Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 12:16 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Which of the (A)D&D games covered on Sorcerer's Place was the first that you played?
(538 votes total)
Baldur's Gate (380) 71%
Baldur's Gate 2 (94) 18%
Planescape: Torment (24) 4%
Icewind Dale (18) 3%
Neverwinter Nights (11) 2%
Icewind Dale 2 (8) 1%
Pool of Radiance: RoMD (3) 1%
Well, well... The poll results indicate that the majority of the people who voted in our poll (71%) have been fans of the (A)D&D games for quite a few years, since the release of the original Baldur's Gate near the end of 1998.
The second large group of fans (18%) started with Baldur's Gate 2, so combined, the Baldur's Gate saga spawned almost 90% of the current fan base of D&D CRPGs... Very interesting.
Planescape: Torment was the first AD&D game for 4% of people, with the original Icewind Dale following closely with 3%.
The last (and newest) three games were (combined), the starting point for only 4% of poll participants.
Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Friday, November 29, 2002 - 17:13 CET by Z-Layrex
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
X-Packs: The one thing to remember is that there can never be too much of a good thing in this instance. If Floodgate releases a desert tileset, does that make the community-made Drylands tileset obsolete? Not at all, in my opinion. Each tileset has its own unique look and feel and, if I were making a desert-focused module, I'd probably want to include both and any other quality desert content that came available, regardless of source. Variety is good and the expansions just mean that much more variety.
Derek French, Assistant Producer
X-Packs:
Quote: Of course, or else no one would buy the expansion pack.
Sorry, but purchasing issues have nothing to do with it. If you connect to a server running an XP1 module and you don't have the XP, so your client crashes, wouldn't you prefer that we popped you an error message saying you are missing the resources?
Quote: Sigh. Just tell us that the Original Product will play on the XP. Of course, I know it is a given, but I would like to make sure.
Yes, XP installs will have no problems playing non-XP modules.
X-Pack Questions:
Quote: Will I need Undrentide to use XP2?
Most likely not, but it hasn't been finalized yet.
Quote: If I have undrentide, can I play multiplayer with people who DON'T have undrentide.
Only if the module that you are playing was not made on a version of NWN with XP1 installed.
Quote: If my character takes a new feat or skill from undrentide, can that character play on servers run by someone who DON'T have undrentide.
Theoretically yes, but again, we haven't reached that level of testing yet.
Quote: If I have undrentide, can I play modules made by people without undrentide?
Yes.
Quote: Am I correct with this statement: If I have undrentide and I make a module, people WITHOUT undrentide CANNOT play my module.
Correct. As soon as you save the module, it is flagged as requiring XP1 server and clients.
Quote: If I have undtrentide and I run a server using a module created by someone WITHOUT undrentide, can players without undrentide join my server?
Yes, because the module is flagged as only requiring original NWN.
Live Team Content: Actually, the only thing that I am grumpy about is my Live Team being overlooked on this. Yes, there is stuff comign out in the expansions (Q2 2003), but the Live Team still has a whole boat-load of stuff coming out in the upcoming months. Just you wait...
Witchworks & X-Packs: It will only use original NWN, as WW is coming out within the next month, and the XPs are many months away.
CD-Key:
Quote: However, as far as I know, my cd-key is registered on the bioware forums and on gamespy. Is there any way I can transfer that cd-key over to my friend's new account and use the new one in the collector's edition?
You CD Key is used to activate/verify your account on these forums, but it is NOT stored, nor associated with your account. Your CD Key is NOT over at GameSpy, either.
Patch 1.27:
Quote: I though the final patch was due out this week? I was really hoping that it would...
Yes, it was, but delayed by a few issues. It should be out Monday, based on the results of the Beta.
Expansion Pack: Also, in addition to the 2 expansions, there are still going to be features added by the Live Team as time goes on. Just wait to you read our Roadmap for the next few months that we should have out to the public in a few weeks.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Placeable Sounds & Missing Features:
1. The musical note indicates a positional sound. That is the sound will appear to be coming from that location. The die indicates a random positional sound. That is, the sound will appear to be coming from a location within the bounds indicated by the box around it. There is also a third one which is an area-wide sound, which means that the sound will appear to be coming from everywhere in the area.
2. You could ask the same question about anything that wasn't included like climbing, robes, horses: limits had to be set in order to deliver the game in a reasonable time.
EffectCurse(): Yeah, I remember that discussion. Originally, the identified checkbox was not tied to the properties of the item at all. This was causing confusion because in some cases magical items were immediately useable (ie not requiring identification) and in other cases items once identified didn't even have any special properties at all. We decided that it was best to enable the identified property only if there were special properties on the item. Otherwise, the item would not require identification. This avoids the player needlessly 'wasting' the cost of identification on mundane items. Yes, there are certain circumstances where module designers may have wanted that capability, but since it is still possible to achieve the same effect through other means (as described above), it was thought that this was the best solution.
Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant
X-Pack Tilesets: It is 3. Winter Rural, Ruins, and Desert. The discrepancy in the press release is due to some confusion with the Winter Rural tileset--some assumed it was just a touched-up Rural tileset, when in actuality it's an all-new set.
Level Cap In XP1: XP1 will not expand the level cap. It is meant as an adventure for new characters.
Screenshots: Okay, so it's a 5-company approval us, FloodGate, Infogrames, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast. Oh, and you can expect some HOT screenshots. Because I'm working on them! Coming soon from the man who brought you the amazing DM-Client/Minotaurs screenshot on the back of the NWN box, Shadows of Undrentide screenshots!
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
The New Guy (n00b!): Hello everyone, my name is Darcy Pajak, and I?m an Assistant Producer of Neverwinter Nights at BioWare. It?s great to finally post on these forums about our next big project. Of course I?m talking about the first expansion pack Shadows of Undrentide.
I joined BioWare from Electronic Arts (developers and publishers of tiny games like FIFA, and Need for Speed), where I have been in the interactive video game industry for over 7 years. In that time, I have worked on over 40 games for both the PC and consoles. I enjoy almost every type of video game, from FPS, to RTS, to, of course RPG?s. In fact, there is almost some redeeming quality found in every game I have played. (although, sometimes I have to look very hard to find it). I have played PnP Role playing games from the time I was 10 years old. (where, I would cry when my character was killed.).
As the Assistant Producer for NWN Shadows of Undrentide, my job is to coordinate the work between the talented people at FloodGate, including Paul Neurath (owner and Creative Director), Naomi Novik (Technical lead/ Designer), and Rick Ernst (Lead Designer). With Infogrames, Todd Hartwig, Producer at Infogrames, and of course our own Trent Oster (Project Director/ Producer) and the rest of the incredible NWN team, and make sure everyone has what they need to make a great game. We are including a lot of impressive additions; a grand adventure, new monsters to battle, three new tilesets to explore, and a whole host of other features that expand the world of Neverwinter.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that I?m constantly blown away by the imagination and ingenuity demonstrated by members of the Neverwinter Nights community. Many times I?ve seen something created by some talented member of the community and thought "that is really cool!" So I can honestly say that the community has been a source of inspiration for myself, everyone at FloodGate and BioWare in developing this title.
That being said, I find that because Todd, Paul, Rick, Naomi, and Trent are doing most of the work, I can focus on learning to drive on the icy roads and survive the gale force blizzards.
Send earmuffs.
Henchman: The multiple henchmen issue was and is being discussed constantly among the developers here. The basic concept of NWN is an adventurer who may, if they wish, take an extra hand to help them in their quest. (the classes weaker in combat can also have summoned creatures or familiars to protect them). There is also the multiplayer aspic of NWN which allows many users to get together and form their own party.
When making the decision of multiple henchmen going forward, a big factor will be if it adds value to the adventure. For example, (and don?t take this as a hint, or preview of what the story will be like in any expansion pack) If the story will be enhanced if the party has a Mage, Thief, and Cleric, because the adventure takes place in a trapped crypt, with billions of undead, led by a high level wizard then it would make sense that we support this. If the type and number of party members doesn't make any difference, then it doesn't make sense.
On top of that, we need to consider the technical issues, the possible problems they could create for the Original Campaign, and all currently existing user modules. As time goes by more information comes up and this can influence our decision. I just want to play through a great story, kill some monsters, and pick up some good treasure.
Neil Flynn, Programmer
Permanent Death: The No Permanent Death flag is to tell whether the creature will explode or not (chunking). To stop it from disappearing you still have to call SetIsDestroyable in its OnDeath script.
Witchwork Status Update
Posted Friday, November 29, 2002 - 14:13 CET by Mollusken
The Witchwork series of modules which are developed by BioWare for Neverwinter Nights have now changed name to "The Witch's Wake". Here's the rest of the latest status update.
