BioWare Community has experienced a tremendous growth rate, recently passing through the three-quarters of a million member milestone (768,787 members currently). "We're happy that our fans find value in the close contact our community site provides. We believe we can extend the value of our game and improve our game design through the community's active involvement in our games, as will for example occur with our upcoming game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for Xbox and PC," said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp.

The official BioWare Community website supports fans of BioWare's games with community forums, downloads, and technical support. For Neverwinter Nights, the BioWare Community website also offers new game modules, tutorials, as well as custom support that provide each guild with the ability to operate their own meeting space, complete with their own discussion forums, news system, calendar system, and membership management tools.

"We're very proud of our fan community's many achievements. The fact that over 2000 community-created Neverwinter Nights modules are now available for free download is a testament to the creativity of the Neverwinter Nights mod-making community, and also indicates the degree of support that BioWare's Community/Live Team is providing to our fans - they're very important to us," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. "BioWare's Community/Live team has been actively monitoring fan feedback from Neverwinter Nights and I think our fans will be pleased to see some of this feedback reflected in the two upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion packs, the first of which is entitled Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide," he concluded.

Additionally, BioWare's latest Neverwinter Nights module, Witch's Wake I: Fields of Battle, recently passed the 200,000 download mark. The Witch's Wake modules are a downloadable series of BioWare developed Neverwinter Nights story modules, released as a multi-part serial adventure over several months. Additional downloadable adventure series are in the works at BioWare as well, and more details will be provided about these in the future.

"It's gratifying to see this many downloads of the first part of Witch's Wake," said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. "Our goal with the Witch's Wake module series is to continue to support Neverwinter Nights fans through the development of exciting new adventures, tutorials and tools by the BioWare Live/Community Team. We're planning to support our future games in a similar manner," he concluded.

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Wizards of the Coast Reviews The Two Towers
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 21:30 CET by Mollusken

Wizards of the Coast have posted part one of their review of the second Lord of the Rings movie. In this part, the reviewer goes through director Peter Jackson's departures from the book as well as all the characters in the movie. Here's the part about Faramir:

But if Eomer is reduced to nonentity, then Jackson's Faramir is a disaster. Tolkien's Faramir is that rarest of men, a person who knows instinctively what he should do and does it as far as he can. He knows his country cannot win this war but is determined to make the other side pay for each foot of ground they take; he's essentially an officer defending a doomed position -- a man who will hold out to the last because of the carnage that will follow once he has fallen. Just as Gandalf the White is Saruman as he should have been, Faramir is Boromir as he was meant to be -- it was Faramir, not Boromir, who was meant to become a member of the Fellowship. All this falls by the wayside in Jackson's reading of the character; his Faramir succumbs to temptation at once, proving himself but a poor copy of his more heroic brother. The resulting mess involves rewriting Tolkien's plot to have Sam and Frodo present at the Battle of Osgiliath (the only unimpressive, disjointed battle in the movie so far, represented by a single bombardment), wherein Faramir sets them free just as arbitrarily as he had imprisoned them. To make matters worse, a more forceful actor might have brought some Hamletlike indecision and inner torment to the role, as Sean Bean did with Boromir; instead, the actor playing Faramir turns in a bland performance of a smug and self-satisfied man -- a character who utterly fails to stand out when surrounded by the excellent performances from most of the rest of the cast.

You'll find everything here. Part two will be released next week.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Monday, January 20, 2003 - 18:10 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Resting: Jefferson's current design for resting takes two forms: sleeping and residency. Sleeping is just that: you rest for eight hours and then get up. Residency allows the player to select daily activities for the individual members of the party.

Yes, I stole this directly from Darklands.

Quote: I'd rather have shops selling all normal equipment or miscellaneous normal equipment like Lamp Oil, Yeti Cloaks, Quiet Boots, Healer's Kits, Iron Rations and Thieves' Tools amongst others rather than a +5 Sword of DOOM that you would pay 150,000gp for, yet the guy still lives in a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere instead of a glittering castle of gold.

