June 2003

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Troika Q&A #4 at RPGVault
Posted Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 16:54 CET by Gopher

RPGVault have posted their fourth Q&A with Troika. The interview focuses mainly on Troika Members' views on the different NPCs, or followers, that can join your party in Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's what some of their staff had to say:

Jonric: Among the characters that can join your party, are there any you'd rate as your personal favorites, and why do you like them?

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer: I really hate to provide spoilers, but some followers who join you have their own agendas for going into the temple. One particular follower (won't give away the name for sake of fun) waits until your party is severely injured and heading back to town with a large amount of funds before he turns on the party and ambushes them. Not many nice people hang out in and around the Temple of Elemental Evil; you may want to watch your back while you play.

To see what the rest of the team had to say, click here.

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Shadows of Undrentide & Original Neverwinter Nights Reviews At Gamebanshee
Posted Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 15:42 CET by Astin X

Gamebanshee has posted reviews of both Shadows of Undrentide, the first Neverwinter Nights expansion, and the original Neverwinter Nights. They have received scores of 8.6 and 8.3, respectively. Here is an excerpt from the Shadows of Undrentide review:

The game begins easily enough, and you learn you are one of four students for a Dwarven mage named Drogan. You’re given a brief idea of what sort of people your future henchmen (in this case, it would be fellow students) are like. The conversation, though, is cut short as the sounds of battle are heard below. Being faithful students, you all flock to help protect Drogan. This is where the premise of the story is laid out, as you find Drogan fighting against a large number of Kobolds. Drogan inevitably falls to the numbers, but not before they are fought off by you, your fellow students, and a Harper named Ayala. Ayala explains that artifacts placed in Drogan’s keeping had been stolen during the attack, and being Drogan’s eldest student, you are to recover them. Early in, the story establishes a plot similar to the original campaign, in the sense that you’re recovering items for the greater good (much like the collection of items for the Neverwinter plague).

Read the Shadows of Undrentide review here, and the original Neverwinter Nights review here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Friday, June 27, 2003 - 19:54 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Which prestige class included in the first Neverwinter Nights expansion Shadows of Undrentide excites you the most?
(302 votes total)

Arcane Archer (77) 25%
Assassin (59) 20%
Shadowdancer (59) 20%
Blackguard (48) 16%
None of them (34) 11%
Harper Scout (25) 8%

Obviously the most popular Shadows of Undrentide prestige class is the Arcane Archer, which has excited a quarter of people who voted (25%).

Second in popularity is the Assassin with 20% of votes. However, exactly the same amount of votes (20%) was received by the Shadowdancer prestige class as well.

Blackguard also has fans, 16% of whom are excited to be able to take the prestige class in Shadows of Undrentide.

11% of poll participants are not excited by any of the prestige classes SoU has to offer.

Finally, Harper Scout, the one prestige class which could actually be considered to have some decent roleplay value in NWN/SoU, got a grand total of 8% of people's votes, least of all.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Review at Games Domain
Posted Friday, June 27, 2003 - 18:11 CET by Astin X

Games Domain has posted a review of Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. It has been given a rating of 3 out of 5 symbols. Here is an excerpt:

The writing is improved, infusing some decent self-referential and deprecating humour throughout, though a few jokes are clunkers. Some might fell, however, that there's a bit too much writing to wade through, too many people to talk to, and many of the quests do involve irritating "step and fetch and then return" missions. The result is a tighter campaign overall, and it offers some interesting twists. All told, the adventure is shorter than NWN's original plot, but it's an interesting enough tale, showcasing the new content the expansion offers, to merit purchase for fans sick of sorting through the user-made dross.

Read the full review here.

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Tim Cain interviewed at UGO
Posted Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 17:29 CET by Gopher

Tim Cain, Lead Designer at Troika, the people responsible for the upcoming Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil has been interviewed at UnderGround Online. Here's an excerpt:

UGO: What challenges are inherent in sticking closely to the source material (the latest 3rd Edition rules)?

TC: D&D was designed for paper-and-pencil play, so many of the rules tend to be a little awkward for a CRPG, especially the ones that require constant input from the player. For example, having to specify a dodge target every round is fun in PnP, but tedious in a computer game. Similarly, having the computer stop the game every time a potential attack of opportunity arises to ask if the player wants to take advantage of it was, quite frankly, annoying. So we had to find a way to implement such rules in a way that was close to the spirit of the PnP game but still fun and exciting for a computer game. Trust me, this led to MANY discussions (and some arguments) over the best way to handle this disparity. But the result was a computer game that is faithful to the rules and very fun to play in its own right.

Head over here now to check it out.

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Shadows of Undrentide on Linux
Posted Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 17:22 CET by Gopher

Bioware has announced that they've released instructions on their NWN Linux page, explaining how to get SoU working on Linux. Great news for all you Linux users out there!

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SP Exclusive: Shadows of Undrentide Walkthrough
Posted Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 13:31 CET by Sorcerer

Sorcerer's Place is proud to present another exclusive walkthrough which should be of much assistance to those stuck in the first Neverwinter Nights expansion, Shadows of Undrentide. The walkthrough is already complete, but the author (JohnnyRTFM) will, of course, be updating it with user input and more information as he replays the expansion.

Grab the latest version here!

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 12:34 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Blackguard Wallpaper
A new Shadows of Undrentide wallpaper has been added to the wallpaper gallery. This new desktop features the Blackguard and Basilisk imagery used on the Shadows of Undrentide site, and is available in several sizes. Discuss.

Role-Players Guide to Multiplayer NWN
Community Member Gruush has created the ultimate document for both new players and experienced veterans looking for helpful tips on how to bring their game up a notch or two. Read more in this profile of Gruush. Discuss.

Shadows of Undrentide NPCs
As you journey through Shadows of Undrentide, you will encounter many new and interesting characters - several of them are now profiled here on the NPC profiles page. Discuss.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 20:33 CET by Veldrin

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

Mark Brockington, Lead Research Scientist

Feats: You won't have Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting in your list, even at first level. They're both listed under "Dual Wield". Note that by choosing the Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon feats, you can use them in ANY armour, not just in light or no armour. To prevent people from taking the same feat twice unwittingly, you don't get Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting as options when leveling up as a ranger (they're not in the ranger's "feats to choose" list, but are in every other class, including the Arcane Archer)

Firing Into Melee: Since we're speculating ... how about that we're very busy trying to get 1.31 ready? We don't have time to respond to all of the threads. Precise Shot was cut from the game before Alpha (it was feat #432), but we forgot to cut its counterbalancing feature ... the Firing Into Melee penalty. The Firing Into Melee penalty was removed today, and look for the fix in 1.31.

In some rare instances, the Firing Into Melee penalty is being applied when the target is not apparently in melee. Furthermore, the Firing Into Melee penalty is not being applied in some cases when the target is in melee! That's the reason we are cutting Firing Into Melee instead of un-cutting Precise Shot.... and that's all I'm going to say on this thread.

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Ken Troop Q&A at Silven Crossroads
Posted Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 20:01 CET by Veldrin

Silven Crossroads has posted a quick Q&A with Ken Troop, Lead Designer at Turbine. He answers a few questions about the up and coming Dungeons & Dragons Online. Here's a clip:

Q3: What can you tell us about dungeon adventuring in D&D Online?

Ken Troop: Dungeon exploration is the central theme of adventuring in Dungeons and Dragons, and we want to make sure we do it justice in D&D Online. These dungeons are built on the premise of, “Only the wary shall survive.” They are scary, malicious places, full of tricks, traps and monsters. The deeper you go, the more frightening it gets. Proper planning will be a priority for making it through the dungeons with your head still attached – you'll need to prepare a strategy, keep on your toes and work well with your adventuring party if you want to emerge victorious at the end.

Check out the whole thing here.

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SP Happenings #3
Posted Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 12:36 CET by Sorcerer

A week rolls by so quickly it makes my head spin. In terms of SP happenings it was a pretty quiet week. Mollusken (our head news poster) is having some problems with his computer so Gopher and Veldrin will be covering the daily news for a while. I have quite a pile of content contributions sitting here so when I finally get the next site update up (sometime next week), there will be a lot to see. And download.

