Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 21:05 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.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: Don Moar basically said that you will not be supporting any commerical database system at all... not even ODBC (which I find amazing considering you are writing the game in Borland C++ which has its own Open Database methodologies). The reason he stated was that using a specific database engine would require licensing etc...

No, the game is written in MS VC++, not Borland. Only the Toolset is Borland. We are using currently testing out a commercial database package. Let me be very clear. We are NOT creating a database system from scratch. Our database system must be compiled into the game executable.

Quote: This however seems really strange to me. If you simply include the ability to connect to "any" database system (throgh ODBC) then you are not actually using any particular system and thus have no reason to license it. So Derek... why is it you are choosing to do this "in house" rather than making it easy and allowing your customers to make the decision of what database they wish to use. If I want to use SQL Server but the guy next to me wants to use Oracle or Access... why stop us?

Because it must work instantly on any computer without any configuration, since the database access is through scripting in a module. It would not be a Good Thing if the average end user who just downloaded a module, finds that nothing works in the game, simply because he hasn't set up a database server on his home computer. The database access has to just work, in the game, for any module, on Mac, Linux, and Win32.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Neverwinter Nights in Windowed Mode: Add "AllowWindowedMode=1" to the "[Display Options]" section of your "nwn.ini" file (which you will find in your NWN install dir, the default is C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN). Then start the game. Hit Alt+Enter to window back and forth.

Quote: Oh dear... well I have sussed out how to change the mode of the file... but when exporting to PLT most of these were not acceptable. I am at a loss, can these files include colour?

I will try and clear this up for you Kai! The point of a PLT file is to create a texture that defines 'color areas' such as skin, hair, and metal so that you can use the toolset to select colors. So no, PLT files will not include color, as you will use the toolset to set the 'skin' areas to brown, the 'hair' areas to red, and the 'metal' areas to grey, for example.

Rick Ernst, Lead Designer, Floodgate Entertainment

Prestige Classes: The Harper Scout prestige class is a benefit available to members of the Harpers who are so inclined. There is no requirement that a Harper or ally of the Harpers take levels of this (or any other) prestige class. This is how we are treating it in SoU, in any case. For what it's worth, it will not be neccessary to join or even ally yourself with the Harpers in SoU to complete the campaign.

ESRB Ratings: At the risk of derailing this topic entirely...First off, according to the current ESRB guidlines, Doom would never have gotten an M rating. The violence in Doom is not realistic or particularly graphic, there is no profanity, there is no nudity, there is no substance abuse.

Secondly, removing ESRB ratings would not suddenly cause people to use 'common sense' when buying games. The reason games are rated is for parents who justifiably and correctly want some sort of idea about the games their children are playing and asking for. There are many, many video and computer games on the market today that I would not want my child playing. I'm not saying these games are bad, or should not be sold. I very much enjoy many of them myself. But not all games are appropriate for all people.

Children should not be allowed to do, or play, anything they want. A child's parents should be the ones to make this decision. Parents, very often, are not very knowledgable about video games. They generally do not have the time (sadly) to personally test every game their children want to play. In light of this, parents want (and need) some form of guidance. Realistically, this guidance can come in one of two forms. Ratings such as those established by the ESRB, or laws that prohibit restricted games. You may not agree with which games a parent allows, or does not allow, their children to play. But I'm sure you'd rather the parents make that decision than Congress.

Water and Trees: If you are saying you would have rather had water and thick trees as the border terrain in the forest, that's one thing. Saying it would be trivial to add those two new terrain types to the existing tileset for SoU is another matter entirely. We thought it would be better to create 3 new tile sets in order to give builders a wider range of possible environments, rather than expand existing areas. I think you'll like what we've done. The desert screens that were approved for release recently is just the beginning.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Module Help: I would start with the basic module construction tutorials you can find in the "For Builders" section. Then, if you're interested, take a look at some of the scripting tutorials. These should at least get you familiar with the process of making modules and that should put a lot of the discussions where you're seeing those file types described into context.