We have some exciting news to relate: In preparation for the upcoming release of its first installment, Rob's module series has undergone a name change. "The Witchwork Series," our original working title, has now been formally renamed "The Witch's Wake." The renaming process took place with the consultation and input of the beta testers. While the title ultimately chosen was not one suggested by the beta testers, we have drawn a prizewinner from the list of contributors: Cuber, you can expect some *phat lewt* coming your way in the near future (and we won't even make you bash open a barrel to get at it)! In the meantime, work on the first installment is drawing to a close. You'll be playing "Witch Wake I: The Fields of Battle" soon.
Icewind Dale II Review at RPG Player
Posted Friday, November 29, 2002 - 14:11 CET by Mollusken
The italian site RPG Player has posted an english version of their Icewind Dale II review, and they gave the game a score of 83 out of 100. Here's an excerpt:
I must make a little comment: is Icewind Dale II a masterpiece? In my humble opinion it isn’t. In a masterpiece we search something that goes beyond what we’ve already seen, something that, for some aspects, tries to become the new point of reference undermining the “defeated” from the pedestal. Gothic has made it referring to npcs’ behavior and to the “vitality” of its world. Torment has made it promoting for the first time the narrative aspects, the npcs’ depth and dialogues. Morrowind has made it promoting freedom of movement beyond any limit. Neverwinter Nights is changing the role of multiplayer introducing the DM figure. The two Baldur’s Gate have given new lymph to the genre when nobody dared bet on crpg. Icewind Dale II, instead, doesn’t propose anything new. It simply improves some aspects of its predecessor. Black Isle has decided not to risk and has proposed us a game which is not new but cured in every little detail. The fact I finished the game without installing any patch proves it and this something that rarely happens..
Read the whole review here .
Neverwinter Nights Wins EMMA Award
Posted Friday, November 29, 2002 - 14:07 CET by Mollusken
The International Electronic Multimedia Awards foundation awarded Neverwinter Nights best online game of 2002.
Neverwinter Nights 1.27 Beta 3 Patch
Posted Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 16:08 CET by Mollusken
The third beta version of the 1.27 patch for Neverwinter Nights has been released. It can be downloaded here, and here are the release notes.
Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 15:58 CET by Mollusken
The Shadows of Undrentide expansion has now been officially announced, and a Shadows of Undrentide section has been added to the official Neverwinter Nights site. SoU forums have also been added to the official NWN forums.
Rats and dire rats will infest your computer with the upcoming 1.27 patch, but they can allready now infest your desktop on a new official wallpaper.
Last week community manager Jay Watamaniuk did a profile on LadyRolePlay, one of the top ranked players at the matching service Neverwinter Connections. In a second part of that profile we can now read about her expounds on multiplayer games, as well as a few tips on how to become a multiplayer gamer etc.
Neverwinter Nights Expansions
Posted Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 16:04 CET by Mollusken
BioWare will announce two new expansion packs for Neverwinter Nights tomorrow. The first one is called The Shadows of Undrentide, and it's being co-developed with FloodGate Entertainment. The second one, which is developed by BioWare, does not have a name yet. GameSpot has got two interviews with the developers of each of the expansions, with Paul Neurath and Rick Ernst from FloodGate Entertainment and Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka from BioWare. Here's a few of the questions from each of them.
Shadows of the Undrentide:
What does the title "Shadows of Undrentide" refer to?
Rick Ernst: In the Forgotten Realms there was once a nation of powerful wizards called Netheril. So great was Netherese magic that they lived in massive cities that would float through the air. Unchecked ambition destroyed their civilization and sent their cities crashing into the ground (doesn't it always?). Generations later the ruined cities are still filled with powerful magics and fell beasts. Undrentide is one of these cities.
The announcement of an official expansion to Neverwinter Nights comes as little surprise, since you've always stated your intentions to expand upon the core game. What are the biggest changes that players can expect from this expansion?
Paul Neurath: Well, we're really not trying to change the game so much as expand it. The initial Neverwinter Nights game covers a lot of ground, but even so, the Forgotten Realms is an amazingly rich fantasy world. Most everyone who's played Neverwinter Nights has a favorite monster, spell, or weapon that they'd like to see added to the game. So what we're doing with the Shadows of Undrentide expansion is adding a stack of new material and then building a new campaign to show it all off. The biggest additions would have to be the three new tilesets we've cooked up, a winter version of the rural tileset, plus a new desert and ruins tileset.
Second untitled expansion:
We weren't surprised by your announcement of the Shadows of Undrentide expansion for Neverwinter Nights. But we're a bit confused about why you would announce another, unnamed expansion at the same time. Can you enlighten us?
Ray Muzyka: Like our publisher Infogrames, at BioWare we have long-term plans to support our Neverwinter fan community with the BioWare Live/Community Team, and the two expansion packs we've announced are part of this plan. The first expansion pack is being developed in collaboration with another developer (FloodGate), and we have also been working on an expansion pack that is in development solely at BioWare, planned for release months after the FloodGate expansion. We wanted to let our fans know about both expansions at the same time because the features of both are very cool. We're excited about both expansions, and we wanted to let our fans know about the long-term plans for the franchise.
Will players be able to import their high-level Neverwinter Nights characters into the game, or will they start over with a new character in the expansion? Will the hireling system remain as is, or will players have control over more characters this time around? Will the character level cap be raised? What can we expect in the way of new skills, feats, or even character classes? What kind of new monsters will we be up against? What kind of new loot or new magic can we expect to run into?
GZ: The best way for us to answer this big bunch of questions with regard to XP2 is to say that the D&D 3rd Edition rules are exceptionally broad, with a huge amount of potential content that we can access in both the first and the second expansion packs. We're watching the various message boards and online polls on feats, classes, and skills, and we're choosing new content based both on the desire of the fans and the technical feasibility of the features. We've got some big plans we're putting into action with these two expansions that we'll detail further in the coming months.
A few specifics to mention include some of the improvements to the henchman system--we're working on improving henchman AI, as well as giving the player control of the henchman inventory. The first expansion pack will be similar to the original Neverwinter Nights where the player will have one henchman accompanying them on the journey, though we have an additional goal of making the henchman much more interactive, and we're exploring the possibility of having more than one henchman in the second expansion pack. BioWare's upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will feature an expanded party system, as will the new PC intellectual property we're currently working on, but not yet talking about.
With regard to the new monsters, they can best be described as "bigger and scarier!" As Ray mentions above, we are able to pull out all the stops in our expansions and sequels as the designers have greater skill and experience they can apply to creating new content. Not only will the monsters in this second expansion pack be bigger and cooler, but they will also be considerably smarter as we have plenty of time to design new and powerful AI systems for creatures and enemies to use.
Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Monday, November 25, 2002 - 23:14 CET by Veldrin
Chad Nicholas, Scriptor
Creating NPC's: All the necessary script functions to have a character join the party is still in. There are some issues that'll have to be worked around. For example, I'm not sure what would happen if there are already 6 party members. The code to remove another party member may not exist or it might cause the game to crash.
Banter would just be done via dialog scripts, which are in every IE game. There really isn't anything called a "banter engine" in the IE.
Site News - New Additions
Posted Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 21:42 CET by Sorcerer
Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books
Three new books have been added with this update. The first is The Bloody Eye (Dungeons & Dragons) in Miscellaneous Books subsection, and the second two are Winterheim (Ice Wall Trilogy) and The Players of Gilean (Tales from the War of Souls). Both of these can be found on page #2 of the Dragonlance Books subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate
An updated version of one of the BG+ToSC walkthroughs is available in the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2
A useful compilation of monster-battling tactics has been added to the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection, and an interesting character pack to the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2
In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, one of the walkthroughs has been updated, and a new one added.
Moving on to the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection. A link to the very informative spellcasting FAQ posted on the official message boards has been added here.
But the most interesting stuff can be found in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection, of course. Extremist & Quint have put together an unofficial fix for the slowdown bug some users have been experiencing in certain areas of the game, so grab it if you're plagued by this bug.
Next are two very nice mods sent in by Tioma. The first gives you ammo belts and bottomless bags (VERY requested stuff), and the second is an early version of his subraces pack.
The last new thing here is a character editing info pack with examples included.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights
A familiar replacement hack has been added to the Editors, Hacks & Tweaks subsection, and the spell bugfixes hack has been updated. In the Miscellanea subsection you can now find a link to the contents of the Collector's Edition of Neverwinter Nights, in case you haven't seen it yet.
The Toolset & Related subsection has been updated with a bit less stuff than usual, but there's quality instead of quantity available in this update.
In Subsection #1, 4 new tutorials have been added.
In Subsection #2, 4 new tilesets have been added, and one updated.
In Subsection #3 (Scripting Info), the latest version of NWN Lexicon is available for download, and in (Scripts), 1 new script has been added.
In Subsection #4, 4 new items have been added.
In Subsection #5, 13 creatures/creature packs were either added or updated.
In Subsection #6, 1 placeable has been added and 1 updated.
Lastly, in Subsection #7 you can find 5 various new additions.
