December 2001

Neverwinter Nights Preview at CG Online
Posted Saturday, December 29, 2001 - 13:12 CET by Mollusken

CG Online has posted a Neverwinter Nights preview, focusing on the single player campaign in the game. The preview also features a number of questions which are answered by director of writing and design, James Ohlen.

Choices that you make when you generate your character also have an impact on how the game plays, and not just during combat. "If you are playing a stupid character," says Ohlen, "it's going to show up in your dialog, much like it did in the Fallout series." If you are playing a wise character, then you might have little Wisdom insights that give you extra information. If you have a high Charisma and a high Persuasion skill, then you can persuade people to do things they wouldn't normally do. How the game reacts to you is completely dependent on the type of character that you build. One quest might only be available to fighters, or to characters with a high Charisma, or to elves.

"One of our guys is working on a 'court case' plot," says Ohlen. "If you have an Intelligence of 8, the dialog options that you have are handicapped… you're really dumb. So when they say 'we need somebody to defend the life of this person who is falsely accused,' you'll be able to say 'uh… me do it for you!' And they'll say 'That's probably not a good idea.'"

Read the whole preview here.

Site News - New Additions
Posted Thursday, December 27, 2001 - 22:33 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Articles & Editorials

I have added the text that was supposed to be posted at a certain The Lord of the Rings edition at Amazon.com, but was rejected by the censors there, to the Articles & Editorials subsection. Just in case anyone has missed it during the time it was posted on the front page. (And thanks to all of you who mailed me and expressed your approval of what I wrote!)

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate

I have fixed the links to the official patches in the Miscellanea subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Planescape: Torment

Another NPC quote has been sent in, and was added to the PS: T Quotes page.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

As with the BG1 subsection, I fixed the patch links in the Miscellanea subsection of BG2 as well. I also added the beta patch for ToB that fixes the long save/load times. I usually don't add betas to any pages on SP, but this one has held this status for many weeks now and it doesn't look as if BioWare is in a hurry to get it out of this state, so I added it anyway.

In the Maps subsection, I added a complete map of all areas you can travel to in Throne of Bhaal.

There is a new addition in the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection as well. Rhythm put together a list of Throne of Bhaal: The Ascension epilogue texts, some of which are a bit longer than the shortened versions you get in the original Baldur's Gate 2. In case you are wondering, ToB: The Ascension is a free mod by David Gaider of BioWare, and can be found on Page 2 of our Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection.

Two new additions were also made on Page 1 of Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection. One of the members of our boards has sent in a fixed version of the Juggernaut golem, and another fan has submitted a collection of powerful new custom items.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Pool of Radiance: RoMD

The recent 1.3 patch has been added to the Miscellanea subsection.

Team Chlorine came up with another mod for the game. This one allows you to play a wizard - well, almost. They also updated the speed control utility to work with the new patch. You can get both from the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection.

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Worlds

There is a review The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings in the Fantasy Movies subsection. It has been posted about on the front page before, so check it out only if you missed it back then.

Neverwinter Nights - Bioware Q&A
Posted Thursday, December 27, 2001 - 20:51 CET by Tiamat

Interview with Preston Watamaniuk, Designer, and Mark Brockington, Lead Research Scientist

Q: Would it be misleading (or even plain wrong) to think of a finished and compiled NWN game to be like the main function in a C-Program?

A: If by the "game" you means a script, then yes, it is very similar.

Q: When using #include files, does the compiled game just take the code for the functions the game creator has typed into the script, or does it take the whole include file?

A: The compiled scripts take the entire file when reading it into the compiler. Think of an include as a file to be added, in its entirety, at that point in the script.
Let's say the included file (quick.nss) had the following pieces of text in it.
quick brown
fox jumped
If the main code looked like this:
The
#include "quick"
over the lazy dog.
The script compiler would attempt to compile:
The
quick brown
fox jumped
over the lazy dog.

Q: Does this impact performance in any way, and if so, should any include files be stripped so as to only include the functions your game has been coded to potentially call?

A: The short answer is that it doesn't really impact performance. The script compiler maintains a call graph that determines which of the functions (from the include files) can actually be called by main() and removes any compiled functions that couldn't possibly be called, through any possible inputs. We have a 1200-line "design" include file that contains all sorts of nice functions that our designers use on a frequent basis. If we had to include the compiled version of all of these functions into every script, each "compiled" script would be over 20 KB in size.

Q: Is it good design (or even possible) to put a switch case on a creatures/NPC's heartbeat event?

A: Not a problem.
The Switch statement in this case would look at a variable, one that is meant to represent what 'chapter' the party is in. So that in chapter 1, my recurring NPC's heartbeat would run a certain set of script commands and environment checks only, and when the party progresses to later chapters, the NPC/creatures/whatever wouldn't run the 'chapter 1' script anymore, instead it would run 'chapter 2' script, or script pertinent to whatever the current chapter is, only? There would be like a variable intChapter, and the switch statement on the heartbeat something like:
Switch (intChapter)
Case 1 : RunAllThisScript1();
Break;
Case 2 : RunAllThisScript2();
? Break;
case 50 : RunallThisScript50()
Break; etc.
My idea being to make things complex, but not have to run all the script all of the time.

Q: What scope would a variable like intChapter have to have, or asked another way, where would/should I declare this variable and increment it?

A: All variables and functions are public in the scripting language. There is no concept of Private and Public. However you can store local variables on pretty well any object within the game (Module, Area, NPC etc)

Q: How many case statements can be in one switch, in NWN?

A: Any integer value.

Q: I found the following three looping structures (For, While, Do) in my book on C. Would you be able to tell me which of them is the NWN language likely to contain?

A: All three are available in scripting. They are basic programming tools common to most, if not all, scripting languages.

Q: Will I also have to have function prototypes at the top of my script like in regular C?

A: Yes, you will. In NWScript (just as in regular C),you do not need function prototypes if the script is ordered so that the function is implemented before it is called)..

Q: Will NWN use semi-colons to terminate statements?

A:v Yes.

Q: Can we get any further information about placeable object properties (or even tiles) and NWScript? For instance, if we use GetNextObjectInArea() to loop thru objects around us, suppose we want to see if a chest is in the area, can we detect if it is locked/unlocked/trapped? How about a portal? Can we detect properties about the portal? Description, open/closed,etc.

A: You can check the properties on placable objects, open doors, lock them. The same goes for chests.

Q: How about tile properties - we've seen SetTileProperty(), any clues about what we can modify using that?

A: SetTileProperties is cut, you will be unable to modify tile props on the fly

Q: Here's another dangling thread from Mark B... Java-style classes (with member functions) within the scripting language are still not supported yet...are they supported -- yet? Will they be?

A: No, not at this time.

Q: It's been 6 months since we got the game-of-life example, and gathered as complete a list of constants & functions as we could from E3... any chance of a constant/function-list dump anytime soon?

A: No, this is constantly changing and fuels too much speculation. If we give a list of functions then we will be spending a week or more just answering questions about the various functions. People will try scripting before they can actually script, which will be unproductive for both content designers and our programming staff.

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Thursday, December 27, 2001 - 20:29 CET by Tiamat

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Neverwinter Online: GameSpy does not force you to pay for it. There is a free version. Also, using GameSpy was not a requirement. You could connect to your friend's game without using GameSpy. So, BG2 is still free for on-line play. Neverwinter Nights will be free for on line play.

David Gaider, Designer:

Rooftops and multi-level structures: There are different levels to all terrain, yes...the screenshot shown shows a second-level of city street that you can access with the placement of a 'ramp' tile.

As for roof-tops, you can access them...so long as you place an appropriate script and the model has a 'top' to it. There's one tower in Neverwinter, for instance, that you can enter via the ground-floor door and one of the interior doors leads (via a door-to-waypoint script) to the top...where you get a pretty nice view of the area.

If you wanted to have someone 'climb', you'd have to script it specifically per building. There would have to be a clickable ('useable') area set up somewhere where you wanted the climber to start...have it ask him if he wishes to climb or whatever, and make the script do a stat check or class check or whatever you wanted for success...and on a success warp him to a specific point higher in the model (that he can stand on). You could even place another script on a window (which normally aren't accessible) and have it become a kind of 'door' to the interior, as well.

But, like I said, this is something that would have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Luckily, once you've done one, doing more in a similar vein means you won't have to change the script. Just lay down the old script in the appropriate places on new buildings and you'd be fine. How intuitive it would be for a player to figure out where he can climb and where he can't, however, is probably your biggest problem...and likely why we'll avoid doing something along these lines unless the plot specifically calls for it (and the player is told so).

Quote: My guess is that the character will have to be told in-game: "Ahh, good sir, a friend of mine - the sneaky kind, dontcha' know - tells me the third window in the masters bedroom is a good path to the roof.". It would be nice to know (in general terms) how the Bioware designers have approached this problem.

Pretty much exactly as you've stated. With just about every major plot in the game, we've tried to engineer several routes to its completion...stealth/deception being one of them. If we were going to have a plot where this type of climbing was a possibility, the player would be informed of such...either by an advisor NPC (like your example), a journal hint or otherwise. Since climbing isn't a regular feature in the game, we really couldn't expect a player to just stumble across such a thing at this point (and hunting for the 'hot spot', like you say, wouldn't be much fun).

NWScript: As with any programming language, there's a learning curve involved. It takes some getting used to...but overall you should be able to do simple scripting very quickly. There will be generic scripts that are annotated well as to their purpose that you can use as guides...as well as plenty of scripts within the single-player campaign that will be good examples of things you might want to do.

Performing more advanced customization with the scripting, however, is something you're going to have to work up to...like creating custom classes and such. You may want to set your sights lower until you've become familiar with the scripting language...or until someone else puts out their own custom class script that you can use as an example (which probably won't take long).

I will say, though, that I had only a bare familiarity with C++ programming...in that I knew some of the protocols involved (ending statements with a semi-colon, for example) but could only write the most basic programs (and not even those without several runs through the de-bugger)...and I was writing decent dialogue scripts within a day or two.

One thing I am sure scripting neophytes will appreciate as much as I did is the de-bugging functions. When you try to compile your script, if there is a problem it will show you where in the script your problem exists and the nature of the problem (you forgot a semi-colon, you're using a bad variable, you didn't declare your variable type, etc.)...this makes things MUCH easier, believe me.

And the scripting tutorials that are available online and mentioned above are quite helpful, too, if you want to become a more advanced user.

Don Moar, Lead Programmer, Tools:

Using scripts from other modules: Kinjo, I believe that is a quote from one of my posts several months ago.

The design of the nwtoolset has always been focused on supporting the creation of adventures using the core 3rd edition D&D rules as implemented in Neverwinter Nights. All the features and functionality required by BioWare's designers to create the official campaign will be available to you, the end-user.

The Semi-Colon: The ; is not a line termination character, it is a statement termination character. Statements can cross line boundaries, so there has to be something to indicate to the compiler that it has reached the end of the statement.

User made templates: Currently, the NWToolset does not support this functionality. We are considering it, should we have time, however at this point it seems unlikely that it will be included in the initial release. Please note that even if the feature ,as you described it, isn't there, it should be possible to achieve a similar effect through the clever use of custom creatures and items.
If I have a chance, I'll go into more detail later.

Achieving an effect similar to custom templates using custom creatures and items: The goal is to be able to apply a set of statistic modifications, skills, feats and spells to an existing creature, quickly. The typical example, is applying a 3rd Edition vampire template to an existing NPC, which may already have several levels in another class, such as fighter.

Approach 1: Make a custom creature with all the 'standard' statistics, special abilities, etc... Create a copy of this creature and modify its appearance as required.
You would choose this method if the specific details of the NPC are not as important as the things that make it a 'whatever it is'.

Approach 2: Make a custom item that has all the desired special abilities and add it to an existing creature's natural equipment. Note that natural equipment is not dropped by the creature when it dies so you don't have to worry about a player picking up the 'vampire properties' item.
You would choose this method if you are more concerned about preserving the details of your NPC than making it a 'whatever it is'.

Probably, you'll want to use a combination of methods. Create an item that has a bunch of special abilities on it and add it to your custom creature's inventory. When it comes time to turn your favourite NPC into a, whatever it is, edit a copy of your custom creature, modify its appearance to look like your NPC and finish it off by applying any additional details to flesh it out.

Happy holidays, everyone!

No It Wasn't You...
Posted Thursday, December 27, 2001 - 20:02 CET by Sorcerer

If you tried accessing SP earlier today and couldn't. In fact, some major technical difficulties came up. This problem has caused another change of the server IP and change of the main DNS servers, so while the site was accessible for most of the day for me, it might take up to 2 more days for everyone else to be able to access it.

My sincere apologies, but this is beyond my control. I realize that we haven't had as much downtime in 3 years before as we had in the last three weeks, but I wholeheartedly hope that this will be the last time in a while that you were deprived of our omnipresence...
If another such instance occurs, however, we will move to a new host.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
Posted Tuesday, December 25, 2001 - 13:47 CET by Sorcerer

Although the site is decorated enough and you get this note on every page, I wanted to wish everyone who celebrates it a merry Christmas here on the front page as well. Regardless of what you celebrate, I hope you enjoy the next few days and the holidays.

I would also like to thank all of the members of the SP Team who have been, as always, simply great. Special thanks go to Darien, Mollusken, Tiamat, Azirath (MiA, where are you guy?), Blackthorne TA, Erran and many, many other people who contributed to SP in one way or another. I hope we will continue to build this little corner on the web together in the upcoming new year.