I'm still looking for a programmer interested in helping with a SP-related task. It would involve writing a program which would run on a Linux platform and have a web interface, but otherwise would not be very complex. Anyone interested can drop me an ICQ message at UIN 1508832, e-mail me, or talk to me in the chatroom.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Review at ActionTrip
Posted Monday, June 23, 2003 - 22:11 CET by Veldrin

ActionTrip have posted a review of Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. They gave it a final grade of 85%. Here's a clip of what they had to say:

Still, as before, there's an amazing variety of solid eye candy in the game; for instance, you'll see some impressive lighting effects and a real outburst of color, caused by several new spells. So, it's always fun to waste your opponents with devastating new magic and watch them shrivel into oblivion. The art and character animations were done splendidly, which was also a distinguishing feature of Neverwinter Nights. The sounds may not be much of an improvement over the original game, but there's quite enough cool new music, expert voice acting, and a variety of new sounds coming from monsters and NPC's.

You can check out the whole thing here.

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Tim Cain Q&A by Gamers Pulse
Posted Sunday, June 22, 2003 - 1:47 CET by Gopher

Gamers Pulse has conducted a short Q&A with Tim Cain, Lead Designer at Troika, who gives several insights into the scope of their Greyhawk project. Here is a short excerpt, discussing the several different endings in Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil:

How many paths/endings are there in Greyhawk and how does the player’s actions affect these endings?

There are a lot of different endings, which I would categorize into five major endings with lots of variations in each one. We have prepared 50-60 end slides to explain the consequences of the player’s actions, and many of those slides have different narrations to cover variants as well.

Read the rest of it here.

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Neverwinter Nights Patch Version 1.30 Available
Posted Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 18:34 CET by Sorcerer

The newest patch for those who don't have Shadows of Undrentide (which comes with the 1.30 patch) is now available. Here is a summary of fixes:

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 18:31 CET by Veldrin

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

ShowDM: The ShowDMJoinedMessage does not work correctly in the 1.30 patch. It is fully functional internally at BioWare, and will hopefully make it into the upcoming 1.31 patch.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Glowing Eyes: The glowing eyes symbolize the monks outsider state at level 20. I think this is fixed with the next patch.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Epic Levels: Yeah, like Jay said, we really don't have any comment at this point regarding Epic Levels. We're definitely considering them, but there's a lot of work that needs to be put in to support levels beyond 20, and in the end, it'll come down to how much time we are able to spend on putting it in.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

SoU Modules: An SoU module is any module saved by the toolset after you installed SoU. The module doesn't actually have to use any SoU content in order for it to be so marked. This is because while we can determine whether or not the module explicitly references any SoU content (used tilesets, placed creatures or even used them in an encounter), we cannot validate the scripts you may write. The only possible exception is if you use the workaround described in other threads on this forum to prevent the toolset from including the SoU resources (by renaming the xp1 .key file).

David Gaider, Designer

Alignments: Chaotic does not equal evil in SoU. Don't jump to conclusions. First off, your alignment is unlikely to change if you are already performing chaotic actions. If the action is very chaotic, you might, but some minor chaotic stuff is only going to affect those who are Lawful. As far as Szaren the Red Wizard goes, the Chaotic hit you take there is situational. You get a Chaotic hit if you said you would help him and then didn't... not if you just refuse. Breaking deals, after all, is Chaotic behavior. Going to Ayala (not Katarina, whoever said that) and lying to her about the fact that you have some of the artifacts (since you obviously intend to keep them, then) is not Evil but it is Chaotic. Doing obviously unlawful actions such as stealing and breaking into homes is also Chaotic, very much so. But not evil. Conversely, you'll actually find very few real Lawful hits in the game... since being Lawful means specifically such things as keeping your word even when it is not in your best interest or actively helping law/authority.

Well, I can pretty safely say that if you're sliding towards Chaotic or Lawful, it's not because you're doing Good or Evil acts. Rarely are the two combined in a single instance, and in any case it's only going to be in a pretty clear case where an alignment hit is being applied. If we had any argument over the matter during Q&A, the hit was removed as being too ambivalent with regards to motivation. The only problem that might exist is what you consider to be Lawful or Chaotic, Good or Evil. SoU's alignment handling is pretty consistent in this regard. If you like, I can even dig up the rules we used for each (on Monday).

Item Level Restrictions: With 1.30, the ILR (Item Level Restrictions) default to Off rather than On, as they were before. You can always choose to turn it back on in the .ini file, if you like.

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10 Days of Dragonlance Adventures at NWVault
Posted Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 18:26 CET by Sorcerer

Maximus has let us know that NWVault has posted an indepth look at a large project, namely DragonLance Adventures (DLA). DLA has elected to stay out of the spotlight for the past year. Formed in the month prior to the release of NWN, DLA is monstrous, both in terms of its scope & content promised as well as in terms of its team.

At the moment you can already see two days' worth of content, and more keeps being added every day. Interviews, concept art, wallpapers, screenshots etc. can all be found here. Worth checking out.

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NWN Client for Linux Released
Posted Friday, June 20, 2003 - 18:47 CET by Gopher

The Linux Client for Neverwinter Nights is now available, and currently supports English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. Details on the various methods of installation can be found on BioWare's Linux Client page.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, June 20, 2003 - 16:44 CET by Veldrin

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

Al Schilling, Product Manager

Mac Release: 7-you're pretty close with all your guesses. Though we'd love to include SoU, we have not been able to come to an agreement that would allow us to do so. We will continue to pursue the possibility of bring SoU to Mac. Don't blame Bioware. I can't say it loudly enough-they've been fantastic through this entire process. You're guess on the ship date should be very close. Remember that every component of NWN has to pass through an approval process. There are MANY entities involved. An incorrectly placed logo on the box could cause several days delay. Price? $49.99US. We realize that we need to knock a few bucks off the original $59.99 due to the lack of the toolset. There are those who contend that the toolset is half the game and, for some people that may be true. However, for the 90%+ that would never use the toolset, this will be the best computer D&D experience they've ever had. Heck, this'll be the best D&D experience for the other 10% too.

Well see now, here we go again. If I don't tell you right now that we're not able to include SoU with the Mac version, I'll be called a liar (or worse) who withholds information in an effort to cheat Mac users. I come right out and tell you and there's already a "no SoU-no sale" movement. Fair enough. I can only say that we would really like to bring SoU to Mac. No deal is done as of now. I can't "promise" that there will be a deal. Bioware can't just say "let's do it". There are plenty of licensors involved. We'll do our best.

Release Date: MacSoft has NOT announced an official ship date for NWN. Of course, we give our distributors estimates as to when the game will ship. However, for the reasons that Derek has already outlined, these dates should not be taken as gospel. The dates you find on various distributor websites is not necessarily reflective of the estimate we give them. If you think you've got an inside scoop on the ship date, you're wrong. It has not been set.

As I stated in my previous post, the dates you read on various distributor websites may not be reflective of our estimates. I've seen several dates mentioned. Some are completely unrealistic. Most of you have had a chance to take a look at the Tech Trial. You can see that NWN Mac is very close to complete. We'll get it released as soon as we possibly can. Understand that I can't take a guess and share it with everyone. Sure as heck, if we don't make that date, we'll hear more "Macsoft intentionally mislead us.." stuff. I'm not trying to mislead, confuse, or otherwise fool anyone. As soon as we set the date-I'll post it in these forums.

David Gaider, Designer

Custom Content: I'm not an expert on animations and such... but what type of model did you assign the creature as in your .2da? There are "simple" creatures (like a bear, for instance) that only have a few animations that they can perform. If that's not it and someone else can't help you here, we can always look into it. Mind you, we'd need more info about what you've done... it's hard to give technical support when folks start mucking around with stuff.

Henchman: Actually, Rogue/Cleric and Sorcerer/Barbarian. And through dialogue you can tell your henchman to continue leveling up split like this or to concentrate on one class (so if you have need a tank, you can ask the Sorcerer/Barbarian to start solely taking Barbarian levels). There's a third henchman that comes later, too.

