May 2004
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 16:44 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Faces In Games
All I can say is that after using facial expressions in Jade, I wouldn't want to miss them. You replace the "*angry*, *laughs*, *hahaha*" - style emotes from the dialog and instead select the appropriate "emotion" for the line and it really makes a difference in the game.
Dongles
Hang on a sec... why is it a "failed" idea? I've seen many commercial applications using that system. As I noted earlier, it does begin to look silly when you have 4+ parallel or serial dongles connected in tandem, but with USB... it really shouldn't matter. They're small, inobtrusive, and can fit on a keychain. The pricepoint is an issue, however, I've seen them in the ~$15 range for quantities of 1,000... imagine 10,000 or 100,000.. that'd have to make a huge dent in the price-point.Don't forget, the idea of "copy protection" isn't to prevent it from being cracked/hacked/etc., rather to make it difficult for the majority of the public to participate in.If the game itself was designed to employ the protection, then wouldn't that prevent a lot of the problems that generally occur with publisher-based protection?
Because you just need to write a driver that simulates the dongled device on the USB port or to remove the USB check from the main executable. You can't afford to put significant code on the dongle as it will degrade performance (as will highly complex encryptiong), and games do not have a lot of CPU time to spend on this. Finally, you need to put the decryped information into memory somehow if you want to avoid constant, performance degrading access to the USB device. It's easy to listen to data on the USB bus, it's easy to read process memory on your computer and a skilled person can find whatever calls to protection routines on that USB chip and rip them out of your executable. Even if you put parts of your program code onto that chip (which is unlikely for games because of performance and maintenance concerns - patching your game would become a bad bad nightmare), it will still end up unencrypted in your PCs memory at some point - and someone is either going to grap the executable image from there and create an unencrypted one or write a driver that emulates the responses from that dongle.My point is: it will be about as hard/easy for Joe Average to find a crack for USB dongles than for any other offline protection scheme.That said, it's expensive, about as annony as changing CDs , will probably cause another layer of potential incompatibilites with various hardware devices / exoctic usb chips, multi function hubs, etc - no you'd pay more for your games because of manufacturing cost but it wouldn't solve a single of those problems. Instead of changing CDs, you'd have to change dongles, that is less damage resistant than a CD can.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
Seriously, if you (or your distributor) spends tons of cash on developing things like unique serial imprints (or hires a third party to do this) on CD/DVD disks and the involved research to come up with this and on customer support because the crap isn't working anymore again + replacement of disks because people are simply not aware that their drives are too old...And the alternative is so simple, so elegant. Sure its more difficult to produce nice addon material and multiple handbooks and cloth-maps. Ok, not as easy to ship because a simply bigger/heavier case, but actually WELCOMED by the players...And what do we get ? DVD-cases... thin, noninformative handbooks... good thing NWN came in a normal box...*crap*No-cd patches take usually 2 days to show up. Playing through the game to find out if contend from the handbooks is needed and WHERE (of course its somwhere in the games code, good luck in searching - as long as you don't use the same sheme for every game, but nobody would be that dumb, right?) usually takes much longer, EXTREMELY long in the case of game with the depth of ultimaIV for an example.Someone from Atari wants to save a few pennys again i guess ? THERE IS YOUR COPY-PROTECTION SOULUTION. They can ignore it as much as they want, its still the best way to do it, period.
Back in the "good old days", piracy was as rampant as it is today. Only a small portion of dedicated game cares for nice boxes, manuals and trinkets, the majority of people care just for the game, regardless what is in it. The internet has made it easier to get pirated games, but nice manuals, cloth maps or code wheels or whatever will not help significantly. But again, the discussion on this board is mood, publishers require the copy protection and this is very unlikely to change. I can see them embrace DRM or other verification schemes in the future if they get a significant market penetration (i.e. as part of a new windows operating system), but till then, it is likely that we will be stuck with whatever is available in the realm of software based protection. If you do not like that, I'd suggest to contact the PR department of your favourite publishers and lobby against it.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
Beta volunteer!
From the FAQ:
1.15: When will Dragon Age be released?A release date for Dragon Age has yet to be announced.
No release date has been announced. We have not said the game will be released in 2005.
Scott Meadows, Programmer
Scripting language - OO?
Does that mean that we'll get GetCameraFacing in DA? Along with SetCameraPosition and GetCameraPosition of course?
I don't know. My statememnt was that of a principle nature.You will have to wait.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Dragon Age Licensing
Suck it up David. Write the show and in the First Episode Kill Darcy Pajak as the bad guy.
Yeah Pajak could be Deekin's nemesis. An evil vicious and dim-witted Kobold. Craig.
Post Comments (0)
IPLYE.OB Down to 0.045
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 17:02 CET by chevalier
Interplay shares have further fallen and the current price is $0.045 per share.
Check Interplay's summary at Yahoo Finance.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Keeps Lagging Behind with Paychecks
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 17:00 CET by chevalier
According to No Mutants Allowed, checks haven't been issued and Herve Caen won't answer any calls. Here's a snip:
IPLY was supposed to give out payment checks to the IPLY employess today, but according to our sources those weren't issued today. Herve isn't returning any calls or taking any, guess he was out driving his expensive car or golfing..
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 16:43 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Scott Greig, Project Director/Producer
Voice-over
OK, here are my thoughts on the matter.
One of the ways of looking at things is to treat text, VO and animations as information channels. Trust me this will make sense shortly
In the BG days, our writers had to convey all story and characterizations through character dialog. If they wanted to give the impression that the character was angry, they had to write angry words:
"No! damn you".
They didn't even have the option that a novelist has of adding non dialog descriptors:
"No!" he said angrly.
I don't think that very many people realized how much of a challenge this was and of course one of the side effects of this type of writing is that it can become quite "wordy".
When you have full VO like in Kotor, you now have a second channel to convey information about the player:
"No!" (VOICE DIRECTION: Shouts in angry voice)
If you have full VO and a sophisticated animation system, you now have three channels of information
"..." (ANIMATION DIRECTION: Snarls and shakes head)
The net effect of having this systems is it allows the writer more flexibility. It will also have the effect of reducing the total number of words, but not necessarily the number of dialog options.
David Gaider, Designer
Romance Options: A poll from the Community
# 2. I don't think same-sex relationships are that viable, even in real life. I am so going to get burned, roasted, and flamed for not only possibly offending many gay couples out there but also doing a serious nose-dive off the edge of this topic and off into Morality and Ethics Land, but here goes:I do not think same-sex relationships are right. I mean, look at our physical genitalia. Men are meant to be with women. Of course, if a person is gay, he's gay, and I can respect his/her choice to be gay. But same-sex relationships are just . . . *shudders* Where would the world be in everyone was gay? We would never have any kids!! The human race would be extinct!!!!
I've been watching this thread with some amusement, but on this I have to comment.If the point of the romances were to procreate, I might concede that you have a point. It isn't, however... it's about love. Say what you like, there's no way you can claim that gay people don't love each other.I've always maintained that gay romance has no place in a Teen-rated game and not much of a place in fantasy in general... but given the proper rating and a mature enough story theme, I'd certainly be willing to give writing one a whirl.The only thing I will not do, ever, is simply insert a script so an NPC romances either sex the same way. The world wouldn't see it as such and neither should the NPC. That's not to suggest that gay couples don't love each other the same way as everyone else (thank God Alberta will soon join most of the rest of Canada in recognizing marriage equality), but that if I were given the task to include such a romance in the game I'd want to give it the treatment it deserves.Don't like that idea? As with every game we've made with romances, there is always the option to simply not pursue it. I personally see it as a goal to strive to make the romance stories deeper and more believable as time goes on, whether they are gay-themed or not, but since we don't force it upon any players I see no call for any players to dictate that they should not exist in the first place.And that's my two cents.
Books!
David: By asking how long the books were in Morrowind, I take it you haven't played Morrowind
No, I did play it. I simply did not get very far through it before I set it aside.
it seems that Gromnir is out too far on the fringe to be palatable to the gamer masses.
Gah. Okay, apparently you're not going to let that one go. I said some of the things you were suggesting were curiously high concept, Grom. Not all. And you are certainly not alone. I apologize.
Voice-over
Ooooooo... I *loved* the Buffy musical episode! A jazzy demon casts a spell that forces everyone to express themselves in musical numbers...
Hmmmm...
Books!
Since this is a world of our own creation and there's bound to be plenty of information in the history and docs that we really can't squeeze into the game, yeah, I'd imagine we have a lot of resource material to use if we so choose. I guess it's just a matter of who's going to write all that out. How long are the books in Morrowind, incidentally?
more work for dave
nevertheless, as 'tween blind faith and insane rants, we will take the insane rants. at least sometimes something good may come from the rant.
I'm not so sure about that. The problem with both those things is that they are not very constructive. And it is only by being constructive that some actual good may come out of it. "Good" as in affecting the design of the game by actually convincing someone who works on it, I mean. If someone's "good" is just to be the center of attention for a while or feeling better about getting whatever off their chest, then yeah I suppose an insane rant is just dandy.
Voice-over
BTW, David, is music really related with sound? Wouldn't that be separate??
Is that a trick question? Normally we would out-source the actual music creation (to someone like Jeremy Soule, for instance), but the insertion of all music and sounds and VO is the responsibility of the sound department. Which is, essentially, David Chan.
Linux client?
Mr Georg, you're now forced to reply about this thread as it is obvious that you now have took knowledge of it
There is no reply to make. We are not ready to talk about whether or not there will be any ports for the game at this point.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Gender differences
There will be no gender differences in Dragon Age. Does that mean that men can have breasts and women can have beards?
hardy har har My last post was a bit short so I'll expand on it a little; I meant that as far as the base rules go gender will make no diffrence. There will be some diffrences with romance options and NPC's you meet.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
I understand the spirit of what drunkle is saying, but the consequences of something like this would be most people thinking that they have now paid there "warezing tax" and are free to pirate all games with hell-bent abandon.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Scripting language - OO?
Well, you've answered Enigmatic's question, I suspect, but there is another problem with calling GetEnteringObject in a script. You can't use the same script in an OnEnter script or a OnDamaged script.How about a function like: GetTriggeringObject, or maybe a GetPrimaryTriggeringObject and GetSecondaryTriggeringObject. The meaning of these functions would then vary depending on where the script was placed.I can't really argue that this would be more "modern", though. It's simpler and more elegant, but it might also be more confusing for a newbie scripter. Perhaps you'd want a #define GetEnteringObject GetPrimaryTriggeringObjectsomewhere.
actually, if you want to, you can easily use one script for all events. Just message everything to a single OnUserDefined event and do the code thereint nEvent = GetUserDefinedEventNumber()
if (nEvent == 1){
oTarget = GetEnteringObject
}else if (nEvent == 2){
oTarget = GetExitingObject
}
and so on.
Scripting language - OO?
I can understand the desire to reduce the retraining required of your developers and not re-inventing the wheel now that you have a fairly bedded down script language like NWScript.With this being the case I would say your main goal should be an evolution of that scripting language where you reduce the flaws of the original (lack of arrays, no parameters, missing functions) while bringing the language up into a newer generation.This whole concept of having to execute functions like "GetEnteringObject" inside a script just to retrieve a parameter of what triggered the call in the first place flies in the face of most modern programming languages.
You need to call GetEnteringObject about 1 time per trigger. So what would be the advantage of typingoEnter = this.EnteringObjectto oEnter = GetEnteringObjectthere is no advantage to it. Yes, it looks more modern and such, but that's hardly anything that would justify framework rewrites and retraining people.
D&D or not D&D? THAT is the question.
I think the question is: Why is D&D so "good"?I mean, does everybody like D&D just because it's popular and/or because it's the only (or almost only) the rule system they've played with? Or does it actually have advantages over other game systems?
It is a simplistic system that still offers enough complexity to simulate/resolve most situations that come up using just a few dice and a piece of paper, and that makes it beautiful.
But then again it doesn't translate to well from PnP on the computer, at least not for the real time based games BioWare makes. If you make a turn based game it works fairly well, but not for a real time framework. Also, by translating a system tailored to the mathematical capacity of the average human mind, you may sacrifice things you could present better in a computer system that can handle highly complex calculations in a blink. (Through humans like systems they understand, so making it overly complex might not be a good idea as well).
Also, and that's true with any licensed system, when working with a license, you need to make changes to gameplay in order to ensure license integrity. I.e. if the license holder establishes that there is no kissing (or further things along that line) in the licensed world because they are not appropriate for the company's target audience or public image - you can't have romances that end beyond holding hands and walking into the sunset. Another example: In D&D it is established that there are certain classes and what their properties are (i.e. A paladin gets his special mount). In NWN there was no horseback riding, so the paladin would not get this special mount - but we could also not invent anything new to balance out the loss of this ability, because that would have violated the spirit of the paladin classe and thus damaged the license. There are countless other examples like this, often originating from either engine limitations or design decisions (i.e. to use a real time system, allow multiplayer without DM, etc). With our own IP, we can make sure that classes useful within the abilities of the game engine.
Of course licenses come with a benefit as well, i.e. a certain amount of people know the brand and are probably more likely to buy your game when it makes use that license (be it StarWars, D&D or whatever) and don't having to worry about the background for your game, as you have most likely a huge reference library to access. Don't get me wrong, it is cool to work with a license (which geek hasn't dreamt of making a StarWars or D&D game) and if the project is "make a cool StarWars RPG", you are happy to work with a license - but if the project is about "A character shaping he the fate world nobody has been to before" a license is probably not a good idea, as licenses usually don't mix with permanent changes to the gameworld and new worlds, gods, races radially different from things that have been established before. So, working with a license has pros and cons and it needs to be evaluated on a per project basis. For DA it was decided that we wanted to do "our" world in the way we want it to be, tell "our" story with as much as creative freedom for our writers as possible and that rules out using an established license.
Scripting language - OO?
Your core game framework needs to be built from the start to support a certain size of game areas, modules, worlds, whatever you call it.
A game that supports 1-500 players or 1-1000 areas requires different structuring / systems than a game that runs with 1-20 or 1-50 players or 1-100 areas. It's not as simple as saying: "Build a game that scales indefinitly", because systems that have "unlimited borders" are more complex, and cost significantly more to build and maintain than systems that are build to run well within certain limits and you might very well want to use the additional manpower for things that are more beneficial to your core audience, because those are the ones you are selling the most copies to.
MMORPG architecture is very different from architecture you would use in a story driven game, even if it has multiplayer.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
you are wrong, the picture is from the normal version - that i bought. it costed 70sFr. at that time in switzerland (80 DM or 40US$).now talking about the dragon edition pal...
Normal Edition:-Ultima IX install CD-Ultima IX play CD-Ultima Online: The Second Age Game CD (with one month free membership)-The "Journal" booklet (all about the ultima universe, the avatar, history and so on)-The "Book of Magic" booklet (all about the magic in the ultima universe)-The Install booklet (the regular game booklet)-8 Virtue Tarot Cards-40cm x 40cm Cloth Map of Britannia (i guess made out sinthetic fibres, because it looks and feels very silky)-"Gobelin of Time" (a mirrorfinish piece of paperboard, with the gobelin of time on one side, and help about the game controls on the other)
Dragon Edition:-all the content from the normal version-the "journal" and "the book of magic" have a sinthetic leather cover-an ankh pendant that can be attached to a necklace and worn-the ultima collection CD that contains Ultimas I through VIII, including Ultima VII add ons: Forge of Virtue and Silver Seed-The Ultima IX Soundtrack-A high quality illustration reprint of the ascending avatar-a certificate from richard garriotwhat do you say eh?
I wasn't aware of that, guess that's for the US version only. I saw a "Normal Edition" a friend of mine bought, but it didn't have anything like the stuff in the Dragon Edition I bought - probably the usual "European Version", sigh. However, the trend towards cutting distribution and manufacturing costs by the publishers remains. Most games in europe come in DVD boxes already, while the US market to have settled for those smaller cardboard boxe for now - not much space for anything special in there (unless you create a special edition).
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
that's probably because FADE (that was the name of the protection system) was never confirmed to be active in the game by anyone else than Codemasters. In the end, it seemed like a huge marketing gag to scare off pirates. Try a google on that matter, i am sure you'll find tons of discussions as to wheter FADE was in the game or not.Interesting concept, but i don't think they really implemented it.
I came to the conclusion that it was a nice marketing ploy. It has a drawback however - people will start to blame any gameplay problem they have on faulty copy protection (even if there is one). And even if there was a copy protection that would work that way in your game, you would get swamped with technical support requests by people who were running it off nocd cracks, etc and found gameplay deteriorating (most likely not even knowing why). So while the whole thing sounds like a good idea on the first glance, it has the potential to cause far more support trouble than worth it.
Scott Meadows, Programmer
Scripting language - OO?
I have only one simple request for the scripting language. Symmetry.By that I mean - if we can GET a value, let us SET that value.Carl
Sorry Carl,I will have to disagree a bit with you on this one.In MOST cases I agree you should be able to Get and Set, however, there are certainly cases where you are only allowed to perform a Get.I will say that where there is a SET you absolutely have to have a GET but not the reverse.
Toolset GUI
Wow Gecon,
I am not quite clear on what you want the toolset to do.
That is what I love about this community
PASSION
There is no lack of passion here.
Keep the posts and ideas coming....
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 16:01 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Red Dragon Disciple:
There were two separate bugs that would make RDD's illegal. Both have been fixed in the latest patch 1.62).
The first:
Your character would become illegal at RDD level 10. This was fixed and the fix will retroactively fix already existing characters.
The second:
If you lost a level of RDD at a level where you had received a stat gain, the stat gain wasn't getting properly removed. This was fixed, so that the stat gains are now correctly removed. This fix does not retroactively fix existing characters, but will stop new RDD's characters from becoming illegal.
Haste:
There are currently no plans to change the way that Haste & AutoQuicken work.
Dwarven War Axe:
Quote: Can i find Dwarven War/battle Axe(s) in neverwinter nights?
The Dwarven War Axe was added as a new weapon type in the HotU expansion pack. You can find them in the HotU campain, or make them in the toolset.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Screenshots:
Don't forget - you can press F11 to hide pretty much all the UI panels so you can get an unobstructed view of your area.
Post Comments (0)
Atari Cuts Down on PC Games
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 2:25 CET by chevalier
According to an article in Financial Times, Infogrames, whose US subsidiary is Atari, is going to reduce the percentage of PC games from 25% to 20%. A year ago it was 35%, so we have every right to expect further progress in this falling tendency. However, they're also going to focus on Dungeons and Dragons and since they aren't going to abandon the PC sector altogether perhaps we will still hear from them in the future. Here's a snip:
Mr Bonnell said he plans to cut the number of releases by 20 per cent to enable Infogrames to invest more in its main franchises such as Dungeons and Dragons and Dragon Ball Z. "Why bother having 20 per cent more titles when they don't reach the threshold of profitability?" he asked.
Sales of games for PCs, which represented 35 per cent two years ago, should fall from a quarter to a fifth this year although Mr Bonnell said he wanted to remain in the market, which could benefit from the future take-off of online gaming.
Read the rest at Financial Times.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Creditor List at Raging Bull
Posted Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 2:16 CET by chevalier
Raging Bull have posted an articled copied from Orange County Registry. It is, basically, a list of Interplay's creditors. Here's a snip:
IRVINE – PC-game developer Interplay Entertainment Corp. is running out of cash and may not be able to continue operating, according to company filings.
Two employees have filed complaints with the state because of bounced paychecks. The company also faces a lawsuit from its landlord seeking three months of unpaid rent, plus other lawsuits from entertainment companies that say the Irvine-based company owes them money. An additional $179,000 is owed in payroll taxes and penalties, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Read the whole thing at Raging Bull.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, May 28, 2004 - 22:53 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
more work for dave
Cynicism is very safe. If the game is bad, everything he's said looks justified. If it isn't, then obviously all the kvetching did some good. Win-win situation. It's combining that with an inability to understand that we (meaning all of us here) might in fact be okay with him not liking the game that makes it irritating.
Voice-over
Because V-O is expensive and time-consuming.
But, as I already said (and was apparently ignored, because apparently what would I know about such things?), it is not the same people who write who do VO. The time being spent is being spent elsewhere.So less VO does not equal a longer, deeper story. At best, the money could be spent elsewhere... more game sounds and music, likely, since that's sound-related. If you want less VO, do it on that premise than on the fallacy that you'd somehow have more dialogue.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs)
You could do a limited version like this in a game, but making it as open-ended as you are describing it would be... pretty hard, to say the least. Just trying to account for the one relationship you describe would take a lot of effort in order to script it and have all the paths written ahead of time (since the writing must be necessarily linear all paths must be fully developed even if the player only chooses one... therein lies the bulk of the work.)
Barbie & Ken ?
I'm all for customization, but there's a reason why the non-beautiful portraits were almost universally not used by players. Players like their characters to be beautiful. A generalization, yes, for which there are always exceptions, but one that you and I both know is largely true when you look at the issue objectively. It's not just us forcing our desire for beautiful characters upon you all. That said, the preference would be for that level of customization to exist anyway for the sake of NPC variety even if nothing else. But I think that kind of consideration is usually secondary. Maybe that shouldn't be the case? A point to argue, I suppose.
Voice-over
The trouble with full VO is that the writers will find themselves suddenly limited to what they can write. For example, specific references to the PCs race/gender/class etc. will have to be avoided as each change would require different VO. What would have been a simple engine-handled substitution becomes expensive multiple VO recordings.
This is true. However, read ahead... This is not necessarily true. It was not true in KotOR, for instance, and for a very good reason. Would you believe that KotOR had a first draft? It was a completely written game at one point, with the shortest dialogue we could possibly get away with because we were under a very draconian word count limit due to the cost of VO. It was also terrible. Awful. If a character had more than one line it, out of necessity, both introduced itself and gave it's quest by the time the second line was done. When you have a 10,000-word limit on a chapter, though, there's not much wiggle room.And the Powers That Be acknowledged the problem. That version of KotOR was scrapped and we started over... with complete carte blanche to write dialogues as long as we felt were necessary. I think it showed in KotOR's writing and we're doing DA the same way. Indeed, we're actually going out of our way to make extra paths the standard.And while we can't do character names, we *do* intend to do such references as he/she and him/her, only sparingly. As you can imagine, doing one of those requires two seperate lines, but when you have another line for an elf and one for a nobleman and one for a barbarian and... well, you get the picture... then it doesn't seem like such a big deal.In short, I would agree that VO can be a huge limiting factor on the writing... but only when it is done cheaply. If the Powers That Be are willing to put the writing first and the VO second there really shouldn't be a problem (beyond having no NPC ever actually say the player's name, which is a bit of a trick to get around... but they didn't do it in KotOR, either, and I don't think it was actually missed.) It should also be noted that less VO does not equate to more writing/more story. Us writers do not work on VO, so it's not as if having less VO means more time for us to write.
Hey, DA Devs ... what have you been reading?
What do you have against spellfire? It's certainly better than you make "The White Gold Wielder" sound, and better than a lot of other books too!
Oooo I don't know if I should get started. "White Gold Wielder", while depressing, is still at least well-written. "Spellfire" reads like a bad transcript of the kind of D&D campaign I had when I was twelve.
I agree that "On a Pale Horse" is great though, along with the rest of the books in that series.
Really? I found the Time book moderately good and the ones after that pretty poor. I heard the last book about Evil was good but I didn't read it at that point.I remember really liking Piers Anthony's "Split Infinity" series, especially the way the adepts were set up and their system of magic... very cool. Even though that series exemplifies all the annoying tics that Anthony has (mass nakedness, clueless main hero ends up sleeping with everything... in this case, even his horse... I swear Piers Anthony is such a perv...)
Hey, DA Devs ... what have you been reading?
