April 2002

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Friday, April 26, 2002 - 19:07 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Have you played any bigger unofficial add-ons to Baldur's Gate 2 like The Darkest Day and Epic Endeavours?
(342 votes total)

No (143) 42%
I still plan to (117) 34%
Yes (82) 24%

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of of poll participants (42%) have not played any major unofficial add-ons, and don't plan to play them in the future. I suppose that reasons for this are various, from the inaccessibility of the add-ons except as huge downloads and not trusting anything that is not official, to not wanting to mess up the original game with an unsupported add-on and so on.

Surprising, however, is the number of people who still plan on playing them in the future. A bit more than one third of people who voted in the poll (34%) intend on installing an unofficial add-on in the future.

Only a percent less than a quarter of those who voted (24%) have actually played one already. Still, for any unofficial add-on to reach this many people must be considered a success.

GameSpy Previews Neverwinter Nights
Posted Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 16:22 CET by Mollusken

If you checked out the NWN screenshots from GameSpy earlier this week, you would have seen that they also promised a preview of the game. Here's a bit of what they want to say about the game.

Neverwinter Nights is broken into five chapters (including the prelude). The prelude basically introduces the player to the world, teaches them the interface, getting them familiar with their character, etc. "We wanted the player to jump right in and start fighting monsters," explains Oster, "that's why we set up the prelude the way it is. You can either breeze through it and be on your way, or you can visit with each NPC and learn everything you can. We leave it all up to you."

We here at GameSpy don't want to give out too much information about the game, but here is some info about it. "We realize that a lot of people are going to be buying Neverwinter for the various options on the game," says Muzyka. "Some people might just want to make modules while others just want to be the DM. However, we recognize that the first thing that most people are going to do is play the single-player. Therefore we had to make sure the storyline was solid and engaging. I think we've achieved that. Our designers have taken everything they've learned from the Baldur's Gate series and tried to make Neverwinter's storyline that much better."

Read everything over at GameSpy.

Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 10:10 CET by Tiamat

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

New interface: I was just playing with it. It works very well, it just hasn't been totally finalized yet. When it is finalized, you will see it. Brian is adding some new icons to it so it has to wait for its public unveiling. You'll see it soon.
Sorry, but I can only go with the information I'm given. On my next title, I won't mention anything until it is in front of my face and final.

Seamless areas with no load screens: What we do is create a 3D area map, then for lack of a better term, flatten it. This allows us to tinker with it by adding search maps, height maps, etc. Then we put that into the engine. There are no "seamless" areas in the IE because the sizes are all predefined by the artwork. It was made for each area to be loaded separately. Each area has its own scripts and creatures (please don't start that scripts thing again). It would be really nice to do a seamless game, but a 3D engine makes it a lot easier to do this. Chalk up one more for 3D.

The contest: It had to be taken down due to some possibly incorrect information. If we get that sorted out and have enough time, we'll put the contest up again.

The second group of icons: Okay, you guys got really close, so here are your answers. Please let me know if you think the icons work for the spells they represent. Great guessing everyone.
1. Minor Globe of Invulnerability
2. Bull's Strength
3. Vampiric Touch
4. See Invisible
5. Acid Storm
6. Freedom
7. Destruction
8. Vipergout
9. Cloudkill
Thanks again. Maybe we should do this again sometime.

Update: Unfortunately, no update today. I will do a "special" one when the interface is done, which should be this week. On that note, I'll wait patiently for the doomsayers to reply. I deserve it so I'll weather the storm.

Day and night: Every IE game has had a clock on the interface. In IWD it was the globe in the corner. If you put your mouse over it and wait for a few seconds, it should tell you the day and the hour. We are including this in the new interface as well so it should be really useful for those that want to avoid the day blindness penalty. I know my Drow Rogue appreciates it.

Scripting: Actually, we have two full-time scriptors on the game and one designer/scriptor who handles the scripts in his areas. Tom French and Chad Nicholas are the two full-time guys and Rob Holloway is the hybrid crazy man. All of them are very experienced in their fields. I am not going to give you specifics on scripts that have been written, but there are a LOT more than in HoW and the original Icewind Dale. The same shopkeeper will be at his store all day and night, but that is a matter of convenience for the player. Almost all town citizens have float text that sets the mood, they also react to deeds you've accomplished. So in summation, Icewind Dale II will not suffer from a lack of scripting. I hope that answers your question and alleviates some of your worry.

Kevin Osburn, Line Producer

640x480 Resolution: 640x480 at this time will still be included with IWD2, it will not be supported though. It's basically a "use at your own risk" type thing, but it *should* work fine. Of course, if you do run into any weird problems with 640x480, stop by the IWD2 troubleshooting boards when it is open and I will help you out.

Listing known spells when purchasing magic from a shop: This is a very good idea, it's something that has been discussed in the past few months. We just aren't sure if we will have the time to implement this. If we do though, I will let you know.

Chad Nicholas, Sciptor

Will IWD2 suffer from a lack of scripting? No. Tom French wrote this cool program (and by cool, I mean totally sweet) that builds the scripts for us. All I have to do is go in and click on some drop down boxes, fill out a spell list, and voila! done script. It automates the process of generating code to do random spell casting and a whole host of other tedious tasks. You're right, without that program, we'd have died a long time ago. Oh, and it's three scriptors actually. Rob Holloway has done some amazing stuff in his areas. Typically, when one wants a job in the game industry, one goes after it and does not await said job to fall in one's proverbial lap. *God, I hate talking like that* Oh, and please don't email me any resumes or anything. I believe all the necessary contact info is on BIS' website.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Working on Sunday: "Day off," what's that? There's such a thing as a "day off?" Holy guppy tails! I gotta look into that! Seriously, there are some of us in today. Some come in on Saturday, some on Sunday, and a couple on both weekend days (the programmers and a few QA guys). As we get closer to shipping, most, if not all of us, will be working every day, until that gold copy goes to press.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

High level rogues: High level rogues can also get Slippery Mind and Improved Evasion, which is worth waiting around for, IMO.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Portraits: Yes, the images are still 24 bit BMP files. Also, someone asked earlier if all the original IWD1 portraits will be included. Yes, they will. Every portrait from the original game and expansion will be included. There will be over 60 portraits total!

New Neverwinter Nights Visuals
Posted Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 7:39 CET by Mollusken

A lot of new Neverwinter Nights stuff to look at today. GameSpy has posted a bunch of screenshots and some pieces of artwork from the game. NeverwinterHaven has posted 7 new character portraits, and at BioWare you'll find three new models for the Neverwinter Nights Model Viewer.

Neverwinter Nights Interview at IGN PC
Posted Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 7:36 CET by Mollusken

IGN PC has posted an interview with designer Trent Oster and joint CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, as a part two of their Neverwinter Nights visit report.

IGNPC: You've tweaked the rules just a bit to fit Neverwinter. How have you adjusted the game to fit the rules? Have there been any changes to your basic philosophy of design?

Greg Zeschuk: I think the biggest change from a philosophical design perspective was making a single lead character (and party-based only in the sense that you control the party). As far the rules dictating change, it was more that we came up with the story and the design while we had the rules in consideration.

Trent Oster: As opposed to BG, which was about six characters, with one lead character in that group. It's a little closer yet to pen and paper where you have the one character and you play that one character. That's really your representation; that's who you are in the world. At least for me it increases my personal stake in the character.

Ray Muzyka: Cause you're growing them from essentially a common person that's an adventurer into someone epic. That's opposed to having someone who's the child of a dead god, like the Child of Bhaal trilogy in BG, and uncovering more elements of that and realizing the true extent of your power. It's sort of a different approach and it's more suited to multiplayer gaming. NWN is single player and multiplayer and we made some design choices to enable it to work both ways.