Yes, just a clarification: the henchmen basically have three "modes" each. The default has them splitting levels between their primary and secondary classes. Dorna splits between Cleric and Rogue evenly. Xanos takes one Barbarian level for every four Sorcerer levels. Deekin is a pure-class Bard, however. Through dialogue, you can choose to ask a henchman to focus on one or the other class after that point (with Deekin you can ask him to switch to Rogue), or to return to their default level-up method.

As for Mischa, the difficulty in adding her in with a patch (and the reason we didn't do it before) is that the SoU henchmen have a *lot* of dialogue. Open up their dialogue in the toolset and take a look. Consider that all of the NWN henchmen were written in a week... the SoU henchmen took a week each, not to mention lots of QA debugging time. I wouldn't mind writing her, myself. Not sure where I would get a spare week, though. Certainly nothing stopping someone else from doing her up as a henchman, either.

Quote: We are allegedly getting the ability to have a proper OnHit scripted event in HoTU.

99% confirmed, yep. It won't be a seperate event but likely a scriptable item property for weapons and armor. Combined with the OnPlayerEquip and OnPlayerUnEquip events, I'm sure that'll give you all plenty of wiggle room, item-wise.

Quote: Quote: AND, what! I thought Bioware said they were never going to release a game packaged like this again!! How about a damn cd case for crying out loud!

We never said anything like that, I'm sure, because the decision doesn't rest with us. No matter how much we might prefer a proper jewel case for our cd's (I hate paper sleeves, myself... blech), the final say rests with the publisher.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.30: The Live Team has been working on this issue for the last 14 days, every day, for about 14 hours a day and the results are the 1.30 Beta Update that has been around in 3 different version since Friday. Is 1.30 Live final yet? Not quite. Will it be out within the next 48 hours? Probably. Marketing has nothing to do with it and we are doing the best we can with the resources we have. Its kinda a big game, ya know?

This is not possible. A publisher will put loads of QA on a retail product, whereas they will put a much smaller amount on a game update. The 1.30 Beta has been the most solid, bug-free beta we have ever done, thanks to the fact that we are basing all the Live 1.30 off of the SoU 1.30

Quote: Are you saying that you would still be having this headach today if 1.3 had been released yesteday?

No, I am saying that if we did that, the 1.30 Beta would be very, very buggy and SoU would have been delayed in release. Since both those things are bad, we decided not to do them. Live 1.30 Beta 4 coming today. Live 1.30 final is still coming out on Friday.

SoU Online: Whew, tons of things to reply to here, so bear with me.

"Connection error: Your cd key is unauthorized."

Its not lying, but this issue has NOTHING to do with game versions. If you are having a problem with your CD Key, the owner should contact Atari Tech Support. They can find out what is wrong with the CD Key.

Quote: You are running the Beta patch. I believe you will need to have the official patch installed for SOU owners to connect (Since SOU has the official patch).

Incorrect. SoU clients can connect to the 1.30 Beta servers.

Quote: Confirmed that if you run 1.30 client (Shadows) and try to connect to a 1.29 server, you can't.

Correct. Mismatched game versions have NEVER been able to connect together. Install the 1.30 Beta 3 Update and all will be well.

Calm down. Every update we release, there are early adopters and late adopters. You will only see servers that are the exact same server as you. If you install the Live 1.30 Beta, you can all play together. Some people will do it immeadiately, others will do it later. The Final 1.30 Update for Live will be coming out on Friday. By next week, this issue will be a memory and its only a temporary issue.

Tech Trial: The Tech Trial only includes resources needed to progress normally through the Prelude.

Portrait Bug: This "issue" of a malformed portrait has been around since the game shipped. It isn't on our high priority fix list since if you make the targa correctly it will work. We will fix this, just not right now.

Database Functions: There is an issue with the database functions in the shipping version (1.30) of SoU. This issue does NOT exist in NWN Live 1.30. This issue only relates to player specific storage. Non-player specific storage is unaffected. This does not affect the SoU Campaign. This bug is fixed in Live 1.30 and in SoU 1.31, but there are consequences. Any player specific data storage made in SoU 1.30 will be broken/unreadable when the SoU 1.31 Update comes out. We are sorry for any problems that this issue might cause, but that is why we are telling you before SoU is available. Feel free to ask any questions here.

Quote: So when can we expect SoU 1.31

Unknown at this time.

Quote: or NWN Live 1.30?

Live 1.30 Beta 3 is available right now. Final should be out Friday

Item Level Restrictions: We turned ILR off in 1.30 for all versions as the changes to item values may cause this to trigger.

Requiring SoU Flag: For those of you who have the NWN: SoU expansion installed, and want to prevent your current non-SoU module from being flagged as "requiring SoU", here are two batch files you can create to activate/deactivate your SoU installation.

NWToolsetOrig.bat

@echo off
copy /y xp1.key _xp1.key
del xp1.key
start nwtoolset.exe

NWToolsetSoU.bat

@echo off
copy /y _xp1.key xp1.key
start nwtoolset.exe

Please note, that the change to the 'xp1.key' file will affect the Neverwinter Nights game as well. Please note, that the "start" command won't work for all OS's. If the batch file fails, just remove the 'start' command from the batch files. If you just want the status of the SoU install to be flipped between detected and not-detected by these two batch files, then please remove the lines for nwtoolset.exe. We will see if we can come up with a more elegant solution in a future Update.

The original plan was to not allow any option for this at all. 3 days ago, or so, we found a very hacky way for you to do this right now, without any code changes. We can find a better, and more elegant solution in the future. Would you rather have some solution right now, or no solution for a month or two and require you to maintain 2 installs of NWN?

Quote: So the mistake lies in the assumption by Bioware that everyone in the fan community would develop modules for SoU only and not legacy users as well.

That assumption was never made. Unfortunately, as of a week, the only solution we were able to offer is for you to keep 2 installs of NWN. That is why there was always a plan to offer a solution and we are doing the best we can given the circumstances.

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Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Forum Highlights
Posted Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 23:12 CET by Gopher

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

Huy Nguyen, Interface and Magic System

Quote: Will ToEE be Alt-Tab able? It bothers me when the graphics of a game I'm playing are totally corrupted after using Alt-Tab. Even worse are games that completely disable Alt-Tab

ToEE is alt-tab compatible, and i have noticed no artifacts when doing so. thank lee! ...comes in quite handy when debugging ;)

D&D Implementation: If you are fighting with two weapon but only do a single attack this round (e.g. because you were moving before), do you still get the two weapon penalty?

When wielding two weapons, if you perform a Full Attack and/or a 5' step, you attack with both weapons (and receive the appropriate penalties).

If you only do a Standard Attack (say, you did a Move action first), then you will only attack with your primary weapon (and will not receive 2 weapon penalties).

So the choice is actually between performing a Full vs Standard Attack; if you do a Full, you will always use as many attacks as you can (and now each attack is targetable, thanks to sean!).

I think you have to manually select Full Attack from the radial menu to get the individual targeting, otherwise you blow your wad on a single target.

So can you select standard attack? Or does that only come into play if you moved first?

Yep! every action you can take in the game is available from the radial menu.

Well, almost every action, i don't want to make a blanket statement even if i can't think of any exceptions off the top of my head ;)

Basically, combat works in that if you just generically left-click on things, you will perform the common default/unspecified action. so you can play combat "diablo-style" if you so choose, i.e. just left-clicking everywhere to move, attack, etc.

If you want to do more complex manuevers, or something specific, than you use the radial menu to perform your action(s).

I just rememberd I had to ask about the "time flow" because a friend of mine asked me about just that and I didn't know.

Completely turn-based. The only "exceptions" are the simultaneous turns by enemies, and the fact that you can initiate the first action of combat before combat begins. enemies can do the same if they spot you.

e.g. I spy a group of gnolls meandering. i go to the radial menu and select Fireball to cast. target the gnolls, select, and the spell is cast, and is the first action in combat.