I thought the "A Man of his Word" series by Dave Duncan was great. I just started reading "the Gilded Chain" recently (also by him) which I hear is excellent (it's been recommended to me by several other designers). I really disliked the Thomas Covenant "White Gold Wielder" series, though more because of the man's complete passiveness rather than his whining per se. Seven books and it took until the final book for him to actually do anything. It was also relentlessly depressing, and while the "Hope, Memory and Sorrow" series by Tad Williams (of which "To Green Angel Tower" was mentioned above) was similar in tone I actually found it enjoyable. Except maybe for that interminable section in the tunnels underneath the castle... oh, god, I never want to read that part ever again so long as I live.
I stopped reading the "Wheel of Time" series about half-way through the "Path of Daggers". Just... no. I swear every single woman in that series is one sentence away from 'boxing your ears'. I think Robert Jordan has a thing about aggressive women. This series actually influenced DA's story a lot... in that "I think that's in the Wheel of Time series" was a statement that defeated a proposed plot point instantly and irrevocably. I confess to liking Peirs Anthony's "Magic of Xanth" series, too. Mainly the first trilogy, though. After "Dragon on a Pedestal" it became completely unreadable. Or I grew up, one of the two. He probably was the author who most influenced me while I was growing up, though, which makes me a bit sad. I never did get why everyone had to run around naked at least once in every novel of his. "On a Pale Horse" still stands out of all of his books, though, even if it isn't fantasy. I know there are relatively obscure fantasy books that I've read and enjoyed recently that I should recommend, but I forget now. Grrr. Oh well. I will go on record, though, by saying that "Spellfire" is the worst fantasy book I have read in my entire life. And that's saying a lot. Don't try to read it to find out if I'm correct, just trust me.
EDIT: Just remembered one, a duology of all things: "The Mirror Of Her Dreams" and "A Man Rides Through", both by Stephen R. Donaldson of "White Gold Wielder" infamy. I forgave him after those two.
Thieve's Cant in Dragon Age?
Not that we would particularly want to do a Narlen Darkwalk NPC, good or no.
more work for dave
I didn't find it annoying at all. I found it as being normal for a dungeon crawling. I mean haven't you guys ever done so in PnP gaming?
Indeed. We would say, "We want to leave the dungeon and camp." And the DM would say "Done!" and it was so. He did not spend the next ten minutes laboriously describing our journey back through all those parts of the dungeon we'd already explored. If he had, we would have hit him.
more work for dave
David, Watcher's Keep was lame. It is the worse dungeon I have ever came across in a game. The Puzzles made no sense, the critters were laughable, and the challenge was nil. Where did it rocked?
Because it was fun. Durlag's was fun, too... except when I had to drag my sorry *** all the way back to the entrance just to rest. Then not so much.But I take it you disagree. Ah, well, there's a shocker.
Instead of having priests and divine magic..
Just as a comment, there's no particular reason to have a seperation between the magic that priests and mages would use unless the background story fits it. Indeed, there is no reason for priests to be spell-casters unless that's what you want, nor for priests to be healers per se.
I know that some of you have said precisely this, I'm just saying that we have the same thoughts. You'll see precisely what we've set up eventually.
more work for dave
1: No city under siege stories. We have seen it done in Saradush in ToB, we have seen it done in Neverwinter in Neverwinter Nights, and we have seen in it done with Waterdeep in HotU. NO MORE!
You know, this almost makes me want to include a city under siege just because. If it fits the story well enough, I see no reason not to do it again.
Quote: 3: The moderately annoying male character. We had Ajantis in BG1, ANomen in BG2, Carth in KotOR, Tomi in NWN, Deekin in SoU, and both TOmi and Deekin in HotU. ENOUGH ALREADY! Grr... Argh...
Everybody is always annoyed by NPC's. I can guarantee you that everyone will find some of the NPC's in DA slightly annoying and at least one incredibly so.
Quote: 4: The big dungeon. I like big dungeons and would like to see one of Durlag's Tower quality put into Dragon Age. Watcher's Keep in ToB blew major chunks of kibble. Being able to leave at any moment really killed the tension and fear for my characters' lives.
Watcher's Keep rocked. I would love to do a dungeon like that again.
Quote: 5: Instant Get out of Jail free cards are just annoying and should be removed completely in Dragon Age. I hated it in ToB, it was worse in NWN, KotOR, SoU, and HotU. It really kills the challenge of the game and that is why the majority of us play the game. We play for the challenge as much as for the story.
We? Is that the royal We? Or by that do you mean to imply Everyone? On whose behalf are you speaking?
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Gender differences
There will be no gender differences in Dragon Age.
Why not D&D rules?
i mean multyplay like in nwn
Dragon age will have a multiplayer campaign designed for a group of people to play through together. When playing this, the party will play as a team to complete the game.
Why not D&D rules?
& why its not masive multyplay?
There are many reasons why this chapter of Dragon Age is not a massivly multiplayer roleplaying online game.A MMORG doesn't need an indepth story and personal character involement. One thing crtitcs consistantly say about our games is that the stories our writters create are fantastic, and the NPC's are interesting and deep. I don't know any MMORG that can make one person feel the world revolves around them.They are like theme parks. Pay your ticket, enter and ride the rides, take in the shows, and you're treated like the next guy.In our games you are the most important person. You and nobody else can do what needs to be done. Each plot, each character was designed for you to find, complete, talk to and witness.Each type of game serves a purpose in entertainment. We choose the story side.
Barbie & Ken ?
All I know is that if i'm going to be playing a game for hours and hours, I want something nice to look at. Call me shallow but for me, and all those people who like hollywood movies, that means supermodels.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
How about a hole punched CD? I specifically made CD that has a hole on the side which if the computer cannot detect it won't run the game.
Just like the dongle and CD check, it is just as easy to crack. Because the code to do all these checks are in the game executable, the game can be cracked.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
How to stop piracy to almost nillcreate a USB device like a cartridge drive.
This is the failed 'dongle' idea from 10+ years ago. It comes with hardware incompatibilities and is just as easily cracked as a CD check. This would also drive up manufacturing costs significantly.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Toolset GUI
Hey,
First of all, the aerospace industry analogy as you describe, khazar-khum, is not quite accurate. You would never put a full compliment of 217 passengers on the Boeing 7E7 for its first flight. Similarly, you would not hand over untried / unreliable tools into the hands of artists and designers working on your project; they are _not_ test pilots. Their work is not testing the tools, it is using the tools to make the game. Just as passengers on airplanes have a reasonable expectation of safety and reliability so too, do the users of our tools. Continuing with the aerospace analogy, there is another saying "Never marry an untried engine to an untried airframe." It is all well and good to build tools using game and graphics code that is more or less final. It is an _entirely_ different matter to be developing them simultaneously. This introduces not just one, but several additional layers of complexity that must be managed in order for development of the game to proceed as smoothly as possible.
The simple fact is, there is a (slightly) higher failure tolerance for the game than for the tools for most of the project. That is, when the game goes down, it's bad but not critical because you can always restart / reload without loss of work. When the tools (using the same game and graphics code as the... game) go down, you have now introduced negative work into the project. Ignoring the cost of finding the bug for now, the basic cost is that the content creator must now reimplement whatever work has just been lost. This means the content creator is no longer moving the project forward, he or she is trying to recover lost ground. Now imagine an entire team of artists or designers who can't work because of an unknown data corrupting or crash-inducing bug. Don't think it doesn't happen.
Let's actually look at the cost of finding that bug. If the bug occurs only in the game, you are losing time the game or graphics programmer could be polishing existing or adding new features to the game. This is bad because it impacts the product our customers are purchasing. If the bug occurs in the tools, the tools programmers are usually the first ones to begin the investigation. This means that the tools programmers are no longer polishing existing or adding new features to the tools. When you consider the value that a new tools feature could add to the project in terms of allowing the artists or designers to complete some task faster (and the corresponding ripple effect benefit that could have on the final product) this can quickly multiply into a huge loss. Now, good testing and change management practices help to mitigate that risk, but when it's your work that's just been flushed, it doesn't make you feel any better that the tools programmers saved a little time by reusing that code. When a project is developing the game and graphics engine systems and tools simultaneously, any sharing of code should be considered very carefully because the "issues" that you avoid later may be outweighed by the "issues" that you face today.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Must have flying
For G2, had the setting been changed accordingly, say from an island, to a valley surrounded by impassible mountains, I think the game would have more or less been equally enjoyable (with a couple appropriate plot alterations, of course). It's really about the setting and the methods of movement complimenting each other.As far as U9, unfortunately, I didn't manage to play very far through the game, as I simply didn't have a system that could handle it, and I was in university at the time too - I didn't have the time to dedicate to playing on my slow computer (and was unable to afford a system upgrade).
I played Ultima 9, at least as far as it was possible.Levitation control itself was ok but not as good as Morrowind in that regard. Combat could be easily exploited. Swimming was ok but you would drown/take damage whenever you got too far from the shore. I liked the way they shut off parts of the world against further exploration early on, it didn't feel too forced. However Ultima 9 did not have followers because they couldn't get a party to work in the 3D environment.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
as i said before stuff like this Click Here is imo one of the best ways to prevent warezing.
That's a picture of the Ultima Ascension Dragon Edition, which cost about 120USD at the time it was released. I paid significantly more than that to get one of those in europe. Your average player is not going to shell out much money for a game. Keep in mind that game prices have been stable stable/lower over the last few years while production costs are significantly up. I recently (about a week after the official release date) bought Splinter Cell, Unreal Tournament and Far Cry for 39 CDN each, thats about 28 USD for a triple-A game. One reason for stable / lower prices is the larger market as games become more mainstream, the other reason are publishers reducing distribution costs by making lighter / small boxes as well as cutting down manufacturing costs.You will probably still see things like cloth maps, etc in the future, but only in more expensive "special editions".
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
Plus punching holes in CDs will cause them to spin less harmonic causing significantly increased wear and tear on both CD drive and cd.
Voice-over
I don't like full voice overs. I find myself being able to read much faster than what is being spoken.
As long as you recognize that the market demands otherwise, that's fine. You can always turn down the speech volume and skip-click through conversations.
Scripting language - OO?
While you will no longer have all the D&D related functions dealing with ability modifiers, AC, and other D&D system specific things, the general framework of the language is unlikely to change significantly as it has nothing to do with the D&D license.
Scripting language - OO?
Second it is extremely uncomfortable, especially since there was no Button 'recompile all scripts'.
That is strange, I have the option to recompile all scripts in my NWN retail toolset using Module->Build .
Game length
Has C++ changed so much over the years ? Does it now take 2 artists to draw 1 concept art and 2 designers to write the lines of 1 NPC?
To answer the question:To create (concept, model, skin, animate) a single creature today you need probably about 5-10 times the manpower you needed to create a single creature for BG 2.Do you really think all the eyecandy, normal, shiny and bumpmapping high resolution textures and motion captured animations don't come at a price?Manpower requirements are significantly up for all departments since BG2, but Art/Animation probably had the largest increase. I stand by my statement that the days of 200 hours story driven games are over and are not coming back for a long long time, if ever.
Toolset GUI
Reader 1: The one thing I would like to see with the toolset is :SPEEDThe toolset and the game should be considered 2 very distinct and seperate entities, and reusing the module format for the toolset is in my opinion a bad idea...
Reader 2: **NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!**Please go read any and all articles related to NWN postmortems on gamasutra.com. (Registration is free and relatively painless, and I've received no junk or spam from them)Unless I'm misinterpreting it, because they kept the Toolset and the Game as separate builds (and on separate compilers no less), it contributed to a large number of bugs, plus the inability to port the toolset to Linux and Mac platforms.I would imagine the performance would actually be quicker if both projects were more closely knit. Regardless, I think there exists be a better way of making the Toolset performance quicker in comparison to NWN, *WITHOUT* having to complicate the project production screen with muliple projects and/or multiple compilers.
Yepp, the more shared code / resources you have between toolset and game, the less problems you will have to fight later dealing with "issues".
Scripting language - OO?
No, I won't adapt. I'm sorry but I'm not payed for developing scripts in NWNScript, so I don't see the point in using a language that is simply an insult to my programming skills.
That's a very simplistic view. I would say that "skill" in this case is defined as the ability to apply your knowledge about structures and algorithms with the tools available to you to achieve a result, not the ability to use the most advanced available language. One could argue that it takes "skill" to write code in ASM, even if it is not OO. Yes, OO would be more comfortable, but is it needed to get the job done? No - BGScript is a good example that you can create an AAA game with a simplistic scripting language (compared to nwscript).
Nathan Frederick, Lead Quality Assurance
Must have flying
nathan, do you really think that Gothic 2 would have been as good without being able to swim?I think it added a lot to immerse the player in the game and the world. I wouldn't miss it, despite of the awful controls.Did you play Ultima 9? Great controls, even underwater. And you could fly/levitate.
For G2, had the setting been changed accordingly, say from an island, to a valley surrounded by impassible mountains, I think the game would have more or less been equally enjoyable (with a couple appropriate plot alterations, of course). It's really about the setting and the methods of movement complimenting each other.As far as U9, unfortunately, I didn't manage to play very far through the game, as I simply didn't have a system that could handle it, and I was in university at the time too - I didn't have the time to dedicate to playing on my slow computer (and was unable to afford a system upgrade).
Must have flying
Whew. This is a long thread to read through
I'd like to put in a few comments on some of the posts in this thread, and I'll echo Brenon on the 'this is not indicative of whether or not any particular feature is in the game or not', and add in a 'this reflects my opinion on these features'. There's been several comments in this post on assorted games which have flying/swimming/z-axis. I've actually played almost all of them, and would just like to provide some feedback, and some comparisons across them.
Everquest (I play EQ):
-Swimming exists, and underwater combat exists. It
is horrible to do, with the players having to adjust to height, and position constantly. Horrible to watch, as there simply aren't animations that look good for it (probably because the resources were better put to use elsewhere). The underwater zones aren't visitted unless people have to go there for a quest of some sort. Control method: First person view. You can go into third person, but you can't control it with any degree of control. Levitation exists, but only allows downward drifting, while moving. No actual flying, and no creatures fly. Game overall has some AWFUL z-axis range issues when it comes to combat (creatures have an infinite reach on the z-axis, possibly to prevent people trying to exploit the z-axis by attacking from somewhere a creature cannot reach).
Gothic2 (just finished it last weekend actually):
-Fully 3d world with followers and swimming (even underwater). AWFUL controls in that game underwater. Can't fight underwater. No player flight, and no creatures actually fly (there are several dragons which sort of 'levitate' a few feet over the ground.
Sacred (Playing through it in my spare time in the evenings, including in this post only because it was mentioned):
-2D world faked to look 3D (like NwN). Wyverns which 'fly' have ground circles while they are in the air (and you can hit them by attacking the circle). Tiny rock on the ground - gotta walk around it. No swimming.
Morrowind (played partway through it):
-Has a pretty good flight model. Control mode is first person view, or very awkward in third person. Allowed combat to be horribly exploited (as someone else mentioned). Didn't do a whole lot of swimming, but it more or less functioned the same.
City of Heroes: Haven't played, I'll have to check out someone here flying. Won't comment on it as such.
Overall:
Morrowind is the only singleplayer game on the list which has flying and swimming. The others are MMORPG's. Morrowing has often been described as feeling like a "MMORPG without the MMO". They all lack a solid story (MMO's have 'background', and Morrowind was more 'open').
Flight fits well into these games, because there is very little that occurs as a result of the player. There's conversations, but no cutscenes, and very few scripted events (other than combat style events). Flight adds to these games, because part of these games is simply about going out and looking at things. They are all controlled in first person primarily too.
There have been comments along the line of 'if the designers know it exists, they can design with that in mind'. With flying, that is almost impossible. The majority of events and cutscenes are scripted knowing where the player will be. You drastically reduce your options on where events can take place, or start putting in a lot of artificial restrictions on flight itself (invisible walls, everything of note takes place inside, etc, etc), or start creating 'handle everything' events, which have to be very generic to handle all the possibilities. And the possibility of having bugs introduced from that is VERY high.
If a player is flying, the player could be almost anywhere. For instance, rather than walking into town through the gate, the player could come in over the wall, or in through the back side of the town, or over the wall at such a high altitude that the wall is hardly identifiable. Scripting a plot critical encounter with the city guard who questions the player, and tells them that entrance to the city is restricted is nearly impossible to do well at this point, and is probably avoidable by a clever player.
A large part of creating a compelling believable story, is knowing where the player is, and will be, in order to create events that are tailored to that situation. Generic solutions, tend to be, well, a tad generic, and somewhat bland, and very subject to being broken by a clever player going someplace that was never intended to be reached.
Player flight is cool. I won't argue that. But it only really fits 'open' environments, where a solid, story-driven, event-driven game doesn't exist. It suits the MMO scene nicely, and it fit Morrowind's open-ended gameplay style. Swimming is situationally cool. Gothic2 would have been as good without swimming. EQ would probably be better if I never had to deal with underwater combat again.
Sydney Tang, Programmer
Toolset GUI
what's the name of that debugger program? I found the commandline compiler.
The Script Debugger is DebugServer.exe in your utils folder.To use it, just double-click it. You will get a small window that sits around waiting for the game server to connect to it when the game hits a SpawnScriptDebugger() command. It will then pop up a window that lets you step through the script and inspect the values of local variables.Also, make sure that in the toolset, under Tools | Options | Script Editor, you have checked the box next to the label "Generate Debug Information When Compiling Scripts".On the machine on which you will be running nwmain.exe or nwserver.exe, open up nwnplayer.ini. Under [Server Options], make sure you have settings that look something like this:Debugger Port=5122Debugger IP Address=127.0.0.1The port in the DebugServer window should match the port in the INI file. If you will be running DebugServer.exe on the same machine as nwmain.exe or nwserver.exe, then leave 127.0.0.1 as the IP address. Otherwise, you will have to specify an appropriate IP address.
Post Comments (0)
The Temple of Elemental Evil Patch 2 Released
Posted Friday, May 28, 2004 - 21:08 CET by Sorcerer
Atari has finally released the second ToEE patch. The patch details reveal a number of bugfixes, but the last time I checked the bug lists on the official boards, there were about ten times as many remaining bugs listed there. Oh well, anything is better than nothing, I suppose.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 20:29 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Patch 1.63:
1. That can never happen as some of the cutscenes in the official HotU campaign rely on the exact position of the dialog windows, and probably other modules as well.
2. A follow radial command is on our list of "nice to have" things that could possibly be added at some point
3. Sorry, but we can not deviate from the D&D rules in this case. Plus, making spells "instant cast" would open a can of worms in regards to balancing issues.
4. Changes to the GUI at this point are highly unlikely.
Derek French, Assistant Producer
European CD-Keys For SoU:
If you have recently purchased Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide in the European market and are having problems playing online or registering your CD Key, you will need to submit your key for validation. For those of you having this problem, please use this to submit your CD Key for verification. If you have a legitimate issue then we will be able to resolve this for you. If your CD Keys do not display this issue, you will not get any help. Please post any questions about this here in this thread, but stay on topic and I will be culling any off-topic threads.
More:
Quote: Uh, do we also get messaged whether we might have sent the wrong keys?
No. The wrong/ incorrect/ just-trying-to-rip-us-off key submissions outnumber the valid issues by about 10 to 1 and I don't have time to send out 100 messages a day. If you haven't heard back from us in 2 business days, then you should send your CD Keys again. I know this isn't the best solution, but it is the best we can do in the light of this fairly large manufacturing error.
Post Comments (0)
Cornflower Glorwing RP PW Interview at NWVault
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 1:43 CET by chevalier
Neverwinter Vault have posted a Hall of Fame interview with Cornflower, the author of the Glorwing Persistent World. Here's a clip:
3) Your Persistent World is called "Glorwing RP PW" was recently inducted into our Hall of Fame. Could you give us an overview of what it's all about and the unique setting you have.
Glorwing is based on a PnP world that I made up in 1985 or so. It was all handwritten on a white substance called "paper", you may have heard of it. Anyway, I adapted it to be a "meltingpot" where you can play your character regardless of which PnP ruleset you fancy. Glorwing is a transitpoint between multiversa where just about anyone can appear. We used to have a bunch of Scotsmen in game. Currently we have two Vikings running around. I chose that setting since I got tired of "You can't do that if you're an elf. It says so on page 187 in the rulebook". The original story was that Glorwing was discovered 100 years ago by a mage who accidentaly created a dimensional rift while trying out a new love-spell. I tried to create the "frontier" feel of old Wild West or Australia 200 years ago. Lots of wilderness, only one big city.
Read the whole thing at NWVault.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 23:59 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by Neverwinter Vault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
Betrayal in Dragon Age
In a vain attempt to get back on topic, betrayal from one of those two would have been interesting. Especially if it was caused by their love for the PC, instead of being in opposition to that love. Does this make sense to anyone but me?
I think I understand. Your loved one betrays you because he loves you, not in spite of it. He does it because he believes it to be in your best interest, or because the enemy is threatening you in a very real and specific way that you cannot defend against and is blackmailing him with that threat.I don't think it's that cliche... it's a better motivation for betrayal than most, and it's hard to hate someone for doing it, too, which is the kicker. Whether or not you could forgive would be a big question, and one worth exploring.
Races, Culture, Architecture
The artists are definitely developing a particular look and feel to architecture and clothing based on the races and cultures in our world. I was in a meeting on just that thing a week ago. How much of that will translate into being useable by those who use the toolset, though, I've really no idea. The process is not the same.
Betrayal in Dragon Age
If it's all just a matter of what Mr. Gaider and his minions
Minions? I have minions? Actually, it's James Ohlen who has minions... of which I am one.I wouldn't mind having minions. If anyone wishes to volunteer, I promise to keep you warm and well-fed... though only so long as no ideas of "random betrayal" cross through your little henchman brain.
I wrote him. And I am not embarassed by that romance in the slightest. I only wish we had identified him as a romance lead before the rest of his dialogue had been written... had I known, I would have softened him so he was more appealing. Once you get past that initial part, however, he changes considerably... and most of the women I've spoken to who have gone through it all enjoyed it very much.I can understand why you might have disliked him enough to begin with not to continue, though. But embarassed? Nope.
Hmmm. Maybe. I prefer to write something we haven't tried before, that's for certain, and I'm definitely getting the chance now.
more work for dave
it is much safer to keep doing traditional stuff though… can’t fault you for playing it safe... just saddened
Well, as you said yourself we have not discussed everything we are doing yet. It's a bit early to be "saddened" by our lack of innovation just yet. We're just not ready to discuss it.And we don't object to everything as being too risky or not traditional enough, though I can see how it might look that way from the forum-goer's perspective, considering the nature of some of these requests.
more work for dave
'course, you can prove self right simply by never trying.
Which is what? Your way of challenging us to meet your high standards? And if we don't attempt these things we just aren't trying very hard?Puh-lease. No offense, Grom, but some of these things you're suggesting I wouldn't even want to attempt, never mind think that they would make for a good (or fun) game.I'm not going into which are which insofar as Dragon Age goes, as we haven't even begun to discuss the details, but the idea of being tut-tutted because there's supposedly only one direction to take a game in order to make it "superior" is a bit grating.
more work for dave
Consider yes...Implement it, no.Common, David, I have played your guys' games since BG1 and the big bad guy has always been muscles and very little sneakiness. Not Sarevok, Irenicus, Melissan, Morag, that Medusa thingy, Valsharas, Malak, and that arch devil. Its all been pretty much the same in one way or another.No offense, but it looks like more of the same is coming.
Gromnir is talking about sneaky evil on the part of the player, Hades, not the villain (which, like many of the doozies Gromnir has come up with lately, I would quite safely label "high concept"... it sounds interesting as an idea, but isn't likely to go beyond that.)As for innovation beyond that, I'm sure we could never include enough to satisfy your jaded palette. Better reconcile with the fact now that whatever we do, it's going to look the same to you.
more work for dave
So, no sneaky evil?I take it then its going ot be more of the same then?
Right. It's going to be all more of the same just because we wouldn't consider doing sneaky evil quite like that.
Hey, DA Devs ... what have you been reading?
