June 2004
Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 20:14 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
Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?
actually, we suggested that you might be trying to repackage baldur's gate, not d&d... though it weren't really a serious suggestion so much as raising a nightmarish spectre that we hope ain't true and was hopeful that biowarians might dispel.
Oh. Well, besides the fact that I think there are far worse things we could do than repackage Baldur's Gate, we're far from doing anything like that. You'll see.
Quote: come now dave. on this issue, you know we is right. kotor adopted characters, themes, and plot points from the original star wars trilogy... not simply "signature elements" from the star wars universe.
Whatever you say. The issue seems to me to be just one of semantics. I happen to think that those characters, themes and plot points we used from the movies *are* signature elements, but the difference is negligible in the end. I know you aren't accusing us of ripping off the movies or not being original (which wasn't the point anyhow), and I think it's that implication that Georg is reacting to, is all.
Gnome!
but they need good gnomes not the nwn crap i mean what the hell +2 to con what retard thought that up
Those would be the fellows who wrote the D&D ruleset (ie. 'the D&D crap' as opposed to specificially 'the nwn crap')
Now take off your pants for me.
is not whether we would want in a perfect world, is it? question to ask is: what would you be willing to give up to get customizable shoes or hair or tiaras?
Now that is a gosh darn good question.
So, to those people who want this level of customization (and I mean the high level being asked for... obviously there will be some customization regardless, and no doubt more than NWN anyhow), what's something roughly equivalent that you'd be willing to give up for it?
And insofar as things being "neat"... obviously we get to put "neat" things in all the time, and they are fun and good to have. Everyone wants a little bling, after all. You just don't normally put in scads of time and resources into something that is only "neat".
Derek French, Technical Producer
Max people in one server?
We really wouldn't have an answer to this until much later in the dev cycle.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Riddle me this my friend
Why not have riddles?
Sure
Why not have some(of all) of them require the answer to be typed in?
The industry moved away from type in answers a couple of years ago for a variety of reasons, including localization and spelling issues and accessibility
Why ot have Party members help you with them?
This could work as in game hint system where you, similar to KotOR, can ask NPCs about what they think of a certain situation, yes.
b) The Char's intteligence doesn't come in play. - people got so hung up on that stupid intellignce stat, only becoause it's name is intelligence. If it was nemed something else, they probably wouldn't have said anything.
Agreed. Who said we even have a intelligence stat? Even if we have, using it to determine the result to riddles doesn't make a lot sense, as the riddle is supposed to be a hurdle for the *player* so she can feel rewarded if she successfully figured it out. Putting it on the character would make it just a question of stat distribution on your character (and given that you are a party, even that doesn't count) and the original purpose of the riddle would be defeated.
More :
Let's for instance asume there will be no NIT stat, but rather something else (let's call it X). So, since there IS so intellignce now, would any of you mind the ridels NOW?
---------
c) A reason you don't mention for "typed-in" answers, is that due to the vastness of words in most languages, it would require a lot of effort to make all the correct answers work or you will force players to look up the solution in the forums, because they didn't state it in the same way as the developers, which would be bad.
Tunderscape handled it nicely. Riddles in english, answers in english, alwways one word.
the riddels were quite good and I loved them. Never had any truble with it(except for one). As I recall the answers to the ones I remember were "War", "Honour", "Life", etc... simple word, so no need for a dictinary.
It soo bugs me whn riddles are so easily solved (since you have the right answer in fron of you nose with several REALLY wrong ones).
Don't forget that a riddle that works in english and has a one word answer may not work in other languages, in many cases it will make no sense or have a sentence as an answer.
This would force us to create different riddles for different countries and generally throw us in localization hell.
More :
No intelligence stat? It's about time.
I didn't say there is none either, I just wanted to put in a reminder that everything is up for discussion.
Tell us more about this, Georg, eh?
Not now
Bioware: Can we get a name?
Let's wait for a really slow newsweek at a certain website and then release a totally unrelated codename
Visible Cloaks/Capes?
IMO cloaks are more than just a minor thing, I mean what's the point of wearing a cloak if you can't see it. And besides I don't think it would be that hard to implement.
Easy fix, just get rid of the cloak slot.
More:
No cloaks?
I didn't say that I said that if the argumentation is "it looks bad if you can't see the cloaks you equip on the inventory screen reflected on your character", then the easiest solution to fix this problem is to cut the cloak slot
A quote from the Great One concerning Henchmen
I know DA is not based on D&D, but this topic is nonetheless relevant. To quote from E. Gary Gygax's 1st Ed. AD&D PHB, page 39:
"Experience awarded to henchmen is usually much less than that which would be given a player character. This is because the henchmen are acting under the direction of their master or mistress. So you should expect that your character's henchmen will get about 50% of the experience points ... possibly even less if your character bore the brunt of the action and closely directed the henchmen."
And in a rare moment of redundancy (rare for Gygax, anyway), it is once again stated on page 107, shortly after the discussion of 0-level NPC's:
"Remember, character henchmen will gain only one-half of the total experience."
Hmmm, why would Gygax write this, and write it twice? And I recall long ago how BioWare was whining about trying to keep the focus of the game on the PC, as opposed to being overshadowed by the party NPC's. Hmmmm. Any comments, BioWare?
Who is this Gygax guy and what relevance has he for DA's game design?
I can't recall us "whining" on this topic either.
More: Personally I think it's a bad idea trying to make the PC the hero by making everyone else around him suck (aka giving them half XP).
In Pen and Paper this is a valid concern as the DM doesn't want to be hassled with a whole army at the disposal of a single player, but in a CRPG the story should drive the hero forward, not arbitrary rules that limit everyone else around him.
As for NWN, it was designed to be close to PnP, so the same concerns are certain valid and I agree that given the capabilties of todays AI systems (and that's nothing thats specific to NWN), not much else is needed to reinforce hero. DA is not based on a PnP system and doesn't need to care about the PC having multiple henchmen at his disposal as balancing will take the party into account (like in the BG Series), so I find it highly unlikely that we would see something like "a henchman only gets 50%".
Keeping your henchmen at 50% will open a can of problems you don't want to deal with in most game systems, especially when you are trying to make challenging battles that don't end with half of your party being killed every single time.
If your experience system is set up in a way that the following rule is valid
[henchman level] = [PC level -1]
I wouldn't be oposed (as we used this already in SoU and HotU) but that would be up to close balancing and dependent on how your XP system develops into higher levels.
I remember some discussions we had on the old BIS boards about this topic, but I don't remember them to be particulary "whiny" (unlike threads by certain half orcs trolls about dual wielding thieves...)
One thing I would like to know:
In HotU your Henchman Valen could develop into a kick *** fighting machine that could indeed take some of the glory away from the PC based on your class -
i.e. Player prepares mighty spell, aims at target, Valen hits critical and splatters body parts over the floor, player curses at Valen.
Was anyone bothered by this?
Did you get rid of him because he was too strong?
Did you keep him because he was valuable?
(*One* reason behind Valen's potential was to fix balancing problems created by the wide range of abilities certain classes get in epic levels. An epic weapon master could easily cut through most enemies, an epic rogue could , depending on how he was created, run into serious trouble in the campaign up to a point where it was nearly impossible to beat certain encounters and Valen was used to balance missing melee abilites off, so it would be interesting to know how you reacted to this when playing through HotU).
The Great List of (suggested) DA weapons!
Question. If you had to select 15 (arbitrary number) different weapons (ranged and melee) for inclusion into an RPG, which ones would you take (order by inclusion priority), and why.
More:
Well, ok if we assume that all weapons from NWN are included i would have some additions.
Such an assumption would be risky. While I have no information regarding what weapons are planned for DA, I would suggest not taking "everything that was in NWN will be in DA" for granted.
Which is the reason why I chose the number 15 in my previous post - to force you to make the decision which weapons you would like to drop.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Something I Thought Of While Playing NWN
I think that would definetely cool. I'd like to see all magic animations be more relevant to what is actually happening. Of course, that means more work and more memory n stuff and we all know how stingy bioware is when it comes to such things
Booo, no cookie for you!
Regarding the main topic, it's an interesting idea - but SR sums it up pretty well. It's extra work for our animators/vfx artists, meaning it would be a low priority feature if we decided to do it.
It's something to consider though.
Riddle me this my friend
Role-Player wrote: Yet, concepts like strenght or dexterity are not removed from a character in favor of a completely player-driven input.
Would you want them to be?
Sorry, I'm just having flashbacks to my younger days playing fighting games where in contests of 'strength' or the like, you'd hammer on the gamepad as fast as you could... then lose and punch your little brother in the shoulder for beating you...
Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance
Riddle me this my friend
I played many RPGs growing up, and my brother and I would tag-team the game, with one controlling the action and the other drawing maps or making notes on people, places, things, and clues.
One aspect of the "type-your-riddle-answer" that we hated was the need to type the answer exactly. If the answer was a synonym that the designers didn't account for, or a British spelling, or misspelled in the game code, the game would register an incorrect response. This got very frustrating, and for one seemingly easy riddle in particular (I think it was early in the Might & Magic series), we spent days trying to figure out how to precisely phrase or type the answer to get a positive result.
I've got no problems with riddles (indeed, riddles were one of the reasons my brother and I enjoyed RPGs), but I feel they should be relatively easy to figure out. This could involve hints found nearby or in conversation, simple mathematics (including rudimentary algebra, since it's taught as early as grade , or insight as a result of a character's stats or skills. Any way is fine as long as it doesn't rip the character out of the game, as I accept riddles as part of the same RPG experience that includes lots of dialogue, lots of walking from place to place, and character stat and ability advancement.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 20:00 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
Level Cap
The game has data and coding for level 40 players and level 60 monsters/npcs. There are no plans for more levels, they are not needed.
[PRC] 2.1a RELEASED!!!!
Great news guys
Disappointed-- Hasbro & WotC
Therefore I have no choice but to no longer purchase Bioware games of any kind if this is the mentality and mindset of the Bioware company.
That is too bad, but I think you don't need to blame that on BioWare's mindset and mentality
However I think the final result will be that you will not be able to buy any computer based RPG game anymore with that mentality and mindset because second edition Ad&d is dead. It does not exist anymore on the market as you will only get a license for the third edition of the D&D setting. BioWare's next games (Jade Empire, Dragon Age, Secret Project Y) will not be using the D&D ruleset but instead use our own, in house developed rules systems.
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Ray Muzyka Interview at GameSpy
Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 19:55 CET by chevalier
GameSpy have posted a chat interview with dr. Ray Muzyka, one of the joint-CEOs of BioWare, together with dr. Greg Zeschuk. Here's a snip:
GameSpy: BioWare has come a long way since 1995. What would you say were the company's three biggest accomplishments?
Ray Muzyka: First, I think we've created a great place to work. We have a very low turnover rate -- three percent over the last ten years. We were able to hire excellent people and create a place where they love to work.
I'm also really proud of the community we've fostered. We have 1.9-million people that subscribe to our newsletter and voluntarily ask us for more information about games. We expect to have two million by the end of July. I feel very fortunate that so many people like our games enough to do that.
Another thing I would mention is that we were very fortunate to have some great publishing partnerships. From publishing Baldur's Gate with Interplay to Knights of Old Republic with LucasArts, and now Jade Empire with Microsoft, we've been very lucky.
Read the rest at GameSpy.
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Latest Poll Results
Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 16:35 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Do you think Interplay is going to survive and avoid bankruptcy?
(340 votes total)
Maybe, I'm not sure / don't know (154) 45%
No, never (145) 43%
Yes, definitely (41) 12%
The majority of poll participants (45%) voted either that Interplay might have a chance at survival, or that they don't know if it does.
43% of those who voted, however, believe that Interplay is never going to survive and avoid bankruptcy.
Only 12% of the people who voted are optimists, voting that Interplay will definitely survive.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
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SP Happenings #56
Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - 13:51 CET by Sorcerer
With the last exam for the next two months behind me, I'm now finally free to do the work on SP that's been pretty much on hold for most of the year. You can expect a lot of things to change around here in the following weeks, among them the new design going up, followed by new message boards and a ton of content I've had on hold, waiting for the new design. Catbert, our web code genius, also sent me a message yesterday that he's still alive (whew!), but just on "vacation thing" till next week, when he should be back full-time. In the meanwhile, I'll be busy with converting the rest of the existing site to the new design, so that it can go live ASAP. I should also mention that Blackthorne TA will be away for nearly the whole next month due to his work, so it'll be just me and Beren policing the boards.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 20:50 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
Riddle me this my friend
Here let me toss a little gas on the fire.
Why are riddles and puzzles good? Answer: They make the player feel good when they figure them out. In other words they provide a challenge for the player. No challenge, no fun.
Why are we seeing less and less riddles and puzzles in games? Answer: Because of the Internet No seriously, puzzles tend to be binary progress gates. That is, player either solve them and advance or they fail and are blocked.
In the olden days (you know, before the Internet), puzzle games were one of the most popular genres. When you were stuck, and I can't think of a single game that didn't I didn't get stuck in, you either kept banging your head on it, went to the store and paid good money for the hint book, or got a friend to help you. Some of my favorite memories of playing puzzle games were actual memories of a group of my friends sitting around the computer shouting out suggestions on how to proceed.
Now, if the average player is stumped by a puzzle, the solution is only a couple clicks away. I don't know of very many people who are willing to hammer away at a puzzle when they can simply pop over to a faq site and get the answer. I certainly do it, and I used to love puzzle games.
The net effect of this is to practically kill the effective challenge of any puzzle. If you make the puzzle too easy, everyone gets it and they think "what a dumb puzzle, that was too easy". Any harder and most people just look up the solution.
So, if you are wondering if there will be any puzzles in Dragon Age, then the answer is there will be some, but they will make sense in context of the story, rather than being added just as a challenge.
David Gaider, Designer
Gnome!
But when I discovered that all DnD gnomes were basically like Jan, it seemed a bit, well, lame.
Err... all DnD gnomes aren't like Jan. That's a trait that's peculiar to the Jansen family, more or less, I think. (Did we do any non-Jansens like this, too? I can't remember now.) I just don't think we had very many gnome characters, period.
At any rate, the DA races are pretty broad in their character. Not a lot of steretyping going on, though I guess they do have their common archetypes... but playing against archetype sometimes is the fun part.
Hey, we don't even have a female elf as a romance this time.
Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?
Is it in fact more time consuming and resource draining to create a new rule system from scratch than it is to try and implement an existing pnp rule into a playable computer game?
Mmmm... you end up focusing your efforts on different things. You end up doing a lot more tweaking and testing, but are also free to change what doesn't work, and you end up spending a LOT less time figuring out how to implement something that needs a human mind to adjudicate but perhaps MORE time coming up with something that works acceptably in the first place but that still fits into our world and does what we want it to with gameplay.
I don't know how much time we save vs. how much time we expected to save, but it's certainly less frustrating work and a lot more fun.
And with regards to how much the rules system fettered the world creation and so forth... not as much as you might think. Occasionally someone would come to me with some rules issue that didn't fit into the world story and I would go "bleerrgggh" and James would waggle his finger at me for not reading the rules doc closely enough, but then we would haggle it out and come up with a compromise that was sometimes more exciting than I had anticipated. One of the classes was like that. It wasn't in the world and I was told to fit it in... and after hashing it back and forth for a while, suddenly this class became very exciting. It was a rather cool process. The biggest argument we had was how to retain the fun of playing a magic-using class vs. the restrictions placed on magic vis a vis the setting, and when we finally settled on it in the end it actually was a better story mechanism than I had hoped for.
The ability to just go in and make far-reaching changes when they are called for is a power that is not to be underestimated. I am not used to working like that (go figure) and whenever the possibility of doing so comes up it is a bit of a surprise (oh, yeah... I guess we CAN do that...) and has so far worked out positively.
More details to come, I guess.
More: I think what Georg is objecting to (though I may be wrong) is your choice of wording, Gromnir. You tend to come across as being more negative than you really intend to, and I only know that from long association with you.
"Repackaged" might be interpreted as it being a thinly-veiled copy of the original, which I don't think KotOR is either. But if you mean "repackaged" as in we very deliberately used many key elements from the original movies that made it "Star Wars" (including plot elements), then I would say you are correct. And I know you agree that was one of KotOR's strengths.
What that has to do with DA, however, I'm not sure. I guess one could think that we might try to repackage D&D into another form (with either definition), and I would say that's much less necessary than when one is trying to recall the essence of a movie setting & story. Naturally there are elements of fantasy which we intend to specifically use... some of which will, no doubt, draw the groans of some folks who are tired of/who dislike fantasy but who would be missing the point as much as those who criticised what they considered KotOR's derisiveness. What fantasy is, however, is much less specific that what Star Wars is. We have a lot more freedom.
How much of that freedom we intend to use is, however, a topic that we can't get into yet. Not for a while, yet, I would suspect. So while you can guess at what you think is likely you're going to have to be satisfied with saying your yeas and nays until we're ready.
Now take off your pants for me.
And, just to play devil's advocate:
If this sort of thing isn't put in, what exactly have we lost, game-wise?
Now, granted, some folks might have a different type of game in mind when they're picturing this, but I'm curious as to whether this level of visual customization has any actual merit beyond being "neat"?
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Random maps/terrain
Ugh, the D-word !!!
DA will not be organized in maps. It will be a 'one level world' like Morrowind.
Unfounded rumour
Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?
why re-invent the wheel world wise... the answer is simple, freedom.
You forgot another answer: fun. What's more fun than spending your time in a meeting, trying to convince Dave that there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be 2 meter, fur covered, ball shaped creatures called Gnarves in your world...
More:
not having to ask for wotc permission is a nice advantage, but bio already imposed lots o' limits on their own freedom. is gonna be a traditional fantasy game with starting stories based on traditional fantasy archetypes. you got classic fantasy races, and we has seen what appears to be traditional crpg fighters and mages in screenies.
I have to disagree. The problem of freedom is *not* that you can't ask the license holder if you can introduce non-high-fantasy-elements - because if you want to create a high fantasy game, this question doesn't come up. The problems are on the level of being able to make permanent changes to the world use/kill/etc important characters, come up with your own locations/religions/gods/political factions, etc, etc without having to go through a longwinded approval process or even just canning the idea completely. (Don't try to read anything from this for DA, you will most likely be wrong).
Also, if we *wanted to*, there could be a major high tech alien invasion in the world of DA at any point, the freedom is there, but the question if it makes sense to use that freedom still remains. A good example for a game where introducing elements from another setting wasn't a really good idea is Silent Storm. Excellent game if you love turnbased combat, nicely done WWII setting and then suddenly ... . A lot of players, including myself were turned off by the impact their change in setting had (not only on the atmosphere but also on the gameplay).
Same with classes and races - sure we could do a classless system, and sure this was talked about in the early design meetings, but if there is a consensus that a class based system is the way we want to go for a variety of reasons, then not making the game a classless one is not a limitation to our freedom, it's just a design decision about the game we want to pursue.
So, the limits you are talking about might just be common sense (for a company publishing a game targeting a certain audience).
As for the issue being money - The initial investment for creating your own IP and setting is quite hefty, not only for establishing the new IP's name out there, but also for putting a lot of manpower into researching new systems, creating a background, new language(s), etc, etc. Sure, if it flies the reward is better and you get the freedom of creating action figures of your favourite character (i.e. a life-sized Gnarf for your living room!), etc, etc, but creating a game based on a license is probably cheaper and less risky than creating your own IP (at the expense of artistic freedom...).
More:
"Also, if we *wanted to*, there could be a major high tech alien invasion in the world of DA at any point, the freedom is there,"
sure you can... but you ain't, so your example is pointless.
Every decision you make limits the things you can do later, that's the nature of decisions. Without decisions your work will never be finished and end up as a huge pile of features without direction.
Not making use of your freedom to do stuff (because you don't like the idea, think it's stupid, whatever) doesn't mean you don't have the freedom to do it. Otherwise it wouldn't be freedom. So rather than seeing the "limitations" in the decisions we make (high fantasy, classbased system), we see the new options we have available for making the best classbased fantasy game. Since we decided for a classbased system, it obviously means we like this kind of system and don't want to do a classless one at this time.
Even if you make the decision for a class based system at one point and then get regrets about it, you could still later on soften the implications of a class based system by allowing multi classing, but then again you could have decided for a classless system in the first place
More:
explain how you will, but if you want freedom simply to do same old stuff then we ain't really moved by the pleas for liberty. claiming that you can do so much more with own world, and then doing stuff that is pretty much the traditional fantasy setting and characters makes us look at such statements with suspicion... changing the incidental details is hardly noteworthy.
I think you are just expecting us to do something different and are somewhat disappointed
We got the freedom to do the game we want to do, with the rules we want to do and the setting we want it to be - free of licensing issues and thirdparty approval processes. Is it so hard to understand that we could want to do this game the way it is?
By saying we are limiting us / restricting ourselves by selecting the setting/system we want for DA, you imply that another another setting/system would have been a better choise and express your disappointment that we chose the setting/system we did (which you, granted, don't know a lot about) - which makes the whole freedom/limit debate quite subjective and pointless - because we are talking about the absense of restrictions that come from licensing while you are talking about all the opportunities we are possibly missing because we are not throwing everything our games stand for overboard and start tabula rasa. You can assume a lot of that was discussed at early design meetings at BioWare.
More: Again...some people actually LIKE some aspects of the 'old stuff'. If you like them, than what is the point of changing them, unless you believe in change for the sake of change. They have the freedom to change what they want to change , and the freedom to retain what they want to retain . Whether you or I agree or disagree with those choices isn't really the issue.
(Just FYI, it is comments like the above which make me perceive you as pushing for 'change for the sake of change', a charge you felt unwarranted when I made it.)
When Carl said "SOME" people, he probably meant "most of our target audience", which is something I won't contest.
That still doesn't mean DA isn't going to be radically different from other fantasy settings in certain aspects of the gameplay/setting, but it does mean that any design decision that touches core elements of BioWare gameplay will be evaluated carefully because in the end we are catering our target audience, which the "why not change everything completely" kind of player might or might not be part of (as you can't please everyone).
A common example might be Morrowind - I had several people telling me that they couldn't get into the game because the world was just a bit too exotic for their opinion, lots of strange bug like creatures and strange names they couldn't remember later. While I personally didn't found that (except for the name problem, ugh), I can certainly understand that point of view.
btw, how many times has we heard developers say that it is sooooooooo much easier and less time consuming to create a new computer rule system as 'posed to trying to force d&d rules into a computer? raise hands if you has heard such?
Cheap evasive maneuver Gromnir
Just because a new system is classbased doesn't mean it is D&D or has to share elements or rules from D&D and you know that. i.e. Ultima IX, Silent Storm or City of Heroes is classbased and they don't suffer from any baggage attached to the D&D rules.
I guess this discussion has become so thin, it's time to end my involvement in this serious exchange of thoughts.
More: And just to make this clear, this does not mean that we are never going to make a radically different game at some point in the future - it just means that if you are looking for something radically different (i.e. turn based, classless RPG about spacefaring baby squirrels in a postnuclear world combating each other with insane superpowers while saving the universe from the wrath of an evil mutant squirrel) you will not find it in DA.
More:
a diplomatic response from gaider. you trying to get james ohlen's job? no doubt once da is finished we will get a much more definitive response.
am just recalling how da has been presented as, and this is a quote, "revolutionary." we not mind if it ain't, but so far there seems to be very little we might identify as revolutionary... and various developers seems to be noting that if people is expecting revolutionary then they is waiting for the wrong game.
is "revolutionary" just advertising puffery?
no big deal. kotor gave star wars fans what they wanted by repackaging the original star wars films/story. perhaps bio will try same thing with its fans... repackage bg1. then again, maybe bio does something completely different. time will tell.
Hrhr, if KotOR was a repackaged SW story for you, I'm sure you will find something that you can claim the DA story has been repackaged from.
More:
this is surreal. hey dave, wanna explain to geo all the parallels you had 'tween kotor and the original star wars trilogy? bah.
Let me see. Ah yea, Darth Malak was your father and, oh well, right, I forgot about that, Bastila was your sister. Oh wait, that would be kind of arkward, not to say violating certain laws in certain countries.
I think you are mistaking making a story set and fit in the StarWars universe (and critically acclaimed and awarded with tons of awards, including the IDGA Excellence in Writing award for Dave & Co) with an old story repackaged. If you buy SW, you expect a certain kind of setting, atmosphere and story elements, and that's what you should get when buying a game. Signature Elements != Story Repackaged. But hey, if that's your definition of repackaged, as said, I'm sure you will find some elements of DA in Monty Python's Quest for the Grail or Attack of the killer Tomatoes.
But as already noticed before, the whole thread is running thin now.
Bah
More: Please take your time to actually read my posts. I'm not assuming anything, I'm merily pointing out that Signature Elements are != repackaging. Calling that a knee-jerk reaction is hardly approriate.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Combat that looks like Combat
There shouldn't be "misses" there should be blocking dodging. How do you show a guy dodging/blocking multiple strikes simultanously or blocking one while getting hit by another? hmmm, maybe make it so it determines before the animations take place based off stats which order the attacks will come in and have everybody perform one at a time.
But then it's arbitrary, not rules based. That also means that if I get one attack per round (using DnD as a convention for this discussion) then my action can be delayed for an incredibly long time if I'm attacked by say... 50 goblins (ranged & melee).
Since I have to react to every single one of them before I can take my action, and that's even ignoring the fact that most of them will probably get another attack before we finish with the first 50, in the end it either looks odd (flintstones boxing, where everyone takes turns) or you have to make some concessions...
Or maybe just have one animation override the other, like the getting hit animation would override a blocking animation even though he did successfully block one of the attacks. As long as there is something and the guy isn't just standing there.
Even so though, you'll have problems parrying four near simulatenous attacks from various angles.
On a related note about interrupts in general... There was an iteration of the NWN combat system that used interrupts. Creatures could be stopped mid-swing if they were hit or needed to react to an attack from another creature.
There were a few problems with that... Whenever you were outnumbered it was extremely likely that you would get fewer and fewer attacks, as you were spending most of your time playing dodge/parry/damage animations.
While that may sound good at first... think about it for a moment. You're attacked by two creatures, you now get 1/2 of your regular attacks. You're attacked by three creatures, you now get 1/3 of your regular attacks... etc.
Additionally, after a certain point - you no longer got actions... because the order wraps and the creatures that attacked you first are attacking again. Essentially what I mentioned in the first part of the post.
More:
Ellderon Starsunder wrote:
That's excatly what I want. One CANNOT fight against 5 skilled opponents at the same time and expect to win easily,m or to be able to parry/dodge them all. This is just plain realistic. Now, you said there is a problem if swarmed - well then, don't allow swarming. Make a individual monster more challanging this way, rather than aving 50 pitifull monsters attacking you....
That may be something to consider, however getting mobbed is better represented by a bonus to hit or possibly damage for the enemy as opposed to penalizing the player by taking away their attacks.
No matter what, you should be able to take regular actions to affect the outcome of a situation. Taking away player control is a sure way to piss people off.
Also, just because I'm mobbed by five frenzied four-year olds doesn't mean I should die...
Well, I think we'd want to try to keep creatures taking actions concurrently... as it is supposed to be a representation of Real Life(tm).
If we did structure combat so that every creature took turns (no two actions took place at the same time) then you'd have to have some kind of filler for when the creature was not attacking. The longer the delay between actions, the more obvious it's going to be that that creature is doing nothing at all.
For example, in the case where you have a 3 vs 1 (fairly reasonable engagement) while O1 and F are fighting... what are the other two orcs doing? We can't fake attacks, since that brings us right back to our initial problem...
Players are somewhat forgiving if monsters are pumping (doing nothing), but switch it around... make it 3 party members against 1 orc. Now it's frustrating (my party isn't doing anything, what the hell!!).
We can, however, do something similar to what you're talking about with multiple animations from various states... only instead of creating custom animations for all of these situations we can look at fancy interpolation routines or blending systems, both of which are much less expensive in terms of resources.
---------------
In KotOR the fight was a cinematic 1 vs 1 duel when fighting humanoids. All other attacks were ignored (there was no reaction to them). But because the main fights were so flashy and exciting, you usually didn't notice that your character was ignoring the other combatants.
In DA, our viewpoint is a bit different - additionally doing custom synched animations for every attack for every creature would be a pain. There weren't many different rigs in KotOR (most of the humanoids were exactly the same size/shape), so animating the sequences between the various types was only moderately painful - in DA it would be much much more so.
Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance
Release Date: I'm opening the betting...
Let's get this out of the way, so y'all won't be surprised when I lay the smackdown on other, similar threads.
(b)Release date speculation is discouraged here because there is no actual discussion about the game in such threads, just posting of random dates.(/i)
Besides, the release date for any unreleased product of ours is always Febturday, Octember 37, 7 BCE.
End of line.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 20:39 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.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
NWN:SoU European CD Key issues
its pathetic that Bioware releases this with such a flaw.
Its important to understand that we, the Developer, have absolutely NOTHING to do with this issue. CD Keys are printed at a CD manufacturing plant under the supervision of the Publisher. We supply the Publisher with CD Keys, but after that, the entire process is out of out control. You need to get in contact with the Atari support division in your region.
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
Looking for expert NWN fans
Brilliant folks- keep them coming!
More: Subject: General Tips
Name: Jay Watamaniuk
Taking screen shots: Go into your game settings and make sure that all feedback is turned off. Feedback is the text that appears on screen to indicate damage, spell effects and so on. Go to advanced video settings and crank up your resolution, your anti-aliasing (try for 4X), Full shadows, full grass the whole meal deal. You are taking a screenshot not trying for smooth gameplay. If you are playing, use pause and rotate around to see if there any better angles for the shot. Obviously it is much better to edit out the pause icon (using Photoshop or something similair). For super-advanced screenshots create your scene with the toolset and use the DM Client to jump from creature to create during a pause to get the very best angles on the action.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Hacker Party in our Midst
Please send "demands" targeted to a single person using private messages. And while your at it, I think not using the word "stupid" generally improves the chance of a post being taken seriously. Last warning in this thread, I'm going to clean it of certain posts if it proves impossible to keep it civil. As for the topic of blacklists, as said, BioWare doesn't want to be part of it. We do however not care about server admins founding their own guild and use it to share the public cdkeys of people that they found disrupting gameplay on their servers, because those are *their servers* and they can do with them as they please and they can select the players they want to have on their servers. It needs to be noted that there are examples of successful, player run blacklists (i.e. for PunkBuster supported games) as well as examples where these lists were disrupted by griefers (Diablo I). As said, keep it civil or I'm going to make use of the delete button to remove overly aggressive/disrespectful posts in this forum. I have no trouble with this thread staying in this forum, but I would suggest moving future discussion about this topic into a guild forum.
Stopping inappropriate names
I think there is a namefilter.2da not sure if it would work in a hakpak however.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
What is TRUE and what is FALSE?
FALSE = 0
TRUE = 1
However, when NWScript tests for "TRUE" it does not do "x == TRUE", it does "x != FALSE".
For example:
if (FALSE) // clause not taken
if (TRUE) // clause taken
if (0) // clause not taken
if (1) // clause taken
if (2) // clause taken
if (0 == TRUE) // clause not taken
if (1 == TRUE) // clause taken
if (2 == TRUE) // clause not taken!!!!!!
Which is why it is a VERY BAD IDEA to do
if (x == TRUE)
Never test to see if something is TRUE, always test to see if something is not FALSE. This wouldn't be a problem if NWScript had a true boolean type. (IMHO, you should never test for TRUE or FALSE, use proper Boolean operators such as ! to not the boolean value and let the if statement implicitly test for not FALSE.)
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
nwserver.exe wont work
I've seen this problem (if I understand you correctly) before and it's caused by nwserver not finding the resources it needs, usually because you've started it in the wrong directory (you need to supply the correct 'Start In' directory otherwise it won't find the files it needs). Try checking the shortcut (if you used one).