Greg Zeschuk: It's interesting also from a story perspective. I remember reading something that summed it up really well. Where in BG the story was you revealing your past and who you were whereas NWN is the story of you creating it. You create your future.

Ray Muzyka: You forge your destiny. That's the theme of the introduction

Read the whole interview here.

Icewind Dale II Intelligence Report
Posted Wednesday, April 24, 2002 - 15:31 CET by Mollusken

Not quite sure about everything Icewind Dale II will feature? RPG Vault has made a summary of what info there is about the game to help you with this.

Between the craggy, snow- and ice-capped peaks that comprise the Spine of the World mountains and the glacial waters of the Sea of Moving Ice lie the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale. A generation has passed since a group of intrepid adventurers defeated a source of great evil that threatened the area. Now, thirty years later, a new danger has risen in the North. Accordingly, a new call has gone out for stalwart warriors, mercenaries and soldiers to defend the largest of these settlements, the town of Targos. This community is menaced by a marauding goblin horde, and to make matters even worse, an unknown power is attempting to subjugate all of the Ten Towns. Soon, a group of inexperienced adventurers eager to prove themselves will set forth to confront the malevolence that awaits them in the harsh wilderness beyond.

Read everything here.

Neverwinter Nights Preview at IGN PC
Posted Wednesday, April 24, 2002 - 7:05 CET by Mollusken

A lot of people seems to be visiting the BioWare offices these days. IGN PC has also been there, and they've also written a rather long article about the visit and Neverwinter Nights.

The bard for instance comes with five default packages. The blade package skews more of your skills towards fighting and battle. The gallant bard is also a combat oriented bard but balances this out with an equally well-developed set of traditional bard skills. The jester specializes in entertainment while the loremaster concentrates on knowledge. And if you don't care for any of the pre-arranged packages, you can always design your own. If you wanted a bard who specialized in diplomacy and court intrigue, you can assign skills and feats appropriately.

The start of the game serves as a tutorial (you can skip this if you like) and orients you to the Academy and the interface. I won't say much about the story at this point. Even early on, there are some surprises that shouldn't be spoiled. Suffice it to say that you'll soon be defending the Academy against an attack, seeking out a flock of enchanted animals and trying to get to the bottom of a recent prison break. And that's all within the first few hours of the game.

But the first thing to do is look around at the surroundings. BioWare's provided three different camera schemes for you here. The basic top-down camera grants you a view much like that of Baldur's Gate. The main difference here is that you can rotate, zoom and tilt the camera through a surprising range. A chase camera follows closely behind you (though with a slight top-down orientation). The final mode is called stiff camera. This grants you a more shooter-oriented movement scheme. Although all three views are practical for different tastes and circumstances, the top-down was the easiest and most adjustable.

Read everything at IGN PC.

Neverwinter Nights Preview at Gamespot
Posted Tuesday, April 23, 2002 - 7:19 CET by Mollusken

Gamespot was lucky enough to visit BioWare in Edmonton, and they also got to try out Neverwinter Nights. This is a small part of their report from the visit.

The character-creation system is robust, and Neverwinter Nights uses almost all of the 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. You can create a character from scratch, choose one of the premade character kits, or choose a basic template and take the recommended statistics, skills, and feats. One of the best new features of the 3rd Edition rules are these skills and feats, which make for much better rewards when you gain levels. Gone are the abstract benefits of leveling from previous editions--now you'll get to assign skill points in a wide variety of areas, including weapon proficiencies, picking locks, or being able to identify spells as they are cast. Feats act as special abilities, allowing you to attack several enemies at once, access better armor types, or successfully cast in hostile conditions. These additions make it possible to create more varied characters: You can be a plate-mail-wearing spellcaster or a spellcasting warrior, depending on the skills and feats you choose.

Neverwinter Nights seems to make good use of these additions, and it does so in a way that is almost invisible to the user. Dialogue trees let you access your intimidation and persuasion skills. Choose the cleave feat, which lets you attack a second opponent after making a killing blow, and your character will do so automatically, with a rewarding little "cleave" message appearing over your second victim. Other abilities require you to take a more active role. We tried a bit of the prologue as a monk, whose stunning fist and flurry of blows abilities must be selected before targeting an opponent. We also tried the druid, sorcerer, wizard, paladin, and barbarian classes, and all seemed to correspond nicely with their pen-and-paper counterparts.

Read the whole article here. There's also a video interview there for those of you with fast internet connections.

Neverwinter Nights Beta Test Signup
Posted Tuesday, April 23, 2002 - 7:05 CET by Mollusken

BioWare has announced that a Neverwinter Nights open beta test will be held, and everyone who wants to (and who live in the selected group of countries) can start signing up now.

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada – April 22nd, 2002 – BioWare Corp. and Infogrames Inc. are pleased to present the limited open Beta test for one of the most anticipated PC games of the year - Neverwinter Nights. Selected PC game fans will have an unprecedented opportunity to dig into the rich world of Neverwinter Nights before anyone else.

"Neverwinter Nights will appeal to all types of gamers. This limited beta test will allow selected gamers, of every type and interest, an opportunity to find out why Neverwinter Nights is a ‘must own’ addition to every gamer’s collection," said Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO and Co-Executive Producer of Neverwinter Nights. "We’ve never conducted an open beta test before," added Ray Muzyka, BioWare’s Joint CEO and Co-Executive Producer of Neverwinter Nights. "We’ll be testing module designs, connectivity, and other technical aspects of the game, as well as offering the growing Neverwinter Nights community a snapshot of what we’ve been working on at BioWare these last five years," he concluded.

To enter the Beta test program, prospective testers must visit
(http://www.betatests.net), click on "Register Now" and complete the sign-up form. BioWare and Infogrames staff will select beta testers every week in a rolling acceptance process. The initial wave of Beta discs will be sent to the lucky first testers in early May.

Site News - New Additions
Posted Sunday, April 21, 2002 - 0:04 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Articles & Editorials

In case you missed it, my Icewind Dale II interview with Doug Avery can be found in the Articles & Editorials subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale

There was only addition made here, namely the HoW Spells Guide in the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

I have split the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection into 7 parts. The thing was simply too big for two pages, and I imagine many people got lost in the huge amount of downloads available on two pages.

The main page now contains an overview of all 7 subsection pages and lists what can be found on each of them.

Now for the new stuff. In Subsection #3 you will find Extremist's latest SoA Fixpack, which really breaks all records in this edition. He managed to fix so many leftover bugs that it would take several pages just to list them all. In short, this is a must download for anyone playing SoA.

Talking about must downloads, there is another one on the same page, also by Extremist. If you have played ToB and had a magic user with the Cloak of Mirroring, you know how horribly annoying the globe effect on the item is. (Changed from the glowing ground disc one in SoA.)

The easy solution is to just revert the item back to what it was in SoA, but besides changing the animation, ToB also changes some properties of the item which was overpowered in SoA. If you want to keep the item as ToB intended it, and still get rid of the ugly globe effect at the same time, download Extremist's version.

Moving to Subsection #5, there is a new pack of portraits available there. The pics used are from FF8, Chrono Cross and Zelda.

And finally in Subsection #7, two new additions have been made, the Kelsey and Tashia mods. They are both new NPCs you can use in your party, and also new romances at the same time. More details and links are available in the subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, the lists of feats, skills and races & subraces have been updated. Especially the latter and the list of feats were modified & changed substantially, so they are worth reading through again.

Also, in the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection, the official FAQ has been updated with the latest version. In the Miscellanea subsection, two new portrait paintings have been added.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

There have been a couple of additions in the Miscellanea subsection here as well. We have two scans of the NWN feature in the Dragon magazine, an updated lists of monsters, and a bunch of new animations for the Model Viewer. Check it out.