I really like George R. R. Martin's work, as do most of the designers on the project. As a "for instance", anyway.
more work for dave
Ummm... ...I'm thinking no. There's other neat stuff that can be done that is far less confusing, I think.
Betrayal in Dragon Age
Why can't we have more of this type of betrayal plots, where how you behave can actually change people's minds?
Oh, there's no reason we can't have more plots of this type. We just have to pick and choose where to spend our time, and if betrayal is a feature that fits into the story then maybe we'd do this.The reason you don't normally see it, however, is that having an NPC who you've had in your party all this time betray you or run off... well... kind of sucks, good story or no. If it's done, it should be done sparingly or at the very end of a plot (like ToB or HotU) where all stops can be pulled out.I would say, personally, that I like having NPC's who react realistically to your decisions. Have a paladin in your party, for instance, and he should really get upset if you start doing evil things. Unless you give the player a lot of alternative party members as options, however, you don't want to have every NPC running off like that, either, and while everyone automatically goes "yes! lots and lots and lots of NPC's! And all of them detailed with stories and quests and romances!" that isn't always an option.
Betrayal in Dragon Age
Judging from David's comments, I'm sure something diabolical is being planned for DA. Woo-Hoo!
Oh, I have quite enough writing on my plate without making every party member both romanceable as well as a potential traitor, thank you very much. Talk about your pipe dreams, sheesh!
Betrayal in Dragon Age
I kind of like the fact that every keen story idea that the fans come up with, like having every party member able to betray you, just happens to also involve working me to death.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
So, to prevent this, i have two words for you: Global Release.
It is also important to understand that this kind of decision is up to the Publisher, not the Developer, as you inferred. We have no control over this decision. It is a key fact that in many markets around the world, the game buyers (the people that place thousand lot orders for the retail store chain) always order an order of magnitude less copies of a game if the game does not include copy protection of some sort. Again, this is up to the Publisher and we may not have any control over this, but trust me when I say I understand the situation.
A true between Copy Protection and Backup Rights
Why can't you, (Bioware.) include a backup copy of the game CD in the box?
What you are talking about is something that has absolutely nothing to do with the Developer. Box contents (including the manufacturing of the actual CDs) is completely within the realm of the Publisher. Would a Publisher go for it? Probably not, as it directly affects their manufacturing costs.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Conversations as Scripts
That's a good idea. Well, it could be a good idea, depending on how accessible the integers are. Perhaps a better solution would be to create a GetConversationNodeObject function that would return an object that you could assign local variables to with both the toolset and scripting. When Hordes added the ability to add local variables in the toolset, it enormously reduced the number of scripts that I needed. I suspect the same thing would happen if you allowed local variables at the conversation node level.
With the current solution in Jade you *could* have two script per conversation - one for conditionals, one for actions, if you wanted. Setting variables on dialog nodes would cause a lot of trouble, least being memory creep
Conversations as Scripts
Localization would be very unhappy about this. Very unhappy. As for XML, translating .GFF files (like conversations) into XML is relatively easy, I think I saw a community tool that does that the other day. For Jade Empire we have something along the lines of "GetConversationNode", any node can get an integer assigned to it that can be read from scripting, which allows some nifty things. It is possible that the DA will have something like that as well.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
Scripting language - OO?
Then Mark B's compiler is a twopass compiler. Errm ... and your compiler is simply a funny design.
Doing an initial pass for globals and then a second pass to generate the real intermediate code isn't uncommon. However, it was a hacky design in this case since I didn't notice the requirement that global structures can be defined after they are referenced until very late in the process. Anyway, the whole concept of "passes" is very fluid. As the dragon book says: "In practice, there is a great variation in the way the phases of a compiler are grouped into passes, so we prefer to organize our discussion of compiling around phases rather than passes."I wish I had the time to fix that hacky two pass in my compiler.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Vault Explore Dragon Age's Technical Side
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 23:59 CET by chevalier
Neverwinter Vault have posted an in-depth article on Dragon Age technology. Here's a snip:
During the E3 demo presentation by BioWare, they mentioned that what we were seeing would be the game at it's lowest level of quality running on a mid level machine when the games comes out. They confirmed that there would be full dynamic lightning though this was not a surprise since NWN already supported it but the next generation version will undoubtedly be much better. While the characters shown in the demo were a huge step up from what we are accustomed to, they are still nowhere near what the final version will look like with all the graphic effects turned on, using a top of the line machine. They did however show a side-by-side split view of the warrior character which had the demo quality on one side with the source model on the other. The difference was definitely remarkable since the source models are over two million polygons. Whether we'll be able to run around with characters using those two million polygons is doubtful, but the end quality should be amazing. At one point during the demo, a huge lizard like creature rose out of the water and was far more detailed than the characters shown and was sporting full bump mapping, looking very wet as it emerged. While it's level of detail wasn't quite as high as this image, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to expect something similar, again considering we weren't seeing the highest level of quality from a finished engine.
Read the whole thing at NWVault.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 21:45 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
NWN Profile: Introduction To Persistent Worlds
Have you finished Neverwinter Nights? Do you still lust for adventure? Neverwinter Nights is far more than just the official campaign. An entire universe of quests, treasure, danger, and monsters await you in the many persistent worlds that have been created by the community. Not sure what persistent worlds are? Lycius, founder and owner of Brynsaar, explains what a persistent world is and how you can continue your endless adventures. Discuss.
Post HotU Contest Winner!
Craving more adventure after Hordes of the Underdark? Play the three entries of the NWVault's HotU contest where the goal was to create the best module that continues the story from the Hordes of the Underdark expansion. Congratulations goes to Sands of Fate 1 - Shadows under Heliopolis by John McA for winning the contest. Why don't you download all three modules and decide for yourself! Discuss.
Post Comments (0)
Latest Poll Results
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 15:55 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Do you think coverage of the upcoming Dragon Age, the first non-D&D game on Sorcerer's Place, is a good idea?
(257 votes total)
Yes, definitely! (142) 55%
Undecided at this point (72) 28%
No, stick to D&D only! (43) 17%
Obviously there are not that many conservative D&D-only gamers around SP, since the majority of poll participants (55%) have voted in favour of covering the upcoming Dragon Age on Sorcerer's Place.
28% of those who voted are still undecided at this point whether covering Dragon Age is a good idea or not.
Only 17% of the people who voted think that SP should stick to only D&D games.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
Post Comments (0)
SP Happenings #51
Posted Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 23:38 CET by Sorcerer
Nothing really new to report this week, as I've announced pretty much all of it in the previous SP Happenings. A new site update has gone up a few days ago, and work on the redesign continues, though at a slower pace now since I've got a full month of uni exams ahead of me, so I won't be able to dedicate much time to anything around SP apart from the regular maintenance.
An extra 512MB stick of RAM has been installed on the server yesterday, and I can definitely feel the improvement in loading times. This should also make the random blackouts we've been experiencing over the last few months a thing of the past.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - 16:41 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by Neverwinter Vault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
Lets have elves how they were meant to be
We didn't feel constrained. In fact, built-in preconceptions can be advantageous for several reasons.
Must have flying
While I love City of Heroes, I would have to comment that the cool flying/teleporting/super-speed not only is pretty integral to the whole superhero thing (integral as opposed to a nifty addition) we're also talking about a game that is purposefully massive to allow hordes of fellow players in at the same time you are and where you spend lots of time traveling. If flight were similarly integral to DA's theme and gameplay, it would pretty much be a given.
Having your own house/castle
If it makes sense in the overall context of the story that might be cool to consider. I always liked the class-specific stuff from BG2. If it doesn't make sense, however, there's no way we would put such a thing in... putting an urgent quest on hold so you can run an inn or shop around for a new castle only fits in certain campaigns. If it doesn't fit in ours we'll just have to find other neat stuff.
Lets have elves how they were meant to be
I think there are certain things people expect to see in any race that is called 'elf'. Some preconceptions can be done away with, however, but we've tried to do that in a way that is refreshing rather than jarring. I suppose some people will be jarred anyhow, but I expect they might just be those looking for the LoTR elf verbatim and nothing else... in which case they will be disappointed.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Does your own IP speed things up or slow them down?
Whoa... I've been asleep for a while. Just realized Black Isle disbanded and didn't even consider that Interplay died as well. Luckily I think the team at Black Isle are still doing something... forgot what that was.
Some of them founded Obsidian Entertainment and are working on KotOR 2.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
I completely disagree that copy protection "works" if it violates copyright laws regarding making backups of the media. why should the copyright owner get to trample on other's rights in the course protecting their own?a solution where EVERYONE'S rights are enforced is good. letting EITHER PARTY GET SCREWED is NOT a valid solution. cd keys work. "cd copy protection" is conceptually broken, in that it stops one party from carrying out their rights as a consumer, to make backups of the media in question. in an age when publishers can knowingly sell faulty cds that crack or explode in cd drives and then refuse to replace them, it's very important that the consumer can make a backup of the media.
Torias, It is not up to BioWare to settle the conflict that currently exists between "fair use" and "copyright laws". Our own IP might give us a lot more freedom than we had when working with a license - but that doesn't mean we can change the laws of the market (such as "nobody publishes games without copy protection"). This conflict needs to be settled by lawmakers, not game development companies. Given the investment you need to put into the development of AAA titles these days and the number of jobs at stake should your product not meet projected sales, it is unrealistic to expect any developer trying to be idealistic and duke it out this against publishers/retailers/lazy lawmakers. Point is - the discussion whether or not copy protection works is useless here. I am sure our producers will forward our and our fans opinion to the publisher when it comes to the question "which copy protection". If other, less intrusive copy protection methods are available and accepted by the market in the future (i.e. cd key tied product activation like windows XP), they will probably be evaluated.Finally - this is no longer DA specific. Any discussion about the merits and flaws of copy protection should be continued in the offtopic forum.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
Copy protection works, it may not deter everyone, but it is displeasure enough for the average IT noob to search through trojan and p0rn infested crack sites every time we release a patch / new feature to our game to convince most people to buy the software instead.
Retailers do not put games without copy protection into the shelves anymore - publishers do not publish games without copy protection anymore - so the question is not "copy protection yes or no", the question is which copy protection will be used - and that question isn't of interest at the moment, due to a variety of reasons outlined in my previous posts in this thread. You can expect us giving input to our publisher (whoever that may be) when it comes to decide this question, as it is our best interest that people can use our products without hassle.
It is an unfortunate reality, but even if we wanted to, we could not release a game without copy protection because the major retailers will not put it on the shelves and publishers don't publish games without copy protection.
My point is: If you want to discuss the viability of copy protection, you will need to go to the forums / websites of the global players in publishing and distributing and post your arguments there.
Toolset GUI
7) A visual debugger. Ideally a debugger that can tie into the game running in a virtual machine with the display sent to a resizeable window.
You are aware that there is such a script debugger in the util subfoldfolder in your NWN directory?
Must have flying
Some of the guys I work with are big into City of Heroes, and from what they say, the flight system is pretty amazing. One of the guys blathered on non-stop for almost a full day when he finally got his flying ability.
I agree, City of Heroes has the most fun implementation of personal flight (and teleportation by the way) I've seen so far on the computer. Damn, I spent hours just teleporting and flying around
Scripting language - OO?
The first and foremost reason for our scripting languages is to enable the designers to do their job in a fast and efficient way while preventing them (that includes me from crashing the game with their weird ideas.
Thus any feature that would be of use for the designers here at Bioware has a much better chance of ending up in the final scripting language and toolset than anything else. As said earlier, things that would lead to an extensive retraining of writers/designers before they can do their job are unlikely, so I would expect less major changes to the way scripting works, and more thoughtful optimizations and feature additions that increase productivity.
Also remember that there are several technical designers at BioWare that have been recruited from the NWN community, some of them had been working on the expansion packs, some are now working on DA. You can guess that all of them had their pet feature wishes to make their life easier and I'm sure Tim has his own nightmares about that
Jade Empire and its relationship to Dragon Age...
I think it is fairly safe to say that Dragon Age will not use the Jade Empire Rules system.
Jade Empire (http://jade.bioware.com) is an Action Role Playing game that features real time combat, Dragon Age combat will be very different from that, it wouldn't make much sense to use the same rules system.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
Is it a Canadian holiday?
Are you bragging?I am sure there were a lot of people at work today. Not all of us have the luxury of havng a day off. As for your behind, lets just leave it at that, behind us...
Nah, I wasn't bragging. It was more like whining.
Is it a Canadian holiday?
I was at work today.
No rest for the behind...
Hmm, that didn't come out right.
Toolset GUI
Things I would like to see:...
Many of these items are game side and not really tools issues.#3, #4, #5 and #7 depend on what game side wants to do. NWScript is a perfect example. The script compiler was written by a game side programmer. We just invoke it when we to compile scripts.
Scott Meadows, Programmer
Toolset GUI
1. Consider making parameter insight, code completion in the script editor activate automatically after a certain delay, preferrably adjustable delay too.2. Version control. Compiling modules for older game versions for backward compatibility without glorious hacks.3. Option for storing the module unpacked. Great for development, avoid repacking the module on every save and it will work well with CVS if each script belongs to its own individual file.4. All singing, all dancing debugger for code tracing so we don't have to start the game every single time we test out scripts. That's probably too much to ask for
It is never too much too ask for, just don't expect the world. We do hope that everyone will continue to make suggestions as we do read them and take them ALL into consideration.
Scripting language - OO?
This is the best news I've heard all day. This means I can spend the next 2-3 years prototyping things in NWN and not feeling like I have to rewrite the whole system from the ground up.Plus, I'm extremely comfortable with the syntax at this point, as I suspect many other people are as well. NWN was a great training system for Dragon Age. I'm sure that was your plan all along.
Just keep in mind that you will not be able to import your NWN modules into DA due to licensing issues.
Post Comments (0)
RAM Upgrade Complete
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 - 22:42 CET by Sorcerer
The RAM upgrade went smoothly with no problems whatsoever. Hopefully, this is going to solve the problems with blackouts and long loading times on SP and our hosted websites. Thanks again to those people who have donated and made this upgrade possible.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 - 20:13 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by Neverwinter Vault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Patch 1.63:
Here's a list of *some* things the Live Team fixed during the last few month. Most of the stuff were already posted about on the board, but you might find one or another thing that has not been mentioned. The list is quite incomplete, and please do not take it as a "promise" (dreaded word), as long as the patch is not released, there is always a chance that we might remove things if we find them to cause trouble.
Shifter:
- Problems with server autosaves fixed
- Problems with direct switching between forms fixed
- Missing gargoyle hide added
- Epic Dragon hides now granting +6 DR
Red Dragon disciple:
- Now get correct d12 hit die in epic levels
Pale master:
- Deathless Vigor feat now behaving as it should.
Feats:
- Dev Crit now working with bows
- Fixed to defensive stance becoming permanent under certain conditions
- Death attack sometimes missing feedback strings fixed
Spells:
- Dispel magic code rewritten, among other things it will now take the casters level into account (as it should have)
- Tons and tons of fixes to spellscripts and creature ability scripts.
Scripting commands:
- Added GetPhenoType()
- Added SetPhenoType()
- Optimizations to several scripting commands
- SetSkyBox() added
- SetFogColor() added
- ResistSpell() now working with domain spells/subradial
- ActionCastSpellAt* now working with subradial spells
- DecrementRemainingSpellUses() problem with domain spells fixed
- OnStoreClosed() now working correctly
- Potential crashes in GetFactionBestAC(), GetFactionWorstAC(), GetArmorClassVersus() fixed
- GetCreatureHasTalent() stack underflow fixed
- Added DAMAGE_TYPE_BASE_WEAPON to GetDamageDealtByType()
- Fixes to GetIsImmune().
Custom Content Goodies:
- Added new column to VisualEffects.2da "OrientWithObject",
- Increased the limit on the max number of tilesets from 24 to 50.
- Added support for 8 new custom animation types:
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM3
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM4
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM5
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM6
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM7
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM8
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM9
ANIMATION_LOOPING_CUSTOM10
- Several new pathfinding node types added for custom tileset creators
Game Mechanics:
- You can no longer sell undroppable items.
- Several fixes to the AI include scripts.
- Touch attack code rewritten.
- Several fixes to inventory pages disappearing, items staying gray, etc
- Item properties "Immunity: Damage Type Positive Energy",
"Immunity: Damage Type Negative Energy" fixed
General stuff:
- Optimization to the games resource/memory management
- Several memory leaks fixed
- Security and stability related fixes
- Changes/fixes to the lootable corpse system (i.e. weapons now stay visible until looted)
- Changes to the games behavior to clear all actions when someone joins the party. Potentially problematic actions will still be cleared (to prevent hostility problems), but especially nonhostile actions like rest are not affected anymore
- Game no longer displays "Experience Points Gained: 0" messages.
DM Client:
- Fixes to the DM client (ie. portraits vanishing, quickbar becoming unuseable)
- DMs can now move undroppable (cursed) items between inventories.
- DMs can now drop undroppable (cursed) items.
- Added useful tooltips for all the DM Creator Quickbar buttons.
- Added ability for DMs to create items directly inside placeable
Server Admin goodies
- Bandwith profiling option
- Module description problem fixed
containers (e.g. chests) using the creator.
Finally, Craig just added this the other day, this will make a lot of people happy I guess :
- Added ini setting to nwnplayer.ini [Server Options]
"Saving Throw Automatic Failure On 1=1"
As already mentioned, this is only a partial and preliminary list (in fact, a very partial list) of the things that we plan to have in 1.63. If you don't see your favourite bug on that list, it doesn't mean we have forgotten about it - it might have been fixed already or could be fixed at some point in the future. You will probably find one or another thing I forgot in the list above when browsing through the Vaults news archive.
We know it's been quite some time since the last patch and we know many of you really wait for this one, but I think as you can see from the list above, the changes are quite extensive and the wait should be very well worth it.
The usual:
Q: When is the patch done?
A: When it's done. Sorry, right now we have no estimated release date.
Q: Will there be new creatures or other content?
A: Maybe, I don't know what the Live Team has planned.
More:
Quote: Is there going to be any consideration of Palemaster summons? Possibly a look at them and see if they can be made to be more powerful, appropriate to their level?
Unlikely, at least for 1.63. There's a reason for the summons (at least up to level 12) are the way they are.
Quote: However that doesn't mean that I should have to lke it the way it is. And, as a creator, and server admin I should have the ability to adjust the way it works in MY world and if you don't like it you're welcome to play someplace where you do.
As for Dev Crit, it this low priority. The feat is implemented by the book, the saving throw failure on 1 that some people felt made it too powerful has been moved to a server configurable setting and there are plenty of ways to design around it outlined in the custom content forum. The bottomline is: If you are complaining about a rule being implemented by the book, you are on very thin ice. I don't think we are going to touch this one anytime soon, changing things that work by the book is about the lowest thing on our priority list, there are plenty of bugs to fix above it. Plus we would probably have to get approval for this one. This does not rule out changes to it, it just makes them unlikely, at least for 1.63. Yes, the power to module builders and server admins, I'm all for that - but please don't forget that NWN's primary scope is "create your own D&D 3E FR module", NOT "create your own world" - the further you stray from that setting, the less likely it is that will be able make your proposed changes.
And More:
We hear you guys, we know you are really waiting for this patch and the Live Team is working hard on getting it out to you ASAP. However, sometimes "as fast as possible" is still pretty slow, there are still some issues to resolve before we can at least go into betaOn the positive side, a lot of the things mentioned in this and other forums have been fixed, server stability is up, security has been tightened, memory leaks have been squashed, resource and memory management optimized and several new features have been added. I really think the wait will be worth it.
Spell Effects:
Each tile that has a placeable or creature on it or is in the path of a creature will have data loaded into memory (i.e. the walkmesh for pathfinding purposes). If you use a large number of different tiles (and thus tilesets), this will eat up a lot of your servers available memory and cause disk swapping, which, in turn, will degrade performance. Another reason can be bad walkmesh data (pathfinding nodes) on user created tilesets (tilesets that have been created from the scratch) or blocked/crowded pathways (i.e. lots of placeables) causing pathfinding to eat up your cpu power.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 - 20:10 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by Neverwinter Vault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Game length
As for VO: VO allows you to show emotions and tension much better than plain text. I doubt we could go back to "silent" storytelling. Facial animation to show expressions is another such thing - we use it in Jade and it makes a *huge* difference together with VO.
Does your own IP speed things up or slow them down?
Any chance since it will be Bio IP that you will have another NPC contest or entry from the community? I enjoyed the NWN one in theory, and was saddened that it was lost in the red tape of development.
Hmm, too bad "Torias" is now officially tied to the Forgotten Realms after he managed to sneak into SoU -- who knows, we might need replacement in the future
Races...
As for the half-dragon race idea - sounds great, with just one problem that I can think of. There are, how shall I put it... creation problems. Just imagine (or better yet, don't) how a dragon and a human would pro-create... Just a (distubing) thought.
Hey, a certain recently released animated movie features Donkey-Dragons, think about that...
Ultima-esque?
Yeah, my cousin did that all the time back then..., although I never cheated and always laughed at those who succumbed to the dark side of cheating.
I think in case of the Ultima Games you missed a whole lot of fun, it added quit some replayability to the game. Someone remember the room with the whole cheerleading team in Serpent Isle?
Full community realistic suggestions.
Hey,
just to give my $.2:
Of all ways to communicate your wishes and suggestion on this board, random "wishlist"/"post your ideas here" threads are the least optimal. Why?
- They usually have nonspeaking topic titles, so people are less likely to read them
- People avoid wishlist threads out of experience
- The good ideas you might have will get lost in a blend of bad ideas, plain impossible wishes and things that have already been asked a hundred times before
The best way to communicate your favourite feature / wishes / concerns is to create a dedicated thread about it. An (even heated) discussion is far more interesting to read than a mix of non related random thoughts.
I'm not deluding myself to believe that this post can spell universal death to every wishlist thread that is going to be spawned here in the coming month, but hey, at least I tried
hope that helps
Game length
Hi
I don't think there will be any 200 hours story driven games anymore. In times where people have come to expect full VO for all dialog, normal mapped creatures and large and lush areas to explore, 200 hour story driven games are just too expensive. To create a 50 hours game today you need already about 2-3 times the staff you needed for a game like BG2. Currently the trend is shorter but more immersive and replayable games. Compared with most games you can buy today, 50 hours is quite long. It's a bit sad, of course, but it's an inevitable trend as the industry matures.
Personally, I've actually come to like it - I hardly have enough time to play through a complex RPG anymore, a 200 hour game would probably last about half a year for me, when I would finish it, I probably would hardly remember how it started.
But also, games today often come with mod tools, full featured toolsets - which can give you a nearly endless supply of stories to experience.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
New languages? Ooooh ...
*Gets on the BioWare overhead paging system three days prior to ship*
"Does anybody speak Goktu? I can't tell if this VO file matches what is being said in this conversation."
And yes, I had to do that stuff with KoToR and the foreign languages. I had to bother Georg twice to check some German lines.
(P.S. Goktu isn't the name of a DA language. I made it up.)
Toolset GUI
Please allow us to open multipli windows in the toolset! It is annoying to do this: Hunt down Script, Find Tag to change, Forget Tag, Close Script, Check tag, Hunt down Script, Find Tag to Change, Change Tag.
There are a lot of usability issues we are looking at with the DA toolset. I can't comment on anything at this time, but usability not only affects the end user but also our designers. Thus we have a vested interest in fixing them.
Scripting language - OO?
In a single pass compiler that doesn't allow things to be defined after they are used can still support circular includes by placing the responsibility of proper ordering on the script creator.
Both Mark B's and my compiler for NWScript are multipass compilers. In the case of Mark B's, it creates a parse tree and then builds result (ok, not a true multipass I guess). My compiler actually parses the script twice (I got lazy). The only reason my compiler is two pass is because Mark allowed some things to be defined after they are used. If this wasn't the case, then my compiler would have been a single pass compiler and would still handle circular includes.