I hope that slight distinction makes sense... of course, you can always manually start combat and get the first action, i.e. start combat, Move action the character into range, and then launch the Fireball. And yes, everyone is flat-footed until their first action in combat... sneak attack away!!

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Quote: On the quickbar, what will be able to bind (spells, special attacks, etc) and w/ what keys(numbers, function keys, etc)?

You should be able to bind any action available from the radial menu to any of the characters A-Z. There may be some other characters allowed too ([];',../) but I'm not 100% on that.

You can also map up to 8 character groups with F1-F8.

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Important Notice Concerning Shadows of Undrentide CD Keys
Posted Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 19:17 CET by Sorcerer

When you open your Shadows of Undrentide box, be sure to take note of a red piece of paper with black print. It contains your Shadows of Undrentide CD Key, which you will need to install the expansion pack. The game installer mentions that the CD Key is in the manual, but this is not the case. Register your CD Key with the BioWare Community Site (via the "My Account" section of the site) for easy retrieval, or write it somewhere you will not lose it. You will need it each time you install Shadows of Undrentide. If you did not receive this piece of paper, please consult the technical support section of your manual to contact Atari. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 17:24 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Hilltop Walkthrough
So you have just purchased Shadows of Undrentide, and would like some help with Chapter 1? Then check out our new walkthrough of Hilltop (caution spoilers!) Also available in printable format. Discuss.


Pit Fiend
While girls may be sugar and spice and everything nice, Pit Fiends are bloated and vile with boat loads of bile. One of 19 new creatures (3 of which were previously available online) added in Shadows of Undrentide, the Pit Fiend will also be available to all NWN owners in the upcoming 1.30 patch. Discuss.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 12:16 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Do you intend to buy any of the new 3.5e D&D core books? (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual.)
(229 votes total)

No, none of them (121) 53%
Maybe some or all of them; haven't decided yet (54) 24%
Yes, all of them (39) 17%
Yes, but not all of them (15) 7%

More than half of the poll participants (53%) don't intend to buy any of the new 3.5e D&D core books.

24% of those who voted are still undecided - they might buy some or all of them.

17% of poll participants are going to buy all of them, however.

Lastly, 7% of the people who voted are going to buy some of the new core books, but not all of them.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Review At Gamespy
Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 20:55 CET by Astin X

It seems that everyone is eager to review Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. Gamespy is the next to follow, rating it with a score of 84 out of 100. Here is a snippet:

When I reviewed the original Neverwinter Nights -- BioWare's first 3D role-playing game (RPG) that also allows users to create their own modules -- I made an esoteric Aristotelian analogy regarding the philosopher's stance on the old "chicken or egg" conundrum. I'll stick with a similarly abstruse theme in discussing Shadows of Undrentide, the first official expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights. Shadows of Undrentide is Carl Jung to Neverwinter Nights' Sigmund Freud. It builds and focuses on several aspects of the original while expanding the precursor's world as a whole. For those of you that dig BioWare RPGs, but aren't keen on psychologists, here's a translation: Shadows of Undrentide focuses on a few facets of Neverwinter Nights, and does them even better.

Read the full review here.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Review at IGN
Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 18:07 CET by Astin X

IGN has posted its own review of Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide and rated it 7.7, out of 10. Here is an excerpt:

Shadows of Undrentide starts you out as a powerful Dwarvish mage's apprentice, searching for the culprits behind an elaborate artifact heist. There are evil wizards who deserve a good smiting, dragons to deceive and malevolent mummies residing in deep, dark crypts just begging to be annihilated. Sure, it's a bit cliché and generic, but it works. What is more problematic is the pacing of the story and the tempo of the game. You find some relatively powerful magic items pretty in the first dungeon in the game -- at least powerful for your level -- and it's slow going from there until the end of chapter one.

Get everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Review at Gamespot
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 21:49 CET by Astin X

Gamespot has posted the first review of Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide and rated it 7.8, out of 10. Here is an excerpt:

Last year's Neverwinter Nights was BioWare's ambitious attempt to capture the open-ended nature of pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons on the PC. While the game's lengthy single-player campaign was hardly an afterthought, Neverwinter Nights' 3D engine and toolset got a lot of attention, because they were intended to allow fans to create and host their very own D&D adventures. Indeed, now there are countless free fan-made Neverwinter Nights modules available for download, but as you'd expect, their quality and size can vary wildly. Meanwhile, the first retail expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights offers much the same level of quality that fans have come to expect from BioWare's role-playing games over the years. While Shadows of Undrentide doesn't fix the shortcomings of Neverwinter Nights' Aurora engine (which isn't aging as well as BioWare's Infinity engine, which was used for five years' worth of great RPGs), this expansion features a good-sized original campaign and makes a few noteworthy additions to the gameplay of the original.

Read the rest here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 18:59 CET by Veldrin

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

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: MacSoft didn't port it at all. BioWare ported it...or so they would have us believe...

We did the code. Make no mistake about it. All blame and kudos for the Mac code rests squarely on our shoulders.

Quote: What exactly happens on the day the number reaches the big O?

SoU should be on store shelves in North America on that day. It is only limited by the individual store's shipping services.

Quote: SoU will be on the shelves in retailers worldwide?

No, the non-English versions of SoU are not gold yet, but they are very close.

Quote: SoU 1.30 patch be available as an update to NWN game owners?

SoU ships at 1.30. The first Update availabe to SoU owners will be 1.31, but there is no date for that right now.

Quote: I recently downloaded the 1.30 beta patch. I was soooo hoping that maybe we will already get some of the goodies in SoU like manageable inventory for the Henchmen.

That is an SoU-only feature. You must purchase the SoU expansion to get this feature.

Quote: From the threads I read and exchanges I have had with various devs it was said xp1/patch 1.30 would be more a feature extension then a bug fix as thats the point of a XP.

Correct, but that doesn't mean we won't fix bugs that crop up while we are developing an expansion pack, especially if they directly affect the expansion.

Quote: Now I see the patch 1.30 read me and I am VERY confused. Theres a TON of fixes that many dont seem directly related the the content in XP1.

Correct. The Live Team worked on bug fixes since the release of 1.29 for about 2 months. We were just about to release the next Update when we entered the code freeze. This action didn't mean that we lost those 2 months of work, just that the release was delayed.

Linux SoU: Linux SoU is shipping on the SoU CD. Both shell script and Loki installers are there. Thank you, and please drive through.

Quote: Hey, will there be any special install needs for SoU if the fairly standard camera

Since this is an .exe hack (and NOT a Hak Pak as some people keep saying it is) it will be overwritten by the SoU installer.

Quote: and AI haks are already installed?

The SoU installer will blow away your override directory, BUT it will ask you if the SoU installer should back it up first. Remember, that is our override directory.

Quote: MacCentral says the demo is 645 MB. Ouch. Is that after unstuffing? What is the downlolad size?

That is incorrect. The real number is 239 MB, I believe.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: To one of the Developers ... will we be able to coversate with Tymofarrar about other things then the plot. Like history or his life?

Well, it depends on how well you and Tymofarrar get along. It doesn't necessarily have to come to violence between the two of you, but you ARE an intruder and he is suspicious of you. It's not like you both got invited to High Tea and just bumped into each other then (though I will have to remember that for later use...)

Quote: About Deekin: can the kobold talk normal or does he "sssss". Talk a bit like an orc who wants to look smart. Do we also get a story why he became a bard, what his goals are .. and things like that?

Deekin has a funny-sounding voice. He doesn't go "ssss", but his voice is... unique. You'll either hate it or love it. And yes, there are lots of options to talk to Deekin about his story and goals and such. You may have problems getting Deekin to shut up rather than getting him to talk.

Quote: So I'm guessing that Tymofarrar will have his own voiceset. With lines like Aribeth had hers' etc ... Still nice touch talking with a White Dragon about things.

Oh, yes, I can confidently say that Tymofarrar is the best dragon voice we've done yet. His dialogue file is also the biggest in the game, next to the henchmen. Quite the Chatty Cathy.

Quote: And Deekin sounds like a great henchman just to have around. I personally found the ones in the NWN OC a bit dull ...