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Saturday, April 20, 2002 - 18:37 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Which of the new 3e classes will you have in your Icewind Dale 2 party? (Multiple choices were possible.)
(545 votes total)

Sorcerer (200) 37%
Monk (149) 27%
Barbarian (136) 25%
None of the above (60) 11%

Well, this certainly is a surprise. Seeing 37% of poll participants vote for having a sorcerer in their party seems quite strange to me. After all, IWD2 will still primarily be a hack & slash game, so I expected the barbarian to come out on top... Just goes to show how wrong you can be when making assumptions. ;)

The next in line after the sorcerer is the monk, with 27% of people voting for having at least one in their party.

Barbarian was only a little less popular then the monk, with 25% of votes.

11% of those who voted will not have any of the new 3e classes in their party.

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Friday, April 19, 2002 - 19:16 CET by Arwen

Trent Oster, Producer:

DM client: The DM has two major parts, the Chooser and the Creator (Working names). The Creator allows you to create almost anything in the game except tiles in real time. The Chooser allows you to see a listing of every area, creature, item, etc ...

There are a number of other DM abilities, but these two encompass the major features of the NWN DM Client.

Screen wise, we are working on getting screens out, but for now, the main interface is similar to the in-game interface.

Balrogs: We have a Balor in the game, but no Balrogs. Someone may have mistyped while working late.

Infinite dialogue loops: The scripting language has a time out feature and will break out of the currently executing script after a finite period has passed. The period is long enough for very long complex scripts to execute without fear of timing out.

Disconnecting from the game: When you are disconnected we plan that your character will remain in the game world for a short period and then disappear. If you log back in your player will re-appear in that same spot.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Map style: As in BG2, there is an automap. This map can be on-screen while you play. It can be sized to smaller and larger versions. You can place map notes upon it, and also view the map notes that have been placed. You can, I believe, have the map show you the entire area, or only areas that you have explored. The map reads the tiles, so you can make any kind of map, and the automap feature will always work for you. The art work for the automapper is very nice.

The automap is re-drawing the actual map in 2d for you... no matter what kind of map you paint, the automapper will match it. you would have to adjust the map notes, though, if you painted down a new tavern or somesuch and wanted there to be a map note for it.

David Chan, Audio Producer:

Custom Sounds: I am not sure about custom sounds being "attached" to objects. You'd have to ask a designer if that could be scripted. However, custom sounds in areas is no problem and can be linked to scripted events as well.

Voice actors: Okay, we've all had fun poking at who's going to be in the VO We are not being coy, it's just that VO is some of the last audio work to be done because it's expensive and time consuming so it's best to wait as long as possible to ensure that lines don't change. Even a word or two change means a new session which, if you have ever booked voice actors you know, is a lot of work for a small revision. Needless to say there will be no Von Sydow, Wendt, Jones, Hamil or Billy from down the street on NWN .

Voice/text dialogues: I think I can say without fear of contradiction that BG2 had the most voice over and sound effects of any game before and so far since.

That being said, the vast majority of lines still had text with no VO. Not only would it be cost prohibitive to voice every line in a 100+ hour RPG it would also be space prohibitive.

It's a nice thought, but it's just not realisitc to do in a larger game. Smaller 10-20 hour games can do it, but I don't think anyone would be happy with a 10 CD version of Neverwinter with a 4 or 5 GB minimum install.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Text Dialogues: Having voice-only/no text would be a problem for our deaf fans, so we will always have text dialog for our games.

As others have said, it is cost prohibitive. There is no way that Deus Ex had as many words as BG2 and I did enjoy the all spoken Deus Ex. It is one of my favorite games.

10 CDs? No, that would cost you the consumer over $100 dollars for the game and add about another 6 months to record every single line. The CD swapping or the install size would be from hell.

David Gaider, Designer:

Midget NPCs: No, you can't adjust the height of the model. It's not quite that simple. All members of the same race will be the same height.

There is a 'fat' model version of the playable PC races.

There are no midgets, per se, but there are is a human male and female child model.

Dire animals: The 'stone/metal stuff' is supposed to be bone, I believe.

And yes, the dire versions have considerably larger models then their non-dire cousins. Not quite as big as some of the descriptions in the monster manual, perhaps (the dire boar doesn't look 16 feet long, for instance), but plenty large.

Severing character doll limbs: Actually, with the base PC races (human, elf, dwarf, etc) any body part can be set to '0' which will delete it. I've made characters with one arm or hand missing, for example.

This can be done in the toolset (not as part of character generation... PC's have to have all their limbs).

It's one thing to take away part of a model that already exists... it's something else to add a feature that isn't there.

Adding horns or a large nose would require changing the base model, itself. That's a custom edit.

Removing body parts is done only in the toolset... you cannot remove a hand or lop off a head during the course of the game.

Weather effects: Weather effects (snow, rain, lightning and wind level) can be set in an area upon its creation. For snow, rain and lightning you set the % chance (if you want it to snow all the time, for instance, you set the snow to 100%). Wind level has a scale.

Weather effects are changeable via script commands.

Just to clarify my own comment, weather effects (rain and snow... not sure about lightning, tho) have script commands that change them. I don't see anything that changes wind.

Glowing runes on weapons: I've seen 'glowing' material on placeable objects (the lamp post, for one), but not on any items. That doesn't mean it is impossible, however... though it does mean that placing 'glowing runes' on a weapon would require you to add them yourself.

If you wanted the glow to actually provide light, you could use the 'light' item effect. The glowing material would not, itself, be a source of light however.

Robes and armor: Robes and armor share the same slot. They both, once worn, form the dominant visible garb of the avatar.

DM Toggling between zones: If the DM jumps to an area, it has to load just as it does for any player.

Ergo, if you leave a lot of things in your module that require your direct intervention, and your party splits up, you are going to have problems.

I doubt most players will throw hissy-fits if they have to hold on a minute or two until they get the DM's attention for an NPC conversation (players do this in PnP games too, after all)... remember that you still have access to the chat system for communication. You can also ask the players to stay together (or engineer things so that this is obviously a good idea).

The only other option for you is to either get another DM to help you or to plan your module to be more independent of your presence.

Store Object (gold): Actually (and unfortunately, I think), the store object is much simpler in its purpose.

1) There is no control over what a store will purchase... only what it will sell. Control over the store's purchases from the PC's only goes so far as the blanket markdown. Gold for the store is not tracked.

2) There is only one scripting event that I can see on the store GUI. Unfortunately it currently has a 'bad strref' assigned to its button, so I do not know what the event is, I will have to ask on Monday. Seeing as there is only one event, however, I suspect there is no seperate 'buy' or 'sell' event generated.

----------------------------------------

While this kind of sucks insofar as exerting control over stores (I, myself, wouldn't want an innkeeper in a small town to fork over 30,000 gp for a magic item) and I have a few ideas for future changes to it, I can see a way around this if you have a very specific idea in mind for a store:

1) Set the markdown to 100%... that means the store doesn't purchase anything from the PC. The selling part of the store works well enough since you can define exactly what is available.

2) If you want the merchant to buy only specific things, I figure you can actually script it in dialogue. Not ideal, but it would work... and one 'master' script by someone intrepid could be useable and alterable by all.

Why do I think that? From browsing the scripting commands (and from discussions with a co-worker), here's my thoughts:

- you can 'cycle' through someone's inventory using the command GetFirstItemInInventory(object) and then GetNextItemInInventory(object). On each pass, so long as GetIsObjectValid() is returning TRUE, you continue onto the next item in the pass. With me so far?

- as you get each item in someone's inventory, you can determine its base item type (BASE_ITEM_ARROW, BASE_ITEM_LONGSWORD, BASE_ITEM_GEM, etc) with the command GetBaseItemType(object). If you had the player tell the merchant "I want to sell you an arrow" because the merchant only buys arrows, then we can scan through the inventory and come up with every item that is BASE_ITEM_ARROW.