In NWScript, there is an implicit #ifndef/#define/#endif in every include file.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Must have flying
I'll take a peek at it Sancus, but since I don't have it on hand right now (and I can't seem to find the information on any news sites)...
How does the control scheme work while flying? Is it first person? Or does it play more like Freedom Force style flying (3rd person, static 'flying' height')?
Question on Parties
As it currently stands, you will create the main character... other NPC's you meet as you adventure may join at your discretion.
As to whether or not you'll be able to create your own full party, stay tuned for details.
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
Regarding copyright protection... a lot of publishing studios are now requiring certain forms of protection... and this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The main idea (as was mentioned) is simply to make it difficult for the average person to copy the game... ie: Rusty McFinger shouldn't be able to pop a game in his burner, hit the 'copy' button and give one to his friend Steve.
Yes, there are cracks for every major game that comes out... heck, if they're popular there's usually something out within a day (at most) of release.
On the whole, I'm sure none of us (as gamers) enjoy the various methods that are used to secure a game from being copied, as in some cases they have some adverse side effects. However, as Georg mentioned... discussing copyright protection at this stage really isn't that useful.
* Negotiating encryption/protection schemes for the CD/DVD release are still quite a ways out (we still need a publisher )
* We already know how our users feel about it. It really really sucks when you can't play a game because of copyright protection.
* Copyright protection of some sort is a necessary evil. In an ideal world where we didn't have to worry about piracy, it probably wouldn't exist.
DA as a mmorpg
Let's keep the discussion civil folks... we're all friends here... aren't we?
Just a note:
Dragon Age is not a massively multiplayer game.
The current plan is for an extensive Single Player campaign and a seperate multiplayer campaign with the same core story elements, only optimised for multiplayer.
new 3D engine
One of the main issues with physics are that they are not normally deterministic in a multiplayer environment. Because clients can get out of sync and we normally don't trust the client completely, we'd have to run physics simulations on the server (our trusted source) and push data down to the client, which would be bad.
Now it's true you could probably have certain items that we don't care about, ambient fluff and objects you can't interact with, such as debris on the ground or something like that react to blasts and other forces... however, for things of this sort the simulation could probably be done without the use of a physics engine.
We haven't ruled out using a physics engine for certain applications... but if I had to guess, I'd say most likely you won't see any iteration of such a beast in DA.
As for glitzy new graphical features in the engine, I occasionally like to pop across the hall to the graphics team offices and see what they're up to... a lot of the features being added are 'very purdy'.
Races...
Humans, Elves and Dwarves will be in the game as well as one other playable race... possibly more. We'll be releasing more details regarding the playable races later in the dev cycle.
As for the world background, we can't really talk about that yet... however, having read through *all* of the world design docs - they're quite extensive, the history of the world and the various cultures are quite fascinating...
PW Engine Hooks - Economically Viable 4 Bioware
Just some official information:
* There will be a Single Player campaign, the scope of which will be quite large.
* There will be a separate Multi-player campaign with the same core story as the single player campaign, only
optimised for the multiplayer experience.
* Dragon Age is not a massively multiplayer game.
* There will be a GM client.
As for adding support for PW's, exactly as Tarmack has stated... If you can think of some feature(s) that will benefit the community as a whole, please feel free to suggest away! We will take all reasonable requests/suggestions into consideration.
Must have flying
So, assuming 3D swimming was in the game... How would the interface work? How would you move around in a 3D space? What about fighting and using other skills/animations? Theoretically you'd have to be able to do all these things underwater as well... right?
The act of swimming itself would have to be tied to your skills in some way, wouldn't it? Additionally, would your party follow you around?
Can you drown underwater? What about your followers/summoned creatures/animal friends (these things may or may not be in the game), do you need to worry about them asphyxiating since you can hold your breath longer?
Again, just to reiterate... I enjoy discussing game systems, this post is in no way a reflection of what we may or may not be doing for Dragon Age.
Must have flying
Just a note, none of this is indicative of anything we're actually doing in the game... this is just what the forum title says: 'discussion'.
Okay, let's talk about swimming for a moment. The main idea behind swimming in a game would be to bypass a natural boundary, such as a river or lake. Secondary uses could be exploration ("lets go diving in that scummy pond!"), or enjoyment ("let's go frolic in that waterfall pool")... but are any of these (besides the primary use) actually useful?
The same goes for flying (especially for free-form flying), they are 'neat' features... but would they see enough use to justify the system work required?
Remember, we're not making "Dragracin' Dragons" where you pimp out your flying ride and cruise around the medieval nightclub scene looking for a highly illegal nighttime race around the flaming mountain of death.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Forum News
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 - 2:06 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by Neverwinter Vault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
run away!
am not privy to testing results... not stood over the shoulders of play testers as they bang their head 'gainst wall over and over, but we does not like to accept the fact that if you gots multiple dialogues that make apparent that you gotta get past The Dragon, but that the Dragon is Immortal and Unkillable, that any but the most inconsequential number of folks will try to kill the dragon. (is probably true, but we not wanna accept.) no matter what you is gonna get savagely beaten or impoverished getting past the Dragon. just no way to get by w/o taking your licks, and success is measured by how little pain you suffer.
Well, now, that's not quite what I said. It IS perfectly acceptable to provide alternate solutions to combat... just like telling the player that they should sneak by the dragon and not try to kill him. And if they do... well, better reload that game, pally.What I said is that you don't want to present a situation to the player where fleeing is the best or only option... because it will not happen. When presented with a fight (meaning the player is attacked/encounters hostiles) a player simply will not back down.I remember a plot where a first-level player was put in a single hallway and the door at the far end burst in to admit a large group of monsters. The NPC with the player ran the other way and said "Quick! Run this way!" as the monsters advanced and attacked. The idea was that the player was supposed to retreat down the hall to "fall into" the next part of the plot and not fight the impossible-to-beat monsters.What do you think happened 9 times out of 10?
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Ships
Ships are a cool part of some fantasy fiction, Sinbad and Ulysses come to mind. In this chapter of Dragon Age we are less focused on sea fareing adventure, and more in the traditional fantasy settings. So don't hold your breath for controllable ships.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
Toolset GUI
Hey,
Keep the suggestions coming, guys. While I'm not working on DA, I know that Tim Smith and his tools programmers will appreciate the input.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Toolset GUI
In the same range of idea, giving us a command line compiler would be useful, especially now that Torlack has turned cloak.
Last time I checked NWN came with a commandline compiler, which, btw, is great in combination with your favourite editor
Toolset GUI
Another request: a more robust script editor, even if it's still text-editor based. With all the standard geeky stuff, like color-coding, regex search-and-destroy...err...replace, hiding rows, Find Next Bracket... etc. (E.g. UltraEdit )And even more! A built-in .2da editor (or editor for whatever type of file you will be using to store tabular game data).
The NWN script editor has color coding...
new 3D engine
1) normal mapping: It's a technique that improves image quality for low resolution models. Already available in FarCry and UT2004.2) complex physics: The time of engines with sphere-based collision detection and animation playback (such as NWN) is over. Everything now works with dynamic inverse cinematics and complex dynamic ligthtning (such as soft colored shadows). We realy want that! See UT2004 to know what I'm talking about.3) complete 3D ambient freedom: No excuses for any Z-axis limitation. If a mage or monster can fly let him do it.
Ok, not related to DA, but here are my thoughts/predictions.1) We will see normal mapping become a standard feature in most 3D games in the future2) Physics only make sense if they add to gameplay. Physics wouldn't make sense in NWN, as you interact with your environment in a different way than you do in your average shooter. I think we will see a move towards using physics engines to add/support gameplay, not just to say "uses a realistic physics engine" on the box. It still depends on your game: In Jade Empire (http://jade.bioware.com) we use detailed collision volumes for models - because it makes sense in a real time combat system. In games like BG, NWN there is no need for detailed collission detection - wouldn't make sense as where/if you hit is not determined by your reflexes but by the random generator.3) Again, this depends on your genre. There are a lot of reasons why you would not allow player movement on the Z-axis, but these have been discussed in other threads already.I don't know if and how this all applies to DA.
Screenshots: Realtime or Pre-rendered?
2nd one defly look pre-rendered to me. First one, I dunno, I think it's a engine shot.
They are both "in engine", not prerendered. I think the widescreen bars are causing your impression that the second one would be pre rendered.
Random Treasure vs. Planned Treasure
Not all random treasure is bad. I enjoyed looking thru the possible class treasure found in certain locations in HotU, as each class design may differ somewhat. One such highlight was for my Monk; enhanced gloves that powered Unarmed Attacks or enchanted gloves that aided weapon fighting. But generally, random treasure scattered about the area in multiple containers made me cranky... or crankier, depending upon POV.
We had the opportunity to experiment with a range of different treasure systems in NWN - The OC's random/class specific type treasure, - SoU's area specific treasure lists (yay, no more +5 swords in the rainwater barrel at the docks) and - Hordes with it's random low level treasure (potions, kits, etc), placed high level treasure and class specific special items.Personally I prefer the Hordes System (through I may be slightly biased), but it would be interesting to know what everyone else is thinking about about loot distribution systems. (I'm not talking about loot balance)
Two simple ways to reduce Warezing and increase Sales
I don't think this topic has any merit right now. Release dates for foreign language versions are usually set by the publisher and we don't know what kind of media (DVD, CD, etc) games will be distributed when DA is finished (Let's hope it's DVD, but this is usually up to the publisher as well) and what kind of protection mechanisms will be available when DA comes to the shelves (Product Activation, DRM, etc).
It's a long way until DA will be released and it will be up to a lot of different factors what kind of copy protection it will feature. Today, some important retailers in the US refuse to put games without copy protection on their shelves - when DA is done, this might no longer be the case, or, all retailers might require it by then.
Bottomline:
This topic is not interesting for a long long time for numerous reasons. General discussions about the viability of copy protections or DRM on games should take place in the "off topic forum".
run away!
I would seriously hope the DA campaign will be written for the average to intelligent player, not for the lowest common denominator.If you want to please Hack 'n Slash players then create an Icewind Dale style campaign as well as a seperate serious role player's campaign.Perhaps it's too hard to please everyone with a single campaign, so 2 will please many more people. And the remaining few will always have user created content to please them but that should be minimized.
I don't think the fleeing issue has anything to do with dumb players. I tried several years to educate my PnP party that sometimes fleeing is the best option. It rarely worked and each time they had more than a few successful encounters in a row, they grew reckless and forgot to flee when things turned dire. People playing CRPGs are so conditioned going head to head, even if you present them 5 hints in the tutorial, a good portion will still run into their death time after time only to give up frustrated.People get used to mechanism in computer games and it is very hard to break away from those. One of them is "if it is hostile, you need to kill it. There was a door in the 2nd chapter of Hordes of the Underdark that only certain classes could open. For all others it would stay closed and give them a nice lightning bolt every time they tried to open it. Feel free to do a search through the Hordes board to get an impression on how many people tried to open the door for hours and hours...Now I think it is nice to have "different" options in your game (i.e. the Rankor in SWKotor could be beat in a number of ways), but you need to be very careful with what you are doing unless you want to drown in support requests and angry posts...Usual Disclaimer: I'm not working on Dragon Age, I don't know what they have planned in this regard.
Nathan Frederick, Lead Quality Assurance
DA system style
Your comments on D&D's handling of strength falls into my comment on how attributes scale, and how they affect the rules. In that case, its a single attribute which has a large(uncapped) offensive effect (both in chances to hit, and in damage damage done) countered by a pair of attributes - dexterity (which is capped), and constitution (which only factors in per-level, rather than per-blow). A single attribute is much easier to raise than two, even if the two were of even weight (when combined) to the single. As the numbers get larger and larger, the effect becomes more and more pronounced. The system tries to deal with this by having the equipment try to balance things out, in combination with the effects of the classes (BAB for instance).
Unfortunately, the differing parts (Attributes, Items and Class components) of the equation don't all scale proportionately to the combination of the effects of said parts, and it results in imbalances.
Its these sorts of scaling issues that we are trying to address as much as possible in our system, so there isn't any single factor that at any point that will single-handedly decide combat effectiveness.
DA system style
The use of random elements is also something that comes into play with my combat/rules complexity post.
Too much randomness makes the non-random elements insignificant. Too little randomness makes the random elements insignificant. Making sure that the randomness is still relevant as the system scales is one of the components involved in balancing the system.
Rules are a beast, but a fun one to play with
DA system style
While a computer is indeed capable of handling much more complex rules than (most) people would want to handle in PnP, doesn't neccissarily mean that a more complex system is mandatory.
In general, the KISS theory is always something to stick to. The more complex the combat system, the harder it is to make sure everything is working correctly, is balanced, and doesn't cause problems with any of the other elements involved.
Combat systems have a large number of factors involved, beyond the basics of how an attack is done - such as scaling. Not just how the numbers involved in the rolls scale, but how skills affect things (and how the skills and said effects scale), how the a being's abilities (such as strength) or statistics (such as hitpoints) fit in, the inherent offensive and defensive capabilities of classes (how they scale, as well as how they fit into the formula), the progression of item calibre, the effects of magic, and so forth.
Its a pretty complicated beast, even without getting into complicated combat mechanics. And making sure its all working, and balanced, becomes a pretty massive task in iteself.
While a computer can handle extremely complicated systems, ensuring said complicated system is working correctly is something us humans have to do. And in a system that is being designed from scratch, we definately want to make sure it works correctly.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
Scripting language - OO?
No, a single pass compiler can avoid circular includes just like the compiler does now. All it has to do is maintain a list of files it has included. If a request is made to include that file again, the request is ignored.
Screenshots: Realtime or Pre-rendered?
My old userid (Torlack) isn't marked as being BioWare. The "Tim Smith" account is marked as such.
Screenshots: Realtime or Pre-rendered?
The battle in the background in this shot is also not prerendered?
Not prerended.
Scripting language - OO?
I don't know what their reasons for wanting their own scripting language were, but the reason Scott Greig gives of preventing runaway scripts seems to be all wet.
The instruction count didn't exist until v5. The performance of the other debug hooks might have been an issue.
Toolset GUI
1.63?Or - maybe - the actual tools that the designers will use, rather then the 'user-friendly' tools we will get. Carl
The designers use the same tools that the end user gets.
Post Comments (0)
Site News - New Additions
Posted Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 23:25 CET by Sorcerer
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate
Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: The Great Book of Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast updated.
Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: The Gray Clan mod added.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Planescape: Torment
Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: The Greater Glabrezu in UnderSigil FAQ added.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale
Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: 1 mod updated, 2 custom characters added.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2
Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: BG2: SoA Romancing Guide Hungarian translation added, Secrets of Journals updated.
Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: BG2 SuperScripts added, 2 mods/programs updated, 1 portrait pack added, 1 voice pack added, 4 mod links added/updated.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2
Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: Icewind Dale II English manual added.
Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: IWD2 Unofficial Item/Spell Patch added.
Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights
Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: HotU Ranger guide added, NWN Barbarian FAQ updated.
Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: Alternate Combat Animations pack added, 2 prestige class packs added.
Toolset & Related subsection:
Subsection #1: 3 new additions.
Subsection Updates - Games -> The Temple of Elemental Evil
Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: ToEE Walkthrough updated.
Direct Links
Post Comments (0)
Possible Downtime This Week
Posted Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 23:18 CET by Sorcerer
We'll be upgrading the RAM on the server in the next few days, and while the operation should be harmless, something unpredictable might happen which would cause downtime here and on our hosted sites. So, if it does, you'll know why. We'll be back ASAP if we go down, of course.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Runner-Up for Best PC Roleplaying Game
Posted Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 22:42 CET by chevalier
IGN have posted E3's best games. Dragon Age is mentioned as the only runner up for the best roleplaying game, although it didn't get the big thing. Read the rest at IGN.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Strikes a Low and Refuses to Pay Employees
Posted Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 22:29 CET by chevalier
Interplay's shares have fallen to $0.048 per share and are falling.
Well today marked the lowest place for the IPLY stock, it was at $0.048 which is an all time low for them. It also closed at $0.048 per share today, the lowest it's been in this 52 week period
Herve Caen, still CEO of Interplay, has basically told the employers to love it or leave it. No hopes for any pay anytime soon. It would be only convenient for him if they quit, as he wouldn't have to pay them as much as if he laid them off himself.
got word from a source that IPLY still haven't paid the employees for the last two weeks and also that the insurance has been cut off but that they are still taking money out of people's checks for the insurance.
According to my source there is also alot of deals on the table, but Herve Caen doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.
He also explains what Herve is saying to the employees, which is basicly "if you don't like the situation, get out"...
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed. Check Interplay's summary out at Yahoo.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Finally Speaks on D&D Titles
Posted Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 19:48 CET by chevalier
RPG Warehouse have mailed Interplay, asking about the titles that have disappeared from their games list and all their sites. Surprisingly, they have received an answer. Not like it's particularly relevant now that Interplay's site has been shut down. What they have is, essentially:
Basically, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II was removed from within Interplay's game catalog until Interplay and Atari's legal departments settle negotiations for the D&D license. At the moment Atari owns ALL rights to the D&D universe(Dungeons and Dragons). Negotiations are in progress and Interplay hopes to have that resolved very shortly. Afterwards, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II will be listed once more at Interplay's games-catalog and the games's official website will be back online.
Check out the whole thing at RPG Warehouse.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age E3 News at RPG Vault
Posted Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 0:04 CET by chevalier
RPG Vault have posted their E3 coverage. After a general introduction, there's a list of roleplaying games that appear there, each with a short description. Dragon Ages also has one:
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the show was the fact BioWare showed this project, even on a very limited basis, since release is likely at least two years away. The demo was based on proof of concept work; full details are available in the Dragon Age Preview at Neverwinter Vault. In terms of highlights, the game will be party-based, using a new engine capable of rendering battles with hundreds of participants. The rules system and IP will both be proprietary, the latter incorporating both familiar and original fantasy races. Given the time frame noted earlier, how soon we'll see more information is open to question, but you can bet we'll be watching keenly for each and every tidbit.
Read the whole thing at RPG Vault.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Forum News
Posted Friday, May 21, 2004 - 22:53 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Scott Greig, DA Project Director/Producer
Single Character or Party Based?
Let me toss my two cents in...
One of the earliest things we did on the project was to examine how people played our previous games. Not surprising, we found that the number of different play styles was quite large. That said, it did become apparent that all the play styles had something in common.
It was the fact every play style actually had two game play modes: Explore and Combat. The explore mode was when the player was exploring the world, engaging in conversations and/or performing character maintenance (ie. leveling up, inventory etc). The combat mode was obviously when the player was in combat. The interesting thing was that some of gameplay styles of our previous games were better suited for one or other when you started to look at the needs of each mode:
Explore mode needs:
- Should be immersive
- Should be easy to control character/s travel
- Party members should be accessible for character interaction but don't need to be finely controlled
- Party members shouldn't wander off and trigger combat
Combat mode
- Should have good tactical awareness
- Should have precise control over party member placement
- Should have tight control over party member actions (or at least the option of)
At this point it seemed like a good idea to try to use the Kotor style control (explore mode) for exploration and the BG style for combat (tactical mode). Of course there was big concern about how jarring the transition would be, so we built a proof of concept test to try this out.
What we found was that the two systems worked pretty seamlessly. What I was surprised about was the fact that I was engaging in combat in explore mode for some of the easy battles and using the tactical mode for the more difficult ones. I personally find the explore mode the best for, well, exploring and tactical mode for combat.
We will have the option for both manual and automatic switching of the camera modes so you will be able to play the game exactly like BG or Kotor if you choose, but I think that most of the people will play it in the hybrid mode.
David Gaider, Designer
Does your own IP speed things up or slow them down?
Much quicker in that things don't need to be constantly approved by twelve different vice presidents or hung up by cautious lawyers who don't want to set any kind of precedent that would lose them control over the license. We can change plans and make decisions much, much quicker... something that should make the support we can provide after release a whole different ball-game than what you're used to.
In the meantime, however, all the usual work still has to be done and there's plenty of it to do, so you won't be seeing it any sooner per se.
Is it more fun? Well... I imagine many of you out there have created your own world for your campaigns. What difference does that make to you?
What does "Dragon Age" say to you...
I hope the title stands for the age when dragon/dragon-kin rules the world
As I said in another thread, dragons do appear in the game but they are not the primary focus. 'Dragon Age' is akin to Iron Age and Ice Age in that this is the period that the world is in, the dragon meant to conjure up associated fantasy imagery such as magic, spells, swords, knights... as well as dragons, though the plot does not revolve around them.Better, we thought, than to name the game after a specific place or something tied to this one story and then have it lose meaning should we decide to do other stories.
run away!
Actually, on this one I would have to agree with LdyShayna. Even if I would prefer it otherwise, players have proven to us time and time again that they do not run away.
Even surrounded by a horde of enemies unbeatable at their level, which you think would be a clear indication to the player that fighting is not an alternative, the average player will stand and face them down. And die. And die repeatedly. And then get angry at the makers of the game for having such an impossible combat.
This is NOT to say that I think there can't be more alternatives to combat in the game, more peaceful solutions, ways to trick your enemies and so forth. But having it so that the smart solution (never mind the only one) is to run away? That just never seems to work unless you have them do it through a cutscene (in which case you are taking control away from the player... a solution that is still less than optimal).
Must have flying
If dragons aren't the primary focus, then you should get a better name for the game.
'Dragon Age' is meant to represent the period that the world is in... an age of dragons and magic and swords, things of fantasy, just as in our world there was a Stone Age and an Ice Age.This does not mean that dragons are the primary focus of the game, though they are present as I said. If we had a game called 'Ice Age', does that mean it must be all about ice? No, of course not, though ice would obviously be a factor.We want to bring the imagery of a dragon to mind and all it represents. As a name, isn't that better than tying it to a specific place or to this one official campaign story?
Coversion tools or is it wishful thinking
Unfortunately the problem with converting NWN modules to Dragon Age is licensing issues. It's simply not feasible, I'm afraid.
Must have flying
It does sound like flying won't be in though.
I never said that. I was intrigued by said stated necessity, that's all. For some things it is too early to say one way or another and that is why we will not answer questions regarding them now.
Must have flying
I think pretty much if your gonna call the game "DRAGON AGE" you're gonna look pretty foolish if the dragons don't fly. "Worm Age" might be a better choice if that is going to be the case.
Keeping in mind that while there are dragons in the game, they are not the primary focus.
Scripting language - OO?
Yeah! Retraining designers == bad.
Instanced dungeons support
The only reason one might need instanced dungeons is for massively multiplayer games where you can expect to have numerous groups running about and taking the same quests. In normal multiplayer you still just have one group.
Bracers, Gloves, Rings and Things
Yes, much more important to make sure that a character can have a complete set of bracers, gloves AND up to eight magical rings (ten if you count the thumbs!). I can see the frustration of forcing you to have less than that.
Must have flying
Oh, I'm quite willing to bet that flying will be implemented. A true z-axis is one of the things that will most certainly be included in Dragon Age.
Just to play devil's advocate, but why exactly is flying something that is certainly included? I mean, unless flying is central to the game it's certainly not a necessity. Like cloaks in NWN it would be great to have, but I think you'd be surprised how many other things would be missed that much more if they were not present.Not to put too fine a point on it, it's not as if a genie came along, wrinkled his nose and POOF suddenly everything that anyone could ever want in the game is now easy to do, fits with the concept and is within our resources to provide, is it? Do you really think we would rend heaven and earth to provide the ability to fly just because a lot of folks think that would be nifty? Again, just playing devil's advocate.
species: open vs. closed
Can we have Elfs instead of Elves, please?
No.
Now when you say non-linear story...
Will you be including "The Evil Option We've Never Been Able to Do Before"?
Whether we do or not, it will be our choice and will be based on how it affects the quality of the game.
so, about these 'origin' stories...
my follow-up question is: how many of the origin stories involve the PC having amnesia/parents killed by orcs?
None.
