September 2003

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 22:51 CET by Sorcerer

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

New Prestige Class - Shifter
Shifters have no form to call their own, instead they change into one of many possible shapes, choosing one that is suitable for their current situation. Shifters are one of the 6 new Prestige Classes included Hordes of the Underdark. Discuss.


Hordes of the Underdark Chat
Last night Neverwinter Stratics hosted a House of Commons chat where several loose-lipped BioWarians discussed the upcoming Hordes of the Underdark expansion with the community. You can *head* over to the chat log here, which is worth a read as it contains many interesting tidbits about Hordes of the Underdark, including several features that have not previously been mentioned! Discuss.

Hordes Spells and Feats!
2 new spells from Hordes of the Underdark have been released to fansites, and will provide a sting your enemies will remember! Additionally, 2 new epic-level feats have been posted up at RPGVault! Discuss.

Post Comments (1)

RPG Roundtable 2, Part 3 at RPG Vault
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:46 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has posted part 3 in its RPG Roundtable feature. This one includes Chris Avellone, Jeff Vogel, Alexander Mishulin, Steve Wartofsky, Kai Rosenkranz and Mike Gallo. Here's a clip:

Chris Avellone
Designer, Obsidian Entertainment
Unannounced project
I tend to agree with the responses that CRPGs have relied too heavily on pen and paper elements, which I think are fine when sitting around a table, but playing a computer role-playing game has an entirely different element about it, and a great many things about pen and paper games just aren't as much fun when you're sitting in front of the monitor. Here's a selection of stats I have grown to hate:

(Note: I would add the Halfling race to the list of stats and classifications I hate below [if it's not a hobbit, then drop it already], but I see where Brent Knowles is coming from, and I'm sure there are plenty of fans out there who would like to play a Frodo archetype as a character. And as a GM, I would love to kill those characters.)

Hit Points
Armor Class
Gold and Gold Pieces (which I would argue is a stat)
Spell Level

Speaking of that last classification, let me rant about spells for a while, since it's tangentially related to character development - basically, almost every spell system I have encountered in an RPG has done wonders for sucking all the mystery and enjoyment out of magic. Each one of them is basically "here's how much damage it does, and here's the type of damage it does." Maybe, in an exciting twist, the spell paralyzes the opponent for a while. Or stuns them. But everybody knows what a Fireball spell does now, and instead of being a source of wonder, it is now officially a dirty old whore of a spell.

See it all here.

Post Comments (0)

D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Journal #7 at RPG Vault
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:23 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has posted its 7th D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Journal. In this edition, Tim Cain talks about some cool features that made it into the game. Here's a clip:

Monk Attack Animations
Monks in the Temple of Elemental Evil have special attack animations. When they are in combat, their hand to hand attacks are more than simple punches or kicks. Instead, they perform hammer kicks and roundhouse kicks, and they even have a special animation for a critical hit. Outside of combat, monks have special fidget animations, where if they stand in one spot for long enough, they begin to practice their hand to hand combat maneuvers.

While these extra animations are eye candy, they do make the monk class feel unique, and they call attention to the fact that a monk's hand to hand attacks are different than any other class. I found that after these animations were added, I always included at least one monk in my party, just to watch the special animations.

Read the rest here.

Post Comments (0)

D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Chat Log at RPG Codex
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:12 CET by Veldrin

RPG Codex has posted a log of their chat with the people at Troika about D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

[Exitium] [Arcana] Question: If there is to be a patch...when can we expect an acknowledgement of what will and wont' be fixed/changed

[TimCain] We are planning for a patch that will not invalidate save games - rule #1
[[Troika]Steve] I know locally at Troika we've made changes to the codebase and fixed bugs, there was infact a build made after the gold build that Atari chose not to go with, and we continue to work on things when we have time.
[[Troika]Tom] I hope we can make an official (or unofficial) announcement by next week
[[troika]hnguyen] as i've written earlier on the forums, everyone who is helping to report bugs and link savegames really helps A LOT!
[TimCain] Atari has not told us whether or not they want to pay for a patch, so we will have to see what we can do on our own time
* TimCain says "Done"

See the rest here.

Post Comments (0)

2 New Hordes of the Underdark Spells
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:55 CET by Sorcerer

This week BioWare has been especially generous, handing out 2 new Hordes of the Underdark spells to fansites:

Mestil's Acid Sheath

Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 5
Innate Level: 5
School: Conjuration
Descriptor(s): Acid
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Personal
Area of Effect / Target: Caster
Duration: 1 round / level
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: No
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates an acid shield around your person. Any creature striking you with its body does normal damage, but at the same time the attacker takes 1d6 points +2 points per caster level of acid damage.

Healing Sting

Caster Level(s): Druid 3
Innate Level: 3
School: Necromancy
Descriptor(s): Negative
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Touch
Area of Effect / Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You inflict 1d6 +1 point per level of damage to the living creature touched and gain an equal amount of hit points. You may not gain more hit points then your maximum with the Healing Sting.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:43 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Heartbeat: Usually this happens when you assign to actions to a creature using a heartbeat script. heartbeat runs each 6 seconds, adding another action to the list of actions the creature has to perform. If these actions take longer than 6 seconds (like ActionMoveTo) or even infinite time (ActionRandomWalk), the list gets more and more actions added and will overflow at some point. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to run ClearAllActions(); before assigning any new actions on heartbeat.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: The Succubus model already has the wing nodes required for wingage. I would imagine that Bioware will update the standard models, but if not, it was stated that adding wings is as simple as checking the 'has wings' box in the toolset.

Yes, the succubus already has the wing nodes required to to put wings on it... so you will be able to put the demon wings on her that were originally intended. Just to note that we did not go through and add wing nodes to all existing models... only the PC races have had them added to this point (maybe kobolds, now, too... can't remember), though that in itself has opened up a lot of possibilities from a design standpoint (avariel and celestials pop immediately to mind, for instance).

Quote: Will you be changing the default succubus to have wings so that when we summon them, they look right?

You mean go back and change the succubus currently in the toolset? I don't think so, but it's possible. There's nothing wrong with a wingless succubus, per se, the fact that her model has the wing nodes is one of circumstance.

Post Comments (0)

Hordes of the Underdark Chat Log at NWN Stratics
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:37 CET by Veldrin

NWN Stratics have posted a log of their chat with BioWare about Hordes of the Underdark. Here's a clip:

Question from *RAFSoft*
what is Hordes of the Underdark about?

BioWare Response
BioDarcy
The story of Hordes of the Underdark is about an uprising of Drow into the city of Waterdeep. The player is hired to find out what the Drow are doing, and to stop them any way they can.

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at Gamespot
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 22:05 CET by Veldrin

Another big review for D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil can be seen at Gamespot, where they gave the game a score of 7.9/10. Here's a clip:

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a single-player-only adventure with a straightforward premise that's mostly an excuse to put you through a lengthy, diverse dungeon crawl. This isn't an epic-scale adventure--most of the game takes place in the titular temple (though, at the beginning, you explore the countryside until you find it), though the temple is a sufficiently huge, multistory affair. Initially, you create a party of up to five characters (or you may choose from pregenerated characters), who begin as neophyte first-level adventurers and can eventually grow to 10th level, which isn't as high up there as some other recent D&D games have allowed you to get. Make no mistake, this is no flaw--Dungeons & Dragons is probably most well balanced, tense, and exciting at the earlier levels, so this game's focus on relatively low-level adventuring leads to many nail-biting battles in which you must take great care to keep your party out of harm's way as best you can. Indeed, starting out, your party is vulnerable even to common thugs, though later on, you'll start to feel quite powerful as your fighters gain multiple attacks per round, your healers become much more useful, and your mages learn to cast damaging area-of-effect spells.