- Once you've narrowed down that an inventory item is of the base type you want, you use the SetCustomToken command to create a custom token with that item's name (which you can get with the GetName() command). Why? So you can put this in your dialogue:

What do you wish to sell to the merchant?
1)
2)
3)
and etc... you just put a starting condition on each line making sure there is an item that exists.

And you can even detect and sell in stacks, too. The command GetNumStackedItems will tell you how many are currently stacked with any given item.

- GetGoldPieceValue() will return an integer based on how much the item is worth, IntToString() will convert it into a string... presto! Make another Custom Token and the merchant can tell you how much he'll pay.

- When it comes time for the merchant to take the item from the player, he can put it into the store object's inventory directly to be sold later. If you prefer, he could put it into some other object's inventory (like a store shelf!) instead... of course, for him to sell it, then, you'd have to reverse the whole above process and have the storekeeper scan his store's inventory.

(Incidentally, if you are wondering what would happen if someone decided to take something from that shelf's inventory, there IS an InventoryDisturbed event and several commands relating to that... get as custom as you want with it. )
...

Complex? A bit, but not too bad. Just time-consuming to sit down and write it all out in the dialogue editor and script it. Fortunately you would only need one. (And I'm not trying to scare anyone... for all but the incredibly detail-minded, the standard store should probably do).

And hopefully we can do something a bit broader with the built-in store later.

Attack Animations: 1handed, 2handed, polearm, twoweapons and unarmed. With various types of 'stab' and 'slash' and other animations for each weapon type. There's a lot in there: you do notice the difference when you switch from a longsword to a greatsword, for instance.

It would be nice to have animations based on individual weapons rather than by weapon type, sure, but excessive.

DM dropping monsters: Basically, as a DM you have a Creator menu through which you have access to a list of all the pre-made creatures that exist in your module (all the ones that were either pre-existing in the toolset or that you made specifically).

You can click on whatever creature (or object or item or whatever) that you want to spawn in and click on where you want it to appear... poof! There it is.

Alternatively, you can hold down the Shift key and you can spawn in multiple copies.

Just to re-iterate, however: the creature must exist in your module. There are a bunch of skeletons that are pre-made for you, for instance. Let's say you also made some skeletons with axes and tough stats. If you suddenly wanted a tough skeleton with a sword, but hadn't made it in the toolset, that would not be available to spawn in. You cannot create blueprints with the DM client on the fly... you can only spawn in instances of blueprints you have already made.

The pre-made monsters/items/objects that Bioware has made will be available automatically in every module.

For blueprints that you make, you can export them to another module, if you wish.

Random name command: The RandomName function does exist, returning a string. I can't think of any place it was used in the official campaign's scripting.

It does not, however, allow you to change the name of an NPC. NPC's names must be pre-set in their blueprint and no scripting command exists to change it.

Character generation: The point buy system is the only one available in character generation.

There is, however, a console command in the DM client which allows the DM to alter someone's stats directly. As far as rolling goes, I guess we just figured we'd take out the middleman.

Custom music: We call it a hak pak because we like it that way.
All 3rd-party content is unsupported. We've given you the means to add it to your module, should you wish, however. Custom music is added via the toolset (in your area settings).

If someone throws a bunch of MP3's into their module, those MP3's still have to be downloaded.

AoO: If you've set your stance to another PC as hostile, then you will get an attack of opportunity against them as appopriate (they would need to be in melee with you, naturally).

PC's set their stance vs other PC's on their own. Factions only relate to how NPC's treat PC's.

Monsters have whatever base attacks per round they are given, same as PC's. You are only allowed one attack of opportunity per round, period.

Quote: Well for real time combat, a rogue with nice high dex (as all good rogues SHOULD have! ) should get 4 or 5 attacks of opportunity a round, in addition to his normal attack.
That would be pretty rare, though, unless the rogue with Combat Reflexes was in combat with multiple combatants all doing actions which were causing attacks of opportunity... you are still restricted to one attack of opportunity per enemy.

As for Combat Reflexes being in or out, I actually am not certain. I have not seen it on the list while playing, however, so it may indeed be out.

Safe areas: The PvP settings are set by area, yes. I've recalled getting in-game messages saying 'you are now entering a PvP area'.

There are three levels of player versus player (PvP): No PvP, Party PvP, and Full PvP. If you choose No PvP, players cannot damage one another. The Party PvP setting allows you to damage other players unless they are in your party, in which case you cannot damage them at all. The final setting is Full PvP. Under Full PvP settings you can damage any other player unless the area you are in is locked against PvP. This means area effect spells will harm other players if they are within the casting range, so if you play full PvP watch where you target your area effect spells. The PvP setting on the server options panel dictates the maximum level of PvP conflict allowed in the module. This means that if the server PvP is set to Full PvP, there still may be Party PvP or No PvP areas in the module, but if the server is set to No PvP, all areas in the module will be set to No PvP.

Polymorph: Polymorph as it stands in NWN is mostly for combat. You can't turn into other character races, only monsters or animals. You could have polymorph useable for role-playing, but that would be up to how you or your DM scripts it/chooses to play it live.

Disguise: The problem with disguises is that it requires some kind of interface to make decisions on what kind of disguise the player is using... what is he or she trying to look like? Every disguise used in role-playing, as well, tends to have a very specific purpose... that either has to be scripted by the DM or we have to come up with a very generic in-game function for it.

If and when the problems behind implementing Disguise are dealt with, I have little doubt that spells such as Alter Self and Change Self would be done at the same time, since they are just versions of the same coin.

Terrain heights: You can ascend to a higher height transition via a tile called a 'ramp'... it places a walkable slope that connects two height transitions. You can therefore control where the hills can be climbed.

Basically, when you lay down height transitions, you are creating steps... like an Aztec pyramid. The first layer is 10 feet high (with whatever siding the tileset uses... some have rocky, cliff-like sides, some have brick or stone sides), then you have a flat surface... if you want to add another height transition, it begins 10 feet in.

A 'ramp' creates a slope that connects the ground to the lip of the next height transition. Yes, you can place ramps on top of one another to get a smooth slope that could conceivably go all the way to the top of your hill (and that the PC could step off of at any level).

You cannot place these ramps side by side to 'widen' the ramp. There is a regular flat space between them and it looks silly. The sides of the ramp are already smoothened out a bit... it's not a vertical slope on each side.

What the slope looks like depends on the terrain. In the city exterior, it's a paved walkway. In the rural tileset, it's a grassy slope (which can optionally have the road on it, if you have a road that goes up to it).

Controls: The arrow keys are used for zooming in and out and rotating the camera.

The mouse is used for moving, either via point-and-click to where you want to go or holding down the button and directing your movement (with your speed depending on how far away the cursor is from the character).

At least... that's how it is in the standard camera-and-movement setup. I understand there are other options, though I've never tried them.

The number keys do still pull up the radial menu, if you desire. I use the left-click or just quickbar my radial needs, personally.

If you look at the screenshots, you will see that there is a row of boxes on the bottom of the screen, each with F1-F12 written on them.
The icon of whatever you're binding to it will appear in the box.

Pressing Shift brings up a new row... with each box reading 'Shift-F1' to 'Shift-F12'.

Pressing Ctrl brings up another new row... 'Ctrl-F1' to 'Ctrl-F12'.

So 36 quickbar keys are possible. Initially, I thought it wouldn't be enough for my spellcaster... but it turned out that after a bit of playing it takes almost the same amount of time to use the radial as the quickbar key, so I only quickbarred my always-use combat spells anyway.
(And by the time you get to a level where you will have that many spells, you will be that adept for sure).

Brenon Holmes, Programmer:

Somatic Spell Components: Spells without somatic components, or spells with somatic components that have been stilled will not suffer the ravages of potential arcane spell failure.