Now when you say non-linear story...
"Linear" is one of those words that is essentially useless, in my opinion, because it has come to mean so many different things to the gaming community. Without going into detail, I will say this: structurally, a certain amount of linearity is required to have a coherent story. The SP campaign has a strong story, and that's intentional... I honestly doubt we will ever do a game where you can forget that there's a plot and just wander about the world going la-la-la or what-not (not that someone couldn't make such a game with the toolset, I suppose). There are going to be stronger elements of multiple story paths, multiple plot solutions and multiple endings in our campaign than we have attempted previously, however, so I daresay the replayability factor will be high. We consider all that essentially non-linear gameplay... how it sits on your linearity meter is up to you.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Changing the rules
Yeah, it is really to early to discuss if the rule system will be implimented in such a way that the user with a toolset could change them.
Somethings may be hard coded to work with another system (animation, client/server), we have a pretty good idea of what that is, but until we start testing them out we may run into some huge issues which cause us to go oneway or the other.
Combat System Question
As combat is the most common event that will take place in most CRPG it is vital that we get it right. (and right means more fun, and less suck.)
Things that suck are when the combat is so complicated it's too hard for someone to manage, or it's too long, or too short, looks boring, easy to exploit, and other sucky things.
The rule system was one of the first things the designers started on, and I'm sure it will be tweeked, tuned, and fiddled with up unill the end.
As we start to lock down bits and pieces of it, we'll start releasing more detailed information about it, but understand that it could change at anytime.
We reserve the right to fiddle with the "suck less" dial.
Ross Gardner, Programmer
Game UI requests
Thanks for all the requests so far. We are reading them and will be considering any valid suggestions as we design and implement the various UI systems. So keep em coming ...
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
DA system style
I remember playing the first Marvel superheroes game way back when they had weapons doing automatic damage. i.e. a club did 10 always, a pistol did 15 or something. I thought it took a lot of the tension out of the game knowing there is no luck role to save me or finish my opponent. I like a bit of unknown.
Don't make too many clothing items visible.
I think you will find two very passionate camps on this issue. I was at E3 recently and got the question asked several times if my character's weapons would be visible when not used in Jade Empire.
I am of the opinion that being able to affect changes on your character like KotOR and NWN is very cool...but I also want a great looking character. I wore certain pieces of armor and items because they looked good and not because they were best thing I could use. Who the heck would want to wear bright yellow leather armor when your trying to hide in shadows?
DA system style
Keep in mind that while we are all huge fans of D&D (I play in 2 PnP campaigns myself) that the rules were designed for PnP. Sometimes a few things do not really work in the video game world- worse yet PnP fans may resent any changes that need to occur to make the translation to video game.
Dragon Age will be designed from the ground up to be a video game. This does not mean it would not work as a PnP system but our first priority is making the compuetr game aspect clean, seamless with all the features you need for a great RPG.
Character Generation
Quick poll:
What things do you like to see when you create your character for an RPG?
new monsters
It has a certain appeal to us as well.
I have been able to take a look at the early concept art that was submitted by a large group of people here at BioWare in order to generate ideas on what sort of style Dragon Age should have. It is pretty cool to seen all these very talented people take the lid off their creativity and see what they come up with.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Must have flying
Why: Because a dragon needs to be able to fly."But dragons in NWN don't fly."My point exactly (and, *wanna bet*?)Does that make PC flying "necessary"? No.
We are in "teasing" mode today Robert, are we?
Will you do NPC Scheduling?
Without talking about Dragon Age, doing schedules was possible in NWN, through a bit painful due to auto AI level changes done by the engine to preserve processing power.
As for schedules adding to gameplay: They are adding in the sense that your world appears to be more living, breathing, immersive - they are taking away because you need to spend a not insignificant amount of time of making them work correctly (that could be used otherwise) and deal with all the problems they are creating (i.e. quest NPCs not being accessible).
Personally I like schedules, but I think a lot of the stuff that can be done through them can be achieved by other means as well that are less time intensive (i.e. a reactive system - it begins to rain, people take cover, someone with a sword runs through the town, people try to avoid him, etc)
Again, I'm not on DA, so I don't know if there are plans for scheduled NPCs or not, just my personal .02$ here.
Instanced dungeons suppor
Which means it would be good for persistant world support. Unless you aren't planning on this engine supporting PW's that is.
I think you know the answer to that...
Game UI requests
Two words: Custom. Skins.
I think one of the expansion packs for Dark Age of Camelot added the ability to create custom skins for the GUI using XML.
Forum Rules:
Translations for the non english market is usually dependend on the size of the target market and the publisher of a game. BioWare does not handle translation internally, decision about the if's and how's for translated versions are up to our publisher Atari. If Atari finds a certain market to be large enough to justify a translated version, they will certainly do so.
As for the use of spanish on this website:
a) We provide a spanish version for most of our pages if you switch your language setting to Spanish
b) We do not provide nonenglish forums. You can create threads in nonenglish language here, as long as you respect our forum rules. (So, please spare your sarcasm, it is directed into the wrong direction).
So, about your specific concern here: You can post in your native language, yes. However, if one of moderators feels that your post may contain content that is violating our board rules, they will have to lock it/move it until someone who is capable of reading in that language clears it. So, to prevent misunderstandings, it is very recommended but not mandantory to use English in your posts.
More:
This is a private board. Participating here is your privilege, not your right. If you violate the rules we established for using our boards, we handle this on a case by case basis. In this case it was removal of offensive content. In case of repeated offense, this might result in temporary or permanent removal of the privilege to participate on our boards.
Yes, you are right, I agree your thoughts are free, but there is a difference between thoughts and content written on a private board on the internet. As for deleting your post so nobody else can read it, that's the point. If something is violating our board rules we have the option of moving, deleting or locking it. Locking would have damaged the original thread, so I decide to delete it. The decision to do so is with our forum moderators, not with the "public". By signing up for your account, you agreed to those terms of service.
Lastly, if you have any trouble with a decision made by BioWare officials or our moderators here on this board, please do not create posts in threads but instead use the private message system to resolve them, as this prevents the thread to slide even more offtopic. You are always free to contact our community manager Jay Watamaniuk via PM if you disagree with a moderator or developer action on this board.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Appreciates Suggestions for Dragon Age UI
Posted Friday, May 21, 2004 - 11:08 CET by chevalier
On the wave of all Dragon Age gameplay threads, nitey, a person from BioWare forums, has started a thread on user interface suggestions for the game. Here's a quote from the opening post:
Many folks have brought up some very interesting and valid viewpoints on gameplay, but I think something that is just as important is the game UI. So to that end I would just like to mention some points that I would like the developers to think about before the UI gets set in stone and can not be changed.
Ross Gardner, BioWare Programmer, approved of the idea several posts below:
Thanks for all the requests so far. We are reading them and will be considering any valid suggestions as we design and implement the various UI systems. So keep em coming ...
If you feel you have something useful to share with the developers, you should consider checking the thread out at BioWare.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Official Forums Launched
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 23:20 CET by chevalier
Dragon Age official forums have been launched by BioWare. Here's a bit of what Scott Greig, Project Director/Producer for Dragon Age, says in the opening post:
On behalf of myself and the entire Dragon Age team, I’d like to welcome you to the official Dragon Age forums.
Discussion and feedback from our community has been very valuable to us in the development of our past projects, and we expect that to be the case with Dragon Age, as well. We’re very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the game as it develops, and we’re excited to be able to discuss it with our community.
Members of the development team will be popping in from time to time to read your thoughts and answer your questions. Some of them you will recognize from past projects, while others are completely new faces. Either way, they’re committed to the community and keeping you up to date on any Dragon Age developments.
Check out Dragon Age official forums at BioWare.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Official FAQ
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 23:17 CET by chevalier
BioWare have posted Dragon Age Official FAQ on their site. Here's a clip:
1.02: What are the key features of Dragon Age?
Epic open ended storyline
Top down party-based tactical 'combat mode'
Cinematic 3rd person camera 'exploration mode'
Full character customization (race, sex, class, abilities, spells, etc)
Separate singleplayer and multiplayer campaigns
End-user content creation tools
Read the whole FAQ at BioWare.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Forum News
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 23:06 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Scott Greig, DA Project Director/Producer
Scott's Story
Hello, Scott! From your Bioware title, it looks as though you're in charge of Dragon Age. Is that true? If so, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Well, technically I'm in charge but a project like this starts to develop a life of it's own We have built a very strong team here and there is serious collaboration on every aspect of the game. As far as myself, I was BioWare's first official employee (that was over eight years ago) and I was the lead programmer on both Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.
Species: open vs. closed
I had thought from brief info that I read elsewhere in previews that these races would be like elves, dwarves, and humans but that they wouldn't actually be those races.
That was actually a misquote. I was present for that interview and what was said was something like: "The races in the game will be familiar to fans but will have some interesting features that will make them unique the the Dragon Age world." I can easily see how this was misinterpreted. Sorry about the confusion.
'Origin' stories
my question is: how far is does your choice of 'origin' story tie you to a particular set of characteristics for your PC, i.e. will it be broadly generic (e.g. or ) or tediously detailed (e.g. happy-go-lucky 28-year-old vagabond thief named Sneaky Sam with red hair, freckles, and a rat named Whiskers)?
Think of them more as character archetypes. You will still be able to customize your character's name, appearance, sex, stats etc. Our goal here is to allow you to play the game with the fantasy character type of your choice. We won't of course be able to hit all of the permutations but the broad categories should be covered and there will be lot of room for guiding your destiny as the game progresses.
and can you forgo an origin story altogether and simply play as an unknown without any substantial ties to the story/setting?
There will always be the option of the "Mysterious Stranger" for those of you that don't want to pick defined origin story. This will still have the same level of story involvement and interaction. The npc's will just react to your character as if your background was unknown.
Scripting Language
On the other hand, a good friend of mine said that some EA guy once said "Rule #1, don't invent your own Scripting Language".
Rule #2, is don't allow user created scripts to crash the game. We actually used Lua for MDK2. When we started NWN we decided to create our own scripting language because we wanted to protect the server as much as possible from runaway scripts. Of course this caused an entirely different set of problems....
Single Player Experience
With all the work going into creating the new worlds, rulesystem, etc., a new engine and providing us with a toolset once again as well, will there be any time left to provide us with a decent single-player game. I know MP is the (not so) new (anymore) way to go and will deffinatly outsell a singe-player game, but I buy my RPG's for the single-player story mostly.
Our goal from day one is to deliver the best single player experience that we can. My personal opinion is that Dragon Age will be our best single player game to date, but I am a little biased You will just have to judge for yourself how well we do.
Live Team Role
Scott, is it too early to comment on what the Live Team's role will be with respect to the overall development of Dragon Age?
All of the nuts and bolts work will be done by the project team. That said, the live team is definitely involved in the planning and execution of the various features.
David Gaider, Designer
Writing Team
In that Gamespy article they mentioned that "We've even hired more and better writers.", I hope this includes David Gaider, he's put humour, romance and intrigue into every game he's worked on since Baldur's Gate. No one can bring party members to life like him...
Wow, thanks for the compliment. I am, indeed, the senior writer working on Dragon Age.
Languages
We are quite serious about these languages not only having a serious place in our world but also in our game mechanic. If nothing else, it will add some logic to how things and people are named in our world aside from just pulling something "fantasy-ish" off the top of my head.
Expectations
I agree with much of what Grom has said, a few things I don't so much. Either way, without going into detail we have taken the opportunity to make some things about our world very different from the "generic fantasy norm" that some call D&D and its published campaign worlds. Why wouldn't we, after all?We didn't make things different, however, just for the sake of making them different. I like what we've done (and am naturally biased) and also think we've made sure that every part of the background world is someplace that would be interesting to visit and adventure in. The setting and history accomodates our classes and system in a logical way and also sets up an interesting dynamic... overall, we strove to make it a place that we would really want to GM a group of players in.
So we haven't gone the same old route, we've taken a few chances, but from the point of view that this is supposed to be both a place to game in as well as a place that inspires storytelling. The details will all come in the future, I think, but I thought you might be interested to know from which angle we approached our world creation.
Multiplayer Combat
Hmm... how does it work in multiplayer? Can one player still control a full party during a DM'd session, or even in a persistant world if those will be possible?
How multiplayer functions is something we can't discuss just yet, I'm afraid.
More: It will be real time but can be paused to issue orders... "pause and play" as many of our other games have been.
Species: open vs. closed
I had thought from brief info that I read elsewhere in previews that these races would be like elves, dwarves, and humans but that they wouldn't actually be those races. Unfortunately, calling them by those names means that we are going to be bringing along all the baggage that those names have generated from all their many uses throughout fantasy literature, regardless of how they are designed in DA.
True, and we've thought of that. Details will be forthcoming in the future, but I can safely say that these races are familiar... and yet also quite different from what you would expect (in good and intriguing ways, I hope). They are also not alone.
More: Our world has its own specific races with their own cultures, so by your definition I guess that's closed? How modifiable races would be via the toolset, however, is yet to be determined.
Cynicism
Why? ToB was a disappointment as well as the NWN OC. SoU was palatable and HotU was okay at best. KotOR was good but had no replay value beyond twice. I think my cynicism is well placed.
I don't think your cynicism is misplaced, either. Whether or not you feel we have feet of clay is a result of your own viewpoint on our games to date, but either way I wouldn't expect unquestioning adulation from anyone. That said, recognize that having our own IP gives us certain freedoms that we didn't have before and we fully intend to capitalize on that freedom big-time with, I think, our best effort yet. Whether or not we will deliver on that promise is certainly up for debate, naturally.
One thing to keep in mind, as well, is part of the argument for us making this kind of spiritual successor in the first place: anyone else doing a NWN-ish type of game is going to have to go through all the pitfalls and mistakes that we did. It is not, I assure you, a matter of looking at the end product and saying "Oh, I can do better than that." We learned a lot the first time out and perhaps we can capitalize on what we learned successfully. That's the idea, anyhow.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Armour
We're still figuring out how armor effects a person in combat. It's a huge balancing act that needs to consider many factors. What chance does someone have to hit someone else? How much damage should they do? How much should armor protect someone, and should diffrent armor protect against diffrent types of attacks? What sort of cost to the player should be incured for armor? Gold, weight, speed. If armor is very protective then should a player have to develop skill in it? All these things are still being worked out between our technical designers, and QA.
Combat
Very true, and it all depends on how much you want to use your imagination to justify a rule, or how detailed you want to make the rules so they seem "realistic". In the example you provided we could define basic human traits with a speed statistic, an accuracy statistic, strength, reflexes, arm reach, balance, stamina. But as the body doesn't act without the mind we could also include an intuition stat, to represent the player's ability to take in lots of information and make the right choice quickly. A wit stat that represents the player's quickness of mind. and other mental type characteristics. Then on top of all that they need skill as you say. So a very skilled, but slower, weaker, and dumber guy, could beat down a fast, strong, novice.
More on Strength: It depends on how basic you want the rules. If the only way to measure someone's natual potential in combat is with a "strenght" statistic, then you would have to infer that strength also means accuracy. We're currently testing the rules system in a simulator. The idea is that speed, strength, and skill are the biggest factors in hitting, and damaging your opponent.
Dragon Age Action Figures?
Anything is possible regarding original and creative IP. But it all depends on demand from the public. If people want books, toys, other types of video games, cars, t-shirts, posters, stuffed toys, lead figures, soundtracks, plates, water bottles, freezy pops, lunch boxes, juice, computer cases, saturday morning T.V. show (which we'll get Dave Gaider to write ), then we'll do it.
Computer Rules
The rule system, (classes, combat, spells, skills) and the world, (it's races, culture, history, monsters, etc.) Will be completely made up from the mad minds of the writters and designers we have chained to their desk.None of it will be based on DnD, or d20. We're desinging a system that works inside a computer.
Finally some 'real' information!!! Nice! Does 'inside a computer' mean it's more real-time system like JE? Actually I like that idea. Just don't make it that you only control one main character in pseudo-real time system like NWN. In my opinion, that was somewhat boring.
When I say inside a computer, I just mean the diffrence between a PnP game, and a computer game. We don't know at the moment if we will port it to other consoles but we are developing it for use on a personal computer.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Troubleshooting:
Are you running the game in 16M texture compatibilty mode with Environment mapping turned off? If so try toggling one of those options on/off, it should fix the problem.
Post Comments (0)
Baldur's Gate on Your Mobile Phone?
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 21:39 CET by chevalier
TMCnet have posted news about Atari and Wizards of the Coast signing a contract for Baldur's Gate wireless games. Atari plans to make Baldur's Gate for mobile phones. Here's a clip:
"We're extremely pleased to create and publish Baldur's Gate on mobile phones," said Greg Ballard, president and CEO of Sorrent. "There's already significant anticipation for this game among fans of the series. This agreement further enhances our portfolio of entertainment applications to meet the demands of today's diverse mobile audience."
Read the whole thing at TMCnet.
Post Comments (0)
Latest Polls Results
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 20:22 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Are you interested in any console or non-D&D games BioWare is currently making?
(239 votes total)
Not interested (92) 38%
Yes, very interested (58) 24%
Somewhat interested (46) 19%
Reasonably interested (43) 18%
The poll results don't really require any commentary, so I'll just mention again, in case you haven't heard yet, that we've started coverage of BioWare's non-D&D game Dragon Age a few days ago. For now, you can keep current with the news about the game on the front page, as well as join the discussion in our Dragon Age forum.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 20:01 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
Dragon Age Images & Updates Released
Dragon Age has won the E3 Best of Show award from ActionTrip. According to the game site, "This is the first game we have ever seen where the end result looks better than the concept artwork. BioWare has outdone themselves, blending everything good about Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Knights of the Old Republic into this stunning new title. This was, flat out, the best thing we saw at all of E3." Check out the new images and information at the Dragon Age site today. Discuss.
NWN Profile: Player Resource Consortium
The lack of career choices starting to chaff just a tad? Having trouble relating to the somewhat conservative fighter, wizard or rogue? Does your complex soul scream for more? Rejoice, for the Player Resource Consortium has the solution. Take a look at this exceptional group of people who have been hard at work creating huge extras for players of Neverwinter Nights. Discuss.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Forum News
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 14:10 CET by chevalier
Here are today's BioWare forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Toolset Heating: I was running the toolset for quite a while on my laptop in university, and I can attest that it's the best way of getting your batteries drained fast and your CPU decreasing speed to prevent overheating. The reason for this is that the toolset is a very expensive application - it is running the graphics engine in the area window. On a Desktop PC you will not notice it usually, but notebooks are far more prone to heat issues due to heavy CPU activity than Desktops.
A few things you can do:
- set the graphic options in the toolset as low as possible
- disable sound and music playback in the toolset
Toolset Heating (2): Multiple bags of holding add a significant number of inventory slots to a player, which will cause functions that loop over all inventory items to be slower than normal. In NWN, each inventory operation needs to be requested and confirmed by the server (thats why you sometimes have ghosted items, the client waits for approval from the server). Scripting operations that do nested loops/recursions through a players inventory are most likely to cause lag when multiple bag of holdings are involved. I would suggest to make bag of holdings rare items in your world.
Patch 1.63:
Quote: Thank you for the update. Do we know when the 1.63 patch is scheduled to come out?
When it is done. Sorry, we can't give you a fixed date or even estimate right now, that patch is going to be a huge thing, probably the largest non expansion pack releated patch we've done so far in term of code changes / bug fixes.
Spell Effects: Personally, after experiencing the incredible hellball VFX firsthand (don't ask), I'd like to rip out the part of the hellball VFX where the ground opens and attach it to the earthquake spell. Now that's not going to happen officially, but community groups like the spellman project could do it. The problem with earthquake is that a lot of its effects (i.e. topple/damage buildings) can not be applied in the NWN engine with its static tilesets, ground splitting open (see above), which makes the spell significantly less powerful than it's PnP version.
Granted, a module could have a nice special situation where this spell would become handy (collaps the temple, kill all the evil priests and zombies inside), but these things are quite unlikely to make people choose this spell, so we originally intended to beef it up with a bit of damage, maybe special damage against constructs, etc, but this was too different from the PnP version, so we weren't allowed to. That is one of the problems you are facing when working with a license, it's hard to make changes to things that are established, even if these changes would make perfectly sense in a different environment like computer games.
On the other hand it makes a lot of sense for the license holder to protect the licensed property from being altered beyond recognition, it would damage the value of the license and, as seen more than once, will upset fans loyal to the license/game system (- don't ask me how BG:DA fits into this picture however, I don't know). This doesn't mean that using a license is a bad thing, working with things like D&D and StarWars has appeal and benefits, but you need to be aware of the limitations that come with those.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Earthquake: We initially had a different implementation of earthquake that made it far more useful/powerful/balanced for the level of spell that it is. However, the original implementation wasn't approved by WotC. Changes had to be made to the earthquake spell and the final approved version of the spell is the one that is now in the game.
More:
Quote: Were you privy to what exactly WotC objected to, what the spell was like before, and that sort of thing, or is just a 'I overheard some guys talking about it at the water cooler' sorta thing?
The earthquake spell (as per its PnP description) doesn't translate well to the PC and as such probably wasn't a good choice of spell to try and include in the game by us. For example the NWN engine doesn't allow crumbling of buildings or crevices opening up in the ground and swallowing creatures. We attempted to make the spell more powerful in other ways for play balance, but that made the spell deviate more from the PnP description. From what I remember, it was the deviation from the official rules that caused the changes to be required.
This is a perfectly normal part of game development when you use some one else's license in your game. The license owner wants to protect their license. Thus, the license holder will typically do some sort of approval process on game content. Sometimes things don't get approved and you have to change them. I don't think anyone likes to make changes to things that don't get approved (since you always have your own vision of how you would like things to be). However, if there was no approval process, then we probably wouldn't be able to use the license in the first place and the D&D license brings a LOT of good things to NWN. That's why we used it. The great thing about NWN is that if you don't like the current spell implementation, NWN gives you the power to change the script to make it do what ever you want.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
NWN Progress: BioWare's first Neverwinter Nights announcement and the corresponding concept demo coincided with the unveiling of D&D 3rd Ed. at GenCon '99 (August). The first demo using "real" code was at E3 2000 (May).
Toolset Code: There's no Delphi in NWN. But remember, the toolset was written using C++ Builder and C++ Builder is a C++ wrapper around Delphi's Object Pascal wrapper around MS' Windows C/C++ API, so it's a close approximation.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Website Down
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 13:33 CET by Sorcerer
Apparently joining the Interplay message boards in virtual oblivion, now the entire Interplay site is down. I'll be replacing all the Interplay patch & content links on Sorcerer's Place later today, so you can download everything directly from here.
Post Comments (0)
SP Happenings #50
Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 17:43 CET by Sorcerer
The past week's been quite busy around here again. Among other things, I've opened two new forums on our boards (one for Dragon Age and one for the Dungeons & Dragons RTS). Obviously, this means that Sorcerer's Place will also be covering the upcoming Dragon Age, even though it's a game which won't use the D&D ruleset. BioWare calls it a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic, so my expectations are quite high. As for why I decided to stray from the D&D-only path SP has been following for the last 5 years - there are multiple reasons. Most importantly, the D&D games which have been coming out lately (and I can see this trend continuing) have been very lite on the elements which attract a large audience of CRPG gamers for a longer period of time - gripping story, length, and party interaction. I hope Dragon Age will have a little more staying power, and if BioWare implements in it everything they've learned from the making of Neverwinter Nights and its expansions, it should be a game with a bright future. Not to mention it has dragons in the title, and all CRPG gamers love dragons. Well, mostly anyway. ;)
Work on the site redesign continues to progress nicely. We're knee-deep in implementation of the Sorcerer's Place Supporter (SPS) Accounts system, which is proving to be quite an undertaking in regards to all the information about it which needs to be written and properly presented. Catbert's also doing some more modifications to the whole system which will make it easier on me to administer, and easier on the SPS account holders to use.