I would be perfectly willing to do this in a game. I'd only agree to do it if each supporting member of this thread signed a contract where I got $20 every time a user complained about not finding the specific unique magic item for their pet weapon type and the specific unique armor for their pet armor type. I would probably be able to pay off all of my student loans in about a month.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, January 20, 2003 - 17:47 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Database: WolfKC: We?re always taking the feedback from our fans and customers into consideration when we?re designing our games. If BioWare ever releases end-user tools for another project, many of the lessons we?ve learned on NWN will be incorporated into the design. Elof: Check the Live Team roadmap released last week. You?ll find that DB access functions are being added to NWN in the next couple of months. Enigmatic: You seem to think that because of my unwillingness to admit that a RDBMS is the best solution for all your data management needs that I don?t know anything about them. That is simply not the case.

Consider that the game and toolset use the same data. If they didn?t, then it would require that the data be on the user?s system twice, once in game format and the other in toolset format. That would exceed our minimum install budget. So, if they?re using the same data, it makes sense to share as much of the I/O code between them as possible. Now, unless you?re writing your own SQL engine (!) you?re using somebody else?s and that has additional licensing issues that must be addressed. In addition, for the toolset at least, you are increasing the complexity for either the users (they must learn SQL) or the developers (they must make additional wizards, widgets, whatever). If the developers choose to make it easier for non-technical people to use, they are not working on other features. If the developers choose not to address the end-user complexity problem they are almost assuredly reducing the number of people that will be able to use the product. Also, since a SQL engine offers more things for the user to do, it would of necessity require more QA time regardless of how the developers choose to deal with the extra complexity. Together, these things may have significant cost / feature implications.

Given that the game and toolset share the same I/O code, a SQL engine may require the game to exceed its memory budget beyond the minimum install limit since SQL engines require a lot of memory for caching and query processing. This may have a negative impact on frame rate because it?s less memory available for the graphics, AI / rules and networking systems. In fact, it may actually be slower for per-record retrieval than a flat file implementation. In a properly normalized database, you may have one table for areas and then a table for the creature instances in the area which refer to creature blueprints (in another table) which may have relationships to yet other tables for inventory, spells, feats, etc. In order to get that information out of a database, you must use a query with a multi-table join (or a pre-built view). Then once you have the data in your result set, each record must now be parsed into a corresponding game structure. The other alternative is to simply look at a header, find the offset and load the creature data into the game structure immediately.

Quote: While massively multiplayer games like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot probably use SQL databases to store their data, they have more control over the environment and hardware on which their game servers run. That is, the only minimum install requirements they have to worry about are for their client program.

Your comments indicate that while you may have some (or a lot of) programming experience in your problem domain(s), you have had little exposure to the kinds of constraints and issues in your development cycles that I have had during mine. Why don?t you actually try game development some time? It?ll give you a whole new perspective on software engineering and perhaps you?ll even gain some insights into the kinds of things I?ve been trying to tell you for last little while. Of course, that?s just a suggestion; there are even some ?Game Programming for Dummies? books out there now for you to take a look at. As I have said on numerous occasions, if the next project includes end-user tools and they require a DB, then they?ll get one. If they don?t, they won?t. That?s not political, that?s not side-stepping the issue, that?s not a lack of knowledge of the benefits of databases, that?s a reality of the fact that I don?t have details on the requirements for the next project. Would I like to use a database? Sure but only if we can do it in such a way as to avoid the problems I outlined above.

Rick Ernst, Lead Designer, Floodgate Entertainment.

Skills: I understand the sentiment here, but I think it's very unlikely that any skills will be added to NWN that don't have a clear in-game effect. This would just be too confusing to many players. As a general rule it's a bad idea to put something in a game that has no effect. And though I understand that you want to be able to give them proper effects via scripting in your games, they wouldn't have any effect in other games or the official campaigns. I can't speak to the likelihood of getting empty skill slots that a mod builder could customize. There are a couple of skills that I'd still like to see in the game as well. Early on we wanted to add Disguise to SoU, but it turned out to be much more tricky than we'd originally thought. Of course, the more physical skills will most likely have to wait for a system revamp.

Tumble is in. However, since the default difficulty setting in NWN does not have attacks of opportunity against PCs we've modified it a bit. This will no doubt anger some, but I think it actual works nicely. Now, as I mentioned before, there are no new animations for skills, which is a bit of a shame in tumble's case. Early on when we added Tumble to the list Bioware warned us that no additional animation would be possible for it, but we decided we'd rather have non-animating tumble than none at all. Hope you all agree.