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Saturday, December 22, 2001 - 21:33 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: What aspect of the BG series did you enjoy the most?
(582 votes total)

Plot (193) 33%
Party interaction (121) 21%
Quests (93) 16%
Exploration (84) 14%
Combat (42) 7%
Other (23) 4%
Graphics (14) 2%
Music (12) 2%

This poll ran for 2 weeks, because the site move which caused significant downtime prevented some people from voting during the first week.

The majority of people (33%) who voted say that plot was the most enjoyable aspect of the Baldur's Gate series. Despite the fact that some have criticized it in the past, looking at it from the perspective of the whole saga (concluded with Throne of Bhaal), we cannot but say that it is pretty good.

Party interaction was the second most popular aspect with 21% of people voting for it. This entry was also meant to include romances, although some people have complained in the Comments that they should have been a separate entry... Well I didn't make one intentionally, since there were no romances in BG1 and this poll is supposed to cover BG1 as well.

In 3rd place by popularity are quests, a favourite of 16% of those who voted. After all, questing is what adventuring is all about, is it not?

Ah, finally we come to the aspect which was so sorely lacking in BG2, exploration. 14% of people found this to be their most enjoyable aspect, but I suppose most of those who voted for this entry must have been thinking about the original Baldur's Gate, not so much of its sequel...

Combat is, surprisingly enough, a favourite aspect of only 7% of those who participated in the poll. Since combat was very important throughout the whole series, it makes you wonder if there wasn't a bit too much of it, since not that many people seem to like it much.

4% of people voted for Other, which would include various things, but mostly romances. (For those who didn't consider them to fall under party interaction.)

Graphics and music scored 2% of votes each, which makes them the least popular aspect of the series by far.

BG2: ToB Awarded Expansion Pack of the Year
Posted Saturday, December 22, 2001 - 11:41 CET by Mollusken

Gamespy has chosen Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal for the title Expansion Pack of the Year 2001.

Last year, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn won RPG of the Year. The huge, beautiful Dungeons & Dragons epic had lots of depth and polish. We now award Expansion Pack of the Year to the excellent Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Throne of Bhaal completes the Bhaalspawn saga started in the original Baldur's Gate.

Read the whole article here.

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Saturday, December 22, 2001 - 1:22 CET by Tiamat

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

NWN Requirements: I pulled this from the now-being-revamped FAQ:
What kind of computer will I need to play Neverwinter Nights?
Our minimum system specifications currently are a Pentium II 300 MHz or AMD K6-2 350 MHz, a TNT2 or Voodoo 3 class video card, and 64 MB of RAM. An internet or LAN connection will be required for those wishing to play multiplayer games, of course, and a 56k modem should allow any such computer to support approximately 8 players or so. As bandwidth is the primary determinant of server capacity, a cable modem or xDSL line will be able to support significantly more. The maximum number of clients (player and/or Dungeon Master) allowed on a server is fixed at 64.

Game Demo: No demo yet for NWN as it usually comes out after the game is released...and no, there is no release date yet.

Pick-Pocketing: Pick pocketing is in- however the specifics are not set yet as to how it will function. Reverse pick pocketing is still an unknown as yet.

Clerics: I spoke to Preston about this and he responded with:
We are planning on a player being able to choose their domains. We also should have a box to fill in your own deity. This name can then be checked from scripting.

Drawbridges: I popped into Preston's office to see if he had some answers for me on this:
We have several types of bridges that raise and lower to deny or grant entry into an area. Whether they are drawbridges or not, I can't say for sure right now.

May item properties be variable names? As it stands, you would not have this ability. There are ways to get around this via crafty scripting as trc was writing about referred to here as the Slight of Hand scripting.

Music: This direct from the Sound Guy, David Chan:
Q: Will we be able to put our own music (ie, music from other games, or other sources) into our mods?
A: Yes, minding copyright issues of course.

Point Buy: Before this crazy thing gets rolling I'll repost information I presented before on Point Buy:
Here is the official word on Point Buy as of today. I spoke to Trent about this and here is what he had to say:
We are testing the game with 30. We will be tweaking the balance of the game and this number has changed in the past and will likely change again.
That last bit is important as we will be testing, testing, testing to see how things work.

Dwarven Racial Bonuses: Dwarves will have their racial resistance to poison & magic.

About Sleeping: A partial answer to questions about sleep:
Everyone can rest in Neverwinter by sitting on the ground and recouping. This regenerates spells and HP. However it cannot be done in the presence of monsters or right after a fight.
If you are interrupted while resting your rest is disturbed and ruined.
Yes, there is an animation for sitting on the ground. I tried it out this morning.

What happens to money if you die? If a char dies does the coin they have on their person won't fall to the ground (ie UO). Money is a 'non-item' that can't be 'lost' (ie BG). The dropping of items would be very similair ro BG in this respect.

The Wonders of Scripting: Scripting can modify how death and money work. Money can be taken and given via scripting, and individual stores can be modified to reflect the economy you want.

Tattoos: We actually do have tatoos in the game. How many and what kind are still being developed but a few of them are usuable in the game right now. In a variety of fashionable-yet-salty colors.

NWN Script: The problem is that NWN Script is a scripting language not a programming language. There seems to be some confusion with the difference between the two. A scripting language can ask questions of the engine and tell to do a limited set of instructions. It does not allow us to modify the engine or to override it in any way.

Will the specs be higher a NWN development system than for just gaming? No.

Alan Miranda, Associate Producer:

Importing Music: Yes, the plan is for users to be able to add their own music to their modules, both ambient and battle tracks. So if you want heavy bass conan battle music or whatever, you can include it.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Cantrips: Cantrips are 0-level spells and they're in the game.

Interface: I didn't work on them, so this is just second-hand opinion, but I think that for the most part, the interface's elegance comes as a result of its simplicity. It can be opened, and the game can continue to be played (the interface is transparent - actually, the feedback windows (i.e. chat bar) can be clicked through (!) so you can make them full-screen if you so wish). Of course, these aspects will be reviewed before the game ships - but I would think that it would be preferable to be able to manipulate your inventory and such without closing off the game world.

Todd M. Grenier, Art Guy:

A theory that we use here at BioWare about the interface is that you do spend allot of time with it and it should be pleasing to the eye and not take away from the game because gameplay is the most important. So we make the design of the GUI's a large priority, and the decision to keep it simple is to keep the gameplay more enjoyable without the distractions.

Nathan Frederick, Quality Assurance:

The Inventory Screen: As a side note - the inventory screen is something that is in flux - it changes often.

David Chan, Audio Producer:

NWN Audio: We will be supporting 3D positional audio for NWN. Which API we will be using still hasn't been finalized (we are trying different options). In other words when a person screams behind your character, assuming you have the proper sound card and speakers, you will hear it behind you. Also, just for clarification EAX is an effect, not a positional API. For example EAX is like the echo in a cave, whereas Direct Sound places the sound in the audio space in front, beside or behind you.

OpenAL: The problem with OpenAL is that there isn't a critical mass of support behind it yet and it's not a mature API.

Positional Audio: While hearing things behind me when it's behind my character is more "realistic", I am pretty hung up on my monitor, and the view I have of the world. I could be wrong, but I'd rather have positional sound be based on the camera, not the character. I certainly react correctly faster when I place myself at the point of the camera, rather than translating myself to the position and orientation of my avatar.
The "microphone" position will be at camera position for most sounds. There are exceptions such as main area ambient loops, which are stereo and will not be positioned and dialog. The toolset will be quite flexible when it comes to placing sounds. Also, there will be access to sounds through scripting as well.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Only 3 Classes? It is mainly a matter of rules processing and GUI layout. And we determined that, for the majority, there won't be that many needing more than 3 classes. I know this answer won't satisfy the people that find the 3 class limit an issue. This has come up before and turned into a many page rant/flamewar, but this won't be changing.

Banning: Banning is an on/off thing. There is no such thing as banning for a week or the like.
Banning by CD Key is done by the "public" part of the CD Key. This is not the actual CD Key that is used for playing.
As for banning after the fact, that would have to be a combination between server logging and the banning system. I cannot answer if public CD Key will be logged at this time.

CD Check: This is almost always put in at the request of the publisher. We have no say in this.

Brent Knowles, Co-Lead Designer:

Templates: Several 3E templates are in. They modify stats & properties when applied to a creature. Additional templates are fairly easily added and will likely appear post release.

NPC AI: How Non-Player AI Works *trying to eliminate the confusion*

1. A player only has direct control *ever* of one character -- him/herself. If a wizard/sorceror they can take control of their familiar (but they lose control of themself while they do this).

2a. A player *can* gain partial control (through the radial menu and the quickchat system) of 1 Henchman, 1 Summoned Monster, 1 Familiar, 1 Animal Companion, and 1 Dominated Creature (total of 5. We call this group of creatures Associates). This limit is on a per-player basis.

These limits are hard-coded. The only way they'll change is through playtesting.

2b. By partial control, you can do stuff like
- Tell it to attack (but not the specific target)
- Tell it to wait where it is
- Tell it to follow you
- Tell it to attack your last attacker

This behavior can be scripted. You can create a rude henchman who ignores all your commands, if you want.

You could also script more advanced functionality if you want. For example, our Henchman can be spoken to and you can modify the way they fight (i.e., do they act defensively et cetera) and the range they follow you. This is something you'd do when not in combat obviously.

2c. Quickchat commands are sent to all of your Associates. For example if you press the quickchat for Attack, all of your associates go into Attack Nearest Enemy mode.

3. You can't *script* RTS-style control.

Henchmen, Goons, and Summoned Monsters 1. You do not have to *tell* your henchman to fight each round. By default all henchmen who join you will be set to Attack Nearest Enemy & Follow Player mode. So they'll follow you around and fight monsters without ever having to be told to.

2. The limit on the number of summoned monsters is more for performance/gameplay reasons than the control issue.

2a. Too many creatures bog the game down. Summoning spells inherently lead to far too many creatures being onscreen at a time. In singleplayer this would be bad, in multiplayer it could disastrous (in terms of performance).

2b. As well, since you don't have full control over your summoned creatures, having a squad of AI-goons could be very frustrating (as they'd constantly block you in rooms or split off in 5 different directions attacking enemies).

The difficulties of playing with a single class: WThis comes down to Design. Don't make an area *impossible* to get through if the player is not CLASS X. As well, something that we are doing is that in some places there'll be NPCs nearby who can be persuaded to do something for you (like get into a building). So you can hire/persuade some NPCs on the spot to perform a particular task for you if necessary.
As well, there are multiple ways through most obstacles. Thieves can unlock a door, fighters/clerics can potentially knock it down, and wizards can cast the knock spell on it.
In BG2 we seldom(ever?) made an encounter that only Class X could get through, and I think most of our battles were pretty fun and challenging.

Don Moar, Lead Programmer, Tools:

Transferring Objects: You can transfer most objects between modules using the NWToolset's export / import functions. This includes creatures, items, scripts, conversations and even entire areas. Unfortunately, the NWToolset will not be exporting data in formats other than the binary one understood by itself and the game. I don't know if we'll be publicly releasing any information regarding it's structure, however.

Desslock's Speculations on Neverwinter Nights
Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 - 21:08 CET by Sorcerer

Desslock came up with a rather lengthy description of the complicated situation between Interplay and BioWare, (BioWare is suing Interplay, in case you haven't heard yet) and how this will affect the release of Neverwinter Nights. Notice the word 'will'. Thus far we've been hearing from BioWare that everything is going according to schedule and that this legal mess won't have any impact on the release of the game, but Desslock thinks otherwise.

I actually wanted to post an extract from his ramblings (the conclusion), but as if I saw it coming, spotted a warning in shiny letters that no one should dare to copy one bit of it anywhere. Indeed, it is the most speculative and potentially harmful writing he has produced online in quite some time. (Harmful from the point of view of the companies involved, of course.)

Go to his site and read it now. It might not be there for long...

The Lord of the Rings Review at SP
Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 - 20:30 CET by Sorcerer

Yup, Gash was at the premiere and wasted no time in coming up with a great review of The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I spiced it up with a fair number of screen shots, so click here at once and read all about it!

PoR Patch v1.3 is Available
Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 20:22 CET by Darien

Here it is, the latest Pool of Radiance patch for Ruins of Myth Drannor.

The 1.3 patch for Pool of Radiance is now available for download. The 1.3 fixes a variety of single and multiplayer game play issues. For a comprehensive list of all bugs fixed, please refer to the readme enclosed with the patch.

Download it here.

The Future of NWN at Gamespy
Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 13:36 CET by Mollusken

In these days of BioWare and Interplay trouble, Gamespy looks at the future of Neverwinter Nights.

With all the commotion over the BioWare -- Interplay lawsuit and the countersuit from Interplay's owner, Titus, one party hasn't been talked about much -- Wizards of the Coast. How do they feel about this lawsuit which effectively is kicking around the computer version of their intellectual property, Dungeons and Dragons? I talked to Anthony Valterra, the business manager for roleplaying games at Wizards of the Coast.

First, I asked if he had any inkling that things were going sour between BioWare and Interplay. "No," Valterra said. "I was sitting in my office when someone came up and said, 'Guess what?' The lawsuit came out of the blue for us."

Read the whole article here.

Yahoo on Lord of the Rings
Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 13:17 CET by Mollusken

Yahoo has posted a small article about the Lord of the Rings movie, which is now shown at over 10,000 cinemas around the world.