Next week I'll be ordering the badly-needed extra RAM for the server, which will hopefully eliminate the problems we've been having lately, as well as prepare the ground for the more resource-taxing new site layout.
Finally, a site update is due, however as I've converted pretty much all of the existing content apart from the Games sections to the new design already, the next site update in a few days will be a minor one, only adding and updating things in the Games sections. The rest will have to wait until the new design goes up.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age vs D&D Editorial at NWVault
Posted Sunday, May 16, 2004 - 21:49 CET by chevalier
Neverwinter Vault's Maximus has posted a short editorial, raising the important point that it's not D&D rules what makes Neverwinter Nights a great game and neither will the choice of a different ruleset affect Dragon Age negatively. In his opinion, whether right or not, Dragon Age rule system will reflect D&D rules to the greatest extent possible. Here's a bit of what he says:
The fact is that it's not the rules that makes NWN so great. If anything, it's been the rules that have given NWN players more grief by making it difficult for BioWare to easily customize them. For single player games, it will always be about story in the familiar Medieval Fantasy world of Elves, Dwarves and Dragons. For multiplayer it's the interaction with other people in that same world. I would bet a lot of money that BioWare is not going to get rid of these traits. If anything they will make the setting more rich and deep and look at all the ways in which NWN could be improved. Their rules will make sense for a CRPG and will take the very best and get rid of the problems. This is a good thing.
Now if BioWare decided their world would have robots and lasers fighting creatures made out of cardobard and metal tubes in alien landscapes, plus make it super difficult to create any content, and restrict multiplayer to 2 people, then yes, Dragon Age would not be better than NWN.
Read the whole thing at NWVault.
Post Comments (0)
Dungeons and Dragons Online E3 Preview on FileFront
Posted Sunday, May 16, 2004 - 21:10 CET by chevalier
FileFront have previewed Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online MMORPG project, mainly focusing on its chances for success. Here's a clip:
Yep, you read that right: someone is finally making an MMORPG set in the D&D universe! And this isn’t just any “someone” developing Dungeons and Dragons Online; the developer is Turbine Software, the developers behind Asheron’s Call 1 and 2 (don’t focus too much on the second one; it was good, but there was never a community backing it). So, we have a developer with a good track record for developing MMORPGs, as Turbine is also currently working on Middle Earth Online and the game will be based off of the pen-and-paper game that, for the most part, started the “RPG Craze.” So, with all those credentials, what could possibly go wrong?
Read the whole thing at FileFront.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Brief Preview at Games Domain and Game Daily
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 15:13 CET by chevalier
Games Domain and Games Daily have posted a preview of Dragon Age. Here's a clip:
Players will be able to choose between everything a 3rd person exploration mode, or an overhead tactical view depending on their preferences. The exploration mode allows players to take in the fantastic architecture of old ruins. Switching to the tactical mode from Baldur's Gate makes managing forces easier. The character models and environments looked great, with no detail overlooked. Facial features are based on live people, and animations are based on motion captured actors. The demo represented the lowest level of detail the game would ultimately support, making the idea of seeing how this game looks at higher detail levels very exciting. Additionally, Dragon Age will have multiplayer support so that live people can form parties and play through a dynamic storyline that gamers have to come to expect from Bioware. The storyline will even play out differently according to the race and class the player chooses, with different motivations and histories. Bioware has is going to great lengths to make sure that this is a realistic world, with clothes that these character types would really wear, right down to the design of their buttons. A rich and detailed history, spanning thousands of years was written. A Ph.D. in linguistics was brought in to create the various languages for the different species to assure a feel of authenticity.
Read the rest at Games Domain or Game Daily.
Post Comments (2)
Dragon Age Discussion on BioWare Boards
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 15:09 CET by chevalier
There's a second thread now devoted to Dragon Age Discussion on BioWare boards, started by developer John Four. Here's a snip:
I've locked down the old thread as Dups was threatening me with rotten vegetables and a slingshot. Our database doesn't like such long threads, I guess. I think he should've pointed the slingshot at the database box to get results, but I'm not the expert Dups is.
Please continue the Dragon Age discussion here, forthwith.
Read the whole thing at BioWare.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Fact Sheet at BioWare
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 15:06 CET by chevalier
BioWare site hosts a Dragon Age Fact Sheet now. It's still not much, but, hopefully, more will come.
Read it at BioWare.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Preview at GameSpy
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 15:02 CET by chevalier
GameSpy, too, have previewed Dragon Age. Here's what they say:
The world is traditional fantasy, but is being custom built with its own races and languages. The game will use BioWare's new terrain technology to create a tremendous feeling of height and depth in the game, allowing players to traverse heights seamlessly without loading screens.
All the animation and lighting is dynamic, while all of the acting is done with motion capture. Each character is rendered in millions of polygons, allowing the player to zoom in as close as they want.
What makes the combat system unique is that the game can be played in the over-the-shoulder mode of Knights of the Old Republic or in the tactical overhead mode of Baldur's Gate. The player can toggle back and forth in whatever way feels comfortable. The game also utilizes the "combat pause," which allows players to plan strategy while the action is frozen.
Read the whole thing at GameSpy.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Brief Preview at IGN
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 15:00 CET by chevalier
IGN have posted a short preview of Dragon Age. Here's a clip:
Although set against a traditional fantasy backdrop, BioWare is hoping to do something a little different with Dragon Age, and the world won't be inhabited by Dwarves, Elves and Halflings -- although it will be filled with Dwarf-like, Elf-like and Halfling-like races. While this may sound like a cop-out, Ray explained that BioWare wanted to try something a little different, but still wanted it to be familiar to fantasy RPG players. Although nothing is finalized at this point, Dragon Age will feature archetypal races and classes (you know, fighters, clerics, mages and the like), and BioWare is looking to the community to decide exactly which classes and races they want to see in the game. We did see one completely new race that will be in the game, though. Although they don't have a name as of yet, or at least BioWare wasn't saying what the name was, the characters sport horns on their heads and look rather lizard (or perhaps dragon) like.
BioWare is known for their intensive research when building universes, and as with all their RPGs, BioWare strives to create an extremely deep and rich lore to go with their worlds. Dragon Age will be no exception, and they have already developed a backstory and culture for the playable races as well as the non-playable races in the game. BioWare even has a few linguistics PhD students developing entirely new languages for Dragon Age. When asked about the significance of the title, BioWare told us that, like the Stone Age and Iron Age, they wanted to indicate that the game takes place in a time where dragons are prevalent.
Read the rest at IGN.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Impressions at HomeLAN Fed
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 14:57 CET by chevalier
HomeLAN Federation have shared some Dragon Age impressions. Most of all they are pleased with the mighty engine being able to hold massive effects without a significant frame rate decrease and BioWare inalterably showing their specific sense of humour. Here's a clip:
The biggest innovation in Dragon Age is the switching, in both gameplay and viewpoint, in combat. Normally the game looks like a typical third person RPG, but BioWare wants to also have the tactical battles that were a trademark of the Baldur's gate series. In combat mode, the viewpoint switches to a over the top perspective and we got to see our hero and others take on the invaders. We were quite impressed to see that even in this early point of development, the game was capable of showing lots of characters and activity (including fireballs and lighting) without a signnificant drop in framerate. Indeed, we were told the graphics were on the low end of the visual and if they look this good and run this well now we think the final product will be even better.
We also saw another sequencee where the "hero" and his lady companion have a funny exchange ; the lady has apparently lost something she needs for combat and the verbal exchange was quite amusing, which shows that BioWare still hasn't lost its sense of humor. Even when the banter ended with the rising of a truely huge and nicely detailed monster from the waters, the humor continues as our "hero" once again says he need more cash for this job.
See the whole thing at HomeLAN Fed.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Combat News at GameSpot
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 14:53 CET by chevalier
GameSpot have posted some information on Dragon Age. The most important part says that battles in this BioWare's newest hit may be more massive and more tactical than in most other RPGs.
Besides boasting that it would have the "tantalizing blend of the exploration and combat of Baldur’s Gate" and "the multi-player gameplay and community support of Neverwinter Nights," BioWare said Dragon Age will have separate multiplayer and single-player campaigns. As with other BioWare RPGs, gameplay will be party-based in both modes. But BioWare also said players can "participate in massive battles," meaning the game's tactical combat may be on a larger scale than most RPGs.
Check out the rest at GameSpot.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age as Neverwinter Nights 2 at Neverwinter Vault
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 14:46 CET by chevalier
Neverwinter Vault's Maximus has writen a comprehensive editorial, picturing Dragon Age as heir apparent to Neverwinter Nights. He shares his impressions from the jaw-dropping demo and goes back in the past to the moments when the first NWN shots were published and how they changed until the final version, predicting that Dragon Age will continue the progress at the same solid rate. He also speculates on the intricacies of graphical mechanisms in the game, the dialogue system and multiplayer mode. Here's a bit of what he says:
As the demo continued, the female magic user and the fighter who acts like a mix between Minsc (BG) and Daelan (NWN), walked down from a higher level to a lower level using a z like road (hmmm...) that wound back on itself so that the whole path could be seen on the screen. Once at the bottom they were standing in front of a lake and the female magic user starts saying how she can't find her ring of focusing with her body language mirroring what she was saying. It's really like a scene you would see in a pre-rendered scene but was done all in game. The Minsc/Daelan character demands to know how can she not know where it is? He states, that he doesn't forget his sword when going into battle. She then continues on how she must concentrate and starts to cast a spell as her body levitates off the ground! Pretty solid confirmation of a Z-Axis if I ever saw one, but I digress. As bursts of light shoot out from the ground beneath her, an incredibly detailed monster, much bigger than anything in NWN, starts emerging from the water before the whole scene fades to black and the demo ends.
I've asked around as to whether there would be a "DM client", and from all the various feedback it seems that it's all under consideration. They haven't ruled it out, but it doesn't seem to be a sure thing. We'll have to wait for more details to emerge but I'm confident that BioWare knows how important the DM client is. While it's true that it's not used as much as the player client, the ratio of DMs to players is comparable to what we would see in pen and paper version of D&D, a game that would not exist today if it wasn't for the Dungeon Master.
Read the rest at NWVault.
Post Comments (0)
Dragon Age Preview at ActionTrip
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 14:37 CET by chevalier
ActionTrip have posted a preview of Dragon Age, BioWare's newest hit, called "the spiritual successor to all of our recent games" by Greg Zeschuk, BioWare's Joint CEO, and set in a setting which is totally property of BioWare not restricted by any licenses or outside copyrights. The preview covers the universe of Dragon Age, the combat system and engine mechanics. Here's an excerpt:
As I said, the main focus in Dragon Age is on the creation of a rich and layered fantasy world that is conjured up entirely by the Canadian developers. From what we know so far, we're still talking about a medieval fantasy setting, but with an oriental twist. The usual fantasy races like the orcs, dwarves and elves will not be present in their original form, though certain variations of those will be included in the game. BioWare says that they're reluctant to make a break from some of the more conventional concepts of Tolkien-inspired lore as they're afraid such a move might alienate many of their devoted fans.
Whatever their influences might be in the creation of the Dragon Age universe, however, you can be sure that BioWare isn't taking this task lightly. In fact, they've hired linguistics PhD students to develop specific languages and dialects for the game. What this means of course, is that we'll get a single-player universe with a rich background and plenty of emphasis on the narrative, which has really become the trademark of all of BioWare's games.
Read the whole thing at ActionTrip.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 13:52 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Heartbeat script: A heartbeat script fires roughly every 6 seconds, but will go slower if your computer can't keep up. Spells do not rely on the module heartbeat. A celeron 450 is below the minspecs, even if you run only the dedicated server, so this behavior is to be expected
Constants: Constants (const keyword) are compiled where they are used, it's not that the compiler is reserving memory for all the constants you declared in your include files and don't use, they are just replaced with their respective values when the script is being compiled. Global variables however will take up memory, even if you don't use them as far as I know, yet another reason not to use them and instead go for constants. All in all Rich is right, compiling a script that uses functions from an include file will cause only the functions you actually used to be compiled into the file. Include files have no impact on a a scripts behavior / performance profile when executed in the game.
Tileset limit: The limit is going to be raised in the next patch. However, be advised that it is a bad idea to use that many tilesets, as each different tileset you use will be a hefty hit on the server. Splitting your module(s) and linking them with portals is the way to go.
Shifters: The polymorph system used for the shifter does not allow for the memorized spells of a character being cast. I substitued those spells with creature abilities and stat modifications to make the shifter balanced for the official campaign, and I think that was fairly successful. I would have liked to have full spellcasting ability for shifters in epic levels, but it was not possible in HotUs scope and I do not think we will see it in the future. I would consider queueing up actions to do things you can not do otherwise "exploiting an engine glitch".
I don't think it's a big problem however because
a) The application is fairly limited and heavily depending on the world/server you are playing.
b) PvP balance is a non issue for me
c) It's easy to fix.
d) I don't care about min/maxing, that's a valid way of having fun with the game and up to the server operator/DM to regulate.
I will probably put that ClearAllActions in the script for an upcoming patch because I am worried about possible other implications queuing up actions that are not allowed in polymorphed mode could have.
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
Witch's Wake: Agreed. It's their gameworld and, in many cases, their prominent characters that we're working with. BioWare has benefitted greatly from the D&D license over the years and, without it, we wouldn't be where we are today. Yes, it may be frustrating dealing with the requested changes sometimes but that just comes with the territory. BioWare is fortunate enought to be in a position now where the costs of working with someone else's IP are beginning to outweigh the benefits (in other words, we feel people are now buying our games more b/c of the 'BioWare' name than the 'D&D' or 'Star Wars' names). We feel we have something to offer in developing our own IP and it frees us up to do some innovative things that wouldn't have otherwise been possible.
David Gaider, Designer
Marketing:
Quote: That may be true and I wish Bioware the best with any new IP but, as you probably know, there is a reason why D&D has been played in one form or another for the past 30 yrs where as most rpgs created in its wake have come and gone. Although I do associate the Bioware name with quality products, I have still not bought the highly-rated KotOR (and I am a Star Wars fan) nor will I buy an X Box for Jade Empire. As a crpg fan (the only games I really play), there is something about the depth of the D&D world that is not easily duplicated let alone improved upon.
I don't think anyone can deny that D&D comes with a built-in audience... and that's good. The bad part is that it also comes along with a lot of baggage. We aren't saying that the Bioware name is anywhere near as recognizeable as D&D, but it might get our IP noticed... noticed enough to make a start and build on it so that maybe a few games down the line that IP will have enough depth and be so well-tested and known that it carries it's own built-in audience. If the fact that we're known for these types of games gives our IP a shot, the benefits of success make it foolish not to try.
Further:
Quote: From a fan's perspective, I would prefer more D&D; the surface has barely been scratched.
I don't disagree. I happen to be a fan of D&D, myself. Certain parties have made it very clear, however, that where we'd like to take D&D is not where they'd like it to go. Sad though it may be, a point has to come where you have to realize that a fundamental difference in vision exists and that going your own way is the only way you get to do things the way you think they ought to be done. For those people who intend to stick to D&D through thick and thin, I certainly wish them well and hope they enjoy any future D&D games that are to come. I don't for a second believe, however, that good fantasy gaming has to start and end within the scope of D&D. If so... well, from where I'm sitting, that would be kind of sad.
Post Comments (0)
Article on D&D Rules Implementation in ToEE at Hulver
Posted Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 13:24 CET by chevalier
Hulver have posted an article about Dungeons and Dragons rules implementation in the Temple of Elemental Evil from Troika. Here's a clip:
The Curve
One of the difficulties of using the 3.5 edition rule set was in the learning curve. If you're playing the P&P game as a player you have to learn the combat rules and how your character works- a pretty daunting task. In Temple, you start off with 5 characters, all with radically different abilities and the corresponding rules; so the amount of material you have to understand at the beginning of the game is even steeper. Plus, the combat system has many moves available to the players at first level, even though they aren't really effective until later in the game. Often, in computer games, rules information is hidden from the player until he needs to know them; this is not the case in P&P games, as the player has to know the rules to be able to play.
Read the whole thing at Hulver.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Wednesday
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 21:49 CET by Sorcerer
(Only D&D-related and general news posted.)
Road To E3: BioWare Builds A Big Booth
E3 threw open its doors today and the throngs are thronging. In Part 2 of our 2004 E3 coverage series, read about our booth preparations, and check out new pics from the trip, the E3 showfloor, and the BioWare booth. Discuss.
NWN Community Expansion Pack Patch Released
There have been over 185,961 downloads of the CEP, and thanks to our great community, a number of bugs have been identified and reported. The CEP Team has been listening and a new patch is out and ready for everyone to download. Over 30 bugs have been stomped out, including crafting script issues, misbehaving placeables, and non-gurgling slimes! Download the patch today. Discuss.
NWNCon II: Wrap-Up Thoughts
The second online Neverwinter Night convention wrapped up after a very successful three days of non-stop gaming, chatting, and smacking the XP out of their enemies. J'Dai Voisin and Danebo, two of the chief organizers of the convention, give us their thoughts on how the event went and what we can expect in the future. Discuss.
Post Comments (0)
Latest Poll Results
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 12:57 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how interested are you in the recently announced real-time strategy D&D game set in Wizards of the Coast's new Eberron setting?
(251 votes total)
1 (least interested) (58) 23%
3 (56) 22%
5 (most interested) (50) 20%
4 (44) 18%
2 (43) 17%
Most of the people who voted (23%), are not really interested in the recently announced D&D RTS set in the new Eberron setting, rating their interest 1/5.
However, 22% of those who voted are reasonably interested in it, their interest being 3/5.
Closely behind are those who are most interested in this new title (20%), with interest rated 5/5.
Also quite interested are those who rated their interest 4/5, namely 18% of poll participants.
Finally, 17% of those who voted in the poll rated their interest 2/5.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Review at Games Chart
Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 12:46 CET by chevalier
Games Chart have posted a review of Neverwinter Nights, giving it a score of 96%. Here's a clip:
The game play is what makes this game great. There is an extensive campaign mode that just keeps getting better and better as the story progresses. The story it follows is you are the hero that is trying to help the 'queen' find a cure for the disease that is plaguing the city of Neverwinter. I don't want go into any more detail then that, because I don't want to ruin the story. Let me tell you that from what I have seen the story line is amazing!
The rest is waiting for you at Games Chart.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 2:37 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Bandwidth usage:
Quote: I'm a bit thinking of setting up a NWN server, but would like to know how much bandwidth is used up per player allowed. Has this been ever messured? Maybe BioWare could make a such list? This is usefull for me, so I know what to do with the other gameservers I have running.
We have been doing some internal testing on bandwidth usage, we don't have any numbers yet, but we've put in code for tracking the number of bytes sent/received by each player (and for the server in total). We were considering putting in an ini setting, to allow users to turn this on/off, so that you could track this information yourselves in one of the upcoming patches. Would many people find it useful if we left this functionality in?
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
HotU Chapter 3: Yes, late in development, Wizards of the Coast requested that I remove certain options from Chapter 3 and restrict certain others so that they were only available to characters who were already evil. I had been hoping to allow you to transform the Big M into a chambermaid for your new inn in Waterdeep, for instance, but I guess they considered that to be cruel and unusual punishment. It was unfortunate that we ran into some of those restrictions but it didn't end up being too big of a deal to remove them.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Master server response: Craig is evaluating the possibility of requiring positive master server response to let people log into your server, i.e. through an .ini setting. In the meantime, if you are running a linux server, you could probably test the availability of the master server by pinging it every 5 minutes and adjust your firewall settings in case it isn't found not accept any further connection attempts to your server while it is not there.
Post Comments (0)
ToEE Patch 2.0 Update News at Atari
Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 22:08 CET by chevalier
Slim, an Atari Producer, has announced on the Atari boards that they are working on Patch 2.0. However, no release date can be given yet. Here's a clip:
TOEE Patch 2.0 Update
Hello everyone,
I'm helping to make sure patch 2.0 is swiftly a reality. We're having favorable results with it internally so far.
In fact, I'm playing with the patch myself, and enjoying it!
Soon, we will be able to post information concerning fixes included in the patch, and a release date.
Slim, Atari Producer
And there's also a list of fixes:
Thank you again, all, for your patience. The patch is moving forward swiftly, and I will have further information about a release date later on this week.
Here is a list of fixes:
*****
Temple of Elemental Evil Patch 2.0 Fix Notes
Fleeing enemies could sometimes cause a crash, this has been fixed.
Infinite loop bug involving complex pending events fixed.
One-handed weapons wielded two-handed calculate strength bonus properly (1.5x unless light).
Enhancement bonuses of projectiles no longer apply to melee attacks.
Criticals often did not confirm if you rolled equal to target's AC, this has been fixed.
Bracers no longer stack in their slot.
Jaer's Spheres of Fire can no longer be used as melee weapons.
Dust of Disappearance value corrected.
Masterwork Guisarme type and size corrected, it is no longer a 1-handed axe.
Wonnilon's Repeating Crossbow and Masterwork Light Crossbow sizes corrected, both are now useable by small races.
Amulet of Mighty Fists adds to attack and damage now.
Being unable to remove shields in combat has been fixed.
Cat's Grace is no longer a Strength Domain level 2 spell.
Syntax errors in Hedrack's dialog have been fixed.
Valden now awards masterwork shields for rescuing his wife.
More information regarding the woodcutters dialog is revealed.
The courier from Lord Wizard Sargen will now talk with party members.
Romag's 3rd quest no longer allows acknowledgement of killing Belsornig if you had not in fact killed him.
Random number generator significantly improved.
Bardic music is now a standard action.
Bardic music now provokes attacks of opportunity.
Tooltip text, missing during character creation for Abilities and Deity, now displays.
Bardic Knowledge help page has correct title.
Help entry for Grummsh now properly linked to Strength Domain.
Help entry for Chain Lightning grammar corrected.
Read the whole thing on Atari boards. WARNING: there is a large picture of severe animal abuse posted in the thread. It is not advised to scroll below the initial developer post.
Check out the list of fixes, also at Atari.
Post Comments (0)
SP Happenings #49
Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 20:48 CET by Sorcerer
I'm quite pleased with the progress on the redesign over the last week. I managed to add another cool feature to it (let's leave it as a surprise for now) and rearrange the section division anew for all sections apart from Games, where things will stay more or less the same, at least initially. With the help from questions collected on our boards, I also put together a helpful SP FAQ, which nicely ties into the new design. I also rewrote my short biography and rewrote & moved the history of SP into the FAQ, so it will be easier to find. At this point the only things left to do are some community supporter interface tweaks, final population of the site navigation system, and, of course, the conversion of the entire Games section. The first "beta test" for a few select people will be when everything else apart from the Games section is done, which should be quite soon. I'm looking forward to testing the whole thing out and fully experiencing it as the new site, rather than just testing every page separately.
If you're not a regular on our message boards, you should check out the Mod Reviews forum again, since it is growing nicely with submitted mod reviews. Starting last week, I also held a call for donations on the boards to collect money for the server RAM upgrade, so we won't have to experience the problems we've been having lately any more. The call has been successful and we have managed to raise the needed funds, so thanks again to all who have donated and made it possible. If you missed it but would still like to help (SP still has the hosting and many other costs to cover every month), please see this page.
Post Comments (0)
Dungeons & Dragons RTS Interview at Game Informer
Posted Sunday, May 9, 2004 - 0:58 CET by chevalier
Game Informer have posted a large D&D RTS interview with Edward del Castillo, president and creative director for Liquid Entertainment. They speak most of all about the reasons for making a D&D RTS, graphical solutions used and factions in the game. Here's a snip:
Adam Biessener: What brought on the decision to make a D & D RTS game?
