August 2002

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 8:49 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Now that Neverwinter Nights has been released, some gamers' allegiance to the venerable Infinity Engine has shifted in favour of NWN's Aurora engine. Which is your favourite?
(450 votes total)

Old school Infinity Engine (BG2, IWD2 etc.) (251) 56%
I like both equally (122) 27%
New generation Aurora (NWN) (77) 17%

The poll results show quite clearly that the Neverwinter Nights engine has a lot to live up to. Having seen so many excellent games made with the (now) classic Infinity Engine, players' emotional attachment to it is definitely huge. Aurora's design which does not allow for a whole party (unlike IE's), and the hardly memorable single player campaign of Neverwinter Nights are off to a bad start in this long-term remembrance competition. While there is certainly a lot going on in the NWN area in terms of fan-created content, I also expect BioWare to come up with some more roleplaying modules in the future, since the official campaign was really more of a cross between Diablo and Baldur's Gate than the promised roleplaying experience. Only time will tell why Neverwinter Nights will stay in our memories - because of excellently crafted roleplaying experiences or because of tons of custom content with little substance.

In any event , here is what the poll outcome looks like:

More than half of the people who voted (56%) say that the old school Infinity Engine remains their favourite, with games such as Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2 being the pinnacle of the engine's use.

27% of poll participants take no sides but feel that both the old and new engines are equally good.

Finally, only 17% of those who voted in the poll feel that the new generation Aurora engine beats the good old Infinity as their favourite.

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Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update
Posted Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 1:20 CET by Z-Layrex

Tax Young, Quality Assurance

Resistances: Resistances are now handled in 'points of damage', so aasimars would get, for example, 21-5=16 points of damage from a fireball.

Portraits and the collector’s edition: There are no extra portraits in the CE. They have more cards than the adventure pack, which some of the portraits appear in, I believe, but there are no extra portraits in-game or anything like that.

Both the CE and the adventure pack have the same new portraits as the regular version of the game.

Difficulty settings: I just checked this, and the way the difficulty settings work is as follows:

The difference between very easy, easy, normal, hard, and insane, is the BAB of the monsters and amount of damage that they do. Each difficulty setting has a bonus/penalty to enemy BABs and damage, which modifies the values in relation to the normal difficulty setting.

The amount of XP given for all difficulty settings is the same, whether the game is set to very easy, easy, normal, hard, or insane.

The number of enemies also does not change based on the difficulty level of the game - it is determined by the party's level.

Chad Nicholas, Scriptor

Length of time to cast a spell: Spells take anywhere from 1/10th of a round (one round = 7 seconds in the IE) to 10/10ths of a round just like in previous IE games. We had talked about the idea to make all spells either be half a round or a full round to cast per the ROOLZ, however I don't remember the reason for not doing the change.

Cloudburst: And Cloudburst; it's comedy gold.

Speaking of which, if you're playing a druid or ranger, don't forget to change your memorized spells when heading indoors. You can't cast Entangle or Cloudburst (and others) indoors.

Controlling elementals and demons: There is a reason you can't control elementals and demons directly -- they kick much butt!

The elemental that you get from a 7th level spell can be a much better ally than a monster from another 7th level spell.

If you're going to summon both elementals/demons and monsters/animals, summon the monsters/animals first, gather them around your caster, and cast Magic Circle Against Evil. Nothing is worse than summoning a bunch of undead or monsters and having them attack/attacked by that elemental/demon you just summoned.

Elementals and demons only attack the closest creature that doesn't have PFE. This means that even if you lose PFE, just make sure that there's an enemy of yours closer to the elemental/demon than you are and you'll be fine.

If you or an ally is being attacked by an elemental/demon, cast PFE on them and the elemental/demon will change targets after a few seconds.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Playing tips: 1) When in battle, pay attention to the dialog box. Important information, like what kind of damage a beasty is susceptible to, scrolls in there.

2) Scout with your thief. I'll say it again: Scout with your thief. One of the best battle tactics you can use is hiding your thief and sending him/her out to scout ahead. This helps to reveal upcoming threats, thus allowing you to create a plan for attack. Hide and Move Silently are skills that cannot be emphasized enough for your thief.

3) Have your mage or sorcerer learn Invisibility as soon as possible. Say for some reason you decided not to put a lot of points into Hide and Move Silently for your thief, having Invisibility handy for casting helps to counter that deficiency. Just remember not to attack anything while invisible and alone.

4) Turn undead is a lifesaver. Always put a few ability points into CHA to help out your cleric's Turn Undead feat. If you can afford it, take Improved Turn Undead (I think that's what it's called) when you get a chance to choose feats a few levels up. There are quite a few areas where the undead rear their decomposed heads, and Turn Undead can make those encounters A LOT easier. It's especially fun when you're evil and have a horde of undead end up fighting for you.

5) Don't let a race's ECL (Effective Class Level) deter you from choosing them for your party. Just because they may not level as quickly as non-ECL races, that doesn't mean they aren't powerful. Take the deep gnome for example: They get a natural +4 to AC and get the ability to cast Invisibility once per day as a natural ability. This little guy makes a great rogue, no doubt about it. Another example is almost everyone's favorite anti-hero race, drow. With high natural magic resistance and bonus to intelligence, these are natural wizards. And nothing beats an aasimar for a cleric, imo.

6) Look for clues. Many of the game's puzzles and quests have multiple ways of solving them. Sometimes the most obvious (KILL THEM ALL!) way through is not always the best way through.

7) Always make sure your fighter-type has both a slashing weapon and bludgeoning weapon set up in the quick weapons slots. There are many beasties in IWD2 that may be impervious to one type of attack, but very susceptible to another. Since fighters are proficient in all weapons, this won't take anything away from their core development.

That's all I have for now. I'm sure there are more hints, and I'll post them once my brain lifts from the fog that is Vicadin induced.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Saturday, August 31, 2002 - 1:00 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

Conversation Bug:

Quote: Aaah, the one that can be worked around simply by removing the default "end conversation" script, or commenting out the ClearAllActions() call in that default script, eh?

Correct. Technically this is not a bug... it's something that has been brought to everyone's attention since the WalkWayPoints() command was automatically added into every dialogue file in v1.22. WalkWayPoints() has a ClearAllActions command which would clear out the action queue of any action scripts in the dialogue. Not good, but it's doing what it is supposed to... prior to 1.22, the script with WalkWayPoints just generally wasn't added to dialogues of this kind. So it's not a hard fix (there are several ways to go about it)... we've just got to decide which would be the best way to go without demolishing already existing stuff.

DM Fixes:

Quote: What about the other issues being looked at by Bio? Any response from a Bio-passer-by...?

Well, we haven't before actively asked for feedback on issues that involve new functionality, simply because the focus was on bugs. We have kept an eye on what people have been commenting on, however, and will be looking at perhaps changing some of these things in the near future. Insofar as the chat system, itself, is concerned, this is a list of some possible changes... most of which have been taken from feedback here:

~~change DM to be able to hear all forms of chat (including Party)

~~The ability to disable individual chat channels on a per-player basis using a scripting command. This would allow DM's the ability to prevent dead players from chatting (which they can't currently do), prevent players from Shouting, if desired, and also have plots in which players are seperated from the rest of the group and can't contact each other.

~~Change so that pressing 'Enter' to type another message doesn't immediately clear what is already on-screen.

~~A DM-possessed creature using Talk will have text displayed on the bottom of the screen (more of a minor bug, this, really, I suppose).

~~Change Shout so that it is area-wide only and not module-wide.

~~Add a small sound to any DM chat useage.

These are only things that are under consideration, however, and not guaranteed alterations. If you have any suggestions on reasonable changes or feedback on the above, I'd be glad to hear it.

Those New Script Functions: Derek has to sift through the patch notes that are written by the various programmers and 'translate' them into a version readable by the public. It's possible that a programmer related something regarding putting in the coding for these commands and Derek may have assumed that this meant they were in the release (when in fact there was still one step left to go), I don't know. Regardless, it qualifies as an 'oops!'. As for 'damaging our reputation'... uhhh, okay, sure. Someone made a mistake. I'm sure it won't be our last one, either. I doubt it's worthy of painting a big red letter on our forehead. There are more added commands planned for the 1.24 patch, I believe (that patch is actually pretty big on new content), but new content of any kind that is done by the Live Team and not left for an expansion will always depend on the time & difficulty of implementation. We're well aware of the kinds of commands that have been asked for here since release... no link necessary, thanks.

Item Creation Thread: (Ed. Note: Stop by and let them know what you want to see :)
Ok. The system of creating items in the toolset needs some changes. We're aware of that. It worked pretty well for the official campaign, perhaps, but it didn't leave a lot of options for module creators... and we always knew that a really useful system was only going to be creatable once everyone got their meathooks into things and discovered what they did and didn't like. So, anyway, now's the time to discuss what we can do about it... and your opportunity to provide some feedback. Before we begin, however, a few things you need to be aware of:

Ideally, the system of controlling what items can be brought into someone's module should be the responsibility of the DM, the module maker and the server... not ours. At best, we can only bandaid stops versus cheaters, as they will always be one step ahead of us, and many of these stops affect creators more than is reasonable. DM's, however, need a method of directly looking at what a PC has... opening up their inventory and inspecting away. A module maker needs proper scripting hooks to be able to create scripts that sift through and evaluate an entering player's inventory. Servers need the option of determining exactly what items and values get filtered and which do not. Really there should be no reason why we couldn't provide all three methods for cheating control. That level is, however, going to take time to reach. Until that point, we do absolutely need to keep the multiplayer aspect of the game in mind when we're dealing with how items are created and transferred. Hopefully, however, we can minimize the impact prior to that.

Secondly, this is only in reference to creating items using the toolset. We are not talking about editing .2da files here or creating custom item types and so forth. Just to make that clear. Ok, then... here's my list of some changes we could consider. These are not guaranteed changes, of course... just a list that I've gathered based on the feedback I've read and what I believe to be reasonable outside of an expansion (an expansion is where much bigger changes such as new item properties, wholesale changes to current item lists and so forth can be made).

?value? and ?cost? of an item need to have separate values. Currently, the item?s properties have a ?cost?? this is also the amount they are bought & sold for within a module. The creator can only raise this value (not lower it), and this also happens to raise the minimum required level for an item (which is cost-dependant). The value of an item should indeed be determined by its properties... and it should supply the default cost, which can then be changed by the creator for their own module. Only possible issue: players creating items with inflated prices in order to sell them for mega gold within a module.

the Lore value for an item needs to be editable. Changing the Lore value really has no bearing on the multiplayer aspect or cheating, so there seems to be little reason that the module creator can?t directly change it. If there is any way we can have a ?ignore minimum level? selection on an item, we should have it. Previously, the ?plot? selection performed this function? but that was removed because people were taking plot items into other modules that were enforcing minimum levels and still being able to use them. Perhaps we could do the same thing with items as we did with characters... if the plot selection of an item is on when you enter a module, it gets turned off automatically. The reason that creators want this? So that they can still have ILR on their module but do stuff like create subraces (which require items to be used in the creature inventory? items with properties that often push the min level of the item into the 10?s or 20?s) or special module-only items (like the big artifact sword that the characters must get and use) without sacrificing the restrictions on items being brought into the module.

There seems to be little method as to the properties that can or can?t be assigned to items. Understandably, combat-type properties should only be applicable to weapons. But why is it required that you have a property on a wand? Can?t you have a non-magical wand? Why can no magical properties be assigned to gems? Weight should also be editable? although that might involve adding an additional property, I suppose. Currently you can reduce the weight of an item with a special property? but only by percentage amounts. You cannot increase an item?s weight. There needs to be a module event for OnItemEquipped and OnItemUnEquipped. Without these, any type of scripting for cursed items or special bonuses/negative for using weapons & armor is completely impossible. The current event only fires when an item is picked up or dropped? and that isn?t enough. This may be something that can only be added in an expansion, however. Another quick thing to keep in mind: changes insofar as damage or additional properties do need to remain seperate item properties, for the most part, instead of being directly editable. Why? Well, all item properties are listed on the item... so if a DM or player pulls up an item they can quickly identify what changes have been made to the base properties. Some changes (such as Lore) probably don't need to be singled out this way, I think.

---------

Okay, whew. At any rate, this is what I have so far. Feedback on stuff I may have missed (please be specific) or on what's already on the list would be welcome.

More:

Quote: But the set Armor AC and type just sucks. If you want something that works at mithril, or other things here and there, you just can't do it.

As I understand it, properties do exist to increase/decrease the AC of armor. The only problem with doing it currently is that the subsequent value of the item skyrockets. If you could apply the AC +/- as an item property (so it shows up in the list of properties and is easy for a DM checking it out to see) and still adjust the cost as a completely seperate value... wouldn't that be enough?

Quote: EDIT: And.. also.... very important. Negative ability/possibly skill attributes. I don't mean cursed, as you can't equip unidentified items. But rather, sometimes even a good magic item may have a penalty.

Hmmm... I think these exist as item properties as well. If they don't, however, you won't be seeing them outside of an expansion. I think our ability to add new item properties is very limited.

And More:

Quote: - It would be nice to be able to control the special effects that appear on an item as properties in their own right.

This would require either a large change to the current item properties or new ones. You could only see that in an expansion.

Quote: - Weight. Getting a finer grain on weight would be a pleasing thing. It would be fun to create an artifact sword that needed Titanic strength to wield without falling over.

Adjusting the weight is one thing... that only affects encumbrance, however. Setting up something like 'Minimum Stat Required' would require a new item property... though it is a fine idea. Having a proper OnItemEquipped would also allow you to script this. If someone equips the item, you check if their Strength (or whatever) is above a certain amount... and, if not, force them to immediately unequip it.

And Even More:

Quote: Perhaps the value calculation could take negative properties into account. For example, a sword that does loads of damage but is nearly impossible to hit with - the extra damage increases the value, but the fact that you can barely use it doesn't reduce it again.

Well, here's the problem with that... and the reason that we took out the calculation of negative properties in the first place: you can very easily add on completely useless negative onto an item and bring its value/level down very low while at the same time applying very powerful properties. We were able to do this in many types of variations, getting super-powerful items that were min level 1 and worth 1 gp. Until the controls I mentioned in my post (for the DM, the creator and the server) are put into place, I'm not sure that we can even look at revamping item value calculation.

Must. Kill. Gaider:

Quote: Why can scripts not be directly attached to objects, such as rings, wands, and more? All of these require the use of Unique, which is a really roundabout way of doing it. If you have many unique powers in your game, you have to put a separate check for each. Wouldn't it be easier to be able to set it up so that a wand has X power, attached to X script, named Y? That way, we could get some really unique effects going on.

I think this is just the way the game was built. Inventory items aren't the same type of 'object' as many other things in the game are... and they aren't required to exist as an instance in the module, just like the player character. Hence neither can have scripts. You've also got to consider that these things have to be transferrable to other modules. You certainly wouldn't want someone's item scripts coming with them into your module, would you? What you need are module-level scripts for both. As I mentioned above, adding an OnItemEquipped event would open up the number and type of effects you could create... as well as having more than one Unique power (and being able to name it... I find that more annoying that anything else, personally).

Quote: Onhit abilities for weapons. Why can new ones not be added? I'd like to be able to make venomed weapons, as many others would, but the poison on hit is a 1d2 poison based on a stat. Is there any way you can add the poison information to that, cause saves, etc?

Expanding item properties and adding new ones is something that has to be done in an expansion. They require a lot of work, even seemingly small things. The big deal with them is the layering of multiple effects... it has the potential for so many bugs it's not even funny.

DIE!

Quote: I am curious as to how the maximum item properties were assigned? IE- 1 power on a potion? The 'updated' system should allow a DM or a mod-builder (MB from now on) the flexibility to allow virtually any item to have virtually any power.

A lot of the limitations regarding the # of effects on an item have to do with the layering of effects, as I mention above. I understand that people want more item properties and more control over them... revamping how item properties work requires an expansion, however, as I've mentioned. All I put on my list (and I'm not even sure this could be done) is have the same properties being applicable to all weapons and non-weapons, as an option. This does cover some of the things in your message (like the scroll), but I'm not even sure if this could be done without some major re-tooling.

Model Support: Now this is why I didn't want to give any ETA at all for the release of this stuff when you asked the first time. Reluctantly I said 'probably sometime in August', but I also said that was a total guess on my part because the timetable depended on so many other things. So now you're going to rant and make demands based on that? Well... I guess I know what to do the next time someone asks me for an ETA, don't I? The artists are, in fact, putting together the files we used for 3dsMax (and GMax, as well, if I heard correctly). That may include the .plt plug-in as well, I really don't know. Regardless, they have to go through everything and make sure nothing proprietary remains in there and that everything is legal and kosher and has been approved through the appropriate channels (like Ray and Greg, at the very least)... and that it comes with instructions on use, as well. Sorry, but we are not going to run over to our computer and 'drag over' our utilities to the send box just because you've decided to become impatient once again, rtrifts. We are busy and are working on it.