Black Isle Hiring
Posted Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 21:09 CET by Mollusken
Black Isle is looking for a new console programmer, who must have experience with C/C++, game programming and Playstation 2 and/or Xbox programming.
NWN Collector's Edition
Posted Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 15:53 CET by Mollusken
BioWare have announced the Neverwinter Nights collector's edition, which will be available in North America on November 28 for about $79,99 US. Here's what the box will contain.
BioWare Picnic
Posted Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 15:48 CET by Mollusken
BioWare arranged a picnic for it's employees and their families. You can view a few pictures from the event here.
NWN Wins Game of the Year Award
Posted Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 15:34 CET by Z-Layrex
There is word on the official community site that NWN has been awarded Game of the Year by Games Magazine. This adds to the 38 other awards that you can check on this page.
NWN Patch 1.27 BETA #2
Posted Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 15:30 CET by Z-Layrex
Bioware have released the Second BETA version of the upcoming 1.27 patch for Neverwinter Nights. It is available as a manual download for those who are interested in helping test it and check out the new features. One of the nice new features of the 1.27 patch will be the Plot Wizard, which is an excellent tool to create virtually any kind of plot in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. Other new features include rats, new scripting functions and fixes to the ranged armour bug and ATI shiny water problem. There is no official word on when the final version will be ready.
Download it here.
Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 15:24 CET by Z-Layrex
Sydney Tang, Programmer
OnAcquireItem Event: When you start up the module with your character, the game runs the module's OnAcquireItem script. I'll explain the importance of this in a moment. After going through the tutorial, the Plot Wizard adds a line to the OnAcquireItem script that updates the player's journal and quest status when the player acquires each of the plot items. Tylertoo, I suspect that there is at least one Copper Necklace in the inventory of the character that you were playing the module with. Since acquiring the Copper Necklace is the condition required to reach the third journal entry, you got to that entry as soon as you entered the module with that character.
This is, admittedly, a mistake on our part when we were writing the tutorial. We should have told the reader to use a different, less common, preferably unique item, instead of the Copper Necklace. I'll make a note of this issue and hopefully we can update the documentation at some point in the future. For now, to verify that the problem was what I just said it was... try running the module with a freshly generated character or after removing the copper necklace(s) from your testing character. As a further note, another reason to avoid using common items as plot items is that not only can an entering player already have one, the default random treasure scripts may cause a player to find the "plot item" before the proper time. Again, this is something we should have explained better and which would be included if we update the documentation.
Derek French, Assistant Producer
Patch 1.27: Arg, yeah, I just unfubarred the patch file for this. Here is the changes from the Beta 1...
Beta2 Fixes
=-=-=-=-=-=
ClientChatLogging=1, will now log Creature and Object chat messages as well.
Plot Node Wizard Items step no longer skipped for villains that have an exchange conversation.
Added ability to take gold from player in the Plot Wizard.
Fixed the number of parameters handled internally for CastSpellAtLocation().
Fixed the crash when swapping out amor with a projectile attached to it.
Fixed a bug where Exchange conversations were being reloaded as Quest conversations if gold was exchanged but no items were.
Fixed a bug where repeatedly saving a plot instance would cause plot items in inventories to become duplicated.
Changed the caption in the "Add or Replace object" confirmation dialog from "Error" to "Confirmation".
Fixed villain flag not being unset when a cast member is no longer being used as a villain.
Fixed conversation count on cast members being incremented when saving a plot node that already used that cast member in a conversation.
Attempt to restore user's original sound settings, including EAX, on exitting toolset. This should fix the bug where viewing an area with lots of echo and reverb then closing the toolset would cause all sounds in Windows and other non-EAX games to have the echo and reverb.
Fixed multiple BadStrRef entries in character creation voice set selection.
updated some resources for Rats and Dire Rats
Patch 1.27 Update:
UPDATE
We have found and fixed the armour swapout with arrows crash.
We have also fixed 2 issues with the Plot Wizard.
We are tracking down one new crash, so we are not done yet.
French and German localization is done, so we will have French and German betas coming later this week.
There will be a 1.27 Beta 2 coming this week.
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
Patch Process: The patches are very not part of the Wednesday process as they are tested by folks outside the walls of BioWare where we have limited influence on when they will be ready. We will certainly not hold a patch, however, that happens to arrive in our hands on a Tuesday or some such. So when the patch arrives in it's final form we put it up.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Doors: Tileset specific doors are doors that are unique to a specific feature or group in the current tileset. Universal doors can appear in standard doorways. This has a few interesting side-effects. In the Rural tileset, for example, paint down a Wall1Gate feature. The door that is spawned in automatically, is a tileset specific door. Paint down an Inn. Drag the door that spawned in with the Wall1Gate into the doorway on the building. See how the appearance of the door changed to a that of a standard door? Delete the door from the Inn's doorway and paint a stone door from the palette in its place. Now drag that door into the Wall1Gate. Again, the appearance changed.
Why is this happening? It's because universal doors will take on the appearance of the appropriate tileset specific door if it is placed into a non-standard doorway. (The reverse is also true.) Note that even though the door's appearance has changed, none of the other properties of the door have been affected.
Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 13:03 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Icewind Dale II?
(353 votes total)
8 (106) 30%
9 (93) 26%
10 (best) (68) 19%
7 (42) 12%
6 (22) 6%
5 (9) 3%
1 (worst) (7) 2%
3 (3) 1%
4 (2) 1%
2 (1) 0%
Well, the results pretty much speak for themselves, as with Neverwinter Nights. The majority of those who voted (30%) rated Icewind Dale II 8 out of 10.
26% of people who voted awarded Icewind Dale II 9 out of 10.
10 out of 10 was given to Icewind Dale II by 19% of poll participants. After this, the scores go down rapidly. 12% of people thought IWD2 deserves a 7 out of 10 rating, and all subsequent ratings of the game (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) combined were voted for by 13% of poll participants.
The average combined rating of all who voted is 8,1 or 81%. For comparison, Neverwinter Nights received a rating of 8,4 when we ran a rating poll like this for it.
Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, November 21, 2002 - 21:21 CET by Mollusken
Here's another list of wednesday treats from BioWare.
Witchwork Status Update
Posted Wednesday, November 20, 2002 - 16:16 CET by Mollusken
Here's the latest update from the developers of the Witchwork module series.
The patch 1.27 beta is now publicly available and Witchwork progress has stepped up as a result. Rob's entered 'crunch mode' which means that work on the module continues into the evenings and weekends. Experience is being distributed throughout the entire module now and the beta testers are narrowing their focus to class testing and balancing issues now that the bulk of the critical bugs and plot holes have been addressed. New subquests are still being added on an almost daily basis to further develop the flavor of the module and broaden the gameplay.
Icewind Dale II Giveaway
Posted Wednesday, November 20, 2002 - 16:14 CET by Mollusken
Worthplaying is giving away 10 copies of Icewind Dale II, so if you still haven't got a copy all you have to do is to sign up at their site.
Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 2:47 CET by Veldrin
Damien Foletto, Junior Designer
Cut Scenes Forcing Characters To Do Things: My thinking with this cut scene was to emulate your party "stumbling" in on the conflict between the cleric and the lich. Since it was important that the player pick up on the holy water/purification thing, the cut scene seemed the way to go. Scripted cut scenes are kinda tough to do in the IE engine game without leadding the player by the hand, and impossible to script having your summons go ahead of you in the force walk (no way to predict how many summons you have, etc.). I thought the scene was scripted so your party was not that close to the lich when the cut scene ended; is that not the case (I remember it was the case when I played it, I hope it did not change)?
The Sherincal and Guthma cut scene was in a small, confined place. The lich and cleric cut scene was out in the open. I admit it probably was not the best place to put a forced cut scene like that, though. It would have worked better in a small, pocket area with a narrow entrance and not reveal your presence. That way it could be more like the Sherincal and Guthma sequence. Well, live and learn. Sorry if it messed up the fun factor.
J.E Sawyer, Lead Designer
Changing Deity Domains: I don't think the domains are really defined as such; clerics of any given deity simply get two special powers and two domain spells per spell level they can cast. The spells are easy to modify; they are defined in the same list as the rest of the spells. As for the powers, I'm not sure. Perhaps Danien knows.
Editing Feats: Feats are essentially stored similarly to how proficiencies were stored in other IE games (including having multiple ranks). Adding support for new feats is more difficult.
Danien Chee, Designer
Changing Deity Domains: I don't think it can be done as some of the stuff is hard coded (for validation checks, etc). As Josh mentioned, you can switch spells or even give more spells for each domain but you can't really add another domain or change their abilities.
The same goes for paladins, monks, and specialist wizards.
Simulating A Domain Via Scripting: You could but the "effects & abilities" of the domain would only be applied when the script is running. There are certain timing issues in the IE (which make is so difficult to work with) where certain effects are wiped off the character and reapplied at different times. This could make the abilities "disappear" for small periods of time.