See it all here.

Post Comments (0)

D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at IGN.com
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 21:57 CET by Veldrin

IGN.com has posted its review of D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil, and gave it a final score of 7.5/10. Here's a clip:

In an interesting twist, you begin the game by choosing a general alignment for your entire party, and depending on your party's alignment, you can only choose characters appropriate for that group. For example, a true and just Paladin won't group with an assemblage looking to loot and pillage everyone in sight, and an evil half-orc barbarian wants nothing to do with a group of goodie two-shoes looking to plant daisies and save the world.

Read the rest here.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 21:42 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Hail Of Arrows: HoA does NOT work with sneak attack, and that is intentional. There are a few issues with HoA being less powerful than it should be (i.e. the piercing damage not bypassing damage reduction), and these will get addressed in a future patch.

Rings: Won't change. You can only wear 2 magical rings in DnD by the book. As a sidenote, all items now require that they are equipped to use their power (if applicable, meaning if the item can be equipped into a slot).

Weapon Master: Confirmed. The "special" weapon of a weapon master must be a melee weapon.

Attacks: Given that certain classes, i.e. the Weapon master, will have a very high chance to score a critical in combat and will have *a lot* attacks in epic levels, I don't think this would be good idea, you would definitly get dizzy when you cleave through a horde of kobolds.

Quote: I think Georg is refering to whirlwind attack and its mysterious improved version.

Not to forget that you have *a lot of attacks* around level 20 anyway.

David Gaider, Designer

Serpents: Seeing as serpentine creatures would require a whole new set of animations, it'd require a fair amount of work. If and when we ever sat down and did the first serpentine creature, then you'd likely see us filling in a few of the other similar types as well at the same time. That's not happening in HotU, however, as much as I wouldn't mind having Nagas. As for demons and the rest, they don't get any more special consideration than other creatures. We don't approach which monsters we are going to work on by what monster types need "filling in", per se. We look at what is being asked for by the community, what fits into our campaign and the expansion as a whole and how much work the creatures would be to implement.

Quote: Just a question but, if you couldn't do oozes and serpentine creature in hordes, then how did you do the Illithid tentacles? Do they move around, or are they just motionless? Au Revoir.

It's not that we couldn't do oozes and serpentine creatures... like cloaks, it's just that we didn't. Illithid tentacles and beholder eyestalks use skinmeshes, which got added into NWN really late for dragon wings but haven't been used for actual creatures until now (though some community creatures, like CODI's manticor, use it to good effect). Works great, and yes... the tentacles and eyestalks to slither about independently without the use of jigglymesh.

Post Comments (0)

SP Happenings #16
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 16:20 CET by Sorcerer

Tomorrow I'll be starting with the conversion of the existing SP content to the new design. Considering this latest version of the design is structured completely differently (though it will look the same to the end user) than the previous version, I don't even have a vague estimate on how long the conversion will take. I'll have more details on that next week.

Depending on the time necessary for the conversion, another site update might go up before the new design does, but again, I won't know for sure till next week.

There have been quite a few complaints lately over the pop-ups that display on SP and our hosted sites RPG Codex and WeiDU.org. I am very much distressed and angered by the occasional appearance of invasive pop-ups, and determined to change our pop-up advertising provider as soon as possible, since they have no intention of stopping slipping in offensive ads. Unfortunately due to the inflexibility of the current design this will not be possible on SP until the new design goes up, but I will try to come up with an alternative for our hosted sites sooner.

Although pop-ups are a necessary evil for the survival of SP, I would never willingly allow anything even remotely invasive to be displayed on SP as long as I can help it. The problem is that finding an honest pop-up provider today is a formidable task indeed, so it's quite possible you'll be reading about it here again in the near future...

In other news, a position on the SP news team is still open (ToEE forum news coverage), so if you are interested in doing it, please check the sticky in the Sorcerous Sundries forum on our boards.

Post Comments (0)

D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at Games Domain
Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 - 23:18 CET by Veldrin

Games Domain has posted a review of Troika's recently released game, D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil. They gave it a final score of 3.5 out of 5. Here's a clip:

Compared to the Infinity Engine RPGs, and even to Neverwinter Nights, there's not a lot of plot to Elemental Evil. Long ago, a war between the evil forces of a temple near the village of Hommlet and the good armies of the lands nearby ended when the temple's masters were imprisoned. The temple fell into disrepair, and all was quiet for years. But now bandits are roaming the roads around Hommlet, and forces are starting to converge on the temple. This is where your party comes in, tasked with destroying this ancient evil.

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 - 23:04 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Bebilith: Since most players would definitly restore to a savegame when their favourite armor is destroyed (and the chance for this happening is quite high), the bebilith does not destroy the armor when it hits a player, but tears it away from your chest armor slot (unequipping it), and since you can not reequip it in combat, thats pretty bad already. If the module builder/dm wants to change to a more rules compliant version of that special ability, he/she can set a variable on the module, allowing the bebilith to actually destroy armor on hit. I think that solution should please both the hardcore rules fanatics and the casual players.

Touch Attacks: There have been changes to touch attacks, they were broken in different ways. In general they seem to be much more formidable now, some monsters are quite tough now as they actually hit you much better with them

ILR: You know, there are a lot of different opinions on ILR, some people find it too restrictive, others would like it even more restrictive. In the end it all boils down to that ILR is a tool that was designed to keep multiplayer fair, but it has a cost associated with it: it limits design choices. Plus, every time we touch IRL we would risk invalidating characters already created...Your above definition of "fixing" reveals the conflict that is out there aber ILR pretty much. Bottomline: Don't expect major changes in ILR for Hordes.

Epic Feats: Also, do not forget that there are the Great "insert ability score here" Feats that have already been announced. Since Spell Save DC in DnD is dependent on your caster's primary ability score, getting those feats will help you to increase the DC of the spells cast by you. Plus, Save DC vs Epic spells works different anyway.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

ILR: ILR is being left out just so the designers do not have to worry about creating funky cool items for player and then finding out they cannot use them for a few hours. ILR was put into place in the original game as a concern for people cheating. However we have found that the community deals with cheaters much better then we thought so we no longer see the need to keep it.

Henchman Control: Here are some reasons full henchmen interaction will not happen in NWN:
1 - NWN was partly designed for on-line play with a party of your friends.
2 - NWN was designed to have a quicker pace then our older RPG's

If we had included fully controllable henchmen, then we would have also needed to include the pause feature so players could take control of their party and set actions. If this went to an online game then we would be faced with either allowing players to pause the on-line game and forcing other players to wait for them, or not allow a player to control their party and get most of them killed as no AI routines can take into account all the possible situations in an on-line RPG. As we learn more about what people want to do with their henchmen we try to include it if it’s cost effective. The feedback we receive from the community does work its way into the game in some form or another.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: - Like locks, henchmen should be told whether to help with traps.

This option is being added to the henchman dialogues in HotU. Incidentally, you'll also be able to tell your familiars/animal companions not to bash locked stuff if you don't want them to.

Quote: Isn't there some way to automatically set the henchmen to switch from ranged to melee weapons when they're in close combat?

