September 2002

Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Saturday, September 28, 2002 - 16:23 CET by Veldrin

Darren Monahan, Producer

ATI Card Problems: Some good news, we received word back from ATI today that it is indeed a bug in their driver and that they've isolated it.

With any luck, a new set of Catalyst drivers will be available soon that should fix the problem right up! They didn't give us an ETA yet, but hopefully a beta or full release will be up soon.

Darren.

Danien Chee, Designer

More With ATI: As far as we know, this is a bug with the Catalyst drivers as the pre-Catalyst drivers do not have this problem. Other games are also experiencing problems with the Catalyst drivers. It is not something we can fix on our end (at least to our knowledge right now) and ATI is still working with us to determine how to fix it.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Patch: They're still doing work on the patch. Sorry. However, know that much time and effort is being spent on thinking about how to fix Improved Invisibility.

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Neverwinter Nights 1.25 Beta Patch
Posted Saturday, September 28, 2002 - 10:35 CET by Mollusken

The first beta version of the next patch for Neverwinter Nights has been released, and you can download it here. This is the patch release notes:

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100 Nights of Neverwinter
Posted Saturday, September 28, 2002 - 10:11 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Nights has been out in stores for over 100 days now, and BioWare are celebrating it with profiling community leaders who has helped establishing the growing Neverwinter Nights community. So far, Rizzen from Neverwinter Connections and Maximus from Neverwinter Vault has been profiled, and three more of the leading members of the community will be profiled the next few days. You'll find all of it here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Friday, September 27, 2002 - 23:34 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

DM Faction Bug: I mentioned this the last time this topic came up. A fix regarding 'DM faction' is being worked on. It is not a trivial fix, unfortunately, and will take some time. So no, this will probably not be in the 1.25 patch. The big change that we worked on for 1.25 was allowing DM's to see character sheets on examine.

GetResRef(): Just thought you guys might want an update on this one. A GetResRef() command went into the resources today. I don't know if it made it in in time for the 1.25 cut-off (it still has to be tested, after all), but it IS coming down the pipe.

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Icewind Dale II Review at Gamer's Press
Posted Friday, September 27, 2002 - 23:26 CET by Z-Layrex

Gamer's press is the next to put up a review of Black Isle's smash-hit CRPG Icewind Dale II. They give an excellent rating of 9/10 and the short conclusion is as follows:

It's stuff that role playing fans - whether casual or hard core - will love. Just make sure you pack the fur covered boots. It's a little cold out there.

While Gamer's Press is currently down as I write this, it can be viewed at a later date (once the site's back up), here.

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Sorcerer's Place Server Issues
Posted Friday, September 27, 2002 - 22:37 CET by Sorcerer

As you've probably noticed, Sorcerer's Place was down for the last 6 hours or so. I've finally decided to terminate my current hosting plan since SP was obviously more than they could handle and *drumroll* bought a dedicated server for Sorcerer's Place. What does this mean?

Well, for one thing, this means that I have direct admin access to the server, including all support. So if the server goes down, I can reboot it myself or request a reboot, without having to wait for half a day for my host to show up. It also means that the site should not be going down at all, since it will be the only website running on the server, not sharing it with any others to slow it down. This new server is also a much faster machine (Pentium 4, 1.7Ghz, 40GB HD, 512MB RAM), so your surfing around Sorcerer's Place should be smoother.

I am beginning the transition right away, but since moving to a totally new server requires a lot of adjustments some things on SP may not work right over the next few days until I can get to them all... You *should* be able to reach either the old or the new server during this time, so non-active content (everything but the news and message boards) should be accessible to anyone. Once the transition completes, only the new server will remain and everyone will be reaching that one.

So, yes, there's a lot of good news. Now for the not-so-good news. Buying a dedicated server has drained all my money reserves, so I'm basically at 0 right now. And as you probably know, buying a server isn't a one-time purchase, but requires monthly payments from me. So please, if you can spare ANY amount of money, donate so I will be able to pay off the server... Donations have been very slim over the last two months, so no, there is no gold pile for me to revert to... All the extra money was spent so that SP finally has its own server.

A big *thank you* to all of you who have already donated to SP and helped me out, and to all of who will do so in the future. I couldn't have done it without you.

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Icewind Dale II Reviews
Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 15:00 CET by Mollusken

Elited (86/100)

Music was fairy tale like, when there was any; however, I found most of the gameplay had none to speak of. Although, gamers will be pleased with the well done voice acting. The Infinity engine was heavily modified, this is the same engine that was used for Baldur's Gate. However, graphically IWD2 is a two dimensional world, nothing spectacular here. What makes it worth mentioning, is that for the Infinity engine the graphics are highly improved since Icewind Dale.

Gameguru Mania (80/100)

Icewind Dale 2 is definitely much more difficult then the original game, the enemy AI is well written and combat is pretty challenging, sometime a little bit exhausting, so you'll have to use all of the abilities of your party members together in order to win most of battles. The fights still take place in real time, and you can still pause the game with the space bar and use special abilities via hotkeys.

Like its predecessor, Icewind Dale II is simply a great role-playing game, good follow-up game of Icewind Dale series, and also good last game to close the saga of 2D graphics. This game will keep you playing in your room for _LONG_ hours, so I would highly recommend it to any RPG or D&D lover.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 13:01 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

Patch 1.25:

Quote: Thank you for the updates, you've been great. Do you know if the 1.25 patch addresses the stuttering issue a lot of us are experiencing, or is this being considered a customer system configuration issue?

I don't think 1.25 does much about the stuttering. Various patches have fixed memory leaks and similar... and some of those things have alleviated the stuttering for some people, but not all. I don't think the exact cause (or all the different causes) for the stuttering has been tracked down, yet.

Hak Paks: This is already done. The majority of the custom creatures being created now are additions to the creature selection in NWN and don't replace existing ones.

More:

Quote: Revinor has pointed out on another thread that the appearance.2da and portrait.2da are both read as only 16-bit integeres, while other .2da entries are 32-bit. Could Bioware confirm this and perhaps offer the hope that all ID's would be 32-bit in the future expansion or patches? 16-bit doesn't offer a lot of room to expand especially for things such as spells, creatures, and such.

I'm pretty sure we would change 16-bit .2da's to 32-bit only if it was necessary.

Quote: Also I think there was some confusion about my above post. I don't suggest that users insert blank lines for their appearance.2da files, but that the game engine somehow allow for blank entries, or as Revinor has suggested, have the game engine do a special load/save routine where it remaps the file ID's to the internal dense ID's used by the game.

There's a bit more graceful solution being tested right now. If it works, then having the engine allow for blank entries is moot.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 9:21 CET by Mollusken

The Guilds and Registry section at the official site has been launched, and it allows registered game owners to create or join guilds, which will have their own forums, calendar of events, news, server lists and member lists.

The buddy list, which is a feature in the official community, has been improved. You can now store up to 32 people in the list, see the servers they're playing NWN on and connect directly to the same game as them.

And this Wednesday's last feature was the creation of a Witchwork Guild in the Guilds and Registry section.

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Guilds and Registry Interview at NW Vault
Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 9:08 CET by Mollusken

BioWare staff members Jay Watamaniuk, Robin Mayne and Dups Wijayawardhana answers a few questions about the brand new Guilds and Registry feature which now is available at the official NWN site.

2) With the launch today of the guild system, this takes a major step forward in helping fans form groups to play with. Could you give us an overview of what it does and it's role in the community.

The entire point of the Guilds and Registry System is to enhance the gameplay experience by helping you to find NWN users with similar interests. We want people to use this as a central gathering place of communication whether it is strictly role-playing, guild business, technical discussions or purely socializing. The benefits to the community will be enormous in terms of being able to choose what people you want to communicate with in an easy and flexible manner.