1.24:

Quote: Easy fixes I would like to see in next patch.

1. Add secret door .hak to Aurora base, so don't have to depend on others to download the .hak.

Done. Coming in 1.24

Quote: 2. Custom Items - allow the money value to be adjusted down... right now you can add value, I want to be able to lower value.

What we are actually considering is seperating the value (the inherent worth of the item from its properties) from the cost (the price of the item in the given module) and making the cost completely editable. It's just considering at this point, as we're still working out the details, so I don't know if that would be in in time for 1.24 or not.

Quote: 3. Custom Scrolls/Potions - adjust spell level. The sub-property cannot be adjusted; should be easy to make this adjustable so I can have custom scrolls based on lvl of caster, instead of picking from one or two static lvls.

Will consider this, but probably not for 1.24

Quote: 4. AdjustReputation and AdjustAlignment - option to adjust only the PC, not PC and his party. Right now it adjusts PC and party.

Noted.

Quote: 5. Merchants 'Max buy flag' - have a value that merchants will only buy items from PC that are cost 'x' or lower.

I think merchants are likely going to be revamped in the future (possibly in an expansion), but I would definitely like to see this myself. Also such additions, I think, as a 'no Identify' flag and an optional flag for the merchant to put money from purchases into a specific object and use the money in that object to fund purchases (so if he has no money, he can't buy... and if he only has 100 gp, he can only offer that much maximum). Just thoughts on my part, here, however, but I know we want to increase the facility of the merchants.

Quote: 6. Tavern Bar placeable - Should be easy to draw a large wooden bar so we dont have to use park tables for the bar.

That's a damn fine idea. I'll pass that on.

More:

Quote: Toggle Minimap on/off per area. Forgot this big problem. The minimap shows too much info, especially indoors. So, as DM I want the ability to not allow players the option to use it in an area.

This is under consideration, yes. Not sure if it's something that would be done in time for 1.24, however, but a scripting ability (or area property, maybe) to shut off the minimap would be a great boon for mazes and such.

Custom Content:

Quote: How long before we have an official guide to adding custom content? ie New creature models etc? Does something have to be done to the code for end users to handle .2da & .tlk files safely?

I think that the tools we used for 3dsMax to add creature models and tilesets will probably be released by 1.24... but custom content can never really be officially supported. There may be some tutorials to help people who wish to do that stuff, however. Not sure about your second question. With the last patch, most .2da's work in a hakpak normally. As far as 'handling' .2da's or the dialog.tlk, again that falls under the heading of custom content.

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Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition Update
Posted Friday, August 30, 2002 - 11:42 CET by Mollusken

For those of you who are still waiting for your preordered copy of the Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition, the following update has been posted on the Black Isle site.

Due to manufacturing issues that have now been resolved, Icewind Dale II Collector's Edition will be shipping on Tuesday, September 3, 2002.

You will be scheduled to receive your product based on the delivery method you chose.

IF YOU CHOSE:	YOU WILL RECEIVE IT ON:
Next Day UPS	Wednesday Sept 4th
3-Day UPS or Ground UPS	Friday Sept 6th

Please accept our appologies for the delay and we hope you enjoy Icewind Dale II.

These shipping times do not apply to the following: P.O. Boxes, Military APO's, Hawaii, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. These areas can expect delivery in 5 to 7 days. Orders into Canada can take 7 to 10 shipping days.

Sincerely,

Interplay Entertainment and Black Isle Studios

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 21:27 CET by Mollusken

Yesterday BioWare started the registration for a beta test of a Guilds and Registry section on their site. The first 500 registered visitors would win a place in the testing, but it's allready filled up and the registration is closed.

Derek French from BioWare has made a syntax definition file, which will provide NWScript syntax highlighting for those of you who use TextPad for scripting. The BioWare Live Team has started developing a brand new module series, called "The Witchwork Series". More information about this will come. And last, but not least, on this Neverwinter Wednesday on a Thursday is a new module called Naval Battle. It's made by BioWare's Keith Warner, and is based on the classic game of Battleship.

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Icewind Dale II Interview at DBF
Posted Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 10:11 CET by Mollusken

The Dragon's Breath Forge has asked Icewind Dale II lead designer J.E. Sawyer a few questions about the game and himself.

Since music is one of the last things done, what do you listen to when making/playtesting the game? Does what you listen to then ever change your mind about what kind of music you want in the end (like Kubrick with 2001)?

When making the game, I listen to all sorts of music. Unless I'm writing dialogue or making a new area overview, I generally don't use "theme music" to set the tone. After all, setting stats for a bugbear isn't monumentally creative work. When I was working on the Underdark areas, I think I was listening to a lot of Aphex Twin. For Kuldahar and the Jungles of Chult, I think it was All India Radio.

Read the whole interview here.

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Neverwinter Nights Video Interview
Posted Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 13:53 CET by Mollusken

Tech TV has done a video interview with BioWare's community manager Jay Watamaniuk. You can view it here (click on Neverwinter Nights Video Highlight on the right side of the page).

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Sam & Max Sequel Coming!
Posted Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 11:25 CET by Sorcerer

Totally unrelated to what SP is about, but I couldn't resist posting this. The original Sam & Max is one of my all-time favourite games, and I'm definitely buying this sequel. Leave a comment in the Comments below, I'm really curious how many people who are reading this are also fans of Sam & Max.

SAM & MAX TO HIT THE ROAD (AND OTHERS) IN LONG AWAITED CLASSIC ADVENTURE SEQUEL FROM LUCASARTS

Popular Madcap Dog and Rabbity Thing to Return for More Hilariously Skewed Adventures First Quarter 2004 on Windows PC

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- August 27, 2002 -- Sam & Max, interactive entertainment's most beloved canine and rabbit combo, hit the road again first quarter 2004 in a long awaited adventure comedy sequel for Windows PC from LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC. The follow up to the critically acclaimed 1993 adventure classic Sam & Max Hit the Road® will dispatch the Freelance Police into a wild world of screwy and vaguely quixotic missions. Each one will be jam packed with nerve-jangling action, brain-busting puzzles, and the kind of easygoing banter one might expect from a talking dog and a naked, hyperkinetic bunny.

Sam & Max are based upon the "Sam & Max Freelance Police" comic book series created by Steve Purcell. LucasArts' Michael Stemmle, co-director of the award-winning original game, will direct the sequel.

"Sam & Max Hit the Road is a classic and as close to being a signature game as any LucasArts has ever done," says Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts. "The Sam & Max sequel, much like the recently announced Full Throttle® II, perfectly complements LucasArts' renowned adventure game legacy and lends further support to the company's commitment to investing in and developing more of our original properties."

More info at Lucas Arts.

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Icewind Dale II in Stores!
Posted Wednesday, August 28, 2002 - 10:35 CET by Sorcerer

Great news, fellow gamers! IWD2 is now available in stores. (In USA anyway, the rest will have to wait for a while longer...)

Third Edition D&D Dungeon Crawl is Now Available

IRVINE, California, August 27, 2002 - Interplay Entertainment Corp. (NasdaqSC:IPLY), announced today that the highly anticipated Icewind Dale™ II has shipped to retail. Icewind Dale II is the sequel to the award-winning computer role-playing game Icewind Dale and features the BioWare Infinity Engine™ that was used to develop the award-winning games Baldur's Gate™ and Baldur's Gate II (developed by BioWare Corp.), and Planescape®: Torment™ (developed by Black Isle Studios). Icewind Dale II uses the third edition core rules for the classic Dungeons & Dragons® tabletop roleplaying game within the popular FORGOTTEN REALMS® adventure campaign setting under licenses by Wizards of the Coast. The game hosts a large variety of new weapons, armor and magical items, and expands upon the gameplay elements found in the original Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale II offers feats and skills such as Power Attack and Diplomacy, further extending the character customization options available to players. Also introduced in Icewind Dale II are new character classes such as the Barbarian and Sorcerer and new playable races including the Drow, the famous dark elves of the Underdark, and the celestial hybrid Aasimar. Icewind Dale II includes over 50 new spells such as Executioner's Eyes and Aegis, bringing the total to over 300 spells, almost all of which have been revamped for the new rule set. More information on Icewind Dale II can be found at icewind2.blackisle.com.

In case you haven't yet, order this game from our Game Store now!

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Icewind Dale II Review at GameSpy
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 21:37 CET by Mollusken

82 out of a possible 100 is the score for Icewind Dale II at GameSpy.

The new "feat" system works wonderfully. There are over 75 feats in the game such as Power Attack, Cleave, Toughness, Rapid Fire, Spell Penetration, Hamstring (a lovely thief feat), and Lightning Reflexes. These new feats add even more flavor to your characters; as they gain experience and increase in level more feats are made available to them -- some of which are class specific. It cannot be stressed enough just how much they add to the game; going back and playing an older Infinity engine game without them seems impossible.

Read everything at GameSpy.

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Icewind Dale II Interviews
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 21:31 CET by Mollusken

The first interview is at paGn, where Black Isle's Darren Monahan answers a few questions about the game. I believe we've seen most of the questions before, but some of it is interesting reading.

Would you say Icewind Dale II is more RPG or Hack & Slash?

Darren Monahan: I would go so far as to say it is much more RPG this time around. It still has a lot of combat, but we've added a lot to the game that wasn't in the original. Skills and attributes have quite a bit of significance in the game, and one thing our fans have yelled and screamed at us for is making the path of evil a viable option. Your party will have a lot of choices to make throughout the game; many of them determine their future outcome and who their friends and enemies are.

The second interview is with Doug Avery at GameAxis, and there's not much new to learn there either.

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Neverwinter Nights 1.23 Patch Released
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 15:06 CET by Mollusken

If you still have problems with your cd-rom not reading your NWN cd, this patch should definitly fix it. BioWare have now removed the whole SecuROM check, and they've also fixed or added a long list of other things.

Fixes new to this patch:

Neverwinter Nights Game

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 12:25 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

ITP Fix In 1.23: I think it is. I believe Derek forgot to put that into the build notes for the patch.

More 1.23 fixes:

Quote: Were these problems fixed in 1.23? I saw no reference in the release notes.

Yes, I believe the problem with save games and the hakpaks are fixed in 1.23. I think Derek forgot to put the notes from one of the builds into the patch info... so a few things (like the DM-DM and Player-DM chat now being in blue text) aren't documented.

Source Directory:

Quote: What is the purpose of the Source folder? Is it ours to use? Is it Bioware's to use? Is it just a repository of needed 2da's for those who dont use the NWNViewer?

I think it is just a repository for commonly-edited .2da's, eliminating the need to extract them from the .bif for most. .2da's in a hakpak still get priority over them, just as they do over anything in the override folder. I'll ask Derek tomorrow to make sure, just in case he doesn't see this somewhere and answers it himself.

Custom Tilesets: Using the SetLocked command as above is the correct method. You CAN use ActionLockObject or Actually, I believe that the only lingering issue with custom tilesets in hakpaks was with the .itp problem in savegames... which has been fixed in the 1.23 patch. Keep in mind, however, that a great number of the tilesets that have already been released will not have this taken into consideration... at some point, they will probably have to be updated. If there are still problems remaining, please do let us know asap. The goal right now is to remove all the remaining barricades for custom content we can by the time the 1.24 patch comes out.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Dialog.tlk: There are currently no plans to provide a means for editing dialog.tlk, although I believe a few enterprising community members have their own utilities. In most cases, the data being added by the community will be in .2da files. Currenlty, most .2da files have one or more columns that contain strrefs that the game and toolset use as identifiers in dialog.tlk when they display a string. On a case-by-case basis, we will be modifying the .2da files to include a new column for raw text that the Toolset will use if the strref column does not contain a valid number. There is no schedule as to which files will be modified or in what order so don't ask. We have already started adding such support in the .set files for tilesets. Given an invalid strref for the tileset's name, the Toolset will read the value from another key in the file as the raw text and display it when selecting a tileset for an area. I believe this has already been explained in other posts, so I won't go into it here.

Neil Flynn, Programmer

Tokens: In the lower left of the conversation editor is the text edit window. Right-click the mouse in here and select "Insert Token" and select the one you want. It will insert the token into the text where the cursor was.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

SecureRom:

Quote: Erm, since Bioware were blaming Infogrames for inflicting SecureROM on us isn't it Inforgrames we should be thanking? I ask 'cos Bioware said that their contract with Infogrames forced Bioware to add it.

Sorry, but that is a misquote that has been going out of control. Let me clarify. We have said the final decision to remove SecureROM had to come from Infogrames as the contract was between SecureROM and Infogrames. This somehow has been misconstrued to mean that BioWare had SecureROM "forced" on us. Sorry, but this is untrue. We all decided that SecureROM was the best choice over the other options (and we still believe that). But, since there has been such an obvious problem that has been inflicted onto our paying customers, we (BioWare and Infogrames) wanted to get this resolved. And this is what we did.

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Neverwinter Nights Review at ZenGamer
Posted Sunday, August 25, 2002 - 18:37 CET by Mollusken

ZenGamer gives Neverwinter Nights a score of 7 out of 10, and after their opinion the AI and replayability was the worst aspects of the game.

My review to this point may seem overly negative, and you may have gotten the impression that I didn't care overmuch for the game. To its credit, NWN is somehow far more than the sum of its parts. The game is a good deal of fun - both single-player and multiplayer (assuming you're with a decent group). It wasn't as sterile and plotless as Dungeon Siege, nor was every confrontation a combat puzzle as in Baldur's Gate II. It struck an enjoyable balance between Diablo II and Shadows of Amn.

Read everything here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 16:26 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: If another game set in the Planescape multiverse (like Planescape: Torment) was made by BIS, would you buy it?
(384 votes total)

Yes, definitely (280) 73%
Maybe, depends on the reviews (73) 19%
No, never (31) 8%

Well, there isn't much to say on this poll except that BIS should undoubtedly start working on another game like Planescape: Torment! The overwhelming majority of poll participants (73%) have enough faith in BIS that they would definitely buy a game like it.

19% of those who voted are undecided, but would probably buy it if they liked the reviews.

Only 8% of the people who voted said that they would never buy it.

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Neverwinter Reviews
Posted Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 16:05 CET by Mollusken

It's been a while now, but here are more top scores for Neverwinter Nights.

Evil Avatar (3/5)

And there it is, the haunting question that computer role players have dodged for a decade. Do we really believe that a computer, with its limited interface, difficult set up, and complex software can adequately replace the actual social environment of role playing? It’s clear enough that you’re not likely to wander into a happenstance public server worth spending time in, so if you’re going to take the time to develop a regular gaming group, why do it across a network? If there is an answer to that question, then clearly the growing number of people who enjoyed a brief love affair with Neverwinter Nights only to abandon it haven’t gotten the memo.

OcPrices (Excellent)

It may not mean much to you but when I murder everyone in a pub I want people to know I want the guard to try and beat me to death, I want to be shunned by my former allies, I want to become the videogame equivalent of Michael Winner; feared and hated by all.
Although it may seem a minor point, for me it’s the computer game equivalent of a set wobbling in a TV show- It utterly destroys the sense of emersion.
In short Neverwinter Nights is a damn fine RPG, unfortunately it’s not the revolution in role-playing we were promised. Bioware had best start work on Baldur’s Gate 3...

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GZ Interview with BioWare
Posted Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 11:32 CET by Sorcerer

A NWN-centered interview with BioWare popped up at GZ recently. While it hardly delivers any new info, this should be of interest:

Q: Baldur’s Gate resulted in a chain of games. Will there be any sequels to Neverwinter Nights?

Tom: "We have not yet announced any expansion or sequel plans for Neverwinter Nights. There is certainly plenty of material out there that could be put into an expansion pack: new spells; monsters; tilesets; feats and skills. We’re definitely exploring the possibilities!"

In short, that's what you can expect to see in an expansion that's in the works but hasn't been announced yet. Read the rest at GZ.

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Icewind Dale II Review at Games Domain
Posted Friday, August 23, 2002 - 20:59 CET by Mollusken

Icewind Dale II gets a score of 4.5 out of 5 at Games Domain, and like most other reviews and previews lately they don't have much new to tell about the game.

Once you're into it though, there's plenty of reward to be had. The game does veer a little towards the hordes of difficult enemies the original was plagued by, with some sections feeling a bit more like a slog than an adventure. But with more hours of gameplay than the original and its expansion put together, there's more than enough to keep anyone going here for quite some time. As a last hurrah for the Infinity Engine, lesser RPGs should take heed and follow.

Read everything here.

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NWN Patch 1.23 Beta 3
Posted Friday, August 23, 2002 - 20:47 CET by Mollusken

BioWare has released the third build of the Neverwinter Nights version 1.23 patch. The patch will fix the following issues.