We were working on this prior to SoU's release, but the decisions the henchman would make as to which melee weapon to use were kind of wonky if there was more than one in inventory... most of the testers preferred to use the inventory management system to manually tell their henchmen which weapon to use, so in the end we disabled it. It might get worked on some more prior to HotU, but seeing as manual control is available it might not.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 16:48 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Polymorph: There is a column in polymorph.2da which has the resref of the item the character is going to equip in his right hand after polymorphing. If you just want to change the spell, I would suggest using a correctly padded 2da file, add a new entry basically copying the line of the doom knight and make your changes. You then use the line number of your new polymorph.2da entry as parameter for effect polymorph, so if your new doomknight was in line 320, you would change nw_s0_tenstrans to read:

EffectPolymorph(320) instead of EffectPolymorph (POLYMORPH_TYPE_DOOMKNIGHT)

After those changes you need to put the modified polymorph.2da into a hakpak and associate it with your module.

Disintegrate: You know, disintegrate always has the bad bad side effect of destroying any loot on the creature as well. And, no, there is no disintegrate spell for mages, sorry, but the beholders want to retain a monopoly on that ability

Beam Effects: There are limitations on how you can use the beams, imposed by the graphics engine:

* Your character needs to be able to see origin and destination of the beam at the time the beam is created

* Leaving the current area can result in beams not being drawn correctly when you come back

The solution to get stable beams is to apply them between invisible objects and "reset" the scene when a player comes back by destroying and recreating those invisible objects.

More:
The original purpose for beams were spells, and for that purpose they are working correctly. You can use them for many other purposes, but it requires some tricks to work around the unwanted behavior of the graphics engine in their case. You can find some more information on that topic on the Scripting Board, the short answer to your above question is:

Yes, we are aware of the problems you experience when using beams in a fashion they were not designed for in the first place, and no, these limitations are not likely to change anytime soon.

Scripting: There is a reason why those commands are not in yet. Functions that change Attributes, Feats, spells or skills would collide with the ELC system, allowing a scripter to make changes to a players character that would render the character "invalid" with ELC servers or even lock him out from his own server. Some of them (SetName) are not possible to add without major code changes, and thus are unlikely to happen. Others are being considered and one has even been added in the Hordes Scripting language, but has been found less useful than it might appear on the first glance, because of xisting engine constraints. You can work around some limitations with existing means(i.e. by granting feats through creature items using the dynamic item property system added in hordes). This does not mean that the Live Team won't consider adding those functions at some point however...Hope this sheds some light into that issue...

Local Vaults: If you run a local vault server, there is a full fledged selection of scripting commands to Examine, Add and Remove item properties and On(Un)Equip event handler which can be used to script your own Item Level Restrictions. Combined with the already existing scripting commands (i.e. GetItemGoldPieceValue), you can create pretty advanced systems for controlling item properties (i.e. automatically downgrading item properties to less powerful version, adding negative properties to balance positive ones...), all that without requiring a hakpak.

Quote: Quote: However (there allways is a however right?) There could be a Localint or a simple Item script that allows players to equip things over lvl 20 with no Penaltys of the server, if scripted correctly for a RP server right?

If the server is running a server vault (like most RP servers), you are not in trouble, because you are in control which items enter and exit your world, and if you wanted you could store a "level" for each item you create on your server and use the OnEquip scripting handler to verify if a player is allowed to equip an item of that level. You can even dynamically alter a weapons bonus when it is equipped, so it is downgraded to i.e. +3 if a player below a certain level equips it.

Post Comments (0)

Shadows of Undrentide Review at PC Arena
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 18:56 CET by Veldrin

PC Arena has reviewed Shadows of Undrentide and gave it a final score of 3/5. Here's what they had to say:

Even with all of these improvements, there is a downside to Shadows of Undrentide. SoU's gameplay can be summed up in four words: "More of the same." Also, several problems ruin the game experience. These include: a slow-moving storyline, numerous bugs, and a lack of ability to actually make decisions as a player. On the single-player level, SoU suffers from most of the same weaknesses that plagued NWN, and for most of the same reasons, fails to compel. For example, poor AI pathfinding and performance issues still detract from the game experience. Despite having a slightly more interesting plot, SoU still offers a mostly linear experience without the ability to truly determine the character's destiny. Core gameplay is very much the same as it was in the original. The quest even starts out in much the same way, with an attempt to retrieve some stolen items. Sadly, by the end of the first chapter most of the excitement and intrigue have worn off and the quest turns into a battle to stay awake. A good role-playing game should become more and more compelling as the plot thickens, but in this game we found just the opposite to be the case.

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

Hordes of the Underdark Chat at NWN Stratics
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 18:03 CET by Veldrin

NWN Stratics will be hosting a chat with BioWare about Hordes of the Underdark, the second expansion pack to Neverwinter Nights. The chat will be held at irc.stratics.com in #nwnhoc on September 23rd at 8:00 PM US/Eastern.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 17:52 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Class Limit: Three classes are max, adding another class was no option because it would have required a complete overhaul of the GUI as well as many many other aspects in the game. I doubt we will ever see the ability to take more than 3 classes in NWN.

IRL: There are no plans to change IRL. In theory, you can make items that give you almost complete invulnerability in epic levels, its up to the server operator to allow them or not. Given the new scripting powers for dealing with item properties, I don't see a problem with that.

Plus, you can now use the OnEquip/OnUnequip handlers to script your own item restrictions. All items that can be equipped require to be equipped to use their special powers in HotU.

Epic Spells: You don't need to win a check for these spells in Hordes, you need, however, a certain number of ranks in spellcraft to get them.

Expertise: Expertise is a "offensive" combat feat

David Gaider, Designer

SetFogDistance: Actually, for those who like to keep track of such things: it was asked a while back by some members of the community if a "setfogdistance" property could be set as an area property instead of being solely adjustable client-side. I don't know the details of it's use, but I'll say this: it is now in.

Post Comments (0)

Atari Doing Well
Posted Friday, September 19, 2003 - 21:30 CET by Sorcerer

We just received the following press release from Atari, which indicates that they are doing very well indeed:

ATARI SETS TERMS OF $200 MILLION RECAPITALIZATION AND PRICES STOCK OFFERING

-- All Long-Term Debt Eliminated --
-- Net Proceeds of $35 Million --

New York, New York, September 18, 2003 -- Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) announced that it has set the terms of its $200 million recapitalization through the issuance of new shares priced at $4.25 under an agreement with its majority shareholder, Infogrames Entertainment, SA (IESA) and a previously announced public offering. Per this agreement, Atari will issue 39.03 million shares of its common stock, valued at $4.25 per share, to IESA, in satisfaction of $165.88 million net balance of Atari's indebtedness to IESA, of which IESA is selling 17.18 million shares at $4.25 per share in the public offering. Atari also is selling 9.82 million new shares of its common stock in the public offering at $4.25 per share, generating net proceeds of $35 million. UBS Securities LLC is acting as sole bookrunner, and Harris Nesbitt Gerard, Inc. and SoundView Technology Group are acting as co-managers.

Upon completion of the public offering and these recapitalization transactions, Atari will have eliminated all of its long-term debt, and IESA's ownership stake in Atari will be reduced to 71% from approximately 88%. IESA has granted the underwriters an option to purchase 4.05 million shares to cover over-allotments at the same price of $4.25 per share.

Bruno Bonnell, Chairman and CEO of Atari, Inc. said, "The response to this offering marks the beginning of a new chapter for Atari. After having restructured our operations and having doubled our U.S. market share in the past two years, we now emerge with a stronger balance sheet and a larger public float. Atari is now a profitable company with no long-term debt and a much stronger cash position to face the challenges of the future."
A final prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from UBS Securities LLC, 299 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10171-0026; Harris Nesbitt Gerard, Inc., 360 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017; and SoundView Technology Group, 1700 East Putnam Avenue, Old Greenwich, CT 06870-1333.