This sounds about right. If the text labels on the controls are not showing up, it sounds like nwserver.exe can't find the dialog.tlk file (which contains all the button text information) for some reason.
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Interplay's Q2 a Negative Number?
Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 17:56 CET by chevalier
Interplay is left at 28K at the end of Q1. The drop ratio per quarter is around 40%. Apparently, Q2 is going to end at below zero. Here's a snip:
They have dropped about 40% with each quarter results release. Their market cap is now less than 10% of the previous year's revenues and also less than the "profit" of Q4. Then again, they pissed away about 1 million from their cash "hoard" and now are left at 28K as of Q1's end.
Q2 is gonna be less than zero?
Read the rest at Raging Bull.
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Herve down $230000
Posted Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 17:51 CET by chevalier
Noticed the trend? We have at least one or two Interplay failure news posts daily. Perhaps we should call it Daily Interplay Failure News? Today, however, we have something more comforting to communicate: Herve is $230000 down on the shares he bought on April 17th for $0.052 each, which is over twice the current last trade ($0.025). Here's what an Interplay shareholder says in Raging Bull IPLY forums:
The only thing still keeping me in, other than pure stubbornness, is that Herve is a weasel and a snake. Herve's back is against the wall, and he is heavily invested in Interplay. I'm thinking that with the help of SG Capital that he'll be able to figure out something that is in his best interest, which hopefully is also in other shareholder's interest. It could even be selling off all of the licenses, perhaps bringing in enough money to pay off their bills and make a small profit. I can't imagine Herve going down without a fight when he has 9 million personal shares. It's doubtful that whatever he does will be successful, but I'm betting he has one last card to play, hopefully providing enough time for us investors to earn back a little money and to get out then.
Or, quite clearly and straight to the point:
Herve down over $230,000
Herve purchased 8,679,306 @ .052 on April 17
Read the whole thing at Raging Bull. Don't forget to check Interplay's summary (now restored to IPLY.OB) for further break at Yahoo Finance.
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Interplay Shares Down Again
Posted Monday, June 28, 2004 - 19:15 CET by chevalier
This time $0.024 and still falling.
Check out Interplay's summary at Yahoo Finance.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Monday, June 28, 2004 - 18:17 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
Combat that looks like Combat
We discussed this a bit before in the aforementioned parry thread... but it's a fun topic.
Combat is a tricky beast, because you can't take everything into account all the time. For example, how do you make someone parry two attacks that happen at almost the exact same time?
Unless you have a special animation to cover that case, you cannot.
Basically what I'm getting at is, unless we have an animation for every possible situation that could potentially occur in a fight, you *will* see creatures not reacting in some situations (because we don't use an interrupt system, like Diablo).
Our job is to make sure that the cases in which these sorts of things occur are minimal. If we do it well, hopefully, you'll rarely notice...
We do have some plans on how to deal with most of these issues, however I'm not going to talk about those until we've at least proven that they work.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, June 28, 2004 - 18:15 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
sj_tilemagic_i 2.0
That sounds pretty cool, looking forward to test it.
DTS-Debug
DTS is HotU's Disposable Treasure System, this message only appears if you switch it on in x2_mod_def_start but do not supply proper configuration values.
AOO
There are no plans to change the way attacks of opportunity work.
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Interplay's Debts List at No Mutants Allowed
Posted Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 17:44 CET by chevalier
Kharn of No Mutants Allowed has posted a long list of Interplay's creditors with due sums and short background information on each. Here's a snip:
[At] the time of filing, Bioware alleged that it was owed approximately $156,000 under various agreements for which it secured a writ of attachment over the Company's assets. If Bioware executes the writ, it will negatively affect the Company's cash flow, which could further restrict its operations and cause material harm to our business.
(...)
On or about April 16, 2004, Arden Realty Finance IV LLC filed an unlawful detainer action against the Company in the Superior Court for the State of California, County of Orange, alleging the Company's default under its corporate lease agreement. At the time the suit was filed, the alleged outstanding rent totaled $431,823. The Company was unable to satisfy this obligation and reach an agreement with its landlord, the Company subseqently forfeited its lease, and is in the process of locating another building for its operations. This suit and interruption of our operations could cause substantial harm to our business
(...)
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 17:39 CET by chevalier
David Gaider, Designer
Large Army Battles Possible?
I think we've said previously that we've been playing with having lots and lots of individual creatures on a single screen. I know I watched a big battle between elves and skeletons one day that one of the programmers was running in DM mode to test things and it all seemed very Myth-esque, almost, and quite impressive. I think part of the trick is also to find a way that each creature model doesn't have to run individual AI routines, as well, at least as far as I understand it. So, yes, big battles. Whether or not the RTS-like ability to control stuff on a unit level will be possible, I'm not even sure. Too early to comment much.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Linux client?
Wow, not looking good... nothing encouraging from Bioware about the Linux ports and heavy rumors about Micro$oft involvement abounding... In my worthless opinion, no linux server will hurt the community on a whole! But once MS buys a company integrity goes out the windows anyway... We'll just have to wait for another smaller more ambitious dev company to take their place and let Dragon Age sit on a shelf next to Dungeon Siege... Yet another PC game MS will ruin hoping we all magically get the urge to buy an Xbox, just cause PC gaming is not what it used to be.. Thanks again Bill... Alot of Mac users were looking forward to Halo at one time, nice how that turned out...
Err, in case you didn't notice, rumours != facts. I guess that was a typical "how a rumour builds" situation
User A: X could happen
User B: I heard X is a possiblity
User C: It would be soo (good|bad) if X happened
User D: Is it true that X happened? Must be, they didn't deny it. Thats (awesome|aweful)
User F: what??? X happened! What a (grand event|mess) [goes off and posts on other webpages]
That rumour came up before E3 (as every year) saying "Microsoft will buy BioWare and announce it on E3" and it was just that, a rumour. Well, E3 is over. I'm sure it will come up next year again. Dragon Age has no signed publisher at the moment, once it has one I'm sure everyone and their grandmother will come to this forum and find good reasons about why publisher [put random publisher name here] is a bad idea because they want to take over the world and your wallet, screw over [put group dedicated to a certain API or OS here] and force you to use [put name of random copy protection software here]. (note that it doesn't matter which publisher will be signed, there will be always people complaining about it). However posting it here will just serve venting frustration because it won't have any impact on the publishing agreement. But please, could we delay the above described situation until it has actually happened? That would be great.
You will not get any responses from us on the topics "linux" or "mac" support until we have decided to either do it or not and until we know if our publisher (which we don't have at this point) supports this decision. So please let's drop the "nobody has said something encouraging in the last 5 pages, it must mean X (because if they do not deny it, it must be X for certain)" game and wait until we make a public service announcement about the topic? And just in case somebody tries to read anything into my words here: "just don't do it", I'm working on a different project and I have no information regarding possible or not possible linux and mac (clients|servers|toolsets).
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Toolset - Import Functionality
I'll answer for them. No. From engine to licensing issues this just won't happen.
What he said.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 17:33 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.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
NWN:SoU European CD Key issues
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 all of your CD Keys for validation.
Is this the same fix required for the gold double box set if you cannot even get the original version of NWN to install because the key (as printed) comes up as invalid?
No it is not. You have purchased a flawed copy of the game from the retailer and you either need to exchange it for a working copy through them or contact the Atari support in your region and have them solve it.
German Patch?
German HotU shipped as 1.62 - no update is required at this tim until 1.63
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
Looking for expert NWN fans
I am looking for expert tips from the best of the NWN community. What I plan is to have articles that detail the best tips from the community on the following topics:
Being a player
Character creation
DMing
Running a campaign in NWN
Running a persistent world
General tips
Keep your tips a reasonable length- such as under 150 words if possible although special consideration will be given to excellent longer tips.
Submit your tips here in the following format:
•What is your topic?
•What name would you like used if your tip is used?
•What is your tip?
For example:
•Character Creation
•Festilard the Mighty
•You can change the appearance of a pre-made character by clicking on customize button.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Hacker Party in our Midst
BioWare does neither endorse nor oppose what the people in this thread are doing. The community server admins can organize or police their own servers as they see it fit, it's their bandwith and hardware.
BioWare will never globally ban CDKeys based on reports or complaints from the community, cases of global bans/account terminations are very rare and usually only happen for serious violations against our Terms of Service and a few other selected offenses.
In a somewhat unrelated note, we are investigating the option (read: investigating, no promises) of having the game write public cdkey and ip address of people who try to exploit certain issues that are currently present in 1.62 to the logfile (before booting them) so admins can get better awareness of people repeatedly trying to cause havok.
The server admin community has been very helpful with their feedback during the last month and *a lot* of issues have been identified and fixed in 1.63 because of that (sorry, no ETA yet ) have fun.
sj_tilemagic_i 2.0
I'll see what I can do
What is HitPoint History ... George?
Your character stores a complete history of levelups so when you remove levels it knows which feats, skills to remove, how many hitpoints to take, etc
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
HotU and Original Play Disc
i recently, uh, stepped on my play disc for the original NwN game. i want to know if i buy HotU will i need it anymore?
Once you install HotU, you will need to insert the HotU play disk rather than the original NWN disk. However, if you ever have to reinstall the game for some reason, you'll still be out of luck. Hope that helps
Another GetNearestObjectToLocation Bug?
I believe all the following scripting commands:
GetNearestCreatureObject()
GetNearestCreatureToLocation()
GetNearestObject()
GetNearestObjectToLocation()
GetNearestObjectByTag()
Were designed in a way such that the object that you pass in can not be returned as a result of the "Nearest" test.
If you specify a location that no objects are currently at, then the game will find the closest object to that location and will not return that object as a "Nearest" object, but the next nearest object intead.
This makes sense in the context of a call to GetNearestObject(), since you want the closest object to the object specified (but not the object itself), but in the context of GetNearestObjectToLocation () where you've specified a random location in the area (which might not be near any objects) it doesn't make as much sense. Thus, it gives you weird unintutive results.
Although if you make a call like:
oObject = GetNearestCreatureToLocation ( CREATURE_TYPE_IS_ALIVE, TRUE,GetLocation(oPC), 1);
This will then return the nearest creature to the PC, but not the PC itself. I'm not really sure if this was originally the intended use of the scripting command when it was originally implemented or not. I'll have to do some poking around to find out.
Another GetNearestObjectToLocation Bug?
Thanks for the info Craig: you explained very nicely why it is happening but unfortunately as you implied it means GetNearestObjectToLocation is utterly useless.
To clarify: anytime we want to use it (predictably) we need to use an object's location so we might as well use GetNearestObject() instead. [snip]
Hopefully there is a chance that GetNearest..ToLocation can be made to work so that if no object exists at the generated location they will return the nearest object. A fix like that shouldn't have any effect on existing scripts since if ever it has been used it has (until now) required an object's location ... or those scripts are already broken!
In any event thanks and happy poking around.
Yeah that was pretty much my feeling when looking at these scripting commands as well.
I don't believe we've used those scripting commands much ourselves (other than one spot I found in SOU chapter 2) There is the possibility that we may have used these elsewhere in the generic scripts somewhere, if we haven't then changing the behavior shouldn't break any of the OCs. Which means that we may be able to safely make a change to the behavior of these scripting commands.
I'll have to investigate a bit more once I've cleaned a few other tasks off my work plate.
Sydney Tang, Programmer
Tools/Option doesn't work
Did you update to the latest patch? I recall that there was a bug with the Options dialog in an earlier version.
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Interplay Announces Q1 2004 Earnings
Posted Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 15:53 CET by chevalier
Yahoo Finance has Interplay's Q1 2004 Earnings and Future Direction. Here's a clip:
For the first quarter ended March 31, 2004, the Company reported a net loss of $.9 million, or .01 per basic and diluted share, compared to a net income of $5.6 million or $.06 per basic and diluted share, in the same period last year. Net revenues for the first quarter 2004 were $8.4 million versus $18.8 million in the same period last year, a decrease of 55 percent. Finally the Company reported an operating loss of $.9 million in the first quarter as compared to operating income of $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2003. The decrease in net revenues and net income was mainly due to the sale of all future interactive entertainment publishing rights to the "Hunter: The Reckoning" franchise for $15 million in the first quarter of 2003.
Read the whole thing at Yahoo Finance.
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Interplay Nearing Death
Posted Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 15:50 CET by chevalier
Despite Herve's amibitious plans, it seems Interplay is soon going to be out of business. Here's some info from Yahoo:
"The company anticipates its current cash reserves, plus its expected generation of cash from existing operations, will not be sufficient to fund its anticipated expenditures through the second quarter of fiscal 2004," Interplay said in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"Consequently, the company expects that it will need to substantially reduce its working capital needs and/or raise additional capital," Interplay said. "However, no assurance can be given that alternative sources of funding could be obtained on acceptable terms, or at all."
Read the whole thing at Yahoo Business.
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Fallout MMORPG to Save Interplay?
Posted Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 15:07 CET by chevalier
Herve says that only several short-term obstacles are on his way back to making big cash. Such as only $900 thousand loss in the quarter ending March 31 and a just a mere $18 million in liabilities compared to $4.5 million in assets total, let alone problems with letting employees back at their desks. The Force is strong in Herve, but wonder if Herve is equally strong in the Force.
A new solid source of cash is going to be online multiplayer gaming and Fallout in particular. So, it seems that laying BIS off wasn't perhaps the best idea. None of the famed Fallout developers are currently working for Interplay. For this reason, given that a simple addition of a multiplayer protocol to existing Fallout material is not quite enough, it's hardly reasonable to expect the new Fallout MMORPG to have the atmosphere of the original Fallout. However, if they actually make it, that's going to be one of the brightest days in the history of the RPG genre.
Now, its plan is to enter the PC massively-multiplayer online market with what franchise assets remain to its name, particularly the post-nuclear RPG series Fallout. A third stand-alone RPG in the Fallout series was cancelled late last year when Interplay closed Black Isle Studios, but Interplay still owns the intellectual property rights to the series.
"Based on a detailed review of where our industry stands and the level of interest in the gaming community in taking some of our premier properties online, we are now pursuing several options to fund our entry into massively-multiplayer online gaming with titles including Fallout," Caen said. "Initial feedback from our investment bank and ongoing dialogue with others in the gaming sector appear to confirm that the combination of our valuable and popular intellectual properties with the rapidly growing online gaming community is the best way to maximize Interplay shareholder value."
Read the whole thing at 1UP.
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BioWare Receives an Award at Discreet
Posted Friday, June 25, 2004 - 18:30 CET by chevalier
BioWare has received an award at Discreet. You can watch a video featuring some nice 3D animation. Jade Empire, which is made by BioWare but isn't covered by SP, gets the best RPG title.
Read the whole thing at Discreet.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, June 25, 2004 - 15:44 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.
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
23 Jun 2004 - NWN Profile: NWTactics
I agree- damn good work on NWTactics.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Servers Going Strong?
There are usually between 2.5k and 6k players depending on day of the week and time of the day.
1.63 Patch
There are no plans to add epic spellcasting to bards.
1.63 Patch
Any plans for an option to turn off attacks of opportunity?
First off, attacks of opportunity are not an optional thing in D&D so there is absolutely no reason why we sould add an option for that. This thread is rapidly losing any value. However, you can already do it if you want. Set the difficulty level to easy or modify the appropriate .2da to disable attacks of opportunity on the setting you want to play on. There will be no options other than this.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, June 25, 2004 - 15:43 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.
David Gaider, Designer
As a setting: Dragon Age compared to Eberron. What do you think?
How can you have anything but an IP vs. license debate here, considering you don't actually know anything about the Dragon Age setting?
Customizing Characters
Character models will certainly be much more customizeable. Just how much remains to be seen.
How would YOU spend zots?
The new David Gaider collector figure, with Extreme Procrastination Action!! ::hides::
Well, I guess they wouldn't have to make the "action" figure have much range of motion, then. Maybe just closeable eyes.
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
Concept Art
I am popping in here to make sure this does not wander too far off topic...or I will move this off-topic. Keep in mind the creation of concept art is not a static process it is dynamic. We have gone through many and radically different versions of characters in Jade for example before we settle on what we all like...and even then we are still changing costumes. The debate over the representation of female characters in fantasy literature and other media is an excellent conversation if appraoched from rational and mature point of view. Pray continue but do remember this thread is about a wallpaper for Dragon Age.
Any Idea of the system requirement (Specially W98SE)?
I would have to agree with Georg- if your still running Win98 by the time Dragon Age comes out you will have larger problems than this game to content with. The recommended specs in my completely fabricated and very untechnically sound cauldron of lies are:
Intel Buckrogers 3000
ATI-nVidia Das GroupenBlaster MMZ Overlord 10000 (comes in special space-themed box with fins!)
733t RAM-STEIN
OzZy SoundCard 230,000
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
The Tool Man
Hey, Tools monkeys, Georg? :) Just to set the record straight: When I started at BioWare, in February of '99, the tools team consisted of just two programmers, myself and one other. It now has 22 programmers and is still growing. When I started, we supported only one project, we now support five (currently they are JE / DA / Live Team / Localization / Unannounced).
The typical project requires anywhere from 20 to 50 individual pieces of tools software ranging in size from a few dozen lines of code to several hundred thousand and with purposes as diverse as content creation to bug tracking to asset management. Some tools depend upon game and graphics systems and require constant maintenance, others are built once and then used for months or years almost without modification. Some tools we know about at the beginning of the project or can anticipate and so design and construction starts as early as possible, but there are others that appear unexpectedly and can only be built later, as the need arises.
The advantage of having a dedicated team of tools programmers like we do at BioWare is that we can more easily apply the lessons learned on previous projects (What tools were required? How long did they take to design and build? When did we realize that they were necessary? etc.) to the current ones. The implication of this is that it should mean better (in at least one respect or another) tools for the community on those projects where they are included.
I'll let Tim & Co. go into the particular details for DA later. :)
Georg Zoeller, Designer
How would YOU spend zots?
True - but the toolset they use does not have to be one that is useful to amateurs not used to using professional development tools.
I tried the Silent Storm editor yesterday and found it quite unfriendly for a first time user, it took me quite a while to figure out how things work. can't really judge how powerful it is based on a couple of hours, but my impression is that our internal toolsets are by default more accessible and ergonomic than many tools used at other companies and even "enduser" editors that ship with many other games. I have no doubt that someone who was reasonably skilled with the NWN toolset *could* adapt to the Jade Toolset relatively fast, even if it is only an internal one.
Sure, you will miss a lot of the "make it easier" features and it might not be so tolerant on you when you try something you shouldn't do, but still.
So I guess when you say "no toolset", you say "spend no time on making the internal toolset user friendly/error tolerant/polished for the end user. Keep in mind however that saving time on that end wouldn't magically make the story longer, add a z-axis to the game or otherwise do stuff you would notice, because tools programmers are tools programmers and don't add z-axis or horses to a game, etc.
I'm not saying that it isn't a lot of work to make the toolset accessible and user friendly so it is easy to use for Trent's Grandma (it sure is *a lot* of work), but I'm saying that any "zots" you save there do not necessarily add up into new game features or a longer story as the free tools resources could also be allocated to other projects, improving our internal tools (which would cause a general productiveness increase for the rest of the team but not necessarily impact the game currently being worked on) and so on.
I think some of you guys should really stop trying to blame the toolset or multiplayer or the GM client for the fact that you didn't like how the NWN OC ended up, because the reasons why the NWN OC ended up the way it ended up are multi fold and complex and while those features have contributed to it, there were a lot of other reasons as well (i.e. you not agreeing with general design decisions - no party control like BG, etc - no amount of additional programming time would have changed that ).
Yes, by making the game use a tileset system (for easy end user modability), things like exciting unique places as seen in the BG story didn't make it for NWN and that had impact on the game's atmosphere (and we tried to remedy this for HotU by using specially crafted tiles for important places (i.e. well room, V's temple, etc).
DA is not going to use a tilebased system as a result, so it's not that we are not aware of the problems out there.
But anyway, the approach in this thread is highly flawed as it doesn't take BioWare's structure into account. Saying 50% zots for writing is a great idea, we just move all the programmers over to writing for a while and I'm sure we will get some wonderfully complex and challenging math puzzles
If you want to speculate, try something more like this
Art
* Animation
* Creatures
* Areas
* 2D Art / GUI, Portraits, Icons
* Cinematics/Cutscenes
* Concept Art
* 3d art, VFX
Programming
* Game Engine
* Game UI
* Network
* Graphics Engine
* Sound
* Goodies (Physics engine, etc)
Technical Design
* Game Rules (Classes, Combat, etc)
* Balancing
* Level Scripting
* Cutscenes
* Global Systems
* Goodies
Writing
* World Background (incl. Race backgrounds, etc)
* Story
* Dialog (NPCs)
* Dialog (Henchmen)
* Dialog (Romances)
* Origin Stories
* Goodies
Tools (project specific)
* Specific Tools (i.e.Art)
* Toolset (core)
* Toolset (enduser friendlyness)
* Additional tools (i.e external compilers)
Production
* VO
* Soundtrack
* Localization
* ...
Of course this is inaccurate and incomplete, but at least it gives you a bit better picture. Happy zot distribution!
What Kind of World is Dragon Age?
I wouldn't take anything for granted at this stage of development. If you insist on believing certain things are granted, I suggest taking the stuff in the FAQ.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 16:30 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
Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?
At this point, I think they'd all rather have weekly colonoscopies than work with another license.
Heh... cute. I think it's been pretty much explained. Someone else's world is someone else's world, and no matter who that is or how cool they might even be, everything we attempt to do is going to have to be approved by them first... from the viewpoint of maintaining their own vision of and plans for their license rather than for the betterment of the computer game we're making. That's what makes it hard, and often frustrating. It's like having a bunch of chefs all in charge of making a single batch of soup, with half of them concerned not with how the soup tastes but what color it ends up being. And while I personally think some books like "Game of Thrones" and "Tigana" have wonderful worlds that would be cool to detail in a game... come on, who wouldn't give their right arm to put their own world up there instead? I bet a lot of you are DM's who have a world or two that you've created tucked away somewhere. How much better do you know that world, and how much does that improve how you tell stories in it? A lot, I'd expect.
New wallpaper...
I think this is just concept work for the character used in the E3 demo (who is a spellcaster, at least, and not wearing any armor). The barbarian man will be along soon, too, is my guess, just to make things equal. And I don't think this is meant to be representative of Dragon Age's eventual style.
More:
Don't you ever saw the pattern of Bioware's fantasy games since ToB? Melissan prominent feature was breasts. Aribeth's prominent feature was breasts. Valsharess' prominent feature was breasts. Can you see the pattern here or are you too freaking blind by your fanboism and modship?
Mmm... not that I don't admit we might end up with a scantily-clad female of some variety somewhere in the game, but it won't be THIS scantily-clad female. This was a generic concept for the demo. The actual Dragon Age world is much colder than the one in the demo appears to be. I would expect any bikinis we have to at least be fur-lined.
More:
It shows me that we are going to get more of the same. Oh well.
But you already knew that. I'm not sure there is anything we could show you that wouldn't confirm your suspicion that your overly-jaded palette wasn't about to be satisfied. I mean... we could suddenly show a giant space-ship firing lasers and disintegrating paladins left and right! "...oh, this again? Technology in a fantasy setting has been done to death. This doesn't excite me at all. Can't you do something new?" or, better yet, giant dinosaurs wearing armor and being ridden by angry elven bowmen! "...what is this? You should have called it Jurassic Age. (sniff!) I am unimpressed." We could even suddenly announce that the entire genre of the game has been switched to futuristic cyberpunk mixed with space exploration! "...I suppose this is better but I can't see Bioware doing a good job of it. Look how big the breasts are on the woman in that flight suit. I bet she's on the cover. How ugly I find her. (sniff!) Oh, look, laser guns. How original. I am SO disappointed in you, Bioware." So forgive me when I say that I hope you find our fantasy setting so boringly generic and full of ugly, big-breasted women that your jaded palette implodes and sucks your head into some weird fourth dimension where, eventually, chances are good you might find something new to appreciate. Ahem.
More:
If breast size ends up being customizable, how does Bioware see the possibility of allowing larger floatation devices to allow a bonus in water floating? Truly, i'm interested in the roleplaying possibilities.
Or, better yet, levitation!
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(Aside - I always wanted to know just which of the Firefly developers was a Traveler player/GM because I never saw a show so obviously based on a PnP RPG).
I don't know about that. I didn't see any Vargr or Aslan. Unless you mean a lone ship travelling planet to planet is specific to Traveler.
More:
I think he was refereing to the style it was presented and not actual content, David. I wouldn't mind seeing a Firefly styled CRPG. *hint hint*
He said "obviously". There are some similarities, perhaps, but not enough to point at Firefly and say that it is obviously based on Traveler. There was a big Traveler campaign book that had a similar theme (involving a crew aboard an old rustbucket ship called the March Harrier and having adventures while traveling from planet to planet) but I don't think that's such a specific theme that you could claim one was based on the other. A Firefly CRPG would be great. Actually, so would a Traveler CRPG.
New wallpaper...
I got some good replies of of David, thats for sure. I never get tired of these forums.
Yes. You tricked us all. Wow, are you every tricky. And here we all thought you were overly-jaded and intractable. Silly ol' us.
Intro Movie
I'd like to see an intro movie that deals with DA's primary focus: Unlimited adventures.
That's DA's focus? Really??
Is Dragon Age the product of one of the developers homebrew D&D campaigns?
Parts of the world are.
More:
Are you allowed to say which developer or developers?
There's bits and pieces from several, I'd think. I know there's a few chunks of my homebrew in there. Anyone in this position would do the same, I think.
More:
Plus it saves you having to come up with all new ideas that aren't nessecarily better. It also saves a bit of thinking things through.
I'm... trying to decide if this is meant in a good way or not... hmmmm...
Gnome!
This thread reminds me of my Aunt Milly. She used to come home to Uncle Hebert every night and, taking off her bloody gauntlets (she worked in a slaughterhouse), would say the same thing to him every day.
"I want a pony," she'd say.
And Uncle Hebert would always say the same thing in response.
"You can't have a pony," he'd say.
And sometimes, if Aunt Milly were feeling especially cantankerous (bashing in the heads of midget rabbits can do that to a woman), this would lead to an argument where Uncle Hebert would get very upset. Where would we keep the pony? How would we feed the pony? Why not get a dog? But Aunt Milly was always insistent and she would storm off and Uncle Hebert would have to cook his own dinner. Which was not especially a good thing as Uncle Hebert only cooked pasta and would make a terrible mess in the kitchen which Aunt Milly would just have to clean up afterwards, poor woman. This was during the soap shortage of '53, you understand, where women had to clean the floor with hard brushes and the birth rate dropped to a quarter of what it was.
Until one day Aunt Milly decided that, since she had slaughtered all those poor rabbits, she deserved to have something she wanted and she went out and bought herself a pony. Leading it through the front door of her home, she proudly showed it to Uncle Hebert.
"I got myself a pony," she said.
"Urrrrk!" he said.
He was, you see, allergic to horses and he died right there on the spot. And so Aunt Millie took his body and secretly put it in the big furnace where they got rid of the midget bunny bones. And she lived happily for a while and even married a nice, rich gnome. But then the authorities found her out and even though she claimed that Uncle Hebert never actually told her he was allergic to horses, she still got the chair. Which made us sad. Especially when Uncle Fritz insisted we bury her beside the damn pony, which incidentally starved to death because everyone forgot she kept it in the basement. Why she kept it in the basement we're not sure, but keep in mind this is a woman who slaughtered bunnies for a living.
I suppose the moral of this story is "buy what you want, because you might just get to marry a rich gnome". And that's all I have to say on the subject.
Tom Ohle, Public Relations
New wallpaper...
concept art. for the E3 demo. made into a wallpaper.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
A silly (or perhaps brilliant) suggestion: Multiplayer licensing
*hugs* Georg, Oh you know you love us social server people with our kinky leathers, and thanks for the whips. There's an idea for DA, some way for module authors and server admins to specify a 'adult' flag, could be anything from grose violence, sexual content or other stuff, so that if a parent has used the parental lock there children won't be able to connect to such servers, or load up such modules without editing them in the toolset.
Take notes Brenon
More: If something like this was to happen, the idea would probably more be along the line of "BioWare contracts a module maker or team in the community to create content for the game that would be available through a BioWare content distribution system", as this would guarantee quality content while offering legal safety to all involved parties.
As for runnning PW servers and charging players to play on them - forget about it, DA is not a PW toolkit and if we would collect cash from people who want to run their own PW servers, we would have to make it a supported feature, and that's not going to happen (plus another dozend of reasons already listed in this thread). As for NWN, people bought the game and payed a fixed cost and it doesn't mention any hidden costs attached with multiplayer.
If we would allow random server operators to charge for their worlds, this would not only create inconsistency in multiplayer, most likely confusing our regular customers, it would also cast a very bad light on us, make us vulnerable to lawsuits and would inflict serious conflicts on the community:
PW x is using script XXX from scripter k as well as new creature models from artist v and all those people would like to get a share of the pie as they contributed to the world and released their work unter the premise that it is not commercially exploited.
Finally creature model m that was used in agreement with artist w used textures ripped out of commercial product n and since the server operator was making money out of his server, company nn which owns product n sues him and possibly BioWare for damages.
I am sure that people like the DLA or CODI team who provide commercial level quality models, tilesets and artwork would have serious objections if they saw a random server charging money to play that was using their work they created for free over so many month. The resulting conflicts, finger pointing and fights in the community would be a very bad thing(tm).
We have no intention of inflicting such conflict our community to allow a few people who want the game to be more than just a hobby to do so. Yes, it would be nice to get a return different from "fun" for your hobby, but it's not going to happen, not this way.
I'm sure a system could be implemented that would allow content and module creators to get benefits for creating high quality content that is used by a lot of people and there are technical and legal solutions to many of the problems listed above, but whatever happens in the future, you can be sure that we would not go with anything that would cause serious damage to our community. If we were to do something like a "community marketplace", it would be balanced in a way that the core community would not suffer from this.
We are watching the market and we will evalute things like a "engine license light" if we see a merit in it at some point in the future.
Dragon Age Wallpaper!
Don't worry, I'm sure the fitting male wallpaper is only a matter of time, so everyone can feel happy again.
Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?
I look at David's comments in the light of what Rob said a while ago.
Essentially - that some of the flaws of NWN were caused by splitting the attentions of the design team onto BOTH trying to make a fully featured toolkit AND making a great Game. Thus that he thinks that the best approach might be to SPLIT these two focuses into two different teams, allowing the main design team to focus on making a great game (hence David's comment on the focus NOT being the mod community) while the tools team and the live team focus on making a great set of tools for us to use to make new adventures. In short - The Dragon Age design team has as its focus great SP and MP games. There will also be a toolkit and it will hopefully be at least as good as NWNs toolkit and likely better. But if sacrifices have to be made in one area or the other, that area will most likely be made in the toolkit with later patches being left to improve our ability to mod, leaving the primary focus being a great game. But, of course, that is merely my interpretation of comments made by many people, most of whom are not even on the DA team. Carl
Keep in mind that Bioware's tools department is now about 2000% larger than it was when NWN was started and that it's not the first toolset we are rolling out, there have been toolsets for NWN, KotOR(internal) and Jade(internal) in the meantime. I can't tell how the DA toolset will end up (feature wise) or what's planned for it, but keep in mind that an experienced team is usually able to create things lots faster the second, third, or fourth time around.
Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?
a new setting is simply an opportunity to be creative is all. lest anyone forget, both Diablo and Dungeon Siege were new settings...
very true. Some game devs would be helped by using a crutch of a more well defined world to add depth. I think Bioware has shown enough potential for world creating creativity in previous games that they won't fail to create something new and exciting here.