JohnBible, Programmer:

Infinite loops: Not all languages are as "hard" in a computational sense as Turing-complete languages.

Also, as a clarification, the way long-running NPCs work is by repeatedly running the script through the heartbeat event, with persistent global variables. You can imagine that being provably terminatable is of interest in such a setup, just as it is in visual programming languages.

BioWare Visit Report
Posted Friday, April 19, 2002 - 7:02 CET by Mollusken

Jonric from the Vault Networks was invited to Edmonton and BioWare, and he has written a report from his visit there.

Thanks to developer BioWare and publisher Infogrames, I had made the trip to the friendly northern Alberta city for a look at Neverwinter Nights, the Dungeons & Dragons-based title we've been following with great interest ever since it was announced. During this time, we've had chances to see bits of the game on a few separate occasions - at two E3 trade shows, at BioWare on a previous trip and most recently at the Game Developers Conference last month. All of these instances had been very favourable, but with the game nearing completion, this time held the promise of seeing a lot more, including the Dungeon Master client for the first time, and of some actual hands-on playing time. There was no way a few inches of snow were going to deter me even slightly.

The official presentations didn't start until Tuesday, which allowed some informal time to exchange greetings with a number of familiar faces and to see how BioWare has grown since my last visit almost two years ago. The company now numbers about 120 people of whom the majority, a little over 70, are currently allocated to the Neverwinter Nights team. The project is also large in terms of the amount of time it has taken. Co-Executive Producer Ray Muzyka was recently quoted as saying it had taken about 140 man-years, and some of the team, like Producer Trent Oster, have been working on it for approximately five years. While this extended development period has led to some questions, everyone at BioWare exudes a quiet confidence that the game will be the company's best yet. And after what I saw and heard, I wouldn't bet against them.

There's more to read at RPG Vault.

Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Friday, April 19, 2002 - 0:03 CET by Tiamat

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

Interface Graphics: I like the new character record screen and I really like the new inventory screen. My favorite things about the new interface, graphically at least, are the new icons that Brian Menze is doing. He just finished up the last of them today and they are superb.

Update: You guys are assuming that we are updating today. I said sometime this week.
Actually, we are updating today, but the screenshots of the interface will have to wait as it is still being finalized. I have two new portraits, an updated FAQ, an updated feats list, updated character races and sub-races and a sampling of some of our skills. I will update the site again with screenshots when the interface is ready. This should happen this week, but it hinges upon a number of factors.

Armor: Hide and Scale are in now.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Fighter Feats: Fighters can't take Spirit of Flame, Lingering Song, or Improved Turning, because they don't meet the prerequisites for the feats. Just because a character "theoretically" has access to a feat does not mean they can buy it whenever they want to.

Deep Gnome Abilities: Deep gnomes have the ability to shape stone with their hands.

New Feats: I haphazardly updated the feats list.
You may notice a few feats (Riddlemaster feats, Death Blow, Shapeshifting Flammery) are gone. You're right!
However, the shapeshifting forms will probably be just additional shapes that the druid naturally gets.

Skill/point List: I updated the skill list/point list.

Ghostwise Halfling and Rage: When a ghostwise halfling is using rage, he or she certainly could have a 20 strength. When using improved rage, he or she could have a 22 strength. Of course, additional ability score points gained every four levels can raise this as well.

Untrained Skills: You can use almost all skills except Use Magic Device and Wilderness Lore untrained. Yes, I know that WL should be usable untrained, but it's only function in-game is tracking. Rangers start with the Track feat for free, allowing them to put points into WL. Other classes have to buy it.

The armor in the new Paladin portrait: Actually, it's plate armor that came straight out of a picture of historical plate armor

IWD2 Accents: Actually, most of the characters in IWD2 with VO have accented voices. The drow characters have VO that sounds sort of Spanishy/Eastern Europeany. Rural tundra natives have a somewhat Swedishy/general Scandy-accent.
So, you'd rather hear exotic races from all over a fantasy game world all talking with neutral American accents?
These V.O. scripts aren't for a world-wide audience. They're for the U.S. and other English-speaking countries. Every time the V.O. gets translated, it all the V.O. is re-recorded.
I don't know any American who talks like the woman in mystery.wav. I don't know any Eastern European who talks like Nym. Both actors were told that their characters had accent blends.
Personally, it annoys me to extreme ends when I play games where my characters encounter weird, foreign races, and hear them talk to me like they're reading off the 11:00 news.

Manuals: Baby boxes are becoming the new industry standard. The IWD2 manual is LARGE. If it were spiral bound, it would not fit in the baby box. Sorry. RPGs are the only games that really suffer because of the baby box movement.
They will both have the same info, but the CE will be spiral bound. That's my understanding, anyway.

Drow Colors: In the Forgotten Realms, drow were originally from an equatorial region on the surface. After they went into hideytowne, they got their white hair. However, they always had black skin.

Raising Stats: Many items raise attributes. You also get free ability score points every four levels.

Point buy and buying magical weapons in the first store: It's no less autocratic than deciding that people will be able to play tieflings and aasimar, but won't be able to play genasi. It's no less autocratic than deciding that there will be +1 versions of weapons available in the first store, but not +3 versions of weapons. It's no less autocratic than deciding your characters will be able to go to Targos, but won't be able to go to Bryn Shander.

I've explained time and time again why die rolling in IE games is nothing like die rolling in PnP. It's a randomized point pool -- a randomized point pool that a player is allowed to "re-roll" hundreds of times more than any PnP DM would ever let them. Point buy with a fixed point pool is implemented as 1) an element of gameplay (you are restricted to the points you have, so allocating them is, strangely enough, a process that requires thought) and 2) as a an element of balance. The more controlled the range of ability scores, the more likely it is that we can balance our game for a larger group of players. Adding a "die-rolling" option (randomized point pool would be the accurate name for that) wrecks those goals.

I'm sure there are some people who might want +3 weapons available in the first town for 100 gp a pop. That doesn't mean we should put them in there. There's a difference between listening to fans and pandering to fans. When fans have good ideas, yes, they should be listened to and contemplated. When fans have requests -- requests that are at odds with requests from OTHER fans -- well, of course you can't just do everything every person asks you to do. Requests have to be evaluated for feasibility and gain. While adding a randomized point pool is certainly feasible, I believe it compromises the goals of the majority of people who want point buy. I've stated and repeated the three most oft-heard complaints about IWD1, but I'll do it again:

* It takes too long to generate characters
* It's too hard
* It's too easy

Static point buy dramatically reduces the time it takes to generate characters, and makes the difficulty of the game more uniform between players. Judging from how QA has been playing through the game, it seems very obvious to me that IWD2 will not have the wild fluctuations in difficulty that plagued the original game and HoW. Remember: this is not a pen and paper D&D game.

PnP feel and uncontested re-rolls: The primary reason is familiarity. Even though the rules are not implemented to the letter, many of them are implemented at least in spirit. Players know that elves can resist sleep spells, halflings are good at being sneaky, and armor makes it hard to hit something.

However, there are a lot of rules that present potent problems in a CRPG environment. Most of these rules revolve around what I call "uncontested re-rolls". I've actually discussed this a great deal with Dave Maldonado, who has very strong opinions on the subject. In a PnP RPG, there are many situations where a player rolls a die or dice for a particular result, and that result cannot be re-rolled, cannot be immediately re-rolled, or a botch/critical failure results in immediate dire consequences.

In a CRPG, most of these situations can be avoided through the use of uncontested re-rolls. Blow that roll to disarm a trap? Just re-load it and try again. Fail to memorize your spell? Just re-load and try it again. Didn't get the HP you wanted on level up? Just re-load and try it again. Failed to pickpocket that dude, thereby enraging the town? Just re-load and try it again. Don't like those six ability scores you rolled up? Just click again. FOREVER.