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Neverwinter Nights Concept Art
Posted Friday, August 23, 2002 - 15:58 CET by Mollusken

BioWare has released some of the concept art they used while making Neverwinter Nights. You can view the 10 images here.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, August 22, 2002 - 16:30 CET by Mollusken

Yesterday's treats from BioWare was a module profile which takes a look at a module called The Sunken Cemetery made by Lord Niah. BioWare's Jonathan Epp has made a Danceclub Example Module with comments on how to use flashing lights and custom music, a tutorial on how to add your own .wav (sound) files to your module has been added to the builders section at the official community site and the BlackJack module has been updated to version 1.1 (players can sit on the chairs while playing).

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Icewind Dale II Review
Posted Thursday, August 22, 2002 - 16:24 CET by Mollusken

SavePoint have written a review of Icewind Dale II, and they give it a score of 8.5 out of 10.

Secondly, I love Neverwinter Nights to bits and will continue playing it well into the next year - but I truly believe that Icewind Dale has a closer more accurate take on the 3rd Edition rules. This might mean little to those who don't play D&D based games, but trust me - it's a good, well balanced RPG system and the closer the better!

Read everything here.

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D&D Monster Manual II
Posted Thursday, August 22, 2002 - 16:02 CET by Mollusken

Wizards of the coast has released a preview gallery of the next Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, which will be released in September. The manual features more than 150 different monsters. You can view the images here.

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Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, August 21, 2002 - 13:11 CET by Z-Layrex

J.E Sawyer, Lead Designer

Sneak attack: When I played through IWD2, my dwarven rogue would pull off multiple successful sneak attacks in every battle in which I bothered to try. The circumstances under which a backstab can be pulled off in IE limit how much you can use it without dying of fatigue.

Sneak attack requires virtually no set up (though hiding first can help) and, as such, can be used on multiple foes in each battle. The amount of damage done by a single instance of backstab has the potential to be greater than a single instance of sneak attack, but sneak attack does far more reliable damage. That's simply due to how the mechanics of calculating backstab and sneak attack work.

P.S.: It was even better when my rogue enabled Power Attack at +5.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Cross class skills: Yes, you can put points into cross class skills when not leveling up as a rogue, but it would cost you 2 skill points instead of 1.

Strength requirement for items: Nope, there is no strength requirement for items in IWD2.

If you want to wear an armor that barely allows you to move, makes your thieving skills crappy, and kills your dexterity bonus, there's nothing stopping you from doing it.

Holy power: Holy power is a 4th level cleric/paladin and 5th level domain spell (forgot which cleric off the top of my head), which gives a +4 damage bonus for the duration of the spell.

Sneak attack: - Sneak attack works with any melee weapon, but there is no ranged sneak attacks.
- In order to execute the sneak attack, the enemy has to be 'facing' away from the rogue, so if they are chasing them around, there is no sneak attack that will be done (even if the character is hasted enough to, in an animation timeframe, be able to run behind an opponent). This is best accomplished by attacking enemies which are already engaged with other members of the party.
- Improved invisibility is also a *big* plus when sneak attacking - as some enemies will turn around and start attacking the rogue that just sneak attacked them.
- I'm not positive on the whole 'enable the backstab option' deal, as I have no clue what the ini switch was.

They would still need to leave the enemy's sight before being able to sneak attack the same enemy, but they can sneak attack multiple different enemy's without leaving the area. For example, there's 5 barbarians attacking the party. My thief can sneak attack barbarians A,B,C,D and E without leaving the area, but once I do so, they have to leave and come back.

Length of game: Length-wise it's as big as, if not bigger than, IWD+HoW+ToTL.

Removing armor in battle to cast a spell: Characters can remove their armor in combat, exactly like the original IWD.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Strategy guide: We (BIS) looked over the strat guide a couple of weeks before we went gold, and corrected what was out of date. So the content is up to date as of print time.

Chad Nicholas, Scriptor

Amount of old areas in the game: Because when the game was due for release used to be sooner than it is now. We were operating on a shorter time table, and didn't have the time to create as many whole new areas as we'd have liked.

Chris Avellone, Designer

Extorting money: There are times you can extort money from people in the game, but it's not often. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's not.

Magic weapons: Every weapon proficiency type is well-represented amongst the magic weapons in the game, so choose a weapon you want, and you won't be disappointed.

Between six characters, you'll pretty much cover all the bases anyway.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, August 21, 2002 - 12:34 CET by Z-Layrex

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.23 Update: There should be a 1.23 Beta 3 coming out today or tomorrow. Then the patch goes into full QA and should be available on Monday the 26th or so.

Neil Flynn, Programmer

Conversations: This was a MAJOR point of contention during the design of the links. The writers were split literally 50-50 between "copy-paste should place the link on the node I pasted on" and "... place the link on the node I copied". It seemed like the 'artistic' people wanted it one way and the 'mechanical' (for lack of a better term) people were comfortable the other way. Finally it was decided to make it an option. Go to the options dialog and change it to the way it make sense to you. You can set it individually for both ways of creating a link: Copy-Paste As Link, and Ctrl-mouse drag.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Toolset Help: I believe most of this information is in the Toolset section in the printed manual:

RESREF
1. Length must be no more than 16 characters.
2. Can contain only a..z, 0..9 and _.
3. Should not begin with NW_ or X0_..X9_ to avoid collisions with (and the overriding of) BioWare resources.

SCRIPT TAG
1. Length must be no more than 32 characters.
2. Can contain only a..z, A..Z, 0..9 and _.

There are a few conventions that have been established for use with BioWare scripts (such as waypoint walking). These are described in the comments of the appropriate script.

Triggers: The difference is that the Cursor property of the trigger instance is probably set to something other than "Unclickable (No Cursor)". This is only an issue for triggers that have a script assigned to their OnClick event.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

New Creatures: Don't worry, new creatures are under consideration. They weren't included in the survey, however, because the work involved is primarily non-Design-related. They'll require 3D Modelers to build the creature models, Texture Artists to develop and apply the textures, Animators to make them move, and Sound Designers to create soundsets for them. All Design does is give the resulting creature their stats and maybe add a little bit of custom behavior scripting. The survey focuses on things that I can do without relying substantially on other departments (except the testing team, of course). If we put out a Live Team Art survey, I'm sure you'll find new creatures listed there. In the meantime, thanks for taking a look at the survey. We're all very interested in seeing the results and receiving your feedback on what you'd like to see next.

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Site News - New Additions
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002 - 19:11 CET by Sorcerer

Helping Support Sorcerer's Place

It's been a while since my last call for help, and since there were only a couple donations in the last two months, this might be a good time to put out a reminder how you can help Sorcerer's Place. I have made an exhaustive list of all the ways each and every one of you can help support Sorcerer's Place in one way or another. The link to this support page can be found below the PayPal button on the left side of every page of Sorcerer's Place. I hope you will take the time to read through it and see if you are willing to do something to help.

My thanks go to all who have donated to SP in the past, or bought anything through the links on Sorcerer's Place. If it weren't for you folks to help me cover the monthly costs, SP probably wouldn't be around any more.

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

R. A. Salvatore's Sea of Swords is now available in paperback, so grab it from our Forgotten Realms Books subsection if you've been holding back on the hard cover. You can also grab some new sample chapters from the same subsection, namely for "The Thousand Orcs" and "Hand of Fire".

Other new sample chapters are "The Lioness" on page 2 of our Dragonlance Books subsection and "The Living Dead" and "Oath of Nerull" in Miscellaneous Books subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

An updated version of the BG2 & ToB walkthrough has been added to the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection. Among other improvements, it now also covers the Solaufein and Ascension mods.

Another new addition can be found in Subsection #2 of the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection, namely Rastor's Item Pack.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2

Amazon is now shipping the strategy guides for the game, so order one from our Walkthroughs & Guides subsection if you're interested.

Additionally, almost 30 new screenshots have been added to our Screenshots subsection, pages 4 and 5.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

In the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection you can find two updates. The first is the NWN Official Campaign Guide, and the second the NWN Reference Guide.

In the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection you'll find 4 new character guides (Ranger, Rogue, Wizard, and Monk), a guide that shows you how you can select a monster skin and portrait and play the game that way, a guide on making custom soundsets, another one on making NPC portraits and finally a link to BioWare's guide on re-skinning the NWUpdater.

In the Editors, Hacks & Tweaks subsection you can download a bunch of cool new stuff. Probably the most interesting is the Camera Angle Hack which allows you to unlock the camera view in the game. Other new additions are the DialogTLK editor, Hakedit, ITP Tools, NWN Tileset Duplicator, MP3toBMU, Modganizer and NDubyaConfig.

All five of the Toolset & Related subsections have also been updated.

In Subsection #1 you can find 4 new tutorials. (Re-skinning Creatures, Creating Your Own Creatures, Adding NWN Chess to a Module and Creating Metallic NPCs.)

In Subsection #2 you can find 10 new tilesets. (Check the page for details.)

In Subsection #3 you can can download the latest version of NWN Lexicon, and two helpful new scripting additions, NWN Special Effects Descriptions and BrainFrameNWN.

In Subsection #4 you can download 5 new item packs and 2 new creature packs.

In Subsection #5 you can download 100 new outdoor placeables, animal masks, and a listing of NWN resources.

The last set of updates has been made in the Modules subsection. Here you can check out 5 new BioWare modules and 2 new fan-submitted ones.

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Trials of the Luremaster Review
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002 - 11:48 CET by Mollusken

Just RPG has reviewed the free downloadable expansion pack for Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter, and they scored it with an A-.

During this section, Dungeons & Dragons fans will see some great classic creatures not seen in the other parts of IWD. Beholders, harpies, wyverns, rakshasa, djinni and jackalweres all make appearances in this new portion of the game. Make sure you save often, especially when dealing with the beholders, as they can disintegrate and use finger of death on you, placing you beyond raising or resurrecting. This is a great flashback to the dungeonhacking of D & D but really requires a good adventuring crew to take through.

Read everything here.

Interview Update at NWN Stratics
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002 - 11:15 CET by Mollusken

A few things were edited out in the previous version of the GenCon interview with BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk, and they're now added in a new version. Read it here.

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Icewind Dale II Screens
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002 - 10:59 CET by Mollusken

I think we've seen what there is to see from the preview edition of the game, but still there is a few new screenshots to look at while we wait for September. You'll find them at Icebound and Worthplaying.

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New Official NWN Module
Posted Sunday, August 18, 2002 - 20:32 CET by Mollusken

"Catapults" made by Rob Bartel is a module where your objective is to destroy the opponent's catapult before he destroys yours. Read more about this and download it here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Sunday, August 18, 2002 - 19:49 CET by Z-Layrex

Trent Oster, Producer

Blood & Gore: I did the original version of blood and mixed up the emitters. Instead of creating one torso which sprayed a lot of blood and a number of small gibs which trailed token blood I created a huge number of blood fountain torsos. The framerate dropped to a frame every second and the screen was completely covered in fountains of blood. Quite funny to watch.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

SecureRom: We are not done resolving the SecureROM issue. Only one of the fixes is in 1.23 Beta 2 with another fix or two going into 1.23 final. This should resolve the SecureROM then. Another super-critical thing that you must do, is that you must report this issue to Infogrames. If you do not, then their Tech Support won't have any stats to support the issues with SecureROM.

1.23 Patch: Sorry, but its just not possible. The fix is available as a beta, but the entire patch must go through BioWare and Infogrames QA before it can be approved for public consumption. We have also just fixed a rather significant save game Loading bug, as well as we still need to fix that odd backwards typing issue with special characters. All of that gets fixed next week (with a Beta 3 around then, too), then it will go into patch release QA. Sorry, but nothing can accelerate this process as Infogrames must test and approve the patch first.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Area Blueprints:
1. From the module contents panel on the left side of the main window, select "Create Copy" from the context menu of the desired area.

2. Change its resource name (ie ResRef) in the window that appears.

3. Select "Remove" from the context menu of the original area.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2002 - 15:07 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Have you encountered any problems with Neverwinter Nights so far?
(385 votes total)

A few, but nothing serious (169) 44%
Yes, some, but it's still playable (103) 27%
No, no problems at all (66) 17%
Yes, the game is unplayable (47) 12%

By now it's pretty obvious to any serious Neverwinter Nights player that the long game development cycle did nothing to diminish the number of bugs NWN shipped with. Thanks to the updater utility users at least don't have to manually seek out patches any more (except for those poor souls who don't have an Internet connection available on their gaming machine), but a bitter taste remains due to continuous need for patching to which there seems to be no end. On the other hand, PC gamers are a very forgiving bunch, and most of us take a number of patches for granted, and we're prepared to suffer this nuisance as long as the game is worth it.

44% of participants in our poll declared that they've had a few problems with Neverwinter Nights, but nothing really serious.

27% of those who voted experienced more problems, but concluded that the game was still playable for them.

17% of poll participants were the luckiest, they experienced no problems with the game at all.

Finally, an alarming 12% of people who voted can't play the game at all.

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BioWare News
Posted Saturday, August 17, 2002 - 10:49 CET by Mollusken

A couple of new articles are up on the BioWare site, the first being a report from this year's GenCon in Milwaukee.

This was a great experience for us all! We had fun hosting the DM sessions, and playing Neverwinter Nights with the fans. It was a great social experience too. Many people, who are were die-hard pen and paper players of Dungeons and Dragons, had never played the game before, and after playing a couple of sessions, said they really enjoyed the experience.

The other article is a report from a BioWare paintball Sunday.

We played about a dozen games, and yes, overall, blue did win most. But, didn't yellow once slaughter all blue once? Yes! Didn't yellow win a few rounds on their own? Yes! So, just to clarify those mathematically challenged (cough...blue team... cough), there was NO WAY blue could have won all the games if they had been slaughtered (6 yellow vs. 0 blue... show me how you won this one? :P )

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Neverwinter Nights Quiz
Posted Friday, August 16, 2002 - 19:36 CET by Mollusken

RPGPlanet has made a Neverwinter Nights Gaming Test where you can check if you really know everything about the game. Check it out here.

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Better Times for Interplay
Posted Thursday, August 15, 2002 - 17:19 CET by Mollusken

Interplay has announced their second quarter financial results, and they had an income of $20.9 million compared to a loss of $12.4 million in the same period last year.

For the second quarter ended June 30, 2002, the Company reported net income of $20.9 million, or $.22 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $12.4 million, or ($.34) per share, in the same period last year. The net income reported in the second quarter of 2002 was primarily the result of the recording of a $28.8 million gain on the sale of Shiny Entertainment. Net revenues for the second quarter 2002 were $11.8 million versus $14.8 million in the same period a year ago, a decrease of 20 percent. Gross profit margin for the second quarter 2002 was 10 percent, compared to 26 percent in the second quarter of 2001. Finally, operating losses decreased 38 percent from prior year to $7.1 million from $11.4 million reported in the second quarter 2002 and 2001, respectively.

For the six-month period ended June 30, 2002, the Company reported net income of $22.4 million, or $.30 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $20.8 million, or ($.64) per share, in the same period last year. Net revenues for the six-month period ended June 30, 2002 were $27.4 million versus $32.1 million in the same period a year ago, a decrease of 15 percent. Gross profit margin for the 2002 six-month period was 45 percent, compared to 33 percent in the same period last year.

Read the whole press release here.

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Neverwinter Nights 1.23 Beta Patch
Posted Thursday, August 15, 2002 - 14:32 CET by Mollusken

The version 1.23 Beta for Neverwinter Nights is available, and if you've had trouble reading your Neverwinter Nights CDs lately (the SecuROM problem), this patch should fix it.

The patch fixes the following problems:

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, August 15, 2002 - 14:28 CET by Mollusken

Yesterday's treats from BioWare was a BlackJack module, a tutorial on how to reskin the NWN updater and another texture pack which contains 7 versions of giants and ogres.

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Aurora Toolset Documentation
Posted Thursday, August 15, 2002 - 14:24 CET by Mollusken

A project called NWN Lexicon has finished the first phase of their work, which is to describe all the functions in the Aurora Toolset. You'll find the site here.

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New Icewind Dale II Screenshots
Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2002 - 19:28 CET by Sorcerer

Impatiently waiting for the sequel to Icewind Dale to be released? Then check out 32 new screenshots at RPG Player.

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Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update
Posted Monday, August 12, 2002 - 19:50 CET by Z-Layrex

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

Mass email sent out and collector’s edition: 1) Okay, just to lay any fears to rest, that e-mail was sent out to everyone on the Interplay mailing list. Heck, I received it this morning. If you've pre-ordered from us, your order will still be processed unless you receive something to the contrary.

2) The CE is the only place you can get the spiral bound manual.

3) Electronic's Boutique is also offering the CE from their online store, but they are getting them from our online store.

I hope that answers all of the questions that have been posed here. If not, ask away.

Icewind Dale: Ark of Warrior: Allow me to clarify. It is Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster being released in one package. There may be more swag included, but that is the core of the package. The title is currently under debate. There are currently no plans for an expansion to Icewind Dale II...it's big enough as it is.