About Atari
New York-based Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The Company's 1,000+ titles include hard-core, genre-defining games such as Driver, Enter the Matrix, Neverwinter Nights, Stuntman, Test Drive, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Unreal Championship; and mass-market and children's games such as Backyard Sports, Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, Civilization, Dragon Ball Z and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Atari, Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext 5257), the largest interactive games publisher in Europe. For more information, visit www.atari.com.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release includes forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual events may differ materially from what is described in this press release. Factors that could cause actual events to differ materially include, but are not limited to, failure of the proposed public offering to take place, either because of factors relating to Atari or because of negative market conditions.
# # #

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 20:40 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Psionics: As Torias said, Mindflayers are in the standard Monster Manual, so why not use them. Psionics won't be in the NWN Engine, you should get over it...

Rings: Won't change. You can only wear 2 magical rings in DnD by the book. As a sidenote, all items now require that they are equipped to use their power (if applicable, meaning if the item can be equipped into a slot).

Intimidate: intimidate is in

Weapon Master: I think Blinding Speed is also on the Weapon Master's list now, it was just added very recently.

Camera: In hordes the camera will stop at the standard view if you pan it down. If you press the down key again, it will continue "unlocked".

Quote: ok, Im assuming that if Psionics are done through the spell system then it's a new spell type power and not a variation on Charm Person. Wrong?

Yes, they are handled as "Special Monster Ability", just like gaze attacks, etc. The "AltMessage" is not "Monster casts unknown spell" but "Monster uses psionic atttack". For some of abilitites SR or Spell Immunity does not apply, because they are treated as "special abilities"

Quote: Coolness. Im going to guess that you can then give that power to other monsters?

Sure.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.32: Due to some more localization delays, the 1.32 Update has be rescheduled to be released on Monday, September 22nd. Sorry for the delay.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Unlocked Camera: Actually, in Hordes, the camera is unlocked by default. Also, to use the unlocked camera in the current game, just do this:
Hit the Shift + ` key to bring up the console. Type in "unlockcamera 1" and you're done!

Weapon Master: Well, it does take a fair number of levels to get to Weapon Master... probably the most out of any of the PrCs in Hordes (don't quote me on that, though--I haven't done any real research into the subject)... cool class, though. My current character is one (though I built him horribly... 10 Ranger / 4 Fighter / 1 Weapon Master... so sue me, I suck at making useful characters)

Post Comments (0)

Temple of Elemental Evil In-House Interview
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 19:46 CET by Veldrin

Tim Cain has answered some questions about the recently released D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil at the official site. Here's a clip:

Does the Level 10 cap in Temple of Elemental Evil allow for future expansions of the game? What was behind the decision to make the cap at Level 10?

Tim Cain: The original ToEE module was for characters of levels 1-8, so without making major changes to the module, we kept the original level ranges. Characters higher than level 10, especially those with access to 6th level spells, would be way too powerful for the module. We do plan to increase the level cap in a sequel.

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 14:31 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Are you going to buy The Temple of Elemental Evil?
(291 votes total)

Yes, definitely (170) 58%
Maybe, not sure yet (104) 36%
No, never (17) 6%

Quite a nice majority of poll participants (58%) are determined to buy The Temple of Elemental evil no matter what.

36% are a bit more indecisive, having voted that they might buy the game, but that they aren't sure yet. This group of people will most likely decide based on the reviews of the game.

Finally, only 6% of those who voted are dead set on never buying ToEE for some reason.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 21:43 CET by Sorcerer

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

Weapon Master
The Hordes of the Underdark Prestige Class featured this week is the Weapon Master, for whom perfection is found in the mastery of a single melee weapon. Additionally, a new Hordes spell has been released to fan sites - check the news post below, and a new feat has been posted up at RPG Vault! Discuss.

New Site Feature - SoU Modules Online!
In addition to showing the number of players currently playing Neverwinter Nights online, the percentage of those people playing modules made with Shadows of Undrentide content is now displayed on the NWN sites as well (located in the "NWN Site Status" side panel). If you don't already have Shadows of Undrentide, be sure to pick it up to join the online action, and stayed tuned for Hordes of the Underdark! Discuss.

Post Comments (0)

GameSpy's 25 Most Overrated Games
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 20:04 CET by Veldrin

GameSpy has posted a partial list of their 25 Most Overrated Games. So far, the list includes Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor and Neverwinter Nights. Here's a clip from Pool of Radiance:

Unfortunately, the actual release was a disaster. First there was the technical issue of killer bugs -- including one, it was reported, that could erase a user's hard drive. Yet, even when the game was patched, it turned out that the updating of Pool of Radiance was a barely passable dungeon crawl filled with uninspired monsters, a boring, linear storyline, and a very bad implementation of the D&D 3.0 rule set. Sometimes the past should stay in the past.

You can see Pool of Radiance here, and Neverwinter Nights here.

Post Comments (0)

Greyhawk Chat at RPGCodex
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 19:51 CET by Veldrin

RPGCodex will be hosting a chat with Tim Cain and five assorted other Troika folks about The Temple of Elemental Evil and the future. The chat will take place on Tuesday, September 23rd at 8PM EST on Gamesnet (irc.gamesnet.net) in #RPGCodex.

Post Comments (0)

BioWare Unveils Another HotU Spell
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 19:40 CET by Sorcerer

Here is this week's new Hordes of the Underdark spell:

Ball Lightning

Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 5
Innate Level: 5
School: Evocation
Descriptor(s): Electricity
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Medium
Area of Effect / Target: Single
Duration: Instantaneous
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: Reflex 1/2
Spell Resistance: Yes

You create a ball of lightning that strikes your target. The damage of the ball is 1d6 per level to a maximum of 15d6.

Post Comments (0)

Obsidian Entertainment Interview at HomeLan Fed
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 23:39 CET by Veldrin

HomeLan Fed has posted an interview with Feargus Urquhart of Obsidian Entertainment. They talk about why he left Black Isle and about starting his own company. Here's a clip:

HomeLAN - Why did you wish to start your own gaming development company?

Feargus Urquhart - The part of my job that I have always enjoyed a great deal was running internally developed projects. Before I went into games, I was getting my engineering degree at the University of California at San Diego, so I have a fairly technical background. What lead me to engineering was my love for how things were put together and how to make them either more efficient or do new and interesting things. So when it comes to games, I really like to be involved in the nuts and bolts of projects and work with everyone on how to get everything running smoothly

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 22:20 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Resting on HotU: There will be some kind of resting penalty, i.e. wandering monsters disturbing your sleep if you rest carelessly in a dangerous place like the underdark. There will be no food, sleep, etc system, because we do not think it is fun for the vast majority of players simulating mundane needs in an epic/heroic adventure.

Quote: Wanted to get a quick confirmation here. Are the dynamic properties and static properties two separate entities? Basically, you can't use the dynamic functions to remove a Toolset defined property? (i.e. Turning a +1 Sword into a regular one by removing it's enhancement bonus) And also does this mean that dynamic properties won't show up at all in the item description like the static properties summary? Or can we choose whether it would show up or not?

There are no "dynamic" item properties as opposed to "static" ones. Hordes of the Underdark will add the ability to dynamically add "item properties" during runtime. However these item properties are exactly the same as in the toolset, when applied with permanent duration. When added as temporary properties (something you can not do in the toolset), they go away after the duration runs out or the game ends. When added as permanent properties, it is exactly the same as when you would added.