I'm sure from blizzards perspective the diablo setting was a success. A series of books, D&D RPG product spinoffs, etc. And I'm sure they would be very upset if they had to ask and wait for approval each time the want to things in order to rebalance the game...
I trust DA will improve on the horrible camera in NWN!
I wouldn't call the perspective horrible, NWN was always supposed to be played from an isometric perspective which was the perspective of the time the game was planned/created. Today, 3D engines arefar more powerful and people really want to have a closer look at their characters, so there is a trend away from the isometric perspective, and given the cost to create those motion captured normal mapped high texture quality models you see in games today, developers are more than happy to follow that trend and make sure you get a close look at those characters. I'm not sure what's planned for Dragon age, but the camera options will most likely be based on what's found to be most functional and fun for gameplay.
More:
Georg: Yeah the NWN camera is fine if you use it in the original mode, where it can't go below 45 degrees (or something) to the vetical and therefore walls can hardly every get in the way. But with the HotU option to get close to the action, the in-ability to see through walls to get perspective on the character was a real problem. In that sense the chase cam mode is a kind of "hack". I'd expect DA to have a totally new engine, and I've seen it mentioned that it won't be tile set based, so I'm expecting that it will work well. Never tried CoH, but glad to hear there are other games showing it can be done!
Oh yes, that camera in hordes was self defense The increasing amount of customer support complaints about being unable to patch after applying a certain third party camera hack to the game was starting to get a real problem - plus we designers loved the camera angles for the cutscenes. But I agree, especially with the old non HotU tileset, the HotU camera was not the optimal solution.
More: The CoH camera is pretty good, through in those tight Circle of Thorns cave missions it is getting to its limits, I usually end up pretty disoriented.
What Kind of World is Dragon Age?
A very dark and very evil place ... wait, I've just read that somewhere else...
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Evil? In a Bioware game? What next, cats and dogs living together?
Is Evil as in "let's put out a real time game system and call it turn based so we can watch them suffer in agony for a couple of more years?" better?
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I don't think there was a need to take a rather simple jibe so seriously, was there?
Oh, I forgot the smiley, people seem to expect those these days
Any Idea of the system requirement (Specially W98SE)?
It's far to early to even think about system requirements for Dragon Age. However I doubt that many gamers will still be using Win98 by the time the game is out.
More: Apart from drivers (supporting Win98 with it's ancient memory and resource management and file system is a nightmare) I think a lot will depend on DirectX (don't try to read this as "they are not using OpenGL", DirectX is more than a graphics API and I can't tell what graphics API the new engine will use) and other "core products" being available. The trend seems to be sacrificing backward compatibility for security and from that point of view, Win9X looks pretty doomed. Sure, it will be around for a couple more years, but there will be very strong incentives to upgrade.
Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?
Two thousand percent more? Either you now have 20 people where there was one before, or all the free soda and pizza has had an effect on that poor, gargantuan person. In all seriousness, it is cool that there's a team of dedicated people working on toolset issues. I suspect we'll see things much more flexible and streamlined. Doing things for the forth time does make things go much faster and smoother. I'm personally hoping for more of the "guts" of the game engine exposed, ready for the Bioware designers, artists, and community to fiddle around with things.
Our tools department is supporting all current projects and lot more tools than just the "toolset", so don't get the impression that there is now a large horde of tools monkeys banging away on the DA toolset under master monkey tim's watchful eyes until it's released
New wallpaper...
I just want a bit of realism. I just can't see a scantily clad woman going dungeon delving.
It's not that you couldn't put a nice robe on your female wizard in HotU, right? And if you don't like the face, thank god there were no open faced helmets in NWN
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
As a builder, 3 things that scare me about Dragon Age
One word of caution guys. To my knowledge, nobody has publicly discussed what will be made available for end user level art tools. What has been discussed by BioWare people has been possible implementations and not what will be in the game. It is very possible that what has been mentioned by BioWare people will be exactly what will be in the game. But many decisions are to be made and only a few people are even remotely up to date as to the current directions being discussed. If you don't hear it from Scott G's, Darcey P's or my mouth, I wouldn't bank on it being what will be delivered in the game. I just don't want our open discussions, public suppositions and hearsay to elevate to the level of BioWare made promises. It only ends up disappointing you guys and frustrating us when we start to receive the barrage of rants about missing features that we never promised.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
A silly (or perhaps brilliant) suggestion: Multiplayer licensing
Take notes Brenon
My whiteboard is full already, but I'm sure I can squeeze some more on there somewhere... or maybe get a new whiteboard... *shoots a significant look at sys-admin*
Please, I beg you...
Unfortunately, DA looks like it will face the same problems. The graphics just look like a higher poly count version of NWN! It looks all right now, just imagine how bad it will look after the 5 years it will probably take them to make this game.
Oh for sure... because the concept demo we showed was the final engine with final art. Heck, we're almost done! The time we have scheduled from now until release is really just padding on the schedule... (/sarcasm) Drawing conclusions based on a demo at this early stage is a very bad idea. 'Cuz more than likely, you'll be wrong. Just a note for anyone who did not realize that the first paragraph of this post was actually sarcasm in action(tm)... please click here
Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?
Oh boy... you might be reading a bit too much into what David was saying... We are making a game too, after all... * There will be a toolset. You will be able to make your own adventures. * There will be support for custom content. * You will be able to host your own games. The theme of Dragon Age, you can see for yourself on the games page here. Or, to quote:
Dragon Age(tm) is a blockbuster fantasy role-playing game set in a world created and owned by BioWare. Dragon Age will offer a deep, party-based, roleplaying experience in both single-player and multi-player game modes. Utilizing a brand new game engine, Dragon Age will feature stunning visuals with a tantalizing blend of the exploration and combat of Baldur's Gate(tm), the multi-player gameplay and community support of Neverwinter Nights(tm), and a cinematic gameplay experience from BioWare, the developer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic(tm). Explore vast landscapes, engage in massive battles, and experience the sights, sounds, and culture of the heroic new world of Dragon Age.
Key Dragon Age Features:
* Cinematic story-driven single-player campaign * Separate campaign designed specifically for a multi-player experience * Mod tools for great custom content * Set in a new fantasy world created by BioWare for fans of its past titles * Participate in massive battles * Party-based gameplay for outstanding tactical combat and immersive character interaction
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 24, 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.
Rob Bartel, Senior Designer
What's the latest word on the WW series?
1] It's been nearly a month. Anything new to report? How about a best guess as to the quarter of release?
Nothing specific that we're prepared to report at this time but there has been substantial progress.
Quote: 2] Other DD goodies that you're hoping to release? How often do you create "goodies" that don't see the light of day?
Most end up seeing the light of day in some fashion or another though there have been cases prior to DD where we'd go as far as to gut something that's unworkable and either strip it for parts or rebuild it from the ground up. Due to the lower investment required for DD projects, we may be more tempted to scrap the project entirely should similar circumstances arise.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Georg, any chance
Georg, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it isn't just a simple change to polymorph.2da. Polymorph Self and Shapechange use different scripts (nw_s0_polyself and nw_s0_shapechg) from Wildshape, Dragon Shape, Outsider Shape, etc. (nw_s2_wildshape). The former scripts do not include the item merge functions. So, to enable "equipment melting" for the polymorph spells, you'll need to update the 2da and add the item merge functions into each polymorph script.
You are right, you need to copy over that code to the spellscript.
Hacker Party in our Midst
Watch 'em go off-line and possibly to jail.
l.o.l, best joke ever
Copy Protection Rules
The SecuRom protection is mandantory by our publisher, Atari. Any questions regarding SecuRom or support for issues that you suspect are related to SecuRom should be directed to Atari Support. It is unfortunate but we are bound to use SecuRom. Atari offers their own feedback forums at http://www.ataricommunity.com, please continue this discussion there. Thank you.
1.63 Patch
The one thing I have in my override is the spells.2da because of the shadow magic bugs which were really hosing our game. Is that fixed in 1.63 by chance? Vyr
Craig fixed several issues with Subradial spells (like the shadow spells) bypassing spell resistance and showing otherwise unintended behavior.
How do you turn the "ESC" button off for conversations?
Unfortunately you can't. Thats one of the things in NWN that it won't be in our next games. No more exiting out of conversations at any time
1.63 Patch
So will the 1.63 be out this year
That's likely
1.63 will be taking long to make, maybe you could release what you've got now and put other fixes in 1.64?? Pretty please?
That unfortunately is impossible. There has been a significant feature addition for 1.63 and we can not afford maintaing several code branches for the game, sorry. The patch will most likely get an extensive beta once it is done.
1.63 Patch
Georg, can you explain a bit how these new VFX attachments to avatars work? Such as bows slung over the back, sheaths, etc? Can these be used to create things like hats or faceless helms (with no properties, just appearance)? Would have any of these things require a hak pak or would there be some default toolset stuff as well?
I think the DLA guys already developed a better system for scabbards and other character attachments, stay tuned The VFX change is a simple one. There was always a column in visualeffects.2da that would specify whether to align the effect mdl with the object it is attached to or not. Unfortunately that column never worked so the community was limited to a handfull effects that stick with the character's orientation: the flags. Craig unwired it so you can now just set the .2da entry and the effect will rotate with the character like the VFX_FLAG_* effects do. So if you create a VFX that looks like a quiver and attach it to the players neck node, it will now stay on the characters back. Without the 1.63 functionality, it would always face the way it was facing when it was spawened in, a rotating player would suddenly see the quiver on his chest or sticking from inside his arm. Hope that makes it clear.
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Interplay's Shares Actually on the Rise
Posted Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 15:50 CET by chevalier
Interplay's shares cost $0.042 each, which is a whole $0.008 more than half a day ago when they hit the lowest of their low at $0.034.
See Interplay's summary at Yahoo Finance.
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Dungeons and Dragons Online Chat Part 2 at WarCry
Posted Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 15:43 CET by chevalier
WarCry have posted the continuation of their chat with Cardell Kerr, Senior Game System Designer on Dungeons and Dragons Online for Turbine Games.
"In the example that you mentioned, where you feel and look like everyone else, our main goal is to try and give each of your quests a different spin, each of the interactions that you have with that quest is your choice, what you're going to do. You could help this guy, or betray this guy in the future – it's your choice from there, actually utilizing the NPCs in the world to reflect upon you as a character."
Read the whole thing at WarCry.
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BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 21:10 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
NWN Profile: NWTactics
Do you yearn to crush your friends like the dogs they are in gleeful player versus player (PvP) gaming under the Neverwinter roof? If so, look no further than the world of NWTactics! NWTactics is a tested, balanced, and exciting way to flex your might. Recently, we chatted with PDL Northpal, NWTactics developer and PvP enthusiast. Discuss.
The First Dragon Age Wallpaper Just Released
The first Dragon Age wallpaper has just been released! Based on a piece of awesome concept art, the wallpaper is sure to spruce up even the dullest monitors. Visit the official Dragon Age web site to download the wallpaper today. Discuss.
NWN Profile: NWConnections Player's Guide
NWConnections is one of the most impressive venues for recreating a tabletop D&D atmosphere. However, the site might seem daunting to some, so a handy guide was developed. We spoke with Gruush, who was part of the team of authors that recently created a complete guide to NWConnections. Discuss.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 19:19 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.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Please, no flying
Keeping track of what's going on is hard enough in a no-flying RPG with a single character like NWN when things happen in two directions at once. In real life you have field of view of about 200 degrees side-to-side and 150 degrees top-to-bottom. In a computer game you get less. And in DA you'll have to do the looking for several people at once. That's going to be a gameplay nightmare -- endless switching, rotating and double checking. It'll be even less fun than continually switching around the party in KotOR to see if they started ignoring your combat orders yet. Just don't do it.
ok
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Weather Immunity?
What would a sweat animation look like? I mean I sweat in lots of different places doing different things... Sports, workout, sprinting up the stairs when I'm late for work every morning, etc... heck, my Grandfather used to sweat when he did dishes... how would you represent that as an animation? One of the main things to think about with these sorts of ideas is in a lot of cases it's really hard to represent little things well in games where you can't see your character in *extreme* detail, unless the thing you're trying to represent is over-exaggerated. Think of large stage plays... where actors in general don't convey small gestures (like arching an eyebrow) but rather tend to convey feeling and nuance with large gestures (easily visible by everyone) or with their voice. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for characters reacting to their environment - but unless it's obvious (at least somewhat) it's probably not worth it as people by and large won't notice it.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 19:10 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
A silly (or perhaps brilliant) suggestion: Multiplayer licensing
If such a thing is possible to do technically, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to make money from it.
Apart from the fact that it opens a legal can of worms for everyone involved (which is more reason than enough not to touch this issue), it would force us to officially support those "PW features", because if someone pays for them he can expect them to be fully supported (plus our name would be on the box and people would still associate the "world" with BioWare, which could cause some really bad image problems for us in case of "House of Leather and Whips" (just check the NWN server browser). Sorry, but as noted in a different thread already, the possiblity for this "engine license light" to happen is close to 0. We might explore different options in the future, but since NWN greatly benefited from it's free to play nature, I don't see this changeing for DA.
Equipment Melting
It is indeed different from the shifter, sorry, no equipment melting for the polymorph spell (through it's a simple polymorph.2da change for servers that disagree with this decision)
Creature Weapon: On Hit: Cast Spell: Unique Power
heyas; but i still dont see THE difference. okay, so if you turn on the USE ITEM TAG SCRIPTING variable, and use that if(use item tag scripting is turned on), then it will execute(and return int) the script named the same as the tag. and this is all called on the script in the onActivate slot for the module. so, if i don't want to bother turning on the variable, i just take the if off and make it do it all the time. and if i want it to execute the script itm_+tag name, i just use that itm_+tag routine. and if i don't care if an int gets returned... well, i'm left with executescript("itm_tag"); which is what i had in the first place. i just dont understand why you need all this extra rigamarole to get this to work.
because it's hooked up deeper in HotU's event system to forward all events, not just OnActivate into one file. This way you have all code that belongs to a single item in one file. The benefits are obvious: Instead of checking through a good number of single event handlers (OnActivate, OnEquip, OnUnequip, etc), you have everything in a central place. Want to get rid of the item, delete the file, everything is gone. Want to share it with someone, just mail him the item and the one script file and they can put it into their module and are ready to go.It also routes pseudo events like OnSpellCastAt to the file which allows to create some really nify things.Check x2_inc_switches and x2_def_mod_load for details on this system. There is a switch to allow you to set a prefix (i.e. "itm_" if you want to do so).
Derek French, Live Team Producer
NWN:SoU European CD Key issues
So can I expect the solution for the problem after Bioware gone back online?
We have not been offline. If you submitted your CD Keys and we see that there is a problem, then we will fix it for you. If your CD Keys do not show this problem, then you will not be contacted by us.
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Interplay Has a Brilliant New Strategy
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 19:08 CET by chevalier
First, pay the landlord. Next, get a new one. Third, try to get employers back. Then, try to get some cash. Go Herve! You surely are a great strategic mind. Mao pales to you. Considered guerilla tactics?
He said first order of business was getting worker's comp back, which Interplay did. He said the next task is for Interplay to work out a deal with their previous landlord (which supposedly Interplay is working on). Then, he said Interplay would seek to obtain a new lease (note the word "seek"). After that, they would work to bring back their employees (note the word "work"). Luke said that the final step would be for Herve to seek/close a deal or deals that would give Interplay financing going forward.
Read about Herve's cunning plans at Raging Bull.
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SP Happenings #55
Posted Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 17:53 CET by Sorcerer
I've been without my computer again for four days now (hard drive issues still; hopefully fixed now *crosses fingers*), so the poll is staying on for another week. Since I couldn't really do anything in terms of SP without my computer, there's really nothing to report this week either. I'm mainly catching up on the work around SP that I've missed. Site redesign isn't progressing anywhere either, since I haven't managed to get ahold of Catbert in the last ten days or so. Either way, however, I'll start with the conversion of the Games section to the new design next week. The things I need Catbert to do can be done alongside this.
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Dungeons and Dragons Online Chat at WarCry
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 19:32 CET by chevalier
WarCry have posted a nostalgic chat with Cardell Kerr, Senior Game System Designer for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Here's a clip:
“The thing to remember about those Sunday night games, at least in every game that I’ve ever played, it’s the story you tell afterward. It’s the stories that develop from any given encounter that contribute to the impact of the campaign. You obviously need a good chunk of very powerful villains. You need a good chunk of very interactive areas in which you can play. To the point where you can run into a setting and know that there are different rules for that setting, in the sense of: “Oh, I can use these vines to trap that person over here.” Or “I know that the spider will probably try and drop down from the ceiling here.”“
Read the whole thing at WarCry.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 19:26 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
DA Fantasy Theme
I hope that your comment was made at least partly in jest
Everything Stan says is at least partly in jest. We might consider doing a less-fantasyish sci-fi setting or even something more out there... but for someone to claim to be dismayed that we're making a full-blown fantasy RPG is a bit naive, isn't it? It's one thing to say that you'd prefer we did something else, quite another to say that upon coming here and discovering the fantasy theme of our next game your shock and horror were so great that you felt the need to leap into a vat full of Norwegian stinging scorpions while stabbing yourself repeatedly. I hyperbolize, of course, but that appears to be the theme of the day anyhow.
Dragon age and PvP ?
so im just wondering, will Dragon Age be balanced in PvP, so that those who enjoy dont need to ban certain spells and similiar to have a fair fight, or are we better off playing a difrent game ?
The same as with persistent worlds, PvP isn't an aspect that DA will be designed to accomodate. If it's able to be used for that, it will be incidental to our design (just as in NWN). As to just how much PvP will be accomodated, it's a bit too early for us to tell just yet.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Elven Blade Singers
I could see use in a bladesinger class - munchkin magnet A certain group of gamers will select this class at start and get teleported into a single 10x10 meter area with monsters constantly respawning until they are dead. The rest plays on the normal server, nobody will notice the difference.
Allow GMs to charge for servers?
The charging for server question has nothing to do with WotC or D20. I wouldn't expect any changes in that policy. As Dave said in other threads, creating a PW Kit to allow people to roll out their own persistent worlds and make money from it isn't something we are interested in at the moment. DA's first and foremost goal is to deliver a AAA single and multiplayer story driven RPG.
Improving Network Code?
While there is always room for improvements, I don't think there is any priority in allowing more people per server. If bandwith is freed up, it will probably be put to use for other features. There are a lot of things that *could* be done with excess bandwith, from voice communication to accomodating a different model for sending environment information to the client or supporting a physics engine. Not to forget that the planned mass battle capabilities will require a good load of bandwith. I'm not saying that any of those things will be or will not be in DA, I'm just saying that there are a lot of things that could be done with new bandwith, and most of those are more interesting than allowing more players per server.
DA vs D&D
D & D simplified this with a number that made human DMs rolling dice settlte the issue quickly and easily. Why now continue this in the computer?
Right. i.e. why should damage be represented as integer value? The computer is pretty good juggling floating point values, so things like damage can be much more fine grained.
MMORPG Style Server
I think that's rediculous. Bioware already "unofficially" supports PW's.
No, PWs are unsupported. Yes, we do not prevent people from creating PW and every once in a while we sneak in a feature that is useful for people running PW servers and yes, when adding new features we discuss the implications those may have for PWs (such as the customize character button), but PWs are unsupported.
They made many additions to NWN that was obviously for persistant worlds and the communities desire for them. When they saw the community was designing their own NWN databases what did bioware do? They created a NWN database.
No, the database was added to allow pass data between campaign chapters in the first place. It can be used for PWs, sure, but any PW person out there will attest you that it is not really suited to do so (for performance reasons)
I really don't see your point here and why your trying to down play the importance of PW's to this kind of game. There is a HUGE amount of people out there who still play the old text only MUD's. It wouldn't take much more to draw them to the graphical type of game such as NWN and DA.
Compared to our core audience, NWN PWs *are* insignificant, there is nothing to downplay here. It's not that we are guessing in the dark, we know people play on NWN PWs, we know how many people play at which time of the day, how long they play, and how long the servers stay up. We monitor those numbers and we use them to make decisions for our future games.
If Bioware could attract more of those people there would be a definate boost in sales. But, they don't "officially" support that kind of gaming.
Official support for PWs would force a focus shift that would hurt our core audience as the resources used to create PW friendlyness could also be used in adding something that helps our core audience. A lof of people play counterstrike as well, maybe we should try to attract those as well? Example: We could allow 128 players per server by optimizing our bandwith or we could instead add a more sophisticated combat system (that would require more messages/bandwith per player). This doesn't mean that there isn't a significant overlap between what's nice for PW people and what's nice for our core audience and PWs however.
Btw, the popularity of MMORPGS is undeniable. Just look at how many are now available and how many more are in development.
The popularity of traditional games like Knights of the old Republic or Baldurs Gate is undeniable as well, so where is the point? There is going to be significant bloodshed in the MMORPG sector over the coming years and I'm happy that we are not directly involved with it. Some people see MMORPGs as the second coming and ultimate future of computer games but I'm not one of these. I played and still play (City of Heroes right now) my good share of BBS Multiplayer games, MUDs, and MMORPGs over the last 15 years and I understand their fascination, but I also think we have a long way to go before they become something more than level grinding and game mechanics after the initial enthusiasm wears off. The social aspect is what keeps people coming back on the long run, but many gamers are just not interested in that, which I can fully understand. Our games are story driven RPGs, thats about as different from MMORPGs as you can get.
Bioware has already created the BEST tool out there for creating your own small scale version of one of these. How much effort would it take for them to take it a step further?
As said before, NWN was not about "create your own PW" and DA isn't about "create your own PW". We will see what the engine will be capable of doing, it might very well end up being a bit more useable for PWs than NWN because we learned a lot of stuff about custom content and modability with NWN, but I don't think that any significant development resources will go into making DA a PW toolkit, sorry. You know, you are making it really hard for us here to justify leaving any features in as "unsupported" when you keep telling us that we actually support them. That makes it very tempting just to cut those features in order to avoid hassle with them, and that's nothing you or I want. Again - I have no problems with PWs, I think people should play our games the way they want to play them and I am happy with giving all the power into the hands of the players/builders/server admins so they can customize their game experience the way they want it to be. However, I'm against adding expensive features that benefit only a tiny faction of the community. On the positive side most features benefit everyone.
More :
Oh, one more thing... lol. I looked at my server vault and counted over 1,100 accounts. Considering the fact that my server is quite a humble little one, I think that's a pretty significant amount of new accounts created on it.
A account folder is created every time someone enters your server for the first time, even if he's just server hopping trying to find a game, so the folder itself has no statistical value. That's why I don't care when people post "I have over 15.000 users on my PW", our master server has much better numbers.
Why Macs deserve a concurent release.
But if the profit will be higher than costs, why not?
I'm pretty sure that's what most decision boil down to in the business world
Why Macs deserve a concurent release.
Interesting point..... I wonder how the devs, suits and lawyers at Blizzard Entertainment would respond to the fact that Macs aren't a huge gaming population and that platform-independent development is much harder and more costly to implement? Then again they are a 500 pound gorilla compared to Bioware, so does that mean that for them (and in general) platform-independent projects are a luxury they can indulge in?
Please note that the following are just examples, they are not related to Dragon Age or NWN or BioWare or Blizzard or whatever. "Cost" can be comprised of many factors - If you have a lot of people with experience on a certain platform (Win32, Mac, Linux, etc), your cost of creating a native version for a product is significantly lower than for companies without that experience pool. If you have a alot of people who are familiar with a certain type of API (let's take DirectX), your cost of creating a state of the art graphics engine with this API can be significantly (read: "man years") lower than trying to implement the same features with a different API. In the end everything boils down to cost vs. payoff. Cost doesn't need to be monetary, it can also also be negative PR, loss of community resources, time, contacts, etc. Payoff also doesn't need to be cash - It can be experience, contacts, community or other things. Adding the toolset/mod capabilties to NWN opened a whole new pool of human resources for BioWare... Please do not try to read anything Dragon Age related into this post, I am not working on DA and I have no idea what has been decided or not, and what is planned or not regarding release of the game on platforms other than Win32. Thanks.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Dragon Age = Pre-Eberron
Is this related to the game Dragon Age in any way?
No.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 19:17 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.
Robin Mayne, Webmaster
Is there any update on this post?
Hey Durian, We still have plans to add news feeds, which will most likely be implemented with some other news system related updates we have scheduled for the fall.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Some basic (?) 2da Questions ...
All des_* .2da files only need to be available on the server.
AI Update Time Overflow...
This message comes up when the game is unable to process all outstanding AI related actions (read: scripts) because AI/scripts are taking up more execution time than they have been assigned to. Note that the object that has triggered this message is most likely not the culprit, it's just at the bottom of the AI_LEVEL table and can't get enough time to run it's AI because other objects already burned all AI time available for the current frame. It's likely a complex action such as pathfinding (moveto) that is causing this, i.e. when it is run on a loop (WalkWaypoints in crowded terrain comes to my mind). It can be partially helpful to reduce the AI_LEVEL on creatures doing stuff like randomwalk or walkwaypoints.
Tile Magic?? How?
I would create my own AoE object by adding a new entry to the areaofeffect.2da file. With the correct values in there you can probably create a large AoE object that consistently spawns fog VFX without getting a too big framerate drop.
Controversial features -- bit of a rant
The problem I see with swimming and flying is that it becomes impossible to build modules that have natural barriers defining their boundries. Leaving those two things, and climb, out was actually very very very wise. As to the rest: The degree of customizeability we've had since HotU is beyond anything I think most of us were even dreaming of about a year and a half ago when this whole thing started. Most of the addons people are making, like, couldn't even be done.
For swimming there is an easy answer: shallow and "deep" water and you can only swim in shallow water. Ultima 9 did this pretty well.
Modules larger than 16x16 ?
Georg, If 500 areas for a PW is not recommended, then what is the ammount of areas that bioware recommends for PW? Say that the majority of the areas are 10x12, some at 8x8 and some smaller. Care to enlighten us with your infinite wisdom? v
BioWare does not recommend using NWN for PWs because it is not intended to be used as such and thus not supported. Personally I would split my module before approaching more than 100 areas.
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Planescape: Torment Second Best RPG per eToychest
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 3:45 CET by chevalier
At eToychest, they have put up a list of ten best RPGs. Planescape: Torment comes second and Pool of Radiance is also there. The first one. Here's a snip:
Planescape: Torment is what every contemporary PC role-playing game should strive to emulate. Everything here works in harmony, from the fantastic story, to the fluid mechanics, so that every attribute included in the game experience helps to accentuate or enhance that experience. I consider this to be Interplay and Black isle Studio's best work, even though when released it was vastly overshadowed by their more popular Baldur's Gate games.
...and of Pool of Radiance:
During the 80’s D&D had gone from underground geek culture to mainstream in the blink of an eye. The franchise spawned a toy line, a cartoon, and it even occupied a scene in the movie E.T. In 1988 SSI released the first game in the highly successful “gold box” series of AD&D adaptations, and it was a smash hit. This single event is arguably more responsible for hooking players on computer role-playing than any other.
The one aspect of Pool of Radiance that was perhaps the most innovative for the time, as well as the most fun is its non-linear nature. In Pool of Radiance players are tasked embarking with a six-character party on a quest for fortune, as well as rebuilding the city of Phlan. Players can take on these commissions, or they can go off and do their own adventuring.
Check out the rest at eToychest.
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Twenty Interplay Employees File Complaints
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 3:32 CET by chevalier
Twenty Interplay's workers have filed complaints. This is a second time. Looks like Herve has a date with the Labour Commissioner soon, though rumour has it the District Attorney might be interested as well.
Herve Caen, Interplay's CEO, missed two meetings with the state investigators this week, said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for the California Labor commissioner.
The state has now ordered Caen to show up for a meeting Monday, equipped with Interplay's payroll records. Caen told investigators Thursday that he no longer has access to the records because they are on computers that have been put in storage, Fryer said.
"This doesn't release him from his past responsibilities," Fryer said. "It seems to me that he could just plug in a computer and get the records."
Caen could not be reached Friday for comment. Earlier this week, Interplay spokesman Luke Haase said the company is still seeking more funding. Paying employees will be a priority, he said.
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed or at The Orange Country Register, which is the original place.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 3:23 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
Hacker Party in our Midst
Today my server got hacked by 3 players. They were able to login as Beholders and kill NPCs with plot flags as well as players in Non-PvP areas. Fortunately for them, no staff member was on at the time. I have reported the incedent to Bioware in the hopes they strengthen their security code in the next patch. I of course also banned the 3 players CDs.
Here are the public CD keys for any other admin that wants to take the preventive measure ahead of time.
FTR77P9W
FTRL6FNJ
FTM66AUP
Please make sure you also send us the character files if you can find them. Craig has made numerous fixes to security and the character files might allow him to verify that this problem has been fixed. Thanks.
Lag and ActionWait troubles
I'm pretty sure you are misunderstanding what ActionWait is doing. ActionWait will just delay other ACTIONS that have been added to an object's action queue before, it does not affect commands (any scripting command not starting with Action*). Most likely you should have a closer look at the DelayCommand scripting function. You should probably post your script into he scripting forum and have the guys there dissect it.
1.63 patch
Another question about the overide directory. I am using the HOTU rest system and have created my own encounters for the rest system. I did this adding my encounters to the des_restsystem.2da and putting it in the override directory. Is there another way to do this since it was just stated never use the override directory?
Never use the override directory wasn't said. What I said is that we discourage everyone from using it in game. More precise: If you don't understand the technical background behind the NWN resource management system and resource load order, you should probably not use it. As for your .2da, it's fine as long as you remember to delete it in case you run into problems. It's a designer .2da (des_*.2da) and those are less likely to cause trouble than others. Extracting 13.000 CEP files into override however is a bad idea
1.63 patch
And the Crypt Tower level 3 issue I mentioned back in post #2? I don't want to pester you gentlemen about it but it is a rather serious problem. I just can't get into playing through SoU anymore knowing I will have to go to that area eventually.
I think that was related to a memory leak in the effects system, I would guess it's fixed now, through I didn't try it.
1.63 patch
It seems you guy are adament about kill the developers here. This game has grown larger with the community. I for one have 4 or 5 PC's that I take from module to module. Having the ability to play from one to another is great. If you can't put things into your override then how do I get module specific items from one to the other. I get a nice average level sword created with a hak and then start a new module and poof not there. With the PNP game you could always do this. Give us a little break. Or at least a tool to edit your saved PC's easily like the toolset. Not all this hex code stuff thats out there.
Items travel with your character once you have them, you don't need anything in override for that.
Wounding bug - any workarounds?
Wounding is working as intended, there are no changes planned to it.
modules larger than 16x16 ?
16x16 is the standard reccomended AREA size per area. The actualy number of areas a mod can have is highly debaltable.
actually 256 tiles (16x16, 17x15, ...) is the maximum recommended area size. would be the recommendation for most areas. 64 (8x8) tiles is the standard recommended size.
My PW has over 500 areas!
definitly not recommended.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 3:17 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
Elven Blade Singers
I would sooner tear my eyeballs out of their sockets rather than see something resembling the bladesinger (a class which even its own creator admits he made too overpowered) put into Dragon Age. With a spoon, even. How's that for an answer?
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Can Bioware please standardise their ingame systems? :)
I prefer "stones" like in Ultima or maybe fish? Someone want to trade 15 fish worth of equipment?
More :
Boy that Georg, he sure has some stones . . . Hopefully the linguist who's working on DA will come up with a unique measurement system that our metric and non-metric brains can grasp.
The more I think about it, we probably should do more to support the Dragon theme, let's try dragons.. Could I have a bag with 0.00006 dragons of mushrooms please? Arr, well, maybe dragon scales or so.
No more quest with colour in DA
That's one of the things we learned for HotU, I don't think it will happen again.
More :
if you're colour-blind, why don't you just roleplay a PC who isn't colour-blind? problem solved, huh?