Read everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights "Quick Clip" in PC Magazine
Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 19:21 CET by Sorcerer

Anyone familiar with Neverwinter Nights who subscribes to PC Magazine probably already had a good laugh reading their "Quick Clip" on it in the latest issue (Oct. 1, p. 168), but I'll blatantly reproduce it here for the rest of you:

"The maker of Baldur's Gate takes its Dungeons & Dragons license into the third dimension with Neverwinter Nights. Infogrames has also added powerful multiplayer tools, letting gamers create their own elaborate adventures and lead other players through them. Since this game is so new, you won't find a lot of homemade add-ons out there yet, but the single-player game is well developed and enjoyable. -Rich Brown"

Indeed, only 1300+ fan-made modules and hundreds of other files are hardly worth mentioning. *snicker*

Makes you wonder if the reviewer uses the Internet for anything else but e-mail...

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Witchwork Status Update
Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 18:07 CET by Mollusken

Another update has been posted at the official Witchwork Project site, and this is what it says.

First impressions are very important in an RPG and Rob intends to start the Witchwork series off with that in mind. He's currently working on the opening sequence, where the players drift in and out of consciousness amidst a smoking battlefield. It has to drip with mood and atmosphere but also be carefully scripted to accommodate the possibility of multiple players. One trick Rob intends to use is the SetCommandable() function which, when used on a player, renders them incapable of taking any actions, allowing for a more cinematic feel and approach.

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IWD II Review at Gamers Depot
Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 17:27 CET by Mollusken

5 out of 6 drips and "Drool Award" to Icewind Dale II from Gamers Depot.

The quests just keeps coming and coming, which really isn’t a bad thing because most of the time you may accidentally run into the solution and there isn’t really a time completion requirement so it’s totally up to you when you feel like completing it. You are never left empty handed for any quest you complete; you get a hefty amount of experience from it and sometimes a little gift for thanks. The extra experience can be that turning point of life and death in battle because half of the entire game is sole about doing deeds as well as doing combat.

Read the whole review here.

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Invisible Dream Reviews IWD II
Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 8:18 CET by Mollusken

Another top score to Icewind Dale II from from Invisible Dream, who give the game a 95 out of 100.

Icewind Dale 2 was everything I enjoyed initially in my press demo impressions, and even surpassed my original expectations as I reviewed the retail version. As I mentioned before, it's a great year to be an RPG gamer, and Icewind Dale 2 definitely proves that. Had there been a wider multiplayer aspect, the game could have had a huge lifetime. But, despite that one minor flaw, Icewind Dale 2 is just like a golden nugget found on a river's shore: raw, pure, and ever so beautiful.

Read everything here.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 23:30 CET by Veldrin

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

Script Compiler: : We'll be releasing the Script Compiler around the time that the patch is released (or shortly thereafter).

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Soundtrack: I would really love to see the soundtrack separately. I'm a big soundtrack collector myself. Though currently I don't believe there are any plans.

Here's a track list from the back of the collectors CD.

1. Choose your hero
2. Arrival at the docks
3. Skeleton of a town
4. Palisades under siege
5. The Goblin Hordes
6. The Shaengarne
7. Reclaiming the bridge
8. Fortress of the Horde
9. Sherincal of the Chimera
10. The Temple of Auril
11. Lysara the Aurilite
12. Limha's Secret
13. The Fellwood
14. Roar of the White Dragon
15. Lair of Horrors
16. Chant of the Black Ravens
17. Return to Kuldahar
18. Battle of the Heartstone
19. The Jungles of Chult
20. Return to Dragon's Eye
21. The Severed Hand
22. Saablic Tan - Red Wizard of Thay
23. Showdown with the Twins
24. IWD2 Main Theme
25. More Trials Await
26. The Town of Lonelywood
27. The Shrine of Waukeen
28. Barbarian Battle
29. The Camp
30. Inside the Tent
31. Isle of the Dead
32. Tormented Spirits of the Barrows
33. The Edge of the Gloomfrost
34. The Remorhaz Tunnels
35. The Flowing Caves
36. The Seer Speaks
37. Icasaracht's Lair
38. The Sea of Moving Ice
39. Dragon Battle
40. Heart of Winter Theme

Tracks 26-40 are from Heart of Winter. Track 25 might be from HOW too, but not sure. It's a very short piece of music.

Also, the track info is off by one since the data track takes up Track 1. So when playing it on your CD player, subtract 1 from the track number to get the right chapter name.

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BioWare Passes 500 000 members
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 17:40 CET by Z-Layrex

BioWare has sent out a press release confirming that they have passed half a million registered members on their community sites. Here's the story:

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada ­ September 23rd, 2002. BioWare Corp today announced that the official BioWare Community now has over half a million members.

"We are delighted to be able to offer to fans of BioWare's games, a welcoming environment where they can learn about our games, and also feel a sense of belonging to a community which share's similar experiences and adventures within our games", said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. "Our developers are amazed at the dedication and resourcefulness of the BioWare Community", he concluded.

"We're delighted that the community site has grown this quickly", added Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. "Obviously we're watching this growth and planning new ways to bring together the community with our future games. BioWare's community continues to be a place for fans of our games to visit, learn about our games, meet other fans, and even hook up for a game or two. The upcoming Neverwinter Nights Guild and Buddy System will make this even more relevant", he concluded.

"The really exciting part," said Jay Watamaniuk, BioWare's Community Manager, "is that this is just the beginning of the massive potential the BioWare community has exhibited over the last three months with the release of Neverwinter Nights. It's a game designed to put the power of creation into the gamers' own hands, letting them create their own personal game and that is exactly what has happened."

The BioWare community site was launched in October 2001 with downloads and message board communities for all BioWare's existing titles to date, including the Baldur's Gate series and the Neverwinter Nights. Since then, the BioWare communities have grown to include BioWare's next project, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (for Xbox and PC). As we announce new projects, we'll be extending the community to embrace these titles.

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Derek French comments on NWN Engine Problems
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 16:46 CET by Z-Layrex

The Adrenaline Vault has been doing some investigating on graphical stutter in NWN. Derek French (the live team producer for Neverwinter Nights) was able to shed some light on the matter.

Read the full report here.

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NWN Patch 1.24 now available for France, Germany and Italy
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 16:37 CET by Z-Layrex

The official site for NWN has just posted news that the English Neverwinter Nights patch 1.24 is now available for French, German and Italian versions of the game. The beta patch for 1.25 is just around the corner, perhaps this week...

Go here to download the patch manually. For the easier option, just click 'Update' on your NWN startup menu.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 16:24 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

Multiple Hak Paks: It's hard to say whether multiple hak paks will become a reality. The Live Team has had some discussions on possible ways to make hak paks easier to use and download for the end-user... but exactly what will end up being possible depends on the outcome of investigations by the programmers. The Live Team is committed to just that, however. Considering what they've got planned for the creature hak paks, the actual solution may be much better than you expect.

Favorite Servers: Favorite servers is a function that's being added, as I recall. Not sure if it's in 1.25 or not, though.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Editing ERF Files: The Hak Pak Editor in the \utils folder is also capable of manipulating .erf files, although I think there is a bug that always forces the file extension to .hak (you can easily rename it, however). I'll see if I can get that fixed sometime.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

AC Bug: No workaround that we know of, but the bug is fixed and will be in the 1.25 patch. We will probably have a Beta build of the 1.25 for you next week, either Monday or Tuesday.

Trent Oster, Producer

Animated Textures: It can be done, but it is ugly. We were using animating textures here and there in the particle system. It requires a .txi file to set up the parameters. I can't really describe the method here since I'm pretty rusty at it but hopefully I've pointed you in the right direction.

Poly Limit: During the development of NWN we limited ourselves to under 1000 polys for a character, under 500 for a tile and as low as possible with placeable objects. We also said we wouldn't use more than 3 placeable objects per tile. Some creatures we planned to use in groups (like goblins) we modeled well below our limits to ensure reasonable performance. I think Mr. X gave a good summary of some low poly modeling tactics which are sure to help.

Tilesets: The limitation in tileset variety is indeed due to computer system resources and trying to maintain a "reasonable" minimum spec. computer for the game. We have a limit to the varieties of tile types in each tileset to keep the system memory / texture memory reasonable. The combined tilesets can get around this my requiring better systems.

