Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 18:31 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.

Craig Welburn, Live Team Programmer

ShowDM The ShowDMJoinedMessage does not work correctly in the 1.30 patch. It is fully functional internally at BioWare, and will hopefully make it into the upcoming 1.31 patch.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Glowing Eyes: The glowing eyes symbolize the monks outsider state at level 20. I think this is fixed with the next patch.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Epic Levels: Yeah, like Jay said, we really don't have any comment at this point regarding Epic Levels. We're definitely considering them, but there's a lot of work that needs to be put in to support levels beyond 20, and in the end, it'll come down to how much time we are able to spend on putting it in.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

SoU Modules: An SoU module is any module saved by the toolset after you installed SoU. The module doesn't actually have to use any SoU content in order for it to be so marked. This is because while we can determine whether or not the module explicitly references any SoU content (used tilesets, placed creatures or even used them in an encounter), we cannot validate the scripts you may write. The only possible exception is if you use the workaround described in other threads on this forum to prevent the toolset from including the SoU resources (by renaming the xp1 .key file).

David Gaider, Designer

Alignments: Chaotic does not equal evil in SoU. Don't jump to conclusions. First off, your alignment is unlikely to change if you are already performing chaotic actions. If the action is very chaotic, you might, but some minor chaotic stuff is only going to affect those who are Lawful. As far as Szaren the Red Wizard goes, the Chaotic hit you take there is situational. You get a Chaotic hit if you said you would help him and then didn't... not if you just refuse. Breaking deals, after all, is Chaotic behavior. Going to Ayala (not Katarina, whoever said that) and lying to her about the fact that you have some of the artifacts (since you obviously intend to keep them, then) is not Evil but it is Chaotic. Doing obviously unlawful actions such as stealing and breaking into homes is also Chaotic, very much so. But not evil. Conversely, you'll actually find very few real Lawful hits in the game... since being Lawful means specifically such things as keeping your word even when it is not in your best interest or actively helping law/authority.

Well, I can pretty safely say that if you're sliding towards Chaotic or Lawful, it's not because you're doing Good or Evil acts. Rarely are the two combined in a single instance, and in any case it's only going to be in a pretty clear case where an alignment hit is being applied. If we had any argument over the matter during Q&A, the hit was removed as being too ambivalent with regards to motivation. The only problem that might exist is what you consider to be Lawful or Chaotic, Good or Evil. SoU's alignment handling is pretty consistent in this regard. If you like, I can even dig up the rules we used for each (on Monday).

Item Level Restrictions: With 1.30, the ILR (Item Level Restrictions) default to Off rather than On, as they were before. You can always choose to turn it back on in the .ini file, if you like.