J.E Sawyer, Lead Designer

Spell scrolls: Yes, you can get all of them. None of the spell scrolls are random. You can buy most of them and find the rest. Also, there are duplicates of most spells. There are a lot of scrolls in the game, including low-level ones later on in case you multi-class.

Killing children: All versions of IWD2 will have unkillable kids. Imagine that we're using GURPS cinematic rules and all the kids have their tunics pulled up over their heads.

Bards getting CHA bonus added and Paladins/Rangers getting WIS bonuses added on: They certainly do. A while ago, someone doubted the effectiveness of certain enchantment school spells in the game (Charm Person, Hold Person, Confusion, etc.). Here's a screenshot from my first run through the game. The wizard has a 19 Intelligence and Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment.

I encountered packs of these barbarians. They usually contained a dozen barbarian warriors and a barbarian shaman. Every time my wizard cast Confusion, almost all of the barbarian warriors failed their save by a huge margin. I tried just using blasting magic on them, but it was nowhere near as effective.

It depends upon whom you are using the spells. Using area effect damage spells that grant a Reflex save are usually not very effective against high level warrior characters and (especially) monks and rogues. They are great against masses of mid-level guys who aren't rogues or monks.

Fighters and feats: Fighters get feats very often, and it is frequently in your interest to gain focus and specialization in more than one weapon -- even melee weapons. Remember, all IWD2 fighters start with basic proficiency in ALL weapon types. Focus and Specialization in two weapons costs only four feats total.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Skill points: Characters always get a minimum of 1 skill point even if their modifiers go into negatives.

Killing a lone mage: That is definitely true in IWD2 - a lone mage is a walk in the park even if they're high level, but throw in a few support units to keep the party busy for a few seconds, and suddenly they become extremely deadly.

Precise shot: Personally I haven't used it too much, as I'm more of a melee hacker, but there are some monsters that move extremely fast, thus closing the distance between them and an archer very quickly. If you don't micro-manage a lot, it's nice to have if you want your character to just do their own thing (Sometimes things get thick and heavy as well, and you don't really have time to micro-manage everyone), plus some enemies have this feat too, so it's helpful to them when they're cornered and do not have a melee weapon. In my opinion, this feat is more for role-playing and variety, but hey you never know when something might end up being useful.

Spot skill: There is no spot skill in IWD2. The only 'trap' that can be 'set' is the one that ghostwise halflings get.

Difficulty levels: Besides the monsters hitting more often and harder, you'll most likely get more XP in the earlier levels, thereby raising the party's level compared to the maps and generating more monsters on the process. If you adventure with less than a full 6, it gets even worse, since you'd advance a bit faster than that still.

Alchemy: Alchemy is a pre-req for the envenom weapon feat, is used in some dialogue checks, and also some other things in-game which which would be spoiler material if I divulged it.

Wall spells: I believe wall of moonlight and wall of fire were the only two that made it into the game.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Screen resolutions: At one point both 800 and 1024 were "supported". The rev I have at home only has 800 in the supported category while the other 3 are in the "unsupported" category. Now earlier versions were not like that. They had 800 and 1024 in the supported category. But I don't have the latest version at home so its possible it moved back.

Even if 1024 is unsupported I don't know of anyone at work that has had problems playing in that resolution. Its always worked fine for me on both my two work machines and my home machine. Now the higher resolutions do have some problems depending on the video card RAM you have.

The only reason I can think that 1024 was moved to "unsupported" was that it required more video RAM then what the basic system requirements allowed. All my machines have 4 megs or more of video RAM and the game works fine in 1024.

Don't know if that helps. When the game comes out try it on your system and see what happens. If you have problems, just drop it to 800x600.

Part of game most proud of: I'm most happy with the new interface. Brian, Aaron and I put it together and I think it turned out very well. And thanks to the programmers for making the code changes to make the new stuff work!

I'm also happy with the 3rd edition change. It was a very difficult job but it makes the gameplay very different. Character generation is so very flexible now. You can spend hours making a party (if you want to).

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Monday, August 12, 2002 - 19:13 CET by Z-Layrex

David Chan, Sound Effects Designer

Soundsets: There are no plans to release any other sets at the moment. If we did an expansion there might be additional sets, but this hasn't been discussed.

More:

Quote: Thanks for responding quickly, David. Are there any plans to perhaps create a utility or even a tutorial on introducing your own PC soundsets? The little information I've been able to Dig up 'round here makes the process seem kind of technical. Any reason why PC audio soundsets weren't made as easy to customize as Portraits?

No particular reason, I think it was just the way it had to be done to make it work with the toolset. I will look into maybe getting a "How-To" for voice sets.

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NWN Interview at Neverwinter Stratics
Posted Monday, August 12, 2002 - 17:07 CET by Mollusken

BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk has answered a few questions about the release and future of Neverwinter Nights.

Some people have complained that the pace of combat is too slow and that some encounters are too easy, specifically the dragon encounter. Do you have anything you could say in response to this?

Well, we had to take the rules of the other company into consideration because its their intellectual property. Combat in table top games can go a lot faster obviously, but the length of rounds is specifically stated and we are bound to stay true to the companies wishes.

As far as the encounters being easier in some cases then expected, the best I can describe it is this. In a pen and paper game, your friend runs the game and is able to judge such things. But in a computer game you have AI so it's a lot harder. There has been a lot of time spent game balancing, between using the rules and making it fun for everything. You at one extreme has the people who absolutely love the Baldur's Gate series, and on the other side you have people who are dedicated to the Diablo series. We had to find a balance between the two.

Read everything here.

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Aurora Toolset Tutorials at NW Vault
Posted Monday, August 12, 2002 - 16:52 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault has added five new tutorials to their list, which now moves into intermediate difficulty. Read them all here.

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Preorder Modules Released
Posted Sunday, August 11, 2002 - 18:37 CET by Mollusken

The three modules which used to be available only to those who preordered Neverwinter Nights from a few selected online stores, are now available for all members of the BioWare community to download. The module names are To Heir is Human, The Winds of Eremor and The Dark Ranger's Treasure.

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Neverwinter Reviews
Posted Sunday, August 11, 2002 - 18:34 CET by Mollusken

ELiTeD (87.4/100)

Bioware has managed to bring us a RPG that is as much a tool to realize our dreams and fantasies, to make them tangible to ourselves and to others as well. As it is a wondrous tale of good and evil where the fate of Neverwinter lies in your hands. Truth be told, Neverwinter Nights is undoubtedly the most innovative roll playing game we have seen in many years.

Mad Gamers (7/10)

Ambitious but ultimately disappointing, Neverwinter Nights is a bold vision of the future but it seems destined to failure. Those expecting an involving single-player successor to Baldur's Gate will be most disappointed: Neverwinter Nights' included campaign is dull, cliché-ridden and frequently laughably simplistic. The game is really designed for multiplayer – where it opens up a great deal – but the difficulty of playing a sixty-hour game with the same group of people may mean that most people will be denied the true experience, and will instead to have to contend with the experience-grabbing carnage servers that already proliferate. Neverwinter Nights may have a bright future, but it will depend on the dedication of the user community and their skill in creating new and more interesting adventures: whether many will bother, given the uninspiring starting point, remains to be seen.

VN Roundup (92/100)

Neverwinter Nights is easily the best D&D-based role-playing game ever. The Baldur's Gate games are great, too, but they aren't Neverwinter Nights. When you add to this the multiplayer features and ability to create your own adventures, (that can be run by a live Dungeon Master) this game is really in a class by itself. This is the first computer role-playing game that delivers on the promise that was made back in the '80s:

"One day, you'll be able to play D&D with your friends from around the world!"

It looks like that day is finally here thanks to Bioware's Neverwinter Nights.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Sunday, August 11, 2002 - 16:25 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

DM Client Issues: Both of these are not simple matters, but we are working on them. The one you will see sooner is a change where the DM can select one of three buttons (Friendly/Neutral/Hostile) to determine his current 'stance' towards players (which will carry over to whatever creature he possesses). This requires a new GUI, however, but will shoot down a lot of birds with one stone. As far as the chat system goes, there are numerous changes that are being discussed. We probably won't be seeing any changes to the chat system for awhile, however. For those who are interested, I've been keeping track of some of the bug fixes in the next two versions coming out (1.23 and 1.24) and there are numerous fixes to the DM Client coming down the pipe that take care of some niggly badness... some GoTo fixes as well as a bunch of fixes for possession/unpossession and the DM's quickbar.

Custom Content: Well, one thing you have to realize is that some people on the Live Team have different skills and responsibilities. For instance, the Live Team has a designer now (Rob Bartel), who is the one working on the modules and little extras. He could probably help out with custom content no more than I could. Same goes for the web guys, who run the community site and are working double-time towards future upgrades to its functionality. The people who can help the most with custom content are unfortunately the ones who are busiest with the bug fixing.

As well, when and if tutorials are going to be put up, there's a lot of consideration that has to be put into it... as this is (more or less) the 'official' method. We have to make sure that all the tools exist to perform the operation, that the methods are official (no tutorials that involve .2DA or resource hacking, for instance, unless *absolutely* necessary) and that we are certain this is not only the best way to do it but it works 100%. The audience is also a factor. There is custom content info that is good only for the 'hardcore' (you know who you are) and the kind of custom content that is more widely in demand (like portraits) by people who wouldn't necessarily come to this forum or even know that there is info available on it. Since time is limited right now, we'll start with the easier stuff that's more in demand and work our way up to the harder stuff that's more specific, simply because the harder stuff involves impugning more and more on the time of someone who should be bug-fixing.

Regardless, the good news is that the bug team is slowly easing out of emergency mode. I have heard the Live Team having big powwows on CC for the first time, which is really good to hear, and when Ray and Greg get back from a trip they're on currently we should see some more movement on this. As always, however, this is going to take time and is not going to come all at once (you are not going to wake up one day and see a tutorial for everything you ever wanted to know on-line along with all the needed tools). The trickle of stuff you see now will start to expand and before long the waiting will be a memory. Whether you chose to believe us is up to you. The proof's in the pudding, sure, and all you guys have to do is tear your hair out, waiting. Even if you demand we do better, we can only continue as we have and do the best we can.

More:

Quote: I wait only for a thing... the 3ds plugin, this is all i need Ps: Of course also a way to insert the new models without editing the dialog.tlk. But i think you wait for this things too Polyhedral

Editing the dialog.tlk file is a big issue. We obviously want to avoid that as much as you content creators do. Really the only power you need is to provide a label in the toolset by which your model can be identified. We've already provided that ability in the ambientmusic.2DA and the tileset .set files... so the question, then, would be do we wait to release our 3DSMax tools until the appearances.2DA is patched with this kind of ability or not? Realistically, I suppose you could call your model by any string in the dialog.tlk... it doesn't matter if your model is called 'Hello! My name is George!' or 'Kobold' except to aesthetics, since when you use a model you assign a name to the creature in the toolset anyway. Still, it would seem like only half the capability was given to you guys in that case, wouldn't it?

And then, too: "Okay, I've got the ability to put a creature into the toolset... how do I give it its own soundset?" Totally different issue, but not, since the question will arise.And won't the 3DSMax script need instructions? It's not exactly set up for ease-of-use... there's no 'press this button to import model into game' and you're done. Not to mention that I suspect the maxscript might be only of immediate benefit to user who have 3DSMax 3.X (not sure of exact version). Do we wait until we can make different scripts for different max versions prior to release or let the community do it? Do we wait until we have a GMax gamepak ready and release them altogether? Should we even be releasing a maxscript... would releasing a GMax gamepak alone be preferential? These are the kinds of considerations that have to go into this sort of thing. In the meanwhile, everyone on the Live Team is super busy already working on bugs and whatever else... and those that can are working on tutorials for less involved matters which, while some of you may already have figured out for yourselves or have a workaround for, the 99% of the users that Polyhedral mentions still don't know an official method exists for.

We may still just go ahead and release the 3DMax script (I still don't know if that includes the plugins, as well, sorry) and get you the rest as soon as we can, I don't know. Which is better? (Hearing your feedback on this would be worthwhile.) There are lots of models which we know you guys are just itching to get into the game (and so are we), so that may very well happen. I do know that the answers to these questions on many issues are slowly being worked out, however, and we will see the answers soon enough. Not soon enough for some, perhaps, but like I said once before: for those who only can wait, the time no doubt drags on and makes you frustrated. For us, however, it seems like there's only so much time in a day to get all that needs to be done accomplished.

Challenge Rating: Just to update you on the CR toolset issue:

The problem appears to be due to the last-minute adjustments to item property values that were made prior to ship. If you paint a creature (all of which were made before the adjustments were done) and then edit its instance, the CR is re-calculated automatically... which now takes into account those raised values, and if the creature has a hide item with resistances and/or immunities, the CR shoots up. I *believe* if you then save that edited instance, the creature would actually have the new CR and affect experience, but I don't know this for sure (I am not the person investigating the bug).

We've got a plan in place to change slightly how the CR is calculated and replace the old creature list... but that will probably be implemented a while from now as we need to make sure that we don't screw around with anything else in the process. Either way, the CR problem only affects the list of pre-made creatures, and again only if you edit the instance after placing it. Thanks to those people who pointed this out here and reported their findings... we were a bit baffled by this, at first.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Map Directions: At this point, there is no representation of the compass inside the Toolset. When an area is first loaded, North is the top of the map. If you've found that your directions are not what you want, you can rotate the area using the Edit | Rotate Area command, in the Toolset.

Waypoints: With the 1.22 update, it is possible to simply select the (single) creature you wish to setup waypoints for and right click anywhere else in the area. This will draw out the path the creature will attempt to walk. NOTE: This is not necessarily indicative of the path the creature WILL walk as the lines are drawn directly between waypoints and do not take into account any required pathfinding (ie around a bolder or across a bridge) the creature will perform during play. That being said, it's still a lot easier to set up waypoints now than it used to be.

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Icewind Dale II Forum Update
Posted Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 21:05 CET by Tiamat

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Dunn family: No word from the Dunns in IWD2. However, you do get to encounter Jemeliah pretty early in the game. He's working for Deirdre Galloway.

Static charge: Even in indoor environments, you can use Static Charge.

Spell stacking: Penalties always stack, and the only the highest bonus per stat of a given type applies at any given time. Since the vast majority of stat bonuses are of the Enhancement type, and creating different sub-types per bonus would have been a pain, only the highest bonus to any given stat applies at one time. So, casting Bull's Strength on a raging barbarian in IWD2 will not result in cumulative effects. However, the effects do still remain on a character, so casting Bull's Strength on a barbarian immediately before he/she leaves rage would still be beneficial.
There are two types of bonuses that affect ability scores: Inherent and Enhancement (well, Englargement affects Str and Con as well, but obviously we don't have those effects in the I.E.). The barbarian's rage is one of the only "unnamed" ability score bonuses out of all the various spells, items, and abilities that modify ability scores. So, going through the effort required to separate the two just for the barbarian's rage isn't a good use of time. If you look through the various effects from spells and items in the PH that affect ability scores, you will find very few that are not Enhancement. Barbarian rage is the only one I can think of, and even that is simply "unnamed".
Rage also raises Constitution by 4 and gives a +2 bonus to Will saves, while lowering AC by 2.

Spell Focus and Spell Penetration: The Spell Focus and Spell Penetration feats genuinely make a significant difference. Saving Throws and Magic Resistance are contested checks -- not just a stand-alone number that the targeted character needs to make.
Spells have a Difficulty Class (DC) that starts at 10. To this are added the level of the spell, the caster's ability score modifier (for wizards, Intelligence, for clerics, Wisdom, etc.), and miscellaneous bonuses (Spell Focus, Dreadmaster bonus to Will-based spells). The target must then roll a d20 and add his or her total saving throw bonus to resist. The base bonus is derived from class levels. Fighters are generally good at resisting physical attacks, but suck against mental attacks, for instance. They add the appropriate ability score modifier to their roll as well (Dex bonus for Reflex, Con for Fortitude, Wisdom for Will). If they meet or exceed the DC of the spell, they save. Otherwise, they lose.
Now, if the caster has Spell Focus or Greater Spell Focus, that's a +2 or +4 to the DCs of all spells they cast from that school. That can definitely make a big difference in the game (and often does).

Spell Resistance: Spell Resistance is also a contested check. A creature has spell resistance, which the caster tries to overcome with a d20 roll + their caster level. Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus add +2 and +4, respectively. And yes, it is often useful when fighting drow, duergar, or various other bad creatures. However, they're not as useful as the Spell Focus feats, IMO.

Saving Throws: Usually, a creature's saving throws follow the type of creature they are. "Class/leveled" monsters like enemy NPCs should be easy to figure out. Barbarian warriors have junky Will saves. Serpent's Fangs assassins have excellent Reflex saves. Sometimes, it won't be so obvious. Like -- what are a feyr's good saves?