Not really. Next thing people say when fables is asking for a feature is probably "why just not play an an intelligent and emotionally stable PC" and from there the flame war will go out of control. This particular kind of humor is not welcome here.
Healing potions
One thing i dislike about dev participating in discussions is that they tend to bias on their own opinion. I just think dev should remain neutral on both sides. Describing how a dev staff stating how he 'hates' something is going to give a bad impression on some of the players who happens to have a different point of view.
Apart from the fact that I'm currently working on Jade Empire and not Dragon Age, what's the point of a discussion if I have to stay neutral. It's not that my opinion is more worthy than yours or Beerfish's or Hades's. We are not acting as referees who decide which side is right or wrong here. BioWare is not some homogenous mass where everyone has the same opinion about everything. Lots of things are born out of heated discussion and I think that's part of the recipe that makes our games successful. I bet that just about the topic of healing potions there are quite a lot of people at BioWare who disagree strongly with my opinion. At some point there will be a scheduled pitfight between all factions on this topic in the focus testing room and the person who manages to come out with the most hitpoints without drinking a potion dictates the final implementation into the game or so.
Maybe some people see it as "the guy from BioWare said it should be this way, so everyone who disagree "lost", but I'm sure most of the people who have been here for a long time know that's not how it works on our boards. Reminder: I was part of the Neverwinter community before joining BioWare and I participated in discussions on these boards long before NWN was released - and just the fact that I now work here doesn't suddenly make my opinion "right" and everyone elses wrong. I might have better insight on certain topics now than I had before, but that doesn't mean I'm infallible. Bottomline: It'll take a bit more to make me shut up, sorry
3D Triggers
I wonder if triggers could be a 3d plane, rather than a 2d line... so it doesn't matter how high you are flying, you'll still pass through the trigger pane...
The trigger itself isn't the real problem here, the resulting action is. You fly over the trigger that's supposed to start the cutscene that included the player ... As result you can't do a lot of things you could before (i.e. those cutscenese) or you have resort to ugly cheats like just grounding the player to start the cutscene. I can think of a dozen other things in that direction. That doesn't mean flying or so can't be done, it just says that if we would do this, we would have to sacrifice a couple of things we did in previous games
DA=Updated NWN with DnD purged? If so, great, providing all modding is there!
Note that Bioware isn't moving away from PnP (after all, any CRPG is, by definition, derivative of PnP); they're simply moving away from D&D.
One of the goals with DA is to create a ruleset that works well on the computer instead of trying to fit something into the computer that was created with the average human's math (in)capabilities and other PnP specific quirks in mind So no, DA is not "just moving away from D&D", it's also combining the elements that worked well in our previous game and getting rid off or fixing the things that didn't work so well. So no, you can't bring it down to "they just update NWN and rip D&D out".
Flying Dragons
I am curious, if there are flying critters like dragons. What prevents them from slaughtering party while staying airborne and out of melee range? I think a spellcasting, fire breathing dragon would be rather devastating if you can counterattack only with spells and bows...
What made dragons so powerful in PnP was the fact that the melee types could not engage without having magical flying bestowed upon them and your party would get devestated. Attacking dragons was a very dangerous undertaking. Since your melee types were able to close to their attack range in NWN, dragons lost all their truly destructive powers and therefore were easily beaten.
In the Gold box Games, in BG, in the Eye of the Beholder series ... dragons could never fly. Nope, the reason why dragon were "easy" in NWN has nothing to do with flying.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
No more quest with colour in DA
I just did and his comment was correct. Providing a secondary method of color feedback outside of visual methods is a common method of getting around the color blind problem.
Post Comments (1)
Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004 - 4:56 CET by chevalier
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Override
GZ Thanks for the info but I think the main question here is there a work around? Is the live team even thinking about helping out in this area.
No, there are no plans regarding this. We discourage the use of the override directory for anything but debugging.
Server Sourcecode
There are no plans to make the sourcecode to NWN server available.
Radial feats, spells and Target Type
It's a hex code...I'm forgetting all of them at the moment, and I'm not at my computer, so I can't check. But it's something akin to 0x01 self 0x02 creature 0x04...etc etc... then you add the numbers together to get your end result.
I know I added those codes to the ccg wiki a while back.
Hardcore Henchmen
You are playing on hardcore difficulty which means that if you hurt one of your henchmen, they might take it personal and hit back.
Looking to modify HOTU Crafting costs.
It looks like the costs for the armor and weapon crafting are in those 2DAs. However, the only way I've seen for editing costs of making scrolls, potions, and wands is by editing a default Bioware include file, and then recompiling all spells. Is there an easier way to edit mage crafting costs? (Bioware?)
There is no need to recompile all spells anymore, recompiling x2_pc_craft.nss is sufficient to propagate any changes/additions made to the crafting system down to all spells.
Looking to modify HOTU Crafting costs.
The problem here is not crafting costs; mine were changed across the board. The problem you should worry about is Bioware toolset values of the finished items, which merchants use to determine pricing. You don't want infinite gold items in multiplayer (items that are cheaper to create than you can sell them for), and if you don't you are going to want to watch your system, as changing Bioware's 2da pricing is a huge task involving a hak pak and some basic QA that Bioware couldn't be bothered with (sorry GZ, but this hurts multiplayer).
I suspect you wanted to say it hurts PWs (and you know our stance on that topic). QA has nothing to do with that. We had our discussions about that topic and the conclusion was items should be cheaper to create than they are sold for, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to create an item in the first place. The individual DM/builder can play around with component availability, store markups and markdowns or change what is available through crafting, including a complete shutdown of the crafting system if desired. Infinite gold would only come from infinite components, and that sounds a lot like the usual PW respawning stuff...
Complete lack of game manual
Hmm.... well we went to the store today... and discovered that all the copies had no physical manual.... Incidentally, I found out that there's an online manual in a zipped file pretending to be a readme or something *sighs*... I mean, honestly, is it too much to ask for a physical manual these days?... I mean, fair enough if it's a $2 budget game, but for a game for A$50....
As said, HotU comes with a manual. if the manual is missing, this sounds like a manufacturing screwup.
1.63 Patch
I must admit I'm getting more interested in when the patch is coming. Back in April it was a vague "2 months maybe". Is it likely another 2-3 months? Is it mired in the whole DD conversation you guys are having with the funding peeps? I don't mind if it is really but it's nice to have a vague idea. I mean it could be already be finished and have been sent up for Atari for testing for all I know And I know how long those guys take to test patches when they have current titles to send out.
Sorry, no can do. There are a couple of this "special" about this patch and there is more paperwork and other requirements involved with getting it out than previous patches. The release date of the patch at this time is depended on things not in our control, so we are unable to give even estimates. Could be soon, could be not so soon - there is no telling right now.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
2da Problems
I disagree. We use about a dozen 2da overrides to correct some Bioware errors without resorting to using a hak, and we're just fine. By errors I mean outright bugs, not design issues, but those are nice to correct as well. Been using them for well over a year.
The proper way to deal with this IMO is to send in a bug report to nwbugs@bioware.com indicating which 2da files have errors (and the row/column that the error appears on in the 2da).
That way we can fix any issues, so that you don't need to put any 2das in your override folder.
what will be in the 1.63 patch [CONTINUES]
Are Trap Kits being fixed? It kinda sucks laying down some Frost Traps, only to have them become Negative.E Traps once you activate them. Also, a question on documentation. I know you've said "Lots and lots of spellscript fixes", but are these going to all be documented in the patch, or will we be left to figure out what's changed?
The Trap problem that you mention is a result of an error in one of the 2das. Some one reported the problem a while ago to nwbugs@bioware.com and we have fixed the problem internally, so yes that problem will be resolved. I believe we mentioned this already, but oh well. Lots of spell scripts have been fixed for the 1.63 patch. We have tried to document most of the changes that we've made, but its possible that we may have missed a few in our patch notes.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004 - 4:47 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
Going Old School
You are in a topiary.
> GET POINTY WAND
You now have the pointy wand.
>
> FROTZ WAND
The pointy wand suddenly emits a bright glow! You can now see the area about you clearly.
>
> LOOK TOPIARY
The topiary is a series of large hedges that have all been shaped into various animal forms. You can see a giraffe, a giant mouse and an elephant. You also see one hedge that looks vaguely like Emperor Herbert Flathead III, but you are not certain. There is no exit.
>
> GET CLIPPERS
You don't see the hedge clippers.
>
> OPEN BACKPACK
You open your backpack. Inside you see a half-eaten cheese sandwich, your spellbook, a whirlygig and a pair of rusty hedge clippers.
>
> REMOVE CLIPPERS FROM BACKPACK
You take the hedge clippers out of the backpack.
>
> CLIP TOPIARY
What do you want to clip the topiary with?
>
> THE CLIPPERS
You can't do that.
>
> WHY NOT?
I don't understand that.
>
> SCREW YOU
Now, now. We don't appreciate that sort of language here in Frobozz country.
>
> HIT TOPIARY
What do you want to hit the topiary with?
>
> THE CLIPPERS
You hit the topiary with the hedge clippers. The topiary appears unaffected.
>
> SCREAM
You scream loudly.
>
Your wand is no longer glowing. You are surrounded by darkness.
>
> LOOK
You are in a topiary. It is very dark.
>
> LEAVE
You stumbled around in the darkness. Eventually you are eaten by a grue.
>
You are dead.
>
[R]e-load game or [Q]uit?
>
> I HATE YOU
Quit it is!
Thank you for playing!!
...how's that for old school?
More:
I thought about going straight for the Grue reference, but I thought the topiary would be more subtle.
It was very subtle. Slightly less subtle would have been the Flood Control Damn #3. Although I'm pretty sure now that I mixed up my Enchanter references with Zork II.
MMORPG Style Server
As Orik said, like NWN the design of DA is not intended for PW creation. So any improvements on that front over NWN will be incidental. What they actually might be, along with the answer to your very specific questions, are not subjects we're able to discuss at this early point.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
drop singleplayer, long live multiplayer
**SPANK SPANK SPANK**
This thread is totally pointless. DA will be both singleplayer and multiplayer. Nothing will change that. It's a fact.
Agreed.
Please, I beg you...
I wasn't trying to start a comparison war here; I think NWN has its niche as a tileset fantasy authoring tool and does it well. What has me worried is that many gaming companies are finding (or think they are finding) that one-player games don't have the market strength that multi-player, fan-created games do. Any company that sticks around the old fashioned, highly customized single player games is a dinosaur, soon to dissappear from this earth.
Actually through polls and community feedback we've found that find that single player games are far more popular then Multiplayer games. In general people would like to play multiplayer games more often, but the problem is some people don't play nice with others, and that can ruin the experance for some, and so they would rather get their friends together to play.
And there are times when you really just want to sit down and kill an hour or two, you need a game you can instantly play and not wait for everyone else to get on-line.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Stats: Point Buy or Rolled?
Fairness in multiplayer asks for point buy. But who knows, maybe it's something that isn't point buy or rolling dice?
Stats: Point Buy or Rolled?
Fairness in multiplayer asks for point buy. But who knows, maybe it's something that isn't point buy or rolling dice?
Hmm. This is what Georg said. 'Nough said.
Maybe I was asking for alternate ideas from the community? Who knows
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
In regards to overriding the AI... I'm pretty sure there's a variable that you set on the creature (load up one of beholders and check out the variable panel). This string variable is the name of an alternative script that is ran instead of the creature's standard combat round -- Georg implemented the system so he'll correct me if I'm giving you false information...
Yepp, the override code is hidden somewhere at the start of nw_i0_generic.DetermineCombatRound() IIRC. Mindflayers and Beholders use it for their "special attack AI", as well as a couple of bosses in the HotU campaign. There's also a demo creature using this that can be found here.
Learn from Planescape: Torment
My favourite lesson from PS:T
It is torture to create a game that forces the user to read huge amounts of text on a 640x480 screen with a less than eyefriendly font. If the game would have been bad, I could have just stopped playing, but unfortunately I got addicted and wanted to play it finish it. PS:T probably added another 0.1 to my glasses, torture I say!
Learn from Planescape: Torment
"It is torture to create a game that forces the user to read huge amounts of text on a 640x480 screen with a less than eyefriendly font."
Wrong point. The emphasis was on the less than eyefriendly font and the 640x480 resultion. There's nothing wrong with a good amount of text if it's presented in a fashion that doesn't burn your eyeballs out.
Healing potions
I hate healing potions at least when they get common, they degrade the value of armor and hit points.
things i think they will implement and some won't
Besides, mounted combat is not necasserily ultra complicated when you have a pathable z axis.
Understatement of the month Feel free to discuss this with the DLA guys to find out about animations (not to speak about design and cutscene issues).
Healing potions
1. games are played for fun
-> there should be as little tedium as possible.
2. going into a fight fully healed is only common sense
1 and 2: there should be little or no resting or waiting in between fights.
Healing and recovering should only cost resources. Outside of combat all the player should have to do is press a button and the PC quafs enough potions to be completely recovered(instantly).
During combat potions should not instantly recover the PC.
This reduced the value of constitution and above average HP to zero. When both sides can insta heal indefinitely in a fight all that happens is an unnecessarilly drawn out fight.
When monsters don't heal, those that can't kill you with one hit can never defeat you.
Even Diablo2 is superior in this respect to NWN.
I propose either NO healing potions during combat or just regeneration potions (partial% recovery over a few turns--naturally these potions'effects don't stack).
I don't agree. Resource (i.e. Hitpoints/spells) management leads to choice and tactical gameplay. If you can blast away your most powerful spells all the time, it becomes boring pretty fast. NWN was pretty weak in that regard, unfortunately.
More:
There's still the management. Just not the tedious waiting.
*edit* There's another advantage: lot's of easy fights are not very interesting. If you can expect every fight to be started fully recovered, the designer can make every fight a worthwhile challenge.
This is more interesting than cleaning up endless mobs. Now every fight counts; is significant.
That's circular - when fights get too "easy", they get boring. If you take away those unlimited potions, those easy fights can become quite deadly and thrilling. I don't believe in "the fun starts at higher level", lets get a lot of levels fast. Yepp, it's cool to mow through a group of helpless kobolds every once in a while, but if it gets a tedious task, you probably rather want to fight those two pesky kobold commandoes
More:
Two problems with this: if potions are rare/expensive you'll simply be making the cleric/healers more valuable and promote resting/reentering the dungeon more often. Also, I see every fight being a challenge to the max as an advantage. I prefer 3 big fights over 10 small battles and 1 big finale. I think many players would agree with me.
Let me put it this way: I prefer BG/BG2 or NWN's approach. But that's just me, other people here might have different preferences.
MMORPG Style Server
I suspect you'll hear no promises about anything regarding PWs from the team for a long time. - Not even that you will be able to do things you can do in NWN. Too many things have not been decided yet, including technical specifications. Later in the project you will probably hear things like "yepp, this may be possible" or "no, unlikely", but I would suggest going into it with a "nothing is certain" stance regarding PWs to shield yourself against potential disappointment.
This does not mean there are plans to cut functionality that is used by PWs or add functionality for PWs, it just means that nothing is certain at this point - and as Dave pointed out already, PWs are not the design focus of Dragon Age. (Why am I posting this? Do a search for "BioWare" and "promised" on google and you see what I mean. Even if it was always made clear that certain features wouldn't be there, including official PW support, people still cried fire and water about broken "promises") Ah, and by the way - can someone explain to me what a "beautiful real compiled script" is? I somehow must have missed the /real flag on the compiler so far
WASD control
My NWN character moves just fine with a WASD key scheme in drive mode...
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
As a builder, 3 things that scare me about Dragon Age
A infinitely high cylinder test is done by just computing the distance from the center and ignoring the z-axis.
Cylinder:
limit*limit <= (dx*dx) + (dy*dy)
Sphere:
limit*limit <= (dx*dx) + (dy*dy) + (dz*dz)
(Note: Testing against limit*limit is a speed trick. It is much faster to compute limit*limit than to get the root of the other side of the equation.)
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
NWScript
Dragon Age will be using a scripting language very similar syntactically to NWScript. Things that require us to retrain our designers are bad...
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 20, 2004 - 0:34 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.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
NWN:SoU European CD Key issues
Hi there, time to cull the posts here to stay on topic. Again, 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 nor a response as we get many CD Key submissions on a daily basis. If we are not able to solve your problem, you will need to contact Atari support for your region.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Complete lack of game manual
I'm not aware of anything but the standard HotU edition that includes the manual being available on the shelves right now. I don't think there is a budget edition without manual, this sounds suspiciously like a manufacturing error, but you would have to contact Atari to find out for sure.
1.63 Patch
FINALLY something informative about the patch. I really hope you guys finish it this month and I can't wait to see what has been done. Good luck at E3 and GDC.
Err, yea, GDC and E3 are over and they were very very successful for us, but thanks As for patch 1.63 and other things, there is a light somewhere at the end of the tunnel...
Overrides and Hakpaks
Adding lots of stuff to your override folder is a bad idea, as it slows down the game. We will never add the ability to put hakpaks into override.
When will patch 1.63 be out?
Looks like this overhyped patch has been debated and discussed at great lengths for many months now. Isnt it about time to disclose its ETA or its beta version anytime soon?
No. It will be released when it is done. It is not done yet. There is no estimated release date. And to prevent further overhyping, I'll lock down this thread.
Is Neverwinter Dead?
saw the graphics to Dragon Age and I'm sorry, it has nothing on Lineage 2 or any other MMORPGs in terms of graphics and gameplay.
Really? Given that there are exactly 5 low resolution screenshots of Dragon Age out there, it's quite easy to get an educated opinion, especially on gameplay. I mean having a trailer is already enough to judge gameplay for most games out there, actually having 5 whopping screenshots is about as good as getting a working hands on a working demo copy, right ? As far as MMORPGs go, we do not compete with them, they are a complete different type of game. We create story driven single and multiplayer role playing games, not alternate worlds in which you can play for money. If you are looking for the latter, I suggest you look elsewhere as we have no plans to enter the overcrowded MMORPG market at this point.
a SetName function would be nice
Again, I agree this function would be damn nice, but as already pointed out, it's not going to happen, unless hell freezes over (which occassionally seems to happen).
More:
Ok - so it'll never happen in NWN, but how about Dragon Age?
I would say it's somewher on top of the list of things that are investigated
Nashers items
The following link contains spoilers:
http://www.bioware.com/games/game_secrets.html
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Macros
You preface console commands with ##
So you would add:
## dm_setfactiondefender
As your custom text macro.
what will be in the 1.63 patch [CONTINUES]
I wouldn't mind more epic traps and their DC being raised to epic DCs instead of using the same dc for deadly traps
Yeah we've already increased the DC on epic traps internally.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 20, 2004 - 0:28 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
Please, no typical gods!
I think it was a mistake to give gods stats and defined powers like that. Where is the mystery? The enigma? If gods in D&D have been reduced to quantified beings (greater powers though they might be), why is there no interest in the powers that exist above them? Isn't the fundamental interest in the divine the search for truth and the creator? The reason for existence? Since the truth doesn't lie with these gods (since they, themselves, were created), it must lie with the likes of Ao. Now I know that the sourcebooks have arranged it so that Ao discourages worship, but isn't the fundamental reason that people worship in the first place being overlooked here? If everyone in Faerun was ignorant of the nature of Gods, then I could see how they would be seen as enigmatic beings with all the answers and power... but that isn't the case. The Time of Troubles should have been a huge crack in the foundation of belief, but it doesn't seem to have been. I guess my trouble is that religion should evoke awe, and having one's questions be fully answered sort of dispels that whole reason that people would worship higher powers for in the first place. Just my opinion, though.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
I've had some problems integrating new AI ideas with the existing AI. Henchmen AI will overwrite the actions I assign them unless I'm very careful, for example. Being able to dynamically change the OnEvent scripts for a creature would be very handy. There are certain functions that can crash the game, which is pretty major. My preference would be to have it log the offending line and cancel the script execution. I always wish I could have "more" - more functions, more of the game engine exposed via scripting, and so on. Still, what I have has worked out quite nicely. NWScript is the first scripting language in a game that I've felt comfortable with.
I think Craig got the last "crashy" functions for 1.63 in NWN. Scripts should not be able to crash the game, if they do, it's a bug. As for changing the eventscripts on the fly, you can easily do that already by putting something like this into the creatures event scripts
sScript = GetLocalString("SPAWN_SCRIPT")
if ( GetStringLength (sScript ) > 0 )
{
ExecuteScript (sScript, OBJECT_SELF)
}
else
{
ExecuteScript ( "x2_c2_default9", OBJECT_SELF);
}
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
My guess is that some of the AI scripts need to be run from the event and the ExecuteScript method doesn't work very well. Perhaps some functions depend on being called from certain events.
Nope it works well, if you check the X2_C2 scripts, they just add on top of the existing NW_c2 scripts (and execute those when they are done). It is also present in the DetermineCombatRound script to allow you to specify alternating versions of that functions for special villains (such as Mindflayers or Beholders).
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Personally I love turn based games... but only to a point. They're great because in most cases the result of the encounter is based on your decisions (strategy-wise) instead of on your characters abilities, or luck (though these do play a role, your strategic choices can have a much larger impact than they do in a realtime simulation).
Edit: *sigh* Read the whole thread Brenon... reposting previously posted stuff is silly...
It breaks down in multiplayer. Yes, it *is* possible to have turn based in multiplayer - the main issue is I think what people are looking for in a multiplayer game (in general/mass market appeal). Generally, in my experience, MP games tend to be a bit more on the hack and slash side of things... a bit more action oriented, less dialogue, less plot, more killin'. (It should be noted that this is just an opinion, I'm sure there are MP modules/severs that do not fit into this view.) Waiting for someone else to make a move, especially if they're controlling multiple characters (assuming an average PC party size, familiars, animal companions and the like) can quickly get rather vexing. Even if you put timers on how long someone can take, they're never 'right'... either too long or too short, in other words no one will ever be happy. That said, with sufficient auto-pausing features... TB can be almost indistinguishable from RT. None of the above is indicative of what may or may not be in Dragon Age, this is as always simply discussion and should not be construed as anything overly 'official'.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
They will be happy if you let them set the delay time by a server engine setting with the lower limit being no delay and the upper limit being infinite.
But then you have a turn based rules system/structure with no actual turns... which sounds pretty confusing off the top of my head, and rather prone to oddness.
Yes but allowing autopausing without a time limit option in MP will end up frustrating people because they will have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for other players.
True, but it could be a server option at that point - you don't *have* to play like that. Additionally if that was a really big issue, you folks could always campaign for a timer on autopause features (assuming we were going to have that sort of thing). My point is simply that given enough options I believe you can make Real Time similar to Turn Based... however the reverse doesn't necessarily hold true unless you come up with some kind of kludge with personal rounds and all the oddness associated with that.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Isn't this how NWN works right now?
*smiles* Sort of... if you really like at some point I can describe the system in excrutiating detail - but suffice it to say that NWN is Turn Based only in the vaguest sense of the term, it's much closer to a true realtime system than it is to a turn based system. However it still has some trappings of a Turn Based system, a prime example of which is the 'one attack per round' issue which I hear quite a bit of...
- Attack...
- Wait...
- Wait...
- Wait...
- Attack...
- ... etc.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Now why would I go and ruin all the fun you folks will have theorizing on what it will be like? In the meantime though, we *have* picked up a few handfuls of suggestions for the combat system and we'll see how they fit with what we have in mind...
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
Detailed documentation on NWScript and it's functions specifically? Or documentation on the AI and our custom library of functions?
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Latest Poll Results
Posted Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 14:03 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Do you play at least occasionally in any of the Neverwinter Nights multiplayer/persistent worlds?
(265 votes total)
No (197) 74%
Yes (68) 26%
The vast majority of poll participants (74%) voted that they do not play in any of the Neverwinter Nights multiplayer/persistent worlds, even occasionally.
The remaining 26%, however, do play in some, at least occasionally.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, June 18, 2004 - 17:57 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
Please, no typical gods!
I think it was a mistake to give gods stats and defined powers like that. Where is the mystery? The enigma? If gods in D&D have been reduced to quantified beings (greater powers though they might be), why is there no interest in the powers that exist above them? Isn't the fundamental interest in the divine the search for truth and the creator? The reason for existence? Since the truth doesn't lie with these gods (since they, themselves, were created), it must lie with the likes of Ao. Now I know that the sourcebooks have arranged it so that Ao discourages worship, but isn't the fundamental reason that people worship in the first place being overlooked here? If everyone in Faerun was ignorant of the nature of Gods, then I could see how they would be seen as enigmatic beings with all the answers and power... but that isn't the case. The Time of Troubles should have been a huge crack in the foundation of belief, but it doesn't seem to have been. I guess my trouble is that religion should evoke awe, and having one's questions be fully answered sort of dispels that whole reason that people would worship higher powers for in the first place. Just my opinion, though.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
I've had some problems integrating new AI ideas with the existing AI. Henchmen AI will overwrite the actions I assign them unless I'm very careful, for example. Being able to dynamically change the OnEvent scripts for a creature would be very handy. There are certain functions that can crash the game, which is pretty major. My preference would be to have it log the offending line and cancel the script execution. I always wish I could have "more" - more functions, more of the game engine exposed via scripting, and so on. Still, what I have has worked out quite nicely. NWScript is the first scripting language in a game that I've felt comfortable with.
I think Craig got the last "crashy" functions for 1.63 in NWN. Scripts should not be able to crash the game, if they do, it's a bug. As for changing the eventscripts on the fly, you can easily do that already by putting something like this into the creatures event scripts
sScript = GetLocalString("SPAWN_SCRIPT")
if ( GetStringLength (sScript ) > 0 )
{
ExecuteScript (sScript, OBJECT_SELF)
}
else
{
ExecuteScript ( "x2_c2_default9", OBJECT_SELF);
}
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
My guess is that some of the AI scripts need to be run from the event and the ExecuteScript method doesn't work very well. Perhaps some functions depend on being called from certain events.
Nope it works well, if you check the X2_C2 scripts, they just add on top of the existing NW_c2 scripts (and execute those when they are done). It is also present in the DetermineCombatRound script to allow you to specify alternating versions of that functions for special villains (such as Mindflayers or Beholders).
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Personally I love turn based games... but only to a point. They're great because in most cases the result of the encounter is based on your decisions (strategy-wise) instead of on your characters abilities, or luck (though these do play a role, your strategic choices can have a much larger impact than they do in a realtime simulation).
Edit: *sigh* Read the whole thread Brenon... reposting previously posted stuff is silly...
It breaks down in multiplayer. Yes, it *is* possible to have turn based in multiplayer - the main issue is I think what people are looking for in a multiplayer game (in general/mass market appeal). Generally, in my experience, MP games tend to be a bit more on the hack and slash side of things... a bit more action oriented, less dialogue, less plot, more killin'. (It should be noted that this is just an opinion, I'm sure there are MP modules/severs that do not fit into this view.) Waiting for someone else to make a move, especially if they're controlling multiple characters (assuming an average PC party size, familiars, animal companions and the like) can quickly get rather vexing. Even if you put timers on how long someone can take, they're never 'right'... either too long or too short, in other words no one will ever be happy. That said, with sufficient auto-pausing features... TB can be almost indistinguishable from RT. None of the above is indicative of what may or may not be in Dragon Age, this is as always simply discussion and should not be construed as anything overly 'official'.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
They will be happy if you let them set the delay time by a server engine setting with the lower limit being no delay and the upper limit being infinite.
But then you have a turn based rules system/structure with no actual turns... which sounds pretty confusing off the top of my head, and rather prone to oddness.
Yes but allowing autopausing without a time limit option in MP will end up frustrating people because they will have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time for other players.
True, but it could be a server option at that point - you don't *have* to play like that. Additionally if that was a really big issue, you folks could always campaign for a timer on autopause features (assuming we were going to have that sort of thing). My point is simply that given enough options I believe you can make Real Time similar to Turn Based... however the reverse doesn't necessarily hold true unless you come up with some kind of kludge with personal rounds and all the oddness associated with that.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Isn't this how NWN works right now?
*smiles* Sort of... if you really like at some point I can describe the system in excrutiating detail - but suffice it to say that NWN is Turn Based only in the vaguest sense of the term, it's much closer to a true realtime system than it is to a turn based system. However it still has some trappings of a Turn Based system, a prime example of which is the 'one attack per round' issue which I hear quite a bit of...
- Attack...
- Wait...
- Wait...
- Wait...
- Attack...
- ... etc.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
Now why would I go and ruin all the fun you folks will have theorizing on what it will be like? In the meantime though, we *have* picked up a few handfuls of suggestions for the combat system and we'll see how they fit with what we have in mind...
"What's yer beef" with NW-Script
Detailed documentation on NWScript and it's functions specifically? Or documentation on the AI and our custom library of functions?
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, June 18, 2004 - 0:52 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
Please, no typical gods!
I like the idea of religions, it makes the world more believable, but I believe this can be an element which makes or breaks an interesting storyline. Forget the cliche of warring religious factions, with do-gooder water element wielders against the maligned fire wielders. Give us say, a group of atheists, a group of seemingly good aligned tyrants, a group of benevolent death cultists, etc. Try to make it different and memorable, unlike the jumble of cliches in my head that I really can't distinguish. Instead, forget gods in the traditional sense. I realize that classes such as clerics need healing spells, which by definition is an overt godly act. Instead, let everyone have the potential for magic, and make it a great and heated scholarly debate as to whether these gifts come from gods or whether humans have the ability to ascend to a higher level of being, etc. Are the gods everlasting, or are they former humans ascended Buddha style, or are there no gods and humans make their own way...? I really don't want to go through another game where some Forgotten Realms' god was borrowed, the name changed (from Tyr to Tyros, Tyra...), and the description stays identical. They serve basic purpose: an obligatory reason for paladins and a source of spells for clerics. All I can ask is that you make the world totally original, and that you don't adopt boring conventions from high fantasy.
While I can't get into specifics, I think you'll rather like what we've got cooked up for Dragon Age, then.
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
This doesn't seem to be a winning attitude (I don't know how else to put this). Fable, which is going to be one of your rivals, doesn't seem to mind taking the extra time to put in additional trivialities such as lewd taunts and boys that get their hair cut to emulate the pc. They don't seem to be worrying about the lack of worth storywise. They add it (partly) because they know their fans will see it as being "cool."
It's a bit early for us to be discussing the "cool" features that we will have, never mind the ones that we won't. Just because we may not have some of these features that this thread is discussing does not mean we won't have plenty of things to please the fans. Let's not kid ourselves... running and all that would be really great to have but it's esentially gravy. The vast majority of the work for a game like DA or NWN lies elsewhere completely.
A role-playing role-model: Darklands
I played Darklands and really enjoyed some aspects of it. The fame system, for instance. And while I could have used a little more actual magic, I do prefer low-magic systems in general so I appreciated the use of saints and alchemy. I did not enjoy how hard the early stages of the game were. Relentlessly, unforgiveably hard. I almost gave up on Darklands before I had a group luck out and survive long enough to get some decent equipment (killed a robber baron more or less by fluke and the fortuitous use of a glue potion, as I recall). I liked the realistic armor, and the stuff you could do in the towns (especially the taverns). I liked that most of the women looked like women and not sex kittens. I liked the map travel system (especially once you had horses... me, this is all I really need horses for in an RPG game. I don't need to see myself riding them, I just want to know that there are horses being ridden. ). I liked the deadly, turn-based combat (though sometimes it felt ridiculously easy to die). The very medieval-ish feel was also great. Incidentally, another RPG that is often overlooked that I felt was a real gem is another German one... 'Sword of Destiny', I think it's called, based on the 'Das Schwarze Auge' pen and paper system. Super, super game if a bit too nordic in feel for my taste.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
All of these features are cool and neat and can be fun if done right. When we talk about adding a feature to the game we make sure it's justified and is either A) needed to drive the story forward, or B) needed to make the gameplay work, and work well.