The situations where a player cannot use uncontested re-rolls are usually situations where there are so many other random elements flying around that they cannot simply isolate that one check. Perfect example: almost all battles. My opinion is that any situation where a player could make an uncontested re-roll should be re-worked so that there is no random element after the level is loaded for that particular game.

Blow that check to disarm a trap? Raise your Disable Device skill, find a way around the trap, or set it off and accept the consequences. Fail to memorize your spell? No, you didn't -- just remove the check. Didn't get the HP you wanted on level up? Forget that. Just set it to max. Failed to pickpocket that dude? You don't make him hostile, but you simply fail to pick his or her pocket. Raise your skill and try again later. Don't like those six ability scores you rolled up? Here, take these 16 points and add them to 10 in each stat.

Uncontested re-rolls have a tendency to make player choice impotent. If you can make uncontested re-rolls to disarm a trap, it doesn't matter if your rogue put two points in Disable Device or eighteen. A DM isn't there to scold you or force you to deal with your choices. When the possibility for uncontested re-rolls is removed from gameplay, player choice is much more important. When your rogue with eighteen ranks in Disable Device strolls down the hall, there aren't going to be many traps that he or she cannot disarm. Feel good about that, Mr. or Ms. Player. You made character choices that result in easy success over the challenges your character was designed to overcome. When your strong fighter does epic damage to a target, feel like you made a good decision, Mr. or Ms. Player; you chose to put a lot of your points in strength.

A failed pickpocket will result in a message that reads, "You are not skilled enough to pick the target's pocket." If you reload and try it again, you will receive a message that reads, "You are not skilled enough to pick the target's pocket." If you do something like use the Tymora bard song, have Cat's Grace cast on you, or raise in level, you may be able to pick the target's pocket.

Set Traps: The ghostwise halfling's ability is a unique power that they alone use. They have the power because they lack the PnP ghostwise halfling's ability to communicate with other halflings using crazy telepathic junk. Basically, you pick where you want the halfling to place his or her trap and he or she throws a little skull (like skull trap) at the spot. When a creature walks over the skull, it explodes into a mini-Entangle. It's pretty useful, but not mind-boggling in its power. Oh, and remember -- the ghostwise halfling's favored class is barbarian, not rogue.

Races: These are the races in IWD2 (slightly revised)
Aasimar (-1 level), FC: Paladin
Dwarf, Gold, FC: Fighter
Dwarf, Gray (-2 levels), FC: Fighter
Dwarf, Shield, FC: Fighter
Elf, Dark (-2 levels), FC: Wizard
Elf, Moon, FC: Wizard
Elf, Wild, FC: Sorcerer
Gnome, Deep (-3 levels), FC: Illusionist
Gnome, Rock, FC: Illusionist
Half-Elf, FC: Highest
Half-Orc, FC: Barbarian
Halfling, Ghostwise, FC: Barbarian
Halfling, Lightfoot, FC: Rogue
Halfling, Strongheart, FC: Rogue
Human, FC: Highest
Tiefling (-1 level), FC: Rogue

Attributes affecting dialogue: That aside, there are opportunities in IWD2 where you can step up and intimidate enemies by essentially saying, "HELLO, MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK BEFORE ATTACKING US, SINCE WE KILLED ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS WHO WERE REALLY NOT THAT WIMPY COMPARED TO YOU."

Racial Enemies:
Bugbears
Driders
Giants
Goblins
Harpies
Hook Horrors
Lizard Men
Ogres
Orcs
Salamanders
Shapeshifters
Trolls
Umber Hulks
Undead
Wyverns
Feyrs aren't included on the hated enemy list because there aren't that many of them in the game.

Goblins: You've already seen the goblins on worgs, haven't you? They're no pushovers.
Maybe this guy can tell you about it.
They are, from left to right: goblin axeman, goblin archer, elite goblin axeman, elite goblin archer, goblin caster, goblin captain, and goblin w/worg.
Goblins are usually very cowardly and selfish. They are as intelligent as humans, but not as strong. They are often bullied around by orcs and bugbears, but it takes strong leadership to keep them together when trouble arises. While most human cultures would rather stand and fight than run, goblins are typically quite content to creep off of the battlefield at the first sight of resistance.

Kevin Osburn, Line Producer

Mp3 Sampling: We will probably release an .mp3 sampling of the music sometime in the future.
Not sure yet, we will of course try to release an entire track.

Dual-Wielding: Yes Dual-Wielding is in, and it will stay in.

Dave Maldonado, Designer

The Interface: No actual problems, just some functionality additions and aesthetic tweaks. I won't make any promises (or even estimates) as to when it'll be ready - I'll leave that dangerous business up to Wolf n' friends (^_^) - but I will say I was talking to one of the artists yesterday about some more buttons recently being crammed in, and the skill/ability icons are being redone as the spell and item icons were...

Success and failure based on abilities: If the NPC makes his or her spot check and goes hostile, WHOOPS IT'S TIME FOR ME TO RELOAD... and you've got scumming again.
Of course, there are ways around it... design the game so that PC's can escape from angry shopkeepers (or what have you) and later return when they will no longer be recognized... but heck, that's a whole other thread for a whole other game at this point.
I'm personally more inclined to have players live with the consequences of bad choices rather than bad dice rolls.
When lucks hands someone his or her arse in PnP, I think most blame the dice/fate/"dumb-arse Fred because he touched my dice," not the DM or game rules. In a CRPG, though, I think players tend to get frustrated with the game directly: "Time to reload, stupid game; thanks for wasting my time."
Eliminating such both rewards players for making good choices/decisions as well as teaches players how to avoid making poor choices/decisions in the future (rather than showing them how bad luck can ruin their adventure) - in other words, shows them how to become better/more proficient players. All this and no more goofy, immersion-breaking reload-fest - it's WIN-WIN!!!

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Evil hide armor: You'll have to wait and see, but there are varied hide armors in the game.

Fighters and Charisma: Well, you can set your CHA to 14, which gives you a +2 to the modifier, then choose the skills Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate when you level up. This should give you the better reactions in the game, even for a fighter. It's not really necessary to min/max your fighter to make him effective. I've got an aasimar fighter (named Bort) in my #1 slot with a 16 STR, 12 DEX, 16 CON, 10 INT, 12 WIS, and 14 CHA (aasimar's get the WIS and CHA bonuses). He does really well in dialogs, and, to further enhance him, I will take a level or two of Rogue, when he levels, so I can jack up his Diplomacy and Bluff skills even more. Very effective.
CHA will play a roll, but only as the relevant modifier applies. A dialog check for the above example would be a skill check based off, let's say, Diplomacy. So, if your character needs at least 6 Diplomacy points to get the optimal dialog choice, then the program looks at the protagonist’s Diplomacy skill and adds in his CHA modifier. Example - if the protagonist has 4 points in Diplomacy and a 16 CHA (+3 modifier), then his total is 7 - thus letting him/her get the optimal dialog choice.

Religion: Yes, religion will play a role, if the protagonist is able to choose a religion upon character creation - like clerics. And yes, there are dialog responses catered to paladins as well. As for paladins choosing a deity, I'm actually unsure. I'll look into it and get back to you.
When I say "protagonist," I do mean the character that is doing the conversing. Generally, that's the person in the #1 slot. However, we are looking into implementing a feature that lets the player choose their own protagonist and that person will always do the talking for the party, no matter what position in the line-up. It's not yet in the game, but it is something that is being looked into by the programmers.