Animations: Yeah, I've been around a fair amount lately. Lots of work means lots of breaks to stay sane. As for new animations, one of the things we discovered when we started working on SoU was that there are already so many animations for the player characters, that adding new ones is nigh impossible. So no sneaking animations, also no new animations for feats or skills... there's just no room for 'em. What we can add easily (since they aren't associated with the PC specifically) are spell effects, in particular recombining existing effects for new spells. Plus some entirely new effects for the Bigby's Hand spells and Caltrops, for example. A lot of our restrictions in SoU stem from the fact that we didn't want folks to have to wait two years before they got a new expansion. I can't really add to what's already been said about the content of XP2. As for FloodGates involvement with NWN after SoU... We've had a great time working with Bioware so far, and we'd love to continue doing so. We'll just have to wait and see.

We've been working hard to make the henchmen much more vocal, though I don't think we'll be including out-of-character comments like you describe. Hopefully you'll still find them likeable.

Headgear: At this point, even if Bioware were to add headgear that didn't replace heads in time for SoU's release, we wouldn't have time to create all the art and blueprints neccessary to include it in the expansion. I haven't heard anything from Bioware on this subject, but if it happens it looks to be XP2 at the earliest.

Stone of Recall: Though I'd prefer your posts to be a bit more civil, Haiml...The respawn button is necessary for online games, since reloading a save game is not an option. If you are playing alone and don't like respawning, I heartily recommend you pretend that button does not exist.

We will be including methods of faster transport in SoU, though we will not be using the Stone of Recall as it appears in the original campaign. We are attempting to address the players' need for something to reduce the tedium of traversing previously explored areas, without giving the player a device that allows him to jump back and forth to town in the middle of a fight. We also won't be using the same method through the entire campaign. In some cases we'll be using teleportation portals that require a 'key' to focus in on another portal, in other cases a magic item will provide PCs with a safe haven. We're still ironing out the systems, but it seems to be shaping up nicely.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 17:00 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Quote: The designers' ideas on what is, say, Neutral Evil and the players' ideas might be wildly different causing a large amount of frustration trying to keep your party together.

It's pretty rare that the CNPCs respond to "alignment"-oriented actions. They are more concerned with the types of behavior you display (e.g.: wild, vengeful, generous, etc.). Most actions defined as "friggin' psycho" will cause many CNPCs to attack the Protagonist, and most of the rest to leave the Protagonist's company.

Quote: I like this system. It has some serious potential for comedy.

I am hopeful that the "Bloodthirsty Idiot" epithet will make it into the game.

Female Characters: Well, I hope that the major female characters in Jefferson live up to your expectations (even if they don't live up to Ravel). Like the male characters, they run the gamut from childish shallow dopes to mature, introspective thinkers. At least, that's how I hope they come off.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 16:14 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Mac and Linux Questions: Quote: Is the expansion going to be compatiable with the Macintosh version?

I am not eactly sure what this question is asking because there are actually a few questions here. Will XP1 and XP2 be coming to the Mac? That question can only be answered by MacSoft, and I expect they will have that question answered in the coming weeks. Will a Mac XP1 client be able to connect to a non-Mac XP1 server? Actually, it has nothing to do with the server. The Module controls whether the clients will require XP1 or XP2 to connect.

Is the game data cross-platform?
Yes.

Quote: Will the modules developed by the expansion toolset be able to be read by the Mac and Linux version of the game?

Yes, if you have the required expansion pack installed.

Quote: Or will the expansion update the game so much that the NWN community will be split between expansion and non-expansion gamers?

Modules control who can join the server. If its a module with XP1 resources, the only clients (Win/Mac/Linux) with XP1 installed can play on that module running on that server.

Quote: To date, neither Mac users nor Linux users have been able to get a straight answer from Bio as to the compatibility of the expansion and the non-windows versions of the game.

We have always said that the game data is cross-platform. The only requirement for a client to play on a server is for the client to have the same resources as what the module requires. If its an XP1 module, the the client, regardless of OS, will need to have XP1 installed.

Linux Bink: Sorry for the confusion about Linux Bink. Linux Bink doesn't exist. That original update that was posted was actually the incorrect one and we changed and re-posted it after an hour. But in that time, Google had already grabbed and archived it, so there it not much we can do about that.

Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant

SoU Screenshots: I did unlock the camera angle to take those screenshots. And, as someone mentioned, there's a possibility that the camera will be unlocked in the future using console commands. As a quick question: What exactly did you guys like in the shots? Seems the Formians were a hit. But what else?

I just chose to have these shots portray more of a desolate desert, and to focus on the characters and some of the tileset features. Future shots will be more dressed up.

As with NWN before its release, everything needs to go through the Hasbro/WotC/Infogrames approvals process. I'm working on new shots as we speak, so I'd say it'll be at least a couple weeks before the next batch goes out. There should be a handful of new shots appearing today, though--still of that same scene, but from different angles with different things going on.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Feats: Just to avoid further confusion - there are more than 2 feats in Shadows of Undrendtide.

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Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Update
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 11:14 CET by Mollusken

A large update and several screenshots from the Neverwinter Nights Linux client has been posted at the official Neverwinter Nights site. Here's an excerpt from the update:

[Jan 17 2003] Lots of Linux Client bug fixing happened this week. Things are moving along smoothly and we just have a few more big things to work out before we can proceed to the next step. The significant news item this week is that we currently do not have a movie player for the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client. At this time, we do not want to delay the release of the Client for a movie player, so we will continue to look for a solution after release.

As promised, here are the answers to a number of questions about the current and future status of the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client.

Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Public Beta:
There will be a Public Beta of the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client, but it will have the same restrictions as the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Installation. You will need both the game resources and a CD-Key.

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Witch's Wake Status Update
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 11:09 CET by Mollusken

Here's the latest status update on the sequel to the Neverwinter Nights module Witch's Wake: Fields of Battle.

[Jan 17 2003] Rob is putting up the finishing touches on the Witch Wake II Template. The ability checks in conversation received the biggest makeover. If all goes well in testing, the revised system should allow for reliable per player tracking of success and failure, multiple check types per NPC, and the option to retry failed checks at a higher difficulty class. Some supporting code was also put in to allow fallen paladins to redeem themselves or fall even further towards infamy. Rob will spend the rest of the week researching hakpaks and other fan content. Work on the opening scenes of WW2: The Witch Hunters should begin on Monday.

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EuroGamer Reader's Awards 2002
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 11:06 CET by Mollusken

The readers of EuroGamer have voted for the top 50 games released in Europe in 2002, and Neverwinter Nights ended up as number 20.

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Shadows of Undrentide Screenshots at IGN
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 11:03 CET by Mollusken

Even more Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide screenshots have been released, and now at IGN. They're still showing the same creatures and desert tileset, but they are slightly different from the other 10 we have seen.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003 - 22:41 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Quote: Will we be able to see the sky?

Not usually. The game is an isometric RPG. We can make the sky present and visible in cutscenes, but you probably won't ever see it while you're just walking around the world.

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More Shadows of Undrentide Screenshots
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003 - 19:32 CET by Z-Layrex

GameSpyDaily has posted some more screenshots from the upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion, Shadows of Undrentide. Which also feature a new desert tileset and some new creatures.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003 - 17:23 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

NWN Chinese: I just wanted to give you guys some news: Infogrames Taiwan is currently working on the making updates to the game text and by last account they should be finished soon. Once it's done, we'll get an update ready for you ASAP. Once again, thanks for your understanding while we get this fixed.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

SoU Plot:

Quote: ...By the way, Darcy, any chance of us getting another teaser for the plot in this big list of announcements coming up?

I could talk about the plot and all it's goodness, but I wouldn't be able to do it justice as Rick, Paul and Naomi can. What I will say is that you travel a lot, and see some neat stuff.

Psionics: I can tell you that we are not putting Psionics in the game. Adding another major spell type is to difficult to do with the current engine.

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Shadows of Undrentide Screenshots
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003 - 15:58 CET by Mollusken

Infogrames have released five screenshots from the upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion Shadows of Undrentide. The screenshots, which feature a new desert tileset and some new creatures, can be found at Gamespot.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Friday, January 17, 2003 - 12:55 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Are you going to buy Shadows of Undrentide, the upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion?
(288 votes total)

Yes, definitely (133) 46%
Maybe, not sure yet (106) 37%
No, never (49) 17%

Judging by the results of this poll, the interest in the Shadows of Undrentide (someone must have a thing for shadows in the naming dept. at BioWare) expansion for Neverwinter Nights is quite strong, with 46% of poll participants voting that they will buy the first expansion no matter what.