Inon Zur Interview at DB Forge
Posted Monday, November 18, 2002 - 17:27 CET by Mollusken
The Dragon's Breath Forge has got a few questions with Inon Zur, the composer of the music in Icewind Dale II. You can get all the questions and answers here.
What was your background as a gamer, if any?
I almost don’t have any background as an avid gamer, although I was always attracted to video games. I just never find the time and I appreciate whoever can find the time to play these games I composed music for. I think that games are a really great form of entertainment. I came from the movie/TV area and the reason why I was attracted to games was that here you are not locked to a picture so the composition is more pure music oriented rather than picture dictated. Nevertheless I feel that my dramatic skills I developed throughout the years of composing to moving picture and my experience as a film composer are definitely a big help in composing for games. I have learnt how to create the right mood and dramatic effects and it works great in games.
Could you outline how the discussion with the design team went for a "typical" track for Icewind Dale II?
Most of the discussions I had with the developers came before I started the actual composing. Once we developed and decided on a musical concept usually there are not many discussions thereafter. However, in the instruction lead sheet they give me they write everything in their mind that could affect my composing decisions. After they listen to a cue they might submit some fixes based on how they imagine the music should be.
Neverwinter Nights 1.27 Beta Patch
Posted Monday, November 18, 2002 - 13:56 CET by Mollusken
BioWare have released the beta version of the next Neverwinter Nights patch, and you can download it here. Here's the release notes.
Site News - New Additions *updated/IWD2*
Posted Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 23:12 CET by Sorcerer
Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books
A few new books about to be released in the upcoming months have been added here. In the Forgotten Realms Books subsection (page #1) you can find Windwalker (Starlight & Shadows), and on page #2, Lord of the Stormweather (Sembia).
On page #2 of the Dragonlance Books subsection, Bertrem's Guide to The War of Souls, Vol. 2 has been added. Finally, in the Miscellaneous Books subsection, A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire) has been added.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate
There is a new editor dubbed Sword Coast Keeper you can check out in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2
In the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection, a fan-submitted work called Secrets of Journals has been updated.
There are new additions in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection as well. In Subsection #6 you can download a new evil sorcerer voice pack, and in Subsection #7 two new mods.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2*
In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, one of the walkthroughs has been updated, and a brand new one added.
Moving on to the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection. Here the character development guide has been updated, and likewise the item code quick reference guide.
Finally, in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection you can download a very cool pack of converted BG2 portraits and a mod which gives you more feats and skills per level.
*Additionally, there are four new soundsets available here: Haer'Dalis, Viconia, Yoshimo and Sarevok.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights
An exhaustive new ranger character guide and Marrok's items reference can be found in the Tips, Tricks and Hints subsection.
One new module has been added to the Modules subsection.
The Toolset & Related subsection has been updated with dozens of new additions, as usual.
In Subsection #1, seven new tutorials have been added.
In Subsection #2, 17 new tilesets have been added, and two updated.
In Subsection #3 (Scripts), 12 new scripts have been added.
In Subsection #4, 14 new items or item packs have been added.
In Subsection #5, 47 new creatures were either added or updated.
In Subsection #6, 15 placeables were added.
Lastly, in Subsection #7 you can find 9 various new additions.
Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 12:22 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: In CRPGs, do you prefer playing pure magic-users (wizards, clerics...), pure fighter-types (fighters, rogues...), or a bit of both?
(386 votes total)
Characters that can fight as well as use magic (146) 38%
Pure fighter-types (122) 32%
Pure magic-users (118) 30%
Judging by the results of this poll, the majority of people who voted (38%) prefer to play characters that can fight as well as use magic, as opposed to pure fighter or magic-user classes.
More interesting is the fact that the results for the separate entries of pure fighter-types and pure magic-users got almost the same number of votes, with pure fighter-types leading by a small amount at 32% of votes.
Short Downtime Notice
Posted Friday, November 15, 2002 - 22:22 CET by Sorcerer
The network our server is on will be performing emergency fiber maintenance today between 3-6 PM CST.
We expect a brief outage while traffic re-routes.
Thank you for your patience.
Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Friday, November 15, 2002 - 18:36 CET by Mollusken
Another Wednesday of updates from BioWare, and here's the new stuff.
Korean NWN LAN
Posted Friday, November 15, 2002 - 18:31 CET by Mollusken
While on a visit to Korea, one of BioWare's two joint CEOs Ray Muzyka was invited to a Neverwinter Nights LAN party held by the Asgard NWN clan. You can view a few pictures from the party here.
Infogrames Faces Nasdaq Delisting
Posted Friday, November 15, 2002 - 18:29 CET by Mollusken
I've previously reported that Interplay were going off the Nasdaq lists, and GameSpyDaily reports that Infogrames might join them. The Infogrames stocks failed to stay above $3 for 30 consecutive days, and if they can't keep them above that price for 10 consecutive days before January 15th they will be delisted.
Unofficial Collector's Edition Info
Posted Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 17:16 CET by Z-Layrex
Neverwinter Vault have just received news from TJ and Lee, both members of the Korean clan Asgard, concerning the collector's edition of NWN. According to their sources, it will be coming out November 26th (22nd in Korea) and will include the following:
-Neverwinter Nights' Game CDs
-Neverwinter Nights' Artbook (120 pages) --- they say the quality of art is far greater than warcraft 3 artbook
-Neverwinter Nights' T-shirt (commemorative of 2002 E3)
-Neverwinter Nights' Official Soundtrack by Jeremy Soule
-Neverwinter Nights' manual
-Large Aribeth Poster
-Mouse pad with map of Neverwinter
Of course, it's important to note that since no official statement has been made, the contents could possibly change, but they've been pretty reliable to date.
Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 21:41 CET by Veldrin
Danien Chee, Designer
Adding Spells To A Class: LISTSPLL.2DA contains a list of all the spells in the game. The 7 columns in the middle specify the level at which the different classes receive the spell resref listed in column 8. 0 indicates the class does not receive the spell.
DO NOT change column 1 (IDs and order) or you will invalidate your existing save games.
Also note that any existing characters that are already at or beyond the level for the spell will not get the new spell until the next level up which grants spells of that level. And to clarify, the level we are talking about is Spell Level, not character level.
Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 20:40 CET by Z-Layrex
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Decompiling Modules: Modules (.mod), Saved Games (.sav), Hak Packs (.hak) and Export files (.erf) all use the same (Encapsulated Resource File) format. I believe several people have written their own utilities that manipulate data stored in this form.
More:
The .bic file format was not included in my original list because it is definitely _not_ the same as the encapsulated resource file format. Nevertheless, .mod, .sav, .hak, and .erf files all use the same file format.
And More:
It's really not up to me to decide whether or not I can release details of this file format on these forums. I'll see what we can do on Tuesday though.
Icewind Dale II Reviews
Posted Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 19:19 CET by Mollusken
Gameraiders (95/100)
Black Isle has had plenty of experience creating fun RPG experiences for gamers and Icewind Dale II is no different. This game has the blood; sweat and tears of the development team and when you play it you can see the hours they put in developing a game that is worthwhile. If you play the game you will find an immensely engaging role-playing game that will keep you busy for countless hours with its gigantic single-player campaign plus the game has a huge multiplayer component that you have to play. So don’t just sit there reading this review, get out there and get this game.
RPG Codex (no score given)
The resolution of this review is a balanced one; it's not for you if you prefer turn-based games, but if you enjoyed the Baldur's Gate series and the original game, you'll probably love Icewind Dale II, and if you're looking for a game set in a fantasy background with a nice storyline, you'll definitely prefer this over the rather lacklustre Neverwinter Nights. Be warned, however, Planescape: Torment fans, this isn't the sequel to Torment that you were hoping for... it isn't Fallout, either, but you already knew that. However, as much as I enjoy the setting of the Forgotten Realms, I do feel that it is a tired setting. It would be nice to see a game set in an original setting of Black Isle Studios' own creation in the future.
Interview with Inon Zur at GIN
Posted Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 15:37 CET by Z-Layrex
Gaming Industry News has posted an interview with Inon Zur, the composer of the Icewind Dale II soundtrack and countless others. Here's a snip:
GiN: Have you always been interested in music? Is working in music more of a childhood dream for you, or did you find your talent later in life?
Zur: I remember when I was 3 years old walking with my mother through the fields of our little village in Israel. She would sing to me and was trying to harmonize, sing a counter melody. Music was always something I was overtly aware of and later on understood that it was a very strong part of me. At the age of 8 I started playing piano and when I was 10 I started to take music composition and theory lessons. By the age of 18 I had written many short compositions for piano, songs and some small chamber music. Yes, music was in me from the beginning.
You can read the entire interview here.
Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, November 9, 2002 - 18:18 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Overall, which D&D game do you like better, Icewind Dale II or Neverwinter Nights?