I thought their stories were pretty good, overall. I think if we'd taken out the "find an item for me and I'll tell you more of my story" element, expanded their tales and allowed them to interject in dialogue as well as comment on things on their own... if we'd done all that I think people would have a different opinion on the OC henchmen. Sadly, we just didn't get the time to do that. Fortunately, we did in SoU.

Quote: Will be something special indeed, having a little singing Kobold along

He tells limericks, too, don't forget. And when you find gold he calls dibs.

"Dibs! Deekin calls dibs!"
"You can't call dibs!"
"Deekin can, too. Deekin just did!"
"Well, forget it. I carry all the gold."
*skritch skritch* "'Suddenly the very cruel hero decided to crush the heart of his faithful kobold companion. Oh, the humanity! What had little Deekin done to deserve such base treatment?!'"
"Will you put that book away, already?"
"Well, how you expect Deekin to write epic tale of Great Hero?"
"Quietly."
*skritch skritch* "'Once again the heart of the faithful kobold companion was crushed, so uncaring was the great hero...'"
"Stop that!"
"Deekin just tells truth."
"Well how about Deekin scouts around the corner?"
*skritch skritch* "'Heart broken, the faithful kobold companion was now sent away from his Master, sent into the depths of the deadly dungeon to be snapped up in the jaws of lurking horrors like the crunchy breakfast snack that he was...'"
"*sigh* Never mind. I'll do it."
"You is a good Master! You treats Deekin so well!"

Alignments: If you really must know, the henchman alignments are (IIRC):

Deekin - Chaotic Good
Dorna - True Neutral
Xanos - Chaotic Neutral

Quote: Mark it up-let them haggle you back down to normal then throw in something useless for a "good" price.

Or haggle them up in price and then ask them if they have that much gold on hand, like you don't believe it. When they say yes, they do, knock them unconscious and take it. Really, with Him it's all good.

Portraits: As far as portraits go, our experience has been that the number of them we do is largely irrelevant... there will still never be enough to satisfy everyone. We could include, say, three portraits that we think should satisfy for monks... and there is certain to be a thread eventually that goes "What?! NO MONK PORTRAITS?!". After all... what does a monk look like? How about a paladin? How about a rogue? Yes, yes, I'm sure you all have ideas... and that's the point, because they'll all be different. Now, I agree that putting in custom portraits could be easier (it's my understanding that the Live Team is looking at that for the near future), but insofar as tsk tsking us for not including race X/class Y/alignment Z -type portraits (or your particular slant thereof)... I'm afraid there's probably not much we can do about that, sorry.

Tanar'ri: Balor are tanar'ri, as are succubi. And I believe the ability to summon succubi is right out of the book (though it could be a 2nd edition ability carry-over... not so sure on that point). Why did they give Balors the ability to summon succubi? Not really sure. Ask them. I suppose technically they could probably summon incubi, as well, if you wanted to be fair.

Quote: According to the d&d 3rd edition rules:

"Summon Tanar'ri (Sp): Once per day a balor can automatically summon 4d10 dretches, 1d4 hexrous, or one nalfeshnee, glabrezu, marilith, or balor."

Aahhhhh. Then it's a holdover. As I recall, the Planescape compendium said Balors could summon a succubus. Or was it a succubus could summon a Balor? Hmmm... now I guess I have to go and look. As for why the Pit Fiend was summoning a succubus in the video? Good question. It's probably using a Balor's summoning power. Not very exact, but then again we don't exactly have a wide selection of baatezu at the present, either, so I guess you could just pretend it's an Erinye. Oo! When HotU comes, though, your Pit Fiend really *will* be able to summon an Erinye. No, I doubt we'll have an Erinye as a creature... but you'll see what I mean.

Beardless Dwarves: Actually, if you're curious about Dorna's beardless status, the subject actually can come up when you talk to her in-game. There's a reason why she isn't "traditional" in this respect (and why many female dwarves that leave dwarven lands also eschew that custom).

Medusa: No, she does have snakes on her head... and that kinda orangey scaly skin as per the 3rd edition picture. The snakes are not animated, though.

Quote: Were oozes and the like discussed and played with during the development phase of nwn or were they just axed right off the bat?

They were probably discussed, but there are only so many creatures that we have art time to develop. Like other sorts of models that require special consideration, they will always be the first to be put on the back-burner if there are others we can do first.

Quote: I am just a bit perplexed how a basic monster such as this would not be taken into consideration when building the game engine.

Is this a basic monster? Everyone has a different opinion on which creatures are more important than others... how important are slimes and jellies, relatively? More important than kobolds? Those weren't in the original NWN. More important than hobgoblins and manticores? Those just got added. More important than beholders and mind flayers? Those haven't even been done yet. So we're working on it. If an easier way to do them is dicovered that isn't too time-intensive and it looks good, we may see them yet, who knows?

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SP Happenings #2
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 17:07 CET by Sorcerer

Nothing much has happened around SP since the last SP Happenings. The only major news item till next week will probably be tomorrow's release of Shadows of Undrentide, the first Neverwinter Nights expansion. Since there were practically no decent, free walkthroughs made for the original game, Slappy will be making an online one for SP, so keep an eye out for that if you get stuck playing SoU. We will, of course, be posting links to the gazillion sites which will be posting SoU reviews here on the front page.

My last week's pet peeve has finally been resolved, so time is ticking properly on the server now, and self-correcting if needed. It might seem trivial to worry about time so much, but many things on the server depend on the time being correct. Most notably the message boards, where people start PMing me when they see the time on their posts 5 hours behind the time when they posted... And if a day's worth of time gets lost and is corrected (something which happened to us once), all hell breaks loose on the boards.

Incidentally, if there are any programmers out there reading this, I could use some help with a SP-related task. It would involve writing a program which would run on a Linux platform and have a web interface, but otherwise would not be very complex. Anyone interested can drop me an ICQ message at UIN 1508832, e-mail me, or talk to me in the chatroom.

Next site update is still on the schedule for start of July.

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1 Day till Shadows of Undrentide Hits Stores
Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2003 - 11:51 CET by Sorcerer

Here is the image you can see on various pages of the BioWare site:

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Neverwinter Nights 1.30 Patch Beta 2
Posted Monday, June 16, 2003 - 21:59 CET by Mollusken

BioWare have released the second beta version of the 1.30 patch for Neverwinter Nights. You can get it here, and here's the list of fixes:

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Shadows of Undrentide NPCs at GameSpy
Posted Sunday, June 15, 2003 - 19:23 CET by Mollusken

GameSpy have posted profiles on some of the NPCs we can expect to meet in Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide.

Xanos

There are not many half-orcs who become sorcerers ... and if Xanos Messarmos has his way, he will be one of the few, as well as one of the most powerful and successful. Xanos came to Drogan's school seeking one thing, and one thing only: a future laden with gold and adventure. It's quite obvious that he does not seek to do so with a sorcerer's usual charm, either. Xanos gets along poorly with his fellow students, being both arrogant and selfish. He has little tolerance for the slow of mind or weak of will, and claims not to care what others think of him ... yet spends a lot of time making sure others note his intelligence and power. If Xanos does good during his future as an adventurer, as Drogan must hope, it will surely be accidental.

Get everything here.

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Shadow of Undrentide Interview at GameSpy
Posted Sunday, June 15, 2003 - 19:20 CET by Mollusken

GameSpy have posted an interview with the joint CEOs of BioWare, Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka.

What does Shadows of Undrentide mean for the considerable Neverwinter Nights community on the Internet?

Ray: We wanted to support our community. In the beginning, when we started Neverwinter Nights, one of our goals was to build a vibrant role-playing community on the Internet. Neverwinter did go online, and certainly the expansion packs are designed to help the community grow and provide more content tools, background tiles, new monsters, and new storylines for people to play though. Hopefully, this will make things even better than the original Neverwinter Nights game in terms of storyline and provide a lot of tools for people to use to continue to make the world even bigger.