For example (and only take this as hypothical, do not quote this months from now saying "dev said they wouldn't put in cloaks nah nah".) Cloaks are not needed to drive the story forward, even having a magic cloak of power can be replaced with the boots of power, or gloves or amulet so cloaks drop in priority of features to be added. We are not adding any feature because it's cool unless we can justify it with either game mechanics or story. (and to change code for a one-off story event is not cost effective so it better be good). We know that people want to see Horses, swimming and cloaks, and flying, and as of this date (June 16, 2004) we still looking into them. As soon as we decide not to put them in we'll let you know
Please do give us turn based combat !!
I would like to know why real time stratigy games are much more popular then turn based ones?
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Please do give us turn based combat !!
So BG and KotOR is better because it sold allot more copies?
I would say they were better coz they had good stories NPCs and interaction, the thing ToEE completely missed.
I prefer TB over Bioware realtime, because the Bio RT is tedious.
And if you play a mage in NWN you will understand why it's more fun playing a mage in ToEE.
ToEE wasn't even a decent game, but the combat was more fun then any bioware game. TB combat isn't more challenging then Real time, and not more complicated to understand.
Hey, First, I agree with you that TB is not be harder to understand or more challenging by default, because those things ultimately just depend on your implementation and presentation. However, I didn't say any game was better. I enjoyed ToEE (to a certain degree because of some gamebreaking bugs I encountered) and I enjoyed KotOR and BG (I didn't work on them). I said that KotOR and BG probably sold better, but whether or not this makes them better games are in the eye of the beholder. Obviously, if a game sells well, and general feedback is good (reviews/awards), the message to the developer is "Hey, this worked well, you should build and improve on it" rather than "scrap it and go for TB combat", and that's what I wanted to say with my post. The combat system may not be as important as the story, but given that around 40-60% of what you are doing in your average RPGs is combat, it has a significant impact on how your game is received. Personally I think there is a niche for TB RPGs and every once in a while you find a good game that is fun to play and TB. My perception is that TB games have a smaller potential market than a game based on a real time framework, be it because people are accustomed to the "adrenaline rush" or be it just because the average gamer's / buyers attention span is a bit shorter than it was back in the time where we used to play the SSI GoldBox games (and if you want to have shelfspace for a PC RPG these days, you will need to include the average game at least to a certain extend into your target audience). TB is less mainstream than RT these days (and please don't read that as "RT is better" or "RT is dumbed down for the mainstream, both are valid ways to play games) and since we had tremendous success with the RT framework in the past, I would say it is likely that we stick with it and improve it rather than scrapping it and go for TB.
If we announced the game as "TB reinvented"** perhaps, but not with a "spiritual successor to our previous games" approach.
** (would be hard to claim we invented it, but re-invented should be enough to infuriate certain people - and that is our sole purpose of existance, right? )
scripting language - improving on nwscript
1) If the memory footprint for scripts is so small, then why the caching?
2) If heartbeats are a big part of the problem, is that because heartbeats all execute on the same interval (0/6/12/18/24/30/etc)? Couldn't this be mitigated by randomly offsetting the heartbeat sequence for each object (i.e. some are 1/7/13/19/etc.)? Maybe you've already done that, but the game *feels* like they are all executing at the same time.
A) Because some scripts (i.e. main AI scripts) still can become huge and are accessed far more frequently than others and it makes sense to cache those. I already said this in a previous discussion, just because there is the option to cache something, this doesn't mean that it is causing lag/cpu hickups by default.
B) Again heartbeats are not a problem by default, it's how people use them. If you want heartbeats to randomize their execution delay a bit, you can do it by scripting, but I doubt there will be much impact on your module. Of course, having 100's of objects running elaborate heartbeats is going to kick your performance, but then you are doing something wrong. My comment about "scrapping heartbeats" was more meant as "since these tend to cause the most problems for people, we could just take them away and get rid of the problems".
Bumping up the number of frames allocated to scripts doesn't fix anything either. Every once in a while you will probably have seen the "AI Update TimeOut" error message on the console - that's when a script couldn't run because there was no more time on the slice for scripts (which are prioritized by AI_LEVELS). So adding more frames (cpu time) would not make things faster, it would just mean you can execute more scripts before this error appears.
My experience is that other than obviously CPU intensive graphic tasks like visual effects, the hiccups in the game flow come from scripts. Towns with a large number of NPCs milling about, for example
Don't forget that the more objects you are animating/rendering, the more CPU time you need for those as well.
Please do give us turn based combat !!
I would like to know why Final Fantasy(TB) is more popular then any Bioware game(RT)
Final fantasy is a RTS (real time strategy game) ?
A role-playing role-model: Darklands
I loved DarkLands, mainly because of it's dark theme, the alternate approach to magic and because of their attention to detail (my little hometown in the forests of germany could be visited). On the other hand it was quite buggy and I never could finish it because at some point my savegames would always get corrupted, but still, great game.
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
And just becasue it dosen't propel the story, dosen't mean it woln't make the game better. Look at first person shooters like FarCry. It is selling by the truckload, and it's story dosen't have jack squat. What it does have are sweet features like a vehicle system, physics, and an awsome graphics engine. So lets make the analogy, and you will see how all these features will make the game better even if they don't help the story.
It's a shooter. Most people who buy a BioWare game expect a good storyline with rich NPCs first. Most people who buy a shooter expect cutting edge graphics and lots of weapons. It's not just "let's throw in a horse, players will be happy": A horse means mounted combat (lots of new animations), villains that use horses, horse options (i.e. adding armor), etc. It also means dealing with things like "what happens with the players horse if he enters a dungeon", "horses in cutscenes" (i.e. making a cutscene that works for players on horse and off horse doubles the amount of static cameras required, etc, etc.)
All this costs time and manpower and that manpower needs to come from somewhere, so if there would be the decision to include horses, another major feature would have to die for it and the decision which features will stay and which will go will most likely be based (among other things) on how much they add to the story or not.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, June 18, 2004 - 0:30 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.
Darcy Pajak, Assitant Producer
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
All of these features are cool and neat and can be fun if done right. When we talk about adding a feature to the game we make sure it's justified and is either A) needed to drive the story forward, or B) needed to make the gameplay work, and work well.
For example (and only take this as hypothical, do not quote this months from now saying "dev said they wouldn't put in cloaks nah nah".) Cloaks are not needed to drive the story forward, even having a magic cloak of power can be replaced with the boots of power, or gloves or amulet so cloaks drop in priority of features to be added. We are not adding any feature because it's cool unless we can justify it with either game mechanics or story. (and to change code for a one-off story event is not cost effective so it better be good). We know that people want to see Horses, swimming and cloaks, and flying, and as of this date (June 16, 2004) we still looking into them. As soon as we decide not to put them in we'll let you know
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Atari's 10-K Report Released
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 23:26 CET by chevalier
Atari have released 10-K for the financial year ending March 2004. The Temple of Elemental Evil was their best selling cRPG of the year, scoring above both expansions to Neverwinter Nights and second best-selling PC-only game.
Check out Atari's 10-K.
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Interplay's HR Speaks
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 23:18 CET by chevalier
No Mutants Allowed have mailed Luke Haase of Interplay's Human Resources and got a couple paragraphs back. Everything is going on well, Herve's risking more than anyone and sheer courage and determination is bringing Interplay straight back to the top etc etc. Not like the workers have seen any pay. Here's a snip:
Because Interplay remains a public company, we continue to operate under strict communications guidelines. As much as management wants to communicate more to the media, inquiring shareholders and others, any news we share with one party must be made public, and must not jeopardize any current negotiations. And I do hope that Interplay employees know that they are the first priority in terms of communications. As I understand it, given the very difficult situation at the company right now, the Human Resources Department has done a pretty good job of keeping folks informed.
Read it all here.
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BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 22:29 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
NWN Profile: The Persistent World of Brynsaar
Brynsaar (pronounced BRIN-saur) is a Neverwinter Nights persistent world where serious roleplayers come to pursue epic quests in search of glory and renown. Caught in the crux between law and chaos, good and evil, Brynsaar is brimming with exciting areas, epic quests, and roleplaying possibilities. Discuss.
Player's Guide to Neverwinter Connections Released
The world's leading Neverwinter gamer matchmaking service has recently posted a new guide to their services. The guide tells you what you need to know about NeverwinterConnections.com, how to get involved with online multi-player games, what multiplayer Neverwinter Nights is like, and more! The guide is also available in a handy print-frienldy format. Be sure to check out upcoming scheduled games at www.neverwinterconnections.com or the official NWN site as well. Discuss.
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SP Happenings #54
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 14:12 CET by Sorcerer
Another rather uneventful week gone by. I've been ambushing Catbert online whenever I see him to get him to do some more work on the SPS system for the new design (it occurred to me that being able to change your password and e-mail there was a good idea). Hopefully he'll deliver it soon so I can test it and finalize the whole thing. Until that's done it doesn't really make much sense for me to attempt to write FAQs and help files for it (apart from the general outline), if I can't refer to any specifics, considering I don't know yet how the whole thing will look in the end.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 12:21 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
Writing a UDPSocket query
Have you done a .NET dll? Oh perhaps you've done some changes. I tried to implement the source in my application, but I didn't succeeded.
I recently finished it, you can dowload it from my private homepage here: Click Here
State scripts
I think there is a states.2da or so around somewhere. However I think its hardcoded into the effects system which state is striggered when.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Rumors of +12 cap increase?
This was in reguards to the +12 stat cap not the level cap.
There are currently no plans to raise the +12 stat cap. Craig.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 12:17 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
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
I dont think BioWare should feel pressured by demands to include this or that, accompanied by threats of people not buying the game because a few features werent added. They should put in what they can, use what they can and make a great game.
Oh, we don't feel pressured unduly, don't worry. Like I already said, we acknowledge that fans are going to want what they want. Why wouldn't you want everything? There's no reason not to want it, after all. We're the ones who are going to have to worry about what we can do with the resources and time that we have, and that will always be the way it is. I do find it interesting, though, how some people are demanding that we implement all these features "or else". Heh... we're going to make the best game we can and put in all the features that we believe are necessary (and there is a LOT more to a game like this than just how much you can jump, fly and ride in the gameworld, as much as some of you might obsess about that) and in the end you're going to have to decide whether the game is what you want. Certainly feel free to express what you'd like to see us do with our resources, but ultimatums have no place here at all. And keep in mind that we haven't said anything at all about what features will or won't be in yet, so getting angry over what might or might not be is a tad premature at this point.
Derek French, Technical Producer
A message, and a plea....
Let's not turn this into an OS war thread. I'm sure that Bioware will carefully consider doing Mac/Linux versions if/when the time comes, after the technical details of the game are a bit more solid. A port may be easy or hard, depending on what tools/language the game uses, and also depending on the as yet non-existent publisher. It's a bit too early to tell, though.
Well said ElAntonius.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Please do give us turn based combat!!
A multiplayer environment where other players have to wait for the current players turn to finish is among the most "unfun" things I can imagine. Yes, it's nice for certain types of games (i.e. Civilisation) where you can spent hours watching the units move over the screen or those 1 on 1 games you can play in HotSeat mode, but not for a RPG with more than 2 players. Playing BG II in MP mode with just one pause-happy companion was annoying enough, full turnbased combat would drive me nuts. No, I think BG/KotOR worked pretty well with a real time based approach (and probably sold much better than ToEE), so I wouldn't see a reason to suddenly go full turn based. But that's my personal opinion, I'm sure at least the guys at RPGCodex would disagree
scripting language - improving on nwscript
Graphics aren't the main CPU load;
That's actually not true. For NWN the impact of scripts on overall performance is pretty low for your average module (not talking about crazy 500 area PW projects here) compared to the CPU time allocated by the graphics engine. In a big battle loading models and animations, rendering the battle, displaying visual effects as well as sending over all the happenings through a heavily compressed network stream takes up *far* more CPU resources constantly than creature AI and other scripted tasks. If you want to see how much CPU the graphics engine takes up compared to every other subsystem, run a timegraph on NWN - graphics is the huge block in the middle . Same with memory by the way. The total memory allocated by scripts in your average module is nothing, a single skybox is probably taking up more. That doesn't mean that possible performance improvements for scripting shouldn't be explored, but those could also be achieved by doing things like removing heartbeats from the engine...
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
My thoughts about this topic... Restricted save (game autosaves at specific points): A very bad idea in my opinion. It is extremely annoying to have to redo a large part of the game over and over if you are killed in a difficult fight just prior to reaching the next save point. It is annoying to be unable to save if you need to take a break from playing briefly to handle something in real life. It is annoying to be unable to stop playing when you want just because you'd need to wait until you reach the next save point unless you want to replay what you've just been doing next time you continue to play. I recently played Farcry, and being unable to save when I wanted to was not fun. It also discourages experimenting and trying to solve a specific situation in different ways, pushing you to do things the safest/easiest way to avoid being forced to reload and replay. Please, don't do it.
I don't think you need to have any concerns about that, in a BioWare RPG, you are able to save at any time.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 7:05 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.
Peter Thomas, Designer
First Person Perspective or not...and why
There was actually a quasi turn-based squad FPS game called Space Hulk that had a system that worked kind of ok. You could see out of everyone's eyes in little windows at the edge of the screen and the currently selected character was the main window. However, for large-scale tactical battles, this might be very limiting. It was very easy to die in Space Hulk and it ended up being almost a puzzle game in how to place your guys. In a real-time turn-based game, it could get very messy very fast. It would be an interesting experiment, but I think overall, more people would find it disconcerting than a more BG-type system. Which is also what DA has been announced as having.
And as an aside, you know how few people actually know what memetic means? It's a shame...
First Person Perspective or not...and why
Would probably help if "memetic" WAS A WORD!
Look up "meme". Perhaps they are similar and that was the original intent, but I like the concept of infectious ideas.
David Gaider, Designer
Cloaks, horses, swimming, wall climbing, magic carpet riding and everything that was missed out..
Insofar as the horse's involvement in fantasy goes, I wouldn't say that it is integral. When you think of the archetypal "fantasy moments" (a la 'slaying the dragon', 'delving into the dungeon', etc), however, the 'charge of mounted riders' and the 'knight's joust' are up there... so it's definitely an aspect of fantasy, if not integral. We must make other considerations, however, beyond whether something is or isn't an aspect of the genre. We must take into consideration that aspect's effect on gameplay and its cost to implement versus its benefit. Naturally these are not considerations the fans need to take into account. The fan just sees it as important and wants it... we get that, we truly do. Will there be horses in Dragon Age? We shall see. Do not assume that just because it was ruled out for one game it will be ruled out for all: not having horses is not our policy, it's just an expensive feature that must be justified in order to be included. Like with all expensive features however (and you can mark cloaks, swimming, wall climbing et al under this) we're still going to have to pick and choose where our focus lies. We may have more resources to apply but they will always be limited, and so we will never be able to include everything under the sun. That means that while we certainly may be able to include a lot more as time goes on, those folks who believe that any sequel (spiritual or otherwise) will naturally include every single desired feature that did not get included in the original are simply deluding themselves.
More: Uh-huh. And if not, well... tough. Can't have everything. But we'll see what we can do.
Do you think the "gods" are listening to us, in devlopin this game?
We listen. If someone believes that they aren't being listened to simply because we do not always respond to every single post or sit down with every visitor and nod thoughtfully while taking down a list of their desires as if we were taking their order in a restaurant... well, they are free to think that, as well. We do try our best, though. If someone believes that they aren't being listened to because we do not obey their demands and override our own judgement... heh. Well, that would be true, then.
Death Animations
Hmmmmm... *Imagines Hades_One being ejected into the vacuum of space, his eyeballs expanding until they explode like a pair of jellyfish thrown against the pavement, his soundless screaming cut off as all his capillaries burst beneath his skin at once turning him into a floating bruise and as his softer internal organs shortly thereafter are exhaled in a single gushy, bloody flow into the airless void.* ...you're right, that does have promise.
More: You see? Violence is always funny until someone loses an eye. Or two.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
scripting language - improving on nwscript
Wait, you were talking about dlls. I may not have read your post correctly but didn't NWNX and the CoPaP/Avlis team figure out a way to use dlls to write out to a server database. I actually looked at the dlls and, although I never understood where they were getting their definitions from (probably Bioware dlls/exes) it looked like it was totally possible to add your own scripting functions and cool stuff like that. Sorry if someone has already said all that before, but I tend to get lazy sometimes and don't read the whole posts. Heck, I don't even read all of my own posts sometimes (it's the lack of sleep).
NWNX2 (ab)uses debug mode to do what it is doing, I think people here are thinking more about "native" support for that. I can see a some barriers for something like that however, the potential for abuse is huge. "Hey, take this cool DLL, sure it's adding email functionality to the scripting language" - and, at the same time, emails your cdkey file to some hotmail addresss.... Same reason why there's no File I/O in NWN. Using NWNX2 isn't a trivial thing so most users who do it are technically savy enough to be aware of the implications when using third party binaries (and in best case are probably compiling it themselves), however if the game would allow third party DLLs on the same "easy to use" level as getting new modules or hakpaks, you can assume that a lot of users would download a third party dll with the same easy the click on every fancy email attachment they get (and judging from my spam box, thats unfortunately a lot). It is our obligation to protect these people, which means that not all features that would be technically "very cool(tm)" should be done. How, and in which ways this applies to Dragon Age, remains to be seen.
scripting language - improving on nwscript
An interesting solution to the whole trust issue could be to require some kind of cryptographic key signature with the key being branded to your NWN community account, so you would have to apply for a third party developer key that could be revoked in case it gets compromised (somewhat similar to SSL). Could solve some issues, would be expensive on the other hand
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Please Devs, can we get involved??
Just a comment - we do actually read threads, and often-times some really good ideas for the game come from you (the fanbase) or discussions that you have. We may not always post as such, but we *are* listening...
Realistic archery/ranged
Great ideas so far folks, a few interface questions for you relating to the suggestions/ideas I've read so far.
* Thrown weapons. Assuming you had the ability to throw any weapon and you could equip both a throwing weapon (offhand) and a melee weapon... how would you feel about throwing the 'throwing' weapon first if you chose the 'throw' attack option?
* If there was a called shot system, how would you specify different parts of the body? (Remember this is a real-time game, and though you can pause in SP you may not be able to in MP).
* If your archer can't hit the target he's aiming for, what would you think the desired behaviour should be? (Acquire a new target? Give up?)
* How would you want attacking with a bow while moving to work (interface wise?). The default behaviour for attacks is to move within range and begin attacking. Should you always fire on the run? Even if there are penalties associated with it? What happens if you're out of range when you attempt to fire on the run?
* On reload rates, if a crossbow takes a small amount of time (maybe 5-10 seconds, depending on how annoying it was?) - how would you feel about being stuck reloading (unable to move) until you're done?
* Would you want to be able to target specific creatures at range? How would you feel about an 'area target' or something like that (shoot at things in this area)?
Please keep in mind that none of this is any indication of what we may or may not be doing on the project. All of this is purely discussion, for the time being.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 6:34 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
OnHit Intelligent Weapon?
It is used to create "intelligent" weapons that comment when hitting monsters. The process involves a healthy dose of scripting and there are a couple of posts in the scripting forum that deal with how that is done.
OnHit Intelligent Weapon?
So just placing the OnHit intelligent weapon power on a weapon with no scripting has no effect?
yes
Blue Glow in 1.63 patch
No, there are no plans to add blue glowing elven blades to the game just because they appeared in some novel.
Don Moar, Tools Programmer
support on toolset issues
Have you checked the Custom Palette? There are currently two palettes for blueprints. The Standard palette for the objects that are available to every module and the Custom palette for objects that were created in your specific module. Check out the following links for more info:
Toolset Introduction: http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/toolsetintro.html
Plot Wizard Tutorial: Click Here
Module Construction Tutorial: http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/modtutorial.html
Jay Watamaniuk, Community manager
Was HotU too easy?
I attempted to play it solo with a Rogue/Shadowdancer and really got slapped around quite a bit. Things went much easier with a Monk solo. I am not a big fan of henchmen so I generally take a loooong time to finish a game.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
C++ Pointer Problems
Papillon did this and since this is his voodoo I am only emulating his approach.
Papillon did a "(value + strlen (value)) = 0"?
When you consider that strlen uses a "0" to detect the length of a string, then all you are doing is setting the terminating "0" to "0". There are cases where this needs to be done. Routines such as strncpy or snprintf can fill a string without terminating it so you have code that looks like "value [MY_MAX_LENGTH - 1] = 0" or in the case of a running lengths "value [count] = 0". If that "value" variable is being passed in by NWNX then either a max length should be defined in some H file or the length of the string passed in to the routine.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 13, 2004 - 12:56 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
Name Filter
As pointed out, name filters don't work. If you are desiring some kind of naming consistency amongst characters, the only option you have is to take the power to choose a name away from the player (ie. using some form of name generator), which has its own drawbacks (although not having to adventure with someone named puffnstuff or **tHeDUde** might well be worth it). That said, it really mostly applies to a massively multiplayer environment.
Derek French, Technical Producer
Dragon Age english version only?
Not including XBox Live content which isn't avaiable in Spanish yet...
I am speaking about patches for the PC version. "Patches" are not allowed on Xbox and once again, I must call out that all localization is ultimately up to the publisher of the specific product. Xbox Live is not a patching system.
Tom Ohle, Public Relations
Can we see the Dragon Age E3 Video?
Videos, concept art, more screenshots... ANYTHING! I can't keep checking this site everyday for new signs of life in the world of DA! (actually, I probably can... and will). All the same, why is all the concept art and screenshots (for I am sure they could release more than five!) being kept from us? At the moment info is just being dripped out... more, I say, more!
It's incredibly difficult to release info on a game for ____ months/years. Eventually you just run out. We want to make sure that, when we start showing off more of the game, we show off a LOT more of the game
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Can we see the Dragon Age E3 Video?
I'd be *very* careful what I wished for, were I you folks...
Realistic archery/ranged
This is an interesting thread so far, and it's been noted. I'm curious about ranged combat though... are there any specific things you folks would like to see with ranged combat? (Besides what's been mentioned thusfar?)
Realistic archery/ranged
I'm going to take some advice and attempt to guide the discussion a bit - as 'what would you like to see' is a bit open ended. Anywho, to expound on the above... specifically:* What types of projectile behaviour would you like to see? (In NWN, we had a few different types of projectiles: straight ballistic shots, heat seeking, deflection, shield impact... etc)* Are there any special ranged attack animations you'd like to see? (Possibly associated with a special ability of some sort?)* What types of weapons would you like to use in a ranged manner? (Let's get the Dwarf chucker out of the way, shall we? )* What types of special attacks would you like to see with ranged weapons?
xbox 2 Port?
Dragon Age is being developed for the PC. If there are any plans for ports to a console (of any variety), they will be announced if/when they are decided.
"Focus Group" threads
I like the idea of "focus groups". And I agree with Demetrious, the objections in the cited article don't really apply to people on the forum, particularly the one about ebing "eager to please".Maybe Bioware could start by having a focus group on the idea of having focus groups...
Hmm... I think we'd have to have a meeting on whether we should have a focus group on the idea of having focus groups...
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Nevewinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 13, 2004 - 12:47 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
Blue Glow in 1.63 patch
There is no such elven ability.
Complete lack of game manual
HotU should come with a manual. If there is no manual in the box, please contact your retailer for replacement, as it sounds like a manufacturing error.
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
C++ Pointer Problems
There are a lot of problems with this code. DragonSong posted about the FindFile problems. All of your memory allocations are leaking. Why are you even allocating memory? The 256 constant isn't good enough, you should use MAX_PATH. Using sprintf to populate the data is strange at best and can cause all sorts of problems. The terminating the strings with 0 only applies in cases where you are using such things a strncpy.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
what will be in the 1.63 patch
can cleric domains bypassing mantles and/or imunity be corrected?? i'm tired of my shifter rak being mauled by cleric ice when it shouldn't even touch me.
I believe it was already stated elsewhere that this issue had been fixed internally and the fix should be in the 1.63 (when ever that will be released).
DM Client guidebook
I believe it works for placeables as long as they aren't static. So if you make them non-static then you should be able to destroy them this way. A non-static non-usable placeable could be destroyed this way. Or a non-static useable placeable, but not a static placeable.
Custom portraits.
hi, sorry to bother you guys but i cant for the life of me find a tutorial on how to make my own portraits if anyone could drop me a link id really appreciate it tyvm.
Here you go. http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/portraits.html
Console
On my system for some odd reason, if i press ~ in game, i crash.
There was an issue with some ATI cards and older versions of their drivers that could make this happen. If you have an ATI card installed, I would try updating your video drivers and the problem might go away.
Console
The ~ key doesn't work in NWN on many non-USA keyboards. It doesn't on my Danish keyboard setup, for instance. You hit enter to get to your chat window, and prefix whatever you write there with ## - for instance: ##DebugMode 1
I'm guess this is most likely what your problem is. The ~ key doesn't work on some other language keyboards. There is a way to bring up the console somehow on other keyboards, but the key is different (try the single back quote key ` ). I think other people have determined the correct key for other keyboards, you might want to try a search on the forums for what that key is (can't remember off the top of my head).
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Tim Cain Interview at No Mutants Allowed
Posted Sunday, June 13, 2004 - 12:40 CET by chevalier
No Mutants Allowed have interviewed the head and founder of Troika, Tim Cain. They talk about his part in Fallout development, his life before and a little bit about his current time at Troika. Here's a snip:
Tell us a little about yourself, what have you accomplished in life?
I grew up in Virginia and worked at a small computer game company there while I was in high school. I went to college at the University of Virginia and then came to California to go to graduate school. I received a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at the University of California at Irvine, but I decided I wanted to make computer games again. I started at Interplay in 1991 and left to form my own company, Troika Games, in 1998.
What are your favourite computer games/board games and why?
I think Star Control 2 is my favourite computer game. It’s so stylish and rich in humour, and I like the free form exploration that the game allowed.
I have been playing a lot of board games recently, and while I really like Puerto Rico, my all time favourite board game is Lord of the Rings. It’s wonderfully balanced and captures the spirit of the books so well. Plus, in a five-player game, someone has to play Fatty.
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, June 11, 2004 - 14:14 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
Druids/Rangers being attacked by Animals
I think what he's saying is, if they make a class possibly similar to the ranger, they won't have to feel restricted to making him/her a dual-wielding, sneaky, nature-oriented, light skirmisher that has limited access to divine spells. Plus they won't have to listen to as many people saying "That isn't what a ranger is!" when they differ from the D&D version.
That's pretty much it, yes. And even if we have a nature-specializing class similar to the ranger, he needn't have a special affinity for animals a la animal empathy. He might just know a lot about how to survive in the wilderness. He could also have abilities and a place in the world that would make him actually useful and cool... which, insofar as the ranger is concerned, would be pretty darn near revolutionary.
Bad language and sex.
You know... I suspect I would be willing to take an M rating JUST so I could have the hero watching the onrushing horde of evil and then frowning, putting his hands on his hips and growling "Well, **** ME." Hmm. I suspect that might not get past the filter.
Bad language and sex.
Profanity and sex need not be gratuitous, and I think that's the real distinction. I'd just like the freedom not to shy away from it should the story call for it. And did someone say they didn't buy that as a limitation on storytelling? Let's take... oh just hypothetically... the drow. Are they lusty sadists who worship a spider goddess and sacrifice babies in her name? Or are they somewhat-puritan bullies who still show an inexplicable amount of skin and while they do serve an evil goddess they don't mistreat their slaves or actually sacrifice anyone because those things are wrong? You decide. And then tell me how much that difference might affect the ability to tell this hypothetical story about them. And, certainly, we could restrict ourselves only to completely puritanical tales... but that would sort of qualify as a limitation, wouldn't it?
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Request: Better fight choreography
It would be really, really cool if the library of actions from which the animation engine could draw contained literally hundreds of offensive/defensive moves, and selected more appropriate ones, reserving the best ones for critical hits & close shaves. I'd like to see a lot more ducking, jumping, and weaving for defensive moves, but again synchronized these moves with the attack.
It *would* be really cool... However, remember that each animation has to be loaded if we're going to use it in a given fight. Also, you'd need a version of the animation for every PC variant (rig) (race and gender (this is a simplification), if they can all use it) and that's not even considering the cost... both monetary and timewise. We're aiming to make combat look good. That's one of the main goals of the system, that said... you won't be seeing several hundred combat animations for one character. It's just not feasable at this time. Also, another thing to consider. Choreographed fights are easy with two people, add in a few more and your complexity begins to skyrocket. We have a few things we're investigating that may or may not make this easier, only time will tell. More information on these sorts of things will most likely be available at a later date.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, June 11, 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
Camera_Mode_* question/request
NWN has no support for any other camera modes than listed in those constants.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
Georg rarely pulls his punches, so I doubt he is being censored to any great extent. These topics have a tendency to become "wish-lists", and he really doesnt need to answer questions that are completely silly (ie anything that implies a major overhaul of the game, like more than 3 classes). That stuff has already been answered many times over elsewhere, and I bet he gets really tired of that stuff (I would, in his shoes). The likely contents of the next patch release was said earlier in the topic, in case anyone just jumped in for the last couple of pages, and is waiting for some kind of official response. . .
No censorship here. xitooner pretty much sums it up - I have some kind of aversion for generic wishlist threads and tend to avoid them. Otherwise I usually ignore things that have been answered many times or are outright ridiculous or where YCSI applies.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
freeze up in chapter 3
has anybody experienced a system freeze in the puzzler's sepulcher? is there a known bug/fix? is there a cache to empty (like in the old bg game) to make the game run smoother?
There was a random crash in the puzzler's sepulcher that some people have encountered. The problem was fixed in one of the patches (the 1.61 patch I believe). Update your game and the problem should go away. Wrong forum try the TechSupport (self-help) forum.
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More Interplay News
Posted Friday, June 11, 2004 - 0:54 CET by chevalier
Not only has Herve been able to let the employers come back to work, he also promises to pay them their wages. When he gets some funding, that is. Moreover, he says Titus's own troubles in France won't harm Interplay. Here's a clip:
"(Titus' bankruptcy) doesn't affect us in any way, shape or form," Caen said, because Interplay is independent of Titus. He's counting on finding new funding through SG Capital, the investment bank Interplay hired in April.
The state confirmed Tuesday that the Interplay stop-work order was lifted.
The state is auditing Interplay's payroll records to determine who has been paid and who hasn't. Once the audit is completed, Interplay must pay back wages and possible penalties. If Interplay doesn't pay on time, the state could go after Interplay's assets by filing liens in court.
"We've missed a couple of payrolls, but we're going to catch up as soon as we get funding," Caen said.
Read the whole thing at Raging Bull.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Friday, June 11, 2004 - 0:45 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
Druids/Rangers being attacked by Animals
I assume you mean that if we had classes that resembled a druid or ranger that they would possess some kind of animal empathy ability. If that was part of that class's bailiwick.
Druids/Rangers being attacked by Animals
If there's classes, there'd better be rangers.
We have an opportunity to include classes that we will be certain are useful throughout the game or have niches which make them very handy. If there is a reason to include classes that excel in a natural environment, then naturally we will do so. As you yourself indirectly point out, however, there's a lot of interpretations as to just what a "ranger" is. Personally, even if we have a class that uses what are commonly perceived as a ranger's talents, the word itself might be best avoided.
Derek French, Technical Producer
Artificial Intelligence (well sort of)
KDY-Worker1138, can you give us some examples of some great AI in games that you have played recently? We are always looking to improve things and its easier to start with a common point of reference.
Artificial Intelligence (well sort of)
The games that pop into mind are Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War. I know they aren't CRPGs but they are pretty decent where it comes to intelligent enemies, relatively speaking.