Playing the game, XP in HoF mode and number of characters: Oh, I'm not playing the game in my off time - it's a regular work day for me. At this stage, designers go through the game much like the testers do, with a focus on the areas we designed. Since we know what our areas are supposed to do, we can nit-pick until it's working the way we envisioned. It's also a great opportunity to check out the rest of the game and give feedback (and find bugs).
As for the HOF stuff, from what I understand, yes, the XP will be increased as compared to the "regular" mode. XP tables are constantly being tweaked for balance, and this should remain true through the next four weeks or so. It's all part of the testing process.
Lastly, if you're planning on going through the game with 4 or 5 characters, they should reach a very acceptable level by end game, even by your standards, I'm sure. I'm playing with a full 6 character party, using all the sub-races that have level penalties, and they reach kick-ass levels by mid to late game (comparatively speaking to the areas that they are in). Having a party consisting of 4 to 5 should really bump your XP. I know there are a few in QA who use parties of 4 to 5, so it is very doable - although very challenging.
If you don't want to use the feature, then don't. You don't have to select the protagonist, it's just an option. If you want to play the line-up like in IWD1, you can. It's all about options.

Auto-pause: Auto-pause is still in the game. We have no intention of taking it out.

Feargus Urquhart, President - Black Isle Studios

Magic Resistance: Yes it is in.

Wild Elf: The very rare wild elves are rarely seen by others, because they live in the heart of thick forests and they have incredible skill at keeping hidden. Also called green elves, their skin tends to be a dark brown, and their hair ranges from black to light brown, lightening to silvery white with age.
Advantages: +2 to Dexterity, +2 to Search, Immunity to Sleep and Charm spells, starts with the Feats Martial Weapons: Large Sword and Martial Weapons: Bows.
Disadvantages: -2 to Intelligence.
Favored Class: Sorcerer
Just looked in the PHB and they get both. The only real difference is the Favored Class - I think. JE is much better than me with all of the rule stuff.
More than 6 characters: It will only ever be six players in a party. Modifying the interface to support more as well as the code would be tantamount to asking the programmers if they would like a relaxing trip to the Middle East right now.

Level Cap: I'll answer the question as directly as possible. The level cap is going to be 30, this will be the sum of all class levels that a character has. In other words, you can be a 30th level monk or a 20th level fighter / 10th level rogue.
The only exception to this will be for Forgotten Realms races that have an ECL (Effect Character Level) that is greater than their normal character level, they will still will be able to advance to 30th level even though their ECL might be 31, 32 or 33. In other words our XP table goes through 33rd level, but this is only for purposes of the races that have an ECL that is not the same as their normal character level.
For all of the classes, we have just followed a logical progression to increase the levels from 20th to 30th level. In other words, we are not using the yet to be released Epic Levels Handbook.
To be honest, we have just continued the progression of things that can progress. Things like Barbarian's Rage and Rogue's Sneak Attack - they keep on increasing through 30th level. For Monk's fists, JE and I talked about just adding the top of the list to the bottom - in other words a Monk gets 1d20+1d6 for Unarmed Damage at 21st Level and 1d20+1d10 at 30th.
That's not a complete list - just a few to exemplify what we are doing.

Chad Nicholas, Sciptor

Party Average Charisma: Party Average Charisma (PAC) is not used in dialog checks. I'm not certain if it's going to be used to determine store prices since I have nothing to do with that.

New Neverwinter Nights Visuals
Posted Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 7:12 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault has captured a bunch of new screenshots of both the game and the Toolset. They also have a few concept art images, and you can view them and everything else right here.

BioWare has released a new wallpaper which features a couple of elementals. It can be downloaded here.

Icewind Dale II Development Update
Posted Wednesday, April 17, 2002 - 14:50 CET by Mollusken

Associate producer Doug Avery has posted a small post about a couple of new things at the Icewind Dale II web site.

Sorry for the tardiness of the update today. We have added a skills section to the World tab of the website, and a sample of some of our skills are included there. Also updated are our portraits with two new additions from Justin Sweet. The FAQ has been updated to reflect a few more of the 3E changes. We also changed the races to reflect their more finalized versions. The final thing that has been updated is the feats section under the World tab. You'll notice a few of them have been removed and a bunch more have been added.

3000 Members at Boards O' Magick
Posted Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 22:28 CET by Sorcerer

While the traffic has been slowing down a bit lately (about time a new game is released), we still managed to score a bunch of new registrations on our message boards, and today the 3000th member has registered on Boards O' Magick.

A big thanks goes out to our our excellent moderators (and admin) who have been doing a great job keeping the boards clean & enjoyable for all. And also, of course, to all those members of our boards who have been with us for a while now and have become regular participants in the community. So cheers to these pillars that keep our community together!

In case you're reading this and are not a member yet, click here to visit our boards and see what you're missing. ;)

Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition Announced
Posted Tuesday, April 16, 2002 - 19:24 CET by Mollusken

Black Isle has sent out a press release where they announce that they will make a collector's edition of Icewind Dale II.

IRVINE, California, April 16, 2002 - Black Isle Studios, the RPG (role-playing game) division of Interplay Entertainment Corp. (NASDAQ:IPLY), announced today their plan to create a collector's edition of Icewind Dale(tm) II featuring collectible items, exclusive gameplay enhancements and much more. Limited quantities of the Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition will be available for a limited time exclusively at the Interplay Store.

Scheduled for a simultaneous release with Icewind Dale II, the Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition features all of the amazing gameplay elements of Icewind Dale II plus completely new limited collectibles for Icewind Dale fans. Among the collectible items is a special Collector's Edition bonus disc containing additional gameplay enhancements and tracks from the game's captivating music soundtrack. One of the most visually stunning elements of the Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition is a full-color cloth map of the legendary region of Icewind Dale. Also, a set of four collectible character trading cards will be included describing in great detail the characters and creatures found in the game. The Collector's Edition also features a high quality spiral-bound manual, a set of dice, Black Isle Studios stickers and writing tablet to enjoy while questing. Enclosing the extraordinary Collector's Edition is a splendid hinge book style box. More comprehensive information can be found on the official Icewind Dale II web site.

Neverwinter Nights Screenshots
Posted Monday, April 15, 2002 - 6:53 CET by Mollusken

The Infogrames UK site has hidden away a few screenshots from Neverwinter Nights. The screenshots (one of them shows a Balrog) can be found here.

Icewind Dale Mac Review at Gamers Press
Posted Sunday, April 14, 2002 - 21:34 CET by Mollusken

The Macintosh version of Icewind Dale apparently keeps the same standard as the PC version. Out of a possible 10, The Gamer's Press rates it with an 8.

The port of the original PC game to the Macintosh has been flawless. Both games look the same, and the performance is suited for almost any hardware platform. I've been playing Icewind Dale on both my Powermac Desktop unit, and my Powerbook laptop. There's no performance issues on either one, though I do kick it up a few notches on the desktop machine by bringing it up from 640x480 to 800x600 - the highest resultion it will go. (A few cold notches, mind you.)

Macplay has taken care of every little detail. The network mode is the same as in the PC version, and if you sat a PC user in front of a Macintosh playing Icewind Dale, he wouldn't notice a change - the keystrokes are the same. The only difference is that if you don't have a two button mouse (I use a Microsoft Intellimouse myself), you have to press Command-Click to emulate the secondary mouse button.

Icewind Dale is a fun game because Bioware understood the importance of details - making the interface as perfect as they could, giving the player all the control they wanted, and making setting up a network game a snap. Macplay has continued that trend, in making Icewind Dale for the Mac (specifically OS X) just as smooth. Change from Full Screen to Windowed mode to take notes? It just works - no muss, no fuss. Want to Hide it when it's in Windows mode? No problems - the game pauses automatically so you can takes notes (or keep your boss from knowing what you're doing on company time.)

Read everything over at The Gamer's Press.

Icewind Dale II Designer Diary Part 5
Posted Saturday, April 13, 2002 - 16:00 CET by Mollusken

John Deiley, an Icewind Dale II designer, has written part 5 of RPG Vault's designer diary.