Ninth Level Spells: You find 9th level spells with enough time before the end of the game that you can make good use of them.

Base attack bonus: It is also important to note that BAB is derived ONLY from your classes and levels, not from strength, magic, or any other foolery. If you get +5 to hit from Strength, it won't increase your number of attacks, for instance.

World Maps: There are three world maps in IWD2. That shot of the world map does not show the gray tinting on the place locations (Easthaven, Redwaters, etc.) very well. Grey tinting = landmark, not a game location. They were put in to give players a greater sense of where they are in the world.

How do you justify the existence of Dark Moon monks? In the same way that we justify the existence of the Arcane Brotherhood in IWD2: we never received an advanced copy of the book that defined these orders in greater detail (Lords of Darkness) and no one at WotC commented on their inclusion when we told them about it.
I was pretty cheery when I opened Lords of Darkness and discovered that the founder of the Arcane Brotherhood didn't even arrive in Luskan until the year in which our game takes place. Of course, Heart of Winter had Hosttower wizards running around, too, and that was around 1281. No one commented about that, either.

Why do ECL races start with XP? The ECL races have enough experience that they will reach level 2 at about the same time as other classes. This was done because in playtesting, the ECL races were simply slaughtered in the first few areas.
Think about how much a 2nd level character can take on that a 1st level character cannot. They have twice the hit points, for one thing, and that's a big deal. For casters, they often have one extra spell, which can make a huge difference at low level. I insisted that the testers try to tough it out "by the roolz", but man, they just got wasted over and over again. So, ECL races do get to 2nd level as fast as everyone else, but that's just to keep them alive.
It may have been that the testers believed svirfneblin had a particularly effective set of defensive powers that justified keeping their starting XP lower. Certainly, drow and duergar are pretty tough, but svirfneblin have +4 AC, blur, mirror image, and a bunch of other festive abilities. They seemed to suffer less in the first few areas than the other ECL races. In a lot of cases, they simply couldn't be hit at all.

Scimitars: You should be able to find plenty o' scimitars. They do less damage than longswords (1d6), but they have a greater threat range for critical hits (18-20).

Release date and new projects: No new release date yet. I asked our producer if he knew when Vivendi/Interplay PR were planning on announcing a new release date. The hope is, obviously, "soon".
We haven't announced any new projects yet, but we do have two groups working right now. I really hope we can announce Jefferson in the near future.

Yuan-ti: There are three types of yuan-ti: purebloods, halfbreeds, and abominations. Purebloods look very similar to humans, and are often mistaken for humans (like the "Eldathyn" clerics in IWD). They sometimes have features that can reveal their yuan-ti heritage, like snake eyes or scaly patches of skin. Halfbreed yuan-ti look sort of like lizardmen. They usually have scaled skin, long necks, fangs, and similar obvious snaky traits. Abomination yuan-ti are almost entirely snake, with only a few human features. Abominations were the most "obvious" yuan-ti in IWD (priests, champions, archers, etc.). All three ranks have different roles in yuan-ti society.

Weapon and spell speed: Weapon speed and casting times are still in the game. It would have been nice to change them all to the static values in 3E, but it was "risky" to say the least.
Most cleric spells will still be pretty slow, for better or worse. Since most of the boardies seem to believe that clerics have it made and wizards/sorcs sit in the doldrums of weakness, this should be good news, I guess.

Weapon focus: Any character with +1 BAB and proficiency in weapon X can take Weapon Focus with weapon X.

Release date woes: IWD2 is the only PC title that is scheduled for release before the last quarter of this year. I don't think many of us were exactly confident that IWD2 was going to ship in late May, but we didn't receive any new information about a projected release date until mid-to-late June. And then that date shifted around a bit. It's "supposedly" been settled, but again, there hasn't been an official announcement about it. In May, Interplay and Vivendi were having negotiations with each other about a) when the game would actually be ready to ship and b) based off of that, when the game would ship. Considering those conversations were ongoing at the time of Herve's "special meeting", why would he commit to something that could slip between quarters in the very near future?

We went to great pains to make the game better on a number of levels. These improvements range from the massive overhaul of the engine to accept 3E rules (which you ignore as irrelevant) to the revision of the entire interface graphically and mechanically. On top of engine changes, the designers spent a great deal of time making the dialogues deeper, more varied, and more reactive to the characters speaking. A large number of interesting puzzles and quests, interactive environment elements, and varied ways to solve problems have all been put in the game to make it better than Icewind Dale on a number of levels.

When we announced Icewind Dale II it certainly did have a May 29th release date. It also still had kits, 2nd Ed. rules, the Icewind Dale interface, and an estimated 30-40 hours of gameplay.

If you don't believe us, check out the previews of the game. These are some of the same people who slammed Heart of Winter. They definitely criticize the aged look of the Infinity Engine, but they almost all have good things to say about the improvements we made to the underlying ruleset and overall changes to gameplay focus.

We made mistakes, changed our minds on some things, debated back and forth with our consumers and each other. But very little was left to the imagination. I will go out on a limb to suggest that the Icewind Dale II community knows more about the development process of this title than any other game I've heard of. We've addressed almost every single question about rules implementation, game focus, engine structure, and related issues that players have brought up.

In May, it seemed unlikely (but still possible) to release IWD2 at the end of the month. However, there was no new release date forthcoming. None. Feargus gave estimates for the end the product's testing to the IPLY people that deal with Vivendi. These figures went back and forth and were debated and compared to the release dates of NWN and Warcraft III by Vivendi. Through all of June, I don't think I ever heard a new release date from anyone. In early July, I believe we were told Vivendi's current release date. I then heard that number change sometime in mid-July, then go back to the previous date. That's the date that should "really for reals" be the actual ship date. I could tell you that date, but it wouldn't really accomplish anything.

If it winds up actually being the release date, big deal -- it has no effect. However, if it doesn't wind up being the release date, I could get yelled at by fans and other people in my company. There's absolutely no point to announcing a release date through anything but Vivendi/Interplay PR.

The game wasn't done at the end of May. There's no denying that fact. We weren't done with it. Our fault. But the release date -- it's not even a matter of assigning "fault". Vivendi isn't at fault for shifting dates around. That's their business, literally and figuratively. They wanted a May release, that didn't happen, so it took Interplay and Vivendi a while to determine exactly when it should ship. Hopefully those dates will be forthcoming. There's no Machiavellian reason for a release date not being announced other than two large, sprawling groups of people going, "Hey, is this going to be done by N?" "Yeah." "Really? That's not what I heard from B." "Definitely. A says so." "Okay, well we have to deal with X, Y, Z. So, blah, blah, blah."

I would also like to point out a precedent for Interplay releasing titles in close proximity to direct competition: Icewind Dale. The original Icewind Dale was shipped on the same day as Diablo II. More than NWN and Warcraft III are to Icewind Dale II, Diablo II was a direct competitor to Icewind Dale. We had absolutely no problem releasing it on the same day. Icewind Dale has sold well over 300,000 units to date.

"HAW, HAW! THAT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO BALDUR'S GATE!" That's absolutely correct. It also took a year to make with a smaller development team and had a very high wholesale price. If you think Icewind Dale is nothing compared to Baldur's Gate or BG:II, rock on, brother -- but the fact is that it did make a lot of money for Interplay.

Even Heart of Winter, the ill-fated expansion to IWD, made a load of money for IPLY. Unfortunately, it did it in a kind of crummy way. Did you know that Sacrifice and Heart of Winter sold roughly the same number of units? That's right -- the Heart of Winter expansion, on one disk, with a very short development time and low cost of goods, sold at a high wholesale (too high, by many reviewer and fan estimates), got fair to bad reviews, but still sold about as much as Sacrifice. Sacrifice was in development for years, got excellent reviews, had a great looking engine, and was very high-concept. It just didn't sell very well. You may believe that Sacrifice is a much better game than HoW. If so -- that's perfectly fine. It doesn't change the facts of how profitable both titles were. Hey -- I think MDK2 is the best game BioWare's made to date. It also happens to be one of their lowest selling titles.

I suppose it is possible that everyone in Black Isle is incompetent, but our products still continue to sell. There's no reason for us to expect that IWD2 would bomb if it were released today or next week. If the original IWD could sell head-to-head with Diablo II (a more direct competitor to IWD than NWN and WCIII are to IWDII), why would we (IPLY) have any reservations about shipping IWDII as soon as reasonably possible?

Voice Acting: Tony Jay's voice lives on in my favorite IWD1 voice set -- Male Fighter 2 (the dwarf one). His voice is almost too distinctive. He was the Transcendant One in Torment and Kresselack in IWD. The narrator for all of Icewind Dale II is Kath Soucie. The character is Maralie Fiddlebender, Oswald's niece.
It's pretty amazing how well Kath Soucie does the narrator as an adult and the in-game character as a child.
The only one I might expect people to know by name is Peter Stormare. He played the head of the German nihilist techno band in The Big Lebowski and was recently in Minority Report (or so I hear).
He has a thicker Swedish accent than I expected. WOW. It's thick.

Math time: Do some math. In a round with three attacks, the fighter will do an additional six points of damage. Over three rounds, that's eighteen points. That can easily mark the difference between a dead enemy and a live one. For even stronger characters, the difference becomes more pronounced. If you have a barbarian using a spear while raging, his or her strength is up to 22 (+6). That changes the bonus to +9 total. Over three rounds with three attacks, he or she will do an additional twenty-seven points of damage.
If you're up against slashing-resistant enemies in IWD2 (and there are plenty), you have two options for alternate two-handed weapons: quarterstaff and spear. Quarterstaffs do even less damage. However, both are simple weapons, so it's not like any character is going to "lose out" -- almost everyone's proficient with spears.

Spear range: Spears actually do have a range of 2. They did in IWD as well. You can attack a creature from the behind another medium or small character. Nine Paces, however, has a range of 3. They do 1d8 damage and are two-handed, so they get the 1.5x Strength damage bonus.

Multiclassed Rogues: Towards the end of the game, multiclassed rogues can suffer. I had a dwarf rogue that took two levels of fighter (he was 15th level total at the end). It did make some of his skills suffer in noticeable ways.
The way the D&D system is set up, focused characters ultimately are more effective, overall, at higher levels. Though this might sound odd considering the "free and easy" multiclassing and skill selection in 3E, the fact is that high level DCs are set against such high values that the margin between a "focused" character and a "casual" character is much greater than at low levels.

Saving in HoF mode: Uh, I'm pretty confident that you can still save the game in Heart of Fury mode.

Maze in the following screenshot: That is the Z'hinda Citadel, once a drow blockade/fortification for the forces of Rilauven. It is occupied by something else when you arrive.

Darren Monahan, Producer

3D Support: So I'm getting myself ready for flaming, but unfortunately in the retail version of Icewind Dale II, 3D mode will not be supported. Based on the schedule of the game, we had to make decisions about what we wanted to focus our limited bug-fixing energy on and we felt that that energy should be put onto making sure the new rules and features we implemented worked as best as possible. Converting from 2E w/kits to 3E was a big gigantic undertaking - one that made the programming team put in 16-18 hour days with almost no days off for nearly four months. (I suppose that's normal for development sometimes... yikes)
Icewind Dale II took under a year to make from start to finish, and we made so many fixes and changes to the engine in that period of time. 3D, albeit interesting, still had a number of graphical and speed issues that would have required a fair amount of attention, so we took 3D support out of it in the final version.
Hopefully this won't discourage your impressions of the game, it's just one of those decisions we hate to make that had to be made.

Coming soon: It's coming soon, so very soon! Sadly that's all we can say at the moment. Until Interplay Proper announces it has gone gold, we can't give out any dates or guesses or anything like that. Just one of those things about being developers and not marketing, sales or PR folks.
Sorry - I can promise you will hear news soon though.

Outsiders and Monks level 20+: For the purposes of some effects that care if you're an outsider or not, yes we did make Monks 20+ outsiders.
We had made it so Monks 20+, Tieflings and Aasimar characters were outsiders by the 3E definition. One of the problems outsiders face is that they can get banished out of the Prime Material plane with certain spells. Some of the effects in the game that would normally get rid of elementals, extraplanar critters and other non-PC type outsiders would end up banishing your PC's too, which was just not a lot of fun as later in the game some big guys will take out your summoned critters quick.
We decided that PC outsiders will have some certain "immunities" to the outsider limitations that allow them to not be considered outsiders "by the r00lz" for the player's sake (and benefit).

Heart of Fury: Just wanted to give you some clarification on how the Heart of Fury mode works in Icewind Dale II.
ENABLING HOF: First off, you do not have to beat the game to enable it. During a period through the development of the game, we had set it up so that you'd have to beat the game through once to allow HoF to be enabled. We decided that since this is a single player game foremost, that emulating the Diablo II method was not something we felt was best for the players.
In the final version of IWD2, HoF can be turned on at any time. One notable difference is that once you turn it on, any NEW games you start in HoF mode, will ALWAYS stay in HoF mode, regardless if you turn it off in the Config program or not. Also, any previous games started that are NOT in HoF mode, will not suddenly become HoF mode games.
Why we did this is because HoF in Heart of Winter could be badly abused which we felt messed up the balance of the game too much not to deal with in IWD2.
WHAT IT DOES: It doesn't just set the difficulty to Insane and set the area difficulty to max, it does much much more to enemy stats and some critters combat AI behavior. Chickens have over 70 hit points for example and have a mean peck.
Also IWD2 now has HoF-unique items that can only be found playing in this mode.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Lack of 3D support in Icewind Dale II: 3D mode has always been a problem in Infinity games. Unlike 2D mode, it was problematic on various cards. Many times it caused massive slowdown or weird graphic problems. From a game standpoint it really doesn't make much difference. The fog of war looks slightly better but otherwise everything looks the same. If you were one of the lucky ones that had a card that worked, great! Otherwise you got substandard performance.

So for those of you that don't want to buy it now that you know there's no 3D mode, that is fine. I think you'll be missing out though. I don't think a slightly inferior fog of war affects enjoyment radically.

Actually in the IWD series we didn't use the water effect. We do have custom static animations for pools and such in both games but static animations are completely unaffected by 2D or 3D settings as they are sprite art.

As for transparency effects, some look better, some look worse. The artists that made the spells originally did them for 2D mode transparency. The transparency effect is calculated differently between 2D & 3D. Actually it has changed several times. Torment used one algorithm, while IWD1 used another. Even IWD2 has been changed some to speed up rendering which affected the look some. So I can't really say if one is better than the other. It really depends on which spells are going off at the time. And the greater compatibility in 2D mode is a big plus. Many people are not super familiar with drivers and video card settings. 2D mode will basically run on almost any driver or card which is not the case with 3D mode. And I think the programmer time spent fixing game bugs in the 3rd Edition conversion and adding the totally revamped interface were much more important. When you have limited resources you have to make judgment calls on what is more important. I think Darren made the right decision and chose things that actually affect gameplay.

The 3D option is removed entirely. I checked with the lead programmer and the release version has it removed. The beta floating around still has it active if you edit the INI file but the release version will not.

As I mentioned above, the 3D mode has many problems and minor improvements. I think a less buggy game was the better decision.

Resolutions: There are 4 resolutions the program supports.
800x600 is the default and is "supported"
1024x768, 1600x1200, & 2048x1536 are the other 3 modes that you can play at. These are not supported.
800 & 1024 work great and I've had no problems. 1600 & 2048 can have some problems depending on the amount of memory you have on your card. Truthfully those resolutions are so high that characters and monsters are just too small to see well. I'd recommend people play in 800 or 1024. I personally like 800 best because all the menus were designed for it and the characters seem about right sizewise. It's all personal preference of course.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Call Lightning: Call lightning is still the same as it was in IWD1. Outdoors only.
Oh, by the way, just thought I'd say, there are a few enemies who use that spell as well.

Do acid arrows affect feats? Yes, there are acid arrows, but they will not be affected by the feat - aqua mortis (and also spirit of flame, scion of storms, and aegis of rime) is something attained through physical and mental skill, so it wouldn't affect weapons and such.

Clerical summoned monster limit: Same applies. Clerics can only control up to 6 undead at a time.

Are ammo stacks the same as in IWD? Stacks are still the same ones in IWD1. There are no magic quivers, but there's some magical ammo which returns to the user when fired.

Sneak attack: If the rogue(s) get out of all the monster's field of vision, they can come back and sneak attack the monster again.
There's no limit, if you want to spend all that time sneak attacking a monster to death, more power to you.
One limitation, however, is that multiple rogues cannot sneak attack an enemy right after the other (they need to leave the field of vision and come back as well).

Soloing: A word to the wise: You will need to know the game very well and plan your character equally well to have a standing chance at all when soloing.

Stat requirements for weapons: Weapons do not have stat requirements in IWD2. Characters can wield a great sword with a strength of 3 if they want, just not very effectively.

Kuldahar screenshot: Link. Amazing how things change in 30 years eh?