Permanent and Temporary item properties can be removed using the RemoveItemProperty command. They can not be removed temporary, you need to script around that. The name of an item is not modified by changing its item properties. Temporary item properties do not add to cost, they appear as blue colored text in the examination window and disappear once you leave the game. No plans to include functions that mess around with any core statistics of a character (skills, feats, attribute scores).

No differences, No anonymous flag. It does not matter if you add item properties via toolset or scripting language, the result it the same.

You can apply an existing ItemProperty property via the scripting language, it does not. If your question was if there are plans to include more negative properties than the ones currently existing, the answer is no. SetName is not going to happen. Period. There will be GetFirstItemProperty, GetNextItemProperty, GetItemPropertyType (returning an ITEMP_PROPERY_* constant) as well as an GetItemPropertySubType function.

Quote: I am unsure how PrCs will work with epic levels. Will an Assassin (for example) still be capped at 10 levels? This could make a big difference because of things like the DC of Death Attacks. Even more so things like the classes with summoning abilities.... a blackguard's 'Summon Fiend' is great at lvl 9, but not worth taking into battle against monsters out there to kill lvl 40s. Im curious.

Any prestige class that can reach level 10 can go into epic levels (11+) in Hordes. However, to get past level 10 in a prestige class, your overall character level has to be at least 20. The Harper scout is an example for a class that reaches only level 5 by the book, because of that, can not reach epic levels (in that class)

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.32: The 1.32 Update is entering its final testing stage. To account for this and for organizing a simultaneous release for non-English languages, we are going to schedule the 1.32 Update to be released on Thursday morning, September 18th. While this seems like a delay it is only one such that we can have the release at the same time for all languages.

Quote: I'd think the english servers are the majority of the servers running 24/7, wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have the patch as soon as it's available?

And that is what exactly causes the non-English owners of NWN to start screaming. Its what we have done in the past and been taken to task for. In a certain sense, you already have the 1.32 Update and nothing is really changing from the Beta to final in this case.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: If I'm level one, and my sword is dynamically imbued with a +3 power, temporarily, and the ELC settings are enabled (meaning that I can't use certain level restrictive items), will my character unequip the sword because he's not a high enough level to use it?

I believe minimum level restrictions for items are only changed by permanent properties. And if the item's ELC did change, I suspect that the item would not be unequipped... though if you ever did unequip it you likely would not be able to re-equip it.

Quote: So if there are any cursed items in HotU, they will blatently advertise their ability curses under their examination window? (Once activated at the OnEquip event of course!)

Okay, I've posted this elsewhere, but let me try again. There IS a "cursed" flag that can be set on an item. This will mean that the item cannot be removed from inventory... it cannot be dropped or given to someone else. Also handy for giving henchmen equipment you don't want them to give up. There IS NOT an "anonymous" flag for any properties. When I mentioned this, way back, it was regarding the fact that scriptable item functions (via OnEquip/OnUnEquip and OnHit:UniqueSpell) would work well for cursed items because these scripted functions would not appear on the list of item's properties when examined. That's all. If you give the item properties in the toolset or add them by scripting, they are still visible on examine.

Quote: This last bit is unclear. Does it goes like this :

- a permanent effect would appear in the description

- a temporary effect would not appear in the description

Is this correct?

No, that is incorrect. Both permanent and temporary item properties appear in the description of an item. What does NOT appear are scripted functions. So if I add an item property to an item (say I add Enchantment +1), that would show up on the item when it is examined, whether that enchantment is temporary or permanent. If I add a script to the module's OnEquip function that, say, causes anyone with a Strength of less that 15 to immediately unequip and drop the sword... that would NOT appear on the on the item's description. If I add an OnHit:UniqueSpell function to the sword that causes anyone hit to make a Fortitude save or I apply a poison effect to them, that effect also would NOT appear on the item's description... although the fact that there is an OnHit:UniqueSpell item property WOULD appear because it must be added to the item. You just wouldn't know what that UniqueSpell did.

Post Comments (0)

GameSpy Reviews Temple of Elemental Evil
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 19:11 CET by Sorcerer

The first review of ToEE is out, and the verdict is 4 out of 5 stars. Here's a snip of what GameSpy had to say about it:

Fans of other computer RPGs should be able to slip into ToEE quite easily. At a glance, it appears as your standard isometric view game where you control a party of adventurers and guide them through towns, woodlands, and -- of course -- dungeons. Think Baldur's Gate and you're not too far off the mark. The game lets you start by picking from pre-generated characters or creating your own band of up to five adventurers. Either way, your characters start as bumbling novices and spend the rest of the game progressing through up to ten levels of skill.

Like with other facets of the game, the options you have in creating your party are mind-bogglingly numerous. I happily spent 30 minutes creating my party. The game's adherence to the 3.5 rule set means you get to roll abilities, pick a profession, assign skill points, choose special powers ("feats"), pick spells, and even customize your own appearance.

Read the rest here.

Post Comments (0)

SP Happenings #15
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 18:55 CET by Sorcerer

Some good news is one the menu for this week's Happenings. The new SP design and adless subscription system is finally complete (thanks to Catbert), tested, and ready for implementation as soon as I can fully dedicate myself to it (hopefully by the middle of next week). I should be getting the samples of the SP merchandise in a week or two (first reports say the items looks great!), so that project is nearing completion as well.

This week a new Temple of Elemental Evil forum news poster by the name of Elessar should start posting, and hopefully he'll prove capable of taking over Gopher's front page job.

As far as the next site update is concerned, I can't really give out any predictions for it yet. If I get many submissions which would require putting them online right away, I might do another site update before I actually start implementing the new design. However, if not, I'll rather try to get the new design up as soon as possible.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 - 20:55 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Skills: A few things:

Skills never get removed, only added, so even if we would do the Intimidate/Bluff thing, Persuade would stay. We are exploring other skills as well. Any time we add skills to the game, you have a greater freedom in customizing your character, but you are also forced to specialize a bit more, because there are more skills you can distribute your points in, thats just how it works

Spellcasters In HotU: There are options for spellcasters to protect themselves at epic levels. Spells do not change however, unless their description says they scale). Of course there are monsters that are more of a problem to spellcaster (i.e. Golems) and monsters that are more a problem to Fighers (i.e. Bebilith).

FAQ Update: On that matter:

- System requirements are usually discussed late in the development cycle, for obvious reasons. HotU requirements are not finalized yet, but it won't be a GF4.

- It was surely ok to post it here, after all its one purpose of this board to ask us those questions

- If someone claims that a game requires a GF4, I, as an avid gamer, would not believe it. You usually can not affort to loose more than approx 60%-70% of all gamers out there running a card lower than GF4 by making a game require it, especially in the case of NWN which had fairly low requirements.

David Gaider, Designer

Drow Whip: The drow tentacle rod is drow-specific, not Greyhawk-specific. And as I recall, it's technically a form of whip.

Quote: Quote: My hope: An automated message will appear for the player telling them that an item property has been removed (or added). If left to the module designer, they might just be lazy (or downright mean) and not give any such warning. Thus, I hope the game engine will give you such a warning itself.

The engine will not do that. Any such item scanning is done entirely by script. Ideally an open server would post its item policies before-hand, but that's a matter of etiquette.

Quote: Is the gnome hammer included?

No, the gnome hook hammer is not included. Begin kvetching.