However, the number of the undecided is quite high as well, with 37% of those who voted unsure whether they'll buy it or not. This crowd will most likely decide on the basis of reviews and so on.

17% of those who voted are not going to buy the SoU expansion under any circumstances.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 23:37 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Engine: Jefferson's engine uses 3D environments and 3D character models.

Quote: Maybe I've been playing too many console games recently (namely Timesplitters 2), but I was just thinking that unlockable gear is pretty cool. I was thinking maybe you could fit some unlockable classes/races or whatever into a future RPG.

There is a weapon in Jefferson with variable properties, but it's not quite as you describe.

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Neverwinter Nights Awards
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 23:00 CET by Z-Layrex

Bioware's Neverwinter Nights has clinched yet another two awards. The "Revolutionary PC Game of the Year" as well as "PC RPG Of the Year" from Game Revolution. Here's an excerpt:

After years of anticipation, Neverwinter Nights finally arrived in 2002 and took PC role-playing to revolutionary new heights. With a fantastic engine, brilliant multiplayer and perhaps the most extendability of any game ever released, this more than lived up to its hype. Besides, you can download and play through Vault of the Drow. Beat that.

Congratulations and many pats on the back to all of the Bioware team.

You can also check out the other 52 awards Neverwinter Nights has recieved here.

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Greyhawk Interview at HLF
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 18:21 CET by Mollusken

HomeLan Fed have asked Tim Cain from Troika Games a few questions about Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemtental Evil.

What are some of the difficulties in adapting this module to make it a fun and deep PC title?

At its heart, ToEE seems to be a standard dungeon crawl. But when you read it carefully, you realize that many of the NPC's have substantial histories, with explanations on why they came to the area and what they do there. Our job was to convert these hundreds of NPC stories into rich dialogs and quests, while keeping a strong storyline to carry the player character's through the main plot. In many ways, using 3E rules helped a lot, since we used the skills and feats as a guideline for converting the module. For example, we have the skill Sense MOtive, so we had to identify every NPC who would try to lie to the player and write their dialogs with checks against that skill, including determining the results of you exposing their lies. These myriad skill, feat and class ability checks make for very deep game play.

What can you tell us about the graphics engine that the game will use?

We are using our new graphics engine, with beautiful 3D characters set against wonderfully detailed pre-rendered backgrounds. 3D characters let us have a large number of animations to support different character actions while at the same time let us have a large number of armor and equipment variations. Likewise, the pre-rendered backgrounds let us capture all of the the detail of the original module locations. The combination of these techniques works perfectly for D&D 3E and ToEE.

There's more to read here.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 18:01 CET by Z-Layrex

This week in Bioware's Wednesday of delights:

Do you have questions about the upcoming Shadows of Undrentide expansion for Neverwinter Nights? Well Bioware have the answers. They have just released this Frequently Asked Questions document, which addresses many of the questions posted to them and will be updated on a regular basis as more information becomes available.

There's also a new Live Team Neverwinter Nights road map, which outlines what the BioWare Live Team is planning for Neverwinter Nights. From new creatures and features to upcoming modules, this ever-changing road map will be updated frequently to reflect their plans for the future.

Finally, Eligio Sacateca has compiled an amazing resource for Builders in the form of his Custom Content Guide, now at version 1.1. Building upon various resources from the community, the guide is easy to understand and full of helpful notes and tips covering the basics for creating custom Spells, Voicesets, Weapons, Portraits, Items, Armor, Music, Load Screens, Creatures, Movies, Tilesets and more!

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 17:39 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Addition To Road Map: Camera-loosening won't be an official change, and will most likely only be available through a console command. There won't be any GUI or art changes done to support this. This is primarily to reduce the amount of I-forgot-to-undo the-Camera-Hack-and-now-I-can't-patch issues.

More:
PhotoShop PLT exporter next week.

Release Dates: Release order does not equal difficulty, nor does it equal importance. And don't assume that there is just one programmer doing all of these things. The Road Map lists the currently expected release order for the features listed, based on their current state as of this morning.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Monks: It's been stated but I made the mistake of thinking Str was super-important for a Monk and it really isn't. It's very nice to have of course but not as important as Dex and Wis. Lots of Monks I have seen played don't wear armor so the free Armor Class bonus from high Wis is an ace way to build that up. Since they have a lot of Rogue skills the Dex thing really helps. Plus most people want to take Weapons Fin with unarmed and the higher the Dex the better the to hit bonus. Monks rock.