Abundant Step: Monks do not get abundant step, but they do get empty body at level 19. It also goes with the whole 'discipline' motif mentioned above, for multiclassing into a spellcasting class.

Dual Wielding: Sorry, but no dual wielding of ranged weapons.

Dual wielding Melf's Minute Meteors and a long sword: Characters that dual wielded because of that technicality would get attacks with their offhand (melee) weapons when standing outside of melee range lobbing magical missiles. That is no longer the case - any magical projectiles overrides both main and offhand weapons now, so that they won't get a long sword attack 40 feet away, for example.

Kits: There's no 2E kits in IWD2. The 'kits' that most previews seem to be pointing at are the paladin and monk orders, I'm assuming.

Recharging wands: There is really no way to recharge wands/charged items.

Weapon finesse: No, weapon finesse only applies to the small blades proficiency.

Power word kill: This spell will kill an enemy who has less than 100 (current) hit points or multiple ones who have less than 20. Multiple creatures killed can add up to a sum of 200 hit points.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

3D support: Actually, 3D support was never officially supported in any IE game, but the option was indeed there to use it in the Config settings. There's even a little blurb next to the check box stating it wasn't supported, if I recall correctly.
I agree it would have been nice to implement again, but considering all the other things that we tried to put in the game - like gameplay and the new roolz - unsupported 3D was not high on the list. I don't know what might be shipped with a future patch.

Saving in HoF mode: Your save file will still be there in HOF mode and if anyone (or all) in your party dies. It's this way in IWD and IWD2. This whole thing about save files disappearing, game ending, etc. in HOF mode is incorrect.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

Pre-made Party Descriptions: Here are the party descriptions for the adventuring companies that come with Icewind Dale II. I will post the other two in just a sec. It seems I ran out of room. I will put up a list of designers later on in the week and you can guess which designer wrote which description. Enjoy...

LADY'S LAMENT
The Lady's Lament is a group of adventurers that hails from the City of Splendors, Waterdeep. They have a reputation for being soft spoken, reserved, and somewhat melancholy. However, they are also known for championing the underdog, and often accept difficult assignments that other groups pass up. Hearing of the beleaguered town of Targos, they quickly traveled to Luskan and joined the throngs of mercenaries heading for Icewind Dale. The group is named after their leader, Sheris Lyricist.
Sheris was the spoiled daughter of a Waterdeep noble. She took advantage of her family's wealth and power to live a pampered, unproductive life. Her only true love was music, and this was the one thing that she tried to excel at. Sheris fled her home when she discovered that her father had arranged a marriage for her. Unsuited for any other profession, she became a bard.
Geldin and Khatja, a half-orc couple, are the muscle of the Lady's Lament. Geldin follows the orderly path of the warrior, while Khatja believes in the ferocity and chaos of the barbarian. Together they pose a mighty force. Neither will speak much of their past, only saying that they are not accepted by orc or human alike.
Laeris, the cleric of Ilmater, is the spiritual guiding force of the party. He is a humble man who speaks little, and asks even less. He often uses his great wisdom to complement Sheris' charisma.
Vraedna, the sorcerer, is the arcane power of the party. As a drow maiden, she turned away from the worship of Llolth and fled the underdark. She stays with the Lady's Lament hoping to share in their good reputation. Her greatest fear is to be deserted and left on her own in the surface world.
Kylie, the halfling rogue, is the prankster of the party. His life's goal is to wipe the frown from his teammate's faces, or at the very least, make them laugh once in a while. Having been with the Lady's Lament for several years, he fully understands the meaning of 'misery loves company.'

SISTERS OF THE BLOOD MOON
Drawn together under the watchful and accepting eye of Selune, more-so for their differences than similarities, the young adventuring party known as the Sisters of the Blood Moon have made it their mission to help those that are oppressed, abused, and in dire need of aid.
Their leader, S'feria Ranul, a drow Silverstar of Selune who normally resides in the city of Silverymoon, gathered her adventuring sisters together one day, and presented them the note of requested aid from the troubled town of Targos. The promise of gold from Targos was not the motivating factor for the party to go and help. It was their bond and their oath to help all those who asked, and they did not hesitate to charter a ship to take the Sisters of the Blood Moon to Targos.
"This isn't a proper place for a band of ladies." How many times had S'feria Ranul heard this phrase, and those like it? More than she cared to count. But those that uttered such phrases of warning knew little of S'feria, and her Sisters of the Blood Moon.
Born in the Underdark city of Sshamath, but raised by Moon Elves within the surface city of Silverymoon, S'feria Ranul grew to be a sophisticated, driven, and caring priest of Selune - also known as a Silverstar of Selune. She is able to push aside most people's discriminatory comments, and change their minds in favor of acceptance and tolerance. It was these qualities, and her strength of leadership, that brought together other women of similar thinking, tenacity and strength, to form the Sisters of the Blood Moon.
Oagla'ta is a half-orc barbarian female of great size and strength, even for her male counterparts of the breed. Her female gray dwarf companion, Nyzeil Nighthammer, is equally formidable for her kind. However, neither shared the dark hearts that their heritage usually elicited. They both joined the Sisters of the Blood Moon when S'feria showed an act of kindness by interfering with the Silverymoon guards' intolerable, and discriminatory behavior towards the two women. Oagla'ta and Nyzeil are both extremely proficient with axes and warhammers, and usually exceed any male warriors of their race.
Nevae Quar is a female half-elf, a gifted archer, and a young ranger who was befriended by twin female gnomes; Hylei Shadowhand, an illusionist who favors deception over harm, and Kylei Shadowhand, a rogue with a propensity towards pick pocketing. The three women had a chance meeting with S'feria and her troupe when S'feria, Oagla'ta and Nyzeil were ambushed by a dozen goblins in the forest outside of Silverymoon. Nevae and her friends did not hesitate to help the ambushed women when they came upon them.
Thanks to Nevae and the Shadowhand twins, the battle was over before it really had a chance to begin, much to the disappointment of Oagla'ta and Nyzeil. However, S'feria was enthralled with how well all the women worked together in the battle with the goblins, and knew that the Sisters of the Blood Moon would be complete with Nevae and the Shadowhand twins - who were overjoyed at the chance of joining an official adventuring party.

THE WINTER ROSE
Named for the Frostrose, whose petals remain crimson in even the harshest climates, this fellowship is founded on the unwavering commitment to duty. Just as it is the duty of the Frostrose to keep its scarlet hue against the snow-covered wastes, so too must the fellows of the Winter Rose hold to their covenant as self-proclaimed guardians of the North.
The Watcher, Sirge de La Sunya of Amn, is the founder of the fellowship. His father, Don Di'Armos, was a respected noble and Watcher of Helm in the city of Athkatla. On his deathbed, the Don told his son of a sister he had in the far off land of Damara.
During a very long and lonely expedition, he found companionship with a strange woman in the wilderness. When the woman gave birth to their child, she revealed herself as a demon. Don Di'Armos destroyed the demon but could not bring himself to murdering a child, even a demon child. He took the abomination to a monastery and left it for the monks to care for.
The revelation caused Sirge to question all that he had ever believed. He abandoned his duties to the church and to House de La Sunya and determined to search for his sister.
Kebb Trapmaster is The Watcher's squire. He earned his name as a member of the infamous Shadow Thief Guild. Uncomfortable with the Shadow Thieves' penchant for killing, he saw it as a blessing when he was sentenced to indentured servitude. More than a mere squire, Kebb is Sirge's teacher and closest friend. Naturally, he joined the knight when he left Amn.
Tianya is a beautiful half-elf druid. She was left to the whims of nature when she was just a child, abandoned by parents who wished to keep her from spoiling their "perfect" lives. It was by chance that she joined the fellowship.
Sirge found his sister, the tiefling Naleen, at the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. He could not bring himself to revealing his true relationship to her. So, he introduced himself as "The Watcher" and invited her to join the Winter Rose. With a deep desire to see the world beyond the walls of the monastery, she accepted.
Llendril and Dalwynd are the newest members of the Winter Rose. Llendril is a descendent of the Elves of the Hand. She has decided to return to her ancestral home, hoping to fill the once beautiful halls with the music that was born there. Dalwynd was the greatest pie thief of his hamlet. From an early age he could talk his way out of what most halflings had to sneak their way out of. When Dalwynd left his Shire in the company of these adventurers, one would think the little people of the Shire would have been happy to see the little pie smuggler go, but as is always the case with family they miss him more than they missed those pies. The two have done much to lighten the hearts of this band of adventurers.

ANNALS OF HALGREN
This weary band has sprouted up in the shadow of Halgren Death's Head, a dwarf from the Bruenghor Clan in the Sunset Mountains, a mountain range far to the south of Icewind Dale. Their leader, Halgren, seeks enough wealth so that he may erase the stain of his family name from the bloody crimes of one his ancestors, a vicious dwarf known as Kaervas.
The troop gathered in Luskan barely a tenday ago. Neither evil nor especially law-abiding, the group tends to honor their word and stick to their cause, which is furthering their own name... and erase the stain from Halgren's.
Halgren Death's Head, the party leader, is a dwarven warrior with impressive skills with the axe and crossbow; his strength and toughness allow him to be a front line all to himself. He is haunted by the crimes of his ancestor, who was rumored to be a dark dwarf, and he is forever seeking to amass wealth (and fame), so that he may redeem his family's name.
Bastinado claims to have wandered all over the Realms as a pirate, fisherman, mercenary, tinker, scout, and a forester. He is skilled with all manner of weapons, and his great strength, endurance, and tendency to remain in good spirits no matter what the situation has been the glue that has kept the band together on their long journey from Luskan. When battle calls, he takes Halgren's left side in confrontations, watching out for his leader.
Halgren's wife, Alia the Shield-Maiden, has traveled with him for nearly a decade, and she has turned from the dwarven gods to serve Tempus, lending her clerical powers to Halgren's cause. She believes the path the band walks will be a bloody one, and she keeps a journal of their travels. When blades are drawn, she typically covers Halgren's right, earning her the name "Shield-Maiden."
Silence-Before-Iron is a monk from Amn. She has the touch of the lower planes about her, and her monastic vows and fiendish blood make her keep to herself. Silence-Before-Iron follows an order of monks who wield ideals in the place of weapons, embracing such aspects as silence, shadow, ice, fear, or wind before the iron of a mace or edge of a sword.
Mordakai of Thay turned from his Thayan kin and fled north and west after his sorcererous powers were discovered by his fellow Red Wizards. Abandoning his apprenticeship, the sorcerer welcomed a journey into the North where he felt he could be at home amongst the ice and snow. He is far less bloodthirsty than his fellow Red Wizards, and he is constantly seeking to set himself apart from them with his own actions.
Kei the Wooden Idol claims she was once nothing more than a wooden sculpture that was animated and turned into a living, breathing woman - one of her many tales that tends to raise a skeptical eyebrow over a tavern meal, since her ears mark her as having elven blood. She is a pleasant rogue, always quick with a joke - or to jig a lock or slip out at night to peek at what the local rich merchants are up to. Her skills tend to keep her a discrete distance from front-line fighting.

THE HANDS OF FURY
A group of unpleasant adventurers from along the Sword Coast, the Hands of Fury have a tendency to bully and brutalize people they encounter in their travels. After traveling to Luskan with a group of pirates, their planned expedition with the crew fell through. Stranded in Luskan, they decided to seek out their fortune with the packs of mercenaries sent to aid Targos. Their overbearing leader, Makados, gave the group its name.
Makados, a proud Stormlord of Talos, is an intimidating, charismatic figure. Though he is a priest, he is perfectly fit for front-line battle. This is good, since Makados usually picks fights with people the party encounters.
Dahel Bloody-Four, a barbarian from the Western Heartlands, is even more bloodthirsty than Makados. Though he's a bit dim and not particularly strong for a barbarian, his speed and incredible endurance make him a dangerous opponent. He earned his nickname from a barfight where he killed four combatants out of sheer malice after he had already beat them into unconsciousness.
The dispossessed elven noble, Amraith, is a cool and efficient warrior. Quicker than anyone else in the Hands of Fury, he is often the last one standing at the end of their "disputes". He also has a quick mind, making him a bit more versatile than simple Dahel.
Mirai Wainwright is the lone woman in the Hands of Fury, but her position as the party's only arcane spellcaster makes her quite valuable. A half-elf, she does not have the terrific speed of Amraith, but nor does she suffer his frailty. She is quite intelligent, strong-willed, and surprisingly, physically strong.
The other dispossessed outcast in the party, Harbesh Carver, is a capable dwarven rogue and all-around thug. Strong, smart, and tough, he leaves discussion to Makados and the others. He is a grumpy individual who warms up more to a difficult lock than a friendly stranger.
The last member of the group, Fissera, is an angry, aggressive druid who makes a terrible companion for Makados. Wise and profound in all the worst ways, Fissera waits for Makados to give the signal, then unleashes nature's worst wrath on anyone who stands in their way. Unlike Makados and the rest of the "front-line", Fissera does not consider himself particularly well-suited for front-line combat.

"Gone Gold": What the term "Gone Gold" means: A game is finaled in two steps: silver and gold. Silver is when we send our final version to the duplicator and they do a test run. They then send us back their silver candidate and we compare all of the files and their locations to our original master. After we sign off on the silver, it is considered gold and the duplicator begins their official production run.

Bastard swords and katanas: A bastard sword is almost the same size as a two-handed sword (think of Conan the Barbarian's sword). Most "normal" folk need two hands to wield it because of its size. However, those that have been specially trained in the weapon can use the bastard sword with one hand, thus making it an exotic weapon to use with one hand.
A katana, while essentially a two-handed weapon that can also be used one-handed when need be, is a much lighter weapon than a bastard sword. Bastard swords, like two-handed swords, were used against heavy armor. A katana was not designed to be used against heavy armor and would break against armors like plate.

Number of CDs and a demo: The game is finally fitting on two CDs. We found a few redundant files that we were able to delete that enabled us to scrunch it down. Don't worry, no content was cut. As far as a demo is concerned, we have no current plans for one.

Chris Avellone, Designer

Harlots: No harlots.

Danien Chee, Programmer

Number of attacks and cleave: You get a max of 4 primary attacks + 1 off hand for a total of 5 attacks. With Cleave, you can get additional primary attacks when used successfully. e.g. On your 3rd primary attack, you roll cleave successfully. You will get an additional attack before your 4th attack.
You will ALWAYS only have 1 off hand attack and it will always be the last attack.

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Aurora Toolset Tutorial
Posted Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 19:37 CET by Mollusken

Neverwinter Vault has, with help from BioWare, made 10 "basic" and "beginner" lessons for the Aurora Toolset. You can read them all and download them here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 17:15 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: In general, how has Neverwinter Nights as a whole lived up to your expectations?
(410 votes total)

Totally (157) 38%
Not completely (156) 38%
Only somewhat (60) 15%
Not at all (37) 9%

It's been a while since we've had a tie in the polls, but in this one practically the same number of people (38%) voted for the choice of NWN totally living up to their expectations, and another 38% for not completely living up to their expectations.

15% of poll participants voted for Neverwinter Nights as only somewhat living up to their expectations, and the last 9% voted for it not living up to their expectations at all.

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Neverwinter Nights Stuff
Posted Friday, August 9, 2002 - 19:32 CET by Mollusken

A new chess module from BioWare will let you play chess with your friends in Neverwinter Nights. If you would like to have this kind of feature in your own module, they have also made a tutorial on how to add it there.

The stuff from this week's Neverwinter Wednesday was a tutorial on creating your own creatures, a tutorial on editing model textures and a couple of texture bundles available for download. The texture bundles contain badger, bat, umber hulk, troll, panter and four different versions of orcs.

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David Chan at Penny Arcade
Posted Friday, August 9, 2002 - 19:22 CET by Mollusken

David Chan is one of the sound guys at BioWare, and after a long time he has written the second article about his work there.

The problem as I see it is that sound affects people on a subconscious level. When sound works well you feel it, you don’t really notice it. When sound fails it becomes obvious and breaks the suspension of disbelief. That in a nutshell is the challenge of a sound designer. To make sounds that reinforce visuals and story and to make them so they don’t stand out to the point of annoyance. In movies you can push it a bit more because you may only hear a sound a few times. In a video game you may hear a sound hundreds, if not thousands of times.

Read everything here.

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Neverwinter Nights on Parhelia
Posted Friday, August 9, 2002 - 19:03 CET by Mollusken

A while ago there was a news post here about a couple of screenshots featuring Neverwinter Nights on the three-headed display card Parhelia from Matrox. FiringSquad has done a longer review of the card, and Neverwinter Nights was chosen to represent the RPG genre. You can find the article and 6 pictures of Neverwinter Nights in 3072*768 resolution (three monitors) here.

My 18th level Druid has the ability to Shapechange into a huge red dragon. With one screen, it’s almost impossible to walk around because the sheer size of the dragon takes up so much of the screen, there isn’t much open ground for me to click to walk. With three monitors, I can more effectively move while Shapechanged into a dragon.