I have played through Deus Ex around 10 times (and every time I find out a new plot point, new dialog, new something) but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. It was good AI there, but I am hoping to dig up some great examples.
Artificial Intelligence (well sort of)
As long as I'm at this, here are some specific examples of bad AI in Bioware games:
We are fairly well versed in our own games. I was looking for some good examples from recent non-BioWare games.
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
otherwise limiting Save / Load in an RPG is an open invitation to being shot and ripped apart by your community.
It can also earn you a visit from a certain Technical Producer who has no setting between Off and High
Dragon Age english version only?
I was just wondering if it will be out translated or if we will have to wait one year before the localized version and three to sixth months for each expansion as it was the case for NWN.
Localization is a publisher task, not a developer task. In the case of NWN the various Atari regional offices were responsible for localization. All scheduling for localization is up to the publisher. Do we wish that the game was released simultaneously? You bet, but it is not something that we have any control over.
Quote: If it is like this it will be thanks, but no thanks. The reason is that those delays killed NWN online community, don't do that again please Bioware.
Again, this is a publisher issue, not a developer issue. Once we have received the localized assets from the publisher, we can have a patch build and ready for testing in less than a day. All delays with regards to such things are on the publisher's side.
Quote: And your competitors (Blizzard or SOE for example) translate the software before the release FYI, patches included.
Just so you know, they finish the English version first, then sit on it, unreleased, while they localize it into all the other languages. There is nothing wrong with this, I just wanted to point out what is going on behind the scenes. We absolutely want simultaneous releases, but it is not something that is in our control. FYI, patches for KotOR were released simultaneously.
Dragon Age english version only?
Derek thanks for your reply, I am glad you feel concerned by this subject. I have been in charge of the localization of some software so I know a bit how it works.
Well, unless you worked with game localization, I would venture to say that while there are similarities, the process is quite different.
Quote: If the translators are given the text to translate early in the development stage then they only have to translate the changes when it is finished. It takes them one to three weeks maximum, not three to six monthes.
While an interesting assumption, we have historical fact that this is not true for past game localization.
Quote: This is how you can sit a few days waiting for the translations.
Heh, its never been "a few days" in any previous project, no matter what the resources exchange.
Quote: It also up to you when you will negociate with the publisher to have deadline on translations provided you give them enough info ahead of time, as it is a two side problem.
Even with such things in place, what happens when things are late a month? It still doesn't get the patch/release out faster, no matter what the agreement.
Quote: If they have to wait for the product is finished before starting translation then yes, it will take time to translate.
Correct.
Quote: For a campaign game, like Kotor it is not a big issue, but for an online game like NWN it causes problems because it breaks communities when people are separated by software versions.
Absolutely true and its something that we want to avoid.
Dragon Age english version only?
If the game has to wait, when it's ready, for localised versions before release, then no thanks. For people like me who don't want it in his/my own language (or simply because it doesn't exist in his/my language), it only makes for more wait.
Apart from that, other media like books aren't realeased in worlwide translations at one time, but (almost) always first only in the language it has been written in.
True, but when there is the issue of multiplayer in a game where English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish players can all play together on the same server, this is where the issue crops up and needs to be taken seriously.
Tom Ohle, Public Relations
Can we see the Dragon Age E3 Video?
No video of the E3 demo
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
I can think of serveral high quality mods and campaigns. Sure, since the toolset is quite-easy-to-use, there'e a good number of not so good or outright bad modules, but I found a good number of very enjoyable and high quality modules.
Just some of the modules I found very enjoyable/memorable (and I'm quite picky, especially when it comes to bad scripting )
Campaigns:
The ShadowLords Series (5)
The DreamCatcher Series (3)
The Lone Wolf Series (2)
The Lord of Blight Series (2)
A Call for Heroes Series (3)
Modules:
The Nether Scrolls by Papermonk
Sex & the Single Adventure
Witch's Wake I
To their Heir is human
Foreboding in Sylvani
Beerfish's Nature of a Man
All those together were probably several hundreds of hours worth in free modules, and that's only the ones I still remember playing / was able to play.
The Vault's Hall of Fame Click Here is a good start for more I guess. What is important is that while there is a lot of amateur stuff out there, there is a real good number of modules that are damn nice quality and story. I think the ratio for good modules we have compared to submitted modules is better than most FPS good maps vs submitted maps ratio, and making good modules IS damn hard.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
I'd be curious how many of that 5-10% bought the expansions compared to the overall market. While they may be small in numbers I bet it woudl be a reasonable assumption to make that they are some of the most loyal and active fans. I've been an active member at Neverwinter Connections for a few yars and the expansions pretty much become required withing a month of relase. I imagine that the same is true with the PW community. How many of the 90% of SP only crowd played the original NWN oc and put it on a shelf never to look back at it again? How many of that 90% are likely to purchase products through the digital distribution?
~90% of all people playing online very frequently bought the expansions (as you can see from the "server stats" sidebar on nwn.bioware.com)
Bad language and sex.
LOL.If the game ends up with a "M" rating, it would be because the story the writers want to tell requires it. It would not be "just because" or "just to have sex in the game". As for bad language, you might need a translator for that
I find it amusing that some of the most downloaded modules / hakpaks on the vault deal with a "mature rating", and judging from the comments on the Vault, it seems that the audience downloading this "slippery, jiggly, etc" content can not be categorized as "mature".
Be careful what you ask for, because until DA can be released a lot of things can happen (i.e. people grow up, stores no longer sell M rated games to minors, etc)...If there would be a mature theme in the story, it would likely not be of the "Mature for the immature crowd" kind
Can we see the Dragon Age E3 Video?
I'm not sure a video even exists, people at E3 probably got a live show. In any case I doubt you will ever see anything like a video of this demo in the public.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Parrying
So as I understand the current thought, there are to be high bonuses To Hit for rear & flanking positions of attacker AND severe penalties for both Parry & Dodge to avoid dmg from the defender? Rather severe, IMO. While it may be more realistic, it sure seems we would be missing a lot more heroes in films, TV, and gaming too. Either allow one or the other, or lighten the numbers of both for balance. Or is the plan to allow scores of added HP to take such beatings? If so, is this not degrading the combatic realism desired in this thread more than the suggestion above? Thoughts?
I was just thinking that shots from behind (if you're surrounded) would have an extremely likely chance of hitting the target. Whether that means a penalty to parry attacks that you're blind to in a tiered defense system (Block + Parry -> Armour -> Skin) or otherwise, it's mostly just an idea. Mostly the idea is based around some of the issues with real-time combat in general, ie: multiple creatures attacking you and attempting to have you react to as many attacks as possible while still getting in some of your own.As for representative or not, we can chat more about that sort of thing once the details are firmed up a bit more. As to the rest, I like the ideas being tossed about here (different combat strategies, hold position, aggressive, defensive)... I'll do some investigation/discussion and we'll see how things look on our end. I'm not so certain about fine control of orientation using keyboard mappings or mouse control, as I could see that being an extreme pain with a full party. Again, just a note... this is all just discussion and none of this is indicative of what the final game will be like, or even what we may or may not have planned. (Apologies, I have to say this just in case any of these comments are misconstrued)
Bad Hair Day
I'm such a sucker for a good pun. The one from Ruri involving hoses and splash damage still gets me. Seriously though, a means for control over beards and hairstyles would be pretty interesting. For example, let's say the story involves you getting thrown into prison for several months, or even years. When the next chapter starts, after you've been in prison for all this time, your character would now have a beard and long, greasy, unkept hair. Sans beard for females, of course. I'm liking this idea more as I think about it.
*winces* And I'd just managed to finally get over 'splash damage'... *sigh* Puns hurt my brain. For a bit more specific info, we want to include a wide range of customization options and whatnot for the characters - what forms those will take are still being firmed up. So if you have specific requests, threads like these are great.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 20:31 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
Spellhooking request: ONE Blade barrier at a time.
Easy going. Change the spellscript to add an invisible visual effect (i.e. VFX_CESSATE_*) on the player for the same duration as the blade barrier. add a check to start of the spellscript to see if that VFX is on the character and originates from GetSpellId(). If that is the case, bail out with a floaty text "can't cast two bladebarriers". OR kill the previous blade barrier off (you would need to save a reference to the AoE object) and remove the VFX before applying the new one. I use this technique a lot (check melf's acid arrow).
ActionExamine... Where did it go?
No, adding constants is not a valid reason, it can easily be done using the const keyword inside your scripts (best used in an include file). As always with those kind of threads, let me take the opportunity to say DO NOT CHANGE, MODIFY, EDIT, HACK, CLEANUP or MESS AROUND with nwscript.nss. This file is off limits. Changing it will break the game and should be punishable with severe beatings.
ActionExamine... Where did it go?
So how do we scripting novices cater for adding functionality to a NPCs OnDeath event when 'GetSpawnInCondition (NW_FLAG_DEATH_EVENT)' has been removed from the OnSpawn event default script. (lines up to be first with his beating)
Ready the paddles You can still use magic numbers or add the constant to NWScript. That flag has only been hidden, not removed, mainly because it doesn't work reliably.
Rangers Witch Tumble in the Patch?
The manual says no tumble so we can't add it.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
if a player really wants to have a particular item in a module, he can also always edit the module himself and add it and its scripts before he plays - one nice thing about the modules is that they are all editable in their built state.
though an official, patch-added "only with feat: " property would still be smoother as for the level 40 cap, one interesting thing to note is that the toolset can create mobs over that... mephistopheles at the end of hotu is a level 45 something. also, there may be ways to mod the level cap higher... i have heard of some persistent worlds in which it has been hacked as high as 120. of course, i have no examples. i dont even remember where i heard such a thing.. i have heard before that levels over 40 are just ridiculous for D&D, however.
There is no player data in the game for after level 40. Monsters can go to level 60 but monsters are not handled like players in the engine.
Getting rid of Relic of Reaper
Actually, the error in compiling is the line underneath it, but I do see what you mean about the missing bracket in the other line. So, please, baring with those of us who can't script a single thing, and don't have much experience with building, could someone post the correct, fully working script? I'm sure I'm not the only person who would really appreciate it.
A full working script will be in patch 1.63
Camera_Mode_* question/request
NWN has no support for any other camera modes than listed in those constants.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
As this chat snipped shows, the GAME supports up to level 40 (you make characters in the game), the TOOLSET supports up to level 60 (because you make monsters/creatures) in the toolset, which is exactly the way it is included in Hordes.
Not another toolset thread.
There was a beta version of the toolset released a few month before the game. The real toolset is only available on the Windows CDs (unless the guys from macsoft put it somewhere on the Mac discs). There is no download version of the toolset at the moment.
How do I use ConjGrndVisuals in scripting?
I added a couple of those groundvisuals to visualeffects.2da a while back for testing and most of the vfx models were not really useable, but I think one or two can still be found in there (undocumented/no constant attached).
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NWN American Revolution
Posted Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 1:00 CET by chevalier
The Education Arcade have created a Neverwinter Nights multiplayer roleplaying setting to teach American Revolution history. Here's a clip:
In the late 18th century, tensions between the British Empire and its colonies on the eastern coast of North America were reaching a critical point. From Georgia to Massachusetts talk of revolt hung heavy in the air, and the threat of war lingered on the horizon. The colonists were about to suffer the bloody birth of a nation, a nation that would eventually shape the course of human history. But this couldn't be known by the peoples of the time, who went about their everyday lives much as anyone had through the ages—one day at a time, their only goal to make their way through the world into which they were born. A world that was about to receive a catastrophic shock that could only be expressed by the word on the tip of everyone’s lips: "revolution."
Read the whole thing at The Education Arcade.
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J.E. Sawyer Speaks on Black Isle Studios Titles
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 23:20 CET by chevalier
On the Obsidian Forums, J.E. Sawyer has made a post about Interplay's titles, dividing them between profitable ones and... others. Apparently, everything non-D&D, except for Fallout, belongs among the others. Here's a clip:
My point is that a large number of IPLY titles failed by a huge margin. Icewind Dale was very profitable. Heart of Winter was also very profitable. Even Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale II were profitable. Remember that IWD2 only took ten months to develop. It really didn't have to sell a large number of units to turn a profit.
It is also important for people to recognize that cancelled projects are often less damaging than projects that linger on and on for years, then finally get released to poor sales. Combine Jefferson and Van Buren. You're looking at about three years of development, with a fluctuating team size of between 6-25 people. Compare that to Run Like Hell. RLH was in development for about four years, with (as far as I know) a similar team size. It shipped and tanked hard. The cost of development certainly wasn't covered, and the cost of publishing and distribution was just thrown away, since barely any units moved. Jefferson and VB also never had to pay for audio development and voice acting. I am pretty confident that even those two titles combined did not lose anywhere near as much money as RLH.
Read the whole thing at Obsidian.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 21:09 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
Dear Bioware: DDD or Com-Unity
I like the approach you seem to have taken (I haven't bought a NON-Bio PC game in over 2 years because of it) but I'm looking for some kind of buisiness logic behind it because I'd like to feel assured it will continue
I don't think we're ready to discuss exactly how the whole digital distribution thing is going to work. Once we are, I'm certain the business acumen behind it will be self-evident. Or maybe we're just very optimistic.
Screw Romance I want companions.
There will be romances. Lots of them. In fact, every party member will start pulling your hair and passing notes to the other party members about how cute you are when they think you aren't looking. They will refuse to participate in quests unless you stand around playing footsies with them in the local tavern for at least an hour. There will be warm fuzzy feelings gushing all over you as you scream helplessly.
There will also be companions which you can make into friends. They will pat you on the back and tell you war stories. Occasionally they will slap your butt in a friendly manner and an uncomfortable moment will pass before they deny being one of the romantic NPC's. They will have lots and lots of personal quests that they will demand you take time from your busy schedule to deal with, lest they stomp their feet and storm off. Sometimes they will bake you a cake.
We felt this was the best way to go.
Oh, and ummm... there's some other story going on in the midst of all that, but we'll need to hire more writers before we can get to it.
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
The lesson that I think applies to this issue is that sometimes you can get what you want but still not be very happy. All apologies to Cerebus.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
In order to ingrain this sort of thing, you really need serious death penalties.
Without saying or not saying that anything like this is planned for DA (as I don't know it), do you think of the KotOR system - perma death for the group if it is completely defeated?
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
I can only comment for myself on the subject of RPG party death. For me it all comes down to convenience. If I'm in the middle of a dungeon and a few of my henchmen happen do die (by accident - or dracolich) but my character manages to survive, I don't bother to re-load the game just pull out the rod of resurection and get going again.
Which would mean that there is something like a rod of ressurection. Again, without talking about DA, what if the world you are playing in features "perma death" with no cheap raise dead, resurrection, etc? Would you think that, in this world, a system like KotOR make sense(party death if all members are dead, otherwise treat them as critically injured/incapacitated as long as one man is still standing) ? Remember, the game still needs to be accessible (i.e. perma death for single party members without ressurection possiblity is not really an option, too much writing is involved to make enough expendable party members to make that worthwhile and you do not want a save and reload orgy with every single combat)
Opinion: Impossible Enemies
Look at my post more carefully. You don't have a true death penalty when you can save and reload at your leisure.
Agreed
On the topic of penalties and save / load limiting:
I don't think anything along the lines of limited "save / load" will ever make it into a BioWare game.
Maybe something in form of a "iron man mode" similar to what ToEE had would be possible, but otherwise limiting Save / Load in an RPG is an open invitation to being shot and ripped apart by your community.
Dear Bioware: DDD or Com-Unity
How much do you think the NWN moding community has contributed to your productivity? Any? Some?
Three of the designers that were working on HotU were recruited from the NWN community (including me). The Toolset Lead (and some designers) on DA was a member of NWN community. You would find variations of the scripts I made while in the community in HotU (i.e. alchemists barrel). I think most people here don't have a lot of time to look at specific NWN modules out there anymore, but every once in a while the community comes up with a great idea that is widely cheered in the community and that's a good thing to recognize and evaluate. I.e. we added item property merging to the shifter after reading mr_bumpkin suggesting it on the boards, a while before hordes was released. I can't think of the NWN Shifter Class without that trait today. So is the community a benefit? Definitly.
Don't implent so many charge/use items!
Keep in mind that the idea with limited use items is usually to be able to give the player access to an ability that is more powerful than the average abilities the player has available. Limited use makes for more tactical possiblities/choices (do I use it now or spare it for the combat ahead) and more diverse/interesting items, so taking it away means a loss.
Specific request: SetSelectable()
We have something like that in Jade, I'm sure the DA team will evaluate if it is needed and make the right decision
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Carl is correct on this one, the decision regarding HotU was "because we found out that only a tiny fraction of people who play multiplayer ever played the official campaign in multiplayer". A very rough figure of single player to multi player ration would be that around 15-20% percent of people try multiplayer at least once and about 5%-10 play multi player frequently. We have pretty accurate numbers thanks to the NWN master server, but they are not for public discussion
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
As you can see, after these two upgrades Bioware has abandoned NWN for something new.
Sorry, I need to correct you. NWN is neither abandoned nor dead. There are plans to support and release content for NWN for quite a while (Digital Distribution).
How many times has the D&D franchise changed hands? I am sure the people who own it now are not the same people as in the beginning -- in fact, I believe the original company went bankrupt or something very close to that (memory is shaky on this).
The company who made D&D well known was TSR. Wizards of the Coast took over D&D from them and was bought by Hasbro. The currently sole license holder for all Computer based D&D (specifically forgotten realms) is Atari.
Let's Not forget our Macintosh friends!
Just to put this straight, our Tools department now is *much* larger than it was when NWN has started (by several hundred, if not more percent). Don is still Tools Lead, he's just not working on DA
Parrying
My concern would really be this: If I lived in a world where this was the case, I would be putting extra armoring on my back.
I doubt that. It's pretty much like in the real world where you better want to avoid getting into combat with people who attack you from behind. Adding more armor adds weight and makes you inflexible, and given that you want to avoid getting swarmed anyway...
Parrying
A comment based on the above and somewhat relevant... If you do implement some form of automatic movement during combat you should also have a "Hold your ground" mode that can be activated at any time and will hold the player in one place. Ideally this would also work with good collision detection and would prevent anyone from getting past. This could be used to hold doors or bridges, as well as keeping creatures from bypassing the front ranks to attakc the rear ranks. It should also, most likely, carry a dodge defense penalty. (And there could even be a skill or class which allows one to do this without penalty)
And, in multiplayer, sounds like an excellent form of griefing ... blocking the only way out of the level
Less DnD and More Dragon Age?
Althernai,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Here is some clarification.
Regarding evolution of the D&D gaming system:
I think the fact that the D&D rules changed over time is EXACTLY my point -- the gaming system had to evolve because it was not perfect to begin with. Its taken decades and 3 versions (now on 3.0 rules and 3.5 rulebooks -- which I own) to get D&D where it is, and it still could be better.
If Dragon Age, starts from scratch, then we may have to wait several extra years for Dragon Age to iron out the inevitable wrinkles.
But, I think it could work fine if Dragon Age builds something newer on top of D&D experience, as you seem to suggest. I just don't want to see different for different's sake.
Regarding D&D back story:
The D&D back story just makes it much easier to craft consistent storylines and play balance the game. Its easier but not absolutely needed.
Anyhow, the Dragon Age team will do what they want to do.
I am just casting my vote that its a big bite to develop a gaming system as comprehensive as D&D is today. If they start from scratch, I imagine we will be at version 3.0 before everyone is happy -- about year 2010.
By the way, I am not hard over about any of my thoughts. Bioware is the best game developer; so, I anticipate they will do a great job. As I said, "I am just casting my vote" and may get outvoted
I disagree:
- If you were right, there would be not a single non D&D rpg on the market, yet there are many successful ones that do not use the D&D rules (i.e. Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L, Deus Ex, Ultima, Ultima Underworld, etc).Finally D&D has been tested in all those years on the paper, it doesn't translate well to a enjoyable real time framework on the PC - in fact D&D computer games are as inconsistent as it can get (just compare Dark Alliance against NWN against ToEE against PoR)
- As I explained in other threads on this board, using a license has several drawbacks that really affect gameplay: We could not include horses into NWN, but we also could not give the paladin class a boost otherwise to balance for the fact that a character defining ability is not there, because it is D&D (same for many other classes). If it hadn't been D&D, we could just have invented a new power and use it instead. (Don't ask how BG:Dark Alliance fit's into that, I would like to know myself).
- I disagree that the existing backstory in D&D (guess you are talking about FR) makes it easier to craft stories. It actually makes it harder: Because you can not do permanent changes to the world, it is hard to do a heroic story where the things that your player does really matter. We had to cut several endings for Hordes because they involved killing a major villain in the D&D setting or otherwise changing things (i.e. destroying that Inn in Waterdeep). Also, and that's not a minor thing, there are so many sourcebooks in D&D, so many things said about the background story, it is very hard to be creative without violating something that has already been said. There are several on just how Undermountain is supposed to be, so creating a story there is balancing between not contradicting the sourcebooks and making things interesting.
- Writing the story we want: When using a license we have to write story and gameplay in a way that it is consistent with the image of the license holder and is tailored toward the target audience the license holder wants the game to have.
Also keep in mind that licenses can change the owner and the new owner could have different views on things that the old owner had. (i.e. target audience suddenly drops to an "E" rating)
[Purely Virtual Example]
If the license holder decides thatthings happening in the game (i.e. kissing in romances, sex (even when married , slavery, treachery, etc) are not compatible with the company image, this severly limitesthe options our writers have to to craft the story they want to (and the kind of story our fans expect from us.)
Some licenses these days come with "morality clauses" that state things like "in the end good must always prevail. Evil must be punised and can not win", etc. that can be invoked by the license holder and would prevent things like evil endings impossible.
As stated before, working with licenses has it's benefit and can produce very successful and enjoyable games (see KotOR, HotU), but if you are out to create a game that "tells your story in your world", (which is what we want to do with DA), a license is not a good idea. If we wanted to "tell a story about the Hero of Waterdeep", we would choose D&D, but this time we are out for something else.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Parrying
So: if such a situation took place (which is perfectly possible), couldn't it be programmed in a way that, in case of simultaneous attacks, one of them, IF IT WERE NOT A MISSED HIT, would inevitably hit the opponent? This, I suppose, would be seemingly realistic and, I daresay, wouldn't prove too hard to be implemented. Such remarks come, I repeat, from one who is not versed in any programming, so please forgive me if they are somewhat simplistic (that is, simplistic beyond the simplification needed in a combatsystem implemented in a CRPG)
I agree, if you're saying what I think you're saying...
If you're surrounded by foes in an RL situation - you're most likely going to get hit, there's no way around that (unless, as has been mentioned you find a way to break out of the circle).
In a combat system, we might represent this by something like: you can only defend (reaction animation) against foes in your field of vision (front arc, maybe 160 degrees or so). Anyone behind you will hit you (almost guaranteed) and the severity of the hit would probably depend on your armour.
That would solve issues with multiple foes, as at most you might only have three in your front arc - and depending on how we do defense (shield blocking, parrying, evasion) we might be able to work out a way to get defense working versus a small number of foes in a common direction.
However, depending on the interface - if you don't have fine control over your orientation (for example), I could see something like that being rather problematic and "un-fun".
Keep in mind this is all just discussion... but I'm curious, what would people think about a rule like that?
Parrying
This is mostly based on NWN, since that's sort of some common ground most of us have... .
My main concern with something like that is that it might be deemed a bit too 'hardcore'... Additionally, would you get annoyed at having to worry constantly about enemies flanking and getting behind you and the rest of your party?
These sorts of things don't really matter in a lot of other games of this sort, or at least the impact of these sorts of things is rather small.
Ideally, you wouldn't have that sort of metagame thing happening... ie: a world of reinforced back armour . But, it would encourage people (if it were common knowledge) to either look for armour that might give them more protection, or be very careful about being flanked.
Parrying
Here's my problem with this... If we use NWN as a basis for comparison, the character stands in one spot and parries and dodges, moving a step back or a step forward sometimes. This doesn't change when you're facing multiple enemies either, you can't move around in combat.
In reality, nobody would dodge and parry like this. If everyone behind me will be getting free hits, I wouldn't want the game to keep me stuck to the same spot.
The Mark of Kri was a game that handled combat with multiple foes beautifully, by the way.
That brings up an excellent question, how do you think movement in combat should be handled? (I'll peek around and see if I can find a copy of the game you mentioned).
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BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 19:38 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
NWN Profile: The Persistent World of Glorwing
With engaging quests, glowing standing stones that transport you to far flung parts of the world, and interesting characters, Glorwing has become known for being an easy place in which to start your persistent world journeys with Neverwinter Nights. We spoke with founder and organizer Cornflower to find out more about the world of Glorwing. Discuss.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 17:50 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
what will be in the 1.63 patch
In 1.63 Shifter 'medusa' still haven't got a bow? i hear that biowares were changing in 1.62 to add her a bow. But i didn't saw bow... It can be nice to play with shifter ranger attack. Did biowares in 1.63 add 'medusa' bow ?
As I have explained numerous times on this board already, the medusa had a bow in early development and that caused several problems forcing us to remove the bow. There are no plans to re-add the bow.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
Georg, in addition to drawing your attention to my question about possession (second post on page 3), i would also like to ask why there is a separate list of spells that can be activated by an item (iprp_spells.2da) from the list of all spells (spells.2da)? it may not make too much sense for an item to cast, for example, ShadowBlend (757), but i think the option should be available even so.
Because there would be absolutely no hope for LocalVault servers if there were not seperate lists Also many spells are creature abilities and shouldn't be on items at all.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
Yes, This happens with my avatar with my tool as well. It is really annoying. Maybe it would be better to see if this could be fixed as a bug. Bioware. Any chances of having the DM simply use the item and target the object without having them run to the corner of the area?
Items in your inventory have a location of 0|0 (said corner of the screen). If the character is told to get in to that location or in range, he will move there. It's not a problem for our spells that work on items in inventory (i.e. bless weapon, etc), so I assume that it has something to do with DMFI.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
Scripting request... a function GetIsValidLocation(lLocation) - returns TRUE if lLocation is inside the area borders, not in mid-air, and not inside terrain or occupied by another object, else returns FALSE. When you try to create/spawn an object in a location that isn't valid, it often hangs the game. While that hang would be nice to have fixed, it would be even nicer to also have a function that will check for location validity so that you can then look for a location that is valid in your script...
If GetAreaFromLocation (or so) returns OBJECT_INVALID a location is invalid. If you try to jump an object to an invalid location, it should (and to my expericence does never) hang the game. If you can get it to hang consistently, please file a bug report, but as said, I am unable to hang the game by jumping people somewhere bad. If a position is occupied the game will compute the nearest valid location and spawn the creature there.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
I feel a little foolish, but I really do not understand the functions GET/SETPhenoType and what that will add to the game, and how. I am not a modeler (but interested), I am a scripter. I see it has something to do with horses and a request from the modelers but I am just not visualizing the "big picture" yet. Would someone be able provide me an example or two, or perhaps just a good explaination?
I'm sure robert or one of the talented community modelers can explain it better, but a new phenotype allows you to have a new set of animations for your model, which opens a can of options . Check the Custom Content forum for more information about this.
second cd key
You need one CDKey per copy of the game you want to run at the same time. If your friend comes over for a visit and you want to play with him, you need two cdkeys unless you play on the same computer, because running two copies of the game at the same time requires two CDKeys.
Getting rid of Relic of Reaper
They can still be removed by scripting. I'll see if I can include a script into the next patch that can be used to destroy those items when spawned from the commandline. in the meantime, you can do the following
a) create a new module
b) create a new script with the following contents
void main(){ object oItem = GetFirstItemInInventory(OBJECT_SELF); while (GetIsObjectValid(oItem) { SetDroppableFlag (oItem,FALSE); oItem = GetNextItemInInventory(); } SpeakString("You can now drop all nondroppable items");}
c) Close the script editor and save the script as nondrop.nss
c) Save the module and load it up in the game
d) Enter with your character
e) Enter debug mode by speaking ##DebugMode 1
f) Enter ##runscript nondrop
That's it.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
There won't be another expansion pack. The level cap *might* get raised with a new patch or via the digital distribution model, but don't hold your breath. The Toolset actually supports levels up to 60, so I guess it's always possible. 40 levels is enough to last for 2 years on most roleplaying-based servers that use server vault PCs.
The chances that the level cap would be raised are close to 0, there are several classes that would run out of feats if that happened. Plus *a lot* of data entry would be needed for that, several hundred familiar templated, etc, etc.
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Inventory problems
We did fix some issues causing the inventory icons to not show up in the previous patch. We have found another way to get this to happen in the 1.62 version that we have fixed internally. Its possible that there may still be other ways to get this to happen that we are not aware of at the moment. All of the previous bugs that caused this to happen that have been fixed were caused by closing down the inventory panel while you had a container open (such as a placeable chest, or a magic bag in your inventory). If this is happening frequently to you in gameplay, its most likely because of your play style causes you to more frequently perform the same steps required to reproduce the problem. If you can determine what the steps are that cause this problem to happen, please send a bug report to nwbugs@bioware.com along with a step by step description of how to reproduce the problem.
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Latest Poll Results
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 17:40 CET by Sorcerer
What we asked:
Q: Are you interested in reading or have already read any of the mod reviews posted on our message boards?
(146 votes total)
Yes (102) 70%
No (44) 30%
Although the number of people who voted in the poll is quite small, of those that did, the majority (70%) voted that they are interested in reading or have already read some of the mod reviews posted on SP. On the other hand, 30% of poll participants voted that they are not interested in reading the reviews.
Current Poll
Previous Polls
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Interplay Resumes Work
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 13:56 CET by chevalier
Herve Caen, CEO of Interplay, has managed to secure workers' insurance compensation. This allows him to let the employees come back to work after closure by California's Labour Commissioner. Ironically, his base company, Titus, seems to be in much more trouble than Interplay now.
Read more at Game Spot.
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Titus Selling Interplay?
Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 2:33 CET by chevalier
Titus, the parent company of Interplay, and three of its filial companies have been placed under judicial redress and will remain under observation until 6th September. Negotations will continue with a view to cession of actives and entities of the Titus group. Interplay is one that comes to mind. The quotation remains suspended until further notice. The stock value of Titus has dropped by three quarters since the beginning of the year.
Read the announcement at investir.fr (in French).
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SP Happenings #53
Posted Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 21:03 CET by Sorcerer
My 1 month old Maxtor 160GB hard drive suddenly died last Thursday (it somehow spontaneously developed bad sectors, which prevented it to boot Windows XP), and I only got a replacement a few hours ago, so you'll excuse the lack of updates around here. I've checked my backlog of over 2150 mails (most of it junk, of course) that have piled up while I was without my computer, and I've replied to all the mails that have been sent to me. In case I missed yours, please send it again - with so much junk I just scanned over the mail headers and might have overlooked some valid mails.
I've decided to let some of the regular weekly features (screenshot and poll) run for another week, as it doesn't make much sense to go changing them now, and besides, I've got a lot of more important work to catch up on. On a positive note, I've read the last 3/4 of The Canterbury Tales during my exile, something which would probably have taken me a few months otherwise.
Due to my not expecting a brand new hard drive to fail, I only had about half of the important data backed up, so I had to pay $50 for data recovery off the confounded defective drive, too... And this was just to get the data off the system partition. Of the semi-important things, I lost all of my Neverwinter Nights savegames and characters, which didn't exactly make me happy. The thought that it could have been worse just doesn't produce much of a consolatory effect... *sigh*
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 20:35 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.
Derek French, Technical Producer
Active vs Static Dynamics
The problem is the graphics engine their using. Look at the screenshots, it's going to be NWN all over again. You just can't do anything in an engine like that.
You are free to assume that the engine that took the screenshots is the final engine. You would be wrong, but you are still free to assume that.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Ultima-esque?
