Discussing: Neverwinter Nights Forum News

Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, July 11, 2003 - 18:08 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.

David Gaider, Designer

Alignments: Okay, you asked for it. Keep in mind that we recognize that alignments leave a LOT of room for interpretation. This is ours, at least as far as SoU went:

(Feel free to suggest additions, changes... I don't for a minute think this list is all-encompassing. It was just a document to help QA get in line with our thinking for the purposes of SoU. We had, for instance, considered the idea that allowing an innocent to come to harm through inaction on the part of the PC to be a Not-Good act... though it wasn't necessary for what SoU encompassed.)

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Alignment Shifts – Shadows of Undrentide:

The difference between Evil and Not-Good:
It’s important to keep in mind that alignment shifts should only occur when the character acts outside of what would be appropriate for his alignment. In some cases, this is a clear cut case of one alignment or another. Performing a very evil act should result in an Evil hit… both Good-aligned and Neutral-aligned character would slide a bit towards Evil.
There are going to be some acts, however, which might be reasonable for both an Evil-aligned character and a Neutral-aligned character to perform… and only a Good-aligned character really wouldn’t do it. This is a “Not-Good” act… and only a Good-aligned character would receive an Evil hit for performing it. An example: let’s say the character solved a quest in a morally questionable manner… he collects some money owed to the quest-giver by brutally beating someone until they gave it up. Should someone Evil be allowed to do that? Certainly. Should someone Neutral be allowed to do that? He didn’t kill anyone, and the money was owed… it really doesn’t seem very evil, per se, so yes, a Neutral person should receive no hit. Should someone Good be allowed to do that? Probably not… and therefore this qualifies as a Not-Good act. It should be kept in mind that if there is ever any doubt as to what the Neutral spectrum of either axis (Law-Chaos, Good-Evil) allows, Neutral should be given the benefit of the doubt. Neutrality allows for shades of grey going into both axes and simply avoids the extremes of either… so someone Neutral-aligned should only be slipping, say, towards Evil by performing extreme Evil acts… and not minor Evil acts. It should also be noted that most alignment hits should by tiny (1-point) or small (3-point) unless it is an extreme action... and if it is extreme, it should never qualify as a not-anything.

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When alignment shifts should be used/not used:

Lawful:

When a character does something that actively turns “chaos” into “order” (this probably won’t come up often, but one example might be the character settling a dispute between two parties and getting them to agree to a negotiated compromise).

When a character keeps his word even when doing so is not easy or is no longer beneficial to him.

When a character does something to actively promote authority and law (such as helping the mayor of a town or turning in a criminal to the guards).

NOT when the character does what he said he would or simply keeps his word… like agreeing to perform a quest and then completing the task. Unless the character does the quest in a lawful manner or the quest was for the authorities/restoring order, quests are not in and of themselves lawful and should not result in a lawful hit.

Chaotic:

When murdering a city guard or other law-enforcer.

When stealing from others (though this should normally be a not-Lawful situation unless it counts more as an act of actual robbery as opposed to mere theft).

When actively promoting dissension or the breaking of laws (laws that promote order, at any rate).

When a character reneges on his word or an agreement that was already in place, such as renegotiating an agreed-upon reward after the fact or betraying an ally.

Good:

When performing acts of altruism or charity (such as declining an offered reward or offering a large sum of money to a slave that the character has just freed).

Saving the life of an innocent.

When actively promoting the cause of justice (as opposed to law… this is a tricky line and should be made clear if it is going to be used as an alignment shift. A character who attacks an opponent because he is evil and states such… and there was a clear option not to attack otherwise… might be worthy of a Good alignment shift).

When the character makes an effort to make others Good (such as successfully convincing someone that what they are doing is morally wrong).

NOT to be used as an alignment hit simply for performing a quest… an evil character could very well advance the cause of good for their own advancement.

NOT to be used when the character does something “nice”. Good is no more nice than Evil is nasty. A paladin can be rude and obnoxious just as much as an evil wizard can be sweet and endearing.

Evil:

When murdering an innocent.

When making threats or using extortion… though only in extreme cases where actual death is involved. Threatening to beat someone is not evil (though it might be Not-Good), threatening to cut someone’s throat if they don’t do what you want is.

Acts of extreme greed or maliciousness that are performed at the expense of others.

NOT to be confused with “nasty” or “bully”. Being rude to someone is not worthy of an Evil alignment shift… even cruelty is not evil, though there are degrees. Being exceptionally cruel to a lesser or someone helpless, or ruining their lives… these are worth Evil shifts.

An Evil alignment shift should NOT be used as a penalty… taking an evil path should not intrinsically result in a character getting less XP or rewards than if he took a good path. Evil is often described as an “easy” path that often results in greater material rewards at the expense of moral considerations… and this should be a legitimate option within the game. Likewise an Evil character should be able to maintain that alignment and not drift towards Good merely as a result of completing the game.

Translation: The problem with translation is that it costs money. The publisher sends all new strings to contracted translators that do all the translations. It's not something we do ourselves. I suppose we could say "Oh, don't do these strings" and then try to enter the translated versions ourselves (that you provide us), but that gets complicated (since it's not an area we handle) and adds more work for something we don't need and won't use. We have already said that custom skills and custom spells do not fall in the domain of custom content, that's hacking... which we'll support only to a very limited extent. You'd probably be better off campaigning for the Live Team to offer ways around the .tlk as a whole... that, at least, solves your problem in one fell swoop without relying on us to input strings as a stop-gap measure.