Greg: Yes, it's actually quite mind-blowing how much stuff there is out in the world of Neverwinter when you go on the 'net and check some of the fansites. There is new content, models, tilesets, and more modules made by fans posted every single day. Some days there are lots of them, not just one or two pieces, but ten to fifty things. It's actually kind of funny; in a sense it's a well-kept secret that some people don't realize. I don't know how it couldn't be the biggest mod community out there -- the volume of stuff is unbelievable. The breath of D&D that's been converted to digital format for Neverwinter is astounding.

Read everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Trailer At IGN
Posted Saturday, June 14, 2003 - 12:21 CET by Astin X

IGN has posted a new trailer, showing off Floodgate Entertainment and Bioware's work from the upcoming Neverwinter Nights expansion. The trailer apparently offers just under 10 minutes of in-game footage, and is about 135 mb in size.

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Greyhawk Developer Journal Part 3 at RPG Vault
Posted Friday, June 13, 2003 - 18:45 CET by Mollusken

RPG Vault have posted the third part of their Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil developer journals, written by project leader Tim Cain from Troika Games.

Party alignment is a new alignment restriction that we have created at the level of the character party. When you start a new game in ToEE, you must select a party alignment, which is one of the same nine alignments you choose for character alignment. Your selection of party alignment will restrict what alignments of characters you can add to your party. You can only pick character alignments that are at most one step (vertical or horizontal, but not diagonal, on the alignment axes) away from the party alignment.

Early in the development of ToEE, we felt the need to control which character alignments were allowed in a particular group. We were creating test parties consisting of lawful monks and chaotic barbarians, or paladins and evil sorcerers, and this felt wrong. In a paper and pencil session of D&D, the DM might disallow such pairings (certainly the pairing of paladins with any evil characters) or at least point out the unlikelihood and difficulties of that such a group would face. And certainly, such pairing would lead to bickering and intra-party strife.

Get everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 21:14 CET by Veldrin

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

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Linux Client: Just an update - we are still waiting on final approval for release of the NWN Linux Client. It should be out within a week. Until then, Beta 6 is pretty much identical to what the Final will be, so enjoy!

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

Seeker Arrows: The seeker arrow is a magic arrow that appears in the player's bow which tracks the target giving it a awful sting. So, no you cannot cast seeker arrow on a special arrow and get a 100% chance to hit.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: Is what David saying here, is that we no longer need to have "OnActivateItem" scripts for custom weapons/items etc? The script for the unique power can now be "HOOKED" into the item itself?!?!?

No. Items cannot have their own scripts, and never will. I'm not sure how you get this out of what I said, which was mentioning that there would be scripting functions which can determine the exact properties a given item has. OnActivateItem will still be necessary for making custom items, as will the upcoming OnEquipItem/OnUnEquipItem.

Quote: David can you confirm this?

I confirm nothing. It's still a wee bit early to make concrete promises about the next expansion.

Quote: With SoU, will we be able to do all this inventory and buffing stuff with the henchmen from the NWN OC?

You'll be able to adjust their inventory via the radial menu... but the ability to ask them to cast spells and use abilities is a function of dialogue. Their dialogue would have to be re-written in order to accomodate that... and it hasn't been.

Quote: Will the inventory management be hard coded or will there be scripting functions directly available to the user which can be called to perform the management upon the specific henchman?

The ability to open the inventory is hard-coded into the radial menu. There is also a scripting command to open their inventory, as well.

Quote: Will there be a clean way to be able to modify/create radial menus? Either through a 2da or.... This would be nice.

Not currently, no.

Quote: The problem that I have found is that once a henchman goes into combat mode that they become "to busy to talk to you". I assume this is no longer an issue? Especially for dialog mode commands.

This hasn't changed. Once in combat, you can't initiate dialogue with the henchman. You can, however, open their inventory as that's done via a radial command and not via dialogue.

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6 Days till Shadows of Undrentide Hits Stores
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 19:22 CET by Sorcerer

In USA, of course. The rest of the world usually has to wait a bit longer. Here is the image you can see on various pages of the BioWare site:

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 19:01 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Arcane Archer
Master of the elven warbands, the arcane archer is a warrior skilled in using magic to supplement their combat prowess. One of five new Prestige Classes added in Shadows of Undrentide, arcane archers have a repertoire of magical arrow attacks, including the Arrow of Death. Additionally, 2 new Shadows of Undrentide screenshots have been posted! Discuss.

Forum Portraits and a New SoU Forum!
As a bonus to registered Game Owners, you will now have your account portrait appear by your name in the forums! As an additional bonus, when you register your CD Key for Shadows of Undrentide, you can select from a set of portraits exclusive to Shadows of Undrentide owners only! So register your CD Key on the Edit Account Details page, and select your portrait today! We have also launched a new SoU spoilers forum for SoU owners to discuss Shadows of Undrentide. Discuss.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 16:13 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Would you buy & subscribe to a Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online RPG)?
(274 votes total)

Maybe, depends on reviews (119) 43%
No (96) 35%
Yes (59) 22%

The majority of poll participants (43%) are undecided on the matter of buying & subscribing to a Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG, and would base their decision on the reviews. (Though this poll was general, a Dungeons & Dragons Online game has been announced at this E3 by Turbine. D&D Online is set to be released in 2005.)

35% of those who voted are not very interested in a D&D MMORPG and would not buy & subscribe to it.

The biggest surprise is the number of people who voted in favour of buying & subscribing to a D&D MMORPG - 22% of them. Though SP is solely dedicated to D&D games, this level of interest in a MMORPG is still quite surprising, even if it is a D&D one.

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Tim Cain Interview by RPGDot
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 21:02 CET by Gopher

RPGDot have recently interviewed Troika's Tim Cain about their game in development; Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's an excerpt:

RPGDot: What are the main differences and the main similarities between Greyhawk and your other projects, say Arcanum or Fallout?

Tim Cain: All of my RPG games to date have shared certain characteristics. They have all been isometric, turn-based games. They have all had rich and varying dialogs, nonlinear plotlines, and multiple solutions to quests.

However, besides the obvious difference that Greyhawk uses the D&D 3.5 rules, it also is my first party-based game. You create and control a whole party of characters, instead of making a single hero, which leads to a lot of choices to make during creation time and during play. It is also my first game with multiple starting points, in addition to multiple endings.

RPGDot: Will you do addons or sequels?

Tim Cain: It's up to Atari, but there are several other classic modules that would lend themselves to translation to a computer version. I think Lolth and her little drow minions need to be dealt with, don't you? :)

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Jeff Anderson Interview at GIGnews
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 11:53 CET by Mollusken

GIGnews have interviewed Jeff Anderson, CEO of Turbine Entertainment, the developer of the recently announced Dungeons & Dragons Online.

In another interview you said that online gaming was your true love and that "no other entertainment medium can bring people together, entertain them, and forge real-world relationships." As an accomplished developer of some enormous MMORPGs, what do you consider to be the greatest challenges specific to creating an online game?

There are a lot of challenges, such as technology, product development, services, funding, human resources…However, the greatest challenges are not that different from those that face developers of single-player games. A successful game requires a great team with a strong, central vision; excellent communication underpinned by a well-conceived plan; and supportive partners. It’s true that online games complicate the matter because of their larger team size, longer development cycle and interesting design complications. Nevertheless, the greatest challenges are about magnitude more than uniqueness.

As for your other recent coup, while wasting away one Sunday afternoon I saw a program on VH1 about the 1980s. One of the more hilarious segments in the program was on Dungeons & Dragons. People have such intense D&D nostalgia whether they actually played or just marveled at those who did. With so much pop culture history tied up in the game, how will Turbine approach its development? Will the game appeal to more than just the traditional D&D player?

Where Tolkien is the father of fantasy, I’d say that D&D is the father of role-playing. Our job with that project is to stay true to its roots and deliver an excellent online role-playing game. The challenge is to balance the project with the audience. We have a lot of hardcore D&D gamers here at Turbine who are totally into the rules, history and nostalgia. (And rightly so!) Still, we don’t want to discourage a new generation of D&D players from enjoying the title.

Get the rest of the interview here.