(347 votes total)
Icewind Dale II (194) 56%
Neverwinter Nights (96) 28%
Both equally (57) 16%
Well, a poll like this certainly makes you think, and its results even more so.
The overwhelming majority of those who voted (56%) have picked Icewind Dale II over Neverwinter Nights as the game they like better overall. Whether this is due to our dedication to the departing Infinity Engine and the good memories playing a new game made with it brought back, or simply due to the fact that it is a good game, is up for debate. In my opinion, however, the end result is a very appealing combination of both which makes Icewind Dale II so popular.
Rated overall, Neverwinter Nights got half less votes than Icewind Dale II (28%). Being a radical change from the Infinity Engine games we have been used to in the past, it obviously did not appeal very much to most of the people who voted in our poll. The fact that the official Neverwinter Nights campaign is hardly on par with the stories of previous Infinity Engine CRPGs most of us are used to, the lack of a party, and the general feeling of not really being much of a hero are just some of the more obvious reasons for this, in my opinion.
Finally, 16% of poll participants liked both games equally, which is quite interesting, considering that the games share very little in common.
Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Saturday, November 9, 2002 - 0:53 CET by Z-Layrex
David Gaider, Designer
Robes: We're well-aware that this is a popular request. Considering the inherent problems with implementing cloaks and robes... namely clipping as well as the fact that the engine doesn't support layering (you have noticed that helmets replace the head model instead of layering on top of it, right? This isn't a facet of the engine one can change with a wave of the wand and a bippity-boppity-boo)... it's not a small task, so implementation of all or part of this request depends largely on when it can be fit into the appropriate future project. But, by all means, don't stop requesting it. That's what the forums are here for.
Robes:
Quote: An example model would be good but if the engine were modified to allow a robe type animation that over-rode the body except for hands and feet
See, this is the problem I have with most peoples' comments on robes... they say things like 'if the engine were modified' without realizing the true extent of what they're asking. Not that I don't believe your request to be earnest, I'm just pointing this out. No modification to the engine is minor... and replacing the affected body parts with robe-type 'armor' was one of the first things attempted. The results were not impressive, as I understand it. Having NPC's with robes is not a problem... you simply create the model with the robe in existence. Done. Having a robe that a PC can put on, however, will remain a problem. I don't know the intricacies of everything that's involved (I'm not an artist), so while I can quote various things like 'clipping' and 'lack of layering in the engine' as problems, I don't know how much each of these consists as an actual obstacle. In the end, I suppose it's a matter of how much time do we actually want to spend solving this head-ache... as opposed to spending that time doing other things that we already know we can do. There are a lot of people on these boards who seem to think that cloaks and robes are a really high priority... but I can guarantee you that this is a situation of them not knowing what they're asking for.
More:
I think I understand what you're saying, but 'switching out' the body of a PC to an NPC model while leaving the head in place isn't something that can currently be done (I think, anyway). We're talking about altering the engine, again, and I have no idea personally of what would be involved with that. Basic question is: would an expansion team want to go so far as actually modifying the base engine to include robes? ...Or would they find their time better off spent elsewhere? My point is that while someone may say 'do the robes!' anyway, even knowing the above, they don't realize exactly what they're asking for... or the number of things they would be giving up that would cost comparatively the same amount of work. It's like the little laugh I always get when I see a petition thread on these boards asking "Do you want X in NWN?" Really the question should be "What would you give up in order to have X in NWN?" It's very easy to say "yes, I want this" and "yes, I think this is important" ...but in the end we're the ones who have to weigh the effort involved with the total time and resources we have allotted for the project, not the fan. The fan just wants it done. I suspect that, insofar as PC's go, we may very well see cloaks... but I'm not so sure on the robes part.
And More:
Quote: There are certain things the community can create(monsters,placebles,etc etc) and there are certain things the community cant create(robes for 1) wouldnt an expansion be better dealt with along these lines leave us to build the new monsters,,,and u can do the robes,,,8)
That sounds reasonable on the surface, but we really can't approach an expansion with the idea in mind that the custom content community can or should fill in the gaps with what we're providing. If an expansion is going to be done, we *have* to provide the bulk stuff like new monsters, new tilesets and so forth... we couldn't put aside stuff like that in favor of high-workload projects like robes. That would be wishful thinking. Extra stuff like robes has to come out of the time that isn't spent producing the "bullet point" features that would sell an expansion. As far as a GetAppearance/SetAppearance command goes, I assume that such a thing could be done. How does this enable you to create robes, however? Setting the Appearance for a creature determines which model it uses, right? You're still going to have the problem of the proper PC head being needed, aren't you?
Plot Wizard:
Quote: More crap by BIO. They shouldn't waste our time.
As someone who has used the wizard, I would have to disagree. It's of great use to neophytes and allows more advanced users the ability to create complex plots much more quickly by building upon the provided framework and dialogue.I'd say that that constitutes it not being "crap", even if not every single person chooses to use it.
Robes:
Quote: There are certain things the community can create(monsters,placebles,etc etc)
and there are certain things the community cant create(robes for 1)wouldnt an expansion be better dealt with along these lines leave us to build the new monsters,,,and u can do the robes,,,8)
That sounds reasonable on the surface, but we really can't approach an expansion with the idea in mind that the custom content community can or should fill in the gaps with what we're providing. If an expansion is going to be done, we *have* to provide the bulk stuff like new monsters, new tilesets and so forth... we couldn't put aside stuff like that in favor of high-workload projects like robes. That would be wishful thinking. Extra stuff like robes has to come out of the time that isn't spent producing the "bullet point" features that would sell an expansion. As far as a GetAppearance/SetAppearance command goes, I assume that such a thing could be done. How does this enable you to create robes, however? Setting the Appearance for a creature determines which model it uses, right? You're still going to have the problem of the proper PC head being needed, aren't you?
More:
Gay Russian circus clown. Right. Well, gee, that's helpful. Haven't heard that one before. I can also unequivocably say that there will *never* be an expansion that devotes itself either entirely or mostly towards cloaks and robes or similar. Be reasonable and think that through for a moment. While there might be some people on this board who say that it's the *most* important thing to them and that they would buy an expansion that included only that, people on this board are not representative of the average purchaser of the game. The people on this board are the hardcore players. Do you really think that we could even conceivably put out something like the "Cloaks & Robes Expansion!" and charge $20-$30 for it? How many NWN players do you think would actually pick that up? Anyway... I don't know enough about the specific problems with layering and the engine, so I can't carry on this discussion much further. Thanks for the input.
And More:
Quote: Though this post rapidly declined (not that I didn't help it, mind you) please do consider the request towards some sort of set/get apperance function in the scripts. This would be very useful to many of us.
I actually steered Brent towards this thread and he is discussing some of the ideas brought up with the programmers. He mentioned that the programmers found holes in these ideas (nothing specific, tho) but that the whole robe technology issue is still being discussed.
Guess:
Quote: An OnEquip and OnUnEquip would be nice as well for cursed items and such...
Adding more module-level events, such as these, is already in the vague planning stages. When we'll see them I'm not sure, but we know we want them in eventually.
Tralalala:
I think I can boil down what Papermonk is saying even further.
Does Bioware know that having cloaks and robes would make for better-looking characters?
Yes, of course. We stand behind the choices we made for the way the characters were animated, even if that makes certain things harder to do... it made other important things much easier. We never said we wouldn't try.
Does Bioware know that there are people who would really like having extra character options to look at?
Yes, of course. The topic gets put up repeatedly. Just because something is wanted and easily imagined, however, does not make it easily do-able... not with *this* iteration of the engine, anyway. Again, however, that doesn't mean we won't try.
Will Bioware try?
We may, in the end, try our best... we know it's a popular request. But there are plenty of other things that are needed in the game that are more important than extra clothing options. You can try to convince us otherwise, but it's not really going to wash. Everyone's passionate about something, and this is one of those things... there's a *lot* of stuff that would be cool to include. Like I said, however, there's also cold, hard, reality to consider and we can't ignore that. The cold, hard, fact may simply end up being that robes on PC's are not realistically possible in this engine without major re-tooling... and performing a major re-tooling strikes me as unlikely solely for the sake of robes. But the issue is not dead, and we will try. My original point, and Papermonk's salient one, is that some people (not all) ask for this feature as if it is both easy to implement and a given, really... that this isn't an RPG without it... and both of those just aren't true.
Robes:
Quote: 3. Bioware DID do the research, and discovered it was less of a priority than other things.
Although I wasn't part of the actual process of setting up the animation part of the engine, I'd have to say #3 is it. The original question is telling. Why didn't we set up an animation system that could do robes? We weren't asking ourselves that question. We weren't thinking "Hmmm... how can we set up an animation system that can properly render cloth and robes?" The priority was setting up a system that could easily put together PC's of various races, genders and armor types in a simple fashion that didn't stretch the graphics card. Why *this* particular animation method was chosen, I can't really say. I imagine it has its advantages, however. If we were to do another engine now, with the min specs being higher, maybe it would be different... maybe we would be looking at having deformable meshes right from the beginning and include them as an integral part of the animation engine.