"The Fellowship of the Ring", the first film in New Zealand director Peter Jackson's $270 million epic adaptation of the J.R.R Tolkien trilogy, has already been acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece and the first audiences appear to agree.

"It is right up there with Lawrence of Arabia..for sheer epicness (sic). It is just so grand", London man Clifton Moor told Sky News after seeing the film on Wednesday night.

Another teenager told Sky that the film went far beyond his expectations and was "a lot better than the book".

Read the whole article here.

CG Online Presents The History of D&D
Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 - 13:04 CET by Mollusken

CG Online has written an article on the history of D&D, the creators and the TSR company. The article is very long, and covers a lot of interesting stuff.

TSR under Williams was positively hostile towards its own fans. The company enforced its copyrights ruthlessly, closing down fan sites on the Internet and demanding that people avoid discussing the game in Usenet forums. People began to refer to the company as "T$R," and joked that the initials stood for "They Sue Regularly." After Gygax left the company, he created a new role-playing system called Dangerous Journeys, which he published through Game Designer's Workshop. TSR sued him for copyright infringement. " It was a bogus suit, but they spent us out of court," he explained. Under the terms of the settlement, TSR purchased the rights to Dangerous Journeys and all existing stock for more than the company could afford. "I had to laugh, because that was probably the straw that broke the camel's back," says Gygax.

Read the whole article here.

PoR Patch Today
Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 - 20:40 CET by Sorcerer

For all of you waiting for the latest patch for Pool of Radiance, here's the latest update from the official site. [The news is from yesterday.]

Update: December 18, 2001

We have delayed the release of the 1.3 patch for Pool of Radiance in order to fix a few last minute bugs that have cropped up in testing. We are presently tracking to release the patch tomorrow, December 19th. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Chuck Yager
Associate Producer, Ubi Soft

Lord of the Rings PC Game by EA
Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 - 9:06 CET by Mollusken

Electronic Arts has announced that they will develop a PC game based on the movie trilogy made by New Line Cinema.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2001--
Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS - news) officially announced today that they have signed an exclusive deal with New Line Cinema to create games based on the upcoming The Lord of the Rings movies. New Line Cinema will release three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's classic literary works, beginning with The Fellowship of the Ring (Dec. 19, 2001), followed by The Two Towers (Holiday 2002) and The Return of the King (Holiday 2003). The license grants EA the exclusive rights to develop and publish products based on the movies for next generation video game consoles and handheld platforms.

EA will launch the first of their games in Fall 2002, in conjunction with the second motion picture, The Two Towers. Information on the subsequent games will be announced at a later date.

New BioWare Design
Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2001 - 21:29 CET by Mollusken

The official BioWare site has been improved with a new layout. Now we can experience the latest BioWare news, read everything about their games and much more in a cool, blue design which is the end result of months of work. Here is a screenshot from the new site design:

Ring Quest: Turn the WWW into a Ring on the 19th
Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2001 - 19:13 CET by Sorcerer

RING QUEST - Participate in helping turn the WWW into one ring on Dec. 19th... and while you're at it, have a chance to win a LOTR special prize pack.

The Mission: To spread the word to get everyone imaginable sending LOTR e-cards on the 19th, so that we get Middle Earth sounds and visions on millions of computers worldwide, up to the point that we crash the server it's housed on!

The Rewards: The Big Reward is... we help make a tremendous and beautifully memorable impact that will go down is history!

There is also a LOTR prize pack for 2 lucky winners:

1st prize pack includes the official LOTR ring, the complete set of 6 collectible trading cards, and a LOTR key ring.

2nd prize pack includes a LOTR T-Shirt and complete set of 6 collectible trading cards.

The How-To: RING QUEST Instructions and Rules

1. Copy the following URL that links to the LOTR e-cards: http://www.electricartists.com/lotr/ecards.html

2. Post the link on message boards, public forums, and online clubs within the following online territory: Society & Culture (People, Environment, Religion...) and Entertainment (Cool Links, Movies, Humor, Music...) *. On your posts at message boards, etc., tell people about the Ring Quest and encourage them to send LOTR e-cards by going to the link http://www.electricartists.com/lotr/ecards.html on the opening day for FOTR - Dec. 19th.

*Online Territory: Go to the Society & Culture (People, Environment, Religion...) and Entertainment (Cool Links, Movies, Humor, Music...) sections within Yahoo! and post on sites and message boards within these sections.

3. After numerous postings, if you want to be considered for a LOTR prize pack, send an email to lotr_sdtk@electricartists.com. In your email include some of the places you've posted at, and in the subject header type the name of the site where you entered the contest, in this case SORCERER'S PLACE.

That's it! Good luck! And remember to send as many e-cards as you can on the 19th.

You can only send to one email address at a time, but it's very quick and easy to do many addresses, one at a time.

If we all put out mouse together, the impact will be HUGE!

Pool of Radiance Patch Info
Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2001 - 17:02 CET by Darien

The readme file for PoR patch v1.3 has been posted on the official forums, but the patch itself isn't available just yet. Here's the list of fixes covered by this latest addendum to the game.

Pool of Radiance 1.3 Patch Readme
12/17/01

Description:

The Pool of Radiance 1.3 Patch fixes many game play bugs and game balance problems in both single player and multiplayer. The 1.3 Patch is compatible with Pool of Radiance 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. However, the 1.3 patch does not include the 1.1 installer/uninstaller patch. We recommend you use the 1.1 installer/uninstaller patch to uninstall 1.1 and 1.2 versions of Pool of Radiance.

1.3 Patch Fixes
-Single Player-
Elena and Garras attacking the party
Two enemies getting involved in the same combat creating a can't continue issue
Doors relocking once closed and losing the key
Problems with Jarial appearing in multiple places at once
Getting stuck near Preybelish in the dungeons
Fifth character gets stuck in a rock after level transition
Problems with Eadred and only one party member trying to free him
Activating the draw bridge from Stillwater causes problems
Dwarven Statues attack you incorrectly in the Dwarven Tomb
Eadred stuck in wall when go to retrieve him
Pelendralaar takes no action and gets an error message
Monsters not making saves when moving through web
Wrong texture on cone of cold sometimes
Incorporeal monsters get stuck in walls when turned in a wall
Points put into Open Lock while blind don't show
Effects of fountains don't match descriptions
Delay Poison causes Poison to get stuck
Defend isn't working correctly
Orcs getting more than 1 AoO
Margoyles not moving to engage party
Improved invisibility not working correctly on all equipment
Walk into wall in the Hall of Stone
Hanging woman returns at pumphouse after saving and reloading
Poison from trapped chest not dissipating with sleep
Word of Venom speaks itself every time you pass
Character able to move at 0 HP
Level drained not working properly if level up occurs after
Players not getting AoO against Pelendralaar
Part of House of Gems that monsters don't follow party
Remove Fear not working correctly
AC and save bonuses not showing up on character sheet from prot from evil
Damage showing as 0 above character if vampiric touch on player
Shields not providing AC bonus is Mage Armor is on character
Immune message not showing up all the time
Prot from Evil not giving saving throw bonus all the time
AoO being missed by characters if a surprise round occurs
Saving throw penalty stacks with itself for Cause Fear
Too many times the game informs user that a feat has been used
Pathing problem with a hallway
Detect Magic not working properly
Monsters visible in a room even though a message that nothing is seen is given
Casting spells on Athan before he joins party has inappropriate text message appear
Poison graphic still appears over dead character's body
Attacking a stunned character does not give bonuses
Stunned character's still receive Dex bonuses
Character is not awoken when hit by magic missile and asleep
Healing animation plays when Cult mage dies of Melf's Acid Arrow
Sunderstone shows wrong number of charges
Spell Resistance not displayed when spells are cast
Wrong text message when climbing down a well
Switching party leaders after searching an invalid object will cause leader not to move
Monsters lose AoO after surprise round
Spell effects appear on rest screen
Orogs engaging combat before the party discovered a secret door in the Catacombs - First Cellar
Orogs getting stuck in a fence in the Deep Hall
Greyanna's Drow can't be targeted if you talked to her too long

-Multiplayer-
Client's character sheet remains on screen as Host in quitting
Changing party leader while transitioning causes the leader icon to follow the cursor
Book does not have charges
Graphics problem when using the view character icon
Drinking from fountains gives effects to players and hosts
Host can cast client's spells when client's spell is selected
Various out of sync issues with screens being up
Error message appears on host machine instead of clients in combat
Spells do not refresh with new games
Load Game grayed out inappropriately

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Monday, December 17, 2001 - 0:24 CET by Tiamat

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

Being God: Sorry, you cannot play a god unless it's the raving street lunatic variety- which does not come with a lot of super powers beyond Summon Change, Speak in Tongues, and Dancing Eyes.

Monster AI: I went to ask Preston what the word was on monsters chasing you into new zones. I had this illuminating and lucid dialogue:
Me: Can monsters chase you through zones or out of dungeons?
Him: Yes.
Me: Great.
Him: But I’m not sure about dungeons.
Me: Fair enough.

Point Buy: Here is the official word on Point Buy as of today. I spoke to Trent about this and here is what he had to say:
We are testing the game with 30. We will be tweaking the balance of the game and this number has changed in the past and will likely change again.
That last bit is important as we will be testing, testing, testing to see how things work.

Experience Division: Experience will not be split between you, your henchman, a familiar or summoned creatures. It’s not fair to the henchman et al but it’s a hard world.
Familiars level up only with the appropriate Wizard/Sorcerer level.

Scripting Magic Resistance for Locks: You could script this by making the lock immune to knock and then have the Object count every time Knock is cast. When the counter gets to the appropriate setting open the chest from the script language.

The Purpose of NWN: BioWare has stated that NWN was originally created with the idea of taking PnP and putting it on the computer and that means multiplayer...I seem to recall posting this bit before...
"As for what's the point of NWN- is it a Single Player Game with extra fiddly-bits added to include Multi-player or vice versa? Since it's initial inception the idea was to bring Pen and Paper role-playing to the computer and that means multi-player. The single game has been referred to as a multi-player game with only one player, playing on his own server. He can just as easily hook up to a LAN or the Internet and play the single game with his buddy in the next room or with complete strangers in different countries."
I find it interesting that that post was arguing for the reverse idea that the NWN is entirely multiplayer with a 10 hour tutorial stuck in.

Demo: No demo is available as of yet, sorry. You can be sure you will hear about any Beta test may decide to do when the game is closer to completion. A Demo usually comes out after a game is out in stores.
Good to hear we get some readers all the way from Turkey. Good gaming folks!
P.S. Don’t mind the many jokes from other users- some of them don’t get out much.

The Monk: Oh dear. You have asked such a perfect question that, due to unmentionable circumstances, I can't even pretend to be able to give you an answer.
I asked a designer- who understands the situation- about this and his exact words were:
The Monk? Hmmm...it's like Ben and Jerry's Rocky Road Ice Cream-complex and enjoyable. But now... now it's more like Hagen Daaz's Super Monkey Chocolate Lumps- slightly different but still a world of complex delightful flavors.

Hoods and Headgear: No hoods as yet, but full helmits are in. All the graphics are not done for items, including wearable items, so it is not a locked down thing.

Spells: Wall of Fire and Blade Barrier are in the game...and I have to say it: things may change as development continues.

Trent Oster, Producer:

Tilesets: The tilesets you suggest are a little morbid, don't you think? What about marsh filled with rotting corpses, hell city tileset with walls built from tormented souls?
On the mixing tilesets issue, we build tilesets to keep unique texture and geometry counts down so our game doesn't require a 128mb video card and 512 mb of main system memory.
Bleak, desolate areas to include:
lifeless forests, burned out grasslands, ragged rock plains, swamps with nothing but dead trees, "Scottish highlands" type settings, moors, lots of variations on rough rocky cliffsides, ruins, ruins, and more ruins and then some more variations on those ruins
...and, especially important, an ability to MIX tilesets in an area (albeit there are graphic implications for blending tiles, mixing mipmaps, etc.)

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Corpses: If you kill someone, their corpse disappears almost immediately. if you want the streets to be littered with dead bodies that can be manipulated (spells cast at them, etc.), then you want to use ambient objects.

David Chan, Sound Engineer:

Music: Our music is done on a contract basis. Most everyone here agrees that that gives us the most flexibility when it comes to musical styles. As for sound effects, in the past Interplay did that majority of them. The first in-house sound was done on MDK2. I did about 97% of the sounds that ended up in the game. I use some libraries and some in-house recorded sounds. I use synths and Foley recorded here at BioWare. I process the sounds on a PC based system using some Sonic Foundry tools with Waves and TC plug-ins. We will be moving to a nuendo system soon and I'm drooling at the creative possibilities!

We do some VO recording here as well. All the chraracters for MDK2 were done locally. The guys from Three Dead Trolls and Atomic Improv were great to work with. My side was sore at the end of the day from laughing too much.

In the future we hope to do all sounds for all of our games in-house. Which is why I am looking forward to working with our new sound guy (which hasn't been decided yet). After all, we create world class content in every respect, why should sound be any different?

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Can I make rude gestures at my enemy? No.

Server Browser: There will be an in-game server browser.
As for who is doing the backend matching service, we haven't finalized that yet, so we can't say any more at this time.

Lock Scripting: I haven't seen any lock specifications that allowed you to put SR on it. But the capacity is certainly there for something to be scripted.

David Gaider, Designer:

More on Locks: Let's see...I got my editor open right now.