Edward del Castillo: Good question. I’ve been a D & D Geek my whole life and that’s how I come at it. I’ve been playing D & D since I was 15. I used to make a joke that Atari owns my own childhood, because between Avalon Hill, Milton Bradley, Atari, Hasbro, they have my entire toy collection as companies. But what actually happened is that they called us and they were really happy with the work we did on War Of The Ring. John Hyde, the executive producer on the game, had worked on the Command & Conquer series in the form of Red Alert 2 and he knew me from the time I had worked as a producer on Command & Conquer and Red Alert. And, when he joined Atari, he said “you know what, it’s ridiculous that we don’t do this.” D & D is based on miniatures, and even now more so with 3.5, it’s a very strategic game in terms of combat. So it just makes perfect sense to bring that to the PC.
Read the whole thing at Game Informer.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 20:33 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
Digital Distribution: Yes, the onus will be on us to ensure that the DD content is of sufficient value to the community. If we release a bunch of trash with a price tag on it, the DD Project will sink and sink fast. Personally, I'm pretty excited by what we have in store.
Further:
Unfortunately, we're still in the realm of 'if' rather than 'when.' We're very close now, though, and have convinced everyone we need to internally here at BioWare. There's a specific clause or two of our contract with Atari that's still in the process of being renegotiated but, provided we get the green light there, things will start moving pretty fast. The Live Team programmers are already working on integrating the necessary functionality into NWN and our three-headed web-monkey is hard at work on developing a storefront and working out the back-end issues. Our first wave of DD content is feature-complete and in the testing/polishing phase and some second wave-content is underway as well. Some things are stalled while we wait for the aforementioned green light but there's still plenty to do in the meantime.When we have a 'when,' we'll let everyone know (I'll be on the rooftop with a megaphone, I assure you).
Further:
Given the $1 / hour of gameplay figure that's often bandied about, a 30-40 hour DD module would probably cost (surprise!) $30-40. I suspect most people aren't willing to spend that amount for something as ephemeral as a download. What's more, the development and testing time required for such a module would probably swamp the Live Team's available resources and you would probably only see about 1 release a year or so. Personally, I don't think that's sufficient to sustain interest in a 2-year old game, let alone enough to build or generate new interest. Rather than competing with traditional retail projects such as the original NWN or its expansions, I think both the Live Team and the community will be better served by a broad selection of smaller modules that can be played as a larger series.
Once a series is complete (WW, for instance, is now planned out as a 5-part series), we may consider bundling them into a larger, more expansion-like package for those who want it. It might even transform itself into a boxed retail product, who knows. But for now, it and any other DD modules will probably be in the 3-10 hour range, with most hovering around the 5 to 7-hour mark. Pricing hasn't been decided yet but the $1 / gameplay hour seems like a reasonable guide for the time being. Hopefully that explains our perspective on the matter a little better
More on Digital Distribution: Well, there are a few ways you can approach this. As both of you allude to, you may end up purchasing DD modules more to support the ongoing efforts of the Live Team than for the modules themselves. This is a perfectly valid approach (For instance, I've purchased NWCon shirts for two years running now - the shirts were nice enough but my main reason for purchasing them was to help support the Con itself). As those who have played WW1 can attest to, the DD framework (smaller modules, a more focused team, a non-licensed setting) allows for some very different gameplay experiences than the official campaigns. Some of them may catch your interest and spark your imagination more than the OCs did. For that matter, there's nothing stopping us from developing a downloadable Persistent World module along the lines of Nordock, either. The sky's the limit, really, and maybe there's a DD module or two that will take you by surprise.
Also, we still haven't sorted out the precise details of how we're going to handle the inclusion of custom art & audio resources but current debate seems to be leaning towards the 'delayed free release' model that emerged in one of the threads on this board. Under that scenario, builders may end up purchasing the DD module to gain advance access to some of the new music, monsters, or tilesets, knowing that the content will be more broadly available by the time they're ready to release their magnum opus.
Further:
I think the biggest hurdles Steam will face will be technical ones, to be honest. After quite a long time in development, Steam continues to have significant stability issues. Even more importantly, it's designed in a very invasive fashion and is substantially harder to use than it really needs to be. It's like the iTunes / SonyConnect dichotomy - iTunes' success shows that a large body of people are perfectly willing to pay for what they used to get for free. But the true key to their success lies in the streamlined and easy-to-use nature of their site and iPod player. Until SonyConnect can offer a similarly sleek (or even sleeker) interface, they're pretty much doomed to fail.
I don't have any significant issues with the underlying vision of Steam and the concept of a commercialized mod environment. My original vision for the DD project, to be honest, was a free-wheeling central marketplace where modders gathered to swap their individual creations in exchange for a cut of the proceeds from any resulting playable content. In my opinion, the free community can coexist with the monetized community in a mutually beneficial fashion. High-quality art & audio content created for the monetized community would be made available at no cost for use within the free community while newcomers and old-timers alike would release playable content within the free community in order to build a following or promote a new series.
In my opinion, the games industry is becoming increasingly corporate and we're losing touch with our 'garage developer' roots (BioWare, for instance, developed our first title, "Shattered Steel," in Joint-CEO Greg Zeschuk's parents' basement). I think the industry as a whole can be greatly invigorated through the creation of an 'indie circuit' where individual game designers and small development teams can make a reasonable living doing what they do best. Game modding is an obvious place for that to start and, with its story-oriented tools and established community focus, NWN is on the cutting edge of the game modding movement. For now, BioWare's DD Project isn't heading in that direction (and, to be honest, it may never head in that direction) but that's what I'm going to be trying to push it towards over the longer term. As you say, these are interesting times and I, as both a game developer and a game consumer, am very excited by the future.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Leftover dialogues: I am sure there are some leftover plots / dialog options that have been disabled before the game shipped, you will find them in most of our games. They are not neccessarily censored, they might just been cut because they were not finished in time or because QA didn't like them
Gold edition: The gold edition distributed in Europe different from the US version. The US version contains disks, a combined manual, a custom installer we build for it, patches, bonus modules, etc and apparently someone from Atari Europe thought it would be a nice idea to have a gold edition as well, but without the manual/bonus material/patches.
From what I hear on these boards, the Gold Edition in Europe contains just the CDs for NWN and SoU. If you want to know the reason for this, you will have to contact the company distributing this Gold Edition in your country. We were quite surprised when the first people came to our boards claiming that their Gold Edition was missing stuff, until we figured out that basically Atari Europe created their own Gold Edition, that was quite different from the Gold Edition sold in the US. BioWare had no input on this. Bottomline: If you want to voice your opinion about this, please contact your local distributor, BioWare has no influence over international distribution, this is completely up to the publisher. I suggest that you contact the distributor responsible for your country (i.e. Atari Germany) and not Atari US about this.
Post Comments (0)
Community Expansion Pack Patch 1.01 Released
Posted Saturday, May 8, 2004 - 20:25 CET by chevalier
CEP team have released Community Expansion Pack patch 1.01.
This is a script package that replaces the default BioWare crafting system due to its lack of compatibility with custom content. It does not overwrite any default BioWare scripts. Rather, it overwrites the crafting conversation and links it up to custom scripts. This script set is a modified version of SartriX's updated crafting system, with additional bugfixes and modifications to make it CEP-compatible.
To ensure maximum backwards compatibility, the CEP's included des_crft_aparts.2da has minimal modifications-the only thing different is the inclusion of a "robe" line for use with the optional DC calculation algorithm SartriX provided. Even NumParts is defined by constant, so as to ensure this change only affects those using CEP Crafting scripts directly.
The patch is available at CEP homepage.
Post Comments (0)
Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) Site is up!
Posted Friday, May 7, 2004 - 20:35 CET by chevalier
The E3 homepage is ready. There you can find all the information you need about the exposition. Sales info, floor plans, exhibitor list, everything is there. Check out the the E3Expo homepage.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 23:56 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
Advertising: Part of the difference here is that we have a bunch of people on this board who like to think they are liberated, intelliectual and in possession of good taste. Nothing wrong with that. It's not uncommon, and I'd like to think that imagination is conducive to good thinking. However, I am sensing a big difference between how some people would like things to be and how they actually are.
For starters, advertising people do not think you are stupid. Nor are they, themselves, stupid. Advertising works on memes... the subconscious manipulation of certain themes that draw the attention of the potential buyer. And that's all it's trying to do. Decisions to buy are made by your conscious brain... flashy pictures and sexual memes aren't going to convince your conscious brains of anything. But they might draw your attention long enough and perhaps influence which decision your conscious brain ultimately makes. Sound cheap? Maybe. But memes are everywhere. You use them, too. What do you think first impressions are all about?
You think you aren't influenced by memes, girls as well as guys? You think you make all your decisions based on the right half of your brain with which you are posting to this forum? Well, let me ask you this, then:
Is your most-commonly played character physically attractive? Just how attractive? Why is that? (And, yes, there is always the character who goes the extreme other end of the spectrum, like the wizened wizard... but ask yourself then just how impressive he is in other ways?)
Is there a reason the non-beautiful portraits we included in BG1 were universally despised? I think there is.
I know we'd like to think we're all above this kind of influence, but there it is. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't be more conscious and aware of what images we are using and why... but I also believe there is more rhyme and reason behind what the advertising folks cook up than mere pandering.
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
Digital Distribution:
Quote: Excellent, I see this as Bioware finally starting to directly chart the NWN course and thus support that course far better than ever before.
Yes, that's definitely our intent. The goal isn't to charge money for the existing level of service that we're currently providing for free. Instead, we're hoping that DD revenue will really drive the Live Team, allowing us to expand on our current level of service and offer some entirely new things to the community that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. What's more, we're hoping that this new level of service can cross over to our other upcoming titles as well and not be limited solely to the NWN experience. But the realization of that dream will ultimately depend on the nature of those future titles and the financial viability of the DD Project as a whole. In other words, cross your fingers and hope it goes gangbusters.
Post Comments (0)
Dungeons and Dragons Real Time Strategy at IGN
Posted Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 23:06 CET by chevalier
IGN have posted an article on the new Dungeons and Dragons real time strategy game set in Eberron setting that is going to be presented at E3. They write about the concepts of the game, the factions, the heroes and game world details. Here's a snip:
So we'll start with Eberron. That's the new gaming universe Wizards of the Coast is launching this summer, still set in the D&D franchise, but having nothing to do with Forgotten Realms (which has become the de facto D&D environment these days). Eberron isn't just a new territory, but a significant step away from standard swords n' sorcery. Instead of the usual medieval setting, with magic restricted to mages and warlocks and whatnot, the world of Eberron is something like Atlantis filtered through Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun--a place where magic fuels technology; elevators, teleporters, flying vehicles, all powered by magic. Eberron takes Arthur C. Clarke's notion, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and makes it literal. There are still knights in shining armor, elves, and other fantasy tropes, but we're now far removed from Camelot, and Ten Towns, for that matter. The cities of Eberron are metropolises, full of skyscrapers, but with a flowing, organic style that suggests non-technological origins.
Read the whole thing at IGN.
Post Comments (0)
Latest Poll Results
Posted Thursday, May 6, 2004 - 18:53 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Have you completed all of the D&D games and expansions you own at least once?
(293 votes total)
Yes (123) 42%
Not yet, but I'm working on it (113) 39%
No, and I probably never will (57) 19%
Quite a large majority of poll participants (42%) have completed all of the D&D games and expansions they own at least once.
A few less (39%), haven't completed them all yet, but are working on it.
Only 19% of those who voted haven't completed all of the D&D games and expansions they own, and also probably never will.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
Post Comments (0)
First News about E3Expo 2004 at Businesswire
Posted Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 23:41 CET by chevalier
Businessware have posted an article about the upcoming E3Expo 2004. Out of five thousand games, one thousand will have not been seen before. Nearly three quarters (72%) will be available for purchase by the beginning of holiday season. The biggest part of them will be console games (40%), PC products coming only second with 30%. Roleplaying games are supposed to be about 7% of all games shown. Here's a clip:
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2004--Approximately 1,000 of the nearly 5,000 computer and video game products to be displayed at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3Expo) have never been seen before, according to data released today from the E3Expo 2004 Exhibitor Survey by the show's owner, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Exhibitors also report that nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of all products at the tenth anniversary show will be in stores in time for the 2004 holiday season.
"The interactive entertainment industry and its products have made tremendous advances since the launch of E3Expo ten years ago -- whether it be technologically, economically, artistically or in terms of just plain fun -- and the popularity of games has increased along with those achievements," said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA, the trade association that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers and owns E3Expo. "One thing that hasn't changed over the past decade is that E3Expo is the best place in the world to 'see what's next' for the industry and to get a first look at the game products that consumers will soon be buying, playing and talking about."
Read the whole thing at Businesswire.
Post Comments (0)
BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 23:18 CET by Sorcerer
(Only D&D-related and general news posted.)
2 New NWN Epics: Dragon Kin and Dwarven Wall
Fresh meat! The Dragon Kin is a combination of epic wizard and formidable, shape-shifting druid. Epic enemies might not fear a regular dragon, but they will fear the Dragon Kin! Those who attack our second epic PC offering will learn the full meaning of futility as their blows bounce off his incredibly hard form. Those who stick around afterwards will learn what the afterlife holds in store for them, as the Dwarven Wall will neatly separate their head from their shoulders with devastating blows. Discuss.
Revving Up For E3
The BioWare offices are buzzing these days as we rev our engines up for what looks to be our best Electronic Entertainment Expo yet. We've been working closely with Microsoft Game Studios to prepare, and we're pretty juiced about demoing the beautiful Jade Empire action RPG on the Xbox floor to excited E3 attendees. Check out this article, complete with pictures, to get an insider's look into BioWare's trade show planning and organization process. Discuss.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 22:34 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer
Digital Distribution: Yes, just to reconfirm, we are in the process of developing a BioWare-specific Digital Distribution system which is entirely separate from Atari-On-Demand. When (and if) the DD Project rolls out, Atari will receive a portion of the revenue from the sale of NWN material, in keeping with their role as publisher of that core product but the design, development, and hosting of the system itself will be handled exclusively by BioWare.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Persistant Worlds:
Quote: Yet the PWs made in Neverwinter are pretty significant for a game that was never intended to support them.
Sorry, in terms of numbers, they are not significant. We have a pretty good overview about how many PWs are out there and how many people play on them, since we run NWNs master server in house and thus have a pretty good picture about what's being played. However, we won't share those numbers with the public (as they pose valuable data to base business decisions on), so you will have to believe us when we say these numbers are insignificant when it comes to the decision whether a build-a-pw-toolkit would be commercially viable or not.
Finally, as Dave said, it's not only a question of commercial viability or if we see a market for it, we currently do not WANT to make a PW toolkit, as it is not the type of project we are interested in doing right now(and that argument alone should have terminated the discussion a long time ago). So again: A "build a PW toolkit" is not an interesting product for a AAA-Game developer as the market consists of a small and very vocal group of people that could never sustain the cost of making a AAA game title, or even justify the cost for modfiying a build-your-own-module title like NWN to scale like good enough to sustain a PW framework.
In addition to the assessment above, there are currently no plans at Bioware to do such a product, because we currently are busy to do other things we find more interesting.
Dynamic quivers:
Quote: Didn't DLA already make dynamic quivers?
Yepp, but I think they used the armor appearance changes to add a neck part with the quiver. In any case they pointed out that using VFX could allow the community to do these things far more efficiently and that you should be able to add your own VFX and specify if they align with the player instead of overriding the few effects that were hardcoded to do so. So yes, a properly constructed VFX could probably used to simulate all kinds of neat equipment like quivers, sheath, exploded heads or even cars, coaches or ships (no more weird polymorphs). We experimented with that stuff in Hordes a bit (check the last entry in visualeffects.2da) and found some interesting use for it.
Patch 1.63: Yes we are working on patch 1.63 (amazing, the game is out for almost three years now). It has an impressive list of bugfixes, (probably the longest up to date) in game code and scripts as well as optimization and some new features, which we are going to reveal in the future. It will be released when it is done and tested (sorry, but we won't provide any estimated release date). There will most likely be one more more beta patches you are welcome to test once they become available.
There are a lot of mentions regarding specific fixes in this patch all over this board, you can either use the "Search by Developer" feature on Craig Welburn, David Gaider, Derek French, Jonathan Epp and me to find them, or check the "developer posts archive" on nwvault.com where Mayseth tracks our written words for all eternity (ouch).
Level cap: People where complaining about the levelcap in BG and BGII and even ToB (at which point it started to get really ridiculous), and these games weren't really multiplayer friendly at all. No, a game without level cap promises endless adventure, and the higher your levelcap is, the more a powergamer will be pleased ("and then I can take this power, which will make me nearly invulnerable, and after that level, I can try to take on a god, muhahah"), I don't see a specific strong link to multiplayer here.
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, May 5, 2004 - 0:59 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Patch 1.63: Just to give you some update - the Live Team is busy killing bugs and Craig is working his way deep into the bug database, squashing some of the really ancient evil's hidden there. Whenever I reference patch 1.63 here, please understand that this always including the disclaimer "unless we encounter problems forcing us to pull this change".
Otherwise, enjoy:
1) GetDamageDealtByType() should be fixed with 1.63. We also expose "physical damage" taken in this function now.
2) EffectDispelMagicAll() and EffectDispelMagicBest() got repaired and now take caster levels into account. Wait for it in 1.63
3) GetCreatureHasTalent() has been fixed, it was linked to the wrong scripting command in the engine, producing a stack underflow when it was called. Please not that stack underflows are caused by either a game problem (like in this case) or people messing around with nwscript.nss.
4) SetSpawnInCondition( NW_FLAG_AMBIENT_ANIMATIONS ) - this is tied to the use of the creature hearbeat script to play the ambient animations which can lead to a creature's getting swamped with actions if it's stuck in other actions (i.e. complex pathfinding around too many placeables, etc). Please not that creatures spawned from encounter triggers always play ambient animations, which can accumulate to a lot of heartbeats if on servers with a lot of players on them - for these servers I would minimize the use of encounter triggers and creatures with this flag set.
5) SendForHelp(). I submitted a "proposed fix" to the Live Team a while , but I am not sure if they are going to put it in, it could trigger some ugly testing for the 3 official campaigns. If it's not in the next patch, I'd suggest using Jasperre's fix, it's fine.
6) ActionCastSpellAtObject / AtLocation() - I don't think we will change the behavior of subradial spells.
7) "There may definitely be a bug involving NPCs who have ranged weapons equipped - they seem able to see straight through EffectEthereal() on occasion, and the "bows giving players true seeing" bug has been around for quite a while." -
Fixed in 1.63 - Equipping a ranged weapon would sometimes result in a player being able to perceive objects he was not supposed to see
8) Elemental Shield (and probably Mestil's Sheath too, tho I haven't tested that one) has incorrect behaviour: it retaliates on *damage*, not on *hit*, which makes it pretty much useless apart from the 50% F/C.
- I think that behavior is intentional and unlikely to change.
9) The modification of the behavior variables in nw_i0_generic is by design - it is there to randomize behavior, we will likely never change that. The idea of those variables is not to set the behavior but instead push the creature into a certain direction regardin it's behavior. Also please not that those variables do not represent percentage values.
10) Gust of Wind - we decided to leave the spellscript alone, the spell would be completely useless if we changed it, plus, the community can easily change it for their own servers. For the official campaign, we think the current version is fine
11) nw_s0_endurce - pretty positive that this spellscript isn't fire from a player castable spell, I've been successfully making endurance potions in the OC.
As soon as I find some time, I'm to look in some of the other scripting related things here (i.e. the shout on the default spellcastat event) As for stickying this thread, there's a sticky thread about open Bugs, if Lilac or Astorax feel like it, they can cut and paste the stuff from this thread there, but we won't have an open-to-post sticky thread about this topic anymore, it will just get out of hand again with rumours and suspected bugs. Still, I find this thread here quite useful, as discussion is cut down to posting or verifying identified issues without emotion. Btw, for me, as a NWN fan, patch 1.63 surely looks like a tremendous step forward, not only from the bug fixing side, but also from the additions/changes put in to accomodate the custom content community.
Equipped items dropping: As far as I can remember, items that are equipped got never dropped (at least at some point, you needed to put a copy of them droppable in the inventory. Not sure if that has changed, it's an aweful long time since played around with that stuff in NWN.
AI:That's a low level AI change we were forced to make to make the game playable. Monster listening caused the AI to be appear intelligent, but also very very annoying. Creatures would leave their designated areas to investigate sounds, sometimes walking through the half dungeon to get to the player, setting off traps and bashing doors in the process. In the end there was no noticeable benefit on having them react on listen, as the player would seldom recognize why that horde of monsters came down on him, he would just be dead. (Compare it to Battlefield Vietnam's where bots suddenly whirl around and shoot you through trees and high grass, even if you didn't move or shoot at all.) Since it's a scripting function, there is no problem, people can just make their own version that does the right thing.
CPU Usage: I'd rather blame the general structure of mass target spells for a CPU spike. They loop over each object in a certain area, sometimes multiple times, and queue up a good number of actions (apply effects, saves, resistance checks, etc) for all off them. Note that this is nothing wrong - everything the game does will cause the CPU to be busy, and if it does it to 50 creatures instead of 1, you will start to feel a short hickup in the client (as it spawns in a lot of different visual effects, plays hit animations, etc) and the server (who has to run GetNearest and line of sight checks, which are pretty expensive, create effects, perform saving throws, and any other unholy thing a designer wanted the spell to do). If you want an example of a really bad spell, try hellball or Undeath To Death, they are the best examples of how to increase the temperature on your CPU
Romances: I think what I tried to say was more: Meeting your audiences expectations sells. If that includes sex (or a certain level of naked skin), sure. But, at least for rpgs, you can't reduce it to the formula: "put in a lot of naked skin, sell a lot of copies", as our audience includes male, females and a lot of different age groups (and I seriously doubt the blonde half naked damsel in distress on the cover would sell the game to the Ladies of Neverwinter).
Further:
Interesting discussion, and I have to say, I'm happy it has not yet degraded into the usual puritans vs. liberals bashing that would cause us to lock the thread down. Let me throw in a few random observations, but please keep in mind I'm not a writer, someone like Dave certainly has a lot more insight into "your average gamers mind":
Our games usually have romances in the main storyline, and that means that the main NPCs, usually henchmen, are romance interests. Fantasy games live from the fairy tale style princess alongside the shining hero, at least for a good part of the male audience. One could argue that the majority the male audience tends to go by visuals, so the nonstandard princess thing will cause trouble with them.
Examples:
------------
- A lot of (male) players didn't like (mildly put) Bastila and my impression is that this partly is because she is portrayed a dominating and strong character. While that's a nice trait for evil NPCs (Viconia), it doesn't work out for a "good guy". Why? *I* think because that part of the (male) audience wants to play the shiny (or evil) hero who is in control of his world, Bastila doesn't fit there too well (*).
- and there is Carth. He's a big hit with the girls (as is Valen) - (Shayna can certainly shed some light here), while most male gamers complain about him being "whiny", "talking to much" and "weak". Coincidence? I don't think so (as Dave wrote them as main female romance interest).
Since we are doing roleplaying games, we are in the fortunate position of being able to create characters with depth (as opposed to your usual beach volleyball game) and thus our games usually have NPCs that do not fit into the stereotypical fantasy roles as well, but,and that's my point, even we would get in trouble if we completely ignore the expectations of your audience (**), and that's why you will always see certain characters in fantasy games i.e. Minsk, the half naked and not too bright barbarian, or beautiful warrior princess Aribeth.
I'm not saying that you can't be creative and make very different and interesting characters, even as romance interests, but I think that you are going on dangerous terrain if you ignore what a large part of your audience expects from you. There's a reason why many young (male, single) adults [i.e. the people who buy a lot of video games] have posters of beautiful, even "overdone" females on the walls of their room and not posters "normal" girls, and if you want to appeal to those people, you have to play along. But thankfully our games don't rely on a half naked character on the package to be distinguished from other games of the same genre, and thankfully our games are made to appeal to many audiences, not just the average young/male/single video gamer, right Shayna? .