New Spells:
Quote: Hey David, does bioware plan on adding more spells in the expansion?
I don't see why not. As far as effort required versus impact goes, new spells are pretty much a no-brainer, aren't they?
Plot Wizard: The dialogue that the plot wizard uses is not exactly generic. It's not a character who says "Hi! My name is Plot Giver and I would like you to fetch a [insert name of item here] for me!"
They are full dialogues which tend to go beyond their call, allowing for things like telling rumors or giving directions around the town. These extra things can be deleted, after all. Now it's true that some people might choose to leave those dialogues as is and not change them... in which case the worst situation you could have is you'd be running into characters who sound awwwfffullly familiar. Not sure why someone would do that. I doubt many people pound out a module just for the sake of pounding one out. We can't stop people from not altering the dialogue though, but I rather suspect that most people will.
The plot wizard will help those who are a bit more experienced, though, big-time. I can say that from personal experience. It's a LOT easier to go in and add unique dialogue to an already-created structure than it is to go through the tedium of creating that initial "Hello? Who are you?" structure yet one more time. I didn't have the plot wizard back when the OC was made, but we did have the templates to try out manually. In the brothel in Luskan at the end of Chapter 2, both Erb Jansen and Yvette are based on the exact same fetch quest template. Can you tell? Pull them out and take a look... both are quality dialogues that were put together very quickly. Far more quickly than if I had to do both from scratch, and I don't think any quality on those dialogues was lost (and I'm not talking about the OC as a whole, for those of you who must constantly interject every time it's mentioned). So while any tool can be ultimately misused if not used as instructed, and that will happen, I don't think it's indicative of an oncoming epidemic... and will prove very useful to most.
More:
Quote: Hmmm...I think we'll see a lot of duplication, and canned stories myself.
You may be right. But poor writing and/or a lack of imagination are not problems that are specific to the Plot Wizard. If someone doesn't have the imagination or impetus to change the dialogue involved, their module probably won't be much better overall with the Plot Wizard than it would have been without it, I suspect. It'll just have quests that work.
And Even More:
I will point out that a module builder can very easily go into the dialogues created by these wizards afterwards and edit them to your heart's content to make then as non-generic as you please.Fetch-and-retrieve, for instance, just involves getting a specified item and bringing it back to the plot-giver NPC. The number of variations that can be applied to this, especially if you're willing to add onto the existing dialogue, is huge... basically the plot wizard just creates the framework for you so you don't have to worry about the tedium of setting up the basic scripts and conversation structure and can focus instead on all the details. Drawback? For someone that is not very familiar with scripts and/or the conversation editor, altering the basic structure of a quest (such as a fetch-and-retrieve quest requiring two items instead of just one) will be difficult. But someone with that level of experience would likely not have gotten this far to begin with... for them, it's a pre-fab that allows them more versatility then they began with. For people who *can* alter the basic structure, it's a god-send, believe me.
Derek French, Assistant Producer
The Rats Are Coming! Run For The Hills!: OK, we will give you rats.
New Things:
Quote: The things that should be easy to implement in a patch...
Sorry, but I must caution you against making statements like this. You would be shocked at the number of things that are in no way simple or easy to impliment.
Quote:
Get/SetIsStolen()
Get/SetIsDroppable()
The 'Get' portion of these two are in, and will be in the next patch. The 'Set' idea is not really possible at this time.
// Returns true if item is stolen
// - oItem: item to query
int GetStolenFlag(object oItem);
// Return true if item can be dropped
// - oItem: item to query
int GetDroppableFlag(object oItem);
// Returns true if placeable object can be used
int GetUseableFlag();
Quote: Get/SetIsStealable() no chance of being pickpocketed
Interesting. I will look into the Get, but again, the Set isn't really possible.
Quote:
SetDeity()
SetSubRace()
I doubt these will ever happen, but I will look into it. They are only supposed to be part of end-user character creation, but I do acknowledge their usefullness.
Quote: z-axis positioning of objects in the editor
Not really possible as between both the game and the Toolset, they will try to slam items and creatures to the ground. This is only sorta possible for placeables.
Quote: A large 100% weightless "container" that the PC could not see or access (well maybe see) in which the developers can place all kinds of persistant tokens and/or variables about the character. No chance of being pickpocketed or affected by the normal game, only script. Maybe making a "store" that stays with the player when he saves instead of saving in game. This could be useful for in game "Player Vaults" also since its actually still on the character and not in the mod.
Interesting, but I think we have a better idea on this... stay tuned.
Neil Flynn, Programmer
Plot Wizard:
Quote: Hmmm, now the question is, do I continue struggling with the mod I have recently started or do I wait for an undisclosed amount of time for the plot wizard? Think I will progress with what I am doing and then try the plot wizard and see how it differs.
The 1.27 patch will open all previous modules, and the plot wizard will be available in them. There is no need to start from scratch in 1.27. If you wanted to prepare for 1.27, create your areas and get the stories fleshed out.
Who is involved?
What is invoved?
What are the steps in the story?
...
You can build it as you go, but like anything, it is fastest if you already have a plan.
Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Friday, November 8, 2002 - 18:05 CET by Veldrin
J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer
Drow Don't Worship Human Gods!: Yeah, the next thing you know, people will want to make drow rangers who worship Mielikki. It's not like dark elves can track anything over rock in the Underdark. And Mielikki is the goddess of the forest. Do dark elves have any forests (other than mushroom forests filled with myconids)? No. Ergo, it is completely unthinkable that a dark elf could become a ranger or worship Mielikki, much less both.
Sorry, but if we had three human, three elven, three dwarven, three gnome, and three halfling deities, that's still fifteen deities. And it doesn't cover distinctions between drow and surface elves, etc. I'll try to come up with a "fair" list here:
Human:
* Lathander (NG)
* Tempus (CN)
* Bane (LE)
Elven:
* Corellon (CG)
* Lolth (for drow) (CE)
* Rillifane (for wild elves) (CN)
Dwarven:
* Moradin (LG)
* Dumathoin (for gold dwarves -- I guess) (N)
* Laduguer (for duergar) (LE)
Gnome:
* Garl Glittergold (NG)
* Callarduran (for svirfneblin) (N)
* Urdlen (CE)
Halfling:
* Arvoreen (LG)
* Brandobaris (N)
* Urogalan (LN)
That's fifteen deities -- six more than were actually implemented in the game. On top of that, these choices leave slim pickins within races. Instead of having nine fairly race-friendly options to pick from, humans get three, and the other races have, at most, six. Of course, their alignment will also limit this further. Want to play a chaotic evil halfling cleric? Too bad, jack, you just can't; there aren't any deities within a step of CE in the human or halfling pantheons. How about a lawful neutral elven cleric? Nope. Just can't do it.
This also doesn't address orc deities. You could pick any three, I suppose -- Gruumsh, Ineval, and Luthic. But then that makes eighteen, double the number of deities that were implemented in the game. That would be twice the number of special powers to implement, and twice the number of domain spell lists to create.
I know that the limitations can be frustrating, but the nine we picked cover all alignments, and are open enough demi-human races that it is at least possible that the deity would allow clerics from those races.
Chad Nicholas, Scripter
Creating New Domains: Extra domains cannot be created, but altering the name is as easy as finding the string reference used to display the domain name and editing it. I'm not sure if Near Infinity can do that or not.
Importing Spells From Other Games: Whether or not a spell can be brought in from another game or not will have to be looked at on a spell by spell basis. I don't believe any of the code for Breach or Time Stop is in IwD2. I'm not sure about Mantle. What did that one do?
Change Favored Class and Add New Races: I asked the programmer who wrote the code for both of those functions and both are hard coded. Sorry.
Gary Gygax Interview at Gamasutra
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 21:48 CET by Mollusken
Gary Gygax is the creator of the original Dungeons and Dragons RPG rules, and at Gamasutra he answers a few questions from Ion Storm project director Harvey Smith. The questions are related to both normal RPGs and CRPGs, and you will probably have to register at Gamasutra to read the interview (but it's free).
As a game designer, what do you think of the WotC D20 mechanics? I've played 3rd Edition D&D since it came out, and I've picked up the new D20 Call of Cthulhu and the espionage game Spycraft, as well. (I was a fan of the original CoC and the TSR espionage game Top Secret years ago...) Personally, I consider D20 an amazing accomplishment. What's your opinion?
No question that the D20 system is well written and very tight considering all of the mass of detail contained therein. That makes it a bear to design for, nearly impossible to vary from the massive framework of the system. The D20 OGL is a very clever move too, as it provides support for the core system, brings in more players to it, and expands the fantasy base into other fantasy environments as well as into whole new genres.