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Shadows of Undrentide Impressions at GameSpot
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 11:49 CET by Mollusken

GameSpot have posted a few words about the first expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights.

Toward that end, Shadows of Undrentide's campaign offers ample opportunities to role-play, even from the get-go. Like Neverwinter Nights before it, Undrentide packs in a lot of dialogue, and you'll frequently be able to interject with a variety of comments from your character's perspective. In one early quest, we were implored by a woman to save her husband and baby from a pack of kobolds that had broken into her home. We rushed inside the house to find the husband dead, though we managed to recover the child by offering a gem to a particularly greedy kobold in trade. We then returned to the woman and told her we'd recovered the baby safely. Then, recalling that our fighter was of evil alignment, we figured we'd lie and tell the woman that her husband was also alive and well. (Another option was to announce that we had decided to keep the baby, but we weren't feeling that evil.) But our lie didn't quite work, since our fighter wasn't an especially persuasive character. The woman caught us in the lie and ran for the guards, assuming we were the ones who had killed her mate.

Read everything here.

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SP Happenings #1
Posted Monday, June 9, 2003 - 23:41 CET by Sorcerer

I recently got an idea for a short column, and this is it. SP Happenings will be a more or less weekly blurb from me on what is going on with and around SP, approximately when you can expect the next site update, my current pet peeves and things like that. It should also give people a bit more insight into the mysterious operations of Sorcerer's Place which are, more often than not, quite trivial. I welcome any comments and suggestions. (For which you can utilize the handy Comments link at the bottom of this post.)

Now then, what to talk about... Well, let's start with the recent addition to the SP family of websites. Besides RPG Codex, everyone's favourite unbiased RPG news website (you wish), SP is now also hosting WeiDU.org, Westley Weimer's mod site. Even those of you who are not into Infinity Engine mods have probably heard about the Solaufein romance (and many more of his mods), so hosting Westley's site is both a privilege and an honour for me.

On to the pet peeves... Well, my biggest one at present is time. Yes, time. Something so trivial and yet when it goes wrong, oh-so-annoying. The server SP and all the hosted sites are running on has been losing several hours a day lately, and I'm sick of correcting it manually. I have tried a couple of solutions which would automatically fix it and save me the bother, but for various reasons none of them worked. So I'm hoping to come up with something which WILL work soon, because it seems I'm not doing much else than fix the bloody time all time now.

As far as site updates go I don't expect to do another till the beginning of July, because the last exam I have before September is on July 1st... So all of you who are sending content in, sorry for the delay, but this is unavoidable. July has also been designated the SP Redesign month. More next time.

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J.E. Sawyer Interviewed at RPGDot
Posted Monday, June 9, 2003 - 12:38 CET by Mollusken

RPGDot have interviewed J.E. Sawyer, who is lead designer at Black Isle Studios.

If you could do any game, regardless of money and developing time, what would it be?

An adventure game based off of Norton Juster's Phantom Tollbooth children's book. I'd also like to make a rules-light Delta Green RPG, a light-future Earth adventure/RPG with strong art deco and art nouveau visual themes, and a pre-Fallout "Resource Wars" game set in collapsing Europe (during the U.K.'s invasions of the Middle East).

Your favourite author and favourite book?

It's hard to pick a favorite author, but my favorite books are The Phantom Tollbooth, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, The Inferno and The Prince.

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Greyhawk Screenshots at GameBanshee
Posted Monday, June 9, 2003 - 12:33 CET by Mollusken

GameBanshee have posted a few new screenshots from Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil.

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NW Vault Community Interview
Posted Monday, June 9, 2003 - 12:31 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault has posted an interview with seramed (aka Ken Demarest), one of the original programmers for Ultima VII: Wing Commander, as well as an author for the popular NWN module "Foreboding in Sylvani".

You've obviously leveraged your skill in developing when you created this module. What would you say are the most innovative features?

My first love was programming, so I scripted extensively for 'Foreboding.' This resulted in a long list of innovation, including swimming, underwater adventure, a windy cliff edge that blows out torches and knocks players to the ground, torches that keep Shadows and Shadow Lords at bay. I enjoyed creating the elementals in the game: Fire elementals leave flaming footprints, burst suddenly from normal fires as you pass, and hate water elementals more than they hate you. Earth elementals burst from the ground, and water elementals swim. I revised the henchman AI so that your companion would sneak with you, hold back when needed, and avoid dying needlessly. Finally, I added cut scenes at crux moments in the story to enhance the immersion in the game. Oh, and there is ship sailing, gem cutting, magic weapon upgrades, and ballista firing.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 8, 2003 - 17:46 CET by Veldrin

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

Derek French, Assistant Producer

SoU: SoU is shipping as 1.30. By installing it over any version of NWN, your version becomes 1.30. Live (non-SoU) owners will have the 1.30 Update available around the same time as SoU hits the shelves.

Its very important to understand that this is an expansion and not a full game, so not everything will happen as quickly. Most stores are estimating a June 18th shelf date, and that sounds reasonable. Time will tell if its accurate.

Quote: Why are the 1.30 Update and Shadows of Undrentide dependent on each other?

The game program executables (nwmain.exe and nwserver.exe) for both the 1.30 Update and Shadows of Undrentide are the same.

Quote: When will this new 1.30 Update be released?

The 1.30 Update will be released to the public within days of Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide appearing on store shelves. Many stores are predicting June 18th for a shelf date.

Quote: Does this mean that people without Shadows of Undrentide can play with people with Shadows of Undrentide?

Yes and No. It is the module, not the server, which determines whether or not the clients are required to have Shadows of Undrentide installed. If you are trying to connect to a server running the Shadows of Undrentide campaign, you will need to have Shadows of Undrentide installed. If you are trying to connect to a server running the Neverwinter Nights (Original) Official Campaign, you will NOT need to have Shadows of Undrentide installed.

Quote: What about the Live Team Road Map? Have we lost all of those items?

No! Things like Database Access, Bachelor #1, and Bachelor #2 will all be coming in the 1.30 Update, regardless of whether or not you have Shadows of Undrentide installed.

Sorry, no time estimate on the Beta.

Quote: You seem to be talking about the official campaigns only. Does that mean that any fan-based module made by someone having SoU will be accessible to others that do not have the expansion? Or is it that the second you add new contents from SoU (tileset, placeable, etc) the other players will need SoU?

If you have SoU and create or edit an existing non-SoU module, it will be flagged as requiring SoU. This will happen regardless of the use of SoU content. Ways around this have been discussed elsewhere and I am a little too busy to hunt those threads down.

Quote: What about the new spells, feats, and spells? Will they mysteriously "vanish" when I jump over to a server w/o SoU?

No. It will all work. In fact, the whole Live Team is working at "wide open throttle" right now, testing and verifying that this all works. We want the 1.30 Update for Live ready to go when SoU hits store shelves.

Quote: So...does that mean that those with SoU will be unable to make modules playable by players without the expansion? Or will there be an option for running the toolset in non-SoU mode?

There is a quick and dirty "hack" you can do to work around it, but we will be adding a cleaner feature in the future.

David Gaider, Designer

Subrace Script: I can certainly see the value of implementing scripting commands that allow permanent stat changes (like the console commands). I'd also like to see the ability for end users to customize their character generation system for their module a bit more, without having to use the Override folder. I'd sooner do both of those, however, then implement an official subrace system along with its ECL modifiers. Sure, there's people that say they want it... but it would be great to have anything added onto the game. Why say no? Point is, however, that there's a lot of other things that would be worthwhile to spend our time adding first. If we were to work on this at all, I'd rather it be the top two things I mentioned and leave subraces in the hands of the end users who want to make them. Period. But we'll see.

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Tim Cain Interviewed by IGN
Posted Saturday, June 7, 2003 - 0:50 CET by Gopher

IGN-PC has interviewed Tim Cain of Troika about Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil. He talks about how he hopes to recast the classic D&D module for the PC format. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

IGNPC: We all know Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil is an RPG, but since trying to boil down an entire game in one acronym is pretty limiting, how would you describe the game yourself? What sets it apart from other RPGs?