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Witchwork Series Update
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 15:32 CET by Mollusken

The following has been posted at the official Witchwork Series site.

The Witchwork Template is nearing completion today, about a week ahead of schedule. There are a handful of remaining quirks to resolve but all of the big stuff appears to have been caught in the testing process. Three issues are also waiting on Patch 1.25: A new VFX constant, a new function for the conversation system, and a bug-fix to GetStartingLocation(). Starting early next week, however, Rob will make a copy of the Template and begin building "Witchwork I: The Fields of Battle" on that foundation.

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Icewind Dale II Reviews
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 15:30 CET by Mollusken

Ogre's Network (4/5)

Icewind Dale II runs on the Infinity Engine created originally for Baldur’s Gate back in 1997. To some extent the game shows its age; there isn’t a single 3d effect in the game. That said, they finally fixed the interface. Now it sits tightly at the bottom of the screen. It can also shrink down in size, or disappear entirely. Though you might want to keep the text window open to see the sometimes vital information displayed there. Additionally, each character can carry more items in their inventory than before.

ZenGamer (9/10)

Icewind Dale 2 is one of the rare sequels that somehow manages to eclipse its predecessor. It is certainly not perfect, with too much emphasis on combat, clunky performance at high resolutions, and some simply mind bogglingly frustrating and unnecessary puzzles (shame on the brilliant guys at Black Isle for making us suffer through that forest). Still, for my money it is just a tad bit more fun than any of the other RPG’s this year, and that includes the ambitious fully three dimensional Neverwinter Nights (also AD&D with 3E rules), and the huge, innovative, brilliant third person RPG Morrowind. For all that is new and different, there is still the comfort of the Infinity Engine, fitting like a comfortable glove when you need an RPG fix. Black Isle is a development house of RPG genius’s, and I can only hope that Icewind Dale 2 is not their last hurrah. RPG fans would be crazy to miss out on this game.

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Site News - New Additions
Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 0:02 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Community

I have done a bit of cleaning up in the About Us subsection, retiring a few inactive members in the process. The only new addition is Veldrin who has been a great supplier of Icewind Dale II forum news, and I hope he will remain so in the future. You can read his short bio on the page to find out more about him.

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

Not much new here in terms of actual book additions, but there is a whole bunch of new sample chapters you can download and read. Check out both pages of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance Books subsections and the Miscellaneous Books subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, Simpson's Complete BG2 & ToB Walkthrough has been updated. He has also updated his Class FAQ and AD&D rules FAQ. All can be found on the same page.

Four of the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsections have new additions in them.

In Subsection #1 you can download an updated version of the AI uScript.

In Subsection #2, the Stuff of the Magi custom items package has been updated, and Baronius' New Summoning Spells were added.

In Subsection #5, 10 new fantasy portraits have been added.

In Subsection #7, a link to a new mod called Travelers in Time: Tortured Souls has been added.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection you can get the latest version of our downloadable walkthrough (now up to Chapter 3), and check out our online solution with maps, screenshots etc. (up to Chapter 1) as well. I've also listed another walkthrough that has popped up on the web.

On the same page you can now also find complete and very detailed lists of skills and feats as they appear in the game, and a new 3rd Edition D&D FAQ.

In the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection you can download a brand new Jinsc soundset, which is pretty funny.

A whole slew of crunchy new content has been added to the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection. There are two spells lists (downloadable and online), a FAQ listing cleric domain spell restrictions, two downloadable item lists, a quest XP and dialogue skill list and a downloadable list of cheats.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection two partial walkthroughs have been added and the excellent reference guide has been updated.

Two cleric guides have been added to the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection, and they're both worth reading if you (would) like to play this class. You can also find the updated version of my monsters list there.

Four new additions/updates can be found in the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection. First is the newest version of the excellent hack which unlocks the camera view, the second are spell bugfixes, the third is a remote admin tool and the last one a set of new portraits.

Two new modules have been added to the Modules subsection. The first is named Hork: Of Adventures In Your Head Obscura, and the second one is named Lamentations Part 1: Sisters of Mercy.

As usual, all of the Toolset & Related subsections have been updated.

In Subsection #1 you can find a new tutorial dubbed "NWN Pieces Parts Modeling Tutorial".

In Subsection #2, nine new tilesets have been added.

In Subsection #3 I've started adding actual scripts. There are nine cool ones to start with, most notably ALFA's full subrace system.

Subsection #4 has been split in two now, so all that remains here are items. There are six new ones here for you to check out.

Subsection #5, which now contains only creatures & models, has 20 (!) new additions.

Finally, in Subsection #6 you can get 11 new placeables/prefabs and four other various items.

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Icewind Dale II Online Solution Update
Posted Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 21:54 CET by Sorcerer

The Bartholomew team has just sent in Chapter 1 of their online Icewind Dale II solution. Check it out here!

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IWD II Review at GameZilla
Posted Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 17:14 CET by Mollusken

Great scores in almost all sub-categories from GameZilla, and they recommmend us to buy the game.

Enemy AI is still problematic, as well as group character movement. I did notice a bit of problems with “mousework” as well, in that often items or spells were not cast correctly due to extreme mouse sensitivity, but that may be more a setting issue than a flaw in the engine.

This aside, Icewind Dale II offers what is quite possibly the most entertaining Forgotten Realms adventure yet. Well designed, fully realized and with all the bells and whistles, this title offers something to every gamer looking for a solid, engrossing RPG. I simply can’t stop playing! A must buy.

Read everything here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, September 21, 2002 - 14:25 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: What is your preferred method of buying games?
(300 votes total)

Local store (221) 74%
Online (43) 14%
I don't buy games (31) 10%
Mail order (5) 2%

The most popular way of buying games for the majority (74%) is obviously still the regular shopping at the local store/mall/whatever.

Online buying is the second method of choice, preferred by 14% of people who voted in the poll.

A whopping 10% of poll participants don't buy games at all. I think it is quite obvious that the methods of this group's, ah, "acquiring" games are shady.

A surprisingly small number of people (2% only) buy games via mail orders.

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Icewind Dale II Review at KG
Posted Friday, September 20, 2002 - 21:26 CET by Mollusken

Icewind Dale II gets a score of 9 out of 10 from Khabal Gaming.

Now from some final words from this tired out drow. I do have a few more gripes about the game system, like even though the game has a level cap of 30, the epic level rules are not implemented, and there is an apparent lacking of prestige classes. I was hoping to completely recreate my PnP character in IWD 2 (Drow fighter/paladin/knight protector) *sighs* but still, that's just more nitpicking from me.

Read everything here.

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J.E. Sawyer Interview At GZ
Posted Friday, September 20, 2002 - 21:04 CET by Veldrin

GameZone has posted an Icewind Dale II interview with J.E. Sawyer. Here's a clip:

Question: Is this a true sequel to the original game, or does it track another aspect and adventure in the Forgotten Realms?

Josh: “It is a sequel to the original because the main plot involves characters from the original Icewind Dale game, but the storyline isn't a direct continuation of the original. It also takes place thirty years later. So, even though the game takes place in the same geographical area, it deals with different problems.”

Read it all here

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 21:00 CET by Veldrin

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

CE Music: I should point out that the soundtrack that comes with the Collector's Edition also includes all the music from the "Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter" expansion. I just realized it when I listened to the CD recently! I didn't realize our audio department added those tracks and its not mentioned on the track list.

Tracks 26-40 are from Heart of Winter.

With this CD & the soundtrack we released for IWD1 awhile ago, all the music is now available.

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

Turn Times: 1 round = 7 seconds
1 turn = 70 seconds (10 rounds)

In PnP, it is indeed 6 seconds for a round and 60 seconds for a turn. For some reason, the IE isn't wired that way.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Missing Armor: Here is the likely scenario: when people were assigned item placement for the uniques in IWD2, the items at the bottom of an Excel spreadsheet did not get included in that list. Alternately, those items were not in the list when the placement assignments were handed out.