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BioWare in Time Magazine
Posted Friday, August 9, 2002 - 18:58 CET by Mollusken

As one of the leading businesses in Canada, BioWare was profiled in Time Magazine at the end of July. A scan of the article is available here.

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Neverwinter Reviews
Posted Friday, August 9, 2002 - 18:53 CET by Mollusken

Games Radar (9/10)

Taking advantage of the PC's multiplayer and Internet capabilities, Neverwinter Nights is a flagship for the platform, although slightly suspect performance and a few minor design issues dampen our enthusiasm fractionally. Nevertheless, it's a worthy successor to the BG series and a game no one should be embarrassed to hold in high regard.

All About Games (94/100)

Secondly, the CDs came in cheap paper sleeves. This of course was very annoying, again considering the expense of the game. The game also features a really, really ugly map. The map is made of such cheap cloth, that it wouldn't be found in a K-Mart bargain bin.

Despite being annoyed with the box, my anger faded once I got into the game. The single player campaign is a lot of fun, and if you ever tire of it, you can always make your own modules. If you find the toolset a bit intimidating, you can always download the modules created by people of the Neverwinter Nights community. This game will stay alive for years, as the fans of this game aren't going anywhere until the release of the next Bioware game.

Just RPG (A+)

All in all, I am extremely impressed by the quality of Neverwinter Nights, both the game play and visual aspects of the game. I urge anyone who has ever gotten any pleasure out of playing Dungeons & Dragons to go out and get a copy of this excellent offering.

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TEP Interview with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka
Posted Thursday, August 8, 2002 - 19:06 CET by Sorcerer

TEP posted an interesting interview with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka (BioWare CEOs) about the two mysterious new titles that have been announced recently, Neverwinter Nights and more. Check out this bit:

EP: I guess this will mean developing your own particular set of RPG rules from scratch.

RM: Yeah. We've been working on licensed properties for eight years and we're definitely going to continue to work with great publishers, and Star Wars and D&D in the future, but at the same time we also want to make our own rulesets for PC and console RPGs. That's the purpose of these two projects.

GZ: It's pretty cool because we've had the experience of converting D&D rules now twice--the second edition and third edition--and working on the Star Wars game, we've got a pretty good sense of what works on the computer and what doesn't. That creates an opportunity to really change the way RPGs are played on the PC and consoles.

RM: We see those two games as very distinctive, one's a PC title and one's a console title, and will be designed very differently. Each represents one challenge.

Read the whole thing here.

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Icewind Dale II Preview at Invisible Dream
Posted Thursday, August 8, 2002 - 18:54 CET by Sorcerer

An enthusiastic preview of Icewind Dale II (no new screenshots though) has been posted at Invisible Dream. Here's a snip:

Of course, those gamers who have been through Icewind Dale before may wonder if there is reason to journey its snow-covered lands again. This upcoming sequel offers new areas to explore not to mention over fifty new spells to master, new classes to play, and even new abilities and feats to gain. Icewind Dale 2 promises to be an entirely new experience, and will be larger than the original Icewind Dale and its expansion pack -Heart of Winter- combined.

Go here to read the rest.

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Neverwinter Nights Patch 1.22 Released
Posted Thursday, August 8, 2002 - 12:38 CET by Sorcerer

Update time... Here are the fixes this time through:

Neverwinter Nights Game

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BioWare to Develop Two New Games
Posted Thursday, August 8, 2002 - 0:48 CET by Sorcerer

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada – August 6th, 2002 – BioWare Corp. today announced that they are working on two new games, both roleplaying games based on two new intellectual properties, created and owned by BioWare. The first of the two un-named titles in production is being developed for the Xbox, the second for the PC.

Today, Microsoft Game Studios and BioWare Corp. are announcing that they have signed a first-party publishing partnership for the new Xbox game under development at BioWare.

The second game, a BioWare Corp. PC roleplaying property, is under development but has not yet been presented to any publisher.

"The partnership with Microsoft Game Studios is a perfect fit. They clearly share BioWare's vision and commitment to quality. To be publishing BioWare's first intellectual property - an all-new, epic Xbox roleplaying game - is a great opportunity for us. Of course, we also intend to continue our existing publisher relationships developing selected licenses", said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp.

"As part of our long-term strategy, we continuously seek out premier game developers," said Ed Fries, vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. "BioWare has repeatedly delivered compelling games. Our publishing partnership with BioWare further represents our commitment to bring only the best experiences to gamers."

"Our PC developers are already hard at work on our other new 'secret' PC roleplaying game", said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. "Creating our own universe is a great opportunity for us to deliver a game that is uniquely BioWare, and we look forward to creating an immersive BioWare RPG experience in the tradition of games like Baldur's Gate™ and Neverwinter Nights™," he concluded.

My, my... Partnership with M$ can only mean one thing... More $$$! ;)
You can check out the original press release here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2002 - 13:13 CET by Z-Layrex

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

BioWare: Just to reply to the original poster.I wasn't aware that 3 updates with another on the way, not to mention a major module construction tutorial and a number of smaller scripting tutorials as well as at least 2 new modules indicates that BioWare has done nothing since the game was released. I (not that I'm biased or anything :) would say that BioWare's Live Team is in full swing. They're focus, at this point, however is on addressing the major game-play issues. Once these are worked out, their attention will shift to something else.

David Gaider, Designer

HakPaks: Just an update, here. The problem appears to be with hakpaks that contain .itp files. If the hakpak has an .itp file, the module.ifo file sometimes gets removed from the save game batch (which is bad). Hakpaks without .itp files do not alter the save games. The problem has been fixed (as of today, in fact), but has yet to be QA'd, so I am unsure when it will go out to the public.

More:
Actually, according to Derek, the fix with the hakpaks is in the next patch coming out, so that's good.

Quote: Thanks David. Any idea when .2da files in hakpaks will properly override anything that is sitting in the override directory? Is this possibly fixed already as well, awaiting QA? Without hakpaks overriding absolutely everything, it's not really possible to make full use of them at this time. All it takes is one patch placing something else in the override directory and a hakpak can break.

Most of the issues with the 2DA's and the hakpaks were fixed in the last patch. As I understand it, there are still something like four or five 2DA's which have been identified as not working properly in a hakpak. I don't know if those have been fixed, yet, as it's a game issue and not a hakpak issue... the methods by which the game calls on the 2DA's can be pretty obscure in a few individual cases, it seems. At any rate, I know the issue is being worked on, but I don't know if a fix will be in the next patch.

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Icewind Dale II Preview at GameAxis
Posted Tuesday, August 6, 2002 - 21:23 CET by Mollusken

Still a month to go before we'll have the game in our own hands, and while we wait there is another preview of it at GameAxis.

The thing about Icewind Dale and the other games that share Bioware's Infinity Engine is that these titles really have an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" style of gameplay. This mentality looks like it will be carried on into Icewind Dale II, so instead of a completely re-tooled experience for the sequel, Black Isle has added more of the same onto the existing formula, enhancing what already exists.

Read everything here.

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Neverwinter Reviews
Posted Tuesday, August 6, 2002 - 20:55 CET by Mollusken

Prophecy (9/10)

Moving from the modules doing good (or evil), crushing everything and anything that gets in your way be it squirrel, pig, deer or dragon is a pleasure with excellent camera controls and character controls. Here we come to another area of the game with which players have had issues, a few players (including [and mainly] Priest) have been playing the game by using the BG click and forget method of moving which doesn’t work too well due since for some strange reason, the path finding of the character is horrible, character often get stuff behind rocks or trees when using the click and forget movement.

Gamer's Pulse (49/50)

This game is possible the single most fun CRPG I have played in the past year (excluding BGII and TOB). If you’re into your CRPG’s don’t give this one a miss! Unfortunately you will have to order it from overseas to get hold of a copy but what’s a 2-week waiting period compared to months of fun? I will now be leaving you and returning to kill the last boss again.

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Neverwinter Nights Interview at HomeLan Fed
Posted Tuesday, August 6, 2002 - 20:45 CET by Mollusken

BioWare's joint CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeshuk answers a few questions about the release of Neverwinter Nights at HomeLan Fed.

Is BioWare planning to release new patches that will add new features to the game, rather than just bug fixes, and if so what new features are you considering?

Definitely – we do have some new features in development right now and upcoming patches in the next few weeks will have increasing numbers of these. We’re considering implementing features like new monsters, items, classes, skills, feats, spells etc – we’re building a roll-out plan for announcing the planned upgrades right now and our Live team will start announcing what new features are upcoming shortly. As I mentioned earlier, much of what we decide to implement in the short term depends on what the hundreds of thousands of fans who have purchased the game already find most interesting – we’ll be conducting regular polls of fan opinion, as well as looking closely at what seems to be the most popular on the internet, for what we should be developing for the NWN community. No doubt we’ll continually revise what we’re working on based on fan feedback!

Read everything here.

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Icewind Dale II Goes Gold!
Posted Tuesday, August 6, 2002 - 18:31 CET by Sorcerer

Finally, it's gone gold! However, it won't be available in stores till September, which is an unusually long period from gold to shipping... Anyway, here's the press release:

IRVINE, California, August 5, 2002 - Interplay Entertainment Corp. (NasdaqSC:IPLY), announced today that the highly anticipated Icewind Dale™ II has gone gold and will be available at retail in early September.

Icewind Dale II is the sequel to the award-winning computer role-playing game Icewind Dale and features the BioWare Infinity Engine(TM) that was used to develop the award-winning games Baldur's Gate™ and Baldur's Gate II (developed by BioWare Corp.), and Planescape®: Torment™" (developed by Black Isle Studios). Icewind Dale II uses the third edition core rules for the classic Dungeons & Dragons® tabletop roleplaying game within the popular Forgotten Realms® adventure campaign setting under licenses by Wizards of the Coast. The game hosts a large variety of new weapons, armor and magical items, and expands upon the gameplay elements found in the original Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale II offers feats and skills such as Power Attack and Diplomacy, further extending the character customization options available to players. Also introduced in Icewind Dale II are new character classes such as the Barbarian and Sorcerer and new playable races including the Drow, the famous dark elves of the nderdark, and the celestial hybrid Aasimar. "Icewind Dale II" includes over 50 new spells such as Executioner's Eyes and Aegis, bringing the total to over 300 spells, almost all of which have been revamped for the new rule set.

Black Isle Studios, the creators of the Fallout™ series and "Icewind Dale, is proud to bring Icewind Dale II to Windows® 95/98/ME/2000/XP- based computers. More information on Icewind Dale II can be found at icewind2.blackisle.com.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Monday, August 5, 2002 - 0:27 CET by Z-Layrex

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

BioWare & Infogrames: Just to clarify about BioWare's involvement with NWN and the difference between a developer and publisher to hopefully address some of your concerns. BioWare is a developer which means they design the game, program the code, and create the art and graphics. We hand over the final product ('gold master') to our publisher who is in charge of pressing the CDs, printing the manuals, the boxes and setting up the distribution to various retailers around the world. In short, BioWare has little to do with the marketing, distribution and sales of the game.

Patches come out in English first because BioWare is a Canadian-based company that consists of English speaking employees so, naturally, all the work we do is in English which then must be translated into different languages. The difficulty with patches for a foreign language is that BioWare sends the patch candidate for testing with our publishers QA in Europe. At that point, all we can do send email everyday asking if they are finished testing. It is entirely out of our hands when it is being tested by someone outside BioWare. this is why we cannot say much about the status of a foreign language patch because the patch is done and being looked at by Infogrames Europe.

Linux: Didn't want to miss the thread. Linux Client is still being developed as awaiting the return of key people. they should be here next week. I'm not sure if they will begin work next week, as they might have a bit of catching up to do at first, but things should be ramping up pretty quick.

Scripting Help:

Quote: Such a list already exists at the NWN Lexicon. Of course, it's not Bioware doing the work, but they have enough on their plate as it is, probably looking for bugs and patching things right now. Go to nwvault.ign.com, and look at their reference scripts database. Then check out the NWN Lexicon link (soon to be a downloadable file!).

Excellent suggestion hahnsoo. they have created an awesome resource that we do not have the time to create ourselves right now. We are waiting on some legal text for our Links Directory to be able to start taking submissions for great resources. We are also in the process of redesigning our site to make finding things easier and more intuitive for searching for and be directed to great info on all aspects of the game including scripting.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

SecureROM:

Quote: 1) Strip the SecureROM from 1.21 patch, call it 1.21b or something and release it until you figure out where you screwed up.

SecureROM is almost totally out of our hands. The agreement for using it on our executable is a contract between Infogrames and Sony. We have made our concerns and issues noted to both parties and something should be happening soon/next week or so. No promises.


Quote: 2) Find a copy of the old SecureROM you used, slap it on 1.21 and release that now.

That is impossible to do. The SecureROM system doesn't work that way. I wish I could explain it to you but the encrytion process does not take place here at BioWare. We cannot "roll back". We have asked about doing this. We are fully aware of this issue and customers not being able to play our games pains us like toothpicks under the fingernails. We are working towards a solution.

BioWare Messages: Let me first clear up some things. We do not send duplicate messages. We are telling you about something new each time. I do see how getting a second message about a new module could seem to be annoying, if you didn't care about the first message. We have received many requests from people that do not visit the main NWN page for this kind of information. Our stats show that the majority of people have the NWN Forums set as their home page. These people will not see the main page and miss these kinds of things. That is why we send these as Official Messages. We aren't trying to sell you a new X10 home camera system. We are sending out information about our game, Neverwinter Nights, which you are obviously interested in. Would separating the info in the My Messages box into Official and Unofficial make it easier for you?

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

There's An X-Pack: Our time is actually a bit divided. Live bugs take priority, then comes the expansion work. On the brighter side a lot of work we're doing for the expansion also benefits the live version of the game as well...

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

NWN: Neverwinter Nights (to install, use the toolset or even just to play) requires you to have Administrator access because it needs to access the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive in the Registry. The decision to put the information the game needs in that hive eliminated the need to manage the situation where different user profiles think they have different game versions (game version is different from executable version). Yes, we could have managed this except that it still didn't solve another problem - updating. If the user installed the game to [system drive]\program files, then XP would prevent a user without Administrator rights from making changes to the contents of that folder. That would mean, you login as a normal user, start the game, connect to play a multiplayer game, get the message that an update is available, only to find that you cannot install it because you don't have permission. You then have to logout, login with an Administrator, start the game, ... Get the idea? We didn't make the decision about requiring Administrator access to use Neverwinter Nights without first spending a lot of time trying to make it work and to come up with solutions to the different problems we saw. Ultimately, to allow a restricted user to play properly would have forced us to make a lot of changes to some of the fundamental systems of the game.

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Planescape: Torment Review
Posted Monday, August 5, 2002 - 0:07 CET by Mollusken

Yup. After three years in stores, RPG Warehouse has reviewed this "ancient" Black Isle production. They gave it an overall score of 98%, and they gave the story a score of 100%.

Planescape: Torment is an intelligent rpg, it incorporates story with the huge realm of Planescape brilliantly. Interplay and Black Isle have surpassed what they achieved with Baldur's Gate, and I believe that other rpgs will look up to Planescape for ideas in gameplay, characters and storylines. Planescape is a gem in every area, and surpasses some of the more popular PC and console rpgs. If you like good storylines, intelligent conversations and have a fascination with the dead, Planescape is the game to get. But if you enjoy the repetitive "explore dungeon and kill everything in sight" type of games then stay away for Planescape. This is probably the best thing I have bought for 10 dollars. Kudos to Black Isle for creating such an enjoyable rpgs.

Read everything here.

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Icewind Dale II Preview at GameSpy
Posted Saturday, August 3, 2002 - 19:58 CET by Mollusken

Just like everyone else, the reviewer at GameSpy did not have many bad things to say about Black Isle's upcoming release.

Our preview build of Icewind Dale II felt like a comfortable old shoe. It's not as pretty as it was when it was brand spanking new, but it's as functional as ever and you dread the day when you will be forced to throw it out. The Infinity engine is certainly on its last legs -- especially when compared to newer role-playing games -- but this last chapter, if the preview build is any indication, should send the series and its aging engine out with a bang when it hits stores later this summer.

Read everything here.

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New Official Module
Posted Saturday, August 3, 2002 - 19:38 CET by Mollusken

BioWare's Rob Bartel has made a new module for Neverwinter Nights, called "War Wizards". The module contains three areas where arcane spellcasters will have to use different strategies to defeat eachother. Read more about this module and download it here.

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Icewind Dale II Preview at Icebound
Posted Saturday, August 3, 2002 - 19:33 CET by Mollusken

Nothing new to read, but Icebound rates Icewind Dale II with 9 out of a possible 10.