Quote: If you're talking about familiars,then i would certainly like to see the frog.Not that i like frogs,but it gives +2 to Constitution

Exactly the reason not to include the frog. Whenever one of my players (which always seems to be a gnome wizard with maxed-out Con, somehow) takes that stupid frog familiar (sheepishly asking me if it's okay) I always reach across the table and smack them in the head. On the good news front, I believe there is at least one new familiar being added in HotU. I'm not in on that process, however, so you'll have to wait for official news on it.

Quote: Does this mean that you can remove it permanent so if the character is exported the properties removed from the items will be missing even in a new server?

Yes.

Quote: Does it also mean you will be able to cycle through an items properties and catching the ones you want to remove.

Yes.

Quote: Also, I hope you can remove properties added directly to the item (not through dynamic properties).

Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean you hope properties that were added via the toolset can be removed as well as ones added via scripting, then yes.

Quote: Actually I think this dynamic item property might give the local servers a up-swing. You will actually be able to play on a local server without fear of uber items.

This is part of the idea. The DM's and servers need the scripting hooks into item properties so they can actively monitor the true abilities of any items coming into their game... and now they will get them. I imagine there will be a fair number of "item scanning" scripts available not long after release.

Quote: The only fear of this I have is that people will play on a server that restricts some item abilities, so it removes them from the player's item(s). The player doesn't realze this, and saves his/her character when they're done. Next time they play they might be in for a rude awakening...

There is nothing to stop the player from making the item in the toolset again and giving it to their character, is there? It would amount to a minor annoyance at best.

Post Comments (0)

Temple of Elemental Evil Forum Highlights
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 - 20:48 CET by Gopher

Here are recent Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Huy Nguyen, Magic and Interface

Quote: Man I need a Dragonlance series of games... that's special!

i picked up the new (?) Dragonlance D20 sourcebook the other day! i didn't even know it was coming out, so it was kind of pleasant surprise. :D ...haven't really had a chance to go thru it but i hope it's good. i sincerely hope they aren't assuming campaigns to be played in that dumb "Age of Mortals" thing...

How does spontantious casting work?

while the radial menu is open, holding down the SHIFT key will "transform" all spells to their appropriate spontaneous version (if possible - i.e. you can't spontaneous domain spells).

Quote: Can NPC followers loot corpses, and how much?

i'm quickly skimming the thread, so forgive me if i missed anything, but yes NPC's that loot may loot heavy items, bringing them into worse encumbrance states. to get them to remove items that you as a PC do not have access to, one option is to take them to a shopkeeper, and they will sell items "as they wish".

cross your fingers! :)

Quote: [On Screenshots] The really cool part, is that the skeletons seem to be summoned/raised and fighting on the party's side!

wow whip! where did u pick up this screenie? this is part of the batch i made last week, but i didn't know they had been put up yet. cool deal!

yes, the Skeleton Gnolls are commanded by my Eeeeeevil dwarven cleric!

let me try to narrate what's happening:

Meleny, the highlighted NPC, has just hurled a Produce Flame at one of the bugbears that is webbed. I was unable to snap a screenshot in time, but that set the whole Web on fire, burning those trapped.

the "action bar" is only at yellow right now, signifying that Meleny has just used a standard action (the green portion of the bar) to cast Produce Flame and used the free touch attack to throw the flame at a bugbear.

the PC's currently have at least Bless and Prayer active. the large character currently has Enlarge and probably Bull's Strength active, and also is flatfooted (seen by the "boot" on top of her portrait, she is the left-most along the bottom). along that note, Meleny is currently under Medium Encumbrance (the "bell" looking icon on her portrait, second from the bottom right).

conversely, the Prayer has negatively affected the bugbears. a few of the bugbears may have Barbarian Raged and/or used a Potion of Bull's Strength (that actually happens later in the combat, IIRC).

i initiated combat with the bugbears and the high priest on the far right manually, even though i was currently working on a mission for the high priest; i figured this area might make for some good combat screenshots.

are the rest of my screenies up somewhere? i'm kinda curious, even though i have all of them sitting right here on my hard drive, heh.

hope that was informative!

[edit]: oh yes, that is my monk in the bottom right corner - you can't really see it, but he is in a monk stance; i think i took a few screenies of him kicking and punching and doing twirling kicks. it's hard to show with screenshots though :/

the monk's critical hit anim is pretty sweet, i haven't gotten a critical with my monk, but i've seen others' do it!

my gnome wizard currently has Mirror Image cast upon her; she's right next to Meleny. it's hard to see the ghostly images in this shot, but i took at least 1 or 2 more that more clearly shows the images

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Quote: What is the ideal Ironman party? I'm going for: Dwarf Fighter, Human Cleric of Pelor, Elf Ranger/Rogue, Elf Wizard, Human Bard.

I think the ideal ironman party is going to end up going back to the inn several time for fresh meat if you know what I mean.

Quote: Can we replace fallen party members with new characters (we roll) at the inn or are you referring to gathering NPC's?

You can roll new ones up at the inn, and if you're playing ironman I applaud you if you never have to do that. And yes, to answer someone elses question, there is no point buy in Ironman.

Dan the Intern, Intern and 2D Artist

Quote: [On the Walkthrough Movie] Is this the secret passage from outside the moathouse or something else?

There was indeed a hidden door which was taken out. After you defeat the ogre guard, Lubash, There was a sliding wall/door which concealed a long stairway to an even lower part of the moathouse. This door was taken out and is the one mentioned in the video.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 19:20 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Beholders: Our new beholders have 10 eyestalks, they drunk some magical grow- 5 -totally -natural -stalks -w ithin- a-w eek elixir they found in the art department a while ago. And yes, spells are originating from the beholders eyes, we got some shiny new MONSTER_NODES on them. They are running their own "mini-AI", optimized to their special abilities and their weaknesses ... and your weaknesses.

You can not target body parts in NWN. You can, however, use spells like blindness to make the beholder happy I guess.

Placeables: There is a placeable hobbyhorse object as well....

Color Names: Color names were removed because people were abusing them in various ways (which we will never discuss as colored names are still out there in some fashion), impacting other peoples gameplay experience and server stability, and that is something we *care* about. To make them work without these side results would require programmer and qa time, which we rather put into something more important for us and most of our fans. People may disagree about this decision, but that is how decisions work, right? We rather put in a new head, a new weapon or something similar in the game, allowing people to customize their characters without impacting other peoples gameplay performance, than trying to make something work for players which was never intended to work for them.

David Gaider, Designer

Merchant System: I believe some big changes are, indeed, due for the merchant system very soon now. I think they are in an upcoming patch courtesy of the Live Team, however, and not particular to HotU. The details on that will have to come later, though.

Ghost VFX: The ghost VFX means that we have a ghost in the game that I didn't want all glowy. Mirror Image is a resource-hogging, very difficult-to-implement spell that has very little pay-off.

Quote: something like mirror image should have been small beans.

Not really. There's nothing in the engine that could create a bunch of "alternate images"... which would have to be models that copy the main model and move exactly as the main model is moving. I mean... I guess it could be done, but we're talking a whole new kind of animation-copying system put in that doesn't currently exist, all for one spell. Magic Missile is even just a custom projectile graphic, no biggee, it's not the same at all.

Quote: How would old characters be handled? Let's say you had a bard with a persuade of 23. Would he also get a Intimidation of 23 and a Bluff of 23?

Of course not. He wouldn't be changed at all. He'd have a Persuade of 23, and an Intimidation and Bluff of 0.

Quote: How would a new character be handled? You create a new bard. Do they get additional skill points to put in bluff and intimidation?