OK, I plunk down a chest. It's on a big list of containers, which is a sub-list of your place-able objects. First thing I do is go to the 'Basic' tab...there you have the following:

* Name (this is what name will come up in-game)
* Tag (this is what scripts refer to it as)
* Plot? (this is a check-mark button, in case you want the item to be indestructable)
* Useable? (if this isn't checked, the item is just the same as background)

Okay...here's the stuff on the item, itself:
* Hardness (hey, someone asked about this...Okay, so it's finally in)
* Hit Points (until it's destroyed)
* Saves (you have Fortitude, Will and Reflex, just as normal)

Anyway, once I check 'Useable', the tabs for 'Lock' and 'Trap' pop up.

Under 'Lock', it's pretty basic...
* Locked? (you check whether or not the item starts off locked)
* Can be re-locked? (self-explanatory)
* Automatically remove key? (after using one)
* Key required? (if there is a key item that will open it...it will ask for the tag)
* Open Lock DC
* Close Lock DC

That doesn't do what you need. We'll check 'Trap':
* Is Trapped? (obvious)
* Trap Type (there's a big pull-down list)
* One Shot? (will the trap only go off once or every time?)
* Disarmable? (self-explanatory)
* Detection DC
* Disarm DC
* On Disarm (here you can insert a script)
* On Trap Triggered (here's where the trap's effect script goes)
* Hmmm...some other trap stuff that I don't know anything about. Looks like mods to rogues setting traps on the objects, but I'm not sure so I won't list it.

Still nothing you would want there. Okay, then...if you move to the 'Events' tab, it gives you all the possible events which can trigger a script you make. This is where you'd want to do it, I imagine...and I don't think it'd be too difficult from the looks of it. Here's the triggers:
* On Closed
* On Damaged
* On Death
* On HeartBeat
* On Inventory Disturbed
* On Lock
* On Melee Attacked
* On Open
* On Spell Cast At
* On Unlock
* On Used
* On User-Defined (everything else)

So...let's see. There will be, no doubt, some sytem for how SR is going to work. I'm not sure of it, myself, but you could add it in the HeartBeat so it's renewed. Maybe even on the Spell Cast At. Then again, you might want to think about what kind of magic you're protecting it from...and script according to that.

At any rate, it's pretty flexible, as you can see.

Thoughts on the Infinity Engine: I'm going to miss the IE, myself. Having worked with it, though, I can say that I'm also glad it's gone. There's just so many things the IE wasn't built to do...by the time we got to ToB, half the things in the game were work-arounds...and we had to put aside so many plot ideas simply because trying to make them work was just too difficult.

Where Erinjas is a little bit right is that this IS a new engine...and unlike where the IE had slowly developed since BG1 and had features upon features added into it, the NWN engine is going to be (all things considered) fairly basic. Plus, us scripting guys are pretty much neophytes insofar as knowing the ins and outs of the scripting language.

But, Erinjas, if you've done ANY scripting for the IE...just wait. I wasn't keen on learning another scripting language, but now that I have there is just SO MUCH that the NWN scripting language can do that the IE scripting language never could. It's flexibility by comparison really boggles the mind.

Not that I still don't think that there's a decent game or two that could still be done with the IE...it has some life in it, yet. But the engine can always be licensed out...Bioware doesn't have to be the one to use the engine, and we've ridden it just about as far as we want to. Time to move on.

The Single-Player Campaign: The single-player game will be very important insofar as its the Big Show for the toolset, right? But I'm not convinced it will be everything. Mind you, I suppose there's plenty of people out there who might buy the game for the single-player campaign without much thought as to how much they'll be using the toolset or multi-player aspect.

I suppose we'll discover what's what once it hits the shelves.

As far as the user-created modules that come out...I agree that that's where the shelf-life of NWN will come from most strongly. I have to agree with the ratio break-down a few posts above. I will point out a few things that will make things easier for even the casual user, though:

1) ANNOTATED SCRIPT EXAMPLES: we have a large library of easily-accessed scripts that are well-remarked in describing what they're to be used for.

2) ACCESS TO THE SINGLE-PLAYER MODULES: The single-player campaign is being made completely with the toolset, and will be completely accessible by any toolset user. This will help in many ways because everyone will be able to see how things were done and dissect them to learn more about the functions. Remember a part in the module where a monster surrenders once it's been hurt? Pull up the creature...find his scripts and look at those. Cut & Paste and then edit the dialogue, if you wish...and so forth. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe there's also to be a plethora of mini-modules showcasing examples that players might want to use...and containing generic, easy-to-understand dialogues that players can use and substitute.

3) INTUITIVE INTERFACE & CREATION WIZARDS: One thing I remember being most frustrated with the Vampire toolset is that it didn't TELL you anything. How could I make dialogue? Not a clue. The wizards guide you through everything from module creation to making items, NPC's, creatures and so forth.

You can literally put together a series of areas for a module within minutes. Stock them with monsters, use some of the generic dialogue (with your own details substituted in, naturally) and you've got a basic adventure. For many, this might be enough...I haven't seen much of the DM interface, but for some DM's who run a game on the fly, the ability to possess characters and plunk down needed stuff on the fly may be all they really want to guide players through their module.

So, yes...simple modules will be incredibly easy to put together. A no-brainer, practically. And while some may lump those 'quick' modules under the 65% 'total crap' category...that doesn't mean it won't be fun for some.

The real great thing is, for those people out there who want to learn the ins and outs of the toolset in more detail, they can put their effort into their modules and get a decent result for that effort. Hopefully that will mean some great stuff coming out. Considering the fact that creating an on-line community (making sure people can find these modules and know about them...and that mod-makers can find each otehr) is very important to Bioware is indicative of the step we want to take in this direction.

User-Created Stuff: Believe me...if there's going to be a lot of user-created stuff for the game out there, nothing would make us happier. We will go out of our way to let everyone know what they are and where to get them.
And seeing as we're probably best-equipped to make changes to the game (add features and so forth) and make new quality models & tilesets, I don't think there will be any shortage of stuff for us to do if the game is successful.

Ever Wondered Where The SP Server Is?
Posted Sunday, December 16, 2001 - 22:40 CET by Sorcerer

Even though I'm from Europe, most of the traffic the site gets originates from USA, and this is also where the server hosting Sorcerer's Place is located. The recent downtime was due to the fact that RackShack, the company that sells the servers, moved to a pretty grand new colocation facility in Houston, Texas.

Hopefully there won't be any instances where I would have to report "Houston, we have a problem..." *grin*.

Site News - New Additions
Posted Sunday, December 16, 2001 - 13:07 CET by Sorcerer

It's been a while since the last update, and I've had a number of things ready for publication for some time now... However, due to the problems caused by the server move and change of hosts, I didn't get the chance to make any updates sooner, so this one will be a bit larger content-wise than usual. I'm sure no one will mind. ;)

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, two updates were made. Check out the Baldur's Gate Area Guide and the Tales of the Sword Coast Area Guide, both being the latest versions.

There is also a new addition in the Maps subsection. A fan sent in a nice pdf guide with annotated maps of all areas above ground.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale

Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster, the free official addon to the expansion, has finally been released in German and Italian language as well. Get it from the Miscellanea subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

After a long time, Dan Simpson's BG2 & ToB guide has been updated. Get it from the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection.

The Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection has been updated as well. If you could use a printer-friendly list of BG2 items, this is the place to go to.

TeamBG's The Darkest Day has finally received a patch to fix the numerous bugs, so get it from the TeamBG Tools subsection for a more enjoyable experience of this unofficial mod.

A bunch of new additions have been made to the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection (Page 1). I split this page down even further, so that character portraits are now grouped together.

The new additions here are: a ToB savegame and character that was sent in, a pack of The Lord of the Rings portraits, a pack of various portraits, a small collection of Forgotten Realms characters' portraits, another small pack of Playboy portraits (I was in a dilemma whether to post this one or not, but after a discussion in out chatroom I decided to do it anyway), and finally a portrait of Yoshimo as he looked in the beta of BG2 I got to play.

There is only one new addition on Page 2 of the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection, namely ToB: The Ascension, an interesting mod by David Gaider himself.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Pool of Radiance: RoMD

A couple of new mods have popped up recently so I added the page with them to the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection. Load it up for more details.

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

Two substantial updates were made here. The entire Piers Anthony books subsection is now up. By popular demand, I've also added all of the 3rd Edition D&D modules to the 3rd Edition D&D Books subsection.
As you probably know, buying any of the items through the Amazon links or banners on SP brings in a couple of copper pieces for me (at no additional cost to yourself), so if you appreciate all the unpaid hard work that is being poured into Sorcerer's Place, keep that in mind next time you're buying something online. And, of course, I must thank all of you who have already bought anything through SP. Every bit helps...

Subsection Updates -> Community

I more or less rewrote the entire index of this section and the entire Chatrooms subsection. Also added were 3 new guides/tutorials related to IRC and our chatrooms. The most important new addition is the Chatroom Rules page. I ask all ops to read this over and punish accordingly anyone who fails to obey them.

The second important page is IRC Services & Chat Commands where I gathered all of the commands related to the operation of the IRC servers our chatrooms are on, so finding out how to do something should be much easier now. (Of course this reference is huge so it may take you a while to read it through.)

The third useful page is the Friendly Arm Inn (#sorcerers) FAQ page where I gathered some of the most commonly asked questions and answers. Pointing newbies to this is a good idea. (Heard that, operators?)

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Worlds

There are some new things to check out in the Fantasy Movies subsection. Take a look at the News & Rumours page for the Lord of The Rings movie. It has been updated with some interesting new scoops and a link to the free Enya stream.

More Downtime :(
Posted Saturday, December 15, 2001 - 23:21 CET by Sorcerer

I have heard reports of some people not being able to access the site, even though it works fine for me currently. There have been some problems with our host, their server providers and changings of DNS addresses, so as usual, stuff that only time can fix.

I am very sorry for this mess that just doesn't want to go away. I sincerely hope that after this period of unstability regarding being able to load SP, it will be a smooth ride in the future. Again, don't send me any mails for the next couple of days because I most likely won't get them. (Or use an alternative address, sorc@siol.net).

Lord of the Rings Book Review
Posted Saturday, December 15, 2001 - 15:30 CET by Sorcerer

While browsing some books on Amazon.com a couple of weeks ago I noticed a "review" of Lord of the Rings which made me really furious. In a fit of rage I wrote a chunk of text to slap the guy who wrote it with, but the censors at Amazon told me they couldn't publish it because "it didn't focus on reviewing the book". I'll leave any expletives out here for the sake of decency.

So not to waste the time spent writing it, here is the page with the "review" I'm talking about (scroll down to the one by "A reader from Spokane, WA United States"), and my reply to it:

"Oh please. It looks like a "review" written by an unhappy powergaming munchkin that didn't get his dose of sex, magic and swordfights in the first 10 pages and therefor decided that the whole book sucks and simply isn't even worth reading. He even goes on to compare it to D&D... For God's sake, people who don't realize that there wouldn't BE any D&D or the fantasy genre to compare it with if LOTR didn't exist simply should not be allowed to voice their opinions.

I know many people who love the story but aren't especially enthusiastic about Tolkien's poetry, but that doesn't make the rest of the book any less spectacular.

You simply cannot judge Lord of the Rings by today's standards for fantasy because this epic masterpiece was written over 50 years ago by a pioneer in the genre. To achieve something similar to what Tolkien did is something all of the modern fantasy authors strive to do, but few even come close.

Reading that review made me think of Beowulf, which was regarded as total nonsense and not worth bothering with in the literary sense only a couple decades ago, but these days everyone realizes how important the work was.

I'm sure it's hard for people who grew up on D&D novels and such to appreciate Tolkien, but I simply can't stand to see their uneducated opinions, which are usually based on less than 1/10th of the book read, which the author of the "review" below calmly confessed.

The truth is, if it wasn't for Tolkien and his most widely known works such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy genre probably wouldn't exist today. We would today stand where the genre was 100 years ago. Fairy tales. That would be it. Stories for little children.

What fantasy is today is owed directly to Tolkien. He was the first, and did a damn good job which allowed fantasy to gain a respectable position among literature. If it started with the kind of crap as some of the D&D novels are, well, it's a pretty sure bet it'd take it 500 years instead of 50 to be accepted on the bookshelves of every respectable bookstore.

I have read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and some other works by Tolkien. I have also read many D&D novels, and many different fantasy authors so I can say without any trace of guilt that Tolkien, as far as making an epic masterpiece goes, beats them all. That is not to say that I hate everything but Tolkien, quite on the contrary. I enjoy many of today's fantasy writers, but I know where they all came from and what differentiates them from one another. Of course they can't all carry on with Tolkien's style, that would get boring pretty soon. But seeing someone say that The Lord of the Rings is an "annoying drivel" just shows their lack of intelligence and knowledge of the subject. I wouldn't even dare to judge a book before reading it through whole, no matter how awful it is. Seeing people write such "reviews" then, based upon 100 pages of something they don't comprehend, agitates me immensely. Especially since I know how many people read these reviews at Amazon and actually think that the "review" below is valid.

Sure, it could have been. Had the writer read the whole thing, presented us with examples of things he didn't like and argument his opinions. But as it is, it reads simply as scribbling of a lowbrow casual reader. (I won't even bother to comment on those comments about overuse of exclamation marks and misspellings, because it is blindingly obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about.)