Speaking of big bad foozles, I'd love to see at least the option for a non-violent ending like the Ultimas had. Maybe I'm just jaded, but boss fights often turn out to be either anticlimactic or annoying in my book, at least after you've gone through so damn many of them.
HotU had options for a nonviolent ending
Tim Smith, Tools Programmer
Linux client?
You can get an alternate license for GPL software to allow it to be used in proprietary software. But at that point it is no longer GPL. MySQL is an example of this.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
how many dragon ages will we have to wait before this game hits the shelves?
#NaN
(Sorry, geek humor)
On a slightly more serious note, because the above isn't very useful. I will quote the following words which should be very familiar to you:
'The game will be done when it's done.'
Nothing would give me more pleasure than to tell you all my personal thoughts on when the game might be released... however, you can understand that that sort of thing would most likely be taken as gospel, misquoted and twisted until things were 'out of hand'.
Parrying
Quote:
They're doing it in Jade Empire, so why not?
Jade Empire is a completely different game. It works differently as well, DA will be a rules bound game. There will a rule that determines whether or not you hit your opponent. This is not the case in Jade.
In Jade you hit the kick button (like you do in a fighting game) and your character kicks, if something is in the way then it is hit (there is some resolution for special abilities, guards and whatnot - but that doesn't really matter for the context of this discussion).
In NWN, we had a representative system - meaning that we actually modeled the combat system on swings, one swing was one attack roll. This translated fairly well... though we did end up with some odd circumstances.
As an aside, it's much easier to think of hit points in DnD as vitality (stamina/energy) instead of a straight health attribute.
Star Wars on the other hand was not a representative system, though you have to look fairly closely to notice it . In SW, the combat sequences just happened and the rules gradually reduced your hit points as you fought and your opponent 'hit'...
As for what we'll be doing in DA, well that's still up in the air (officially ).
In regards to parrying systems - in NWN, parry was more supposed to be a defensive fighting mode where you're concentrating more on parrying than attacking, but things got a bit garbled in there somewhere.
One thing to consider, in reality most fights are full of parries, blocks and voids (evasions, either moving out of range, or moving your body [body voiding]).
Consider other games that have a representative combat system. Meaning:
1 swing = 1 attack roll = 1 damage roll (or something thereabouts)
In a representative system, what is better? A hit heavy system where you slowly whittle your foe down or a parry/block/dodge heavy system with very few hits? Or some kind of hybrid of the two? Or perhaps something else altogether?
Also, what do you prefer? A representative system (1 sword swing = your attack) or a non-representative system (the rules are divorced from the animations you see on screen).
Before you jump to answering though, consider a couple things.
* As gamers/players, we like to see our characters succeed... in combat this translates to progress against an enemy we're fighting. Meaning if I'm fighting big uber boss guy, I better be doing damage or at least have some way of measuring if I'm 'winning' or not.
* Representative systems would seem to work better with games with vitality levels (like WoD or 7th Sea). Since the hits that do get through can be quite serious (even fatal), as in those systems everyone is equally mortal (to one extent or another).
Disclaimer: Nothing in the above text is indicative of what Dragon Age will be like, this is purely discussion.
Parrying
Well, the following question is that of one who is by no means an expert: is the 5 seconds delay really necessary? Couldn't it be 2, 1, 0.5 etc seconds, for instance? I mean, couldn't such a delay be adjusted so that rolls and animation would be synchronized in a pleasant way for the eye?
It all depends on the system really. KoTOR was a d20 game and there was a combat round type of structure.
The main problem with real-time combat is that you have to have an intelligent way of figuring out the order of actions.
If for example you have one fighter and one goblin, things are easy. You have your initiative or some other arbitrary method of determining the order and A attacks B, then maybe B attacks A... rinse, repeat.
Things get more interesting when you have multiple creatures in the mix though and that's where the complexity arises, as figuring out who visually reacts to what and when becomes a bit tricky. Looking at what we have planned out in DA, there shouldn't (in theory) be any pausing/pumping or long gaps in the combat sequences (this was a major complaint and has been something we've had an eye on remedying).
Once we get into it a bit more we'll have some more details.
Parrying
The real problem I see with representative systems is animating parries and dodges against multiple opponents.
I think the best way to handle these animations is define several attack animation types, and several specific parry and dodge animation types that are matched up with them.
In order for that to work with multiple opponents though, I think you would need to prevent two people from attacking at the same time. Or even so close to each other that the previous animation didn't have time to finish...
That's it exactly.
What you've just described is essentially the meat of the combat system, scheduling what will occur when. Also, since it's a rules bound game we generally do a bit of precomputing, so we know a few of these things in advance.
We're currently looking at a varied number of attacks and styles, dodges, parries and damages that should look pretty nice if we get them even close to what we'd like.
Unfortunately in my experience, any time you have an encounter that is not limited by the AI you will not be able to react to every attack. We can fudge it a bit to make it look pretty, but if you're getting attacked by thirty goblins (non-DA specific example) there's no way you'll be able to play a full damage animation for every attack.
Now, that said... we're exploring some new technologies in our animation systems that may let us get away with a few tricks.
Parrying
Well in real combat only 4 or 5 people can get at you at once because there is simply not enough room around one person, would limiting the amount of bad guys that can actually get at you at once help out this problem at all?
Well, a few things... you can get about nine or so smaller creatures in combat range in NWN, but even if we restricted it to a few you'd still have issues. Essentially, whenever you have more than a 1 vs. 1 situation you're going to have some conflicts.
As I mentioned before though, we're hoping that a few new methods can fix some of these situations up.
By the way folks, there are some really good suggestions in this thread - keep it up.
Active vs Static Dynamics
The only thing to keep in mind is that we want a 'somewhat' level playing field. If there was a reflex portion to combat (besides interface ) it shouldn't give you a significant advantage in a fight over someone who is less gifted in that particular area.
The case of Soul Reaver is a prime example, being able to avoid attacks completely if you get good enough at it is quite fine for a game like that. Action games tend to rely more on the skill of the player than the skill of the character... whereas we're looking at the other end of the pipe.
I'd be interested to hear any other suggestions you might have for sprucing up combat systems though...
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Dungeons and Dragons Online Interview at Vault Network
Posted Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 20:28 CET by chevalier
Vault Network have interviewed Ken Troop on D&D Online Eberron setting. Here's a clip:
Vault Network: How is development of D&D Online coming along?
Ken Troop: Really well! We have a basic version of the adventuring portion of the game up and running, and though we still have a long way to go, we're already playing and having fun with it. Next steps are to flesh out the classes, feats, spells, and social features, not to mention tons and tons of content.
Vault Network: D&D Online will take place in Eberron, a new campaign setting that is now the flagship campaign for all D&D products. What elements of Eberron are you most excited about?
Ken Troop: Eberron is a very cool setting. (We're switching the office campaign over to it!) I think the best things it has going for it are the numerous secret societies and organizations, all competing both on the surface and through clandestine methods. It's really a "neoclassical" setting for D&D, with a strong focus on characters, classic adventures and storytelling. We think that fits very well with the game we're building.
Read the whole thing at Vault Network.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 20:23 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.
Derek French, Technical Producer
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
I guess its interesting to me that you think that these things are done by the same people.
For the most part, an "awesome Offical Campaign" is done by our writers, designers and artists, with support from the programmers and the rest of the team.
For the most part, "options and ease for fan-developers/DM's" is done by the game programmers and the tools programmers with support from the rest of the team.
We can try to do both and they won't collide with each other.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Really? That doesn't seem to be the case with Neverwinter Nights.
I was not speaking about NWN, nor did I say that in my post. That is completely your assumption.
Quote: You say one thing, but what you guys actually have done says differently.
I was not making a comment on any previous BioWare games.
Quote: Not trying to be an arse here,
I find this quite difficult to believe Its like when people say "I don't mean to offend you..." or "I don't mean this personally..." when they actually do.
Quote: but the evidence we have is contrary to what you are saying.
Again, I am not talking about the past.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Back to the original post...
We have learned a lot about making games from all of our previous titles. NWN was our first game of that type and we are looking to build a new game that takes the best of all of our previous titles, build upon our good ideas, and improve the things that didn't work that well in the past.
From the FAQ, we are doing a GM tool of some sort. Our design department is being given pretty much free reign to build a game free of any previous restrictions. We want to support the community even more than we have in the past by making things even more flexible for people to develop their own adventures. (Please note that "more flexible" does not always mean "easier"). Stick around, its going to be a great ride...
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
An example would be that design templates that are used in the OC will be passed on into the fan-developer tools. Naturaly. But that also means that those templates could be limited to what was done specificaly in the OC. It would take some extra tweaking to impliment a toolset that would give fan-developers the capability to design beyond the parameters of the OC. I say "templates" in the broadest possible of meanings. Example- a "creature creator" tool that allows the developer to csutomize the properties and appearence of creatures (and create new ones) as easily as they can in the nwn item wizard. (two headed firebreathing trolls for example). Without having to go through gmax to custom-create graphics and animations etc etc.
Ahhhh, I see what you are referring to.
I believe that we are looking to further expand what can be done to all the end users to create what they want. Whether or not this takes place in the Toolset or in other related tools has yet to be determined, but we are looking forward to working with the community in the future for their feedback on some ideas.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Stop! I see a trap
I agree completely. In NWN, even if I flag a trap I've found, my henchmen will still walk merrily straight into it. Dumb dumbs!
Actually they assume you are unable to disarm it and throw themselves valiantly on it in order to sacrifice their lives for you . So it's heroic, not dumb (at least not only dumb). But I agree with your criticism
Food/drink
I didn't propose any cutting. I just said that any feature that wants to be a global system needs to meet certain conditions or it's not worth it.
If you don't evaluate every feature against "does it add to gameplay", "is it worth it" and other criteria you end up with feature creep and the game will suffer. More is not always better, everyone likes features, but only if they make sense.
Please also keep in mind that it would be a bad idea if I create the image that a certain feature would be in DA. If I say "this might be in DA", someone will come back in a couple of years and say "but they said it would be in, I'm disappointed, they lied". So by default I am far more likely to deny that a certain feature has a chance to make it in the game than to say that there is a good chance for it. Plus I'm currently working on Jade, so I honestly don't know
And I agree with you, this is a good discussion here, lots of interesting things.
Food/drink
A fantasy game can't per definition not be realistic. I came up with multiple reasons why i think it should be included. GAMEPLAY and ATMOSPHERE to name the most important of those. I never demanded a realistic simulation of medival live. Thats what i heard as a counter argument from a lot of people, but thats simply NOT the point. Bringing up examples of wizards that drop dead when casting a spell can't really be meant serious, right ?
Which is a pretty good summary. If something adds to immersion and gameplay, it can be evaluated and be included or not. If something is plain annoying it needs to be changed to add to gameplay or be cut. This doesn't exclude from food being put into games, it just raises the bar for an implementation that makes it past the "gameplay first" rule check.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
it didn't say 'D&D 3rd edition rules, NB: some monsters in game may be considerably weaker than in official rules (e.g. ancient red dragons)'
So says Baldurs Gate: Dark alliance?
So your point is that the rules did not completely match what you are used to from your PnP campaigns? Which game did? ToEE came close, yes, but you would still find thousand things to nitpick.
As said, rule #1, the DM is always right. If the DM decides dragons are weak in his world, he overrides the Monster Manual. If the DM gives out a sword +11 of SlayAnything, Dragons can be as powerful as they want, they still die in one hit.
If your point is "You guys didn't meet my expectations because for me D&D means "this and that"", that's fine and completely understandable, but not necessarily right or wrong based on the D&D rules alone.
Ah well, thank for our own setting - Dragon Age, may the speculation begin
Dragon Age audience... Mature vs Teen rating
In Japan it can get very expensive for you if you show a 4 fingered character on the screen (even if it's a only vaguely humanoid monster)
I've heard contrasting stories.
http://www.oddworld.com/ow_ask.html ( scroll a bit down )
Click Here
Food/drink
P.S. Can Bioware at least consider some kind of *flexibility* (API?) in the toolset, that could make it easier for modders to include elements not originally supported in the game engine?
All of the things discussed in this thread can be done in NWN already (--> HCR). While I don't know the planned capabilities of the DA toolset, I would guess that it goes more into the "more power" direction, which would probably have a slight cost on the "easy to use" side. But I'm not on DA and speculating here.
As an example for a global water system: Create a water bottle item. Use tags in it's description to give information on how much water you have left, etc, and attach it to the player. Then write your global scripted system around that.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
in your game? you mean DA?
sure.
but NWN was D&D. and most D&D fans found it silly, not least because the D&D rules are set up to make things like ancient red dragons hard to kill. and more or less impossible for mid-level thiefs to kill singlehandedly.
now, maybe the dragons in DA won't be that tough. that's fine, it's your very own setting. but it should go without saying that - in the general imagination - dragons are thought to be kinda tough. so don't go making them complete pussies now, okay?
I disagree. D&D is whatever story your DM wants to tell. He can make a city of weak dragons that are kicked around by strong humans and that's just fine I agree it's not the stereotypical D&D stuff, but hey, PS:T wasn't stereotypical at all and that made it interesting.
Dragon Age audience... Mature vs Teen rating
We'll see about that.
Anyway, your last post was a good summarization of the process.
If you work with your own IP, your writers have a substantial amount of creative freedom and they will create the story they want to tell. After many iterations, rewrites, changes, the story becomes more solid and most plot elements, events, etc have been defined. You know that you won't sell enough copies with an R rating, so certain things are out of question, but frankly, none of the these things would really add to gameplay anyway.
Next step is to sign up a publisher: During your discussions with the publisher, you will have to give an estimated rating. If the publisher agrees with that rating (which will most likely happen based on market data - i.e. can a M rated beach volleyball game sell enough copies to make it worth publishing it). The market is not as easy as "T sells more than M", especially for complex games with more mature audience - or in case of the infamous beach volleyball game. (Keep in mind that all parts of BG had a T rating and it didn't feel censored or watered down, at least for me).
Larger publishers have a "politics" department that checks through your game for potential problems. This has nothing to do with ESRB and is not necessarily a bad thing. Example: In Japan it can get very expensive for you if you show a 4 fingered character on the screen (even if it's a only vaguely humanoid monster). If the decision is made to publish the game in Japan, you can either create a different model for the japanese version or just change the creature to have five fingers (doesn't change anything gameplaywise anyway). There are hundreds of those things around in the world and a good publisher can be very helpful to make you aware of those.
The ideal solution is to write your story, find that it's fine with T or M rating and go for that rating. If you find that only one scene is pushing the game towards M and that is going to cost you 200.000 potential potential sales, you will probably employ techniques like TScottS suggested (i.e. intelligent camera work, don't show certain things, etc) and be fine off, player's won't see the difference anyway.
In the end, the ESRB rating restrictions are not a big deal, they are not to limiting and as seen with BG, BG2 you can do a lot of mature themed scenarios and still retain your T rating. Granted, the public perception in North America has changed a bit lately (towards "puritan"), but still not too significant.
Your publisher has potentially far more impact on the story contents - and if you are using an existing IP, the license holder also comes into play. If publisher or license holder are known as "a company creating toys for children up to 12 and a good american family image", they will be a lot more restrictive on what you can do in your game with a T rating than a publisher that doesn't have a "family image". Usually you know that beforehand, unless the publisher or license is acquired by another company while you are working on a game, with development cycles of 3+ years, not unheard of.
Finally, a thought on the "M":
Checking through some of the higher populated NWN servers or most popular hakpaks, I find a lot of "jiggly" or sticky content. The type of this content could probably make a game M rated, but the people who are downloading this content and are playing on those servers are most likely not of the "mature" category, it looks more like typical teen-age stuff (exceptions may apply).
So, bottomline:
Our writers are going to tell the story they want to tell. They will write whatever they think is necessary to make the best singleplayer experience we created so far and they are certainly not writing with any specific rating in mind (with the exception of R/X rated stuff that makes your games unsellable).
Linux client?
Talrias is right, anything with the label GPL must be considered "poisoned" and can't get near a commercial game. Not very idealistic, but that's the way it is.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
(quote) Ahhhh, I see what you are referring to.
In my humble opinion, the OC should be the "bonus", not the tools. Like, "Here is this awesome game that is a set of tools in which worlds and campaigns can be created by the community, and here (the OC) is a good example of what can be done with these tools".
That's a very controversial opinion, through I can understand it (preordered NWN the moment they announced the toolset). Since the SP campaing makes roughly 80+% of the sales, it's not business compatible however. The SP OC will (for the near and medium future) be the most important part of our games, just for that reason.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Because in Ultima you played the Avatar, a human (no playable races, appearance limited to 6 different portraits or heads) being very well defined through the existing story. Even "believe wise" you were pretty limited. You had to worship the virtues if you wanted to complete the game (speaking of 4,5,6) - no evil path apart from the usual "I can kill most NPCs and feel evil" story. All that creates other limitations, story wise, so each system has it's pros and cons.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
As long as there is no compromise I'm happy. I'll buy Dragon Age for the Single Player and see Multiplayer as a bonus.
Thats not what I said. The current plan for DA is to have both parts of the game to be awesome by having a version of the OC for SP and one for MP tailored to the strength and weaknesses of each type of game. Many issues people had with the NWN OC came from the fact that the same module had to accomodate both MP and SP and compromises had to be made that watered down the SP experience.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Yes, you could take on dragons solo in BG2, but that was a challenge while NWN OC it was not. Also it helped that your character was nearly to or above 20th level when you do so while in NWN OC you were merely 9th.
Of course I tried to solo through BG2 and never really got all that far. I do remember getting my party killed by Firkang a number of times. A party of six characters, with a paladin in the lead. Nalia polymorphed Firkaag into a squirrel and the squirrel-Firkaag killed me after Nalia, Jaheira, and Viconia.
Difficulty is subjective. I've seen enough posts of people cursing the dragon in NWN on this boards as well. Phrase4s like "you should not be able to do ... because that's just not right" are usually very subjective idealistic smarttalk . If we decide that the hero can singlehandedly defeat a dragon in our game, so be it. "That ain't right" or "You couldn't do that in previous games" may be your opinion in that case, but that doesn't make it more right or wrong than ours.
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Actions speak louder than words, Derek.
Right, just like HotU (which should have made clear that we were not going to make a compromise at the cost of the SP campaign)
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
There is no way in any sort of logic should a mid level rogue be able to take out Klauth.
That prompts an interesting question (not directly connected to Klauth):
Do you think a player should be punished by ending up in a situation where he has to start over the game after several hours of gameplay if he manages to build a gimped character because he didn't really know?
(the D&D multiclass rules and the fact that you can't rebalance classes for computer implementation [can't give a new ability for a one that did not translate int CRPG] make it pretty easy to build a character that ends up dead - one thing the DA rules system hopefully will take care of).
Keep in mind that most gamers would not start over the game after 15 hours but would let it rot in a corner, being frustrated.
What would be your suggested approach to that?
Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
To dispell one myth: The DM client was quite cheap in the big picture since it's build on the final game client. Plus, going back to departments, the problems you had with the NWN OC were mostly design side, those programming "zots" for the DM client wouldn't have done much on that.
Also, some people didn't like NWN because it was not a BG game (i.e. full party control, etc). That's nothing a different story-arc would have fixed as the game was supposed to be that way - and I don't consider that a mistake.
Hope bioware learns form the past
Bioware says a lot of things. THey also said that the NWN OC was going to be as good as BG/BG2 but that was a load of bull. I let myself get excited about NWN and I was a fool to do so. I won't be making the same mistake with Dragon Age.
The plan is always to learn from mistakes Visc, on both sides of the counter. Plus you rack up experience with everything you do, a lot of games have been made here since NWN (SoU, HotU, KotOR, Jade) and this experience will be put to good use. Don't you think that HotU was reason to hope that we are indeed learning
But then again, you bought both expansions for NWN and you have been around consistently on these boards ever since, so you can't be that disillusioned as you try to look On the other hand, we are talking about you Visc, there would be something severely wrong with a game we release that would completely please you.
Food/drink
Drinking contests, commoner x who happens to be drinking at the time has the key to door x or whatever, you have many options to solve this, one of them is to challenge him this way. so food/drink is no fun?
We had the poor slave in HotU who was forced to drink himself to death by the bad drows in the cavern. And the plot didn't become less believable just because there was no global food/drink system. Same goes with a drinking contest, no need for any global system here, can be scripted fine through dialog or using generic "spirits" type items and attaching an appropriate OnUse effect.
Food/drink
Ultima 7 is (along with Ultima 6) still my favourite PC RPG. I really would like to see something like this with modern technology at some point. Through, as food management went, I prefer the implementation in Ultima 6 (food for resting), I think in Ultima 7 simulation went a bit overboard.
Food/drink
As for actual implementation, I still don't see the problem with my earlier suggestion: a BG-style system with food added in so that if I really DO want to get that level of immersion in the SP campaign, I can go and buy a drink and some dinner at the local inn. It doesn't force anybody to do anything they don't want to at an innopportune time, it adds to the atmosphere for those who DO want it, and I would think it's not that labor intensive on Bioware's part (how hard was it to implement in BG 1, anyway?).
Scripting/placing a couple of food items into the bartender at most taverns, that's easily done. I was under the impression the discussion was more about managing "hunger levels" and punishing people for not having enough food in their inventory at the time of need. In fact I think every good Inn should have food on the menu.
As for knowing or not knowing the demands, BioWare is constantly reviewing what we think people expect from our games, through our boards, through reviews, press reports and fansites, through direct feedback or specific questions to community leaders, through new employees joining the company and bringing in their views, through statistical data from our masterserver and other means. Knowing your customer is an important part of staying afloat in this industry and that's what BioWare intends to do
Also keep in mind that all I post here is my personal opinion, it might or might not be identical with what the people currently working on DA design think.
Food/drink
I agree with Georg - spend the time and money on the stuff that everyone will enjoy - a functional combat/magic system, great story, well-crafted class system, and maybe a love affair or three.
Anything more is just icing on the cake.
Not 100% however - if you make only features that "everyone" loves, your game becomes bland and pretty mainstream. It's about balancing expectations of all your different groups of potential customers, but somewhat weighted toward their overall impact on sales (and not necessarily loudness level on the boards). The icing of a cake is important too, if it's missing you usually get complaints about it
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Interplay PR Interview with Damon Vergilio at Gaming Age
Posted Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 19:59 CET by chevalier
Gaming Age have interviewed Damon Vergilio of Interplay's PR on the current situation and of the company and their plans for the immediate future after California Labour Commissioner's intervention. Here's a clip:
GA: How much of Interplay's staff is currently working from remote locations?
DV: That is almost impossible for me to answer. I am working from home as well as many others. I do hear people are quitting on a daily basis and a lot of my friends have already started for other companies. I do not know how many have quit. I am pretty sure 90% of upper management is still there.
GA: What are the company's immediate plans to get working again, and what timeframe do you expect?
DV: Immediate plans are to make some kind of deal to get Interplay enough cash to re-instate Worker's Compensation, health benefits, back wages and get into a new building. I would assume that the only way to do this without someone investing a large chunk of money would be to sell a franchise or two. If we can secure some short term cash to get us out of this immediate pickle then we expect to be around a long time.
Read the whole thing at Gaming Age.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004 - 18:32 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.
Derek French, Live Team Producer
NWN:SoU European CD Key issues
Why not use OCR font for this or keep off numerics at least?
This is unfortunately something that we, the developer, have no control over. I would definately want an OCR-ish font for our future games.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
what will be in the 1.63 patch
I would post that idea into the DM forum where Craig can see it when he looks for those things, the idea is definitly nice (through you can also just build a wand that does those things)
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Interplay's Co-Founder Shares Memories
Posted Sunday, June 6, 2004 - 23:16 CET by chevalier
Bill Heineman, one of the five founders of Interplay, has written a farewell. Here's an excerpt:
Ahoy mateys! There be pirates afoot!
Now came the sitation of 2002-2004. Not satisfied with being a silent partner, Titus took more and more control over the daily operations of Interplay. With all the infighting going on for control, no one was steering the ship. Teams were working on projects that got canceled, restarted and canceled again. Some titles came out that looked like Interplay was back on track, like the Baldur's Gate series. But money squandering, bickering and the resignation of the company president, Brian Fargo, meant that the ship was on a direct course to ruin.
Read the whole thing at Burger Bill's.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 6, 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.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Dragon Age audience... Mature vs Teen rating
I'm pretty positive that the plan is something like "we create the game we want to create and see what we end up with" right now. Same as in Jade.
DA Combat System
I know that JE isn't on a '6 second timer' (at least I don't think it is); but it's less "actiony" than other action games sicne you can pause and still slect what your character will do when the game continues much like the other BIO games.
No, that's not entirely correct. You can pause and "plan" your next moves, switch targets, activate focus mode, but you can not pause, press attack and then unpause and have the attack execute. If an enemies foot is 5 cm from your face and you pause, whatever you do won't save you from that kick in the head. So no, you can not pause and select what your character will do when you unpause . And you are correct, Jade is not an a 6 second timer, it's real time without combat rounds. But that's Jade and should be discussed on the Jade Boards - I'm happy to answer your questions there.
DA Combat System
Huh? The combat is they way BIO makes all their crpgs. Even Jade Empire a supposedly action RPG uses it to a degree.
Jade Empires combat is different from Kotor/NWN/BG.
Combat in NWN, BG, KotOR was based on actions in a queue that are resolved in a x-second time frame (the concept of personal combat rounds).
Combat in Jade Empire is true real time combat- you press the "punch" button and your character punches, you press the "kick button" and your character kicks and so on.
Both systems feature pause and play, with the exception that in Jade you can not queue up multiple actions while paused, but you can still switch styles, targets, etc.
Combat in DA will not be like Jade Empire.
Food/drink
What's the difference between diablo and Ultima 7 ?
A lot. Ultima 7 was a CRPG that blended open gameplay and exploration (similar to the elder scroll series) with storybased gameing and rich/memorable NPCs. Apart from a few issues (combat, food) many (including me) still consider it one of the best RPGs ever made. There are some good screenshots on http://exult.sourceforge.net
First off:
DA is not D&D, it's something different. A different world, a different rules system,
I've not seen any convincing arguments in this thread so far why you would need a global system for food and water, most things brought up here can easily be handled using existing systems.
As for GP weight I think this could only play a role if you give a player an option of taking care of situations like "I have killed this dragon and I can't take most of his hoard because I am overloaded. Forcing useless travel or leaving stuff might be realistic, but again it is not fun for most people, so I doubt we would do that.
Removing tedious elements from a gamesystem does not, in my opinion, "dumb down" a game, it improves gameplay and frees up resources to add other, more meaningful things to the game.
Adding food and water and making it optionial is not a task that's done in a few days, as it requires:
- (programming, art, localization) adding a GUI for it, translating it
- (design, art) adding food and water items, writing descriptions, etc
- (design) adding means to get those items through the campaign (i.e. inns, merchants, hunting, fishing, etc)
- (design) balancing food and water gain/loss throughout the campaign to make sure the average player will not end up dead in a part of the campaign where food was not vital.
- (design, programming) making all the stuff optional, switchable
- (QA) playtesting that rather large system, decentralized system.
That's an awefull lot of work, so you need to ask the question: "is that worth it?", especially for an optional system that might be used once or twice for an effect (i.e. the desert)? Would you still want this system, even if it would mean another system will be cut instead?
Example: Would you still take the food/water system if that would mean that the "day/night cycle and changing weather conditions and their impacton the combat and other actions in the game" system would be scrapped instead?
(Note: I'm, not saying there is such a system in DA, this is just an example for something that could be sacrificed for a food and water system).
But as Carl noted some day, there are many different kinds of roleplayers, some like more simulation elements, some prefer more story based interaction, some blend. It's the same situation here at BioWare, many different people work on our games, so you will often find heated discussions in meetings, that ultimately lead to certain features being in and others not being in the game. By posting your opinion here on the boards you can give input into that process. Someone who might want to have a certain feature in the game could find his killer argument for inclusion here, or get convinced that a certain feature is a bad idea. Example: The PW community convinced us to disallow the "Modify Character" option in HotU Server Vault games.
So keeping the discussion up and defending your opinion - as long as it doesn't get too aggressive or tedious (right Visc? ) - is a good thing to do, even if a lot of people, including BioWare Employees (with the notable exception of Scott ) oppose you.
Food/drink
I understand you are afraid of having to "babysit". That's what people always are afraid of when you suggest more realism. But I think we can do entirely without that (babysitting). The only thing we need is the concept of food and water having an impact when it's not available. But that need to be explicit enough to make the player realize that desert journey is not going to be any picnic.
I'm not suggesting death after 4 days in the desert should come as an surprise. The player should be able to calculate needs in advance.
In my opinion a global system you put into the game just for one occasion (i.e. the dangerous desert) is not worth to be put into the game. Resources are spent better elsewhere - especially since the "dangerous desert" (or whatever) can be simulated with existing systems (i.e. the journal system) if you really want it.
Also, if you first teach the player that food and drink is meaningless, and then present him with death because he forgot to stock up enough food/water for his journey - you are doing a bad thing. It sends the message "you are dead because you did not pay attention to a system that is completely meaningless over the rest of the game", which I would consider a bad idea. As said, there are better ways to make journey through the desert more eventful, and even if it is to make it part of the quest to collect enough water before starting the journey. Killing the player because he didn't pay attention to a subsystem that was of no use throughout the rest of the game is nothing you do anymore these days.
Plus it's seriously anticlimatic ("and the most powerful son of the god of murder died dehydrated in desert after forgetting to restock on enough water 4 days earlier") - That's something you would see in an old Sierra adventure (thinking of Conquest of Camelot), but it doesn't really sound like something you would expect in a BioWare game.
Food/drink
I disagree.
- Yes, food/water need could be interesting for limited scenarios like the journey through the desert, but that can be simulated through existing systems (i.e. quest entry "I need to find water..."). Putting an system of food and water as seperate inventory item is not different from what was done in Ultima 7, and that sucked big time. Having the player fetch food and water all over the game just because you want to have this one "hot dangerous desert" situation is a waste of resources and will ultimately lead to frustration (see below).
- Also, keep in mind that it is not fun to reload your game after 4 hours in the desert when you finally come to the point where you run out of water and you can't get any because you "should have thought of it earlier". It might be fun for a hardcore simulationist, but not for most gamers. I doubt most gamers would find it funny when their main character would frequently explode because they forgot to visit the bathroom (at least not the second time it happened).
Simulating overheating, coolout, etc can be done with existing systems (i.e. like in the last level in HotU) in a very limited scale - as soon as it becomes a tedious task, it does no longer add to gameplay and should be scrapped. Keep in mind that our games are not "simulate living in a fantasy world" but largely "experience and shape the story of an epic hero". Most players want to do heroic stuff, not babysit their hero through their daily routine.
Food could have a use as part of a rest system to carefully control the frequency of resting, but making people hungry on a timer does not add to gameplay.
Food/drink
How about: Since a dragon's hoard is usually huge, you will have to find the nearest town and organize a caravan. There's of course the risk of robbers/thieves/monsters that will rob/steal from/destroy the caravan, which is why it's advisable to hire guards.
All of these people will require payment (Just kill them, I say).
Note that the player doesn't necessarily have to go with the caravan.
That sounds like an interesting idea, but that would be handled as a subquest that could easily be integrated using existing systems instead of adding a global system (gold piece weight) on top of the whole game.
Also, while it is unrealistic that you can carry around a 2handed sword and a halberd at once, the resulting gameplay consequences if you would prevent that would be devastating - no more trying different weapons for a while, you need to drop them on the ground (or carry them to your house) go back, pick up the new weapon only to find out it sucks later. No that's another case of realism ruining fun by introducing tedious tasks. People would just opt for the usual "bag of holding" or packmule kind of thing there.