After 30 years of role-playing gaming, however, I find that the system is too rules oriented for my personal taste, too centered on combat as well, so I will play it, but I do not enjoy DM'ing it--although I still love to DM for original D&D or AD&D.
RPG's often split people into several camps, sometimes polarized between those players more interested in interactive storytelling and those players more interested in killing monsters and collecting treasure. There're also people who play for the interesting tactical challenges, seeing the game as an extended board game. Then, of course, there are those of us who enjoy all three. Have you had the chance to play the LA Online RPG yet? (Is it stable enough yet?) How do you see the game environment shaping up? How heavily does it cater to each of the player types described above?
Insightful, that question, and allow me comment on it a bit before answering.
I do not, and I stress NOT, believe that the RPG is "storytelling" in the way that is usually presented. If there is a story to be told, it comes from the interaction of all participants, not merely the Game Master--who should not a "Storyteller" but a narrator and co-player! The players are not acting out roles designed for them by the GM, they are acting in character to create the story, and that tale is told as the game unfolds, and as directed by their actions, with random factors that even the GM can't predict possibly altering the course of things. Storytelling is what novelists, screenwriters, and playwrights do. It has little or no connection to the RPG, which differs in all aspects from the entertainment forms such authors create for.....
Get the whole interview at Gamasutra.
BioWare Airhockey Table Arrives at New Home
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 21:18 CET by Mollusken
The signed airhockey table, which was auctioned off by BioWare a few months ago, has now arrived at its new owner in Georgia, USA. The hockey table and the 2 signed copies of Neverwinter Nights which were also sold, brought in 12,000 CND to the BioWare Kids Fund, a charity project for sick kids at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. You'll find the whole article here, and here's an excerpt from it.
This brought a smile to the new and proud owner, Joe, over in Georgia. After all this time, chatting back and forth, emails, paperwork and everything else, he finally would get to see and take home a personally autographed air hockey table, and a little bit of Canada. I sent an email to Joe, to let him know, and he was pretty pleased to hear that it was on its way. A few days went by and then finally I received an email from Joe saying that his air hockey table had arrived. He took a few photos to commemorate the moment, and as you can see he looks pleased as punch! Whew, Joe received his air hockey table.
NWN Witchwork Interview at HomeLan Fed
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 20:53 CET by Mollusken
BioWare Live Team designers Derek French and Rob Bartel and community manager Jay Watamaniuk answers a few questions about the Witchwork module series, which will be released later this month.
How is the beta testing coming along and what has the response been from the testers to the module?
It's gotten to the point where I can't imagine developing the series without these guys. The testers have been phenomenal and have done a great job of patiently slogging through the module again and again, documenting bugs and making suggestions about how they think things should be. It's not easy work but they know that I'm taking their comments, criticisms, and ideas very seriously. As for their overall response to the module and where it's headed, they've been overwhelmingly positive. Going into the beta, I had just assumed that someone out of the 300+ beta testers would be posting a "this module sucks, I'm going home" message. After all, you can't please everyone, right? Well, for whatever reason, that post hasn't come. Everyone seems genuinely excited about the module and, provided I can clean up the bugs, they're pretty convinced that it's going to be well-received by the fan community.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the storyline for Witchwork?
Rob Bartel - It's a much darker storyline, perhaps more in keeping with what we did for Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. The game starts with you regaining consciousness in the midst of a raging battle, unable to remember what has brought you to this point. With his dying words, your prince instructs you to "Tell the king that she is dead." When you next awake, the battle is over and you find yourself surrounded by the corpses of the fallen. In short, the basic story structure is that of a mystery thriller. Who was this prince? Who is the "she" he refers to? What were you doing here and where is this king you must return to? Who, if anyone, can you trust? While I have some ideas about what some of those answers might be, I'm taking a good Dungeon Master's approach: let the players find their own answers and then start weaving those into the story.
Get the whole interview here.
Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 16:46 CET by Mollusken
And here's another list of Wednesday treats from BioWare.
Icewind Dale II Music Review at M4G
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 10:04 CET by Mollusken
Music 4 Games have reviewed the music in Icewind Dale II, and Inon Zur's work gets a perfect score with 10 out of 10.
Allthough lacking some of the more modern influences found in a lot of soundtracks today and never really utilising the full power and dynamic range of an orchestra, perhaps for the obvious reasons stated above, this still manages to stand-out as one of the best game soundtracks you're likely to hear. Quickly earning himself a reputation as one of the greatest game composers in the world, you can see why when you listen to his music, as everything about it demonstrates pure class.
Read the whole review here.
Icewind Dale II Reviews
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 - 9:58 CET by Mollusken
NHGN (9/10)
Here are my nags and they are extremely minor. Path finding is still off. To be fair it has ALWAYS been off. Anyone who tells you the path finding in BG2 was better is wrong. It isn't that it was better, it's just that BG2's environments have a different flow entirely, offering more open spaces for combat and less twisty turns and crowded close quarter combat dungeons that can be found in the Icewind Dale titles. Then there's the multiplayer, which still isn't as friendly as most would like. As this kind of RPG is designed, I don't think it would ever really be suited for online play. In a controlled environment like a LAN maybe, but anything else really just requires too much effort for each player. I will also mention that I wish they had added a few more voice samples. The new Drow voice sample is awesome and just makes me wish they replaced all the holdovers from the previous Icewind Dale.
RPGamer (7/10)
Icewind Dale II is an exemplary vision of what the Infinity Engine has to offer. Unfortunately, as that tool itself is becoming older, the marvel that it can grab you with is decreasing. Although this game and many of its predecessors really show the powers of the Dungeons & Dragons rule set as it can be applied to video games, it might be time to design a newer, more amazing, engine to display it with.
Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Monday, November 4, 2002 - 23:37 CET by Veldrin
Chad Nicholas, Scriptor
Initialized States Of Variables: All globals and internals are saved with the savegame. When you reload the game, they're the same as they were when you saved the game. There are no "temp" globals that are not saved with the savegame.
Telling If A Mage Is Out Of Spells With A Script: HaveAnySpells() will do the trick. Or do you want to know if they are out of spells of a particular level? For that, you'd have to check that they don't HaveSpell() for each spell they can choose per spell level.
Detecting Feats With A Script: Unfortunately, there isn't any method to check if a character has a feat or not. Adding new script commands would require a change in the engine (which isn't going to happen at this point). Sorry.
J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer
Improved Initiative Update: Grand Master Weir checked this out and found that it was, in fact, not working properly. If we have another patch, we should be able to fix it.
Sorry about that. I honestly hate it when something like that slips through. Effects that don't do what they say are the most bothersome bugs.
They are not easy to fix in a patch. Adding feats is not trivial. If it were trivial, it would have been done right away. I asked about Flurry of Blows towards the end of development, but there just wasn't enough time.
Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Monday, November 4, 2002 - 18:42 CET by Z-Layrex
David Gaider, Designer
Custom Content:
Quote:So guys. for the 99% of the community who haven't a clue how to model does all of this meen? Does it make makeing models quicker and easier? if so by how much? and does this meen that we will finally be getting models flying around all ove the place?
There are still a couple of big issues which need to be resolved on our side before adding custom content into the game is *easy* for the end-user... which mostly revolves around the combining of multiple hakpaks and .2da's. I suspect that the release of the script will go a long way to resolving a lot of issues that the current content builders have had... and maybe make other builders more willing to put work into new content now that something official is out. But is it suddenly going to start raining custom content? No, probably not.
More:
We use 3dsMax 3.1 ourselves, and it wasn't a big leap to provide the script we used for NWN and put some time into making scripts for newer versions of that program. There has been some talk of doing a GMax gamepak, but there are some hurdles involved in that above and beyond finding someone with the time to write it (which in itself is a big hurdle)... so there are no plans for us to do that in the near future.
And More:
Quote: So it took Bioware 3 months to come to this decision and make this announcement? No GMAX Gamepak.
Just because there are hurdles that may prevent gmax support from happening in the NEAR future, it does not mean that it will not occur later on. We were able to get the 3DSMax scripts out to the community today, and we understand the benefit of providing gmax support as well. There are some issues we do not have direct control over that are preventing us in providing that support at this time, but we are doing what we can to find solutions.
Even More:
Quote: I will go a step further and state that "ALL" models, the crappy ones AND the high quality ones, are now going to be created wiht 3dsmax. Bioware just closed an avenue to creating custom content; it's their loss, as a large number of people were banking on a GMAX plugin.
Sorry, but that's not quite correct. There was already a community-made program to export models into NWN before we released our tools. Releasing our tools does not mean that 'suddenly' these models can be created and exported. The documentation that we included with our program, however, will shed a lot of light on the process for the community. Some may choose to use our program, same may use the community-msde one... either way, the documentation is what is going to improve things most community-wide. There is already a community-made GMax plugin, as was mentioned... and the documentation will probably improve its functionality, as well. The inherent limitations of GMax (such as the particle effects) are not going to change no matter what we do. Us not working on a GMax plug-in right now does not close off that avenue of creation any more than our release of the 3DSMax tools suddenly opened it. Hopefully both sides can benefit from the information... and hopefully in time we will be able to work on an official plug-in for GMax once those issues are resolved, as Robin said.