We occasionally did see these items on testers' characters -- but they were hacked in for people running through on the critical path. I didn't see these suits of armor in the game, but since I only had one heavily armored character, I didn't think anything of it. I don't remember seeing any bugs written up for the lack of heavy armor -- ergo, voila.

Needless to say, this is a big bug, and I am fixing it for the upcoming patch. I just wanted to make absolutely certain that these items weren't placed in the game already.

Guys, as someone else said, the armor as in the release build isn't any better, AC-wise, than what your characters can get right now through legitmate means. I am both improving some of these suits of armor and placing them in stores from the *spoiler* on.

Thus, not only will you have legitimate access to these armors, but they will also have better AC bonuses or general bonuses, in many cases.

Items above +5: The only time you should ever encounter a weapon that appears to be over +5 value in terms of total enchantment + cool effects should be in Heart of Fury mode. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. One in 20ish high-level random drops will be bumped up to the equivalent of a +6 item.

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Sorcerer's Place - New Look Wanted
Posted Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 19:55 CET by Sorcerer

Sorcerer's Place could use a new design which would be more flexible than what we currently have. I've made a list of all the changes that would be necessary in the new design (compared with the current design) and it's quite long, but it would give any designer a good idea exactly what I want code-wise. Anyone wanting to undertake the task of redesigning SP would have to meet all of my specifications on that list.

The actual design and look would have to be similarly fantasy-oriented as it is now, of course. I should emphasize that redesigning SP is *not* something you would want to attempt unless you are an experienced web designer. I really don't want people to waste my time only to find out later that they can't meet my specifications. I will require you to show me an example of your previous work so that I can be confident that you'll be up to the task, and that I like your style. I work exclusively with Dreamweaver, so the whole design must be clearly viewable in that. I require no Flash or animations anywhere on the site, so that should not be a concern.

I can't afford the sky-high prices of design companies, but I'm sure we could work something out. Putting a designer's promotional banner with their info and link into rotation all over the site would be a good solution. I'm posting this here basically because I want to give any qualified people visiting SP a chance to do something for the good of the community. So, if you're interested, ICQ (1508832), or e-mail me for details.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 18:58 CET by Mollusken

Yesterday's Neverwinter Nights stuff from BioWare was a module profile on the module "Candle in the dark" made by Robert and Donna Burson, a profile on a "Lootable Corpses" system, which will be part of the fan created content in the Witchwork series, and finally BioWare has released a new wallpaper which features some upcoming content for Neverwinter Nights.

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NWN Review at Invisible Dream
Posted Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 18:51 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Nights gets a score of 95% at Invisible Dream.

So, I think we've basically covered a good aspect of Neverwinter Nights. The game has an awesome, epic story, plenty of action, and lots of RPG elements that will probably set the standard for future RPGs of this type. With a boundless multiplayer world, there is no doubt that Neverwinter Nights will have an immortal game life. However, this is only half of what Neverwinter Nights has to offer… enter the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset. Now I'll be up front and honest by saying that I did not play around with these tools for very long. I think the game itself required my immediate attention although I did spend a few hours tinkering with the tools and seeing what kind of crappy creation I could conjure.

Read everything here.

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Icewind Dale II Solution Update
Posted Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 12:17 CET by Sorcerer

Modjahed has just sent in Chapter 3 of his downloadable Icewind Dale II solution. Get it here!

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Stefan Gagne Interviewed at Neverwinter Connections
Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 - 17:54 CET by Z-Layrex

The folks at Neverwinter Connections, the real time scheduling site, have posted an interview with Stefan Gagne, the author of the Penultima Series of modules. Authored by ShaperM.C. they discuss Stefan's background, the future of NWN, the popularity of his mods, and his upcoming projects. Here's an excerpt on that:

ShaperMC: I know that Penultima: ReRolled is coming out soon. What surprises should we expect from this new mod?

Stefan Gagne: It's a couple orders of magnitude better than Pest Control, that's for sure. I actually know what I'm doing now! Whee! Some major stuff you can expect: A Hakpak packed with custom content like objects, portraits, sounds and music (and yet clocking in at a mere 2 megs)... Pausinas's henchman AI system and the ability to hire a variety of henchman for every module, with each having unique sub quests... yet another involved mystery story that covers the span of five modules... a richer Penultima City experience, with better shopping, more custom equipment, and a VERY nice DragonBites(tm) challenge dungeon.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 - 17:47 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

2DAs: Well, you'll be happy to know that getting all .2da's to work in the hakpaks is one of the short-list items up on the board in the Live Team office... just waiting for a big 'x' in the check-box (I think I saw something go into the resources today that mentioned re-loading all .2da's upon a hakpak being added... so we may almost be there). The Live Team recently had a really long meeting on making hakpaks more accessible and more easily useable to the end-user (read: the common joe), so while I don't know what may come of that, you can be assured that HPB (Hak Pak Bloat) is a concern that the team is looking at.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Servers: We are working on providing you will a standalone Windows and Linux dedicated server install. The current test install sits at 580 Meg. No CD Key will be required to install this version and it will be downloadable from our site. We are also expecting the Windows version to be Auto-updateable via NWUpdate. I would expect this version in about 2 weeks or so.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 - 0:27 CET by Veldrin

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Goodberry: Goodberry was declared utterly worthless by many people in QA. I modified it to be slightly less worthless. The idea was that goodberry could essentially create little iron ration equivalents that could be spread out through the party. That way, in a battle like the palisades, where characters might be spread out, the PCs don't have to go running to the druid or cleric for healing.

And my druid was incredibly powerful throughout IWD2. I used Entangle, Spike Growth, Cloudburst, Beast Claws, Thorn Spray, Flame Strike (especially), and Aura of Vitality a lot. And his shapeshifting forms weren't too shabby, either.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Ability Modifying Items Used To Get Feat Pre-req: No, feat requirements use unmodified values.

Chad Nicholas, Scriptor

Weapon Finesse: The PHB doesn't mention anything about a monk being able to use Weapon Finesse with fists/unarmed attacks. I don't see anything that says that unarmed attacks are "light weapons" (one of the qualifiers when choosing what weapon for the feat). Not only that, but the description for the feat talks about a rapier and the spiked chain, but makes no mention of a monk or her unarmed attacks.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Custom Portraits: The small version can also be 24 bit. Earlier versions of the engine recommended 8 bit but you can use 24 bit images just fine now. Unfortunately the docs didn't get updated with this small change. But 8 bit images will work also so no harm if you use them.

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GameOver Reviews Icewind Dale 2
Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 17:13 CET by Mollusken

Icewind Dale II doesn't seem to be getting the same good scores as Neverwinter Nights, but 76% from GameOver isn't very bad either.

What really surprised me about Icewind Dale II was how sloppy some of it was. Parts of the game didn’t work right, including one broken quest, and others seemed unbalanced, like healing potions that were way too wimpy to be of any use, and a search skill that barely detected anything. Plus, I found some grammar mistakes in the game’s text, and mistakes in the manual (the preferred class of the drow is not the wizard), and almost all of the character voices and portraits used in the game are straight from Icewind Dale. And don’t even ask about the frequent slowdowns I encountered, which didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was going on in the game.

Read the whole review here.

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Neverwinter Nights Review at GF
Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 17:05 CET by Mollusken

The Neverwinter Nights reviews doesn't seem to stop coming, and this one is from Games Fusion. Their score is 79 out of 100.

I have been given the task of playing a reviewing the game Never Winter Nights. Many envied me having the chance to play this brilliant game that has been in development for so long. I count myself lucky to have the chance to voice my opinions. Some may say I have no patients. Others will say I have a bad taste in video games but when it comes to RPG games like Never Winter Nights my concentrations span last seconds. Like reading a book, I read one page and by the end of the 1st page I have lost interest and forgotten what I have been reading about. The same thing happened when playing Never Winter Nights. The start of the game was quite boring with lots of reading about how to control and use your character but the making of the character was excellent.