Overall, IWD2 is an immensely enjoyable experience. I have played through the preview 3-4 times and I still enjoy it. The game has a large replay factor, due to the implementation of skills, and the Heart of Fury mode, which adds new items, and makes the baddies much more challenging. If you're looking for a single or multiplayer role-playing game with an amazing story, you will definately want to pick up Icewind Dale II.

Read everything here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Saturday, August 3, 2002 - 17:41 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Which is your favourite Neverwinter Nights henchman?
(795 votes total)

Tomi Undergallows (214) 27%
Daelan Red Tiger (188) 24%
Linu La'neral (146) 18%
Sharwyn (142) 18%
Grimgnaw (81) 10%
Boddyknock Glinckle (24) 3%

It seems that the majority of those who voted (27%) think that Tomi Undergallows is the best all-around henchman. This obviously coincides with BioWare's opinion, since they put the rogue practically in front of you to take...

However, some of the more physically challenged characters need someone to take the brunt of the assault, and here is where Daelan Red Tiger steps in. 24% of poll participants have him as their favourite henchman, and for good reason. This half-orc packs a mean punch!

Linu La'neral is, surprisingly enough, slightly more popular than the other available female hireling. 18% of those who voted in the poll favour the clumsy cleric.

Sharwyn is only a few votes less popular than Linu. 18% of poll participants prefer the beautiful bard over all other henchmen. Whether due to her battle skills or the romance option is another question entirely...

The grim dwarven monk Grimgnaw (heh) is also quite popular, especially for an evil dwarf that he is. 10% of those who voted think of him as their favourite henchman.

Boddyknock Glinckle is (surprise, surprise), the least favourite of the henchmen. Whole 3% of people voted for Spock's little cousin. There simply is no end to gnomish popularity these days...

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Neverwinter Nights Forum Update
Posted Friday, August 2, 2002 - 21:31 CET by Z-Layrex

David Gaider, Designer

Custom Content: We have already stated in several threads that we are interested in making custom content easier to add into the game. I, myself, explained some of the reasons this was taking longer than we expected and suggested that you will probably receive the answers and/or tools that you are looking for sometime in August. Adding custom content will never and can never be officially supported, however. It will never be a simple matter of just clicking a button and away you go... although the Live Team is interested in making those processes easier as soon as they get the opportunity. I'm sure most of you understand that. This is a smart crowd. We do know that custom content is and will be a boon to the game's life. There's no need to make impassioned pleas to inform us of this. The Live Team is working as hard as they can on things regarding the game and cannot work faster. Please keep in mind that custom content is far from their only concern... as we've said before, right now our priority is the bug situation. That some people might lose patience after the game has only been out a month is unfortunate, but that doesn't move the process along any more quickly.

More:
Well, here's some news for y'all, insofar as exactly what's coming down the pipe. The 3DSMax script that we use to create our .mdl files is probably going to be released very shortly. I should probably double-check that just to make sure, but that seems to be the plan. We also intend to write a GMax gamepak. The only trouble there is that we don't have anyone who can write it up at the moment... so there will be a delay for that, but it's coming. One change coming for the area properties of the toolset is custom messages. You know how it puts up random messages right now, like "if you lost your plot items, you can find them at the divining pool in the Temple of Tyr"? It will be changed shortly so you can select either 'random' or a specific quote that you wish to enter.

As for the custom music, there is (and has been for some time and is the main reason we haven't talked about it much because nothing was settled) a big kerfuffle regarding MP3 licensing that has prevented us from working this out as we wished. How custom music was supposed to have worked: put your .bmu file (which is not just an .mp3 with the extension changed) into the hak pak. Done. We know it doesn't work like that, currently. We are, however, working so that it does work like that. It will just take a little time, as part of the problem is the whole deal with the 2DA's. Give us a bit of time on this one: the process is not supposed to be as complex as it is at the moment.

There are also some issues being worked out regarding the 2DA's (especially via the labelling problem so you don't have to edit the dialog.tlk file) as well as the hak paks (thanks, incidentally, for those who helped with reporting the bugs a couple of weeks back... the hak paks are being worked on right now). Ummm... I think a re-skinning tutorial is also going up, shortly. There's probably some other stuff I forgot, and I bet there's a few corrections that will need to be made regarding some of the stuff above (so don't take it as gospel), but Derek said I could come and spill the beans, so nyah.

Bugs:

Quote: I've also never heard of a developer that didn't keep at least internal lists of known bugs.

We do. It's certainly not in a format that we can publish, however, if we'd even want to. The idea, after all, is that Infogrames handles technical support (the message board is NOT the place to report a bug). If you have a bug, you report it to them... and they inform us of the nature and number (and therefore priority) of the bug reports they receive. You shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it's already known about. As for our part, we do comb the boards (right now, anyway) to get info on extra bugs we might not know about... but that's not SOP. We don't have the time to respond to every post on those bugs... and while a central 'known bugs' list would eliminate part of the need to do so: a) most people wouldn't read it anyway and b) we have even less time to do up such a public list than we do to respond to every post. Bit of a catch-22 there, but that's probably as good as it's likely to get.

GetLastKiller():

Quote: Hey I've been having a swamp of trouble with getting the last killer of a pc, of course the problem is its for PVP which mean I have to make sure they were killed by a PC. I found getlasthostileactor works well. Still seen a couple of weird things but its what works best for me.

The reason GetLastKiller doesn't usually work for PC's is that whatever dropped them to 0 or -10 HP isn't what 'kills' them. Usually, in the OnPlayerDying module event, an EffectDeath is applied to the PC whenever they are supposed to die. So, in effect, it's the module that kills them... not their last opponent. GetLastHostileActor should work in most cases. I would also try a GetLastAttacker in the OnPlayerDying event, too, but I'm not sure how well that would work.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Return Values For GetMovementRate():
0 = PC Movement Speed
1 = Immobile
2 = Very Slow
3 = Slow
4 = Normal
5 = Fast
6 = Very Fast
7 = Creature Default (defined in appearance.2da)
8 = DM Speed

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Text For Loading Screens: It wasn't an oversight. It was a deliberate decision arrived at after evaluating the list of outstanding tasks and determining their relative priority given the time remaining. The fact that one of the hints tells you about the Stone of Recall does _not_ imply that we figured everyone would have a Stone of Recall in their modules. The hints displayed in the load screens are generally to help players through the Official Campaign. A change to the text system (ie the way dialog.tlk is generated and used by the game and toolset) is probably not going to happen. However, a change to the way load screen retrieves its text is more likely.

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Site News - New Additions
Posted Friday, August 2, 2002 - 20:07 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

Terry Pratchett's upcoming Discworld novel Night Watch is now available for pre-order in our Terry Pratchett Books subsection.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

In the Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection you can download a brand new (very thorough) NPC guide put together by Sirdan.

Two subsections of the Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection have also been updated.

In Subsection #2 you can download a complete Irenicus character package, so you can now play your favourite villain yourself. Additionally, you can download a pack of new items dubbed Stuff of the Magi.

In Subsection #7 you can find links to two new mods, namely The Ritual Mod and Spell-50 Mod.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2

Not much news here, except for 4 new screenshots which you can view in the Screenshots subsection, page 4.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

Starting with the Walkthroughs & Guides subsection, you can download 3 updated walkthroughs and a very useful new reference guide.

A bunch of new additions have been made to the Editors, Hacks & Tweaks subsection. A money trainer, epic difficulty hack, samurai character class, a soundset file editor, a large fonts package and Crosbie's NWN portraits are all new.

Due to already massive amounts of toolset resources which only seem to be multiplying every day, I've split the Toolset & Related subsection into 5 more subsections.

In Subsection #1 you can find a new guide on creating a hidden wall door.

In Subsection #2 you can find 6 new tilesets.

In Subsection #3 you can find new scripting tutorials, a downloadable version of the excellent NWN Lexicon and a link to NWVault's scripts library.

In Subsection #4 you can find a huge pack of helmets, armors, a cloaks mod and BioWare's dice bag item.

In Subsection #5 you can find links to the huge download lists of NWVault that cover modules, hakpacks and textures.

Switching over to the Modules subsection where you can find two new BioWare modules, two fan-submitted modules and a link to NWVault's gargantuan module listing.

Last is the Miscellaneous subsection. Here you can download a pretty good Neverwinter font and a new NWN TV commercial in case you missed it.

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Icewind Dale II Interview at Icebound
Posted Friday, August 2, 2002 - 20:00 CET by Sorcerer

An interesting interview with Damien Foletto of the BIS team popped up at Icebound today. Here's a tasty bit:

Q?: If you ran BIS, what game would you make sure was made?

A!: Planescape II, or a game based solely from the perspective of the drow. The political infighting, the strategizing, their warped sense of what is right and wrong, etc., would make, what I think, a very interesting game to play and design. Imagine creating a character in a world where everyone on the outside thinks you're the most evil society around, but you think you're the good guys who are superior, violently shunned, and misunderstood. Besides, it's good to be bad once in a while.

Read the rest here.

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Neverwinter Reviews
Posted Friday, August 2, 2002 - 0:20 CET by Mollusken

RPG Warehouse (95/100):

Overall, NWN turns out to be a step in the right direction for all of the games in its class. The story is great with a lot of side quest and the Aurora Tool Set makes it even longer. If you have the PC that can handle the full settings of the game you are in for a treat. The sound is also good and the music is the best I have heard on a PC in a long time. The combat in the game is fun once you get use to it and with all of the different classes of characters, you will be trying new options for your hero all of the time. The whole package will keep you busy for a long time.

Video Game News (Thumbs Up!):

Neverwinter Nights (NWN) from BioWare and Infogrames is well, WOW! If I could end the review there I would and tell you to stop what you’re doing and go buy this so I can get back to my game. This is a stunning RPG for hard-core fans and people looking to see what the RPG buzz is all about. It follows the 3rd Edition Rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) but if you’ve never played the paper version don’t worry, it won’t hurt you at all. They have done such a great job of executing those rules in an easy and straightforward manner it’s a breeze. It’s nice to see the game come close to living up to its hype.

The Entertainment Depot (9/10):

And it is truly something worth understanding, as the tremendous experiences to be had online or in the 500 downloadable modules will attest. As if all this wasn't enough, a rock-solid and highly entertaining single-player campaign is included, offering a little something for everyone, and showing off exactly what the toolset is capable of with the right amount of time. When all is said and done, Neverwinter Nights stands as a landmark achievement for the RPG community, coming full circle with its tabletop roots by giving fans full control over a true digital version of pen-and-paper functionality. Exciting, empowering, and, more importantly, fun, it's the ultimate tool for the true RPG fan, who shouldn't hesitate in the least to pick up this amazing gem.

Games Domain (Multiplayer update) (5/5):

For those accustomed to true pen and paper role-playing, no doubt the reality of Neverwinter Nights is a crushing disappointment. What people fail to realise is that the very charm of face-to-face playing is the face-to-face element. The voices and actions you see create a picture for your inner eye that a set of polygons will never match. This isn't helped by the fact that most of the straightforward games are entirely populated by people who perhaps think they've accidentally stumbled into Diablo Land.

Computer Games Online (95/100):

The four chapters' campaign is just a show, a demonstration of power made by Bioware to make us understand the great possibilities of Neverwinter Nights. Two major factors contribute to the success of Neverwinter Nights. One is the implementation of the 3rd generation of the D&D rules, which offer a greater flexibility, and an improved adaptability of the character inside the game. The second one is the courage, the boldness, the madness of including in the package the most simple and complex level editor I've ever seen and which together with the Dungeon Master client allows practically the creation of your own adventure, your own story, your own RPG.

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Icewind Dale II Release Woes
Posted Thursday, August 1, 2002 - 13:54 CET by Sorcerer

Though I usually don't post official messages board posts (and we seem to have lost our only reporter who would post them, anyone else interested in doing it?), I'll post a compilation/excerpt of J.E. Sawyer's (Lead Designer) replies to a post started by a disgruntled (ex?) fan. It sums up the whole release date situation pretty well:

IWD2 is the only PC title that is scheduled for release before the last quarter of this year. I don't think many of us were exactly confident that IWD2 was going to ship in late May, but we didn't receive any new information about a projected release date until mid-to-late June. And then that date shifted around a bit. It's "supposedly" been settled, but again, there hasn't been an official announcement about it. In May, Interplay and Vivendi were having negotiations with each other about a) when the game would actually be ready to ship and b) based off of that, when the game would ship. Considering those conversations were ongoing at the time of Herve's "special meeting", why would he commit to something that could slip between quarters in the very near future?

We went to great pains to make the game better on a number of levels. These improvements range from the massive overhaul of the engine to accept 3E rules (which you ignore as irrelevant) to the revision of the entire interface graphically and mechanically. On top of engine changes, the designers spent a great deal of time making the dialogues deeper, more varied, and more reactive to the characters speaking. A large number of interesting puzzles and quests, interactive environment elements, and varied ways to solve problems have all been put in the game to make it better than Icewind Dale on a number of levels.

When we announced Icewind Dale II it certainly did have a May 29th release date. It also still had kits, 2nd Ed. rules, the Icewind Dale interface, and an estimated 30-40 hours of gameplay.

If you don't believe us, check out the previews of the game. These are some of the same people who slammed Heart of Winter. They definitely criticize the aged look of the Infinity Engine, but they almost all have good things to say about the improvements we made to the underlying ruleset and overall changes to gameplay focus.

We made mistakes, changed our minds on some things, debated back and forth with our consumers and each other. But very little was left to the imagination. I will go out on a limb to suggest that the Icewind Dale II community knows more about the development process of this title than any other game I've heard of. We've addressed almost every single question about rules implementation, game focus, engine structure, and related issues that players have brought up.

In May, it seemed unlikely (but still possible) to release IWD2 at the end of the month. However, there was no new release date forthcoming. None. Feargus gave estimates for the end the product's testing to the IPLY people that deal with Vivendi. These figures went back and forth and were debated and compared to the release dates of NWN and Warcraft III by Vivendi. Through all of June, I don't think I ever heard a new release date from anyone. In early July, I believe we were told Vivendi's current release date. I then heard that number change sometime in mid-July, then go back to the previous date. That's the date that should "really for reals" be the actual ship date. I could tell you that date, but it wouldn't really accomplish anything.

If it winds up actually being the release date, big deal -- it has no effect. However, if it doesn't wind up being the release date, I could get yelled at by fans and other people in my company. There's absolutely no point to announcing a release date through anything but Vivendi/Interplay PR.

The game wasn't done at the end of May. There's no denying that fact. We weren't done with it. Our fault. But the release date -- it's not even a matter of assigning "fault". Vivendi isn't at fault for shifting dates around. That's their business, literally and figuratively. They wanted a May release, that didn't happen, so it took Interplay and Vivendi a while to determine exactly when it should ship. Hopefully those dates will be forthcoming. There's no Machiavellian reason for a release date not being announced other than two large, sprawling groups of people going, "Hey, is this going to be done by N?" "Yeah." "Really? That's not what I heard from B." "Definitely. A says so." "Okay, well we have to deal with X, Y, Z. So, blah, blah, blah."

I would also like to point out a precedent for Interplay releasing titles in close proximity to direct competition: Icewind Dale. The original Icewind Dale was shipped on the same day as Diablo II. More than NWN and Warcraft III are to Icewind Dale II, Diablo II was a direct competitor to Icewind Dale. We had absolutely no problem releasing it on the same day. Icewind Dale has sold well over 300,000 units to date.

"HAW, HAW! THAT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO BALDUR'S GATE!" That's absolutely correct. It also took a year to make with a smaller development team and had a very high wholesale price. If you think Icewind Dale is nothing compared to Baldur's Gate or BG:II, rock on, brother -- but the fact is that it did make a lot of money for Interplay.

Even Heart of Winter, the ill-fated expansion to IWD, made a load of money for IPLY. Unfortunately, it did it in a kind of crummy way. Did you know that Sacrifice and Heart of Winter sold roughly the same number of units? That's right -- the Heart of Winter expansion, on one disk, with a very short development time and low cost of goods, sold at a high wholesale (too high, by many reviewer and fan estimates), got fair to bad reviews, but still sold about as much as Sacrifice. Sacrifice was in development for years, got excellent reviews, had a great looking engine, and was very high-concept. It just didn't sell very well. You may believe that Sacrifice is a much better game than HoW. If so -- that's perfectly fine. It doesn't change the facts of how profitable both titles were. Hey -- I think MDK2 is the best game BioWare's made to date. It also happens to be one of their lowest selling titles.

I suppose it is possible that everyone in Black Isle is incompetent, but our products still continue to sell. There's no reason for us to expect that IWD2 would bomb if it were released today or next week. If the original IWD could sell head-to-head with Diablo II (a more direct competitor to IWD than NWN and WCIII are to IWDII), why would we (IPLY) have any reservations about shipping IWDII as soon as reasonably possible?

In short, the release date is still "soon", and that's as close as it gets at this point. In case you haven't yet, read our preview while we wait for the game to be released.

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