No, you do not get any additional skill points. And, as was mentioned above, the thing we're doing (currently) is having 2 of the 3 skills used in any persuasion instance, though with possibly different DC's. So if you wanted the secret password out of the guild doorman, you could trick it out of him or threaten it out of him (a bit more difficult because he feels pretty safe behind that door) but you couldn't convince him nicely to give it to you.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:49 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Sleeping NPCs: I think it is now NW_FLAG_SLEEPING_AT_NIGHT, but I doubt it is working correctly anyway. Judging from the comments in x0_i0_generic, it seems there is no code to actually make the NPC sleep at night.

Quote: Bioware said they're putting Onhit:UniqueEffect in it, thus you can script effects which only work upon a critical, or upon a sneak attack

Nope, you can not do that. The while the OnHitCastSpell script allows you to fire most offensive spells as well as your own custom script (much like OnActivateItem), it does not know wheter the Hit that triggered it was a normal hit, sneak attack, critical or whirlwind attack.

Quote: Also, in the OnHit scripts, can we check to see what the combat roll for the attack was? I mean, can we find out if the attacker rolled a '20' on their d20? Can we determine if it was a critical hit or not? And if it is a critical hit, can we determine if the first hit (the threat) was a '20' or not?

No. Basically the OnHit thing is already a performance hog when used on a larger scale (i.e. whirlwind attack fighter against group of goblins), so adding those functions is likely not going to happen.

Quote: Okay, I've got a couple questions. If I have a +1 longsword and add a temporary effect of +3 to the sword, it reverts back to +1 when the effect wears off, right?

Yes it does.

Quote: I mean, it won't fail because it already has an enhancement effect already, right?

As long as the bonus is of a different DURATION_TYPE it won't fail. If you add two boni of the same DURATION_TYPE, the higher one will be active

Quote: Same question for effects. Does a 2d6 fire effect override a d4 fire effect? I'd assume yes...

I guess so, but it may stack as well, I would have to test that. There will be an include file dealing with common item property functions which has one function that works as a wrapper around AddItemProperty, allowing you to specify if properties should replace existing properties of the same type, ignore them or fail if a property of that type already exists.

Quote: Can you say how the feats are being added? Is there a specific command for each feat you can apply or is it a more general GiveItemFeat (object oItem, int nFeat)? I would like the more generic form since we could then make dynamic player skins for subrace and extended domains a PC might get.

There is no GiveFeat command and I don't think there will ever be one, as it would cause serious trouble with ELC. What you can do is add an itemproperty ItemPropertyBonusFeat on a hidden creature hide armor equipped on the player by scripting.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: Well... ok, seems like we won't have it for this week-end...(Patch 1.32)

Correct. Testing continues and we will know more on Monday morning.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: How much new placeables/sounds will be added approx. to HotU?

Lots.

Quote: Will there be generic placeables and sounds not used in HotU campaing? (not related to the Underdark?)

I'd say most of the placeables aren't Underdark-specific, rather.

Quote: Will we finally have a bar placeable?

Yes, though ironically it will be for a drow tavern. If you ask the Live Team really really nicely, however, they might get a non-drowish bar made for a patch... which would greatly lessen the painful irony.

Persuade: Well, we were kinda thinking about splitting Persuade up into Persuade, Intimidation and Bluff. No Wilderness Lore, though, or Knowledge skills.

Quote: could you tell me if we actually have a new item PROPERTY that allows throwing weapons to return.

No.

Quote: Does that mean the rest of the feats will be available to add onto items as properties?

Nope. Gosh, there's just no question that we can answer that you guys can't come up with more questions about, eh?

Post Comments (0)

Chat With Troika
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:36 CET by Veldrin

Eye on Troika will be hosting a chat with Troika about The Temple of Elemental Evil on September 16th at 4pm (GMT-8). This chat will take place on Gamesnet (irc.gamesnet.net) in #eye-on-troika.

Post Comments (0)

Temple of Elemental Evil Screenshots at GameBanshee
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:27 CET by Veldrin

GameBanshee has posted its final Temple of Elemental Evil Screenshots of the Week. They can be seen here.

Post Comments (0)

Tim Cain Interview at The Greyhawk Chronicles
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 4:16 CET by Veldrin

The Greyhawk Chronicles has posted an Interview with Tim Cain about The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

1) On several occasions you and your team members mentioned the "cool stuff list". Several features from that list didn't make it into the game (like sub-races) but can you tell us which "cool" features made it into the game?

The Trip attack made it in, which several team members really wanted. Spiked chains made it in, so the fans that were hollering for them can feel appeased. Followers taking their own share of loot and selling it back in town made it in, which is something that I personally wanted. Giants shaking the screen when they walk and bash their clubs made it in, which is an example of something simple and not earth-shattering, but it's just really cool to see.

Read it all here.

Post Comments (0)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 3:53 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Tim Smith, Programmer

ResRef Vs. Tags: The resource reference (resref) and the tag are two different things. The tag is used by scripts to help locate the object in question. The resref is the name of the template used to create the object.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: You just asked people to list a mistake, and I thought this engine that seems to cause all sorts of problems and prevent all sorts of features from being implemented many months later seemed like a good enough mistake to me.

We don't look on the Aurora engine as a mistake of any sort. When you start putting together an engine, you have to decide what's going to go where and how it's all going to work beforehand... you might regret some of those decisions afterwards (especially the ones that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time), but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the engine itself. The Aurora engine is plenty flexible enough... but aging, of course, just as the Infinity Engine did before it. We went through the same process of updates and changes to the IE being needed as we'd regularly go in and rearrange its guts, until eventually it reached a state where technology had improved enough that it was worth it to make a completely new engine. The stuff that they're talking about is just a matter of time and resource allocation. Technically speaking anything is possible with the current engine: robes, cloaks, subraces, mounts, psionics, spellcasting prestige classes, what-have-you... it's all a matter of exactly how much work you want to put into it. Like I said elsewhere, "engine limitation" is a relative term based on how realistic the amount of work that's required to do what's being asked is compared to the cost and the "bang" for that cost.

Let me put it this way: you build a house a certain way built on the blueprints that were made for it. You have a particular type of foundation, you put in a particular type of roofing material, you have your wiring done a certain way... all of it serves a particular purpose. After its built, it's easy enough to put on a fresh coat of paint or change a window or maybe even install a new roof. If you decide then, however, that you want a whole new den put in the basement and have the entire thing re-wired and with extra insulation (because it's a bit cool down there), the construction guy might say "Welll... we can do it, but we'll have to rip apart a lot of stuff down there. It would have been way easier to do this back when we built the place." The translation is that it COULD be done, of course, but it'll take some doing. Enough doing that the cost of which might make said home-owners think whether it meets their budget or not. Would they really use the den at all? Maybe a hot tub outside on the deck would get more use.
Then there's telling the construction guy that you want the house's foundation changed to a different type of concrete... and while they're at it, you're interested in re-insulating the entire house with something hypoallergenic. You ask the construction guy if this is impossible... to which the construction guy says "Well, technically no, it's not IMPOSSIBLE..." but he has a hell of a time trying to explain to you exactly the problems involved in such an undertaking.