Food/drink
Let me try to put it this way:
We have two very different views on this topic:
In my opinion, when playing the hero in a role playing game, I don't want to be bothered with all days tasks like eating or drinking. I want to experience the story, do great deeds, bash monsters and save princessess (you get the picture). I want to worry about evil wizards, sinister plots, betrayals and glorious fights, not about how I manage my inventory so I can carry more stuff or finding enough wood to cook that deer I killed to get enough food.
You want to live in a simulated world, as believable as possible, you want to worry about the mundane tasks, you want it realistic, because thats where you get your "immersion" from.
Both points of view are valid and exist throughout the gaming community.
What it boils down to is:
Putting in things like eating, drinking, etc as a global system that costs (as explained earlier) significant resources, can only happen if these things are justified.
If the reason why we are putting those things in is "so I can have this really dangerous travel through the desert" or "so I need to organize how to get the loot out of that dragon lair" - it is a weak justification. A expensive global system is not justified by one or two single applications in the game. Combat happens all the time, it's easy to justify it as a global system.
To take the desert example again: Where is the problem with informing the character in the third desert "area" that things are getting dire. Have a henchman interject, mention that he doesn't feel so well and can't go on. Pop a new quest with "I should find water if we want to survive this hell". You can even have the Last-Tavern-Before-the-desert (tm) sell supplies and if the player bought them don't trigger the quest.
Point is: Doing this as a scripted event makes a lot more sense than introducing a global system for this one application, especially in our traditionally story driven games.
It's cheaper (in terms of manpower), presents a gripping story event ("the dangerous desert" and it doesn't interfere with other things - That's something global systems tend to do - anyone remember the romances triggering at inappropriate points during BG2 or the "slayer transformations" happening at so bad times that you couldn't go on with the game". Last thing you want is having your party starve to death before the final fight in the highest tower of the largest castle because they forgot to bring food. Some people might like that, the majority, I can assure you, would burn us for something like this - and "they should have bought food" won't fix the lameness of that moment.
I have yet to see a really compelling and convincing argument for this kind of stuff that goes beyond "it's realistic" and that justifies the pain of introducing a global system instead of just scripting it.
In some games, like Morrowind (let's call it Massivly Single Player Simulated World) you need a lot of global systems to keep the player occupied and inside your simulated world - but for a story driven game the stakes for introducing a global system are higher. If it's just for one cause (i.e. have the travel through the journey be dangerous), it's not justified. If it's just to keep the player busy, it's not justfied because there is something wrong with your story if you need to make the player do tedious tasks.
So as you can see, we are on pretty different sides of the spectrum on this
Food/drink
I was told they were using DnD. What is DnD without food, water, rest, armor weight, and all the cool things that make a good DnD game? Otherwise its just Diablo, or Eversquest.
DA has nothing to do with D&D.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, June 6, 2004 - 22:56 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
Scripting causes lag.
Not much you can do - RecomputeStaticLighting is probably the most expensive scripting function of all, just because it has to do a lot of math calculations in the background.
Storyline Comparison
Personally, and keep in mind I'm heavyly biased, I prefer the HotU storyline over both the NWN OC and the SoU OC.
Here are the fish pictures for the DH Fishing System
*shakes head* Amazing what things this community comes up with. I'll definitly try this out
Script based dialogues (and more...) [code inside]
In combination with custom .2da files / database you could do some nifty stuff with this (thinks of polymorphic conversations).
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Pentium 4 3.06Ghz Detection
The CPU speed is set in your nwconfig.ini file.
Look for the line:
Speed=3000
Under the "[Processor]" heading and change that to something like 3000 for a 3GHz CPU.
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Interplay Closed Down by Labour Commissioner
Posted Saturday, June 5, 2004 - 18:06 CET by chevalier
In spite of Herve's unshaken belief, Interplay is not apparently still here. Seven Interplay's employees advised to file for unemployment insurance chose to file complaints with California's Labour Commissioner. Seven complaints gave enough reason to believe the problem in fact transcended the magical number and needed to be observed more closely. Here's what they said, according to No Mutants Allowed, who took it from The Orange County Register:
"We've got seven claims in, which is enough for us to believe that the problem goes beyond these seven employees," said Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Labor Commissioner. "We want to find out if indeed employees haven't been properly paid and have proper workers compensation. If not, we could close the business down."
Interplay's manager responsible for investor relations was, despite the complaints, quite confident that workers are happy to work for no pay and have faith in Herve, who was about to make a miracle or two with the aid of SG Capital.
"Some payments have been missed. Some back payments have been made," Haase said. "The company is still behind. A majority of employees are still coming in to work. It's their choice."
The Commissioner didn't share his optimism:
"An employer has responsibilities when they open a business. The responsibilities include proper and timely payment of wages. It includes providing workers compensation coverage in case there are injuries. If the employer cannot accommodate those basic issues of doing business, we cannot allow employees to work," Fryer said.
But the Force is strong with Herve, who is not an ex-CEO yet, and he won't give up:
"The company has not shut down. (The state) can’t do that. It can only let me not let employees work," said Caen, adding that Interplay will move to a smaller office in mid-June. "I hope to have that (insurance) back by Monday or Tuesday."
Yes, Herve. If they strike you down, you'll grow more powerful than they could possibly imagine.
Read the rest at No Mutants Allowed and The Orange County Register.
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G4techTV reviews "Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil"
Posted Saturday, June 5, 2004 - 17:44 CET by chevalier
Yes, you get it right. G4techTV have reviewed "Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil" and given it 2 out of 5 stars. Here's a snip:
If you squint just right and view the screen out of the corner of your eye, you'll see the shadow of a very good game. As the first computer implementation of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rule set, ToEE does an excellent job of translating the new pen-and-paper game. Troika also obtained the rights to the Greyhawk world of Gary Gygax, one of the most cherished and detailed fantasy settings this side of Middle-earth. Players guide a party of up to five characters (pre-generated or built with a detailed and satisfying creation system) through a series of quests in and around the eponymous temple. Although there are some side quests, most of the action is a dungeon crawl through the deceptively large temple. A large pool of mercenary and other non-playable characters (NPCs) are available to fill three other party slots.
Read more about "Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil" at G4TechTV.
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, June 5, 2004 - 1:12 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.
Rob Bartel, Senior Designer
Discussion of CDProjekt's The Witcher
Update: New link to 3-page RPGVault interview of the Witcher team added to the initial post. It looks like just the first installment, with more yet to come.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Graphic Glitch...help?
Change the slider on your NVIDIA Display Driver Settings on the "Performance & Quality" page in the display options completely to the "Quality" side and everything will be fine again.
1.63 and custom spells
There are no plans for new columns to spells.2da. I would expect a couple of changes/fixes to existing rows in the BioWare range for 1.63.
what will be in the 1.63 patch
Anything done to make nwserver more stable?
Sure, several reported crash bugs got fixed and Craig killed a good number of lingering memory leaks.
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"We're still here" quoth Herve
Posted Saturday, June 5, 2004 - 1:02 CET by chevalier
GameSpot have posted another article on Interplay's most recent troubles. Herve Caen, IPLY's CEO insists they're still alive because their stock is still trading. Not like he answers any calls, but he's even phoned GameSpot to share the amazing news. Workers still haven't been paid and the landlord's patience is close to an end. Here's a snip:
As far as Interplay's response to these allegations goes, the silence was deafening. E-mails to the company were bounced back. The voicemail systems at the publisher and the American offices of its French parent, Titus Interactive, worked off and on all week. When an actual person was reached at the Interplay offices, he would not confirm that he even worked there. Instead, calls were passed along to the personal voicemail inbox of CEO Herve Caen, who has been nowhere to be found all week.
That is, until now. Last night, GameSpot talked with the surprisingly affable Caen, who denied the end was nigh for Interplay. His proof? "You can see our stock is trading, so we're still here," said Caen.
Read the whole thing at GameSpot.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 3, 2004 - 21:08 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
Egos and Icons
Gaider, you are getting to a level of Salvatore egotism. It doesn't look good on you.
Egotism? If you say so.
Also I like to know where was the Gaider magic in the NWN OC? It seemed MIA.
Besides the fact that there is no "Gaider magic", I only wrote a small part of the NWN OC. And I am still happy with that part that I wrote, regardless of what you think about the game as a whole.
Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer
Are the going to be hoses in the game ????
There will be no hoses in the game.
Derek French, Technical Producer
Are the going to be hoses in the game ????
There will be no hoses in the game.
Gah! Features getting cut already!
More:
I think he meant to type Hosers, and Bioware being a Canadian company, of course there will be hosers eh?
I am submitting this as a Feature Request right now...
More: I was still reeling from the thoughts of properly implimenting hoses and their exact affect on game play before I realized what the question was meant to be..
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Action Component
eg- If Bioware manages to meld something like an FPS with an RPG where your fighting skill depends not just on your equipment/level/class or whatever but on YOUR abilities as a PLAYER then that will be fantastic.
If you mean if there will be action game components in DA - I highly doubt it. You might want to check out Jade Empire (http://jade.bioware.com) if you are looking for some button mashing role playing action however.
Rule Complainers
No, instead we'll all just convert overnight into, "Bioware, you said in the manual that skill X works this way, but it doesn't when you're talking to the Blue Foozle, and, logically, it should do ... etc."They're really just exchanging one group of rules lawyers (who at least have a book reference to back them up) for another group.
Remind us to make the manual as obscure as possible when we are closer to releae to prevent that Actually, I somewhat like the way City of Heroes presents their "numbers". Because they know these numbers change all the time, they only give classes like "damage: moderate or damage:high". I'm not saying this would be the way to go for DA as some people love number crunching, but it's certainly tempting to give rules laywers a hard time...
Peter Thomas, Designer
God and D20
does god actually play dice with the universe? and if he does, does he use a d20? or just a random number generator?
d20? d20 system perhaps? i wonder if he has a licence to use it... that could be quite a lawsuit if wotc objects...
Hey, DA Devs ... what have you been reading?
Personally, I don't pay as much attention to writing style and such as I should, I'm more interested in cool ideas. I've read crappy books that have had great ideas, as well as well-written books that are extremely generic.
Some of the best fantasy I've read is The Black Company by Glen Cook (a dark fantasy), and the A Man of His Word series by Dave Duncan (a very good take on magic and gods). Of course, I'm on Jade right now and not DA, so I guess it doesn't matter much.
NPCs in your Party?
Could have sworn it was in the exp... doesn't matter anyway, haven't played it in so long... and I wasn't on the design team for that, so I have no privileged info.
Nowadays people just play stuff like *PLUG* Neverwinter Nights (tm). */PLUG* er... heh
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, June 3, 2004 - 20:54 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.
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
02 Jun 2004 - NWN Profile: The Persistent World Of Avlis
Yup- sorry about the spanking of the servers. I forgot to give a warning to the fine, fine folks of Avlis that they can expect some traffic on the day the profile goes up...and...ahem...that would be today.
Rob Bartel, Senior Designer
Digital Distribution (aka pay-per-download) Discussion v3.0 - What Kinds of Modules?
To be honest, we consider our NWN Digital Distribution plans to be research and development for future Live Team activities on Dragon Age and beyond. NWN has proven to be a great platform for us to learn from. We'll develop the DD system and infrastructure for NWN, learning all we possibly can from it and working out all of the kinks well in advance so we can hit the ground running when it comes time to support our own intellectual property.
See how sneaky we are?
Rob Bartel
Senior Designer
BioWare Community Live Team
Georg Zoeller, Designer
Patch 1.63
Hi, let me try to clear this up:
Tick tock tick tock... I remember reading back in Arpil that "It would be out in a few weeks"...
We do not give estimated release dates anymore because people always remember they read a promised release date somewhere a while later. It "could" be a few weeks is probably what you read, and as you can see, that didn't happen. The patch will be released when it is done, which will hopefully (but not promised) be at some point this month.
Being logical I think Bioware had pretty much pulled out of NWN and may only have 1 or 2 guys working on this part time at most. Probably working on their new game at the same time.So begin the demise of NWN... player base is way down lately... people are moving on, the company is moving on...I don’t blame Bioware.. it is a matter of economics and they are not making $$$ on NWN anymore by and large, support is probably an extra cost at that. Cut costs, raise profit.
The full Live Team is working on NWN related projects right now. They even got a full time technical designer addition to their team, so no, we are all but pulling out of NWN. When patch 1.63 is out, you will probably understand why it took that long.Also, keep in mind that March - May are the "demo" season in the gaming industry, with GDC and E3 being two very important shows in a short timespan. A lot of people, including Live Team members, where involved in those - and these things definitly impact patch release (among other things).
Problem With Cheaters
Patch 1.63 will have a good share of security related fixes. Sorry but it is our policy not to discuss those in detail. As for people using a different model on your server, a simple GetAppearance check against the valid PC appeareances on login can take care of that.
No Neverwinter Nights2
Dragon Age will be using the "Dragon Age Engine". There is already a thread on this topic on the main page. Click Here so I'm closing this one down.
Will be new Expansion or NWN2?
While there are no plans for another NWN Expansion, the Live Team is working on our Digital Distribution project for NWN (see the Witch's Wake forum for more details). You can find more information on our next PC RPG Dragon Age here: http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/
1.63 patch bug fixes
Any word on the GetFirst*(), GetNext*() scripting bugs? Apparently the pointer used for them would get corrupted and it caused much strange behavior. It would be most helpful if it were to be fixed soon.
The pointer for those scripting commands would get corrupted if you apply an undelayed damage effect to a creature while running a GetFirst/GetNext loop. As far as I know all instances of that have been fixed in our scripts and Craig was looking into a gameside fix as well.
1.63 patch bug fixes
I hope the "bow bug," where anyone wielding a bow can see stealthed and invisible characters, is fixed in this patch but I didn't see a mention of it.
Yes, it has been fixed
Peter Thomas, Designer
NPCs in your Party?
Well, yeah, anyone with proficiency axe can use it, but he starts with that, and is a fighter, so he can max it out. But since his con is 20, you end up with a mad, grand master, regenerating, axe-wielding dwarf... who can hit you from quite a ways away with a returning magic axe... Maybe it just struck a cord with me.
The only problem with him was cause I was playing a good party (and he's evil), so he kept trying to break up with my group... but I autosaved often, so it was pretty easy to go back to just before he tried, and whatever variable was keeping track of it would reset, so he'd stay the whole game.
NPCs in your Party?
It's been so long since I played... hm...
My party was...
Me (fighter/mage/cleric)
Jaheira
Imoen
Kagain
Xan
and I think Khalid, but I dumped him and went back for Viconia later
Basically, I found the skills of these people didn't really matter at the end, except I needed a thief and lots of wands... so I picked the women. I kept Xan because... er... well his personality, plus I wanted a second real spellcaster and I had had him around forever... I kept Kagain, because he's the best fighter in the game. Period. 20 Con makes everything better. If you have the expansion he's even better because he gets a great magic throwing axe.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 23:04 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
Missing Family members?
Very true...but there is a difference between ‘constructive criticism’ even the forceful ‘in your face kind of criticism’ vs. just bashing someone by implying (correctly or not) that other people don’t think very highly of you.
Oh, Grom's not bashing me. He's just pointing out that there are people who gleefully enjoy referring to me as a talentless hack (or whatever... I can only imagine, for the most part) to prevent me from getting a David Gaider-esque swelled head. Mind you, there are people out there who think feet are sexy, so the opinions of some are only worth so much.
One major concern regarding no tilesets
Any system we go with is obviously going to have its advantages and drawbacks. If you were required to download the maps involved, for instance, suddenly we are not required to stream tile information anymore over the connection constantly and we free up bandwidth for other things.
One major concern regarding no tilesets
In any case, I'd prefer you guys had that extra bandwidth available to stream other, perhaps more important things, even if maps have to be downloaded sperately.
Indeed. I remember the reason we couldn't do portraits that got sent automatically to all the servers involved was because our bandwidth allowance was tapped. Maybe that's the kind of thing that could be included, who knows? Not me, naturally... I only vaguely understand the whole concept. When a programmer takes the time to explain it to me and pat me on the had, though, I eventually get the gist.
One major concern regarding no tilesets
So in order for me to GM a group of my friends in game, they'll have to download 10 MB of maps for a small, 20 area module? Neat. And they'll have access to the entire map ahead of time? Neat-o.
Did I say that the downloading had to be ahead of time? And you're assuming that your players would be able to examine this downloaded data. Such might be the case, but don't presume. Mind you, don't stop pointing out potential problems, either... just don't presume that we won't address these issues as well.
Voice-over
It doesn't seem to take all that much more time and the writers still write what they want to, correct?
Just so we're clear, I'm not saying that full VO doesn't take more time. It just doesn't require much effort on the part of the actual writers. For the actual production team itself, full VO is a herculean undertaking. Take it out and what do you get? Well, you've got less work. But you do not get a longer story or more dialogue, and that was my point.
Voice-over
You see, if full V-O takes more time and money, those resources could instead be reallocated to provide a longer or deeper storyline - the writers are legion, so more writers == more story.
Riiight. Because if you don't do full VO, obviously that means that you would go out and hire a bunch of full-time writers. That equates. And obviously the cost of paying numerous writers is the only cost associated with making a game that is causing the trend for shorter games. I think you need to think this one through a bit more, Sylvius. Seriously.
Voice-over
Think of that as writer*hours instead of writers, then. With fewer resources devoted to the previously described fluff, perhaps the writers could be part of a longer development cycle. You could write longer, deeper stories if you had an extra year to do it.
Well, sure. If we had an extra year to write, we could write reams and reams of stuff. You don't get an extra year on the schedule by taking out a feature like full VO, however, it doesn't work like that. You're thinking that VO = $$$ and time = $$$ so less VO can equal an investment in more time. Not so.
I'm not saying I don't appreciate the contributions of artists and modellers - I once sent fan mail to Mike Sass - but their contributions are becoming too expensive relative to what they add to the games.
Maybe so, but there is a minimum acceptable standard that is at work. If we cut back on the quality modeling so as to make more of it, what's the first thing that would be universally complained about? And that's a simple fact.
Missing Family members?
I think real life circumstances in ultra interesting fantastic (David Gaider-esque) ways interjected into my hero's story would be cool and compelling.
I'm still stuck on the idea that "David Gaider-esque" apparently equals "ultra interesting fantastic"...
Missing Family members?
funny how that phrase can mean radically different things simply by changing boards. rpg codex and obsidian regulars seems to have a slightly different use for the phrase...
Yes, no doubt. My response to them is something *I* consider to be very David Gaider-esque. And it only involves one finger, too, which is very economical of me.
Missing Family members?
If I recall correctly, Gaider was the new guy who drove Ben nuts because Dave would not write much until near the deadline, and then he would pump out enormous volumes seemingly overnight. Ben never really said much about Dave's quality (grin), but he did say something to the effect that he had never seen anyone capable of writing so much in a short period of time. Gaider-esque.
You know, some of the guys in Design were joking about making a Bioware tradeable card game. The "David Gaider" card, naturally, was the card that did nothing for two turns after you activated it but then became twice as powerful as all the other ones. Procrastination means never having to commit to a firm deadline.
DA Announcement
I just think it was poor planning to announce the game this early in its development.
Those people who are interested will follow its development, just as with NWN. Those who aren't, won't, and probably won't think of it again until much closer to release when the whole PR thing will kick into overdrive... and it will do that just fine, I'm sure. As for you, Hades, you may say now that you'll be all bored with DA by the time it's released and immune to the pre-release excitement... say that again when the time comes. I shall say "pffft" and roll my eyes thusly:
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager
How Long to Wait?
A little more than a few months in waiting I think..
Georg Zoeller, Designer
One major concern regarding no tilesets
The whole issue of predownloaded maps lends itself towards cheating; an obvious drawback. Hopefully, the infamous "Bandwidth Nazi" will take into account that an even larger number of folks will have broadband by then.
It's not just bandwith however - people would start to stream down their favourite p0rn pictures to the rest of the players, possibly children. Also there's a legal side. People using i.e. copyrighted pictures would spread them over to unknowing participants in the game.
Playing Styles and Splitting the Party
Nothing better than a good load of "you must gather your party before venturing forth" kind of fun, eh?
I looked at the "Army under the bridge" screenshot ... yeah!
It is hard to predict what minimum hardware a game will have when you are so far from being done. I'm sure there will be a list of required and recommended hardware once we have a better idea what kind of computers people will have when the game comes out and what the requirements for our engine are. But Visc will need a new computer to play it, that old A800 won't do it
D&D or not D&D? THAT is the question.
What I am honestly more interested in, is by the limitations of the toolset and perhaps even spell system and combat system, will it be possible for independant creators to create D&D settings like Forgotten Realms using the new framework of DragonAge and included tools.
If you ask if it will be possible to alter Dragon Age's rule system be like d20 / D&D instead - no, that will not be possible.
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BioWare Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 22:21 CET by Sorcerer
(Only news relevant to SP posted.)
NWN Profile: The Persistent World Of Avlis
Avlis is one of the original NWN persistent worlds and has grown to include 2500+ areas to explore and offers exceptional roleplaying to experience. New players can read through over one hundred pages of history and details about this very mature world. Josh Simon, Team Leader, found the time to respond to some our questions about Blackdagger: The World of Avlis. Discuss.
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Interplay Shutdown News at GameSpot
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 22:17 CET by chevalier
GameSpot have posted an article on Interplay's most recent troubles. They're supposedly evicted, but they deny it. Here's a snip:
However, Interplay also filed papers with the SEC that showed it was three months behind in its rent and was facing eviction from its Irvine, California, headquarters. Two weeks ago, its official site, www.interplay.com, went offline. However, its still-functioning e-mail and phone system pointed to the fact that the company was still in existence, even if it wasn't responding to inquiries.
Read the whole thing at GameSpot.
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Interplay Close to an End
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 18:05 CET by chevalier
Interplay's landlord has decided to lock the building. Here's a snip:
According to a source of ours all the employees was contacted by the IT director at IPLY today and asked to pick up their personal effects.
The Property management company is shutting the doors effective 5pm for lack of payment..
So Basicly IPLY doesn't have a home now or is shutting down for good!?
IPLY's human resources have also told the employees to file for unemployment.
According to a source of ours all the employees was contacted by the IT director at IPLY today and asked to pick up their personal effects.
The Property management company is shutting the doors effective 5pm for lack of payment..
So Basicly IPLY doesn't have a home now or is shutting down for good!?
Read the rest at No Mutants Allowed.
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Interplay Cooks up Q1 Report
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 18:01 CET by chevalier
According to No Mutants allowed, Interplay are working on their Q1 report, trying to disguise their losses. Here's a snip:
Interplay is rumoured to release their Q1 "earnings" report today, we've also gotten confirmation that IPLY actually have charged their employees for full benefits even tho there is no insurance and haven't been for at least 30 days.
Read the whole thing at No Mutants Allowed.
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Dragon Age E3 Preview at Games Domain
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 23:01 CET by chevalier
Games Domain have posted a summary preview of Dragon Age. Here's a clip:
Bioware's reputation for producing first-class role-playing games is legendary. But from the Baldur's Gate series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons-based games to the recent smash Knights of the Old Republic, the Canadian studio has never been able to develop a world that truly belongs to them. That's all changing this year, though, with Jade Empire and the announcement of Bioware's new PC-only project, Dragon Age.
In fact, Bioware's artists and designers have been busy on Dragon Age ever since Neverwinter Nights shipped a couple of years ago. Scott Greig, the game's producer, describes it seductively as "the spiritual successor to Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate," featuring in-depth, complex role-playing with a detailed story, set in a convincing and well-developed fantasy world.
Read the whole thing at Games Domain.
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Shadows of Undrentide Review at The Discworld
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 20:36 CET by chevalier
The Discworld have posted a somewhat belated review of the Shadows of Undrentide expansion to Neverwinter Nights. Here's a clip:
Bioware is a name that has always been associated with quality games ever since they burst onto the scene with the Baldur’s Gate games and lighted a match under a genre that had stagnated. People who had never looked at an RPG were suddenly intrigued and Baldur’s Gate along with its sequel suddenly made the genre seem a viable option for potential publishers.
The original Neverwinter Nights game was a labour of love for the company and one which combined a great single-player campaign, a range of multiplayer options as well as a dungeon master client and linked toolset. There really was very little that wasn’t included in the original package. However, Bioware obviously disagree and some twelve months after the original game comes Shadows of Undrentide the first expansion pack for the game.
Read the whole thing at The Discworld.
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Dragon Age Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 17:40 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
Romance Options: A poll from the Community
Well, you're the writer here; if your Muse says, "straight as an arrow," then far be it from me to argue.
Err... why is that your interpretation? Did you even read my original post? I did say that I'd be happy to attempt a mature gay romance, given the right circumstances.
I'm still a little floored by your assessment of popular fantasy. To me, the fantasy genre has looked awfully gay (literally) for at least the last decade.
No offense meant, but I suspect you are seeing what you want to see. Either that or we are not talking about the same books when we say "popular fantasy". Either way is fine... I would have no objection to seeing more of it in fantasy, I am just speaking from my experience and my judgement of fantasy in general.
In any case, I'd recommend Judith Tarr if you haven't read her yet. The Hound and the Falcon series has a lovely epic sweep, a strong historical grounding (12th-century England and Constantinople), an interesting take on elves, religion, and magic, and a sympathetic treatment of GLB characters (most notably, Richard the Lionhearted).
I haven't heard of the book nor the author, but I will certainly look into it. Thank you for the recommendation.
Romance Options: A poll from the Community
Popular? Heck, if you only sold copies of DA to people who'd also bought a Heralds of Valdemar novel, you'd still be a financial success.
Sorry, but I've never even heard of the "Heralds of Valdemar", and while I'm familiar with some of the names on your list I still have not read of any gay themes in any of the popular fantasy I've read. As I said, I don't doubt there are some out there, but I am talking only from my own experience and about my own opinion, here. Your mileage may vary.
Romance Options: A poll from the Community
I'm not sure I agree with you completely, koronus, as same-sex romance was actually one of the options asked about in the original post. Whether or not they should be included is on topic... but should not be the totality of this thread, I agree. To that end, seeing as I've said my piece, I'll bow out to allow you all to continue on with your opinions.
Romance Options: A poll from the Community
In reference to my comment about gay themes not being a theme in fantasy, I suppose I should have been clearer and said popular fantasy. There are going to be variations of every type in every genre, I was just referring to the most common iterations of fantasy. Not to say those are the best, either... I have read some great, edgy fantasy in my time, too.
As for whether or not gay themes belong in a Teen-rated game, that is of course debateable and is just my opinion. As a writer, I would rather deal with issues of acceptance and tolerance with a potentially younger audience, though I can definitely see that gay themes have started to make their way into mainstream media as well as video games. Hopefully that continues to be a positive thing.
My intent was not to be inappropriate or to hijack the thread, but simply to respond to the mentioned possibility of a gay romance in a clear and mature manner, as it seemed the only discussion about it beforehand was either "yes I want to see it" or "no it should not exist".
As for moderating, I don't generally moderate forums myself except to occasionally lock threads that have gotten too long or veered too wildly off topic (if I happen to see it). When it comes to threads you find offensive, I would suggest messaging those folks who admin the boards directly in that case. I come here primarily to discuss, not to censor.
Georg Zoeller, Designer
D&D or not D&D? THAT is the question.
I used to DM with my notebook. You can run music / background sound (that dripping water loop can make players really mad ) fitting for the current situation, have quick access to maps and "utilities" and the screen provides a good "dm screen"
Tim Smith, Programmer
Toolset GUI
In NWN, the game and the toolset shared a fair amount of code. Neither was a throw-away prototype that never got thrown away.
Brenon Holmes, Programmer
Realistic physics and more...
Err... why? If the two balls are rolled down the same stairs with the same force, they should land in exactly the same position. It's just a few calculations, and I can't think of any reasons that the numbers within each calculation would be different on different machines.
They should... However in a multiplayer game every client has a slightly different view of the world and in an extended physics simulation, compounded differences can generate extremely different results.
Assuming the [likely] possibility of me being wrong above, what is wrong with running this code on the server?
The amount of data that we'd need to send down to accurately represent the simulation would be... painful...
Physics is just the rules system that governs the real world...
Yes... but the entire game doesn't run on that system, making the unification of both systems understatedly complex.
Realistic physics and more...
Again, just to explain... in another thread I mentioned that physics aren't normally deterministic. To expound on that... what I mean is that if you run two physics simulations on two different machines, say rolling a ball down some stairs... the ball will not roll the same way on each machine and will most likely end up in different positions.
So if you're flipping a table for example, the destination has to be an absolute fixed position if that table has any effect on the game state (hiding, LOS, etc...), because we want all clients to have the same view of the game. Otherwise things get wacky... and for us to have an absolute fixed position, we're either running simulations on the server - or we're not using true physics for the simulation.
In terms of interacting with the environment, the sorts of things mentioned here work lovely for FPS style games where you can arbitrarily interact with your environment... like shooting your gun at some fruit on a stand and watch them roll around. Or kick random things, like crates or boxes and watch them react.
How would that work with a 3rd person party based control scheme? Additionally, consider that this is a rules based game... if someone takes damage there has to be a rule system governing the outcome.
Realistic physics and more...
I'm kind of curious... assuming there was a physics engine, what exactly would you use it for?
Now keep in mind that you can't use physics for something that affects the actual game state unless the simulation is run on the server (which isn't likely).
Additionally, remember the style of gameplay. You're controlling a party of characters in one of two view modes... tactical (overhead view), or explore (behind the head).
Cloth and Hair simulators have already been mentioned, and as an aside do not require a full physics engine. That would be like hitting a finishing nail with a wrecking ball...
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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 17:28 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
AC / Criticals / No. Generator errors
The random number generator in NWN is fine. Usually, when people are getting hit, they forget that there is "flat footed" in the game. (i.e. you are hit by a ranged opponent and just stand there, your dex bonus will not be taken into account for the AC calculation).
Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer
Longbow problem
When I used a longbow model that was added in HotU (the bulkier ones) in Prelude of the NWN Campaign, the bow buckled in on itself so that the top half overlapped the bottom half, but left the tip floating. The only way I can put it back to normal was to drop the bow and pick it back up, but as soon as I fire it again, it re-buckles. Does anyone know what is happening and how it can be fixed?PS: This happened on my new PC which is not connected to the internet, so the game is not running on version 1.62, but the previous version.
An issue with some of the bow animations was fixed at some point. I believe the fix made it in to the 1.62 version of the game (if not, the fix should be in the upcoming 1.63 version).
Game freezes and sound loops on multiplayer servers
Thank you for your answer. In the meantime i tried to find out why it crashed, and you are right. Its while throwing Bigby's crushing hand, and on certain map title sets
If you have found a reliable way to reproduce the problem in a small module, please send a bug report describing the steps necessary to reproduce the problem to nwbugs@bioware.comIf you have a saved game that reproduces the problem every time, please attach that to the bug report as well.
Update issues
This may sound silly but i am trying to update NWN and Shadows of Undrentide but my internet connection times out after two hours and i can only get max of 94% of update before i am disconnected.Where is the basic update program so i can ask a mate on broadband to download for me. I found the critical update but as i do not have any other problems is this safe to use?
The critical rebuild is perfectly safe. The patch file that the updater uses actually modifies your existing files to change them into what they need to be for the patched version of the game. The critical rebuild just replaces your existing files with the final copies of the files that you need (resulting in the patch file being much larger, but otherwise gives you the same end result). Hope that helps.
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SP Happenings #52
Posted Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 14:04 CET by Sorcerer
The past week has been almost completely uneventful in terms of happenings around SP. The only interesting thing to report is that I've run a test import of our current message board software into the one we'll be switching to in the future, and the results were quite good. A few dozen posts get lost in the process, and several things will need to be corrected after the import, but there are no drastic setbacks to the whole procedure. So, after the new design is up & running, I'll most likely be tackling the boards next.
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