Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 23:54 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.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Witch's Wake: Most of the skill check modifiers can be found in the WW_AbilityUse conversation file. It's a template and I copied and pasted from it on a fairly regular basis when writing the various NPCs in WW1. As for my resting code, much of it relies on the underlying HCR system, though I made my own modifications. The module has an OnPlayerRest event -- check the attached script and follow the trail from there.

Yes, sorry that the template isn't more user-friendly. My own code certainly isn't the cleanest (my background's in creative design, not technical design, I'm afraid) and I've also cobbled in countless other end-user modifications. The end result can be quite a mish-mash. Your best bet for getting help is to ask a very specific question and myself and others will try to chime in with answers where we can.

Opening Scene: In that opening scene, I am pushing the engine to do a lot of things that it was never really intended to do. There's a lot of combat going on as well as a lot of particles (smoke, fire, tentacles, rain). At the same time, I've also lowered the camera down to take in as much of it as possible. In the background, I'm also firing off scripting commands set a new camera position every tenth of a second. I was deliberately pushing the envelope with that opening scene and I wanted to start the module off with a NWN experience unlike any module anyone had played before. I new that it would chug on lower end systems but ultimately decided that it was a fair trade-off (especially seeing that your character is entirely safe during the cutscene and won't have to deal with lag-death). In other words, driver updates and such may not help but don't worry -- the rest of the game should be a lot more smooth for you.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: I was aware of that and i apreciate that but as i said 7 months down the track and your telling me its still a few months off for something i consider should have been integral in a product that you have promoted as having the ability to be set up as a PW.

I don't dispute the validity of the concerns brought up in this thread, and I'll leave the programming-mumbo to Don, but this particular statement I have to take issue with. We never once promoted NWN as having the ability to be set up as a PW. Every single time this was brought up prior to release, we said that NWN was not set up to work well as a PW. We said that PW functionality was not supported... but that if you wanted to use what functionality was there, you were free to do so. We also said we would try to accomodate PW builders post-release as much as we could, and we are. Personally, I'm surprised that the upcoming database functions are being added this early, if at all.