First of all, we've been approved as an official 3rd Edition, Dungeons & Dragons title by Wizards of the Coast. Our programmers have been working really hard on implementing the new rule set. They've also managed to put in the new character creation rules, feats, and skills! Of course, these changes required major reworking of all the interface screens, and most of these have been implemented.

The new interface is awesome looking. We've taken a totally different approach than in our previous games. I think you'll find it more functional, streamlined, and beautiful to look at. We want Icewind Dale II to be a totally different game than what we've produced in the past. We wanted to go beyond 'more of the same' and give it a new style and feel. I think our artists have done just that.

Speaking of new and stylish, you'll love all the new spell icons. Brian Menze has outdone himself! The icons are rich in color and detail. I think they much better indicate what spells they represent with a quick glance. Very functional, but exceptional eye candy!

Clerics have received a bit of a reworking in the game. We've added spell domains and deities! You can now select your priestly profession from among a list. We included the good, the bad, and the neutral. Cleric spells have been extended to include up to 9th level spells. This puts your priest within the ranks of power once only attainable by mages!

Read everything here.

Last Week's Poll Results
Posted Friday, April 12, 2002 - 23:14 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Do you think Neverwinter Nights will be able to live up to all the expectations?
(326 votes total)

Mostly it will (154) 47%
Yes, of course (90) 28%
In some ways it might (53) 16%
No, it won't (29) 9%

Hmmm... It appears we have a quite sceptical crowd here. 47% of all who voted went for the second choice from the top, saying that Neverwinter Nights will mostly be able to live up all the high expectations. It is going to be hard to satisfy everyone, so NWN will still be a great game if our high expectations are (mostly) met.

28% of poll participants are more certain of the game delivering what it promises. They all voted that NWN will, of course, be able to live up to all the expectations.

Nearing the waters of doubt, 16% of those who voted think that Neverwinter Nights might live up to all the expectations only in some ways.

Lastly, 9% of voters are certain that the game will not be able to live up to our expectations. We will have to see about that!

Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Thursday, April 11, 2002 - 19:19 CET by Arwen

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

Journals: You do indeed have a journal in Neverwinter Nights. There are currently three panes on the journal. One pane lists your quests that are unresolved, one pane lists your resolved quests, and one pain is titled notes, and is a place for you to write down what you will. Mine is filled with sweet nothings, dedicated to myself .

Character classes in the population: Personally, i've always felt that the classes and races were, to some (minor) degree, set up to match the population ratios. for example, humans are, to many, considered the best race (no multiclass penalty, extra feat, extra skill points, no negatives). they have been designed as more powerful so that more people will play them, and the ratios will fall into place. i'm not sure this is quite as fitting when it comes to classes, though... but in terms of ease of use, fighters and rogues are easier to understand than wizards and clerics... and fighters and rogues should be the more common of the adventuring classes...

Character development: Neverwinter is pretty standard for a CRPG in the sense of character development. But specificially, it uses the D&D rules - though Neverwinter is using the 3rd edition of the ruleset, as compared with Baldur's Gate (a game you mentioned having familiarity with) using the 2nd edition.

What I mean by standard for a CRPG is that, basically, you allocate stats for your character, and then allocate skill points and feats. You might choose to make a fighter who is good at locks, or good at parrying, or able to fight with two weapons at once.

Once your character is created, you gain experience through your adventures, and when you have accumulated enough, you advance a level - just like Diablo, just like BG. When you advance a level, you gain hit points and skill points, as well as potentially gaining feats (class specific or otherwise).

Hide/move silently: Just a quick addendum that we were doing multiplayer last night. There were 5 of us going. I played the rogue. The game begins with characters starting off in a bedroom area. I spawned in with three others. The three ran off, leaving me and the about-to-spawn fifth member. I went into stealth as the fifth was spawning in, so he never saw me.

I snuck over to the one exit from the room and set a trap. Then I sat there picking his pocket. He ran out of the room, oblivious, sprung the trap and was very surprised. He then went into his pack to grab a healing potion and realized he had none (I later stole his armor & weapon (when he unequipped them to run around naked), and most of his gold). The cool thing was that he never saw me. I amuse myself.

Of course, if you asked the others in the party, they would say something about holding me upside-down afterward, but that's irrelevant...

Yes, rogue's have the potential to be very mischievous. I very well believe that everyone is going to be forced to put skill points into their spot and listen if they happen to play on a server with rogues (or other stealthy types) that cannot... restrain themselves. Which will also force those others to put points into intelligence (to get more skill points) and wisdom (to get more bonuses).

Balancing is neat.

Traps: I believe party members are protected from traps set by party members. In this situation, as you guessed, we weren't yet partied up. On a side note, rogues can flag traps that they spot, but cannot disarm, so that their party members know where to step so in order not to set them off.

Traveling between towns: At current, it's more like Baldur's Gate before you have been somewhere. For example, to get to Beregost from Candlekeep, you have to walk through a few maps.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

Encounters: While I can't comment on any plot stuff, I can say that mighty and terrible creatures are running around the place squashing all sorts of hard working peasants, fuzzy animals and old people. Only you, the intrepid adventurer, can put a stop to this mayhem.

While a designer can put down encounter areas that spawn in scaled encounters for your party, a designer can also put whatever creature he or she wants in an area and no matter what level you are, you face what that creature- ready or not.

Starting points: The number we are currently testing with is 30 points based on a system of starting each characteristic with a base of 8...'

Module creation: We hope to make the creation of a module as painless as possible. Today tom and I needed to slap together an example module to demonstrate the DM Client. We created a few areas, had a basic plot, created some custom monsters and that was it. No scripting, no nothin'.

If you have a DM you can fake a lot of scripting stuff on the fly. Through dialogue you tell the players they a certain gem to gain access to the secret tunnel. They go and get the gem and you 'DM Unlock' the door when they return. No scripting done.

So, yes, you will be able to create models without scripting- very good ones actually. The scripting really comes in handy for writing no DM modules where things needs to happen without a human hand helping out.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Random Item Generator: Yes, you can have "random treasure" but it is random from a "pre-determined list" NOT random from "any possible item under the sun". There are no DM Tools, just the DM Client. From there you can affect anything in the game, but it MUST exist in the module file or savegame in the first place. You CANNOT create new items at a whim. You have to use the Hak Pak editor to open a save game file and add new resources that you first created and exported from the Toolset. You then need to restart the server with this Hak Pak saved save game. Then, you have to use the DM Client to spawn in these newly added resources and save the game again.

The only "editor" that can be used to make items is the Toolset.

What you did before this, is you told the people that are playing on the server that you are DM'ing on that you are about to do a few things. First, you save the game, then you kick them all and shut down the server. Then you start the Toolset and create a new module that includes this new item. You then contact that one player that wanted this item via ICQ, IRC, or some other non-game method because your server isn't running right now. You start the server and load this "item giver" module. That player connects, picks up the item, then logs off. You unload the module, then load the other save game again. That player should be able to enter this module with the new item.

Custom loading screens: I said select, as in, select from either Game resources or Hak Pak resources. If your image is in there, then it will appear on the select list.

SetAreaTransitionBMP(AREA_TRANSITION_USER_DEFINED,"myimage.bmp");

Or you can tell it to pick a random one.

SetAreaTransitionBMP(AREA_TRANSITION_RANDOM);

I think it not only accepts .bmp but .tga as well, but I don't have time to check.

David Gaider, Designer:

DM avatar: Actually, you are stuck with the avatar. As the GM, you actually see your Avatar character on-screen... no getting around that.

You are not limited to the same properties that other characters are, however. You can walk, but you don't have to... you can teleport about quickly both in the current area or between them (it's very easy... you can either teleport to a