Portriats: I have actually gone out and grabbed portrait packs from various places at sites like NW Vault and so on to add to my current portraits. Plus I have added my own cut from art I have found on the net using the portraits tutorial on this web site. I love having a huge amount of portraits as the ones in the box can get overviewed and old after several months.

Patch 1.28: Derek was mentioning today that he is getting most of stuff he wanted to go into the patch up and running. This is very nice as it indicates that no extreme wierdness was encountered that would set things back 100 years in it's release. Should be soon...

SoU: Keep in mind folks that I have read reviews of SoU's game play on different sites as well. This is a bit of shock since it is not released, finished or even working properly yet. All prices, reviews and release dates mentioned by retailers or other folks are pure speculation unless otherwise stated as fact here. In other words, we do not have a clue what the price will be. Remember Floodgate, with help from BioWare, is creating SoU and it is the area of the publisher to market, distribute and ultimately sell the product. There is a huge difference between developer and publisher.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Subraces In Witch Wake: To those of you experiencing subraces mid-game, I apologize. There were some troubles in the subrace code for WW1 so, at the last minute I made the decision to remove it. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to catch all of the code so there are times when it still crops up. If I re-integrate subraces into WW, it will be a collection of custom subraces designed specifically for the series (ie: not the standard Faerun races currently cropping up). Some of the beta testers are currently working to integrate them into WW1 for those who wish to replay the module with the appropriate subrace.

In the meantime, I've been busy rewriting a lot of the template scripts in preparation for WW2 (just finishing up the ability checks in conversation -- if all goes as planned, you'll be able to retry failed checks but the DC will increase with each failure). There's a Witch Wake survey buried beneath the red tape somewhere, too, and hopefully it will emerge fairly soon. It has some good questions on it and I'm looking forward to getting feedback from everyone.

WW Template: Sorry, the frozen player syndrome is a product of some sloppy code on my end that I never did clean up in the template. I was doing some preliminary cutscene stuff in the OnClientEnter event that I should have been doing in the AreaOnEnter event instead. As such, when I grabbed all of the latest WW1 resources and reintroduced them into the Template, that one came along for the ride. If you look in the hc_inc_on_enter.nss script, you'll see some SetCommandable() functions. SetCommandable(FALSE) freezes you and SetCommandable(TRUE) frees you again. Fiddle around a bit in there and you should be able to get it working.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

Use Magic Device: First let me say there are some great ideas in this thread, some of them we haven't thought of. We'll be sure to consider them when looking at UMD. Second, our goal is always to keep the fans happy and satisfied while playing NWN. The feedback these forums provide actually goes a long way in guideing our design decisions. Finally, we have not looked at spicifics regardign UMD yet, as we are focused on SoU, and XP2 (name comming soon). So I'm going to lock this thread. Thanks for the feedback everyone, especially SirFrancis, Torias, Carl, and Vanor. You guys rock!

Riding Animals: Adding riding animals is just about the hardest thing we can do for NWN. We have no plans to do this for SoU, or the second expansion pack.

X-Pack Question: The expansion pack will come out when it's done. (current plan is early spring). And it will cost what the publisher and the vendors feel it's worth.

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Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 23:01 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Huy Nguyen, Interface and Magic System

Conversation:

Quote: Will we be able to tag a diplomat character as the default talker for speech events, or will the first person in the group (i.e. that dumb half-orc with about as much charisma as a rock) be chosen as the group's linguistic leader?

The group may be separated on different sections of the map - you could hide your diplomat wizard in one corner, and then fight your half-orc to the other side and then somehow initiate a conversation with your diplomat.

Sorcerer Vs Mage: If you're concentrating on combat, then a sorcerer is probably your likely choice. the ability to cast 5 or so fireballs at will is kinda nice.

However, as people have mentioned, the sorcerer isn't very versatile in the less common situations...

At 6th level, a sorcerer knows 1 3rd level spell (no more, no less). however, he/she can cast that one spell 3 times (+bonus spells via CHA modifier).