And please remember that we are talking about just one ingredient of many for a successful fantasy game here. It wouldn't have made any difference for you here if we had put Aribeth instead of the cool eye on the cover of the NWN box, you would most likely still be here, be it for the toolset, for the story, for the D&D logo or for the BioWare logo. But if we had limited the ability to dress your character in a stereotypical fashion in the game (i.e. sorry, you need to wear that t-shirt, regardless if you are a barbarian or not), that would have pissed a lot of people off...Personally, I don't see the big deal here. Yes, of our future games will likely have beautiful female characters, and some of those characters will be placed prominently on our webpage or advertisements, as they appeal to a large part of the male audience, but I can not see the harm here, especially since we can proudly say that our games have so much more to offer.
I know there is a lot of "but would someone please think of the children" involved when it comes to naked skin here in north america, and things certainly have become more difficult in the last years (i.e. you can not do the kind of romance conclusion we had in the BG games today , even if the definition for the T(een) rating itself hasn't changed), but all this will not change the world. Advertisements will not magically use "normal" people in TV spots and car magazines will not magically have chickens instead of chicks sitting on cars on the cover. Some things never change...
Post Comments (0)
SP Happenings #48
Posted Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - 23:12 CET by Sorcerer
To say that the past week had been eventful would be a bit of an understatement. The first big news was Interplay's complete relinquishment of all D&D game titles and rights, followed by the removal of any mention of all published D&D games from the official catalogue on their website. What is actually going on behind the scenes at Interplay is still somewhat shrouded in mystery, but one thing is painfully obvious - Interplay is in very serious trouble. As far as D&D gamers are concerned, it is dead already. Whether Interplay will manage to remain afloat (or, better put, for how long), and in what shape, is anybody's guess. Certainly the leadership's incompetence is not doing it any favours. We will just have to have to wait and see how this drama plays out.
Coincidentally, right after the near-death of Interplay came another interesting piece of news. A real-time strategy game set in WoTC's new Eberron D&D setting is on schedule to be released in 2005. Developed by Liquid Entertainment under Atari's wing, it is quite obvious that while Interplay is finished with D&D games, Atari has merely begun to warm up. Since there practically haven't been any PC D&D games that wouldn't be RPGs, the title is bound to spark a lot of debate before (and after) the release. SP will, of course, be keeping tabs on it all.
Now, as far as the new site redesign goes, I haven't managed to make much progress this week, but due to circumstances beyond my control. I've had my primary hard drive replaced, which took a lot of preparation to back everything up from the old drive, and time to install everything back again on the new drive. Twice. I won't bother you with details, but suffice it to say, I lost nearly 4 days on this wretched exercise. Luckily, with two decently sized hard drives, I won't have to worry about the lack of space any more for quite some time.
Incidentally, with all the reinstalling I've had to do, I chanced upon a completely free virus scanner named avast!, which I recommend to everyone. With all the viruses spreading around these days, you really can't afford not to have decent virus protection on your PC. And when it's completely free (to use the avast! 4 Home Edition they only require you to make a free registration in 30 days, and then issue you a registration code valid for 14 months, freely renewable), you have no excuse not to download and install it. Previously I've been using McAfee VirusScan, and during my experience with avast! over the last 5 days or so, I have noticed avast! to be as good (if not better) at catching and blocking viruses, but much more configurable and drastically less system resource-taxing. I know it sounds too good to be true, but I really can't think of a single complaint over this software. If only all anti-virus companies had the conscience to offer free downloads of their programs for non-commercial use, we'd have to worry about viruses far less than we are forced to now.
Post Comments (0)
More on Interplay's Gone Games
Posted Monday, May 3, 2004 - 22:54 CET by chevalier
The disappearance of all D&D titles from Interplay's pages has had quite an impact on the community. Here's what they speculate at Winterwind forums:
My best guess is that is was part of the Atari deal regarding the D&D licence. It does seem a strange thing to be doing, the back catalogue does provide some money. Games can be republished in budget, classic and boxset formats etc. Maybe Atari have purchase the back catalogue of old D&D titles, so they can use these with future D&D titles they produce. They will have known of IPLY cash problems so a small offer might have got the lot.
Also no BGDAII in the IPLY store, now not selling your own top selling title.......
Further:
Iply can no longer sell ANY D&D products (IWD, BG). What is on the shelves is all that is left until a cash dispute with IP/Atari/Vivendi can be worked out. Iply will no longer recieve any cash from Vivendi till this gets worked out. It would seem Iply failed to pay someone on tim, I believe Atari, but I am not sure on details.
Read the whole thing at Winterwind.
Post Comments (1)
Dungeons & Dragons Real-Time Strategy
Posted Monday, May 3, 2004 - 14:37 CET by Sorcerer
As hinted a few weeks ago by the Atari PR, in the future we'll be seeing D&D taken where it's never been taken before in PC games. For starters, into a real-time strategy game set in WoTC's new Eberron D&D setting. Liquid Entertainment and Atari are preparing to unveil the all-new fantasy epic shortly. Here is a snippet of GameSpy's early report on it:
From a gameplay standpoint, the Dungeons & Dragons RTS (yes, it doesn't have a name yet) will explore multiple levels of combat. You'll be able to fight your enemy on the main map, as well as under the map in a whole subterranean dungeon network. The fiction has it that an immense sunken city, destroyed long ago, lurks under the surface. Parts of the city still reach up to the ground level. You might see a spire sticking out of the ground that you can break into, opening up a stairway into the city ruins below. Or, you might see the top of a dome that you can shatter, sending your flying creatures within to attack a massive underground temple. Can't reach your enemy on the surface? Tunnel under his village and attack him from behind!
Read the rest here.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Gives up All D&D Games
Posted Sunday, May 2, 2004 - 16:14 CET by chevalier
Not only Baldur's Gate for the PC, not even the totality of Baldur's Gate franchise, but all Dungeons and Dragons games have been removed from Interplay's game catalogue and online store with no explanation whatsoever. Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate saga and Icewind Dale saga are gone. Guess these would be the Herve Caen's alternative strategies. Here's what they say at No Mutants Allowed:
Something is up. The Dungeon and Dragon games, including the new Dark Alliance II title, are gone from the Interplay website. They are no longer listed in the A-Z Games list or in the Interplay web store. The game review links also dissapeared from the front page. Maybe Caen's nightmare scenario of losing the rights to publish Dark Alliance came true? There is no confirmation on this and no official statement has been issued about the dissapearance of those titles.
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed and see Interplay's list of games without any of their D&D titles. So, where does that leave all the D&D games released by Interplay? As far as we can tell, dead, just like Planescape: Torment. Once the currently available stock sells out, they will not get re-released. That is, until Interplay finally drops dead and someone buys the game rights off them...
Post Comments (0)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 23:24 CET by chevalier
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
David Gaider, Designer
PW:
Quote: Can we get a number on how many complaints it will take beore Bioware CONSIDERS changing its focus to PW type of play?
It won't.
Quote: It took a while for Bioware to come around on the camera angles, skyboxes and robes after SOO MNAY people were screaming for it, this seems no different.
The difference is that we wanted to do skyboxes and robes but didn't have the resources before. As for camera angles, we did that not only because it was popular but because the hack kept breaking the updates, which was annoying. "Complaints" are not the only factor.
Quote: How about just acknowledging that they are more popular than you thought?
How do you know what we thought? We just weren't interested in focusing on that. NWN was spread pretty thin, design-wise, as it was... sorry, but it will never be all things to all people. At any rate, it's always going to be a tiny market that's interested in something like a PW-maker... believing otherwise is deluding yourself. We're talking about a sub-section of the multiplayer market, which is already a minority.
Further:
Quote: DG, PWs are a tiny fraction of the game as a whole, if you count single player. Granted. However, read the module descripts on Gamespy. Check out what percentage of 10+ pop servers are PWs. All of them are. You'll find you are mistaken in your assessment of the PW multiplayer market, as the overwhelming majority of online traffic is PW traffic.
And? 100% of the current NWN online traffic could be PW-related and we still wouldn't be interested in creating a PW-maker with those numbers.
More on PW: Yea, that's not even apples and oranges, that's apples and cars. Regardless, I'm going to give you an answer on it, just to put the whole topic to an eternal rest.
a) The rpg segment has a significantly lower market share than FPS / Action games
a) Halflife / Counterstrike / FPS have nothing to do with the world PW. They are multiplayer games and they are moddable, that's about anything these games have in common with NWN.
b) Counterstrike was successful because it's design struck a nerve with the player's of that genre. Yes, without Valve making it moddable this would not have happened, but given that there are also quite a lot of crappy mods with HL, it's safe to say that making a game moddable alone is not the key to unlimited sales.
c) The games you have listed provide 1% persistence and 2.5% world.
d) The tools provided with the games you list are professional level tools, many of them pretty rough and completely unuseable for the casual user. Also they are far more powerful than the NWN toolset in terms of what can be done, and the price for that is that a normal person is not able to use them.
e) All the "reasons" you list above don't apply to PWs at all. You point out that a "killer mod" can significantly increase the sales of your game - for us that could be DLA, CODI - nothing indicates that a PW toolkit would have that potentional at all.
f) 90% done - Yea, sure ... NWN is one of the games that is never done. You could endlessly add features. But just to include all the things you would need to make a true PW, you could spend years. From the "bang for the buck" point of view, fixing old bugs or adding new content is a better allocation of resources.
I know it's hard to believe that there is "no siginficant market" for PWs if everything you do is playing on PWs, but keep in mind:
- The far majority of sales on NWN are singleplayer only, people who never ever even joined one multiplayer game.
- The "most popular" server statistics is deceiving:
a) PW servers by default have a longer uptime than the standard NWN mod that is run for a session...
b) PW servers by default have the most players, of course, again the standard module where you run a session with your friends or DM's won't show up in that list
- People you meet here on the boards are more likely to be heavily involved in the online/pw community. The people activly posting here represent a small (not representative) but very visible/vocal part of the NWN community.
These things might give you a twisted view on the harsh reality that is out there: Games cost millions to make and you need to sell a certain amount of copies to stay in business. There is no justification to put any significant development resources into something with such a minor market share as the "I want to build my own PW" community. You need as many resources as possible to get the core game right. And finally there is one other little detail - Bioware tends to make good games because people here want to make exactly that kind of game and they are committed to bringing their ideas to life:
When deciding on a new game, it's a lot of "what kind of game would be cool, interesting and challenging to make", "will game X reflect the things that make a 'bioware game' special"?, "what do we want to do in game X to make it worthwile spending the next Y years of our lifes working on it", and only some "is this going to make us rich and famous and ready to take over the world", which means that if we find an idea to be boring/unchallenging/un-bioware, we won't do it, regardless if it looks commercially viable or not, because it would suck to work several years on something you don't really believe in.
Bottonline:
There's a 100% PW toolkit out there, it's called C++, please bury the idea of BioWare doing a PW toolkit within the next 10 years.
Further:
Quote: This whole thread is a crock, and this line Bioware is giving us is a crock. The fact of the matter is, the ONLY reason NWN sold half as much as it did, was because of the online DM aspect of the game.
I'm not sure what you are saying in this thread either. Who is getting the "crock"? Checking through it so far we only had the clarification that Bioware is not interested in creating a PW game. Why you are suddenly coming with the DM client and the overall online component makes no sense for me. Nobody is questioning the impact of the toolset and online components had on NWN - after all they were part of the original design. (It's far from "half the success" however, probably only around 15% of all sold NWN copies have been used at least once in an online game, and less than 5% for frequent online sessions)
Quote: Bioware's argument: NWN was really expensive to develop, and the development cycle ate up all the profits. Therefore we aren't going to do it again. Even though it sold well, we can make a lot more loot making single player games, and being done with them, rather than incurring the huge support costs we generated from creating such a huge NWN community. We only care about making money, (we are a company after all) not creating a long lived vibrant online community (cause you don;t make money doing that).
Could you point me to the place where we said that? What we said is that there is no significant market for a PW maker period and that we have interest in creating one. No reason for Dave to address these "issues" as you made them up. You are the person that didn't read through anything here.
Yes, NWNs online, toolset and DM components as well as the Live Team definitly have a measurable impact on the sales of the game, more on the sales of the expansion packs - but that's why these components have been put in the game in the first place and why we keept improving them. So - just because you only bought the game to play online on PWs, this doesn't mean this is true for the rest of the world. Good thing is that we have very accurate numbers on this stuff and can use it to make educated decisions for the future instead of making guesses.
Quote: This time, I really want to be ignored, or blasted. Not secret option #3, of neither ignoring or blasting me.
Yea, the dreaded unwanted child corner again. It's actually a good argument Dave could bring to the next meeting about our secret PC game. Maybe he can suggest to put limits into the next engine to prevent people from doing things that are not "officially supported" - would surely decimate the troll population here.... but on the other hand that would damage the 99% of the community who understand the meaning of "not officially supported but we are not hindering you either".
Performance graphs:
Still need to someone who remembers the exact color codes, but a bit I remember:
a) The really long green bar in the middle is the graphics engine - you can cut it down by using less different models, less creatures, etc, but it's always taking up the most
b) The scripting bar (red? not sure) can be identified easily when you have a heartbeat script, it will jump every 6 seconds. It's located below the graphics bar.
c) The small one above the green (blue?) is disk access time I think.
If I find someone who can look at the code and figure out what each color means, I'll update you. As for variables and their exact impact when using different storage models, etc, you need a programmer to answer that.
Scripting fixes: As for your question. Since patch 1.59+, all non campaign specific HotU scripts (read: all scripts not in the campaign modules) are included even in a standard NWN installation. So you can open, modify and save them in your module, even if you have only NWN. This is necessary to allow people using HotU functionality on your server, even if don't have HotU yourself. Not entirely on topic, but to give you a heads up:
Since patch 1.63 is going to include HELLOFALOT bugfixes, there will be changes to several include files and bioware default scripts (i.e. the nw_c2_*) scripts, which means if you override those scripts in your module, you will have to manually patch those files.
Rejoin & healing: My suspicion is (and I'm guessing here, as this happened way before I joined Bioware) that this feature (restoring spells) was supposed to go in the game at some point but it caused trouble or was perceived as unneccessary and was cut before the game shipped. I think the healing stuff is done intentionally to make the game more accessible. Since it was a concious decision not to put the code into the game, this is definitly rated "feature", not "bug", naturally lowering it's priority.
The fact that HP/SPELLS are saved in the character file alone does not make it easy to put this feature into the game however. If you join a different server or a new game, you expect your character to be fully healed and rested - everything else would be conceived not user friendly and we would not risk relying on module builders to heal players on enter. My personal opinion is that the healing stuff / spells should be tied to the difficulty system and that on HARDCORE+ difficulty you should not be healed/restored upon rejoining the (same) server with the same game in progress. So what is the chance of seeing this feature integrated:
- Almost certainly not with 1.63
- As for after 1.63, in case our Digital Distribution project gets all required approvals and takes off, the Live Team will probably continue to have a programmer permanently associated to NWN, so chances for this particular feature to be put into the games are there (and since it affects all multiplayer games, not just PWs, chances are significantly better than if it would be a PW only feature request).
- There is no guarantee this feature will ever make it into the game
- There is no definite "no, we will never do that" either.
I hope this puts the topic back on track and reopens discussion more toward proposed solutions and scripted workarounds.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Areas:
However think about tis:
An area is rarely empty and rarely consists of just tileset geometry - there are creatures, placeables, triggers, etc. Empty areas (no player there) cause significantly less CPU load on your machine - unless you put lots of AI_LEVEL_HIGH + creatures into them, but they still process their update routines every once in a while. If you have 300 areas, chances that you are asking more of NWN that it is designed to do are pretty good. It won't artifically prevent you from doing so. As I explained in other threads on this board - we have very low priority on investigating issues that arise in huge module setups "100's of Areas, 100 meg module size at all" unless the issue can be experienced in a more conventional setting (10's of areas, 10-30 Meg) module size. That's not because we hate PWs or don't believe you that there is a issue - it's because you are using the game in a way we did not intend it to be used. Try cutting down the module to 30 areas and see if the problem still persists. If it does, we probably could justify allocating time to look into a bug report.
I've seen a couple of reports where a module got corrupted and caused weird behavior in the game, you might want to try exporting all resources into a new module and see if there is a change.
Quote: I know you're not exclusively focused on PWs.
Err no, I think we've made it pretty clear that we are not focused on PWs at all. We are not going to artifically hinder PW development and we are usually at least discussing the impact of certain decisions on PW and sometimes features get added/removed (i.e. "customize character" in server vault settings) because they benefit/hurt the PW community, but that's a far way from even being called "focused".
I am impressed with the solutions (i.e. NWNX2), hacks and tweaks the community came up to make NWN work on a scope it was not designed for and I'm all for evaluating and adding features that benefit this part of the community like any other (module builders, custom content creators, total conversions), but don't expect significant changes to how the game works or it handles really big modules(tm), that's unlikely to happen. As mentioned in the "wishlist" thread, we'll investigate things like reserved DM slots for a possible future patch, as they help a lot of servers out there - but even investigating something that only happens with really big modules(tm), way outside of NWNs scope, and in addition only on Linux servers, seems not to be the best way of spending your precious life team zots. May sound harsh, but that's the way it works.
Further:
You need to be more careful. Just "DelayCommands are bad" is plain wrong. DelayCommand, as any other scripting command, is just fine when used correctly. As for placeables, our internal rule was no more than two per tile in the area (but depending on area size, on 16x16 I would not exceed 1 per tile, on 4x4 it can be 3 or 4, if you place them well). And of course keep the areasize capped at 16x16 - 16x16 is a lot and should only be used if you really can't design around it. The smaller your areas.
Eyeball:
- Freezing paralyzes the enemy for a short amount of time if he fails as Save against DC10+ (Eyeball Hit dice/3)
- The eye balls fire bolt has a chance to knock down the enemy on a critical hit if he fails a save at DC 10+ (Eyeball Hit Dice /3)
- The eye ball inflict wounds bolt has a chance of slowing down the enemy on a critical hit if he fails a save at DC 10+ (Eyeball Hit Dice /3)
In any case there is no saving throw against the normal damage of the attack, the eyeball just has to hit a ranged touch attack (after all, he just has to throw an eye on you : )
If all the spells it has are used up (and that's more than any mage would have at higher level), he will switch to weapon finesse mode and engage melee
BioWare and PW:
What I said in this thread, and if you read through it again, that should be pretty clear, was:
- If you say something is bad design because you can't use it to build a PW, you don't have a point. If you say you don't like that you have to do ugly hacks and complex scripts to overcome problems you have in your PW because of NWNs design, you don't have a point. -
The Live Team is still activly repairing, updating and adding stuff to NWN, and I would guess they are at least willing to investigate this stuff, but you need to come up with a lot better reasons than "because I don't want to use complex script to make my vision of how the game should be true in my PW", because that's nothing that will sell the idea to a producer who has to schedule time for this.
So again, if you are not prepared to take no as an answer don't post and better don't read what I write, because I'm not going to paint the world nice for you. If you interprete a "no, unlikely" as "this guy is only posting to slap us down and tell us we are not worthy", you should better ignore any thread I am posting to.
Hiding in the "BW doesn't like PW people anyway" corner and posting sarcastic statments about how the PW community is the unwanted child Bioware doesn't care about anyway is not going to help your point (and it's wrong as well). If you really think a certain feature would be beneficial to, try to find a good reason why this should be in NWN, a game that *not* a build-your-own-PW solution. We know that you PW people are out there, and we have taken this part of NWN's community into account in past discussions about changes/new features and from time to time we added stuff because it was beneficial to that part of the community, but NWNs main design focus hasn't changed in that regard, so the chances of seeing anything that involves a lot of work being added/changed just because it would help PWs are pretty slim, you need other reasons as well. And as a note (please note, this has nothing to do with "toolset", "multiplayer" or mod support, I'm talking about "PW" here):
There is NO significant market for a "build your own PW" type of game out there, at least not significant enough to hope to break even at the costs of making a Triple-A game today. It might be a nice niche for a small development company, but I wouldn't expect any of the larger game developers to come out with something like this anytime soon.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Patches: The patch files that your friend downloaded for you are the critical rebuild patches (the cadilac of NWN patches). They work just as well as the other patch files (they actually can also work if some of your game files became corrupted for some reason, which the other patch files can't do). The only drawback of the crtical rebuild patches is that they are much larger in size (which isn't a problem in your case, since you have them already burned to a CD). The critical rebuild patches, you just double click on to have them install themselves. Your friend downloaded all the critical rebuild patches for the different possible combinations of expansion packs that you may or may not have installed. Since it appears that you have both expansion packs installed, you will most likely need to run the NWNEnglish1.62HotUUpdate.exe criticall rebuild patch by double clicking on it.
Improvements: There have been some improvements made to the clearing of all actions when ever someone joins/leaves your party (although the changes probably wont address everything that all people will want). Non-hostile actions (resting, moving, etc.) will no longer be canceled when some one joins/leaves your party. Some hostile actions will no longer be canceled (although hostile actions against other players or their associates still will be). Some hostile actions against NPCs will not be canceled now, although some still may get canceled depending on the situation and timing of the attacks. The ClearAllActions that was being done on party join/leave was an intentional behavior that put in place before NWN shipped to address some other serious issues with the game. The changes that were made to address the ClearAllActions problem were intentionally very conservative changes, so that the older issues were not reintroduced. As a result, the changes probably wont address the "I stopped attacking when some one in my party lost their connection" issue for people playing on PvP/Arena servers.
Path finding:
Path finding is done on the server. Some thing that I just recently learned myself:
Tiles aren't loaded into memory on the server until they are needed. If a tile has a placeable on it then the server needs to load the tile information and hold onto it (so it knows how the place the placeable on the tile). This will cause increased RAM usage for the server and extra overhead for managing the extra objects (which in turn will put more strain on the server). The same thing essentially happens for creatures as well. If you have creatures doing random walks in all your areas, the server will have to load all the tile info for all the tiles that the creature may walk across in order to do the path finding. This is part of the reason why destroying creatures when there are no players in the area can help performance (plus the creatures don't take up time running other aspects of their AI when they don't exist).
This came up in a discussion about increasing the limit on the number of tilesets that the game can use in one module. The concern was that as you add more custom tilesets to your module (and if all of the different tiles in the areas using all those tileset have placeables/creatures in them) then the amount of RAM used by the server could grow significantly.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Still Breathing
Posted Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 23:03 CET by chevalier
It seems Interplay is not going to die within the next two months. Another company owned in part by Titus has paid back some of Iply's debt. They vow to pay all delayed salaries by May 14th, too. Here's what they say at No Mutants Allowed:
They would also be payed yesterday and that IPLY promised to catch up on the payroll no later than May 14th. They also hinted that IPLY would be in business for at least another two months
Read the rest at No Mutants Allowed.
Post Comments (0)
Interplay Facing Bankruptcy
Posted Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 0:41 CET by chevalier
Apparently, Interplay owes more than it can pay. Office space rent, taxes, license fees, salaries. It needs a mighty injection of cash, and needs it badly. Here's an excerpt:
The cash situation at the publisher has worsened to the extent that it is three months in arrears on payment of rent on its corporate headquarters in Irvine, California, and owes almost $280,000 in mix of outstanding payroll taxes and non-payment penalties for those taxes.
The company faces eviction if it cannot meet its rent commitments - and was served with notice to this extent on April 9th. It also failed to meet its payroll obligations in the middle of this month, and has cancelled the bulk of other outgoings, including "property, general liability, auto, workers compensation, fiduciary liability, and employment practices liability."
On top of this, the company has lost the rights to publish Baldurs Gate 3 and other future D&D properties, and it may lose the right to continue publishing its Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliances titles if it cannot settle a lawsuit from Atari which accuses it of failing to pay royalties on the D&D license.
Interplay is also currently in breach of a settlement agreement with Warner under which it owes the media giant some $0.32 million - and having entered into a payment plan to rectify this, is now also in default of that plan.
Read the rest at Games Industry.
Post Comments (0)