Tim Cain: I'm never quite sure how to answer that question for any game I've made. I make games that amuse me, that I enjoy playing, and I hope others will like them too. I suppose I could mention how faithful we've been to the module, or the 3.5 rules, or to the monster and spell descriptions, but in the end, it's mostly about the self-absorption, the "hey, everyone, I did a whirlwind attack and killed all the goblins! Come look atall the blood!" kind of thing. This game is just really fun.

Head over here to read it.

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Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil Forum Highlights
Posted Saturday, June 7, 2003 - 0:01 CET by Gopher

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

Tim Cain, Project Leader

Quote: Why is lack of non-object based traps a downer? Basically, it takes a lot of the tense atmosphere right out of the game. You know your rogue only has to search the occasional door and container, you know where the traps have to be. This is not as fun, IMHO.

I am not sure I agree. Having floor-based traps means inching the party along, checking every 10 feet for traps, which I find boring. Of course, you have a point that these traps can be anywhere, and not just on doors and containers, which adds a nice element of surprise.

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Quote: I was wondering if there will be blocking
or parry animations in TOEE?

As far as I know, we are not implementing any type of parry. I'm fairly certain if you do a search in the Players Handbook you will not find the word parry anywhere in there.

Now I do not have a Sword and Fist in front of me but I think the only reference to parry is the extended feat "Off-Hand Parry", where when fighting with two weapons you and using a full attack action you can sacrifice all your off hand attacks in exchange for a +2 dodge bonus.

No parry animations. We do have dodge and get hit animations for the four major directions (front,left,right,back). Is that any consolation?

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, June 5, 2003 - 17:53 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: On a scale of 1-5, how interested are you in the 2nd Neverwinter Nights expansion "Hordes of The Underdark"?
(300 votes total)

5 (most) (111) 37%
3 (61) 20%
4 (57) 19%
1 (least) (41) 14%
2 (30) 10%

The majority of poll participants (37%) are most interested in the 2nd NWN expansion, Hordes of The Underdark, rating their interest in it 5/5.

20% of those who voted are still somewhat interested in HoTU, rating their interest 3 on a scale of 5.

Closely following are those who rated their interest in the 2nd NWN expansion 4/5 - 19% of those who participated in the poll.

Next are those who are least interested in the 2nd NWN expansion (14% of poll participants), rating their interest only 1/5.

Finally, the remaining 10% rated their interest in Hordes of The Underdark quite low as well, only 2 on a scale of 5.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2003 - 21:34 CET by Veldrin

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

Bugs: I find it interesting when someone starts shaking the bug issue about. The plain fact of the matter is that video games are exempt from responsibility for bugs in their software because without laws to identify exactly where negligence comes into the picture there simply would be no video game industry. Period. There's your alternative. Nice knowin' ya.

Nobody would be willing to open themselves up to that liability. And the reason that laws defining negligence has not been made is obvious: where would you set the bar? Which bugs "should have" been fixed prior to release and which ones are okay? Ask someone like newc and you'll get a list of every bug in the game plus a heaping helping of issues that were designed that way on purpose and not even bugs. Ask more reasonable folks and you'll still end up with widely varying criteria. Ask non-industry folks (like the people making the laws, likely) and the answer will be even more different. And would you restrict programs on a sheer number and severity of bugs... or does the complexity of the software play into it at all?

Not that there isn't some software being released that makes it awfully tempting to try and make such legislation. I can think of a few games I've purchased in the past which I could think of as buggy to the point of negligence... playing them brought me to the level of frustration where I was imagining wicked corporate types callously releasing software they knew wasn't ready. It's not a valid mental image in the least... and the satisfaction I would get from getting that legislation and sticking it to those wicked corporate-types would be short-lived indeed. And, incidentally, as far as game programmers making lots of money: I believe almost every one of them could go into a professional field with their computing knowledge and earn at least 3x as much as they do now. At least. They're not paupers, but money is obviously not their biggest issue.

Whirlwind: Whirlwind is not in SoU. It's being considered for HotU.

Server Exploits: As has been said before, it's not within the scope of the expansions to fix bugs... except as they come up based on the work we do for that expansion, in which case any fixes are dropped into the next general patch. As far as server exploits go, there are a number of those and a huge list of bugs (which includes stability corrections) that the Live Team is slowly going through. We don't give out status reports on that, however.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Greater Missile Storm: I believe this has actually been changed since that preview build went out. Greater missile storm does 2d4 for each missile.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2003 - 21:07 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Hobgoblin
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide will include 19 new creatures, (3 of which were previously available online), and this week the creature we feature is the Hobgoblin! The rowdy distant cousins to the highly underwhelming goblins are known for tipping cows over and performing amusing practical jokes like eating peasants. Discuss.

Rural Winter Tileset
The Shadows of Undrentide expansion will also include 3 new tilesets, and this week we feature the Tiny Turf Hut, Giant Turf Hut, and Caravan tiles from the Rural Winter Tileset. Discuss.


More Screenshots!
Three new Shadows of Undrentide screenshots have been added to the Screenshot Gallery. Discuss.

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Site News - New Additions
Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2003 - 22:55 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

Forgotten Realms Books subsection: The Lone Drow (The Hunter's Blades Trilogy) added, The Alabaster Staff, The Black Bouquet, The Crimson Gold (The Rogues) added, The Best of the Realms (The Anthologies) added.

Dragonlance Books subsection: The Annotated Legends (Legends Trilogy) added, City of the Lost (The Linsha Trilogy) added.

3rd Edition D&D Books subsection: PHB, DMG & MM 3.5e and Dragon Magazine (Core Products) added, Underdark (Forgotten Realms Material) added, Complete Warrior, Draconomicon (Various Accessories) added.

Miscellaneous Books subsection: The Death Ray (Dungeons & Dragons) added.

Subsection Updates -> Games

Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil can now be pre-ordered through our Game Store.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: Baldur's Gate Super Script updated, The Lord of the Rings portraits added.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Planescape: Torment

Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: PS:T Magic List updated.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: 1 character & 1 item pack added, 1 portrait pack added.

Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: Secrets of Journals updated.

TeamBG subsection: BG2 Level 50 Patch & XP Cap Remover updated.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: NWN expansion details page updated.

Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: The Role-player's Guide to Multiplayer NWN added, NWN Bard FAQ updated, NWN Spell Guide updated.

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: NWN Character Manager added.

Miscellanea subsection: 1 SoU trailer added.

Toolset & Related subsection:

Subsection #7: 5 new additions.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: ToEE Introduction updated.

Miscellanea subsection: 1 trailer added.

Screenshots subsection: 21 screenshots added.

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Greyhawk Preview at GameZone
Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2003 - 22:12 CET by Mollusken

GameZone have posted a short preview of Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil, based on what they saw of the game at this year's E3.

Graphically, this game looks excellent. The environments are lush and richly textured. The animation is also terrific. When the giant toad snag a warrior with its sticky tongue, there is the jerking of the victim as the frog tries to eat him. If successful, and the warrior is swallowed, he (or she) will continue to take damage until the frog is killed and he is rescued.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 1, 2003 - 17:46 CET by Veldrin

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

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Mighty Weapons: qworty is correct. A weapon that is 'Mighty' lets you use your Strength bonus up to a certain amount as the weapon is constructed for higher Str characters. I may be wrong but I believe the max is +2.

Could not a crossbow be designed for those of a certain strength? Isn't that what regular 'mighty' bows are- simply bows that require a certain minimum draw strength capacity or you simply can't use them? Wouldn't that same idea apply to crossbows that need to be cranked back? I have no idea but it seems that this would be a specially weapon anyway so why not give it a specific draw strength as well?

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Linux: Now that the NWN Linux Client Beta 6 has been out for a while, we are quite happy with what we have and are just about ready to make it an official release. This will probably take place next week sometime, but I am not willing to commit just yet. Gah! Workus interruptus! I have more to add to this issue, but I have to step out of the office right now. More tonight. The only unfortunate part is that the happened so late in the day, that I don't have any web guys around to update the Linux Client page.

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