Lord of the Rings deserves, and always will deserve 5 stars. Even if you don't like it for one reason or another, you cannot ignore what it represents and how huge its influence is."

Feel free to submit your own reviews of LoTR there, just watch out not to comment on the ignorant in the same way I tried to. You'll be wasting your time if you do.

Pool of Radiance:RoMD Review at CG Online
Posted Friday, December 14, 2001 - 18:07 CET by Sorcerer

Another pretty lukewarm review of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor appeared at CG Online. Final rating of the game is 2 out of 5 stars.
Here is a snip from the text:

Once your party is ready to roll, you'll find yourself fighting battle after battle for… well, pretty much the whole game. At its heart, it's is really more of a turn-based tactical combat game than a role-playing experience. The Dungeon Master feature, a blue text pop-up that tells you of things in the game world, and generally fills in for an actually DM, is nice, but isn't used nearly enough. Non-player characters and interactive encounters are extremely scarce, with all of the time in between spent dungeon hacking away. Mind you, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's something to be said for a good dungeon hack, but Pool of Radiance falls short on that point as well.

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Friday, December 14, 2001 - 17:39 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: When playing CRPGs, what do you listen to?
(337 votes total)

Game music (272) 81%
Other music of my own (45) 13%
I turn the music off (20) 6%


Not surprisingly at all, a vast majority (81%) of people who voted in the poll listen to the original game music.

However, 13% of people listen to other music of their own.

To conclude, a total 6% of those who voted turn the music off completely. Egad, isn't that dull?!

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Friday, December 14, 2001 - 14:39 CET by Tiamat

Brent Knowles, Co-Lead Designer:

Multiple Targeting for Magic Missiles: There is no functionality for multiple target magic missiles built into the engine.
That functionality is NOTHING like the functionality required for fireball. Fireball does a radius check at point of impact and damages all people in the radius. Magic Missile is not an area of effect spell.
Magic Missile is incredibly useful as is. Adding a custom interface for a couple spells (i.e., Magic Missile, Flame Arrow) is a waste of resources that can be better diverted to improving the general gaming experience.

Templates: Several 3E templates are in. They modify stats & properties when applied to a creature. Additional templates are fairly easily added and will likely appear post release.

Rapid Shot: Rapid Shot adds an extra attack per round when using ranged weapons. Both these attacks are taken against your current opponent.

On Cleave: Actually Cleave is in the game for sure -- it already works.
Auto target switching is simple and this is what Cleave does. If you kill an opponent and there is another opponent nearby you get your 'cleave' attack against that opponent.

Journal: The journal system leaves it up to the module creator as to how journal entries are given out.
In our official campaign most journal updates will be applied to the entire party, regardless of where they actually are. Some will apply only to the individual actually completing the plot.

Quick-Chat: Yep, we already have those. When you make a character you'll be able to choose a voiceset (which influence the actual verbal component that you hear when you press the hotkeys).

Casting Spells on Objects: Yes, this is possible.

Multiple-Targeting: You can only aim at one target per round.
HOWEVER.
If you kill that opponent and you still have attacks available (or you have the Cleave feat) you automatically take the rest of your attacks for that round against the nearest opponent.
This works in both melee and archery.

How NPC's Work: Unlike the Baldur's Gate series of games, most of the player's involvment in the campaign revolves around NPCs who are not actively adventuring with him. In some regards, this is more like Zelda than Baldur's Gate (although, it is really more like playing Baldur's Gate with only one character).

Also (unlike BG again) combat scales dynamically to the number of players involved in it. Hence, you don't *need* henchmen to defeat monsters.

Neverwinter Nights does away with the micromanagement aspects of the BG series. This is intentional on our part. We want a game where the player focuses and develops his or her character and not a party of 'stats & items'.

Since we don't have a party management system, all henchmen/followers/animal companions/summoned monsters/familiars rely on their AI to assist the player. Although the AI is good, too many of these creatures flocking around the player would make the game unplayable and unenjoyable.

Basically, we have a limit of one type of associate (this is our blanket term for these creatures). So you can have one henchmen, one animal companion, one familar, one summoned monsters and one dominated creature at any one time (5 creatures total). But no more than one of each.

These numbers are, of course, subject to playtesting.

The NPCs you encounter in the game (i.e.,the ones who give you quests et cetera) are more detailed than in any of our previous games. Your involvement in their story arcs, and they in yours, is one of the major strengths of Neverwinter Nights.

I don't believe that micromangement = strong story. A strong singleplayer game is independent of whether or not you have party members (again, Zelda is an example).

Summoned Allies: Summoned monsters will be much more powerful to compensate for only getting one of them.
The definition of NPC is Non Player Character. There are many NPCs in the world.
Henchman are joinable NPCs. You are limited to one of them at a time in your travels.
Most 3e PnP summoning spells give you the option of choosing ONE powerful monster (or higher level spells let you choose instead to summon in several weaker creatures). Neverwinter has removed the second option to improve performance and gameplay. This does not go against the grain of pen and paper D&D nor contradict our advertising policy.

Party Control: Nope, no BG style party control. The game -- and interface -- is not setup to accomodate that kind of gameplay.

Not having a 'party to control' is another thing people are complaining about. In pen and paper D&D you commonly control one character (sometimes two or more if you don't have enough players to form a large enough playing sesssion).

If it happens that one player is separated from the rest of the party and must adventure on his own, the game master doesn't force him to control '6 other characters'. The game master balances the game to the single character.

This is what Neverwinter Nights does very well. When there is only one character, the challenges faced are scaled to the character. If more people join in -- say in a multiplayer game -- more creatures appear in encounters.

On every level, Neverwinter Nights captures the 'gaming experience' of pen and paper D&D. This does not mean we translated every rule literally, but everything we've implemented has been done to give the player an experience, we believe, as close to that delivered in pen and paper roleplaying as is possible.

Neverwinter Nights has *never* been about joinable NPCs or full party control. We have never said we were going to implement a party system. I am sorry you are now disapointed in Neverwinter Nights, but obviously we are not going to satisty everyone.

I imagine some people who played the BG series of games did so because of party control. BioWare will continue to produce party control games, but Neverwinter Nights is not one of those.

I hope you give Neverwinter Nights a chance, and I think you'll find that it is indeed a fun game (in my opinion, as much fun as any Infinity Engine game I've played).

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Battle Chess Script:I've made one already. Well, I haven't finished the 'battle' part of it yet, but the chess part is completely working. Currently when one piece takes another the taken piece just disappears and the other just walks over and takes its place. But its still cool. When I get some time I am planning on making the pieces fight and stuff. Then it will be super-cool.

Time Limits According to Game Days: Shouldn't be too hard to do. We have functions that allow you to get which day, month and year it is. There are also functions which allow you to get the time of day - this includes specific functions that give you the exact hour/minute/second, as well as more generic functions which can simply tell you if it is day, night, dawn or dusk.

David Gaider, Designer:

Why Bioware Can't Give Out Information.... Legal stuff aside (which we can't comment on, period), we'd love to be able to talk about everything in the game at length. The big trouble is with the specifics...there's a very large crew working on the game, and many things in the game are constantly being changed or tweaked as we get feedback and as we discover what is working and what isn't. This means that the specifics are never guaranteed.

And the great majority of the questions that are being asked here are very specific. You guys aren't simply gamers with a casual interest who are satisfied with being informed on the general points behind the game...you have hard and fast questions about the exact mechanics. Those are hard to discuss, however...in addition to Jay's comments about the prevalent 'glass-half-empty' mentality we sometimes encounter, you also run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot if the specific thing we're talking about ends up being changed later. C'mon, guys...you know yourselves. If we said 'the rule is X', we could add 'but that could change' all we wanted until we were blue in the face...if and when we finally said 'the rule is no longer X' for whatever reason, there would be all kinds of cries of 'but you said!'. Not everyone comes to the boards that often, either, so someone could have been satisfied long ago with seeing a clear 'the rule is X' only to be quite jarred upon discovering it not to be so much later.

So we have to be careful with what we comment on. All of us know you guys are impatient...and we're impatient to show you our baby, believe me. I know the feeling is it's overdue...but you all know that terrible feeling of something being released too soon, right? We want this to be as right as you do, because we're gamers just like you are.

Hope that all made sense. Gotta go back to work, now.

Putting Coats of Arms on Objects:If you know your way with 3D Max, you would be able to take a model out of the game, put another texture map onto it and shove it back into the game - no programming required. That would do it. Quite easily, too. Only limitation is that the new texture-mapped item would be a new resource...and would have to be d'loaded by everyone who wanted to see it. (So if you had the item present in a module, all players would have to have that resource on their machines in order to see what you had made). This is true of all player-made stuff, though.

Item Hardness and Hitpoints: Not sure about the hardness...but I've definitely seen HP on the placeable items, myself.

Shining Light Into Areas: Certain areas can be set to the day/night cycle...while you can set others to permanently day or permanently night. In an area that is permanently night (or otherwise dark), I don't think that you can add daylight into just a part of that area. We have placeable objects which are different-coloured 'columns of light'...don't know if that's the effect you're looking for, though.

User-Made Voice-Overs: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this won't be hard to do. You have the ability to add sound files to lots of things, including dialogue, so as long as you had the proper sound file in your resources that shouldn't be a problem. You can very easily add it onto dialogue via a drop-down menu to make your own voice-overs.

Alignment Scripting: Yes, there is scripting in the game to cause a shift either towards Good/Evil or Law/Chaos. You can script something to be a small change (ex: such as threatening someone with bodily harm to cough up more money for a quest reward) or a big change (ex: selling some innocent little girl in your charge to obviously depraved slavers). A big change you might notice right away. As was said, small changes you likely will not. When making your own modules, you can put these commands in as often or as seldom as you like.
OK, just to reiterate: when writing your own modules, you can use the scripting commands that adjust alignment as often or as seldom as you wish. This is not 'hard-coded' into the game, forcing the characters to change alignment whether you wish it or not.

Can you can make the land to look like obsidian, trees to be burned black or having eerie glow and the deep rift to have lava on to bottom or eerie raindow glow? Err...not without editing the tilesets, no. Lighting effects will only take you so far.

Long Bridges: Well, I didn't try going across a river, but I did create a large area in the forest tileset...then used the 'pit' tile to eliminate everything but a small island in the middle (so it looks like it's floating in the middle of no-where). And bingo, the bridge can be extended out right to the edge of the area. It doesn't have to be straight, either. I assume going across water, instead of a big pit, would work the same way.

Fog: There's a slider for fog control. Not sure how dense it is at its maximum, though. No, there's no ground fog that I've seen.
I can respond. Not being an artist, however, I don't know what the answers are to your questions.
There have been pretty detailed walk-throughs made for players that are considering making 3D models and tilesets and such...many of those have already been released. (I forget where they are, though...GameSpy? Maybe someone can help me out here and direct you.)

Summoned Monsters: Let me tell you this. I don't know the exact list of summoned monsters in the game, myself, though I do know the one in the rulebook. And there are two things that come to mind that I think I can re-assure you with.
1) The people doing the spells are very dogmatic about doing them as closely to the book as the engine will allow.
2) The list of creatures that the game comes with (and yes, I know there will always be some monsters that you like that won't make it into release) has some, what I thought to be anyway, pretty obscure creatures. A lot of ones that you find on the creature summoning list, especially. I still remember doing a double-take the first time I saw the Lantern Archon.
Whether all these things make it to final release remains to be seen, but there's a lot there already. As far as Monster Summoning and Summon Nature's Ally go, especially, there's a whole assortment of animals which will supply the normal/dire/celestial slots...not to mention the familiars and animal companions...that already exist.
Hope that puts your mind at ease.

Animal Companions:Last time I saw they had both animal companions as well as the familiars in. The animal companions are pretty tough. Having a druid or ranger in your party with their dire wolf or mountain lion (or whatever the case might be) is pretty effective. Don't know how much specific information you're going to get at this point, though. How it works is still being tweaked as people are trying it out.
Animal companions are summoned. You get to choose from a list. The animals also level up as you do.

Domain Spells: Sorry...don't know about Clerics getting anything with regards to animals or domain spells. I doubt it, as it's meant to be a class feature for the Druids and Rangers, but I could be wrong.
Domain abilities are perfectly legitimate and no, not incredibly difficult to put in. However, we still may not have time to do it. There are numerous other things related to the rules we simply will not be able to put in the game right now, either...no matter how much we'd like to.
I think the idea is to get in as much as possible, and make it work and be stable and be fun. Once we've got that accomplished, we can worry about getting in all the details.
I don't know what the situation with domain powers is, personally...but somehow I think Clerics will still be quite well-off so long as they get access to their domain spells and auto-substitution of cure/cause spells. Those are, by far, the Cleric's bread and butter.

Animal Summoning Figurines: I haven't seen any figurines of wondrous power, myself, but I'm pretty sure they'll be in. We have the animal summoning and plenty of animal animations, after all (including a mountain lion)...so attaching the effects to an item is quite simple.

Druids With Scimitars: Yes, they're in the game because they're canon. Sort of like dual wielding Rangers.
I was also thinking that it might be a lame attempt at play balancing, because 1e Druids did have a pretty weak selection of weapons, from a powergaming point of view.
Unless there is a good reason for it, they should have changed it back in 3e. If someone really wanted a scimitar weilding Druid, they could have used a feat to gain proficiency...
If I remember right, I think the scimitars were given to Druids to make them more like the Celtic druids. Or was that the scythe? Do 3rd edition druids use scythes? Hmmm...if not, they probably should.
Animal companions are a big plus for druids, too, don't forget that. The ability to carry on a coversation with the local fauna that's in-the-know is not to be underestimated, either.
It's not foreshadowing. Both those abilities are in, or I wouldn't have mentioned them. If I knew exactly how the druid shapeshifting worked, I'd discuss that.