An extreme example is, if the only spell the sorcerer knows is lightning bolt, then facing off against a group of Shambling Mounds is certain death. or even if the sorcerer knows fireball, the Shamblers have Fire Resistance 30.

So its pro's and con's; in the more common case, yes, the 3 fireballs are going to be more useful against your typical enemies then a wizard who has instead prepared, say, 1 dispel magic, 1 vampiric touch, and 1 sleet storm.

In addition, at 10th level, a sorcerer knows one 5th level spell, and can cast it 3+ times. a wizard at 10th level, can cast (conceivably) any 5th level spell twice per day.

Will there be highlighted ranges for Area of Effect spells?: In short, yes. You'll toast your own PC's only if you want to.

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Like BG or IWD?:

Quote: Forgive an ignorant fool.... but........
Will TToEE be like BG where you create 1 PC and recruit NPCs into your party?????
or
Wil it be more like IWD where you create your entire party???????
Also will you have total control over your party????
Thank you for your time.

> there's two NPCs that can join you
> throughout the whole game? or will there
> be a lot, but you can only have two of them?

I'm not sure on the NPC follower limit. It is either going to be 2 or 3. This is the most you can have at one time. However there are at least 8, probably more like 16-20 NPC followers you will be able to pick up for portions of the game. You may have to make decisions on who you are bringing with you, and they may require a share of the treasure.

> can you dump characters you make?

It is currently planned for you to remove any PC character from your party, and for you to be able to (at the INN) add any new 1st level characters to your party.

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 22:35 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Quote: 1. Will you be able to create your own items, ala BGII or Jagged Alliance2?

You will be able to create items and improve items.

2. With the 3D model avatars, just for fun -- any possibility for user created skins, like freedom force?

It's possible, but probably difficult unless a fan has DeepPaint 3D.

3. Adventure log: will the somewhat problematic IWD2 implementation of the log be improved upon?

Yep

4. Will the game be available "full sized", so that we can have a full sized manual? Any possibility for a collector's edition?

That's not really up to us, so I don't know.

Quote: Does DeepPaint 3d generate it's own UV coordinates or something zany like that, that would prevent a user from simply opening the file in any normal' ol' image editor?

The texture maps wind up looking very Picasso-ish. It would be possible to open the textures in any image editing program, but it would involve a lot of guesswork and frustration.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 17:45 CET by Z-Layrex

Here are today's official Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

Weapon Limit:

Quote: Hey David, do you happen to have the contact information for the programmers so you can find out 1) why YOU didn't know about this, and 2) why it seems to be multiplied by 10?

There's no reason I should know about it, personally. I'm just a designer, not a programmer. I can talk to some of the programmers about the x10 thing... but there's no guarantee that even the person who worked on that specific piece remembers why he did it that way. There may have been a good reason at the time, but keep in mind NWN was a massive undertaking for the programmers over 5 years. He may not be willing to go digging through all his notes for it. Naturally, I could be wrong and the programmers might know all about this fix.

2DA Documentation:

Quote: yeah.. I'd kick my own grandmother in the butt for documentation like that for the 2da files

As I understand it, the tileset documentation is nearly complete. We do *have* our original .2da documentation... but that's so out of date it makes me giggle.

More:

Quote: David, even releasing the horrifically out of date documentation for the .2das to us MIGHT give us a roadmap to follow to figure stuff out...

No, it wouldn't. Trust me on that. The people who were responsible for the various .2da's would have to go back and update their sections, else it would (without a doubt) only cause more confusion than it cleared.

Al Schilling, Product Manager (MacSoft)

Mac News: Of course, we realize that the lack of the toolset is disappointing to Mac users. We are considering ways in which we can make this up to you. We've had no shortage of suggestions. They include offering the PC toolset with the Mac version, offering a CD full of mods, etc. Of course, much of what we can/can't do is controlled by varying licensing interests. But keep the suggestions coming. All will be considered.

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Just RPG's 2002 Best RPG Awards
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 16:18 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Nights goes all the way to the top as the best role playing game of the year at Just RPG. Icewind Dale II made it to a fourth place together with Arx Fatalis, and here are the words from those who chose Neverwinter Nights to be the winner:

Ray Ivey: “Of course it didn't live up the hype. Give it a break, the only game that actually exceeded its hype in 2002 was Metroid Prime. However, Neverwinter Nights is a beautiful, if flawed, game. Many players found the henchman system irritating, but the freedom of the well-implemented 3rd Edition rules easily made up for this problem. Add to that the three other elements of the game: The Aurora Toolset for creating custom adventures, the revolutionary Dungeon Master client, and the multiplayer option, and you've got a truly epic package.”