Read everything here.

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Icewind Dale II Review at NL
Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 17:02 CET by Mollusken

Next Level Gaming has reviewed Icewind Dale II, giving it a score of 5 out of 6.

Despite its lack of fresh graphics, Icewind Dale 2 does what it sets out to do: be an awesome RPG experience. I say experience because you become drawn into the story, and start to care about your characters. I found myself yelling with joy as my Wood-Elf Ranger killed an Orc shaman with a single arrow shot, and screaming at my Human Fighter when he missed for the fifth time and got himself killed. The music really adds to the experience, and the 3rd edition rules will quickly grow on you. The character creation is awesome, and even at high levels you still have many choices you can still make. As hard as I tried, I could not pull myself away from this game. Its a breath of fresh air compared to most of the new Action-RPGs, and I would highly recommend it to any RPG or D&D lover. It would be a mistake to miss out on this game!

Read everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights Review at MonkeyReview
Posted Monday, September 16, 2002 - 13:05 CET by Mollusken

5 out of 5 bananas and top score to Neverwinter Nights from MonkeyReview.

The game is well worth the purchase price if you are a fan of this genre of games. We did not even touch on the other aspects of the game, the city/dungeon/outside/etc. design tools that are included with the game. They deserve a separate review their own for the budding entire dungeon master that wants to go digital. Nor did I touch on the online side of the game as there I still have some reservations about that part of the game because of the conditions of the online gaming that have been set down by the game manufacturer. So, I will leave that up to the individual gamers who want to explore that aspect of this very enjoyable and robust game.

Read everything here.

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NWN: Module Creators Interview at HomeLan Fed
Posted Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 12:19 CET by Z-Layrex

HomeLan Fed have interviewed three creators of popular fan-made Neverwinter Nights modules: Stefan Gagne, Bret W. Davenport and Steve Daniels.

Here are three short quotes about the Neverwinter Nights Aurora toolset:

Stefan Gagne: Very robust, very simple, very fast. It has some rough spots but it's still above and beyond other toolkits I've seen. Laying down the landscape and filling it with interactive stuff is a breeze. I also think the scripting system is easy, but I'm in the minority there, it seems...

Bret W. Davenport: For me, it is a bit like ordering French cuisine. What you get is delicious, but you can’t help but wish you got more of it.

Steve Daniels: It is truly where the game shines. I will be honest with you. the only easy part about using the toolset really is the placing of creatures and the conversation trees and making items and creatures. Scripting is the big whammy there and the most difficult for the average user.

The interview can be viewed here.

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Icewind Dale II Solution Update
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 21:04 CET by Sorcerer

Modjahed has just sent in Chapter 2 of his downloadable Icewind Dale II solution. Get it here!

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 20:18 CET by Z-Layrex

Noel Borstad, Programmer

Scripting: GetIsInCombat will return true while the creature is in Combat State, that is for a certain amount of time (8 seconds?) after any offensive action by or towards a member of your faction. Combat State also determines combat music, and the ability to rest so you should be able to do your own experiments to determine how long it lasts for, and which actions trigger it.

GetAttackTarget() will return the last target that you have attempted to resolve an attack against during this round. It gets cleared when the attack action is removed or you lose your target (if they die or go invisible) or the round ends.

GetAttemptedAttackTarget() is set by attempting to attack somebody, just adding an attack action will set this.I believe that it is the default end-of-round script that clears attack actions if the monster loses their target... I think that if you simply added an attack action then they will open doors etc.. to get to you.

Disclaimer: I didn't write these commands, this is just my quick analysis of the code!

David Gaider, Designer

New Things: FYI - Being able to change the message given on the death GUI, as well as the loading screen text messages, is a change that will be implemented in the near future.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

DM Client:

Quote: If Bioware openly supports these kind of user made "patches" (it is a patch to the crappy and useless DM client, is it not?), does it mean the DM client will NOT be developed into the tool it should have been in the first place? Does it mean we WON'T be able to open character sheets for the players in the future for examination? Inventories? Stat changes?

I understand your fear and recognize that the DM client still has some holes that we'd like to fill. For now, tools like the DM's Helper do a great job of working around some of those holes and that's why I feel it's important to include them in the Witchwork series. All the same, I think Dopple and Jhenne would agree that there's nothing they would like more than to have some of their tool's features made redundant through future feature upgrades in the form of official patches and expansions. We'd like that too but these things take time and it's always a matter of trying to juggle priorities. Don't worry. Seeing this kind of effort from the fan community just makes it all the more clear how important such features are to all of you.

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Witchwork Status Update
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 17:02 CET by Mollusken

The following has been posted at the official Witchwork status page:

Given that the Witchwork series will stretch over multiple modules, Rob has started by creating a Template module that includes much of the content that will be shared throughout the series. These include the now-completed custom death system, a custom conversation system, fan-created components such as the recently profiled DM's Helper, and so forth. Though it doesn't have any truly playable content, he'll spend next week testing that template module to ensure that everything is working together as planned.

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Icewind Dale II Beta Patch 2.01
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 15:39 CET by Veldrin

Yep, the new beta patch for Icewind Dale II has been released today. It is 3.1 MB in size. Here's what it will fix:

VERSION 2.01 beta 2 - 09/12/2002

GENERAL
- Added retries to see if this helps those who are having problems with random assertion message crashes in "chdatatypes.cpp" and other spots where assertion messages come up during loading.
- Fixed crash problem with Glyph of Warding spell on Kyro-based video cards.

EFFECTS
- Fixed a problem with people who died with Energy Drain active, causing the game to become more and more sluggish, particularly in multiplayer. This was reported when using the Scimitar of Souls/Soulless.
- Tensor's Transformation now disables spell buttons instead of removing them.
- Fixed crash bug when loading a save game with a player that has the Disguise effect (the most common problem occurring from robes) and having a shield in Weapon Combo 1, and a crossbow or bow as the currently selected weapon.
- Benefits from Lingering Song no longer apply to neutrals and enemies.

INTERFACE
- Fixed a problem with the user interface switching back to level 1 spells when selecting spells while certain other effects were active.
- Fixed crash when selling unidentified items in bags to store keepers.
- Fixed random crash/lockup when clicking on the World Map.

RULES
- Fixed a problem where rolling a natural 20 was still not permitting a player to hit a monster that had AC far greater than the player's normal ability to hit.
- Bards now correctly use Charisma modifier for spell DC's instead of
Intelligence.

SCRIPTS
- Fixed problem with Hide() command not being reset for scripts. This should fix Rogue-based scripts that are intended to automatically hide a rogue.

VERSION 2.01 beta 1 - 08/30/2002

- Fixed crash when viewing the inventory or choosing an appearance when using a Kyro-based video card.
- Fixed problem with purchasing certain stackable items and only receiving one of a particular stack instead of the entire stack and still paying full price.

You can find it here or here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 14:27 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Which chapter in the official Neverwinter Nights campaign was your favourite?
(196 votes total)

Chapter 2 (65) 33%
Chapter 3 (63) 32%
Chapter 1 (44) 23%
Chapter 4 (24) 12%

Well, not really much to comment on regarding this one. Except, it seems, that with every Neverwinter Nights poll I post less people bother to vote in it. I don't know if everyone's so fed up with it already or if everyone's just so lazy...

In any event, Chapter 2 wins as the favourite chapter (33%) by only 2 votes before Chapter 3 (32%). Chapter 1 is lagging behind with 23% of people's votes as their favourite chapter, and Chapter 4 only got 12% of fan votes.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Friday, September 13, 2002 - 22:07 CET by Veldrin

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Attacks Per Round And Cleave: Even though you have a max of 5 attacks per level, the game resets/rollbacks the attack counter (depending on which version your have) so you can get more than 5 attacks per round 'unnoficially'.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Celebration After Completion: I didn't do anything special. It wasn't like the release of IWD, where the whole team worked really hard on everything until an FC passed, and then we all went home and passed out. IWD2 just kind of... drifted into its last FC. Most of us were off of the project when it went gold.