Instruments and Performing: Do we have different musical instruments? (Or any, for that fact.) Can you play them?
There's no musical instruments in the way that I think you're asking. There's no animation of using an instrument, at any rate. A regular item could be created that was an instrument, and it could be 'used' to make a variety of effects (and even play music, if the sound file was available). In fact, you could also make a check vs. Perform in the script lead into different effects or sounds.
Again, though, there's no animation for actually wielding the instrument. That would be nice, but there's no plan for it currently. Bard Song ability is, of course, something else altogether.
Is there a Perform skill, and if there is is it available to all classes?
Yes. It's available to those classes which have it in-class at regular cost, anyway, and to the others as a cross-class skill.

Toad Familiars: No toads, I'm afraid. Nope. No frogs or toads, period. Maybe in an expansion, if there is one.

Can the color of the fog be changed? And this raises the follow-up question: can it be changed while the module is running or only when the module is created in the toolset? The color of the fog is changeable, yes. As to whether or not fog or colors are changeable on the fly...not sure about that, myself. I'd say probably, but I haven't seen the actual commands.

It has been mentioned that when creating a module in the toolset you can specify its Ambient Light, Sun Light, and Moon Light. Can these all be altered independently of each other while the module is running? If so, does this pose any significant performance hit on machines? If there are commands to change the types of light on the fly (you forgot Diffuse Light in that list, btw), then you will be able to change each one, I'm sure. No, it does not cause much of a performance hit.

Polygon Count: I don't think modem speed has as much to do with the polygon count as processor speed does (although a slow connection on a chugging machine certainly wouldn't help matters insofar as playability goes). When we make our final count of the number of players, NPC's and placeable objects that you can have in an area, it's going to have to be playable by a machine with the minimum specs. And we want the game to have as much as content as possible for those min spec machines.
There is going to be adjustable detail...but you can only take that so far. You can take away grass effects and other cool but performance-hogging things...but you can't reduce the polygon count of models on the fly (at least, as I understand it you can't...I'm not an artist). You can be sure we'll be making all efforts to enhance performance as possible.
If we were to raise the min spec requirement a la Luclin (and just what is the min spec requirement for World of Warcraft, anyway? I don't think they've announced that, yet), then certainly...I expect a lot more could be done.
Should we do that? I don't know, personally. Right now the range in processing speeds out there is so wide. Is it reasonable to expect people to upgrade in order to play? There's a can of worms for ya.

If I add 50% more polys per scene in my mod, will the engine run it? If so i can just have a higher minimum spec for my mod? I will go and ask, but I'll tell you this: when we say what the basic limitation is regarding the number of players/NPC's/placeable objects will be in the game, that is primarily an official number. Meaning that if someone meets our min specs and comes to us saying that they're experiencing crashes when they meet those numbers, that's something we need to look into right away.
Even with Vampire:Redemption's MP capability, the 'maximum' number of players was set at 4...but if your computer had a greater capacity, you could include more. I saw games that have 6 or even 8 players going in them in the brief time I played the game.
So I expect that if you included models with higher details in your resources, that shouldn't be a problem so long as it meets NWN's other standards. You just have to keep in mind that anyone who's going to play the game has to a) download those resources from you and b) have an equivalent or greater system in order to run it with any degree of playability.
I may be wrong, though, so I'll go check.

Doing Open and Closed Beta Tests: Actually, we just never have in the past. That doesn't mean we won't in the future. Our QA guys are great, but they can only do so much.
There's no promises being made, but I don't think Bioware has ever tied itself down by saying absolutely not. More likely we'll see what our needs are when the time comes

Monsters: If you create a monster, you can put whatever name to it that you like.
Putting in a script that changes the name from 'monster' to 'Hutteroid', or whatever, after the players find out what the creature is actually called (setting the appropriate module global), might also be kind of cool, no?
With 3rd edition, players shouldn't expect too much when encountering even the lowly goblin. If you look at the system, there's a whole big thing in there for the HD-ranges of monsters...never mind using humanoid creatures and adding classes to them. The first time my low-level party encountered a 5th-level Sorcerer kobold and his 4th-level Warrior kobold chieftan they learned to be wary.
(and, yes...putting these classes on monsters is easy to do, especially with the Creature Wizard.)

Indicating a Monster's Strength Using Color: No, there's nothing like that in NWN. If your party of 5th-level characters encounter a huge Black Dragon and decide that they can take him...well, they're always free to roll up new characters, aren't they?

Campfires: Yes, actually. I believe a campfire is one of the placeable objects. If not, I'm positive that there's a 'pile of wood' object and a seperate 'small fire' object to place on top of it.
If you want to be detailed, you can also spread around some blankets.
Once placed, these objects are only moveable/destroyable by the GM (unless they aren't marked 'indestructable' and are given HP...then the players or maybe monsters can destroy them, as well).

More on Placeable Objects: Yes...all placeable objects may have HP's, if you wish. Or you can make them indestructable (by checking off the indestructible button). As I understand it, though, unless there is a seperate 'destroyed' object that replaces it. destroying an object just makes it disappear.
I don't know about walls...but gates are handled like doors, which is a different function. They, too, have HP's.
As for stacking placeable objects...yep, you can do that. You can have, say, a stack of placeable crates blocking the way down a passage. One fireball and WOOMP...the coast is clear.

Character Interactions: Consider, for a moment, the possibility that the idea is not to have deep interactions only with people that travel with you. Is it not also a decent idea to have deeper interactions with some of the NPC's you encounter? Why, to have a romance, must the person be tagging along with you everywhere you go?
Think about it. Perhaps what you're reacting to is that it will be set up differently from BG2. I can't speak to your confidence on our abilities...but we know how important good interactions is. We just don't think that it HAS to come from other party members.
There might be different stuff in NWN you'll enjoy just as much, if not more. At the very least that's what we're striving towards.

The Ring is for Sale
Posted Thursday, December 13, 2001 - 15:17 CET by Mollusken

If you have €16.250 (about the same in US $), you can now buy the gold ring which was used in the upcoming movie "Lord of the Rings". It is the german auction site eBay which is selling the ring, and the money they'll make on it will help children with cancer. Here is some info about the ring:

- Fineness 585 Gold
- 14 carat
- Weight: 8 Gramm
- Width: 6,5 mm
- Thickness: 1,8 mm
- Absolute individual item
- Numeration "No. 1"
- No merchandising item, but THE original ring for movie
- Certificate by licensed Goldsmith

Actually the German Goldsmith and manufacturer of this ring, intended to make himself a wonderful "Tolkien-Saga-gold-ring". But when the boss of New Line Cinema who produced "Lord of the rings" happened to see this ring, he was so enthusiastic about this ring that he authorised him with producing all the rings for the film. The goldsmith used a unique laser-technique for the engraving of the ring, that should prevent any falsifications. This original ring is also called the "mother of all movie-rings", because it is not only the first ring ever made for the movie "lord of the rings", (manufactured already in march 1999) but also the prototype for all following rings worn by the actors in the movie. Although those actor-rings, unlike the original, do not have the engraving like or any numeration. This ring has the inscription: "One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, one Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them ..." The ring is the only one with numeration, on the inside it says fineness 585 and "NR.1" (No.1). So even a layperson can tell the difference between the original and the merchandising copies.

Read everything here.

PoR Review at GameSpot
Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2001 - 17:44 CET by Darien

Here's another short review of Pool of Radiance. This time the game scores a bit better, earning an average of 6.4. Here's a bit from the reviewer:

The main complaint, though, is the lack of narrative drive. There's a background plot, and there are sub-quests, yet you never once feel that you are part of a story. Many have already criticised this game for having less plot and colour than games like Baldur's Gate II and Planescape:Torment. However, I felt it had even less plot than Icewind Dale, which was effectively a dungeon hack. I never once felt any sense of urgency or involvement, and half the time I had to check my journal to find if I had any quests pending. Baldur's Gate II it is not.

Ruins of Myth Drannor is not a terrible game - it just doesn't compare particularly well to the cream of other role-playing games that have been around for the last two years or so. The graphics and music are pleasant and there are hours of gameplay, but this gameplay is rather slow and not especially interesting.

Boards O' Magick Up Again!
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 23:30 CET by Sorcerer

And there was much rejoicing! Yes, it's true, our beloved boards are back up and running, and we've got some catching up to do, so come over and post away!

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 16:52 CET by Tiamat

Trent Oster, Producer:

Spiders and Placeable Objects: Spiders cannot climb walls. We compensate for the reduced mobility by giving them a faster movement rate. The goal is of course to have spiders able to quickly descend on a party and attack with surprise. Using movement speeds and perception distances we can quickly re-balance the spiders for a more accurate feel.

With placeable objects, we might not have two visible states, but you can place a trigger anywhere you wish, so having an area transition on a placeable object is very possible. You could even script the transition so it requires a greater than 19 strength to open it the first time and then it remains open.

In short, NWN will not support everything one might desire natively, but with a little creativity scripting almost anything can be simulated.

The Server: The server can be set to log a great deal of information. We have logfiles in excess of a Gigabyte at one time due to message appending. When the server is in debug more it spits just about everything out.

Storyline: The single player story in NWN is also the multiplayer story. You can play solo, or with a group of other players and enjoy plot driven multiplayer adventuring. The story has undergone some very heavy revisions, and continues to be reworked on a daily basis. We are trying to include many of the play forms from our previous games, such as the open exploration of the original BG, the interesting subplots and cities of BGII while implementing a much more flexible rules system behind it all. The story will be an enjoyable one, I'm sure of that.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

Weapon Making: A complete BG type weapon effects system. We'll show a little of this at E3, but the possibilities are amazing and too vast to go into in detail in a demo

o Weapon : Bastard Sword
o Ability Bonus: Constitution +2
o Damage Immunity: Bludgeoning
o Improved Saving throws: Reflex
o On Monster Hit: Ability Drain Strength by 3
o Use Limitation: Chaotic
o Use Limitation: Evil
o Damage Bonus vs Racial Type: Gnome 1d6 acid damage

I now have a Bastard sword which gives me:
o +2 to my constitution
o Immunity to bludgeoning damage
o A +2 bonus to my reflex saves
o A weapon which drains 3 points of strength / hit
o A weapon only useable by Chaotic Evil characters
o A weapon which does an extra 1D6 of acid damage to Gnomes

I scuttled down to Keith's office to ask about this. I don't believe that the true strike spell is in the game, however, the toolset can create swords that are very similar to your two examples. The toolset is designed to be very flexible.

3E Rules: Through my own experience using the 3rd edition rules, I found they took great care in making each ability useful. It is ultimately up to players and their DM to encourage role-playing- if that's the desired result. NWN uses the 3rd edition rules and thus is open to any sort of playing but does not ENFORCE certain styles of playing as there is no consensus as far as what constitutes a good game.

Destroying Objects: All placeable items and doors will be breakable within the game. The placeable items will have settings for making smashing them harder or easier based on what hit points, damage absorption etc the DM places on them. For example a DM could have a steel trunk that absorbs the first 20 hit points of damage a hit and has 100 hit points to make it a very hard item to smash open. This also prevents a very persistent house cat from bumping into a steel trunk for 2 weeks and eventually smashing it. It will never generate enough damage with a hit to do the trunk harm. DMs can make an item invincible within the game- but the default is breakable. You cannot break weapons a la Sunder, except by a scripted event.

NWN and Rules: If you are unfamiliar with the 3rd Edition rules the first thing you notice about them when playing is how quickly you move up your first few levels. My guess is that the developers wanted you to get a few levels under your belt to gain a few abilities and skills that separate you from your fellow party members. In addition, you also gain enough power and experience to relax a bit about your character ‘staying alive' which seems in question initially as you have very little defensives against you enemies. When you hit 4-5 level however that leveling-up process slows considerably. It's very true that 3rd Edition was designed to have much shorter campaigns with a quicker turnaround BUT that all depends on the DM in PnP. A DM can have far fewer experience encounters and concentrate more on some other aspect of gaming.

That holds true for NWN. Since the experience is based on those 3rd rules you will experience the same quick leveling-up initially which will slow down as you gain your first few levels. As for how quickly you get to 20th level? That's still up to the DM in how he sets encounters, gives experience etc. The Official Campaign will take you as long as you like to finish, as there is a wealth of detail to explore.

Official Campaign and DM Client: The DM Client wasn't worked on until recently because we needed to base it off of the Player Client as was mentioned.

An interesting and distressing bit that has appeared with alarming regularity in various forms is the idea that the Official Campaign- the adventure that ships with the game- is a tacked on, 10 hour tutorial used only as a gateway to online gaming. This is completely wrong. The Official Campaign has been in development for over a year with the writers working on an adventure on par with what gamers have come to expect from BioWare. Brent and Rob the lead designers would both have very large pulsing veins appear in their foreheads if they read that all their effort for the past year has been to create a ‘tutorial'. We cannot give an exact figure on the final Campaign but it should run around 60 hours.