Eric Arevalo: “Neverwinter Nights is the best RPG I have ever played whether on PC or console. This game takes over your life with masterful music by Jeremy Soule, enchanting story and stunning art by the talented team at BiowWare. The enthralling and immersive singleplayer campaign as well as the use of the included Aurora toolset for fans to make their own adventures makes Neverwinter Nights the best RPG released in 2002 or any other year. BiowWare is to be complimented for giving me the most memorable RPG experience of my life!”

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"Jefferson" Project Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 23:20 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's "Jefferson" project forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

NPC Influence: It's just number tracking, addition and subtraction, triggering dialogue responses and opening character development paths. The most difficult part isn't mechanics, it's creating the content.

The Protagonist will be able to dramatically change the personalities of some of the more unstable CNPCs.

Quote: Will the player have direct control over the levling of NPCs?

Direct control, but limited by what the CNPC accepts learning. Similar to biases, CNPCs have professions they want to pursue, professions they do not want to pursue, and professions they can be persuaded to pursue.

Quote: All this interaction might get annoying and frustrating in a long game. I say *might* as I'm not really sure about how much this 'interaction' will be a feature of this game and how often such interactions will take place.

You can always tell people to shut up. Also, dialogue doesn't pause the game.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 23:03 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

Al Schilling, Product Manager

Mac Update: I just returned from the MacWorld expo where we had a great time showing off NWN Mac! First, thanks to the folks at Bioware, and especially Jay Watamaniuk, who made the trip to SF to meet with the Mac faithful. Jay did an outstanding job and it was an absolute pleasure to have him present at the booth. On the good news side, NWN looks great on the Mac. A few bugs left to squash but the game is quite stable and nearly complete. Just to clear up any confusion about the capabilities of the Mac version; all PC created mods should work with the Mac version and the DM client IS included with the Mac version. All of the parts of the game that Bioware is responsible for are looking great.

Of course the bad news was our announcement that the Aurora Toolset won't make it to Mac. This is obviously very disappointing to Mac users. I can only say that we at MacSoft gave it our best shot. When the estimate for the port came in at double our budget, we still opted to go for it. Unfortunately, after the developer had spent several weeks on the code, they informed me that things were much more complex than they had initially thought and that the estimate would double again. They also warned me that this was an optimistic estimate and that it could be much longer. This should not be considered as a criticism of the developer. I think that people generally have a hard time accepting that toolsets take many years to create and are often more complex than the game engine itself. This makes porting them to another platform extremely difficult. Although I really can't say that porting anything is "impossible", it certainly can be "infeasible".

I'd like to thank those of you that have written in regard to your feelings about the toolset. I'll be monitoring this thread closely for the next few days and would be happy to respond to any well-reasoned opinions or questions.

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Greyhawk Interview at RPG Codex
Posted Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 17:52 CET by Mollusken

Tim Cain from Troika answers more questions about Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemtental Evil. Here's a few of them:

You've said you felt nostalgic over the Greyhawk setting. Is this the only reason you picked it over, less conventional D&D settings like Dark Sun or Planescape?

When the opportunity to do D&D 3E came up, I sat down with my entire collection (100+) of modules and tried to decide which one I wanted to do. The module had to be one I enjoyed playing (of course), but it also had to be big enough to feel "epic". Many of the modules that fit the bill were Greyhawk modules, which I had grown up playing with AD&D. The Temple of Elemental Evil became the obvious choice when I noticed the level range began at level 1, while my next favorite, Against the Giants, started much higher. ToEE is a big, fun adventure, more complex than the standard dungeon fare of the time.

Currently, NPC's are AI controlled in combat. There are pros and cons to both methods, if you change it so that the player controls them, what steps will be taken to keep the player from "breaking" the NPCs' personality because they have direct control? Do you think this issue is easier or harder than a decent combat AI?

First, we are only debating letting the player control their NPC followers during combat, so there isn't much of an issue with the NPC "breaking personal