Meeting Expectations: Not really. There were too many different styles at work in the different areas and a lot of the rules weren't implemented as I would have liked them to be.

More IWD2 Style Games: I wouldn't. If I make any more D&D games, I want them to be more role-playing oriented. If I make any more combat-oriented games, I want to use a different system.

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Icewind Dale II "Review" at SpinXero
Posted Friday, September 13, 2002 - 21:17 CET by Mollusken

While extremly focused at the age of the Infinity Engine and that he has heard the soundsets in other games, the reviewer at SpinXero gives Icewind Dale II a C-.

Icewind Dale 2 is a sequel to Icewind Dale in the same respect that Doom 2 was a sequel to Doom. If you feel that more of the same doesn’t quite constitute a sequel, then you may want to stay away from this one. On the other hand, if you absolutely loved IWD so much that you can’t get enough of it, then by all means, have a blast!

Read the whole thing here.

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Witchwork Profile
Posted Friday, September 13, 2002 - 21:07 CET by Mollusken

The Witchwork module series will feature scripts and other things made by the Neverwinter Nights community, and community manager Jay Watamaniuk has done a profile on "The DM helper". There's more about this advanced DM tool and an interview with the creators here.

If there is one fan-created tool that has become indispensable to the Neverwinter Dungeon Master, it’s Dopple & Jhenne’s DM’s Helper. It opens up a whole bundle of new abilities within NWN’s DM Client. In short, the authors have created a very special inventory item that, when used within a module that supports it, grants the DM far more powers over the players, creatures, and environment. DMs are able to do everything from destroying that pretty group of butterflies they mistakenly placed in the middle of the Dungeon of Infinite Bleeding Horror to displaying the stats and inventory of any given player.

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Neverwinter Nights Review at Got Lag
Posted Friday, September 13, 2002 - 21:00 CET by Mollusken

As in most other reviews, the score from Got Lag is very good. They gave the game a 9 out of 10.

One interesting feature in Neverwinter Nights is the interaction with NPCs. If you’re nice to them you’ll gain karma. When you first start out it might not seem important, but when you finally have enough experience to gain a level it sucks not to be able to because your karma is too evil to gain a Paladin level. Some classes require good karma in order to gain a level. If you have the persuasion skill you can persuade NPCs to give you more information then they’re willing to give or even haggle prices :D .

Read everything here.

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IWD II First Impressions at RPG Vault
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 19:39 CET by Mollusken

The guys at RPG Vault has played Icewind Dale II for about 20 hours now, and here's something from their first impressions.

The gameplay in Icewind Dale II, as in its predecessor, is heavily combat-oriented. Within moments of entering Targos, you will be beset by a howling troop of monsters. However, Black Isle has taken great pains to provide at least some experience and rewards for players who role-play their characters, and this is reflected in the myriad of ways to achieve various early quest goals. For example, a warehouse is mysteriously overrun by the invading goblins that have somehow gotten inside the town walls. A guard stands outside and warns your party away. However, given enough chatting, encouragement or intimidation, you can bypass him before being given authorization to clear out the interlopers, which garners your heroes an experience point bonus. It is immediately evident then that the development team has pushed the scripting and questing elements to a new level.

Read the whole thing at RPG Vault.

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Icewind Dale II Online Solution at SP
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 16:41 CET by Sorcerer

As promised earlier this month (although with a bit of delay, but still), Sorcerer's Place is now proud to present another exclusive Icewind Dale II solution. This one is available for your online viewing pleasure here. It currently covers the Prologue of the game, with more coming up soon!

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Icewind Dale II Review at CVG
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 16:23 CET by Mollusken

Computer and Video Games have reviewed Icewind Dale II, and their score is 8 out of a possible 10.

Hopes were high for this one before it even arrived in the office. Given the huge success of Baldur's Gate II we fully expected the second Icewind Dale game to be similar at least in terms of the sheer depth of gameplay. What we were afraid of was another relentless combat-heavy trudge through countless boring dungeons that all look similar (as was the case with the first Icewind Dale). In truth, Black Isle appears to have learned its lesson to an extent. ID2 is still very combat heavy, but character interaction plays a far larger role this time round. Right from the outset, when you find yourself in the town of Targos, there are many people to question and glean information from. This is streets ahead of the NPCs in the first game, who would mutter a single sentence before offering you a quest which sent you off to kill, kill and then kill some more. NPCs in ID2 are a lot more interesting, and the game feels less of a chore as a result.

You can read the whole review here.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 21:19 CET by Veldrin

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

CR For Creatures: I don't think the CR of all the enemies you'll encounter in the game will always match what's in the Monster Manual. We had to adjust the CR based on how we adjusted each enemy's stats.

HP and Constitution: Page 134 of the manual has a table that'll tell you what bonus a stat will give you depending on it's value. So adding one point of CON won't give you any HP if the new CON value will be odd. However, if the CON value is raised to an even number, you will get more HP.

Improved Turning: I had a 4 person party and I don't know how I'd have gotten through the areas that have undead without my Dreadmaster. He had a CHA of 16 (with Improved Turning). With a smaller party you start to get a level's hardest monsters/most numerous monsters. While your cleric's level will be high enough to turn easily, don't expect to still be able to turn effectively with a low CHA.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer, Quality Assurance

Expansion: An expansion will be ready in one hundred million billion years.

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Second Icewind Dale II Review at GH
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 19:11 CET by Mollusken

While the last review from Gamer's Hell ended up with a total slaughter of the game and a score of 6.5, they have understood their mistake and one of their visitors wrote a new review for them. This time the score is 7.5, and the critics seem to be more fair.

An over-all rating of 7.5 bumped to an 8.0 if you toss-out multi-player (as I do). A solid game and a fitting end to the infinity engine. Had this game been released three years ago, or this engine incorporated into BG or BG:II, they would have been the three highest rated games of all time. If your budget is limited, go with the rather unfinished looking and acting NWN as it is the future. But if you have the cash, and you're a CRPG player, this is a must buy.

Read the whole thing here.

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Neverwinter Chess Module Update
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 19:02 CET by Mollusken

The Chess module for Neverwinter Nights has been updated to version 1.2. There used to be an error in the checkmate script, but it's gone now. The tutorial on how to add the chess game to your own module has also been updated.

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Witchwork Project Update
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 18:57 CET by Mollusken

This small post was added to the official Witchwork site. If you didn't know, Withwork is a series of modules under development at BioWare.

All fan-created content was integrated by the end of last week and Rob is now implementing a custom death system for the series. As it's currently planned, the death system will be tightly integrated into the Witchwork story and certain plot hooks may only be made available to those who die over the course of the module. Die too many times, however, and you will be banished to a hell from which there is no escape.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 17:28 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

GetModuleItemLostBy & 1.24: Yes, the schedule's still the same... the patch will simply be 1.25 instead of 1.24 (barring something else occurring before that time... I'm becoming loathe to quote these things ahead of time for obvious reasons). The scripting fixes that are listed in 1.24 (the one that just went live) are ones that were intended for the content patch originally but were in the resources at the time of cut-off... so there they are. I think I actually saw that GetModuleItemAcquiredFrom was fixed in one of the version notes... just not before cut-off, sadly.

1.25:

Quote: Seriously though. It was stated in a post htat the current 1.24 was put between 1.23 and what was to be the 1.24 patch and the "now" 1.25 patch was almost ready and on schedule.

Not quite. I said the schedule was the same... the 'big content patch' that is now 1.25 is considerable larger and more encompassing than the patches that we've done previously. But the fact that we released part of it as 1.24 doesn't change when it's going to come out (which I can't even conjecture at... and there's no guarantee that something else might not come up forcing an early 1.25, either, really.)