Taking the Official Campaign story and implementing it into the game structure could only come about when we had the Toolset and Player Client in useable shapes. We cannot create a game if no tools to build it and no tools to test it exist. We have had those tools for some time now and are hard at work on implementing the epic story that already exists in great detail outside the computer medium.

While that work is being done the DM Client has begun to take shape. For the DM Client we again needed the Player Client to be in a near complete form as any DM stuff would be based on the Player Client. The DM should have all powers of a player, of course, but have a range of additional powers that allow the control of the adventure as a PnP DM has.

We are receiving news on the progress of the DM Client now on a regular basis and so more answers should become available pretty quick.

As for what's the point of NWN- is it a Single Player Game with extra fiddly-bits added to include Multi-player or vice versa? Since it's initial inception the idea was to bring Pen and Paper role-playing to the computer and that means multi-player. The single game has been referred to as a multi-player game with only one player, playing on his own server. He can just as easily hook up to a LAN or the Internet and play the single game with his buddy in the next room or with complete strangers in different countries.

I hope that gives you some idea where all this crazy NWN stuff came from developmentally, and where it will be when you load it into your computer.

Stealth and Traps: You can search, use stealth and disable traps all at the same time. You cannot, however, also chew gum.

The Tarrasque: Not to unnecessarily complicate this discussion of the eternal question as to whether the Great and Terrible Tarrasque's presence will be felt in the initial release of NWN with long theoretical reflections on the nature of a living embodiment of Chaos and Destruction I will cut my response down to…

No.

No Tarrasque. No Tarrasque's Mamma. No guys in paper costumes running around dressed as Tarrasques. No village festivals involving dancing ‘round the May Pole with Tarrasque colored ribbons and lastly, no Big Fuzzy Tarrasques surrounded by children singing, "I love you, you love me" will be featured in NWN.

Thank you and goodnight.

Scripting Q&A: Here is a list of questions we received recently and answers prepared by Preston Watamaniuk, a Designer/ Writer for NWN to some pretty specific code-related items, that I thought you folks who are interested in the scripting aspect of the game, would find interesting:

Q: Can I draw my own invisible trigger areas on the map/screen/tiles, and have it on fire when it is entered? - I want to have a number of thieves/muggers spawn in notorious alleyways, but only at night if the PC (or NPC?) is alone, and the nearest other party member is further away than a minimum distance.
A: Yes

Q: Also, could you tell me, will I need to write my own functions like
IsDetectable(), to see if a char entering said trigger is invisible or
hiding in shadows?
A: No - We have done this for you with script commands.

Q: Will there be an option to 'decorate' a tile or corridor with dead bodies, or some such?
A: Yes - We have a wide assortment of placeable objects to put in the game.

Q: Like a kind of 'customize tile' option, in which you can add from a
pre-defined list of 'decorations' to a standard tile, and include that?
(all nicely blended with the lighting and shade of the tile, etc),
A: You can change the lighting and tile specific animations on an
Individual tile

Q: Would tooltips on these custom tile decorations be pushing it?
A: No we will have context sensitive help within the toolset.

Q: Is the development environment of NWN structured in such a way that I will be able to script for NPC tooltips to display 'Commoner', 'Adventurer', 'Hired sword' etc (i.e., NOT the characters name) until the NPC has introduced him/herself, or been intro'd some other way, and THEN then have the ;help flag that appear over a selected person reflect their actual name?
A: No.

Q: If a lot of objects (monsters) take up a lot of memory or more importantly slow the game down, when they go 'out of sight' to any party members, could I save the important info about them to smaller struts (which include the monsters location), and reload/spawn the objects again based on these variables when a player approaches again?
A: Monster currently not visible on screen do not use graphical resources but they do use scripting resources such as heartbeat scripts placed on them.

Q: I would like to have two guards on the door to an inn, who warn the party before entering that there is to be 'no stealing or bad behavior of any kind while on the premises, or there will be trouble. (just so they know Is this possible?
A: Yes this is easy.

Q: Can I maintain my own custom reputations during a game, using variables, like a char who always gives money to beggars, or always runs from fights, etc, and when that reputation reaches a certain level, something happens?
A: The reputation system would allow for checks of this nature. Though much of it would be custom scripting to get the specific behaviors required.

Q: Can I do code for when a char/party enters a bar, lots of things happen at once, like a couple of NPC's start fighting each-other, some drunk at a table insults everyone who walks through the door, some wizard starts casting a spell in the corner to show off to his mates, in other words, create a busy hectic inn/tavern?
A: Yes.

Q: Can I store a lot of the above things in some way, and call upon them randomly whenever the party enters a tavern, so as to create a random atmosphere in every pub? These are things I am interested in trying, I am not confident yet that I can write a whole adventure that anyone would want to play, but I am happy to attempt things like this to start with.
A: Yes this is possible but requires a good understanding of the scripting language.

Q: Can I code for baddies or monsters to pursue a party across maps? Or flee across maps?
A: Yes this is possible. The pursuit of characters across area transitions is easy.

Proficiencies: To answer the first question, yes, the racial and class proficiencies are available.

David Chan, Audio Guy:

Famous Actors: Well known actors are a two-edged sword. On one hand you get the "instantly recognizable factor" and the "coolness" factor. On the other hand some actor's have a persona bigger than any character they play and the character becomes them instead of the other way around. Eddie Murphy is a perfect example of this. I really liked Shrek a lot, but when I heard the donkey I always saw Eddie Murphy. Mike Myers on the other hand became Shrek.

Frame Rate: Come, come now, this is an RPG not a shooter. I will scarifice FPS for glorious eye candy any day of the year. I never have understood people that play games like Quake 3 at the lowest detail, texture and resolution settings to get 145 FPS instead of 120.

3D Audio: We will be supporting 3D positional audio for NWN. Which API we will be using still hasn't been finalized (we are trying different options). In other words when a person screams behind your character, assuming you have the proper sound card and speakers, you will hear it behind you. Also, just for clarification EAX is an effect, not a positional API. For example EAX is like the echo in a cave, whereas Direct Sound places the sound in the audio space in front, beside or behind you.

OpenAL for Linux Version: The problem with OpenAL is that there isn't a critical mass of support behind it yet and it's not a mature API.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

NWN and Linux: Kylix is basically Pascal for Linux, so it doesn't help us for the Linux port of the toolset. And yes, the Linux version will ship on the same CD.

System Requirements: The number one requirement of NWN is a video card/chipset will a fully implimented OpenGL driver. Most of the games quoted in this thread are talking about Direct3D games. Just because a Direct3D runs on your computer is no guarentee of an OpenGL game working.

Try running Half-Life in OpenGL mode, Quake 2 (in OpenGL) or 3, or BG2's bggltest.exe program and see how that works for you. If any of those work, NWN should work for you. This includes the Toolset as well as the game.

Server Browser and Service Provider: NWN will have an internal server browser similar to Tribes, Half-Life, etc. The matching service provider had not been decided or announced yet. We are still working on that part of the game and a final decision has not been made.

Override Folder: Yes there will be an "Override" folder, but it is OUR override folder. That is not the location for user-created content. Part of our patching system will sanitize that directory so that only BioWare content appears there. We ran into a great deal of problems with BG2 in this regard.

User created content is the realm of hack packs. We are actually working on some of the details of the hack pack system right now, so I don't have any more information for you at this time. We will be making it straight forward for both creators and end-users to use.

Multiplayer: BG2 multiplayer was created using DirectPlay, thus all the problems with firewalls, etc. NWN is using custom, multiplatform networking code that will work just fine with routers/NAT/IPMasq/etc. If you can play other internet games on your system, you should be able to play NWN.

Downloading: In Windows and the strict sense of your question, it will be a manual download and install. This is because we cannot control where your web browser's default download directory. Some times its your desktop, sometimes its "My Documents", etc.

But, we are planning to make the downloads from our Community site come with a mini-installer that will extract the files and put them in their proper place, similar to The Sims, Need For Speed, etc.

Modules: For modules, clients do not need the modules installed on their computers to play. No downloading occurs.

Information Transfer:Nothing is downloaded if you the client playing on a NWN server. Information is streamed to the client, but it is not a file that is being sent.

Single-Player Download Modules: Well, we are even trying to make that a one step process, too. I can't comment any more on it right now, but we hope to have something for the solo module authors to make it easier for their users.

Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance Ninja:

And Some Light Comic Relief: Okay, so the storyline goes like this: Aribeth is on a giant ship, and she sees dead people--ALL THE TIME!--so she asks these recently-fired actors for help, thinking they really are the characters they play (the "Three Compatriots," or some such). These guys show up amidst a war between the Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic, and are beset by a series of costumed fighters who wear funny armour. Throughout the ensuing battle, which is strangely one-on-one, with Aribeth crying "Excellent" and "Flawless victory" now and again, the ship sinks and the Empire's battle station is destroyed by a farm boy. The farm boy and Aribeth hook up, and the three actors join them in their quest to find a Goblet of Everlasting Youth within the confines of a maze that David Bowie built.

With the aid of a bunch of puppets, the heroic group discovers who Kaiser Soze is, the secret of the "Game of Tears," and the secret of a bunch of animated field mice named Brisby. The developing romance between the farm boy and Aribeth is interrupted by the boy's father--played by David Prowse, James Earl Jones, and Sebastian Shaw--and the actors' mysterious clockwork agent--played by George Lazenby.

The father and the agent (who was orange) release giant robotic salt shakers, giant sand worms, and a giant robotic singing woman with a big nose. Aribeth summons a rose-coloured panther, who is quickly dispatched. The farm boy fights valiantly with a light sabre and two clockwork automatons. The actors summon an invisible swordsman, whom they accidentally destroy by opening an Ark, and must rely on a plan they used in one of their shows. Quickly, they get all the neighbouring villagers to play a magical game and attack their enemies with the death blossom attack.

Their first wave defeated, the father and agent unleash the mighty army of clones and hellhounds with bees in their mouth and when they bark at you they shoot bees at you. Our heroes use their dual-wielding ranger powers to form Unicron, who eats the planet and saves the day, but killing the Three Compatriots, maiming the farm boy, and running the titanic ship into a monolith in the process, breaking it into 2001 pieces.

Then, a group of red-tunicked explorers appears, an begin to poke around. They wake a nearby bulette, who attempts to get into buildings by posing as a harmless woodland animal. The farm boy and Aribeth stow away on a fantastic flying citadel, where a visiting musician is to give them four stones with which to navigate the maze and find the Goblet. The citadel is attacked by an army of blue-faced, skirt-wearing men. The musician is fatally wounded, but not before directing the farm boy to open her up and take the puzzling stones, which were stored in her body. Aribeth accidentally solves one of the puzzles, which releases grotesque Cenobites into the world.

Elminster appears in the nick of time, and restores things to their rightful place, but not before regressing to a young, bespectacled, hairy wizard-wannabe who smokes marijuana. The farm boy and Aribeth proceed past the blind, deaf, and dumb god who sure played mean against Bhaal, past a dozen Brazilian monkey bandits, and over a river, and through some woods. They traverse the labyrinth, defeat a minotaur at the centre, wake a slumbering princess, and spin straw into gold before finally reaching the Goblet.

And then they find out that they were siblings all along, and that Aribeth is really a man! And that they have both been dead clockwork automatons, who have been living a waking dream courtesy of Kelemvor, who simply just bored.

I demand you smile, everybody!

The Darkest Day Patch
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 16:11 CET by Mollusken

TeamBG has released a patch which will upgrade the unofficial mod for Baldur's Gate 2, The Darkest Day, to version 1.02. The size of the patch is 3,8 MB, and you might need to start a new game for all the fixes to work properly. The patch will not make The Darkest Day compatible with Throne of Bhaal.

Click here for download locations, and more info about The Darkest Day and the patch.

Regarding Mails...
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 8:50 CET by Sorcerer

If anyone has sent me any e-mails from Friday to Sunday that they got no reply to yet, please send them again. I suspect that some have been lost during the site move before the new mail forwards kicked in.

PoR Review at Blue Monday
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 2:55 CET by Darien

Want to read yet another review of Pool of Radiance? This one comes from Blue Monday, where Ruins of Myth Drannor scores a miserable 4.9 of 10, with emphasis on "the worst interface ever." Here's a summary:

In some way, RoMD reminds me of the release of Ultima: Ascension, when fans banded against EA for publishing an unfinished game. But the case of Pool of Radiance is even worse, because I can’t begin to imagine what could be done to “finish” it. The bigger problem is not in the bugs or the missing features, but in a complete lack of vision. I can’t help but imagine that some time ago there was a meeting, where the Stormfront team and Ubi Soft executives discussed if they should gather everything they had and shove it into a retail box, or just put it “on hold”.
If that meeting actually took place, you already know how it ended. Pool of Radiance’s flaws are big and many, but if you’re able to look beneath them, you’ll find that it’s just a boring and uninspired game.

Bioware Developer Profile
Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 2:32 CET by Darien

RPGVault recently posted a profile of Bioware's Community Manager for Neverwinter Nights, Jay Watamaniuk. What are the responsibilities of the person holding this newly created position? Read on:

Jay Watamaniuk: In general, my job revolves around making sure the gamer gets what they need from BioWare or the community to have the best gaming experience they can have with NWN. For some, it will mean being able to make modules; for others, it will mean downloading new bits and pieces for NWN to add to and change the experience or simply getting together with friends online to go adventuring.

Jonric: Since you spoke about goals, what do you consider the key ones, and what do you see as the main challenges before you?