Custom Content: As for the sky texture... very nice. I'd be interested to see what the performance hit (if any) would be and how detailed such a texture could be (animated textures would also be very cool, if possible). If this is something that would end up not being too difficult for builders to use, it could be very cool when combined with a lower camera angle. Definitely something for us to officially consider if it looks good and there are no problems.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Organizing The Toolset: I completely agree with you. Being able to organize the list of areas, conversations, scripts, blueprints, etc. was one of the things I wanted to be able to do, too. Unfortunately, here's the problem:
If you are able to organize the resources in the toolset, it was reasoned, you'd probably want to see them so organized in the DM Client. (That's what I'd expect.) So, since the DM Client is not guaranteed to be on the same computer as the server, it would be necessary to transmit the organizational structure from the server to the DM Client whenever one connected to it. In the case of those modules you describe where you have dozens of areas and hundreds of scripts, you're talking about a huge amount of data. The available bandwidth budget just didn't support that volume of data. This reason also had a direct role in the decision to limit the length of the resource names to 16 characters. No, these aren't the days of the minivacs, but neither can we expect every player to have the good fortune to have a broadband connection.
Conversations: Simply open both conversation files in the Conversation Editor (there're several buttons along the top, including Open), select the node you wish to copy, copy it (ctrl + c or 'Copy' from the context menu) and then paste it (ctrl + v or 'Paste' from the context menu) into the other conversation.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
EffectHitPointChangeWhenDying(): If I recall correctly, if a player with EffectHitPointChangeWhenDying() on it gets healed above 0, then the effect self terminates. Ie: The effect is only valid while the player in question is actually dying, once they're no longer dying the effect removes itself.
As for the length of time... think of it more like the amount of hitpoints you lose every 6/x seconds. So if you put 0.5, you'll lose a hitpoint every 12 seconds. If you put 0.2 you'll lose a hitpoint every 30 seconds... etc.
(6.0 / x) = time until you lose another hitpoint
(6.0 / 2.0) = 3 seconds (1/2 round)
(6.0 / 1.0) = 6 seconds (1 round)
(6.0 / 0.5) = 12 seconds (2 rounds)
(6.0 / 0.2) = 30 seconds (5 rounds)
IWD II Review at PC Arena
Posted Monday, November 4, 2002 - 9:51 CET by Mollusken
Like most others, the reviewer at PC Arena hasn't many bad things to say about Icewind Dale II except from the graphics and a few bugs. He gave the game a score of 4 out of 5.
I’ve played a few RPG’s in my time and Icewind Dale II has to be one of the best. As long as you can get pass the dated graphics and the little quirks that come along with the experience, you’ll be very happy with the detail that went into this game and you'll be blessed with hours upon hours of gameplay.
Witchwork Status Update
Posted Sunday, November 3, 2002 - 16:56 CET by Mollusken
Here's the latest update from the developers of the Witchwork module series, and it looks like they're getting closer to completing the project now.
We hit an important milestone yesterday. By the end of the Hallowe'en workday, Rob declared the module to be Plot-Complete. This means that it is now possible for the beta testers to play through the entire module from beginning to end. As a result, the project is entering a new phase where Rob is able to pay more attention to fixing bugs, adding subplots, balancing the module, and polishing it to release quality. The end is now in sight.
Icewind Dale II Solution Update
Posted Saturday, November 2, 2002 - 22:08 CET by Sorcerer
Modjahed has just sent in Chapter 5 (and updates to all previous chapters) of his downloadable Icewind Dale II solution. Get it here!
Back to Middle Earth Musical Project
Posted Saturday, November 2, 2002 - 16:20 CET by Mollusken
A dedicated Tolkien fan has created a bunch of music pieces related to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and his works are available for download at Mp3.com. Here's a few words from the mail we recieved.
"Back to Middle Earth" is a musical project inspired by the magical realms created by J.R.R Tolkien. The project is a collection of musical pieces related to main plot landmarks of the trilogy Lord of the Rings.
"Back to Middle Earth" is a tribute to the phenomenal work of J.R.R. Tolkien, It was composed by a dedicated Tolkien fan and it is free for downloading for all the tolkienians out there...
Neverwinter Nights Review at RPG Codex
Posted Saturday, November 2, 2002 - 16:09 CET by Mollusken
Another Neverwinter Nights review has been posted at RPG Codex. The reviewer doesn't give the game any scores, but his views at the game are very negative.
Yes, I know there's lots and lots of modules made by other people out there and some of them might actually be better than the module that NWN shipped with. Fantastic. I don't care, because that's not the content that's provided with the game. I'll acknowledge they may or may not exist, because the game does have a splendid editor, but I wouldn't review the original Quake based on the merits of Team Fortress. Giving a game a good review because you're forced to turn to what others have done with the game isn't par for the course. BioWare provides the tools to make things, that's swell, and we'll leave it at that.
Read everything here.
Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Friday, November 1, 2002 - 22:04 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Do you ever buy official strategy guides for games you play?
(297 votes total)
No, never (174) 59%
Yes, though rarely (86) 29%
Yes, but only for harder games (19) 6%
Yes, for every game that they are available (18) 6%
It is quite clear that the vast majority of poll participants (59%), do not resort to buying official strategy guides but find the info they seek elsewhere. On Sorcerer's Place, for example. ;)
29% of those who voted do buy strategy guides, but rarely.
Finally, 6% of the people who voted buy them only for harder games, and another 6% for every game that they are available.
Halloween at BioWare
Posted Friday, November 1, 2002 - 19:15 CET by Mollusken
It's Halloween in the BioWare offices too, and those who dared dressed up in costumes and arranged a costume contest. See the pictures of the costumes and a Neverwinter Pumpkin here. Here's a bit from the article.
It’s Halloween, that magical day when witches and demons can finally hit the streets and get dressed up as accountants and software engineers. Around BioWare, a group of brave souls did their part to get in the Halloween spirit by dressing up in their own costumes. The whole thing was turned into an extravagant contest, where the entire company voted (by applause) for their favorite costume.
Site News - New Additions
Posted Friday, November 1, 2002 - 15:50 CET by Sorcerer
Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books
Two new additions have been made here, namely in the Forgotten Realms Books and Dragonlance Books subsections.
In the first, you can now buy the popular Icewind Dale Trilogy as a boxed gift set of the three volumes. In the second, you can likewise get a boxed gift set, only this one of the Dragonlance Legends Trilogy.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate
There is still something going on around the original Baldur's Gate, proven by the update to one of the BG+ToSC walkthroughs available in the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2
In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection you can download the latest version of the Shadows over Soubar walkthrough.
A new item pack can be found in Subsection #2 of the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection.
In the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection, a fan-submitted work entitled Secrets of Journals has been added. It is basically the story from BG1 to ToB told in a diary-like fashion.
Finally, as with the previous update, you can find another stained glass wallpaper in the Miscellanea subsection. This one features Bodhi.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2
Starting with the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, you can find two new walkthroughs there.
Four new additions have been made in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection. There are two new portrait packs, a hack that tweaks the experience tables and (by popular demand), the latest beta of the Dale Keeper II.
There is a bunch of new stuff in the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection as well. An extensive spell table, a listing of wizard scroll locations, tabled comparisons of a sorcerer/bard and a cleric/druid, plus a quick reference guide to item codes.
The official patch, an obligatory download for everyone, has been added to the Miscellanea subsection.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights
In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection one of the walkthroughs has been updated, as well as the handy reference guide.
Two character guides in the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection have also been updated. (The Rogue and Wizard ones.)
In the Editors, Hacks & Tweaks subsection, an amazing hack that enables skies (combined with the Camera Angle hack) has been added. This is definitely a must to check out!
Lower on the same page you can also find the stand-alone dedicated server app (140MB!), and the second pack of Crosbie's portraits.
The Toolset & Related subsection has been updated with dozens of new additions. Moreover, it has been further split into more subsections because of the overabundance of material.
In Subsection #1, one new tutorial has been added.
In Subsection #2, 8 new tilesets have been added, and one updated.
In Subsection #3 (Scripts), 13 new scripts have been added.
In Subsection #4, 7 new items or item packs have been added.
In Subsection #5, 36 new creatures were either added or updated. Among them are regular horses and rideable horses!
In Subsection #6, 17 placeables were added and 1 excellent portrait pack.
Lastly, in Subsection #7 you can find 5 various new additions.
The Modules subsection has been cleaned out a bit and three new modules added.
To conclude, in the Miscellanea subsection a link to the Mac development info page has been added, and an edited chat log of the first post-release chat with the NWN development team.