BMU & 1.25: Like I said, if we hadn't released the patch early as 1.24, it would have come out later... and is coming out at exactly the same planned time, now, as 1.25 instead (barring the possibility that something else may come up, I suppose). So nothing lost, really. The 'big content patch' that was supposed to be 1.24 was supposed to take a while as it is because it's trying to address a lot at once (rather than these rapid-fire patches which have been necessary). I can imagine that a few hearts jumped when they saw 1.24 was live... sorry.

BioWares Hakpaks:

Quote: Wasn't one of the other things that was supposed to come in 1.24 (and I'm assuming is now pushed back to 1.25) the ability to do secret doors without a hak pak? Not just trap doors, but wall doors as well?

As I understand it, the secret door/trap door stuff that we've released in our own hak paks will be going into the resources for 1.25, yes. So the hak paks for them would no longer be required... everyone with the patch would have access.

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Icewind Dale II review at Gaming Age
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 - 17:17 CET by Z-Layrex

After a quick first look a week ago, Gaming Age has released their review of Icewind Dale II. They give it an "A" and to them, IWD2 is the game of the year so far.

The 'Infinity Age' is over. With Icewind Dale II, the book is closed on one of the most important engines in PC gaming. It can be said that Bioware's Neverwinter Nights has ushered us into the future of PC RPGs, but after playing Black Isle's latest offering, they are going to have to drag me away, kicking and screaming. It's just that good. Black Isle has once again provided PC gamers with a role-playing title that shows a level of polish and thought far above what most developers could even hope of offering. This game manages to stick to what made the original such an amazing dungeon crawl while carefully addressing any minor gameplay issues.

Read the entire review here.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 21:14 CET by Veldrin

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Power Attack: Power attack 1 - 5 is the amount of attack bonus that gets deducted as an exchange for the damage increase.

Problems Using Feats While Shapechanged: Hey everyone,
Expertise is already known, but was only found after the game went into production, so that'll have to be a patch issue. I'm looking into stunning fist and the other feats right now - so far power attack, envenom weapon, hamstring and arterial strike do work while shapeshifted. Let me know if you guys run into any other wonky stuff.

Replacement Manual: Oh if you're in the US, you can try 800-INTERPLAY as well for that manual.

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

Spell Resistance: What levels are your party members? Early on, SR really doesn't mean a whole lot. However, at higher levels is where it'll really start to kick in (especially if you have a drow monk).

Patch Info: From the patch message:

NOTE: THIS PATCH HAS NOT BEEN THROUGH AN OFFICIAL TESTING CYCLE. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I know people want the stackable bug fix ASAP (along with other bug fixes) but this is a BETA patch. It might work for you. It might not. If you decide to apply the patch, be prepared for something bad to happen 'cause it might.

Since reinstalling the game fixed the issue the origional poster had with the BETA patch, I'd say the issue is resolved. Just wait for an official patch to be released.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

I/O Error: Hmmm, sounds like the disc is bad or has a defect then. You might try cleaning it fairly briskly and / or using that disc fixer I recommended earlier before returning it... :(

Portraits: Well, they do have some conditions:

1) Must be eight characters or less in filename length (that might be the problem?)

2) Must be a Windows bitmap

Actually, that's all it looks like it checks.

Are those bitmaps' names maybe over eight characters in length?

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 16:34 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

The *.BMU Fix: 1.24 was supposed to be a big content patch that included the .bmu change. Some bigger issues that needed to be fixed earlier made it necessary to release the patch early... so the 'big' patch should be 1.25, now (though the schedule for it is exactly the same). Sorry for the confusion.

Waking NPCs Up: RemoveEffect also works. Like any effect, however, you must target it properly... you must use GetFirst/NextEffect to set the pointer to the proper effect and then remove it. There's an example of this in the FAQ up top.

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Neverwinter Nights 1.24 Patch Released
Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:08 CET by Mollusken

BioWare has released the version 1.24 patch for Neverwinter Nights, and it fixes and adds a long list of stuff.

Neverwinter Nights Game

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Server Downtime Report
Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 10:52 CET by Sorcerer

We had a rather nasty server crash yesterday so Sorcerer's Place was down for approximately 4.5 hours. The problem has been eliminated and we suffered no damage, so it's business as usual from now on. Thanks for your patience.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 - 21:39 CET by Veldrin

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

More On Scripts: It wasn't a question of money, but time. It costs just as much money for me to build a player script as it does the scripting for a quest or event. Since the vast majority of players don't use the player scripts, it makes sense for me to spend more time on quest/event stuff.

BTW, there is no 3D support. It isn't included at all.

Yes, the fighter scripts should attack on site. However there is a small... pause after they finish a task you give them and the script can kick in. This pause it's what's allowing enemies to get close. I'm looking to see if we can do something about it.

Which scripts specifically are switching between ranged and melee without making sense? Most of the ranged/melee switching is done based on range to the target. They should switch to range so as to not incure the "firing into melee range" penalty.

BTW, there are no Attacks of Opportunities in IwD2.

AI Frame Rate: There are several things that are affected by the AI framerate (AIf from now on). One of which is "game time." Every creature will start to walk/run faster with a higher AIf. At a setting of 30 AIf, each creature will parse it's script(s) 15 times a second until they find an action to perform (scripts aren't evaluated while an action is in progress). With a higher AIf, spells will be cast more quickly and will wear off more quickly. Basically, everything quickens. The downside to a higher AIf is that the IE will start to "skip" scripting actions. So while it may look like everything is working fine, a global may not get set, or a single action might be skipped. These can cause "time bomb" bugs (bugs which aren't noticable immediately, but only after continued play).

Domain Spells: On the spellbook screen, at the top you should see "Cleric" and to the right of that "Domain". Click the word "Domain" to select your domain spells.

Have you memorized your domain spells?

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Neverwinter Nights Review at Fortean Times
Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 - 17:23 CET by Z-Layrex

Magazine Fortean Times has published a review of Neverwinter Nights in issue #163, as well as posting it on their website. This issue is just out in the UK and should reach American shores by next month.

What makes NWN exciting and which distinguishes it from Morrowind and Dungeon Siege is the unprecedented quality and power of the accompanying editors - precisely the same ones Bioware used to create the official game, including the graphics sets, characters and monsters used in the game. More importantly, Bioware includes a powerful scripting engine with which all game elements – from character scripts to campaign design – can be woven together. On top of that, you can make your game available to others on the Internet and play other peoples’ efforts singly or in teams.

Read the entire article here.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Sunday, September 8, 2002 - 22:28 CET by Veldrin

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

Call Lightning and Static Charge: Call Lightning and Static Charge go off once per turn (10 rounds or 70 seconds).

Upping Performance: Try turning off the option for transparent spell effects (transparent sprites? sorry, I'm at home at the moment) in the config program. The way the IE does transparency is... how do I say this nicely... poopy-in-the-pants.

Does anyone have a non MX nVidia card and have very choppy framerate with spell effects? My guess is that the MX version skimped on memory bandwidth and that's contributing to the framerate loss with spells.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Weak Armor: Strangely enough, I thought that the idea wasn't to make characters invulnerable to all attacks, but to allow their armor to scale at a roughly similar rate to the attack bonuses of the enemies.

Let's assume that by the end of Chapter 6, you can have ACs of 25-30 for your front-line fighters (it's really not that hard to do). A creature with a total attack bonus of +15 or +20 would have a 50% chance to hit you. Considering that all of your warrior PCs almost assuredly have more than +15/+20 total attack bonus and most of the enemies have much worse armor than you, I don't think this is unreasonable at all. If your characters never get hit, hit points really don't have any value.

Dialogue Skills: I requested that the player be shown which dialogue options are the result of bluff/diplomacy/intimidate/etc., but we didn't have time to implement it. Characters definitely do get new options based on those skills.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

CE Soundtrack on Winamp: You can try using the Windows default CDplayer.exe or get Windows Media Player from the Microsoft site. Sorry, but I don't use Winamp so I can't give you specifics with it.

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Preview of Neverwinter Nights (Mac) at Games4mac
Posted Sunday, September 8, 2002 - 14:23 CET by Z-Layrex

The Italian Macintosh gaming site Games4Mac has posted a preview of the upcoming Mac edition of Neverwinter Nights. Unsurprisingly it's all in Italian.