Jay Watamaniuk: Specifically, I would like to see a community site on the web that has an area for every aspect of the game; from DMs wanting to develop modules to players who are looking for information on Thieves Guilds or how they can start a guild. There are several examples of Community Pages on the net I am taking a look at that are remarkable in their set-up and content. I hope to develop something new for NWN by learning from the best I can find. I would consider the planning and implementation of such a site would be a short-term goal. The challenge being to try and include all aspects of a game that involves so much back history, so much passion from lifelong gamers and so many details in one place in a reasonable and clear set-up. My long-term goals involve proving that Mole people rule the world through a series of underground tunnels. *wack* Hey, those are my knuckles, Brad!

Read more more about Bioware's Community Manager.

Excuse The Mess!
Posted Monday, December 10, 2001 - 23:42 CET by Sorcerer

Well, we're back!

It's been a turbulent ride to the new server, but here we are, ready to rumble so to speak. I'll need a day or two to get back on track with things like SoTW, and site news and boards but they are my priorities.

I'll let the poll run for another week since it only got half the views due to the downtime. If you spot any problems around the site (everything BUT boards, we obviously know they're down at the moment), please let me know so I can fix it.

In the meantime, our diligent news posters will fill the front page with news after this unproductive interlude. ;)

Site Move Report
Posted Tuesday, December 4, 2001 - 23:58 CET by Sorcerer

OK, almost done. The new server is set, the DNS should propagate in a couple of hours and the boards should be up by then as well. Keep your fingers crossed. ;)

If you can't access the site for the next 2 days, or it skips between the two servers, be patient. This is normal and should remedy itself after that period.

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, December 4, 2001 - 21:39 CET by Tiamat

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Number One Requirement:The number one requirement of NWN is a video card/chipset will a fully implimented OpenGL driver. Most of the games quoted in this thread are talking about Direct3D games. Just because a Direct3D runs on your computer is no guarentee of an OpenGL game working.
Try running Half-Life in OpenGL mode, Quake 2 (in OpenGL) or 3, or BG2's bggltest.exe program and see how that works for you. If any of those work, NWN should work for you. This includes the Toolset as well as the game.

Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance Ninja:

Models on Screen:The number of animated models appearing on screen simultaneously depends on a number of factors. Things such as speed of machine, animated tiles, area size of the area, the number of scripts running simultaneously, will all affect how many models can appear on screen before frame rate is greatly affected.
I've seen a blank test area with upwards of 20 creatures moving without degrading framerate. I've seen a huge, populated areas with couple of moving creatures that slows down considerably. That's as specific as I can get right now. When we get closer to release, and things like content and optimization are finalized, we'll be able to give you more information. Hope that helps. I demand you smile, everybody! :)

Point Buy System:You know, people, I really don't see the problem here. what does it matter how many points there are for point buy? If we say 25, people want 28. If we say 30, people want 35. If we say 40, people want 42. And all for the same reason: diversity in the character, so characters aren't "cookie cutters," to eliminate "powergaming."

Regardless of the reason or the number of points or the character creation system, what prevents you from building your own game? Or hosting whatever rules you like? I'll tell you the answer: NOTHING!

You want diversity of character? Fine. Choose the number you want for each ability. That way, there's no points limiting how high or low your stats are, and no randomness of dice to keep re-rolling until you get the numbers you want. You are free to choose.

You want 28 points? Fine. Use 28 points, but don't think that 3 extra points will give you any more diverse or "creative" a character than 25, 22, or even 10. The character is what you make it, not what the numbers say. A man with 18 STR can be a pacifist bodybuilder, a manual labourer-turned-wizard, a Gnome arm wrestling champion, a small boy who fell from the sky in an egg, a mystic warrior who launches only one physical attack per opponent. What does a 3 INT mean? A well-meaning illiterate, or a rampaging beast? Does 16 CHA represent an attractive Dwarf, an intimidating Elf, or a Gnome that everyone just loves having around?

You want randomness? Roll 3D6, or 4D6, or 4D6 drop the lowest. Assign randomly, or roll in order. It's all good.

These are all valid methods of character stat creation. People will like some, and hate others. What I don't understand is, how long are we going to realize that further debate on this topic is fruitless, since we can't even agree to disagree? I'm sorry if I seem perturbed. It's just that this keeps coming up, and nothing is ever resolved by it. I just felt I had to get my opinion out there. Thank you all for reading. I'm going to bed.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Making Trees Fall: You probably wouldn't be able to do that with trees that are a part of the tileset. However, there will be at least a couple of different trees that are placeable objects. This means that they can be placed anywhere you want, and you can make them 'usable', and you can attach scripts to them. So for placeable trees you would be able to do something. It would take a little bit of experimentation to figure out the best way of doing it, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do something at least similar to what you're looking for.

Baldur's Gate 2 Mod for Diablo 2
Posted Monday, December 3, 2001 - 20:31 CET by Mollusken

Diablo 2 fans have understood the brilliance of Baldur's Gate 2, and with this new patch a lot of BG2 features are added to the Lord of Destruction expansion pack. Here are some of the changes:

Renaming of Classes:
-Amazon => Ranger
-Assassin => Shadow Thief
-Barbarian => Berserker
-Druid => Shapeshifter
-Paladin => Inquisitor

Armor graphics replaces with those from Baldur's Gate series

Nomenclature of all items has been changed to emulate Dungeons & Dragons
-eg. Leather Armor, Leather Armor +1, Leather Armor +2

Read all about it and find download links here.

Another PoR Review
Posted Monday, December 3, 2001 - 15:40 CET by Darien

This review comes from The Entertainment Depot, where Ruins of Myth Drannor earns a "Fair" rating of 6 out of 10. Although the individual ratings are a bit mixed-up, (the sections for Sound and Control are swapped) it's still worth a quick read.

There’s no doubt that Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor certainly has its lion’s share of problems and bugs that will likely turn most players off before the game even gets its chance to shine. Particularly glaring issues such as slowdown, a hideously sluggish interface and a drag-knuckled pace will irritate gamers who have come to appreciate the finer points of Baldur’s Gate-style modern RPGs, while more casual veterans will find their own patience tried with bugs like the famous "wreck your Windows" uninstallation or "corrupted save game" bugs. Although patches and utilities that repair some of these issues have since been published, not everyone might be willing to give this weather-beaten underdog a try.

However, with a little perseverance and a willingness to see through its admittedly rough edges, patient fans of this old-fashioned, pen-and-paper type of dungeon crawl could find a gem of a game hidden in Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor’s depths. In fact, with its incredibly expansive dungeons, countless enemies and any number of quests or hidden treasures to discover, there is a great deal of playing time – and more importantly, fun – to anyone willing to give it some leeway.

NWN Adventure Creation Guide: Part VII
Posted Monday, December 3, 2001 - 15:11 CET by Mollusken

If you want to make your own module for Neverwinter Nights, GameSpy can help you making those plans.

We live in a world of words. We talk, ask questions, exchange ideas, tell stories. This world of words is the domain of the Conversation Editor and it allows you to define what your characters will say to your heroes and to each other. Some will impart knowledge, others will make requests, others still will threaten and cajole. Regardless, all can be compared to a simple tree. Your character's initial greeting forms the trunk, while your hero's possible choices form the branches. Like the trees of our own world, some of these conversations will grow straight and tall. Others will sprawl out, reaching for the four winds. Some will be short, mere saplings in the soil while other will form ancient oaks worthy of a dryad's love. Some trees will be stranger yet, doubling back upon themselves in graceful arcs, carefully trimmed statues of leaf and bark.

Read part 7 of their Adventure Creation guide here.

BioWare Interview at RPGVault
Posted Monday, December 3, 2001 - 15:06 CET by Mollusken

RPGVault has posted a third part of their interview with joint CEOs at BioWare, Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka.

Jonric: Do you get much time to play games these days, and how do you decide which ones to play? What has impressed you recently, and why? And aside from your own games, what are you looking forward to playing?

Greg Zeschuk: We both try and play games every day - we normally balance our playing between PC and console games, but most recently, I have to admit I've been bitten by the MMORPG bug. I started with Anarchy Online (which I enjoyed for the detail of its game system - had a 47th level Enforcer) and I'm now playing Dark Age of Camelot - I have an 19th level Paladin. Prior to that, I played Max Payne (which I really liked) and Anachronox (which I also enjoyed). It's really funny because at the immediate time, I've got a ton of games piling up that I want to play - Arcanum and Civ 3 on the PC, and Ico, Silent Hill 2 and Devil May Cry on the PS2. And now, with two new consoles coming out I'm going to be in serious trouble. Down the road I'm looking forward to Dungeon Siege, Morrowind and Final Fantasy X.

Ray Muzyka: Right now, I'm playing a few games on a variety of systems. Halo on the Xbox is really impressing me with both the single-player mode and the cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. DOA3 is another great fighting game on the Xbox that I'm trying to play through. I'm about an hour away from finishing Metal Gear Solid II (I'm a huge fan of that series) on the PS2, and am also playing Devil May Cry, and looking forward to trying Ico. Super Monkey Ball is a very fun game on the GameCube - highly recommended - I also want to play Rogue Squad Leader on GameCube, which I haven't yet started. There have been a lot of good FPSs on the PC recently - I finished Max Payne about two months ago (for the third time), and just started playing Aliens versus Predator. On the PC, I am really looking forward to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Morrowind, and Dungeon Siege as well as our own Neverwinter Nights (which both Greg and I are currently playing at least several evenings each week, finding bugs). Finally, Castlevania on the Game Boy Advance is a lot of fun (I'm about 2/3 through that game). It's a great time to be a gamer with all of the options of systems and games - the only major problem seems to be finding the time to play them all!

Read the whole interview here.

PoR Review at FiringSquad
Posted Sunday, December 2, 2001 - 15:52 CET by Darien

Firing Squad has posted a lukewarm review of Pool of Radiance, scoring it at 70%. Once again, the game looks great, but can't hold up to the test of actual gameplay. Here's the verdict:

Pool of Radiance isn't a great game, but it isn't that bad either. If you really like dungeon crawling more than story then you may get a kick out of this game. If you like the Diablo II click-fest type of dungeon crawling, then PoR's turn-based combat will probably turn you off. If you're looking for the next Baldur's Gate, look elsewhere. PoR is the opposite of the heavily story-driven RPGs from Bioware, taking a turn-based hack and slash approach instead.

Who would I recommend Pool of Radiance to? Fans of old school TSR/SSI Dungeons & Dragons games. PoR feels like a gold box series game with an updated graphics engine and a new set of rules. Memories of trekking through Hillsfar may come back to you. I wouldn't recommend this game to fast-action gamers who are fond of Diablo II. The slow pace will drive you crazy.

PoR European Release
Posted Sunday, December 2, 2001 - 15:43 CET by Darien

If you've been waiting for your copy of Pool of Radiance: The Ruins of Myth Drannor, your time has come. Here is some release info for Europe.

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor hits the UK and Scandinavia today! The Collector's Edition is shipping at the end of next week.

German and French versions of Pool of Radiance have gone gold! The game will be released on December 13th and available in stores in these 2 countries.

In order to meet the request of fans, Ubi Soft has decided to release a Collector's Edition for Europe as well. The European Collector's pack will include: a Ruins of Myth Drannor paper map, a Pool of Radiance mouse pad, and a ChainmailŽ miniature. Release is planned for the end of November in Germany, England, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland, and January 2002 in Spain.

Bioware at Megatokyo
Posted Sunday, December 2, 2001 - 15:35 CET by Darien

We knew it all along! Finally the proof is in! This cartoon clip at Megatokyo features a revealing interview with Trent Oster and Brad Grier.

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Saturday, December 1, 2001 - 12:32 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: During this time of no new Bioware/BIS CRPGs, what do you play?
(282 votes total)

Past Bioware/BIS hits (148) 52%
Other types of games (67) 24%
CRPGs by other companies (49) 17%
Nothing (18) 6%

Quite according to expectations, the majority of people (52%) are still playing previously released Bioware and BIS titles, or replaying them over and over again till something new comes up.

About a quarter of people who voted (24%) are playing other types of games during this time. From personal experience I'd say first person shooters would be a favourite to relieve yourself from post-RPG stress. ;)

CRPGs by other companies are what 17% of people play while waiting for the next Bioware/BIS title. Arcanum is quite popular, judging by the number of people discussing it in our community. Some even go as far as Pool of Radiance: RoMD. Kudos to them.

And finally, 6% of poll participants don't play anything at this time. A bit of rest from gaming never hurt (much) I suppose...

Progress Report on the Site Move
Posted Saturday, December 1, 2001 - 11:49 CET by Sorcerer

Still waiting...

All the files are already on the new server, the only thing left to do is for the admin there to unpack them so that I can reset the file attributes and start up the news script and the boards again.

Since this is taking longer than I anticipated I gave the news posters leave to post news again because it might take another couple of days before the transition to the new server is over.

And NO, the boards are NOT working yet. As soon as they will be, I will post about it here on the front page. ;)

Bear with me for a while longer...

Virus Warning
Posted Saturday, December 1, 2001 - 11:44 CET by Sorcerer

Lately I have been receiving a number of e-mails from various people containing the W32.Badtrans.B@mm worm. It only affects users that are running Outlook Express (or other M$ mail programs), and it's widespread enough that I get 20+ of them in my inbox every day.

So please ensure that your anti-virus software is up to date. If you think you may be infected (or don't have a virus checker), visit either McAfee or Symantec which both provide tools you can use to scan & remove this virus.