With the Aurora engine, we've got a nice house that's already fully-built, and only so much money to go around for renovations and such. There's some stuff that would be really nice to do... the wife wants a huge walk-in closet, for instance, but that would take rearranging the rooms upstairs and we just can't afford to spend that much just so the wife has somewhere to display her shoes. Heck, I'd like a skylight in the living room, but the contractor tells me that the way the house was built, there's a support wall where I want my light and it just can't be removed. Yes, we're sort of wishing we'd made it 4 bedrooms instead of 3 (no going back now), and that fireplace really would have been nice. Come to think of it, next house we build, we've really got to re-think that whole mexican tile thing we do in the kitchen. We fixed up the basement nice earlier this year, however, and we're planning to add on a deck right away (with hot tub!), so it's not all bad. So add this onto my list of Really Dumb Analogies but it works, more or less. The engine is a great old gal that may not do everything we want her to do as time moves on, but she does everything that was asked of her to begin with. If we don't have the resources to put together a full project team and rip out her guts and add do all the big changes that are being asked for, it's because you only get that team when you have a full project (surprise!)... like with a sequel, and not with a year-old release that doesn't charge its users a monthly fee to play (sweet deal though that is).

HotU Fixes: One side note related to things that are brought up on the message boards and us acting upon them: a while back some of you might remember that it was mentioned here how irritating it was that spellcasting would often be interrupted by the mage taking attacks of opportunity. I said at the time that we weren't aware of that and I would report it. Received word today that this has now been fixed for HotU. No more abandoning your spellcasting to take attacks of opportunity. Maybe not the biggest thing, but there ya go.

Stupid PC Dialog: No, we won't be doing "stupid" dialogue in HotU. Characters with low Int will occasionally be restricted from selecting certain options... or high Int characters will get their own unique dialogue options... but low Int characters will still sound normal when they speak

Quote: Can we ask questions about this? If so, how was the fix made?

You can ask, but I'm not up on the details. I just got my bug-tracker that I put in on the issue sent back to me as "fixed", and that's about all I know at this point.

Quote: Does the implemented fix also fix the AoO interrupting potion drinking problem, since I believe they are related?

I assume it would, since drinking a potion is still spell-casting, as far as the engine is concerned.

Quote: Do AoO's now appear in the action queue, such that they are taken after the action they would have interrupted finishes, or are they just given up if you aren't ready to take one when the opportunity arises?

No, AoO do not appear in the action queue. I am certain of that. So most likely it is just a case of you giving up the AoO entirely. I've yet to see this in-game, however.

Quote: Can we get a final clarification on actual dynamic properties? (as in giving a chainmail suit an ac of 6 and a dex bonus of up to 23, sort of thing)

Okay, just to clarify, we are talking only about the magical item properties, here... enchantment bonuses, AC bonuses, skill negatives, what-have-you. Anything from the toolset list where you drag the properties over to the right hand side to have them applied to the item. We are NOT talking about regular item properties such as weight, base AC for armor, cost and so forth... though of course some of these things can definitely be affected by the magical item properties. So you CAN take a suit of chainmail and apply an AC bonus to raise its total AC to 6, and apply a Dex bonus (err... not sure if you can do +23, but there you have it). These properties all have their Get function (now with sub-property types so they're actually useful!) and Set, which can permanently affect the item, as Georg said. Not only do you get this, you ALSO get the OnEquip/OnUnequip module event and (I believe) an OnHit(CastUniqueSpell) for weapons and armor/shields... which should pretty much fill in the gap for scripting unique item properties (like properly cursed stuff).

Quote: Max Dex Bonus to AC is one of the things I believe the dynamic item property scripting can't modify.

Correct. I said that, didn't I? You can add a Dexterity bonus but you can't change the base Max Dex Bonus property of the armor.

Quote: What I wanna know is if you can make a cursed weapon or armor, so it works fine for a while - but suddenly change you into a chicken or a cow!

Why not? With the OnEquip/OnUnEquip event you can detect whether someone has donned said armor... script in your delay and away you go. The best thing about scripting cursed effects, in my opinion, is that they don't show up on the list of item properties when you examine the item. As for the item that speaks when it hits something, yes... that can be done, too. The OnHit(Cast Unique Spell) is actually less of a spell and more of a script (though it is tied into a module event and not a script that is part of the item itself). So the "spell" that is run when the sword hits something might very well trigger a sound to be played or a string displayed.

Quote: I like this idea V. As far as a "blue" VFX, couldn't we just use: int VFX_DUR_ETHEREAL_VISAGE?

No. Item visual effects work a little differently. You will have the ability to apply the current visual effects (fire, green acid, holy glow, etc.) to a weapon without the corresponding damage being needed... and one assumes that more could be added by the community... but there is no blue glow effect, currently.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Item Properties: You can add any itemproperty that is in the toolset under Item Properties to an item via scripting. It's a bit like this:

AddItemProperty( DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT, ItemPropertyKeen(),oItem)

or

AddItemProperty( DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, ItemPropertyEnhancementBonus(1),oItem, RoundsToSeconds(6))

That should get you a small idea on what to expect. You're going to love it. And, yes, DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT means it carries from server to server.

Quote: Are these item properties added by scripting taken into account when determining the item level requirement?

They add to cost if added with DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT. There is indeed a new OnHitCastSpell, it fires for weapons when hitting a creature and for armor when being hit. You can assign many offensive spells to this property, plus there is a UniquePower spell for OnHit as well, so you do not need to fiddle around with 2da files to add new spells OnHit.

No, you can not use EffectVisualEffect with Items. There is an ItemPropertyVisualEffect() which can be used to make a weapon glow like they would glow when you have added i.e. high elemental damage, divine or vorpal properties to the weapon, but you can not use visual effects from the effect system with items, as these are not itemproperties.

Yepp, there is a OnHit: Unique power which fires a certain script you can add your module specific OnHitSpell Code to, similar to the CastSpell:Unique Power.

Quote: Not to draw conclusions or anything, but I wonder if anything else stays around while you rest. For instance, Continual Flame is pretty useless because it goes away, making it effectively no better than the Light cantrap.

That was a bug that has been fixed. You can now also cast it on items and they will get a permanent light property attached to them.

Quote: I'm thinking so .. but best to ask. So, will keen edge and flame weapon stick around on weapons even when caster rests?

No, Temporary Item Properties created through scripting wear of when the caster rests, just like Temporary Effects.

Post Comments (0)

Temple of Elemental Evil Shipping Early!
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 1:36 CET by Sorcerer

We have just received a press release from Atari announcing The Temple of Elemental Evil will ship one week earlier than previously announced:

ATARI DISCOVERS RIFT IN SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM; THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL TO SHIP ON SEPTEMBER 16

Popular Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk to Make
First Interactive Appearance on September 16

LOS ANGELES – Sept. 12, 2003 – Atari and Troika Games are pleased to announce that The Temple of Elemental Evil™ will now ship on September 16th and not September 23rd as previously reported. After years of research into the science of time travel and the mysticism of interactive entertainment distribution, Atari has achieved a breakthrough in the melding of the two disciplines. As a result of this revolutionary achievement, The Temple of Elemental Evil will now appear on retail stores shelves nationwide seven days earlier than originally anticipated.

Published by Wizards of the Coast, the World of Greyhawk, remains one of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons® campaign settings of all time and will make its first interactive appearance with the September 16th release of The Temple of Elemental Evil. The Temple of Elemental Evil will feature an exciting party-based single player campaign, an engaging storyline based on the classic D&D® adventure of the same name as well as a faithful translation of the latest 3.5 edition rules.

The Temple of Elemental Evil will be available at retail stores nationwide with an estimated retail price of $49.95 and an ESRB rating of “T” for Teen. Additional information about The Temple of Elemental Evil can be found online at www.greyhawkgame.com, which features message boards, wallpapers, screenshots, game play information and much more.