The preview can be read here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Sunday, September 8, 2002 - 13:45 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

Items:

Quote: re: enhancement bonuses. Can the properties which give up to +5 in things therefore be altered to provide up to +10?

Potentiall, yes. There's nothing stopping us from adding in +6 to +10 bonuses, if we wished.

Quote: What do you think about splitting the properties off from the visual effects? This would not seem to create any layering problems.

I'm a bit ambivalent about it, myself. I suppose it could be done, but I can think of a dozen things that would be more relevant. That's just my opinion, tho... I guess I can see how some might use this ability.

Quote: Also, is it possible to have a module properties flag which disables item level restrictions?

I daresay it is. I'm not sure about the value of having ILR-disabling at three different levels, however. Having it exist on the server (and more easily disabled in a SP game) and potentially disabled on a per-item basis should be enough, no?

More:

Quote: For Armor...Drop down box with armor types for figuring AC. Not Linked to look. Can include Mithral and Admantine with whatever bonus' they would give to armor.

Example:
Mithral: spell failure of 5%, wt reduced by 75% +2 to ac

I believe adding a new 'material' property for armor & weapons is something that's slated for a potential expansion. Updating all the existing items, adding the material list and effects as well as the scripting hooks required would be a pretty big job.

Quote: Add spell effects to be linked to an item for events like crits or when item is first equiped / drawn, first used, held etc.. Or emitters or something for cool effects.

I like this one, especially as there are a fair number of items with on-critical effects. Again, however, these are new properties that require more work.

Quote: Allow spells to be linked to items for on hit and whatnot in a non cast spell way. For instance chance to go off if you are hit, chance to go off if you hit something etc...

This could be taken care of with a proper module-level event, but adding new OnHit properties certainly wouldn't hurt. Again, however... new properties = expansion.

Quote: Negative modifiers to be applied to items to reduce required level. Perhaps limit how much an item can be lowered. The above suggestion by weighting how much they reduce is also good.

I'm not sure that weighting wouldn't just be a too-complex solution to the problem, likely resulting in all sorts of problems of its own. Once the scripting hooks are available to fully examine all existing items & their properties, that would be the answer for this kind of customization.

Quote: Add another Potential Lore level to items if a DM wishes. First lore check would give a basic description of the item and allow a person to use item gaining all plus' and minus' without seeing them. Second lore check at a much higher level would show all the bonus' and minus' to the player. Would need 2 description boxes perhaps but not really necessary.

This would first require the change of allowing someone to use a non-identified item, wouldn't it? Not a small task.

Quote: I think as others do that you have a pretty damn good product here and these kinds of things will only make it that much better.

Your ideas are good, certainly, but they belong in an expansion discussion for the most part.

Quote: Another question. Do the level selection of magic power have any bearing on the items level use? I.E. Are items marked godly any different then something marked low? if so how?

My understanding is that the initial level selection of an item simply determines the properties that it is initially assigned when the wizard creates it.

And More:

Quote: What I'll suggest instead (and please bear with me if what I suggest makes no sense...computers are only a hobby...) is that the Item Creator be 'tweaked' such that the 'level' value of the powers listed are adjusted to be correct. That is, Light and Darkness as my earlier Dagger Case example should have their 'level requirement' lowered, and Damage resistence tweaked 'up'. as the arguements presented by A'Kin show. That will help for now...

Damage Resistance I can understand, yes, but I'm not sure what you mean by Light and Darkness having their level requirement lowered. Do you mean in the case of those two spells only? Or spell properties in general? I don't actually think the game differentiates between the spells... it only looks at the level of the spell in question. Maybe it should? We'd be looking at a lot of judgement calls in that case. I'd prefer to put that decision into the hands of the builder... though, once again, certain pre-requisite abilities are needed. Catch-22.

Quote: The other thing, I think one of the best solutions to date is the 'artifact' toggle, that is if the artifact toggle is on, the game would check for a blueprint/resref#: if not found the item would revert to a normal item:

Yes, I like this idea, too... as a toggle that shuts off the ILR for the item, as well. Is 'artifact' really the best name for it, though? The only problem I can forsee with having checks made on an item that is being brought into a game and then having the item revert if certain conditions aren't met is the sheer bug potential in the having the game recognize when the character is first entering the game... as opposed to loading from a saved game or loading a character save.
If the blueprint could be checked for before the character's items are transfered, that would definitely be a solution... I'm not positive that's possible, however. It can certainly be suggested to the team, tho, and we'll see. I suspect it'll be a bugger.

And Even More:

Quote: I have seen a lot of messages in this thread explaining that some things just can't be done unless it is done through the means of an expansion pack. Does this mean Bioware is definately going to make an expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights?

Any talk of an expansion pack is in terms of a potential project only. We tend to always put aside ideas for 'future development', whether it comes to realization in a possible expansion, sequel or even new content developed by the Live Team. Naturally, the work that the Live Team can do is limited, but they're going to be around for the long haul. If we were actually working on an expansion, you have to realize that out of respect to our publisher we could never comment on it, anyway, until some kind of announcement was made.

Guess:

Quote: In Misc. Small is what seems to be an eyeball. It looks like a Cat Eye. Oooo! That could be a Cat's Eye Agate gem. So I create a new "gem".....and I'm limited to the gemstone pictures! I really want to use make a gem but use that Misc. Small picture! Oh well, I'll just make a new Misc. Small, *call* it a Cat's Eye Agate and use the eyeball picture......oops! I can't stack them, even though gems can stack.

I agree on this and have found it incredibly annoying when making my own items. Lack of foresight on this point, perhaps, I don't know. I'll pass the suggestion on (and I can't believe I forgot the first time through)... hopefully it wouldn't be an ordeal to open up like-sized icons to any item type.

Quote: I wanted to incorporate my own version of The Lost Swords, but am currently stymied because if a Mage stumbles across a sword in NWN he can't use it. I don't have any trouble with that if it's a sword from the blacksmith, but WOUNDHEALER the Sword doesn't care. Whoever has it can use its power to heal. FARSLAYER merely has to be held and have a poem recited (ie: "Use" the item) and it does its job...not so in NWN. Can't equip it--can't use it.

"For thy heart,
For thy heart,
which hath wronged me"

I loved the Book of Swords. Very under-rated series, I think. As I mentioned before, the problem with wielding un-trained weapons was the stacking of the -4 hit penalty. If that can be overcome, then allowing someone to weild a weapon untrained really isn't a problem (so long as it is made really obvious to the user that he's getting a penalty).

Quote: As for scripts on items: we need them.

Won't get them. Period. You will get as far as module-level events that are geared towards items, and that's it. I can see it being made a bit easier to add item scripts into the module events in a more friendly fashion (so someone can plug them in one after the other with relative ease), but scripts will never be attached to the items, themselves.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Sunday, September 8, 2002 - 0:58 CET by Veldrin

Chad Nicholas, Scripter

Racism: The reasons only human gods were chosen were:
1) We only had enough time to make so many domains. Technically, we could make as many as we want. Time prevents that from happening.

2) I forgot 2, but it's a good one. I think. Maybe. Hmm...

Expansion: Much like a spoon in the matrix, there is no expansion.

Patch: The patch will be released once we feel like we've got enough of the serious bugs fixed and QA has verified that the patch doesn't cause any more bugs (which is never a good thing ).

Dexterity AC Mod Problem: Is your wild elf under the effect of Fairy Fire or Alicorn Lance? Both of those spells cause a -2 to AC. I'm not sure if other spells do the same thing.

Unable to Control Previously Charmed PC's: Do you have Party AI turned on? If so, what scripts do you have on the characters that are attacking your previously charmed character? Try turning off Party AI ('a' key by default or click the eyes of the old man in the GUI so that they no longer glow) and see if that helps.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Favored Class: If you multiclass, levels in your favored class are ignored for purposes of determining if you have an XP penalty.